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1064 - Tinker Tailor Candy Crush feat. Vincent Bevins and Bora Mema (8/20/26) (Patreon)

Published:
2026-08-21 03:41:52
Edited:
2026-08-21 13:19:26
Imported:

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Content

Vincent Bevins, author of The Jakarta Method and If We Burn is here with Bora Mena, a union organizer and member of Lëvizja Bashkë, for another tour around the globe. We start off in Albania, where opposition to a landgrab by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump has turned into a political movement, and the potential for a revived left in a country that has long distrusted it. Vincent then sticks around with Will & Felix for an analysis of Trump’s “imperial autogolpe” in Latin America and the “peripheralization” of the Imperial Core.

Check out North South Notes: https://www.northsouthnotes.org/

And follow Bora on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bobimema/?hl=en 

If you’re in Canada, check out the CHUNKS live screening on Sept 1. with Amber Frost, Nate Fisher, and Michael and Us: https://paradiseonbloor.com/movies/chunks-toronto-premiere

And in Charlottetown, PEI on Sept 4th and 5th: https://tivolicinema.com/production/chunks/ 

CHUNKS now available for streaming purchase at www.patreon.com/chunkstv

And listen to The Players Club Season 2!

Files

Comments

Ant koz

Daddy! You’re here!

Kyle B

Yes, son?

Bil

Boura Meema? More like something else that’s funny and kinda sounds the same

Evan

And gay

Elo

Ok this is cool. But what’s going on with Rod Dreher?

Vegas Mole

9/20/26 oh boy an episode from the future!

ploob

Too bad Türkiye is a NATO member dawg..<

ploob

Bore uh Mee Maw..? Is this thing on?

ploob

Watching Celebrity Family Feud to this rn.

Paul Rotchford

It is not 9/20/26 and We lovour Matty, folks!

T DoubleYa

Rereading Jakarta Method as we speak 🤙🏽

T DoubleYa

Her brother maybe … lol

T DoubleYa

Stavy is the Greek agent in question

Wrought

Why are you having open anticommunist revisionists on the show??? What the fuck is going on lately???

Bil

She sounds bad as hell

Wrought

Why are we seriously entertaining the idea that the socialist republic of Albania was a fucking "dictatorship"??? Hoxha was a fucking hero. This might be the hardest you've libbed out in fucking years.

justdave

You're healing

Blue Chicken

Gave them that thousand Island stare

Swaggypeepaw

Kanye West's mother Donda would be deeply proud of his burning of Albania

DL

Bruh chill out lmfao, this isn’t a deep dive into the history of Socialist Albania. Hoxha was a hero in many respects, but he also almost certainly was a dictator, the question is just whether he was a net positive or not

Keith Price

yeah it’s not really the main point of the ep & everyone in this comments section is going to be a freak about it, but the tone with which they spoke about him was undeniably bizarre and it’s not exactly wrong to expect better lol

Houthi & the Blowfish

Hearing her talk about their shock with the benign violence of egg throwing being met with over-the-top police response. Man wish I could throw an egg here. If I threw water at an official and survived, they'd charge me with terrorism.

Farah

Welp. Looks like Chapo Trap House, my favorite reformist-Hoxhaist podcast, has gone full revisionist. Sigh…

m@tt

Oh god is that video gaming podcast over yet?

Antichris

Oh good so I didn't hallucinate that

Sam

Didn’t Bevins write a book about how every spontaneous political eruption with the kinds of characteristics described as the one in Albania was a catastrophic failure?

Jeemar

Hoxha split from the warsaw pact during khruschev and then broke from china in the late 70s... aside from a few blips hoxha's project couldn't even maintain a basic diplomatic relationship with tito's yugo. Bora has clearly been raised in the liberalized albania so the characterizarion of that period as a dictatorship is not surprising considering the current state of poverty and immiseration in the region. I might disagree with the "dictatorship" characterization myself, but the idea that chapo should be lecturing someone who is taking risks to change the current regime during a legitimate popular uprising about their own historical beliefs is nuts

Jenkum Terry

He gave Eyes Wide Shut 2 and a half stars writing for the New York Post in 1999. While he cited Nicole Kidman for a career best performance he felt the sexually charged film lacked the heat to take it to the next level.

Hugh Jazz

An entire country caring what the American ambassador has to say is one of the saddest post-Soviet anecdotes I’ve ever heard

David Lunney

Thought you were dead making Ben Mora haha

Filius Fob (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 20:00 Richard Medhurst's has written & made a documentary where his thesis that there's a new US grand strategy going on to take over global oil & natural gas production or destroy potential competing producers and take over fossil fuel shipping choke points. Thus, the Iran War which maybe the US hoped would give it the Strait of Hormuz; bombings of other West Asian oil infrastructure; and that Albanian island which is apparently a shipping choke point between the Adriatic & Mediterranean; the stealing of Venezuela's oil (and President & First Lady); the desire to take over Greenland wise coasts are also major fossil fuel shipping routes; talk about making Canada the 51st state, which is a major oil producer and also has shipping choke points along its coastlines; and an uncanny number of oil refinery and natural gas terminal explosions that occurred in the days after the February attack on Iran started. Apparently Chevron appears a lot over decades in the evidence for this. Also, there's a view that the US is actually pretending Israel is manipulating it in order to blame the Iranian attack on Bibi. Brian Berletic expounds this view, and it is heavily based on a Rand Corporation book of essays laying out different ways to attack Iran. One essay is called, "Blame it on Bibi." Having rentier control over global energy would then enable the US to essentially force foreign manufacturers to move to the US to access affordable energy. It might all be a hail Mary to find a new petrodollar system as the old one collapses.
2026-08-21 08:21 Richard Medhurst has written & made a documentary where his thesis is that there's a new US grand strategy going on to take over global oil & natural gas production or destroy potential competing producers and take over fossil fuel shipping choke points. Thus, the Iran War, which maybe the US hoped would give it the Strait of Hormuz; bombings of other West Asian oil infrastructure; and that Albanian island which is apparently a shipping choke point between the Adriatic & Mediterranean; the stealing of Venezuela's oil (and President & First Lady); the desire to take over Greenland whose coasts are also major fossil fuel shipping routes; talk about making Canada the 51st state, which is a major oil producer and also has shipping choke points along its coastlines; and an uncanny number of oil refinery and natural gas terminal explosions that occurred in the days after the February attack on Iran started. Apparently Chevron appears a lot over decades in the evidence for this. Also, there's a view that the US is actually pretending Israel is manipulating it in order to blame the Iranian attack on Bibi. Brian Berletic expounds this view, and it is heavily based on a Rand Corporation book of essays laying out different ways to attack Iran. One essay is called, "Blame it on Bibi." Having rentier control over global energy would then enable the US to essentially force foreign manufacturers to move to the US to access affordable energy. It might all be a hail Mary to find a new petrodollar system as the old one collapses.

