After publishing my polemic “On ‘Maoist Rebel News’ and the Folly of Ultraleftism-Third Worldism”, Jason Unruhe (the man behind Maoist Rebel News) was quick to offer a rebuttal: “Daniel Buntovnik’s Hurt Feelings and Non-arguments”, which I replied to here. A short while later, Unruhe retracted his first attempt at rebutting my criticism, conceding that his argument was weak. My “non-arguments” were then elevated to “pseudo-intellectualism” in his second essay. What follows is my response to that essay.
The main argument which Unruhe advances in his rebuttal is that “Third Worldism” is not “a First World thing”. His point is to minimize the fact (which I’ve highlighted) that the persons who are the most vocal proponents of “Third Worldism” and its chief tenet that revolution is impossible in the First World, come from the First World.
Unruhe parades a series of photographs of Bengali villagers who the Leading Light Communist Organization (LLCO) is apparently working with in Bangladesh. This is supposed to lend Third World street cred to the organization. He claims that the people in these images are “invisible” to me, despite the fact that I talked about them, their role in the LLCO, and linked to the same photos in my polemic. He claims that “the majority of Leading Light’s top leaders are from the Third World.” Even if that were true, it wouldn’t change the fact that the LLCO’s “Supreme Commander” is a dude from Denver, Colorado.
The LLCO acknowledges the organizational method known as “democratic centralism” as one of the prime theoretical contributions of Lenin to revolutionary science. Not only does the title “Supreme Commander” mesh poorly with the idea that “the minority must obey the majority”, it also implies hierarchy within the LLCO leadership, whose authority is ultimately centralized in the First World. Democratic centralism means differences in thought and opinion, unity in action. Let’s review what unity in action necessitates:
It is inescapable that effective coordination in action presupposes leadership which is obeyed without question. Consequently, unity in action necessarily [involves] an acceptance of leadership. (“Democratic Centralism.” In Marxists Internet Archive, Encyclopedia of Marxism)
In other words, Unruhe and the LLCO can post as many photos of Bengali villagers as they please; it still won’t change the fact that what they propose is for the people of the Third World to follow a script written for them in the USA and Canada. Any group of American missionaries can take their message and their money and their merchandise to desperately poor people in the Global South, find an audience, and take some photos. And that is easier to do if they go somewhere where the ideology they seek to export, or a variant of it, already has a long history there, such as that of Maoism in South Asia.
Unruhe says that the LLCO “Bangla Zone” emerged from the unfortunately named ‘National Socialist Party’ (Bangladesh). However, the genealogy of the “Maoism-Third Worldism” concept of the LLCO variety can ultimately be traced back to Harvard University.*
Unruhe says:
[Daniel K. Buntovnik] says he’s only seen myself and Commander Prairie Fire involved in Third Worldism. This is only because he hasn’t looked. A wealth of third world people have made Third Worldist arguments. (…) The first prime minister of India is a simple example. Although he was a reformer and a social democratic, he had Third Worldist political economy.
Why do I focus my criticism of “Third Worldism” on Unruhe and Prairie Fire? They are just the self-proclaimed “#1 Marxist on Youtube”, the largest and most popular video hosting website in the world, and the “Supreme Commander” of the “Global People’s War”!
Unruhe further contradicts himself, claiming that I haven’t “even bothered to look at actual third world intellectuals” after he’s already noted that I reference Lin Biao, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, “and who cares.”
So who are the “Third World writers and revolutionaries” Unruhe chooses to point out in his attempt to disavow the First World basis of “Third Worldism”? Reformists and social democrats, the first leaders of postcolonial India and Tanzania; one whose country has literally been waging war on Maoist rebels for almost half a century and the other whose “hand-picked successor” sold the country to the International Monetary Fund. Unruhe exploits their words as if articulating the basic idea of imperial plunder makes a person “Third Worldist”, as if acknowledging that imperialism is a thing is the same as being “Third Worldist”.
No, the facts have been established.
“Third Worldism” is:
- the denial of class antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the First World, making proletarian revolution impossible there.
