so I posted a couple weeks ago about doing a Q&A for 25,000 Subs which thank you for by the way and you guys left some really interesting questions that I'm going to get to now a lot of you were wondering how I developed my political views and how I ended up on the left I might title this video why I left the right or something like that even though I was never a die-hard right winger I was just a dumb kid so this first batch of questions is pretty much all the same how did I
develop my political views what radicalized me so let's get into it I grew up in a semi-conservative environment my immediate family wasn't conservative per se but I went to a conservative Catholic school because friends of my family were sending their kids there so I guess it made sense for my parents to do the same being surrounded by a very conservative faculty and administration obviously had an impact on my worldview I mean we would constantly have lectures about the depravities and horrors of abortion abstinence over safe sex which kind of backfired because I remember there being
some uh oopsy pregnancies very very early on I don't call my science teachers ever teaching us about evolution or Darwinism or anything like that but by 10th grade I understood that I felt differently than the majority of my classmates and teachers I wasn't religious even though we were forced to pray every day and go to mass every first Wednesday of the month looking back at it this may have had the inverse effect on me and pushed me away from religious conservatism I also had gay friends at a young age and I had nothing against them
I I quite liked them actually and would get pretty pissed off if people mistreated them so I knew early on I wasn't homophobic I started making music at a young age and I decided by 10th or 11th grade that I wanted to make a career out of it my Inspirations were people like Frank Ocean and Kendrick Lamar this led me to study their works and come face to face with perspectives that were new to me Frank is a bisexual musician who touches on this in his music Kendrick touches heavily on topics like police brutality and
institutional racism so being a young kid with Idols like these it was becoming difficult for me to relate with the more conservative folks in my life coming out of high school at age 17 I was already not super conservative but I still had some reactionary Tendencies due to my environment shortly after enrolling in University which I only stayed in for a semester I would get videos of "Ben Shapiro destroying radical feminist in the marketplace of ideas" suggested to me on YouTube and then similar ones of Jordan Peterson and Steven Crowder and as time went on
I would just keep clicking them it was mainly a bunch of anti-feminist propaganda and videos of these grown ass men debating college kids but at the time I myself was a college kid and I couldn't grasp the fact that these debates were not happening on a levelled playing field although I was definitely slipping down the right-wing pipeline at this point I still never considered myself a full-blown conservative because I didn't know or care much about politics at the time but I am ashamed to admit that 17-year-old me thought they were smart by the time I
turned 18 I had some music out that was starting to gain some traction and attention from record labels so I dropped out of University moved to Toronto and spent the next few years bouncing between Toronto Vancouver LA and New York I guess being in all of these big cities and meeting so many different people really eradicated any socially conservative ideas that may have been implanted in me by my upbringing and right-wing media my friend group Diversified the ideas I was presented with Diversified and I was meeting people with struggles that I never had to worry
about all of the sudden I was meeting and developing friendships with people from all sorts of socioeconomic backgrounds I was meeting people who were suffering with addictions which was a big eyeopener for me because I perceived the conservative position on addiction to be one of Shame and repudiation and by developing friendships with people who were suffering in that way I was able to see that addiction was a mental health issue and that the right had the wrong ideas about it so at this point I was not socially conservative and I was beginning to develop some
class Consciousness I moved back to my hometown after the pandemic hit and I met my girlfriend who I've been with for 5 years now her family is from Latin America Chile and through them I was introduced to Chilean history and the brutality of Pinochet and american-backed fascists not only in Chile but all over the world I went on to learn as much as I could about us involvement in Latin America the Middle East Asia and Africa I started to realize that these Americans didn't really like this socialism stuff from Allende and Chile to Mosaddegh in
Iran they didn't care for countries or left-wing leaders who tried to take back their nation's resources and use them to develop their countries so at that point I was not only not socially conservative but I had some class Consciousness and I was Anti-Imperialist once I knew these things about myself I picked up pretty much any book I could find on these topics and spent the past four years reading relentlessly I think it's important to share stories like these because there is a possibility that things could have gone differently if I didn't have gay friends at