Richard Medhurst has written & made a documentary where his thesis is that there's a new US grand strategy going on to take over global oil & natural gas production or destroy potential competing producers and take over fossil fuel shipping choke points. Thus, the Iran War, which maybe the US hoped would give it the Strait of Hormuz; bombings of other West Asian oil infrastructure; and that Albanian island which is apparently a shipping choke point between the Adriatic & Mediterranean; the stealing of Venezuela's oil (and President & First Lady); the desire to take over Greenland whose coasts are also major fossil fuel shipping routes; talk about making Canada the 51st state, which is a major oil producer and also has shipping choke points along its coastlines; and an uncanny number of oil refinery and natural gas terminal explosions that occurred in the days after the February attack on Iran started. Apparently Chevron appears a lot over decades in the evidence for this. Also, there's a view that the US is actually pretending Israel is manipulating it in order to blame the Iranian attack on Bibi. Brian Berletic expounds this view, and it is heavily based on a Rand Corporation book of essays laying out different ways to attack Iran. One essay is called, "Blame it on Bibi." Having rentier control over global energy would then enable the US to essentially force foreign manufacturers to move to the US to access affordable energy. It might all be a hail Mary to find a new petrodollar system as the old one collapses.

Wrought

Liberals are forbidden from replying to me

Wrought

No reason to make excuses for or forgive ignorance. No reason to have a dummy like that on the show either.

oooeeeooo

Hoxha maxxing and mogging

Louis Towers

Look forwards not backwards bozo

Wrought

Communism is the future. This dumbo just wants to have a few years of social democracy before degenerating into the current level of liberal corruption. Thats not looking forwards, thats looking up your own ass.

Will

I honestly didn't think Felix was here

Skwilly

You’re worried about the wrong thing, you have zero hoes jockin’

Slamp

Thank you!

Dan Mistak

Missed the chance to have Eldis weigh in.

Amammon

Enver Hoxha was a hero btw

Amammon

Enver Hoxha was a strong leader but not a dictator, none of the socialist republics of eastern europe were actual dictatorships/autocracies, if they were then the US is a dictatorship/autocracy as well.

Amammon

"we want people to go out without the party calling them" then wtf is the point of the party, another liberal bowing before spontaneity

Amammon

very cool, I'm glad people are smiling in the streets, have any of the concrete demands of the people been met? Has the prime minister been forcibly removed? Has the development forcibly been stopped?

Alex Roggermeier

The 4 hour Dark Souls podcasts will continue until morale improves. At least another month

Swaggypeepaw

2018 Stalin Lazer meme ass comment

Wrought

She openly describes the socialist government as a dictatorship and will just runs with it. What the fuck are we doing here?

Mr.Crispy *

Standing ovation for Bora! Sounds like the problem around the world is the same every single time rich people trying to f*** all of us. Good on all these people, for f****** standing up.America needs to learn something

J. A.

I am for a dictatorship of the proletariat

Peter Castello

Will's getting interview-mogged hard by Bevins :/

Shifty Comfort

Read “The Devil’s Chessboard” David Talbot, next if you haven’t already.

Raiden

When does Felix first speak?

Anomalie

Wait.. how do you mobilize without organizing first? This is going to fall apart so fast

zucccccc

the type of mf that would throw someone in a camp over the smallest inconvenience

Swaggypeepaw

Im sure being pissed and annoying about it will win people over to your pov

Wrought

You can go right in there with her!

Wrought

I don't give a shit whether they're hoxhaists or not but I don't listen to the show to be told that if you want a socialist government you support evil dictatorial regimes. How is this any different from msnbc lib bullshit?

Sword of Eos (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 20:00 It's just so sad and frustrating to hear European young people parrot cold war narratives about how the communists were all evil bloodthirsty dictators and then go on to say things like "I want democracy in the economy" and "I want to replace the entire electoral system, all the parties". Those are communist goals! They want to overthrow the dictatorship of captial but they've been taught that overthrowing capitalism makes you an evil tyrant, so of course their protests are unorganized and aimless.
2026-08-21 13:49 It's just sad and frustrating to hear European young people parrot cold war narratives about how the Communists were all evil bloodthirsty dictators and then go on to say things like "I want democracy in the economy" and "I want to replace the entire electoral system, all the parties". You want communism! They want to overthrow the dictatorship of captial but they've been taught that overthrowing capitalism makes you an evil tyrant, so of course their protests are unorganized and aimless.

It's just sad and frustrating to hear European young people parrot cold war narratives about how the Communists were all evil bloodthirsty dictators and then go on to say things like "I want democracy in the economy" and "I want to replace the entire electoral system, all the parties". You want communism! They want to overthrow the dictatorship of captial but they've been taught that overthrowing capitalism makes you an evil tyrant, so of course their protests are unorganized and aimless.

Arthur G. Pym

Typical Balkan reactionary anticommunist. Nonsense

BadAtNames

Disagree. The USSR was a dictatorship after Gorbachev dismantled the avenues that the masses had to actively participate in their government through Perestroika.

Swaggypeepaw

So many people see communism not as a way to improve the world and society but as a way to punish their enemies. The goal of communism is a better future, and in that there has to be some justice, but the goal isn't just revenge. To me its the same emotional motivation as the Trump 2 revenge tour. The most powerful communist leader in the world right now was scarred by the cultural revolution and the violence that it brought. Like they actually said on this episode, obvious violence does not make your government look stable or legitimate

John Cockshutt

Really excited to see all the normal comments on this one…

Mattc83

The Albanian experience should be instructive to us all for so many reasons.

Harvey Marsalko

sir, this is chapo, the #1 commie larp podcast on the internet. Of course they're gonna have these stinkers on the pods

Wrought

There's no good reason to let your enemies stay where they can harm you, whether that's "just" or not and regardless of how it "looks". The west needs a wave of cultural revolutions so sweeping it makes china's look like a hiccup by comparison. The alternative is we all die as refugees of an unmitigated climate catastrophe, gunned down by the fascists and their liberal allies.

Dang

Knowing stuff

J. A.

My favorite part of this episode is when the Albanian said "we don't really have a right win in this country" the exact same way conservatives in this country talk about all the free land generated from the slaughter of the tribes. Really good stuff man. Really good.

Dylan C.

Jeemar has the correct ML response

Arthur G. Pym

Exactly. And they have learned to use “communist” as a slur. It is sad and Chapo should know better.

nick

He was in the Amazon with my friend Vincent, where he was researching Bolsonaro right before he died.

Tvvvv

NED vs. Trump. I guess, I’m pro-NED in this case. We’ll see how it goes. She seems like a nice lady.

Rory Flaherty

This podcast is provoking a crisis in the Marxist-Lenninist-Hoxhaist-Chapoist community

Tvvvv

Quite genuinely, the Danube institute that he was working for I think has informally shuttered as a result of the new gov in Hungary. They were/are kind of central to the pervasiveness of the nationalist/ethno-nationalist movement proliferation throughout Europe. Possibly also responsible for that focus of right wing ethno-nationalism in the US.

zucccccc

not going to happen in your lifetime bud

Elo

The logical conclusion here is that Chapo should hire Rod to write articles to create an infinite stream of reading series. The world needs his voice now more than ever

Sean Riach

They are going to have to eat at different tables in the cafeteria

Tvvvv

No disrespect to the protester interviewed. I’m sure from her perspective she is genuine and fighting for what she believes as best as she can. Though her description of the protests and the movement seems like something we’ve heard before even from Vincent Bevins. What do the protesters want “Who knows?!” When do they want it “It’s hard to say!” Who is even leading the movement? Seems like noone which means unfortunately that it is likely the NED. Even follows the same naming convention as previous NED style movements. She did not even feel like she could speak for the movement which sounds like something you would hear in 2008 during the financial crisis. The movement being amorphous undirected leads to either dissipation or co-optation. Maybe this time will be different but we’ve seen this story before.