- the denial of class antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the Third World, making people’s revolution possible there through the alliance of the national-bourgeoisie and the urban petty bourgeoisie with the working class and peasants against the comprador/monopoly bourgeoisie.
- based on an outdated confounding of the Western “Three-World Model” with the Maoist “Theory of Three Worlds”, using terms derived from a ternary conception to describe a binary worldview.
Unruhe seems to bask proudly in philistinism, closing his essay by deriding my polemic as “overly long”. I will be the first to admit that there is a lot to unpack when it comes to making sense of the incoherence in “Maoism-Third Worldism”. But this just shows that Unruhe is too lazy to address my argument in full, dismissing the rest of my points as “BS”, “angry”, “false”, and “sophomoric” with zero reasons given. If my posts are too long, then I invite Unruhe to get back to me on Twitter.
* Marcel the Maoist, “A Brief History of Maoism Third Worldism” (September 25, 2015), http://marcelthemaoist.blogspot.ro/2015/09/a-brief-history-of-maoism-third-worldism.html.
“The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)
This is undoubtedly the roots of MTW, though similar ideas had existed before.”
Leading Light Communist Organization, “Interview: Origins” (May 26, 2014), http://llco.org/quotes-from-a-recent-conversation-on-the-history-of-llco-and-other-fun-stuff/.
“Some people connect Leading Light in North America to the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM).”
“The Maoist Internationalist Movement”, MIM Notes, 88 (May 1994), http://web.archive.org/web/20070929102750/http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/mn/mn.php?issue=088.
“The RCP then raised a number of criticisms of the new-born Maoist forces–which had existed for a long time as an organization named the RADACADS before changing its name to RIM and finally to MIM.”
“Banner Stolen?” The Harvard Crimson (August 9, 1983), http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1983/8/9/banner-stolen-to-the-editors-of/.
“The H-R RADACADS (Radical Academics) vow to expose the ways of the Harvard Administration until the banner is paid for or returned. We call on others who have been harassed to contact us so that we may add to our forthcoming compilation of examples of political harassment. There will be a rapid escalation of exposure of the Harvard Administration in the coming months. Only in this way–not by the old idealist arguments for free speech–will revolutionary and progressive groups be relieved of a pattern of political repression. Henry C. Park ’84 RADACADS spokesperson”
Daniel K. Buntovnik 
Unruhe’s “rebuttal” to you was absolute shit. He barely addressed your well-researched points at all and instead chose to resort to (rather dubious) images of Bangladeshi LLCO members coupled with the usual “what have First Worlders done in comparison?” rhetoric. A very common accusation made by Unruhe is that his opponents “literally aren’t making any argument” so he can blow them off without addressing anything they say!
I do believe Unruhe shows many signs of shattered-ego narcissism. The ways in which he “responds” (if you even want to call it that) to legitimate criticisms against his arguments seems heavily, heavily akin to narcissistic rage, like he’s suffered such a huge blow to his enormously inflated ego that he can’t work out a sound argument against his opponents. His tactics are also textbook cases of narcissism: emotional blackmail (“First Worlders have NO RIGHT to complain about their suffering because Third Worlders suffer more”) and political gaslighting (“of course First Worlders have it good, they aren’t starving like Third Worlders are”). Shattered-ego narcs are considered by psychologists to be the most dangerous narcissists because they are the most prone to violent impulses. They will fly into violent rage whenever they feel that their spotless image has been sullied – if this isn’t an accurate description of Unruhe I don’t know what is. It’s also worth noting he’s made violent threats to other Marxists, such as those in Kasama Project after they called him out for his unruly online behaviors.
It’s clear to me that Unruhe’s understanding of Marxism is terrible, like he stopped after reading A Very Short Introduction. He may quote Lenin, Mao, and Lin Biao, but it’s very obvious that he either doesn’t understand them all that well, or he doesn’t completely understand the historical context in which they were working. Unruhe’s videos showcase him as the eternal first-day kid who can never move past the basics. He gives tabloid journalism a “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist” tinge but never produces anything on Marxist theory, history, economics, critical theory, or anything of the intellectual sort. He doesn’t even make videos about the actual revolutionary movements in the Third World he claims to love so much.