a young age to serve as a reality check in the face of my conservative environment if I never wanted to make hip-hop music if I never spend so much time bouncing between these big cities meeting so many different people and if I never met my girlfriend's family who knows what my beliefs would be so next time you meet a conservative or someone with views you disagree with try to understand that they're probably not evil people who want the world to suffer maybe some are but they're probably just the product of their material realities if we
as leftists can understand that and at least try to engage with them in a way that might change their minds given that they're open to good Faith engagement it not only serves to help them but it helps our movement next question why didn't you plug your music on your Channel fire music by the way thanks uh I didn't want to take away from the activism if you're into alternative hip-hop and for some reason recognize any of these songs that's me I have my Spotify Linked In My Channel description But ultimately I made this channel so
I could take my mind off of music and work I was doing some bigger projects earlier this year like commercials and Licensing stuff and it was getting to feel feel like a chore not to sound all woe is me about it I also make pretty political music so this channel felt like the next step for me and it's fun to just nerd out about politics when I'm not working on any albums next question would you consider the USSR and Marxism-Leninism as a whole to have been a net positive or net negative I'm leaning towards net
negative with the damage it's done to Communism as a whole and how it is perceived by the West I find myself taking the Rosa Luxemburg stance on this I am critical of leninism I'm not a leninist but when we critique leninism we need to understand what they were working with at the time during the Russian Revolution conditions were suboptimal to say the least they inherited a Russia that was ravaged by mismanagement they were constantly subjected to Wars and conflicts with that said the Bolsheviks did transform Russia from a backwards Czarist regime into one where people
had Healthcare and education and overall a better quality of life but I don't think that having a Vanguard party made up of professional revolutionaries who operate on the behalf of the working class constitutes a real dictatorship of the proletariat I think the Vanguard should be made up of the workers and I think the Enterprises and state need to be democratized much more efficiently I don't like the Crackdown on dissent I do consider myself to be more of a Libertarian socialist but at the same time I'm okay with the idea of using the state as a
tool in the short term to fend off external threats the nature of the state just needs to be much more democratized and the inherently authoritarian elements of statehood need to be addressed and ameliorated the long-term goal for for me obviously would be to either eradicate the state as I perceive it to be an inherently authoritarian force with a monopoly on violence or to alleviate and democratize its more authoritarian elements and Usher in a more democratic form of governance of course I can only express how I feel from my vantage point if I were someone living
under Batista's regime in Cuba or in Czarist Russia I would probably be a Marxist leninist or at least sympathetic to the idea so when I criticize ML's it's not because I hate them I look up to a great many of them look behind me I got a- I don't know if you can see it but it's a Che Guevara poster but because I think that future projects need to be more democratic and directly involve the working class it's not a secret that lennin and trosky dismantled the workers councils and the Soviets once they took power
that's unacceptable to me to wrap this up and stop being such a Centrist about this I understand why leninism took the shape it did but I think there are massive flaws within the idea I don't like the idea of a one- party State full of intellectuals who operate on the behalf of the worker I don't like the authoritarian form this is historically taken and I don't think that having this elitist group elevated above the populace serves the spirit of socialism I perceive it to be a deviation from my preferred brand of socialism I think socialism
is radical democracy this includes full workplace democracy and transformation of the state and Enterprise this was lacking in the USSR to quote Rosa real quick Freedom only for the members of the government only for the members of the party though they are quite numerous is no Freedom at all freedom is always the freedom of the one who thinks differently not because of Any fanatical concept of justice but because all that is instructive wholesome and purifying in political Freedom depends on this essential characteristic and I feel like I covered this already uh I'd like to say
I'm a Libertarian socialist whether or not my fellow libsocs perceive me to be a pure enough libsoc is up to them but I am skeptical and critical of the inherently authoritarian nature of the state if I'm looking down a lot it's because I'm looking at my computer next question what's your favorite music genre band artist song album Kendrick Lamar Frank Ocean Nina Simone Mac Miller Marvin Gaye Lana Del Rey are my favorites Tyler the Creator as well I like hip-hop alternative music folk R&B uh my favorite albums are Faces by Mac Miller To Pimp a
Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar Norman [ __ ] Rockwell by Lana Del Rey and what's going on by Marvin Gaye next question this is a really heated suggestion but I'm curious about how you'd handle going over the history and Rise of right-wing Fascism and how the rise of Nazis can be compared to Trump's current rhetoric and plans to implement fascism I think an analysis on what nationalism could do to a country could be an interesting watch if it came from you so the comparison between past fascist regimes and Trump's rhetoric is probably something that deserves its