August West

Yeah I was gonna say if you’ve read If We Burn this interview is a lot less optimistic because Bora sounds exactly like the activists he interviewed from Brazil, Egypt, and other places for that book. Especially the bit about “The new Albania is already here.”

vansdan

my dumb ass just now realizing why the sauce is called that 🫪

vansdan

Killing Hope is also great

vansdan

Gorbechav was a mistake

Antoine Desgagnés

Was Felix held hostage by Balkan mobsters for all the interview segment or was he just too enamored by Bora?

Dick Waglin

More like US GayID amiright?

Herby Blemphis

At about 38:00 when she talks about fires in Ohio I think she may have meant fires in Idaho. Parts of Idaho look a lot like Albania.

A.M. Wreckloose

Stoked to see Bevins on again but of course it's mostly Will and Felix talking over him

Alejandro

Dude, Hoxha sucked. Talk to anyone who lived there. Just because neoliberalism is soulless misery doesnt mean you have to run apologetics for anyone who was nominally socialist.

Jake

unironically using the term tankie😭😭😭

Klemke

Just what the world needs, more Fromsoft fanboys waxing rhapsodic for 10+ hours about how Baby's First Mildly Challenging Game made them cry with yet another plot about a dying kingdom overseen by warring demigods. Wake me when it's time for gaming discourse that wasn't completely oversaturated ten years ago.

Alejandro

I have a friend in Morocco who spoke the exact same way about the "gen z protests" what ever happened there?? If only someone wrote a book on the pitfalls of movementism and the hollowness of the high people get in horizontalist mass mobilization without a party leadership and an actionable political strategy. Good luck to the people of Albania, I truly wish you the best in the fight.

Alejandro

If we burn should be required reading

Tvvvv

Bevins misses the forest for the trees.

m@tt

And for the record, I’m an anemic chudcel soydev. I couldn’t take it.

Kmicky

How is this any different from interviewing a No Kings protestor or a woman in a pussy hat under Trump 1? We’re really supposed to celebrate a protest movement devoid of any political agenda or defined goals and an activist who seems to celebrate that being the case and outright seems to call for it staying that way? Vincent didn’t you just write a fucking book about this?? I really don’t understand her mental gymnastics about how Albanian youth are simultaneously so removed from the Cold War that they don’t harbor the same views as their parents and grandparents yet they also still view communism as this boogeyman, not to mention her acknowledgment of the devastation of shock doctrine while also continuing to parrot anti communist Cold War talking points. Bro who the fuck do you think made that happen and what systems of government and economics do they support? These recent interviews have been really weird man.

Sword of Eos

Meh, I'm glad the situation was covered and Vincent asked some great questions; I don't expect Will to get into fights with interview subjects. But I wanted to summarize why some commenters are agitated over her comments about Hoxha

Scarlet

Hoxha was wonderful if your job was building bunkers

Tvvvv

I listen to the Multipolarity podcast. Again genuinely, once you get past the nationalist stuff, a quality Geopolitics podcast produced by the Danube Institute. I’m from the same place in Louisiana that Rod is from. I’ve always wanted to run into him there.

Aaron Friedland

Patreon redesigns their website and still no volume controls on the audio player, incredible

Woke Batou

Taking Stavy's side on Albania now

Klemke

"People are smiling in the streets!" OK, so what? Mass amounts of people in the streets without any organization ends up like Occupy Wall Street; directionless energy that gets co-opted, absorbed and neutralized by the political establishment. "Even if it's just this, it's a huge victory" so no demands, no goals and no structure, only "the arc of history is long but bends towards justice" feel-good vibes and participation points for protestors. Sweet.

Dustin Johnson

I think it’s important to understand the scale of what those scumbag vampires Ivanka and Jared were attempting: relative to land mass, what Ivanka tried to do to Albania was roughly the equivalent of a foreigner being gifted Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Albanians have every right to be furious.

Meatwad Cosby

Boring episode but Player’s Club is great.

Jason Yungbluth

At least these guys managed to make their government back down. What has No Kings done except give handies to the Democrats?

Pat Morrison

i listened to it and i liked it:)