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Thank you for your esteem and kind remarks, Poo. Although I originally set out to address just their ideas as such and not to psycho-pathologize, I did find that Unruhe and the North American LLCO show projection when they label people from South Asia who express disagreement with them as European nationals. Projection is apparently another trait of narcissists, or so they say. I doubt Unruhe will be getting back to me, but he’s made a tweet not so subtly aimed at me saying how he finds it “Pretty funny watching Marxists with anime pictures and who contribute nothing try to cut down those that do.” I got back to him saying, well, first of all my avatar is not anime; it’s a portrait of Otto Mueller by German expressionist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. More important though is the fact that Unruhe is doing the very same thing he accuses me of; contributing nothing to the discussion with this baseless personal insinuation that I “contribute nothing”. Other than the fact that I’ve put some things on the web, same as him, he has no basis to evaluate my personal-political engagements. I could also add that I’ve actually immigrated to a “developing country” years ago. Time for Unruhe to put his money where his mouth is.
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Unruhe tends to blow off all of his critics as pretentious hipster graduate students who “contribute nothing.” Meanwhile, he’s turned himself into an almost petit-bourgeois YouTube celebrity who makes poorly-written videos as a career. I’m not the one for ad homs, but for him to denounce others for his own faults is just hypocrisy. You are right too: projection is a huge sign of narcissistic personality. Narcs like to constantly project their own faults on to the people whom they abuse in order to avoid taking responsibility for their own words and deeds, and to justify their abusive behaviors towards their victims.
I’d also say the heavy use of ad hom tactics in a debate shows a lack of knowledge. It’s almost become cliché, but there is definitely something to the idea that people who don’t have the best grip on a certain topic will attack the person when they can’t attack the argument. With that said, Unruhe accuses your point of M3W being a solely 1st World phenomenon of being “ad hominmen”. Well, no, it’s actually a valid point as it shows how little of an appeal this “theory” is to actual Marxists in the Third World.
Going off on that: I’d say another primary issue with M3W is that it simply cannot shake the Western paradigms it claims to hate so much. The M3Wist says they hate the West, all of Western culture is rooted in colonialism, Christianity is evil because Christians killed the Natives, and for 1st Worlders to have a revolution would be an act of chauvinism towards the 3rd World (as if communists in the West hold no sense of internationalism). But the greatest irony is: M3W is arguably heavily rooted in Western understandings of power/oppression. It’s very Christian in the ways Friedrich Nietzsche denounced. The M3Wist refuses to think of a socialist victory in the West as a victory because Westerners aren’t “oppressed enough” in their words. This is pure moralism with little basis in Marxism, but it also stresses a huge emphasis on a sort of moral perfection needed to be worthy of revolution. Other cultures do not view power or social hierarchy in that way.
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Where does LLCO refer to PF as “supreme commander”? PF is one of LLCO’s many commanders. In fact, the only reference to supreme commander or leader on LLCO’s massive website is here: “Our supreme leader is no human, but truth, as best as it can be known through science.” http://llco.org/serve-the-people-truth-or-fiction/ Please do not lie. Your points aren’t well researched at all. You barely reference LLCO at all. What is funny is that all your questions can be answered at llco.org or llco@llco.org But, instead of actually asking what the reality is, your imagination fills in the gaps in your knowledge with the most fantastic nonsense. You are arguing with your own straw man. It is very transparent to anyone who knows anything about LLCO’s work.
It is really sad that you did not spend more time understanding the arguments that you seek to criticize. This could have been a genuine exchange of diffing opinion, instead, it is just a hack job not worthy of response. Jason was spot on in calling you out.
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Hello, Mr./Ms. “intellectualhonestyplease”. I have found no less than 5 instances where the name PF is preceded by the title “supreme commander” on the LLCO website. Check it out: https://twitter.com/d_k_buntovnik/status/679281413322096644
Also notice how, when Unruhe interviewed PF, Unruhe said, “You are the leader of the Leading Light Communist Organization.” He didn’t say you are “a leader” or “one of the top leaders”, he said “THE leader”, and PF didn’t correct him or disagree with that statement.