own full video so I'll leave that out but I do want to address the topic of nationalism really quickly I think it's important to understand that nationalism in the developing world is often rooted in anti-colonialism and a different story a guy like Patrice Lumumba in the Congo who was a nationalist should not be graded the same as a guy like Trump nationalism in the developed World tends to serve as a tool of superiority subjugation and exacerbates ingroup outgroup sentiment this could also happen in the developing World Narendra Modi in India is a Hindu nationalist who
uses nationalism to oppress Muslims within his country but we need to be nuanced when discussing nationalism why a country or leader is a nationalist and what shape it takes in each specific instance the nationalism of Latin America which is often rooted in anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism cannot seriously be compared to the nationalism of Giorgia Meloni or Donald Trump that's that's my stance on nationalism next question as a progressive what are the things that you dislike about our side the most well easy purity testing and shitty Coalition building skills as you could probably tell I try my
best to extend an olive branch to other types of leftists and look past our differences and towards our shared goals I also dislike it when people on the left completely right off right-wingers I think we should try to talk to them and engage in good faith sometimes I see lefties hold people's pasts against them next question what's your opinion on Bernie I like Bernie I think he's a good person and I appreciate that he's many people's introduction to far-left politics even though he isn't really far-left on the world stage I think Bernie is one of
the few people who actually cares he's been about it his whole life there's pictures of him getting arrested at civil rights protests when he was a young man is he right 100% of the time no but in the context of American politics he is a very refreshing and important voice and a very cute old man next question is Canada as anti-socialist as the US and how were you introduced to leftist thinking I already answered the second half of this question so let's just go with is Canada as anti-socialist as the US it's starting to be
but I think that's a product of American politics infiltrating us as they usually do Canada has free health care and better social programs than the US so we don't freak out and consider those services to be socialist the way some Americans do because they're not socialist we do have a growing MAGA movement up here not too long ago I was on the highway and a truck passed me with Trump 2024 and [ __ ] Trudeau stickers we also had Tucker Carlson host an event in Alberta with the premier Danielle Smith Canada's political Trends tend to
follow America's that's why I make content that talks about American politics because it directly affects my country's political landscape also Canada has exported [ __ ] like Peterson and Crowder and Ted Cruz sorry about that so I'm just trying to balance the scales here next question what is your opinion on not safe for work creators using parasocial relations for their financial benefit not sure that I care all that much I don't know if that sounds bad I don't like parasocial relationships in general but I don't think the onus is on the content creator if someone
wants to buy some chick's [ __ ] bath water then that's on them of course if someone is exploiting another person directly and using the parasocial relationship in an unethical way I would be against the usage of that power imbalance to coerce someone but this goes for all public figures not just not safe for work creators next question personal Inspirations and heroes Kurt Vonnegut Rosa Luxemburg Angela Davis Naomi Klein Che Guevara Fred Hampton Chomsky Anton Pannekoek Kendrick Lamar Albert Einstein George Carlin and Mac Miller let's throw Mac Miller in there too I love that guy
rip the next few questions are pretty similar first one goes what books do you recommend for learning about Socialism or the left and the second one goes can you recommend any books about the organization of a possible socialist society I'm going to answer these two questions together I don't know if all of these books are sold for learning about socialism I just grabbed some books off my socialism shelf Marx is a good place to start if you don't want to read the three big ass volumes of Kapital right away start with wage labor and capital
it's a very quick and short read regardless if you're a leninist or an anarchist or whatever imperialism the highest stage of capitalism by Lenin is worth the read reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg this serves as her rebuttal to the ideas of reformism specifically those of Eduard Bernstein who was a Social Democrat of her time the social Democrats back then claimed to want to do away with capitalism they no longer do that today Rosa's critiques do a very good job at illustrating the hypocrisies revisionism and opportunism within Bernstein's ideas and I think a lot of
what she wrote here still holds true and can be applicable in the modern socialism verse social democracy debate socialism utopian and scientific by Frederick Engles I referred to this text earlier but the Russian Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg if you want her opinions on that topic workers councils by Anton Pannekoek he wrote this under Nazi occupation in Holland I feel like Pannekoek best represents my brand of socialism so if you want to learn more about what I believe I would read Pannekoek oh this one's really interesting because Oscar Wilde famous author he wrote The Portrait of