Alex Gullen

In defense of Yugoslavia: Max Blumenthal on Michael Parenti's bravest work: "Blumenthal emphasized to posthumous attacks on what he called Parenti's most courageous work: his book, To Kill A Nation, exposing the planned breakup of Yugoslavia and NATO's subsequent war on Serbia." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq6Sud5XSfM&list=LL&index=243&t=86s How The USA Made The Srebrenica Massacre INEVITABLE | Prof. David Gibbs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwa0mzyMp9Q&list=LL&index=157&t=478s The Real Reason Yugoslavia Died | Prof. Susan L. Woodward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2hyevgXLDA Yugoslavia: The West's Playbook for Global Domination | Dr. George Szamuely: Dr. George Szamuely reveals how the West's destruction of Yugoslavia in the 1990s became the blueprint for modern interventionism. From the illegal Badinter Commission to NATO's "humanitarian" bombing, Western powers violated international law to break up a sovereign state. This wasn't about human rights—it was about eliminating Russian influence in Europe and establishing total Western dominance. The precedents set in Yugoslavia directly enabled today's conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, and beyond. Szamuely exposes the hypocrisy of the "rules-based order" and shows how arbitrary legal interpretations serve geopolitical interests, not justice. Dr. Szamueli is a Senior Fellow at the Global Policy Institute, the co-host with Peter Lavel of the podcast “The Gaggle,” and the author of the wonderful book “Bombs for Peace: NATO’s Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbhoRlR4h8o&list=LL&index=160 Yugoslav Collapse and NATO‘s Precedent for Violent Border Changes | Dr. Sandra Davidović: NATO and EU „jurists“ are trying to tell us that Kosovo is a case „sui generis“ — aka unlike any case before or after it. Well, how convenient, since it is the first case that NATO used to justify bombing foreign territory (Serbia). Today we are going to put a very close focus on Kosovo, the history of the conflict, and what it is all about. Joining me is Dr. Sandra Davidovich, a scholar of Yugoslav history and modern Kosovo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb6NeZ9T-Cc&list=LL&index=159&t=8s The Balkan Warning Europe Ignored | Prof. Višeslav Simić: Why did Yugoslavia have to die? And what exactly happened in Europe to the Slavs? Why is eastern Europe routinely left out in popular histories of the continent? Dr. Višeslav Simić is a professor from Mexico and former Yugoslav emigré. We speak about how Slavs have been erased from Western history, Yugoslavia as a test case for foreign pressure, and deep Russophobia in Europe and the US. Simić argues that media, academia, and empire use selective history, racism, and divide and conquer politics, while calling for stronger unity and better political action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYoniSW-jMI&list=LL&index=134&t=14s Prof. David Gibbs: Endless Wars Keep U.S. Hegemony Alive - From Afghanistan to Ukraine: Dr. David Gibbs is Professor of History at the University of Arizona and one of the leading scholars of U.S. foreign policy, international relations, and political economy. His research focuses on topics ranging from the Balkan conflicts to Afghanistan, NATO expansion, and the broader evolution of American foreign policy. Prof. Gibbs is the author of many influential books, including Revolt of the Rich: How the Politics of the 1970s Widened America's Class Divide and First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VSN3709z7Y&list=LL&index=114 Inside Serbia's Arkan's Tigers Mafia: The War Criminal Gangsters: They are war heroes in their own country. War criminals to the rest of the world. The men who joined up to defend the Serb nation and fought proudly in the notorious paramilitary group, Arkan’s Tigers, never accepted they did anything wrong. What become of these men? Many went on to join the Serbian mafia, trafficking drugs, women and arms into Europe. In the years of sanctions after the war, the mafia offered a way of avoiding economic disaster. Other Tiger members were recruited into the state security force, where one went on to assassinate Serbian Prime Minister, Zoran Dindic. And others remained at home, reminiscing of past glories and preparing for the next time they need to defend their motherland... We gained exclusive access to one of the most controversial militia in modern European history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1GWQiIIItU&list=LL&index=170&t=148s Sarajevo Safari (Documentary, 2022) - 1080p [with Subtitles in several Languages]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2vARBP4X-4 ‘They Had Sick Minds’: A Human Safari in Sarajevo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdBbOPj3OHM The bombings of Tivat: Porto Montenegro in Tivat occupies the former "Arsenal" military site, a premier Yugoslav Navy base established in 1889. Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, the closure of military shipyards, and Montenegro’s 2006 independence, the base was transformed into a luxury superyacht marina, bridging the region's turbulent Balkan history with modern NATO integration. (Parallels Sazan Island development in Albania by Nathanial Rothschild, Jared/Ivanka Kushner) Around 27 years ago, during Spring 1999, the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia began. At the time Montenegro was still part of the same state, although its government was already distancing itself politically from Belgrade. Because Yugoslav military units were stationed on its territory, several locations along the coast became targets. In Tivat the objective was the naval base inside the former Arsenal shipyard, one of the main repair and logistics centers of the Yugoslav Navy in the Adriatic. During late March and April the strikes hit docks, maintenance halls, storage depots and technical infrastructure in order to disable naval operations in the Bay of Kotor. The surrounding town was not the intended target, but the explosions were heard across Seljanovo, Kalimanj and the waterfront. After the war the military withdrew and the base was abandoned. A few years later redevelopment began. The restricted zone opened for the first time in its history and gradually transformed into Porto Montenegro. The naval pier became a marina, service roads became a promenade and former workshops were converted into homes, shops and cafés. Even the maritime museum now occupies a repaired military building. . The site 'was bought' in October 2006 for €3.26 million and co-funded by a private consortium of international investors led by Canadian billionaire Peter Munk alongside high-profile backers including Lord Jacob Rothschild and his son Nathaniel Rothschild, Bernard Arnault, and others. The primary NATO-associated base built immediately after the 1999 Kosovo conflict (the final major phase of the Yugoslav Wars) is Camp Bondsteel, established in June 1999 near Ferizaj in southeastern Kosovo. It serves as the main operating hub for U.S. and NATO KFOR forces in the region. Key Facts About Camp Bondsteel Date built: June 1999 (following the end of the 78-day NATO air campaign). Size: Covers roughly 955 to 1,000 acres of land. Capacity: Designed to house up to 7,000 personnel. Significance: It is the largest foreign military base built by the U.S. and NATO partners in Southeast Europe since the Vietnam War. Purpose: Acts as the headquarters for KFOR Regional Command-East to maintain a secure environment and freedom of movement. The Trepca mining complex: How Kosovo’s spoils were distributed: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/06/trep-j28.html

safetyconesavior

Crazy how busy Bora Mema is with all this plus Seeking Derangements and Interior motives

Sam

Was wondering if this was an unstated goal of Bevins by having her on, but I don’t think he sees it.

Mark Ambrose

Chapo giveth (Queeber and the Gris/Players Club) and Chapo taketh away (this Occupy Wall Street ass)

Gonçalo

A list of achievements brought about by the evil communist regime of Enver Hoxha: • In the 1940’s illiteracy possibly went up to as high as 80% of the population. Illiteracy was eradicated by the socialist government when Albania reached the 80’s. • Prior to the People’s Republic of Albania, something like 90% of women could neither read nor write. The socialist government introduced free, compulsory, and equal schooling for boys AND girls. • Albania had a virtually nonexistent rail network before Hoxha. The socialist government built up the rail network to the point that urban and industrial centres were connected and the population used Albanian trains to travel around the country. Today, passenger rail is once again nonexistent whilst the rails themselves are in worse condition as they languish under a failed privatization scheme from 2005. • Albania’s Party of Labour made a concerted effort to create an actual domestic industrial capacity. With capitalist restoration came the rapid de-industrialization of Albania as countless factories suddenly went bankrupt, social and political institutions collapsed, unemployment soared, etc… • Albanian society had long suffered from divisive factors chiefly, clan loyalties, regionalism, and the presence of four distinct religious groups. The socialist government quelled regionalism, fought against clan loyalties which harmed the nation, and it did not tolerate open sectarianism in society. Now maybe it’s not very “pluralist” but the attempt to render all of the above into some dark and backwards time in Albanian history is ahistorical and only serves to fuel anti-communist nonsense.

Jay Wright 669

This woman was very annoying to listen to

Sean

Lecturing someone who is on the ground in Albania trying to organize a Left party on how they should act and think about their own country's history and politics is truly insane. The egos in this comment section are wild.

Arjun Nair

She dropped some really funny lines “thank you for showing us our land is valuable” “it’s a small country, you know who all the criminals are”

Sean

Comparing one-day (honestly, like 2-hour) Lib demonstrations in the richest and most powerful country in the world to sustained protests in fucking Albania is some real smooth-brained stuff. Congrats.

Jay Wright 669

She clearly had no idea what podcast she was going on. AOC would’ve been a better fit tbh. Was Felix silently protesting her appearance?

Damen Irving

I listen to the like 8 hour rod super cut bc he’s such a beautiful mind

Kinetics Video

Whatever your take on Hoxha or how you'd like Albanians to remember him it's deeply frustrating to hear someone reciting the Obama Hope and Change mantras in 2026 like we haven't had a almost 2 decades of track record for how that goes.

Damen Irving

I’m glad the comparison wasn’t lost that “we have to sell you losers out to real estate developers and big companies bc they have money and you don’t” has basically been the message local and regional—and shit, national—politicians have been sending to so many poor or just not-sufficiently-rich American communities for decades and decades as the, to use an annoying lefty term, the imperial core continues to colonize itself.

Cardboard

Serious question: Capital is very mobile but states are fixed and cannot move. States needs investment in order to fund services, how does a government, small or big, attract investment without totally selling out?