Compare this Orientalist PF to Insurgente Marcos, the former spokesperson for the EZLN. Although he was not indigenous he became the leading public figure in fighting for their rights in Chiapas, but he took the title “SUBcomandante”. Not only do we see a total lack of humility in the former, but an absolute and utter antithesis of the latter. Marcos was a creation of the indigenous people in Chiapas; an eloquent, well-educated, white male hologram to help outsiders relate to the indigenous people through him. And it’s worth noting that this figure was eventually DISCARDED by the people who created it. Supreme Commander PF and LLCO are the opposite. They are the spawn of Ivy League academics who see Third World people as important only insofar as they follow their script. http://www.latinorebels.com/2014/05/28/the-last-words-of-subcomandante-insurgente-marcos/
And the quotation from LLCO which you provide about “truth, as best as it can be known through science” being the supreme leader of Leading Light is just further evidence of the LLCO’s cult-like scientism. Anyone who disagrees with them or says their analysis is flawed is “unscientific” and speaks “untrue”. Real organizations rely on the leadership of actual human beings, not just abstract principles.
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The “supreme leader” citation that you list is from the comments section. And, it says “supreme commander of the gangsta cult.” Do you not understand that the title is being used by PF as a joke to poke fun at people like yourself who make all kinds of crazy accusations about LLCO’s internal structure, yet have not done the slightest investigation. Do you not see the sarcasm in the comment’s title? Are you that daft or just that dishonest? Are you kidding? As far as Jason, so what? He is not a member as far as I know nor is he an official representative. PF probably did not correct him because it is a moot point in the context of the interview. The interview was on Chinese history, not the structure of LLCO.
What is funny is that you spin your whole fantasy out of a couple of joke comments and also a single utterance by Jason Unruhe, who is not even a member. Did you write a letter to llco@llco.org asking if there is a “supreme leader”? I doubt it. Did you ask PF himself? Again, I doubt it. And if you had done a simple text search on the llco.org website, you would see no references to PF as a “supreme commander” or “supreme leader.” Instead of your fantasies, let’s see what PF himself says on the topic, right there on the llco.org website:
“Yes, a few things. Firstly, I have left out many things. One day they will be told. Secondly, this is just my history, the history of a single leader. We have many leaders all over the world whose stories will one day be told. Although I am from the United States originally, Leading Light is a global movement. Our heroic leaders in Asia and Latin America will come forward with their own stories when the time is right. ” http://llco.org/5-more-questions-for-leading-light-commander-pf/
Notice that, PF states very clearly there are other leaders, that he is simply one of many. And, anyone with sense would know this has to be the case. A single leader cannot micromanage a global communist movement with active branches in many countries. It stands to reason there would have to be other leaders.
The truth is your piece is a hack job. Despite the superficial pretense of research, very little actual investigation went into it. You spent very little time on the actual statements of the organization or people in question, instead focusing on gossip and your own fantasies. If you were honest, you would deal with the actual arguments of the organization, not your straw man. PF himself says that when you argue with an opponent, you should pick the best version of the opposing position. This is part of being intellectually honest. You should be embarrassed for producing such hackish bullshit. Had you contacted LLCO, I am sure they would have pointed you exactly where to find their main arguments. Instead, you chose the most sectarian route, you chose to argue with yourself. It is a shame too because this could have been a genuine exchange of views – what Maoists call “the high road of two line struggle,” but instead you took the low road.
