Why PSL’s Brian Becker is wrong to oppose multipolarity: it’s an essential step in ending the USA’s global reign of terror

For anyone whose really interested in what Becker said, go to the 1 hour and 24 minute mark and watch the whole section. Becker never says that he's opposed to multipolarity, but that multipolarity as an end all be all is not what socialists should strive for. He asks the question "How can we make radical change in America by saying 'Vladimir Putin is our leader?', which is a very salient point. He goes on to say that we should strive for socialist leadership in all of our countries. What is so off about that? Seriously?

The point about the WW1 and multipolarity is making the point that multipolarity alone doesn't end war. Multipolarity between capitalist powers is still destructive.

Rainer Shead is really good at finding convenient quotes from revolutionaries and diluting it to hell and back. He cites Kim il Sung saying “The differences of state socio-political systems, political views or religious beliefs can by no means be an obstacle in the way of joint struggle against U.S. imperialism”, but just thinking about it for like 20 seconds, this obviously wouldn't mean supporting reactionary states against the US for the pure sake of it. Would Kim il Sung have supported Hitler? Obviously not.

This dude misses so often.

Rainer is a shill. Anyone who's been listening to the PSL and to Becker's analyses knows that Becker is not against multipolarity. Becker's position is summed it quite well in the quotations Rainer pulls out of context - multipolarity is not a solution, only socialism is a solution.

The interpretation Rainer applies to the words of Becker are bald-faced bad faith interpretation. Becker is being quoted literally as saying that China and Russia are not looking to replace the US as the new global hegemon. Becker doesn't disavow multipolarity, nor does he state it should be resisted. Martin's quotation, which echoes Becker's analyses from other contexts, is that Russia isn't communist and in fact may even be anti-communist, and there are other countries in BRICS that are also anti-communist domestically. We must be vigilant there. Becker's position on Russia is measured - the US is at fault and also war is hell. We don't need to revel in bloodshed to have a multipolar analysis, nor do we need to defend Russia as a pure beacon of hope in order to understand the historical context that led to the now-escalating conflict nor to understand a Russian victory as the only outcome that will support socialism, a position that Becker has reiterated for years.

Rainer selects quottations from Becker and Becker's work that demonstrate Becker's position and instead of using them to establish a consistent reading of the PSL's position uses them to make a contradiction where none exists. First, Rainer assumes that the measured and nuanced position on Russia means Becker/PSL is anti-multipolarity, believes Russia and China are imperialist, and that the PSL is PatSoc. Then, Rainer selects quotations from the PSL and from Becker that disprove his own assumptions, but he frames that as "see how inconsistent these people are, they are disproving their own thesis".

I don't know what game Rainer is playing and who's paying him, but he's completely lost my trust in every single substack article I've ever read from him. He completely misrepresents the PSL and Becker and uses modern "journalistic" techniques like a strong propagandist does. Reports some facts, misinterprets those facts but frames the interpretation as fact not opinion, then reasons from there to a conclusion that is completely and obviously untenable, with the only goal of leaving the reader with an impression about the ideology of a third party.

If you read this particular piece, the only logical conclusion from the perspective of the author is that 100% of what has been said by the Russian government must be taken as pure unadulterated fact and that any attempt at interpreting the situation beyond that is equivalent to opposition of Russia. Every single serious communist treats the words of any government as propaganda, and as such, always takes a nuanced approach to interpretation. Rainer does not seem to even acknowledge this as a possibility, yet clearly demonstrates the capability by applying a nuanced interpretation of Becker and the PSL.

AFAIK, Rainer is a wrecker and a spoiler. He may be an op. He may just be a PatSoc looking to undermine the PSL so that something more vile can fill the void. My money is on him being an op.

I highly recommend you all listen to Becker's podcast (The Socialist Program) and listen specifically to the episodes on Ukraine and on Multipolarity and come to your own conclusions. And if you find that my assessment of Becker is a reasonable one, I would highly recommend putting up shields whenever Rainer's work comes through. From my perspective it's getting bad enough that I think we need to really consider as a community where we are going to limit how Rainer's work comes through here. I fear that amplifying and propagating his work is dangerously anti-communist.

Rainer Shea is a patriotic socialist who made a hard turn to condemning the PSL at every opportunity after they failed to support his "anti-war" rally with Tulsi Gabbard, Jackson Hinckle, and the Libertarian Party USA.

Brian Becker is one of the most principled communist leaders in the west, and is so frequently portrayed as a "Russian asset" by liberals that the underlap with Rainer's claim here is just funny.

Multipolarity is definitely something that communists should support. Of course, it's not the end goal, but it is a necessary step to take in order to dismantle USD hegemony and allow all nations to liberate themselves from debt traps.

Multipolarity is coming simply as a part of the historical process of our development - just like feudalism emerged, then capitalism, then imperialism, etc. Empires also come and go and in their wake other countries rise - we have seen this numerous times throughout history. Yet it seems like these socialist anti-multipolarity people think we can stop these processes just by the actions of a few individuals or small groups. Not to mention the straw man argument presented where we apparently just want multipolar capitalism as an end goal and nothing else. Yes, all of us would prefer if every state just turned socialist right away, but that is not physically possible. We have to work with what we are given, and currently that's multipolarity.

He took an exchange that probably took 2-3 minutes out of a nearly two hour long interview, and then I guess mind read the rest of his article out of that. Not worth taking seriously.

Hard pass. I 100% support Brian Becker more than this doofus

Rhainer Shea (rightfully) gets a lot of shit here, but I don't expect this particular take to cause a lot of infighting.

Substack hustlers playing armchair general since their early pandemic radicalization. Now writing about grand chessboard geopolitical multipolar line struggle.

we had a multipolar world all the way up until world war II, what did it bring us? The multipolar world brought us World War I, the multipolar world brought us World War II

I cannot believe PSL's cofounder is equating competition between colonial empires to USA trying to subjugate Russia and China.

I've read this guy's articles on stuff for a while but never seen anything too bad, what exactly are people's criticisms of him?

Edit: this downvoting shit is so stupid, it's a genuine fucking question

yup, 100% right. these orgs are failing people by trying to appeal to democrats by staying meaninglessly "anti Putin". you don't have to get any false ideas about him to ACCEPT he is acting against u.s. imperialism and that's good.

It seems to me that multipolarism is all well and good.

But campism ain't it.