The Pissler

I obviously can’t be certain, but I don’t think that’s the point she was making, rather that communism/socialism is perceived very negatively by people above a certain age and that it still shaped how Albanian politics works. That’s obviously something that needs to be addressed and worked around if they’re going to achieve socialism in Albania. Also, let’s be so real, if SO many of the people who lived through Albanian communism hate it that much, maybe there are some pretty important critiques we need to make and things we need to learn about how to improve and not repeat those mistakes, even if it’s just a matter of messaging and/countering western propaganda

Patrick Carroll

“Socialism ruined Albania and also everything got worse when it ended and all the Albanians either had to flee or become criminals” Yeah that sounds about WHITE

Wrought

Hoxha took a semi feudal backwater and turned it into a modern state with electricity, mass literacy, and women's suffrage. When polled in 2016, 42% of people said his impact was positive, 55% in the southern regions, and thats after decades of liberal propaganda. You're just a liberal.

Ronan Hart

Chapo you need to invite Liam (@LegoRacers2) and Jackson (@gracecthdralpark) to talk about their great America A/America B piece on the substack New Moral World. It’d be fun!

Patrick Carroll

It’s not a revenge tour. The Chinese let puyi out of prison after about 20 years. Every other collaborator around the world was just quickly executed. Even in the wonderful Nordic countries. Quisling was dealt with through revenge. But you have an understanding that communist governments are evil and violent so you use a totally ahistorical “they loved revenge too much” line to square the circle and prove that communist governments were bad.

Patrick Carroll

Those bunkers are now houses because communist infrastructure is built to last 💪

Patrick Carroll

I’m sure the Albanian mobsters that run the country are quaking in their boots at the prospect of a social democratic Albania joining the squeaky clean EU

Patrick Carroll

If you seriously think the mafia government of Albania is backing down you are lost

Patrick Carroll

Lmao “in fucking Albania” Brother where do you think Albania is?

Patrick Carroll

The issue is that if they organized and made demands of the ruling class they would be an evil communist regime doing a dictatorship

Patrick Carroll

A hero is not a dictator. Stop making concessions to European liberals. They will never make one in return.

Patrick Carroll

And bunkers so good that people have turned them into homes 70 years later. I wish I could go work somewhere building bunkers

Patrick Carroll

It’s almost as crazy as lecturing Zionists when you’ve never even been to Israel!

Sean

It's actually nothing like that lmao.

DL

Do you really not recognize there was a massive cult of personality around Hoxha? Do you believe every, or even most, decision was representative of the Albanian population? Hoxha being a war hero doesn’t change the fact that his regime absolutely was paranoid as hell and took it out on people who just wanted to live. That doesn’t reduce the good that was done by his government

Patrick Carroll

It’s not? But it’s people telling others what their country is like! How can I bring myself to denounce Israeli liberals when I’m not allowed to denounce Albanian liberals because I’m not on the ground in Albania? I’m not on the ground in Israel either!! I guess there really is a double standard for Israel 🤔

Doug Cartel

Can't tell if this is a bit or not

Andrew Davis

The Albanians, along with the Americans, make up 15% of the world's GDP.

Wrought

She says openly that she thinks that the socialist republic was a repressive dictatorship and will just goes with it. Is that what the show is about now?

Christopher Price

cool, nice bumper sticker. how are you going to make that work? how are you going to make that work in a country where "dictatorship of the proletariat" was code for dictatorship of the party?

ayden

tough ass listen team, 6/10

Christopher Price

it's almost as if the party structure functioned as a crony network and when the structure of the regime collapsed only the cronyism remained, cf. the Yeltsin family in Russia.

Patrick Carroll

Lmao you think all the gangsters were in the communist party before the Soviet Union fell??? The cluelessness it takes to believe that while those guys are covered in tattoos detailing which Soviet prisons they were in is truly stunning. Do you just not know anything about these transitions?

Christopher Price

every episode there's some rando who loses their absolute shit over a throwaway comment even though they don't actually sub to the pod. very weird!

Patrick Carroll

Your disagreements with him are very changeable. Now he’s just paranoid? Quite a step down from evil dictator

Patrick Carroll

You could also consider studying what actually happened instead of saying “if someone says Albanians didn’t like it then it must be bad”

Patrick Carroll

These fellas are prison abolitionists unlike the crypto fash chapos!!! “Although Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia had groups of criminals and bandits for a long time, during the disorder of the Russian Revolution of 1917, armed gangs proliferated until they became a very significant factor that controlled society. The criminal culture with its own slang, culture and laws became known as vorovskoy mir (воровской мир, 'thieves' world'). As the police and court system were re-established in the Soviet Union shortly after the 1917 revolution, the NKVD secret police nearly exterminated the criminal underworld completely. Under Stalin, the forced labor camps overflowed with political prisoners and criminals, and a new organized group of top criminals arose, the vory v zakone, or "thieves in law."[1] The "thieves in law" formed as a society for ruling the criminal underworld within the prison camps, "who govern the dark gaps in Soviet life beyond the reach of the KGB."[1] They adopted a system of collective responsibility, and swore to a code of "complete submission to the laws of criminal life, including obligations to support the criminal ideal, and rejection of labor and political activities."[3] For example, while incarcerated, a Vor must refuse all work, and is not allowed to assist the warden/correction officers in any way. The thieves' code states: "Your own prison you shall not make." If an inmate walks past a guard, and the guard asks him to ring the dinner bell, the convict must refuse or he will be judged by his fellow inmates and found guilty of assisting his jailers. The Vory organized their own courts and held trials governed by the code of 'thieves' honor and tradition'.[1] Acceptance into the group is often marked by specific tattoos, allowing all members of the criminal world to instantly recognize a "thief in law". Most prison inmates are tattooed (by other inmates) to indicate their rank within the criminal world, noteworthy criminal accomplishments and places of former incarceration.”

mersham has some bad news

people like will probably hated clinton for bombing Serbia… another foreign war entanglement… meanwhile

DL

You didn’t even address anything I said lmfao. My thoughts about Hoxha are ultimately the same as my thoughts on Stalin, they had legitimate counterrevolutionary targets sometimes but their paranoia led to massively overbroad application of these policies towards people who were in fact friends of the revolution.

etienne

yeah I knew that when she didn't say Stalin was the greatest guy in the history of earth sperglords would lose their shit in the comment section

Patrick Carroll

Wait was Stalin Albanian?? This changes everything

etienne

damn im sorry that an environmentalist activist from Albania who have been running a protest movement for half a year can't just learn Standard Twitter Shitpost English for you

Patrick Carroll

Thank god someone is finally willing to denounce Stalin 👏👏👏

Ali Rayray

History rhymes the world is gonna go through its social democratic moment

Eamon Short

I made the mistake of making the Albanian Flag hand sign when I saw this, and my Serb neighbour shot me, which was bad. But his Bosnian neighbour shot him, which was good. But his Croat neighbour shot him, which was bad. Then the gun shots woke up his Montenegrin neighbour, which was VERY bad.