You obviously can’t sustain an actual argument against LLCO, which is why you always slide into identity politics. It is, again, ironic that you mention Marcos of the EZLN. Marcos himself was repeatedly attacked for not being truly indigenous by the reactionaries. They repeatedly attacked him as being blue-eyed or being part of the privileged intelligensia. In the end, it does not matter what the reactionaries think. Marcos was accepted as a leader by the Maya even though he was not Maya himself. What mattered is that he, an outsider, was accepted by the Maya communities. Similarly, an outsider, Commander PF is accepted by the communities where LLCO has a presence. This should be apparent from the photos Jason posted. It is really pathetic that you can only see this as some evil conspiracy to hoodwink the poor of the Third World. Believe it or not, the poor of the Third World are not children. They are not fools. No person in Denver or Ontario could impose themselves on villages on the opposite side of the planet. The reality is that the proletariat pick its own leaders. And, it is really a very amazing, beautiful thing that people across the world find unity in LLCO’s global revolution. And in the best spirit of internationalism, they have chosen to connect with PF based on his writings, which must obviously strike a deep chord with them. That “a dude from Denver” working toward human liberation could find common cause with people in Bangladesh and India is a testimony to the universal nature of revolution and science. I feel sorry for you that you are so narrow-minded and cynical that you can only mock a revolutionary movement that aspires to be truly global, internationalist. I feel sorry that you have so little faith in the proletariat.
One more thing, your charge of “scientism” is just more nonsense. LLCO’s claims at being the most scientific are not mere bombast. If you want to see “scientist” metaphysics, look to those numerous organizations that uphold dialectics. Rather, LLCO has written extensively on exactly what it means by “science.” LLCO is the only organization that I know that actually has a worked out epistemology that takes into account the philosophy and history of science over the past century. You can argue that LLCO’s epistemology is not truly scientific, in which case you would have to show why exactly it is not, but the claim that LLCO just spouts a bunch of scientistic bombast simply isn’t true. Instead of spinning a straw man based on a few out-of-context slogans, why not be intellectually honest to address the core of PF’s arguments?Here is a short list of sample articles on the topic:
“Third Worldism,” epistemology, art, socialism:
http://llco.org/interview-with-leading-light-commander-prairie-fire-on-third-worldism-epistemology-art-socialism/
Plato’s cave, First and Third World, science and epistemology:
http://llco.org/more-interview-with-leading-light-commander-prairie-fire-first-and-third-world-defined-science-and-epistemology-platos-cave/
Questions about Maoism and Leading Light Communism:
http://llco.org/questions-about-maoism-and-leading-light-communism/
More on dialectics, high, and low science:
http://llco.org/more-on-dialectics-high-and-low-science/
Two against the many:
http://llco.org/two-against-the-many/
Science vs. Dialectics, again:
http://llco.org/science-vs-dialectics-again/
On walking into the propeller:
http://llco.org/on-falling-into-a-propeller-quotes-on-dialectics-and-science/
First Worldism and Popper’s Challenge:
http://llco.org/first-worldism-and-poppers-challenge/
Given the deep nature of PF’s work, it is not surprising at all to me that some of the poorest people in the world trying to make revolution would reach out to such a writer.
Your article tells us far more about yourself. You underestimate the poor, their agency, in a racist manner typical of Orientalists. And, by the way, your use of the term “orientalist” has little to do with Said’s. If you read Said, you would know he is talking about a very specific practice of understanding the Middle East through certain stereotypes that help imperialism maintain its power over colonial subjects. Your empty and misuse of the term devalues Said’s work. Why, for you, would Said matter? Who cares what he actually said, you reduce the term to no more than an intellectual-sounding slur with no real basis? You really show just how mean-spirited and arrogant when you apply this inaccurately to PF’s writings. In fact, PF’s work very consciously builds on the revolutionary of the Third World, like Mao and Lin Biao. Simply because a First World author is writing about Third World subjects does not make such an author “orientalist.” If anything, PF’s work pays the greatest respect to his Third World readers by integrating so much advanced theory — contemporary epistemology, cognitive science, academic histories of the Soviet and Chinese experience, philosophy and history of science, etc. If anything, this shows how high he regards the poor of the Third World. By contrast, you seem to think the poor of the Third World could not be advanced enough to appreciate PF’s works. You act as though only hoodwinking could explain the growth of LLCO in the Third World. It seems beyond your experience that poor people in the Third World could be interested in advanced theory. You are the one who can’t wrap your head around the fact that people in the Third World have linked up with LLCO. You are the one looking at the poor of the Third World through an orientalist glasses that deny the poor of the Third World agency.