Dorian Gray he has this little essay called the soul of man under socialism which I thought was really interesting he is also a Libertarian socialist and if you want to read his thoughts on the topic this is a very quick and nice read so I have this book by Einstein it's called ideas and opinions but you don't need to get the book cuz the only thing I'm going to recommend is an essay that is found within the book but you can also find the essay online it's called why socialism and it's literally this long it's
like two pages this is a book that I don't see recommended often but I think it's extremely interesting I actually want to reread it and take notes on it but socialism after Hayek envisioning real Utopias by Erik Olin Wright is a really interesting book too sorry my camera died and then I went to go play pickle ball some kind I usually go by libertarian socialist but sometimes I'll call myself a left Marxist I agree with anarchists on almost everything a lot of people consider libertarian socialism and anarchism to be synonymous some folks think there are
slight differences sometimes when someone identifies as a libsoc there's a tacit implication that they could be okay with some forms of next question who inspires you in the content space I'm always hesitant to co-sign anyone cuz whenever I do that someone points out a random old tweet or thing that person said and assumes I agree with 100% of that person's decisions when in reality I don't actually know all that much about any of the content creators I like it just click their videos when they get suggested with that being said uh hbomberguy is probably my
favorite Creator on the platform I think he's really funny I think he does a really good job keeping you entertained while being highly informative I find Noah Samsen really funny his sense of humor is similar to mine and I love the fact that he's been Relentless in covering the atrocities in Palestine Owen Jones Mehdi Hasan Jon Stewart uh I started getting videos from FD signifier recommended to me lately I thought they were really good he gives friendly cool Uncle Vibes uh I like him same with Rebecca Watson sorry I'm just looking at who I've recently
subscribed to Hasan seems like a cool guy from what I know about him he seems funny next question shout out some of your favorite movies or digital media as of late I've been watching kind of like comedy horror movies I just watched the substance I guess like a feminist body horror movie but I thought it was really good I thought it was it was really funny I like um the zelda games on switch I have literally zero time to play video games but when I used to have more time I would really like breath of
the wild and I liked Super Mario Odyssey I've always liked Mario games maybe because I'm a short Italian and Mario's a short Italian so could have a kind of spiritual connection with him are you going to make a video on the election yes I I made a video on the election who did you vote for I I'm Canadian your thoughts on Marx who's that obviously a guy like Marx has been very influential in um the way I think but like any old philosopher or person who lived in a completely different era I don't think we
should take everything that they wrote as Doctrine I don't think we should be dogmatic about it because who knows if that person was alive today if even they would think that the things that they wrote were applicable to modern society and this is not me saying that I don't think Marxism or or the economic theories or the social theories are not applicable I still do I still consider myself a Marxist but there were things that Marx wrote that I don't agree with there were things that Engels wrote that I don't agree with I don't agree
with a lot of what Engels wrote on On Authority but this applies to everyone I don't think anybody is infallible I don't think you should be dogmatic no matter how much you like a person no matter how smart they were would you still date me if I was a worm depends on the worm what is your favorite animal and why isn't it a fox I like dogs I'm a big dog guy some might say I have that dog in me foxes are cool but they they kind of got an unnerving sound that they make that
might be where my aversion comes from should I make a YouTube channel about politics or comedy your answer will have an impact obviously I'm going to say yes this goes for any creative endeavour I'm always going to tell you to at least try it worst thing that could happen is you find that you're either not that good at it or you just don't like to do it all that much the only way you would figure that out is if you try it have you ever been to Prince Edward Island no I haven't do you drink
and what's your favorite drink sometimes I'll have like sake if if the mood is right or like wine but I I'm not really a drinker thoughts on gramsci I think his theories on cultural hegemony have stood the test of time I'm going through the prison notebooks now I got the the three book collection so I can't fully give a detailed opinion on him yet but I do like him a lot from what I know about him will you ever cover UK politics of course if there was a worthwhile story in UK politics or Canadian politics
or Australian politics or anywhere in the world really I would cover it if I felt like I could say something worthwhile on the topic all right sorry if I missed anything this video is already really long so I'll just cut it here uh thanks again bye