Christopher Price

a lot of western liberals and hoi4 enthusiasts just see the red flag, think red flag good and don't go deeper than that, and have zero analysis for why socialist governments collapsed. for one thing nations that remained within the Warsaw pact had a very contentious relationship with the USSR, because every attempt to reorganize their system was greeted with tanks. the USSR was free to enact thaws and perestroikas and move away from stalinist principles but good luck trying that in Poland or czechoslovakia. second, the parties often devolved into patronage networks, and had little to do with ideology. and you can see in the small national parties of the 1980s that the deputies would become leaders of far right parties of the 1990s, and the worst of these former loyal party servants would become the biggest crooks during privatization, which, surprisingly, does not endear the citizens to the old order. third, the massive pushes for modernization and industrialization came at a cost, partly social but mostly environmental. as people become more environmentally aware they also want systems that treat these concerns seriously. fourth, the obsession over reformism is anti Marxist and anti communist. this is dialectical materialism, which means continual ideological evolution as we adapt to changes in our material conditions. young hoi4 enthusiasts and the old apparatchiks both wish history stopped somewhere around the death of Stalin. someone can be a hero in 1950 but a villain in 1990 because they failed to meet the changing world. communism, especially in old Communist countries, is not a switch that can be turned on and off.

Christopher Price

Stalin was an idiot and a paranoiac who planted the seeds of the ussr's destruction

Jeffrey power

Brace needs to usurp the King of the Renaissance Faire

Patrick Carroll

Wow really? I didn’t know that. You’re telling me this for the first time.

Christopher Price

yeah? at least I'm not dumb enough to confuse the oligarchs with common street thugs.

Christopher Price

that's a lot of words to totally misunderstand and misconstrue my point.

Patrick Carroll

Those “common street thugs” were the leaders of organized crime when they were in prison and became the leaders of the Russian mafia when the Soviet Union fell and they all got let out of prison. Here is the next two paragraphs of the article: “After the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the vory assumed a leading role within the Russian criminal hierarchy (see Russian mafia). The group was able to "infiltrate the top political and economic strata while taking command of the burgeoning crime network that spread murderously through the post-Soviet countries."[1] Thieves In Law are given the title by other vory and in order to be accepted they must demonstrate considerable leadership skills, personal ability, intellect, charisma, along with a well-documented criminal record.[1] Once accepted they must live according to the thieves' code. The penalty for violation of this code is often mutilation or death. Reportedly, "today the Vory have spread around the world, to Madrid, Berlin, and New York" and are "involved in everything from petty theft to billion-dollar money-laundering while also acting as arbiters among conflicting Russian criminal factions."[1]”

etienne

someone protesting against Jared Kushner: it's hard to sell people on socialism because they remember the late dictatorship period which was tough for a lot of people online edgelors: UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ACTUALLY

Patrick Carroll

Lmao I’m an edge lord? The thing 40 something liberals call people? And before we were talking about Stalin. Are we talking about hoxha now? Do you even know who that is?

etienne

that's a great bait the difference is that I haven't had a constant stream of verifiable and documented war crimes and atrocities against humanity committed by either faction in Albania

etienne

the guest specifically explained why it's difficult to sell socialism to the average voter in Albania and your reaction is to explain to no one in particular how good Hoxha was, which really displays such a fine grasp of the facts on the ground you have! congratulations!

Agent Grange

Postponing listening to this until my Players Club listening assignment is complete sorry.

Patrick Carroll

“In 2016, the results of a survey which was conducted by the Institute for Development Research and Alternatives (IDRA) showed that 45% of Albanians believed that Hoxha had a positive impact on the history of Albania, whereas 42% of Albanians believed that he had a negative impact on the history of Albania.[151] Younger generations (16–35 years old; born after 1981) tend to have a more negative view of Hoxha's contributions, while older generations (over 35 years old; born before 1981) tend to have a more positive view.[151] Citizens in the regions of southeastern and southwestern Albania who were interviewed had the most positive view of Hoxha, respectively, they comprised 50% and 55% of the entire population.[151][152] Others have viewed him as a dictator.[153]”

JDF

Guest throwing some shade at the Greeks (phenomenal guest)

Brodi Craddock

Great to see Scumbag Vinnie back for a redemption episode

Alex R

come on, that’s such a straw man. we criticize israelis because 1) we can all see the war crimes and genocide they’re doing, notably a thing not happening in albania, and 2) many of this show’s listeners are from the US and the US is abetting the genocide and war crimes, so we literally have a say. you just want to tell a leftist how to organize in their country and are mad they’re not sticking directly to leninist principles.

Derek W

With the tiniest penis

mariol struga

i dont understand this obsession with call hoxha a dictatorship and associating socialism as bad. when the 97 crisis literally left albania broke after a pyramid scheme, and the massive violence that abrupt in the streets? albania hasn’t recovered from that, massive theft of capital. plus private property law are so wonky… people stealing land and all kinds petty property disputes that will go unsettled because there was never an actual process that went from whatever the socialist regime was property to whatever the global market standard is. typically ever anti communist albanian back home was a catholic who’s family collaborated with italy lmao and they still lived good lives during hoxha. most of them were dry snitching to the secret police and accusing people of being anti revolutionary

Derek W

This was wack tbh

nick

@ pissler You are correct. Is crazy how so many listeners just don’t compute what is being said.

nick

The airwaves aren’t ready for an Albanian Jacques

August West

I think he sees it. I think he also doesn’t want to go up to any activist he meets shouting “READ MY BOOK.” I think what some people missed about this interview was it wasn’t necessarily an endorsement of Bora’s strategies or views so much as an on the ground account of what’s happening from somebody who’s involved.

Sam

For sure. And to be clear, I don’t think it would have been appropriate for her to have been openly challenged on anything during the interview. I just find Bevins’ decision to highlight this interesting.

Vincent Steger

Will is the king of leading questions

Behold 666

Massive public protests. No leaders. Vincent quietly screaming.

Studio Novaya by Fredrick Edward

Thank you for interviewing primary sources. This is why I pay for the pod as fun as the slop is; the actual journalism is appreciated 👍

Wrought

Did you listen to a different episode or something? She says in the episode the demonstrations are unorganized and not led by leftists, both of which she thinks are good things because socialism is evil and repressive. A real stinker of a guest

EnKaff

Is this a bit?

Wrought

Did you listen to the ep? She repeatedly denounces socialism and calls the socialist government an evil repressive dictatorship and they just run with it. It's fucking foul.

askdmskl klsfnksnd

I wasn’t able to listen to the entire interview with Mema. I’m Brazilian, and it brought me back to my graduation, where I met a a young woman on a research group on critical legal theory that I was a member of during Law school. She was brilliant; during that time, I watched her earn her master’s degree and then her doctorate. However, amid all those studies, I saw reflected the history of the modern Brazilian left: an aversion to any kind of organization, the fear of stepping on others’ toes, and the idea that any form of government that isn’t perfectly structured would amount to a dictatorship (as I heard her say many times when referring to Cuba) just as the activist refers to her country’s history. It seems we now have criticized our way into inaction. Brazil also went through what is happening in Albania, many, many times, with everyone out on the streets, but in the end, the left is still weak, always winning by a hair (when it wins), and even though Lula’s third administration was, for all intents and purposes, a success, our upcoming elections are far from decided. The country is overrun by a radical, activist right wing and a center-right that would love nothing more than to cut down every tree, sell off every mineral, and use up all our the water, of even better, offer it all to the States and let them do the job. I know that the elections taking place at the end of the year will, once again, be a nightmare. No matter how many times people take to the streets, as long as there isn’t an organized, centralized movement prepared to rise above individual subjectivity in order to guarantee the protection and emancipation of the Brazilian people, nothing will ever chance. As she said, we also had our “democracy party”. The saying (in Portuguese, ‘Festa da democracia’) ended up serving as an apt description of the latest years for the left, which in the end, is stuck in an endless party, chaotic, noisy, and scattered and nowhere near safe from American intervention, which inches closer every day since Trump took office.