Furthermore, you dress up your paper so that it looks well researched when it is not. There is a difference between real research and your work. Real research involves looking deeply at what you are criticizing. It involves an exhaustive look at all the various arguments and evidence for contending theories. Your paper merely strings together a bunch or largely irrelevant sources so it appears you have done research. It is the kind of thing high school students do when, in a crunch, they need to produce a paper with so many references. They add a bunch of irrelevant citations in order to give the appearance their paper is better researched than it is. Jason is exactly right in calling your work “sophomoric.”
You refuse to look at the actual arguments you claim to refute. Instead, you simply create straw mans or worse, outright lies. For example, you write, “They use statistics like per capita GDP to show that these countries’ working classes are a labor aristocracy, allergic to the very thought of revolution.” Where exactly does LLCO ever use GDP statistics to show a country has a labor aristocracy? Please show a single reference where “per capita GDP” (whatever that means) is tied to the question of class. This is something you simply made up. Similarly, you simply made up your bogus history of Worlds theories. Almost everything you say is confused or inaccurate. Who needs intellectual honesty when you have dogma?
You really need to wake up. You webpage title is “Proletarian Literature,” but your approach really is a disservice to the proletariat. You should have a little courage and produce a real polemic based on actual arguments and evidence. The proletariat deserve better. Serve the People.
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“If you read Said, you would know he is talking about a very specific practice of understanding the Middle East through certain stereotypes that help imperialism maintain its power over colonial subjects.”
Saïd actually has the following to say in Orientalism, immediately before the segment I quoted in my original essay on MRN (which described Maoist-Third Worldists to the T by the way): “…nor is [Orientalism] representative and expressive of some nefarious ‘Western’ imperialist plot to hold down the ‘Oriental’ world.” And “[Orientalism] is, above all, a discourse that is by no means in direct corresponding relationship with political power in the raw, but rather is produced and exists in an uneven exchange with various kinds of power”. Clearly Orientalism is more complex than what you make it out to be. “Who cares what he actually said” indeed. Of the principal dogmas of Orientalism which Saïd enumerates, which do we find reproduced by Maoism-Third Worldism? Virtually all of them, with slight mutations of course (as reproduction always entails).
1. absolute & systemic difference between the developed, superior West and undeveloped, inferior Orient
√ Third Worldism reproduces this, substituting the binary worldview terms “West” and “Orient” with “First World” and “Third World”. The First World is superior in wealth but inferior in morality and vice versa for the Third World.
2. Abstractions about the Orient, particularly those based on texts representing a “classical” Oriental civilization, are always preferable to direct evidence drawn from modern Oriental realities.
√ Third Worldism ignores the modern neocolonial condition of Third World nations which have achieved decolonization under the people’s war model of national liberation (regulate capitalism, put the ‘patriotic’ bourgeoisie in power alongside the peasants and workers). Third Worldism bases itself on political texts drawn from the ‘classical’ age of Third World struggles (Cold War era decolonization wave, language derived from Sino-Soviet split).
3. The Orient is eternal, uniform, and incapable of defining itself; therefore it is assumed that a highly generalized and systemic vocabulary for describing the Orient from a Western standpoint is inevitable and even scientifically “objective.”
√ Third Worldists essentialize the Third World masses and posit that they all stand in the same position to globalization, whether they be exploited or exploiters. Third World people who do not have a line of communication with outsiders are defined as such according to an objective, “scientific” worldview developed in Ivy League New England.
4. The Orient is at bottom something either to be feared or to be controlled.
√ Third Worldism implies that First World people should fear a coming war against them waged by the Third World people, their class enemies. Third Worlders are to be controlled, regimented for people’s war.
