So Caleb Maupin is now labelled a Nazbol. That seems to be the newest buzzword that means ‘bad person’ And i say that, because if you go look at the comments, not one person mentions anything that he did that is nazbol-ish.
And now Thought Slime, the Serfs, and now apparently Luna Oi, and Noncompete are attacking or cancelling or cutting ties with him.
So, opinions? On Caleb, or the others?
I value your opinion as communists, because something similar happened to me, involving alleged communists.
YouTube does tend to platform grifters and some truly heinous people, MLs not excluded.
Maupin has the potential to improve, but until he gets past his own ego ( check out this vid of him bragging about being trumps favorite reporter below), I don’t see him improving.
My biggest gripe with him tho is that he pushes for “US with socialist characteristics”, rather than decolonization, balkanization, and overthrow of the imperial core. He consistently rejects and tells people not to read settlers, divided world divided class, and dismisses the concept of US metropolitan labor, putting him ultimately on the same side as vaush and all the other US chauvinists when it comes to the colonial question.
Again, he could improve in the future, and I hope he does.
Exactly.
I honestly think a lot of MLs saw Caleb defending actually existing socialism and immediately thought the guy is a well educated marxist.
One couldn’t be farther from the truth. The guy shares the CPGB-ML misunderstanding of what materialism is (mistaking materialism as naive empiricism/scienticism), misunderstands what dialectical materialism, and is generally VERY badly read.
As you mentioned earlier, he is shit on everything touching national-liberation struggles. He also is shit on anything touching issues analyzed from a marxist standpoint but not directly related to class: gender, feminism, anti racism, decolonization, etc. All of which all have a solid corpus of materialist and marxist analysis that are crucial to know and implement in your praxis and organizing, as a communist.
That and his questionable ties and frequentations (his dogshit interview of the CPGB-ML leader is an example), makes it very easy for people to go from: “ok this guy is a bit of a grifter who is way less well read than I thought and with an incomplete theoretical groundings, and somehwat of a chauvinist class essentialist with a big ego” to “ok this guy is a nazbol”.
I disagree with that step. But I do agree Caleb really needs to work on his shit. I totally understand why someone like Luna Oi would be very skeptical of Maupin.
Also quick question, this guy is not part of ANY ML parties in the US isn’t he?
Nope, he used to be active in the World Workers Party, but he left years ago. He pushes for going “out of the movement, into the masses”, being generally dissatisfied with all the US socialist parties and views the movement as having been going nowhere. So nope, he’s not in a ML party right now and it doesn’t seem like he’s going to be either.
“out of the movement, into the masses”
Honestly I respect that intent as for every decent ‘ML’ organizing group in the US there are 3 which actively hurt the movement in their own confusion.
But it seems to me it’s more accurate to describe him as having left the movement and gone into niche internet communities.
I read a tweet a while back that went “tankies have no power: all the best youtubers are varying shades of anarchists”
Which just about summed up their entire petit-bourgeois, individualistic and faux revolutionary world view
If youre not in a communist party then you have no political power anyway and no amount of youtube celebrity (only a slight step up from Youtube comments) is going to change that
Im sure there is a definitive question of who is right and wrong in this ‘struggle’ to which i reply they are both worse
Which just about summed up their entire petit-bourgeois, individualistic and faux revolutionary world view
That sure clarifies things. Thanks.
So i googled the first on your list as i had a bet with myself hes plugging a patreon like so many other ‘left’ grifters
Oh what a surprise
I mean, Caleb hangs out with NazBols or at least attends the Nazbol convention, so he at least doesn’t hate them. And theres no doubt his stance on Transgender issues are a bit sus, but that certainly doesn’t make him “not a leftist”. He certainly isn’t a valuable voice on the left, what kind of Leftist praises Trump and is seen with Aleksandr Dugin?