Antichris

Ain't no left without a fractured and divided left YES BABAYYYY LETS FUCKING LOOOOSE

Mitch

Sailing with Von Goll in the Mediterranean

Patrick Carroll

Don’t blame me just because you don’t follow what is going on in Albania 🤷‍♂️

Jacob Calcutt

Just treat this as a Tom Myers (comedian) style ep and have some fun with it

Antoine Desgagnés

1:02:03 About Bolsonaro being the most MAGA connected foreign leader, I'm pretty sure this is because a Trumpish figure needs a presidential regime to be able to reach power and wouldn't be unable to become Prime Minister in a parlimentary regime like here in Canada and obviously the UK and many other Commonwealth countries. It doesn't mean this system prevents us from crooked, authoritarian or inept Prime Ministers, Ministers, leaders of the Official Opposition, etc. Ironically, a Prime Minister has often way more power than a US president, but that same Prime Minister has also to sit their ass with their follow MPs in the legistlative assembly and stands up to talk when it's their turn, and being scolded by the Speaker, most of the time from their own party, if they're too disrepectful toward a MP from the opposition, etc. In other words, it requires to play a game Trump would be unable to.

Ana

she didn’t have the deep knowledge about her country we’d expect from a guest like that and seems very naive about the movement she was talking about but at least she was also terrible interviewee who didn’t really answer any questions. Good luck to Albania.

Ana

“tell us about the political goals” “The vibes are good the vibes cured my depression”

JD Nonce

This episode was great it really illuminated me on something I didn’t know about. Thank you, Mr Chapo

ChigBungus

[walking through pristine undeveloped woodland] “Wow this would be beautiful if it was all destroyed and replaced with fuck ugly villas.”

Nicholas

Love hearing anticommunist rhetoric from some rando Occupy-ass reactionary with no solutions

Woke Batou

Epic Felix humiliation story this ep

Neuradink

This would all make sense if neo liberalism hadn’t literally rotted out every single institution of the state

Jay Wright 669

Why socialist governments collapsed, an essay: USA

JDF

🗣️ OMAR COMIN!

J. A.

I dunno but I have my finest Guatemalans on it so maybe four or five days sir

Robert Love

Bora wasn't great was she?

Ocko

When he asked her "what does victory look like to you?" I was wincing. Literally what If We Burn was about.

Arthur G. Pym

Stalin lead an earnest attempt at creating real socialism and he saved the world from Fascism.

Matthew Dunn

I think a better commenter on the history of Albania would be Lea Ypi who grew up in Communist Albania and its transition to capitalism. Her book “Free” was really interesting personal memoir.

DL

I agree. I don’t think he was evil by any means. But the fact his paranoia could have such impact on official policy is a major lesson learned from that era of Soviet history about spreading power among figureheads

Return of The Mac 2nite

The anticommunism on this pod is palpable as of late. Perhaps there really is no left wing in the imperial core and we are all Adolf Treatler.

G

Just south of Qatar

pfinzent

Great guest, embarrassing comment section, as usual

Return of The Mac 2nite

>Accusing Stalin of being paranoid in a time when we know the US attempted to assassinate Castro 600+ times Stalin himself might have ended up assassinated, according to Molotov’s suspicions.

etienne

based on the collapse of the Canada trade talks it's only a matter of time til random ore freighters on Lake Erie are hit with Tomahawk missiles right?

fisher ilijasic

i thought Bora was great. feel like this comments section is never pleased

Nathaniel Weiner

Insane to me how ppl will pick apart the politics of people who spent three months protesting in the heat under the eyes of Taken villains who will shoot you for cash

K H

Hard not to get the strong impression that accelerationism is the only path forward. Obviously if you mess up the QuickTime event to escape it's annihilation, but nothing else seems to work OTHER THAN these ostentatious displays of how utterly subservient the public is to a fraction of wealthy pedophile vampires. People are just too stupid for anything else. Not enough bad is happening to enough people fast enough to get them to pay attention or empathize with other people. People need their kids to abandon them, they need to lose limbs, they need to be the victim of rapists(look at the Tate heads), they need to suffer all the problems to understand they are worth thinking about. Then the people that are thinking about it need to be shown how badly their trepidation is failing to protect anything. The world would have fallen further into this if Kamala won, because it would be impossible to convince people it was too UNSAFE to keep doing things the same. Just for electoralism, not even the other more effective methods you need; 1) to convince people their current course of action is not the safest. 2) convince them a better course of action is viable. 3) convince people a better life is even possible. 4) convince them it's worth caring and doing something about. 5) convince them to actually act in accordance with those first 4 things as opposed to what fear tells them to do to be comfortable. It's too many mental barriers for most people. Breaking through all that for most people requires a violent epiphany. Then a small fraction of people don't have an epiphany, their idiot minds crack under the strain of confronting the contradictions and they just get a psychotic break, become a nazi and do a spree shooting. The only hope for incrementalism is quite literally holding out long enough for China to take control of Europe and hope to Confucious they dismantle the global bank cartels and multinational monopolies. Otherwise we are going to be killed. There will be a nuclear war because these guys are dumb enough to think they can both win and profit. I was making fun of chuds for doing Warhammer 40k, but these dudes are going to try and run Fallout.

Return of The Mac 2nite

“Talk to anyone who lived there.” Yeah sentimentality/anecdotes being the arbiters of truth in the westoid brain is why there’s no socialism in Europe anymore.

Patrick Carroll

I could make the same argument to try to get you to support the no kings protestors near my house who have been on the same corner every day at 5 pm for a year and a half now

Agent Grange

It makes me wince hearing her say "we love America and we want to be more democratic!" but then when she describes what she wants Albanian democracy to look like she describes everything anathema to America that they have actively worked to undermine.

Zach

Felix, sie sind ‚Wunderwaffen‘…bitte…

DJetson

It’s really impressive work done by the west to teach their masses to equate communism with despotic dictatorship whole cloth.

Alex Korman

More like Tinker Tailor Soldier Goy

Jonathan Nathan

I don’t think you’ve quite understood what she’s saying if you think she doesn’t know that.

Jonathan Nathan

This comments section is what Hasan Piker thinks his chat is

Jonathan Nathan

Man if this was anticommunist to you, I’m not sure why you were ever listening to Chapo

Jonathan Nathan

Bora wasn’t on to talk about history, but rad that you read a book, man

Jonathan Nathan

God forbid a radical experience joy after decades of bleakness and defeat

Jonathan Nathan

Did any of you listen past the moment when she mentioned Hoxha? You can’t possibly have done, based on what you’re saying. Multiple things can be true.

Jonathan Nathan

But Montenegrins are the cool guys who hate working

Jonathan Nathan

You ever been to Belgrade? I was there about five years after the bombing. There were still neighborhoods that were nothing but rubble. Still civilian infrastructure that hadn’t been rebuilt. When Israel bombs a bunch of journalists we call it a war crime because it is. When the US bombed Radio Television Serbia, that was what? A legitimate military target?