“Marcos was accepted as a leader by the Maya even though he was not Maya himself. What mattered is that he, an outsider, was accepted by the Maya communities. Similarly, an outsider, Commander PF is accepted by the communities where LLCO has a presence.“
You have misunderstood. Subcomandante Marcos was not “accepted” by the indigenous communities in Chiapas, he was a character CREATED by them. “Commander” on its own has enough connotation to prove the point here, as it conveys hierarchy and thus supremacy. The use of the title “subcomandante” by the Zapatistas shows an acute awareness of language and historicity (i.e., as a development on ‘el Comandante’ Che Guevara) which PF and LLCO just obviously lack.
”Where exactly does LLCO ever use GDP statistics to show a country has a labor aristocracy? Please show a single reference where “per capita GDP” (whatever that means) is tied to the question of class.“
Excuse me, GNP: http://llco.org/black-friday-2015-americans-wage-a-jihad-of-consumption-spend-almost-the-same-as-the-gnp-of-bangladesh/
GDP per capita is an economic measure of a country’s standard of living. It is the value of national output divided by the population. Here is your lesson for today: http://study.com/academy/lesson/how-real-gdp-per-capita-affects-the-standard-of-living.html I was going to link you to “Questions about Maoism and LLC” but you already linked it to me! Anyways, there you go, it says LLCO defines the 3 worlds in terms of standard of living.
Look, the critical issue with “Maoism-Third Worldism/Leading Light Communism” which you are sidestepping here is the conclusion drawn at the end of the above article on GNP:
“First World people as a whole walk and talk like the bourgeoisie for the simple reason they are the bourgeoisie. On the whole, they are our class enemy.”
There is nothing “advanced” about this theory. Contrary to you/Jason/LLCO people, I do not think the global poor are stupid enough to ally with their national-capitalists and progressive petit bourgeois “patriotic personages” and treat the poor people of the First World as their enemies. I am down with “workers of the (entire) world unite”, not just workers of the third world, and sure as hell not “workers and patriotic bourgies of the third world unite against working poor of the first world.” That is a failed national liberation strategy which has only resulted in neocolonialism and more imperialism.
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Again, you are almost wrong on everything.
On Said, I never said Orientalism was part of a conspiracy or plot. It obviously plays a role in how power is organized to keep the colonial subjects in check. This is not a plot, it is something tied to very specific cultural processes. Again, you daftly pretend to misunderstand the point in order to set up a straw man. My clear emphasis is that Said is talking about something specific and complex, not simply some slur you hurl at First World authors who have written in ways you do not like.
You don’t know much about the Zapatistas. You can play silly word games all you want. The reality is that he was one of the leaders, not some actor the indigenous hired from the theatrical arts department of some community college. Despite your fantasies of the indigenous other, the Zapatistas did not simply use “subcomandente,” they also used “commandente.” For example, the two most famous people who held the rank of commander were Tacho and Romona. Does the commander title imply authority here too, or is that the case only for movements you dislike?
Let’s look at your lie about “per capita GDP.” Nowhere in that article by LLCO is the GDP of Bangladesh ever divided by the population of Bangladesh to yield a per capita GDP number. The article simply states that in a single day, Americans consume roughly the adjusted value of Bangladesh’s total GDP. Please show us the exact quote where LLCO uses “per capita GDP” to establish anything in any of the dozens of articles on llco.org. The truth is that LLCO does not. Again, just because you can do a google search, just because you can link some random google article not penned by LLCO that ties GDP to standard of living does not mean this is LLCO’s method. All this is more pretend research by you. GDP divided by a country’s population does not yield anything like a standard of living. It more directly yields the amount produced by each individual on average in the economy in a given year. Your utter foolishness here makes me think you don’t know what GDP means. You are simply not reading the articles you claim to critique.
Again, your bogus research method is once again shown in the final part of the last comment. You take a couple of lines out of a single article, not even a deeply theoretical one, by LLCO. Then you basically say “ah ha! See! LLCO is not advanced! You fools!” You say this as though a couple of lines from a single article is the alpha and omega of PF’s writings on political economy. PF has written dozens of deep articles on these topics, nowhere does he make the bizarre claims about per capita GDP numbers that you attribute to him. Why should we believe anything you say about PF or LLCO or Jason at this point?
So much of this reflects the original polemic. You simply are lying about the facts. You made yourself look foolish by spinning a huge anti-PF rant based on a couple of jokes where PF was himself mocking those goofs like yourself who call him a “supreme commander.” You spun pages of bullshit out of thin air. Similarly, you lie about “per capita GDP” being used as a measure of standard of living by LLCO. You have been refuted on everything. This is all plain as day to anyone who bothers to wade through this mopping up operation against the sectarian turds you are dropping online.
That’s the thing. Some shut in like yourself can spin a pack of lies, even giving it fake academic form, in a day or two. Then you drop your turds all over social media and the blogosphere. How many people are going to see that you got your ass handed to you here? Not many. That is the problem with this stuff. It is much easier to throw a bunch of shit than to clean it up.
You need to change your ways and display some backbone and integrity. You really should display some intellectual honesty and admit that your original polemics were bullshit. Then you should take them down. You should apologize. Then, after you do some real research, if you still find yourself in disagreement with LLCO, you should write a new polemic that actually addresses the actual arguments and evidence of LLCO. You should admit that you have proven yourself poor servant of the proletariat with your hackish work. Then, you should come back and do better later.
in any case, I don’t have time for this.
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1. Your statement that Orientalism helps “imperialism maintain its power” certainly implies a “direct corresponding relationship with political power”. People like Unruhe and PF do wield a certain kind of power, one of the “various kinds” which Saïd alludes to.
2. We were talking about the title of subcomandante in relation to Marcos. There is a reason he (as a non-indigenous person) used that title while the others (indigenous leaders) used the title comandante, even if they were, and are, not public figures to the outside world to the extent Marcos was. Likewise there is a reason PF goes by commander (hint, it has to do with power).
3. GDP per capita is one commonly accepted indicator of standard of living. Wealth itself is just an indicator of standard of living. You could have a million bucks in the bank and live in a cardboard box and eat all your food out of a dumpster. Are you going to tell me next LLCO doesn’t recognize a correlation between wealth and standard of living? You make a huge deal out of this minor thing about the way standard of living is calculated because you have no better point to make. Also keep in mind that my critique is not exclusive to LLCO, which technically does not even claim to uphold “Third Worldism”. Here is one Third Worldist-oriented blogger using GDP per capita to argue against the viability of socialism being appealing in the UK : https://redsolidarity12.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/the-world-redistribution-of-income-and-the-prospects-of-socialism-in-the-uk/
4. The idea that there is no social base for revolution in the First World is not just some incidental “not even deeply theoretical” side point. This is the whole shtick of Maoism-Third Worldism.
It is YOU, my friend, who have refuted nothing. It is your ass which I hand to you. I will not censor my writing simply because you don’t like it! Your vitriolic ad hominems have only proven how incapable you LLCO peeps are of responding to constructive criticism. I can’t believe that you’ve resorted to anonymously slinging an ableist epithet. Get lost !
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Out of curiosity, how exactly does the LLCO and their ilk conceptualize “power?” Do they understand it from a Marxist perspective, or a postmodernist one?
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I’d reckon they aren’t too keen on postmodernism.
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Didn’t Mao write about the idiot who picked up the stone, just to drop it on his own feet? It must be pretty embarrassing getting wrecked on your own blog. Here’s a tip friend; Less politics, more Kirk vs Picard.
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I like how you say you don’t have time for this, and then return to write a cyberbully post that makes no rational argument. Go ahead and tell yourself how badly you “wrecked”me if it makes you feel better. I will just leave your silly posts here as an eternal testament of how devotees of the LLCO react to criticism of their deeply theoretical Great Leader, Commander Prairie Fire.
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Oh please, Jason. I have a fun time psychoanalyzing you, but it’s almost like crushing a live snail.
I’ve tried to address valid criticisms of M3W on your blog too, but you responded like a snarky child, rather than the eloquent theorist you claim to be.
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There’s good reason to believe the LLCO are cops.
http://planetearthliberation.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-leading-light-communist.html
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