Jonathan Nathan

She didn’t say socialism ruined Albania.

Jonathan Nathan

She thinks it’s a good thing for the same reason Hasan Piker thinks it’s a good idea to reach out to people who aren’t already socialists. But you probably hate him too.

Jonathan Nathan

Man, I wonder if Albania was actually a separate state from Yugoslavia. I hope not. That would be embarrassing as fuck for you

Jonathan Nathan

Do none of you understand the difference between a person speaking for herself and a person describing common viewpoints? If I say that Americans, as a people, love the cops, I’m not saying that I love the cops.

Jonathan Nathan

She said they don’t have a far right, which in Europe usually refers to outright Nazis. And she’s correct. There is no AfD-style party in Albania.

Jonathan Nathan

You can’t really think she’s as dumb as that. She described her ideal Albania as a communist Albania without using the word communist because the word has too much baggage at the present moment. That is the correct thing to do.

Patrick Carroll

Brother the quoted section is not a word for word quote. I was mocking hers and your historical incoherence. Plus Albanians aren’t even white. They’re Turkish just like everyone else in the Mediterranean

Patrick Carroll

Yes lying and deceiving people is definitely the way to change people’s mind about communism. Also she didn’t describe what she wants Albania to be. Why would anyone assume she is a secret communist when all evidence points to her opposition to socialism and communism

Patrick Carroll

How did you come to find out what she thinks? Do you know her personally?

Patrick Carroll

Lol do you live in Europe? Also the afd is a pro russia party. Heimat is the Neo Nazi party.

Eamon Short

Yes. The joke was not that they are violent, but are just always sleeping, as is the sterotype for the only chill people in the Balkans, and it was mean to wake them up with gunshots during their 2pm nap

mariol struga

what exactly did i say to make you believe that? im saying that the 90s were way more violent and more present in the life of people that are alive today and protesting then the 80s and 70s. hence why they ask her about the role of foreign developers and foreign capital…

Charlie Gonyea

I wish I was Felix’s Natalie Harp 😞

Alex Gullen

Did you miss the reason for this parallel being raised? Porto Montenegro versus the Sazan Island Resort and the common denominator behind both…

Andrew S

It sounds to me like Albanians are trying to figure things out, and they're a decade or so behind. It sounded like Will and Vincent were doing their best to hold back, but everyone (except for Bora and the other "flamingos" apparently) knows that these protests will end in a mess. It looks like Albanians must pass through a similar veil that much of the rest of the world already passed through. Only then will they understand the true scope and intensity of neoliberal despair. And I'm glad our Albanian friends are joining us in our misery.

NitroDickclapp III

That's exactly what I got Pissler. I think a lot of ppl think that socialism / communism = universally good, or just better, and it doesn't. Organised socialism can mean a lot of different things and not all them necessarily good. You also have dictatorships and corrupt govts working under the banner of socialism when they are not remotely socialist. People experience this as socialism, it's not but that's what they experience. And you have red-baiting poison constantly coming from capital, it makes things more complicated than they first appear. For example I'm in a socialist feminist org in my country and we often work within a united front with other orgs, ranging from socialist skinheads to like fairly socially conservative communist orgs. There are some socialist/commie orgs that we won't touch bcos they're a bunch of fcking psychos, totally undemocratic, backwards and bureaucratic and sexist as fck, run top down by some unpleasant ppl who treat it like a game. My party split from another party in the 60s in part bcos the previous leader was an abusive alcohol who beat his wife and dragged her through court for years. He had a faction within that org that was extremely destructive and made socialism look pretty fcking bad.

NitroDickclapp III

I don't think what's she was saying dude. It's easy for ppl in capitalist countries to misunderstand this, like not all socialism/communism is good. Some is super corrupt, some is extremely socially conservative, it has flaws like anything else. I'm in a socialist feminist org and we won't have anything to do with a couple of the commie orgs around us bcos they're psychos. Undemocratic, led from the top down, very sexist and abusive, they're a bunch of cunts honestly. We need to understand our own flaws if we want to succeed, and we need to listen to ppl who come from ex Soviet states, bcos they have valuable experience we might learn from. Socialism doesn't equal utopia, it's work and it's messy but it's also awesome as fuck when done right.

Return of The Mac 2nite

JN: Denouncing Hoxha is an anticommunist sentiment full stop. The worst a (non Yugoslav/Greek) communist can say about him is that he was deaf to the interests of the masses in Albania.

J P 3

The problem with the Cold War narratives isn't just that they exist, but that they have some truth to them (e.g. political repression was real, not a myth; restrictions on freedom of movement were real as well). There is also the reality that the old Communist states lost, and discredited themselves. Politically connected insiders cashed-in under a new capitalist regime, and in some cases they actively pushed for the transition, because they saw more rewards under capitalism. The transitional period was also a catastrophe for a lot of people, and I doubt anyone is nostalgic for a return to the late 80s/early 90s. However, it is interesting and not entirely surprising to see some reassessments of the Communist-era. People don't want to reanimate a dead corpse, but many aren't satisfied with what has followed and they are trying to figure out what to do next. I don't think there is an easy, one-sized fits all answer. Even political solutions that work for a time, eventually don't.

Yiannis Kouros

Eastern Europeans have been completely buck broken to associate the economic free-fall of the post-Soviet era with socialism itself. Like suddenly, for no reason at all, they all lost their jobs and were being shook down by mobsters during the early 90's, because communism??

AKorgar

I haven't seen any jokes about bunkers in the comments yet, the old left is truly lost

Kinetics Video

Yes, listen to the people from ex Soviet states. Who have done nothing but collect checks from NGOs and be progressively captured by Nazis and zionists.

T33ny

When she said "i want democracy in the economy" i knew the jig was up

T33ny

Sean, i dont need to be someone to tell them whats best for them, let alone see the ideology of a horizontal movement with no political goals or working class movement. Take your standpoint epistemology, which is literally Straussian, and go hang out at an afrocentric book store

T33ny

You know these soc dems and anti communists have never read Jane McAlevey. We really lost a true soldier with her

T33ny

26:51 "this is a protest with no organizers". Ahhh yes, because actually organizing via a deep well of cadres would be 'anti grassroots' as it's not spontaneous combustion that propelled the masses into the streets with a unified goal. Soc dems really are a cargo cult

T33ny

Its amazing right? These goofs dont want to organize before they mobilize but simultaneously want to have the most perfect govt. Gee, its almost like if we organized cadres paintstakingly slow in our local municipalities or unions before going city wide, state wide, national, what have you, then a stronger sense of a unifying theory would come together and there wouldnt be or there would be less of chance of a so called 'dictatorship'. These people and neolibs will get us killed once the fascist international gets fully organized, god help us

T33ny

Ty

T33ny

Ah, radicalism is when you regulate capitalism, dont organize before mobilizing, and have no working class backing a unified political goal? But thanks for parroting what the local neolib identarians say, "joy is resistance"

T33ny

Man, i wonder why you announced that you cant read. That would be embarassing

T33ny

Western liberals are anti communist. You were wrong in your very first sentence

T33ny

LMAO NATO HELPED US STOP A GENOCIDE 44:00 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

People's Housing Project

Both the Pissler and NitroDickclapp the 3rd make well reasoned and valid points