I haven’t watched their videos in ages, the format isn’t my favourite. But I still follow them on Twitter and that’s when I saw this! I’ll mark as NSFW because of the grooming comment.

  • @Munrock@lemmygrad.ml
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    361 year ago

    If every Leftist had to disprove every receipt to the satisfaction of every other leftist, well… it seems in the Anglosphere/internet left that’s already the case and it’s why the Anglosphere left is completely impotent.

    Between the accusations of 1) not meticulously debunking other accusations and 2) guilt by association… yeah SerfsTV can fuck off.

    They’re streamers, living comfortably in the imperial core earning money on a subscription-based model producing primarily entertainment-focused commentary. They have a conflict of interest in that they profit from drama because their ecosystem is constantly demanding fresh ‘content’ with no discernment about what the actual content is (to the extent that ‘content creator’ is the literal job description, it’s non-specific because at the end of the day the nature of the actual content doesn’t fucking matter to their business model) and their long-term earning potential is contingent on the things they make ‘content’ about continuing to exist.

    Medhurst is regularly in the thick of it, doing actual journalism. And those condescending little shits have the arrogance to take a swipe at him and the “anti US-imperialist left” when that is the actual entire left once you carve away the privileged leeches that sit in the imperial core doing FUCK ALL and while talking down at the people putting actual blood and sweat in for the working class.

    Yes I enjoyed composing this comment. Trash like the Surfs and most of DemSoc / reformist North American political streaming economy are utter fucking cancer. They capture the energy of discontent over there, spin it for a buck, and then direct it towards either the bullshit electoral system or keep it spinning in circles over divisive issues that will only be solved after working class liberation.

    • @supersolid_snake@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      The fundamental objection of these people to the system is that when the imperialist US (and notice how I didn’t put that in quotations) robs the global south, it doesn’t distribute that wealth more towards them. It’s always material interests in the end.

    • @Franfran2424@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      Medhurst seems commited to actual analysis like whistleblowers, middle east, and the ukraine conflict. If he talked with 17yo women when he was 20yo is irrelevant to me tbh

      Edit: he was 25, it is kinda complicated and he behaved poorly because of what seems like mental health issues.

        • @cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          We are going to see more disparaging accusations and mudslinging leveled at anyone who dares challenge the war propaganda as the imperial decline progresses and the desperation sets in. They will try to discredit anti-imperialists with whatever spurious claims they can cook up. They will try to divide the anti-war left and have us turn against each other, taking out first and foremost those who are the most effective at advocating for the anti-imperialist position, those who pose the biggest danger to the mainstream propaganda narrative’s mission of getting the people on board for a world war with China and/or Russia.

          And yes they will use ostensibly “leftist” even “Marxist” groups or individuals to do this. Cointelpro has never stopped operating, and now it is ramping up again.

          • @cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
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            51 year ago

            I agree that COINTELPRO is definitely still operating and that we should be reluctant to believe any outrageous claims against Marxists, but I think unfortunately in this case Medhurst really is a pedophile. The background pictures of his room line up with photos from the texts he sent.

          • @Franfran2424@lemmygrad.ml
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            51 year ago

            Richard did fuck up there tho. texting a 17yo some suggestive language is not really good, and getting angry at a 15yo for not wanting to listen to you complaining on your mental health issues is bad.

        • @Franfran2424@lemmygrad.ml
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          51 year ago

          From what I remember yes it was.

          Edit: https://medium.com/@precious_sheen_dog_960/richard-medhurst-another-cog-in-the-pedo-to-political-journalist-pipeline-17e6af3be867

          A girl was 17, and he was 25, so a bit more fishy since he was apparently using suggestive language, but it seemed an exageration to me at the time.

          The thing is he was also mentally ill af at the time and talking with a 15yo he considered a friend for moral support (bad idea??), then getting angry that the 15yo didnt support him and had her own problems.

          Some people mixed up the 17yo girl with the 15yo one, and use “abussive messages” to muddy the waters.

        • @Franfran2424@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          The issue is that they were in a mental health mutual support group and he wasnt going after a 15yo but spam calling to to have her morally support him because he was mentally ill/depressed.

          Just not a good idea to rely on teenagers for moral support, get angry when they have their own problems. Then they use 60 dollar donation he gave as a “forgive my behaviour” as some suspect shit

            • @Franfran2424@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              Its definitely not the correct course of action and his actions were kinda wrong, but some leftist twitter users are a bit dramatic and always searching for ideological impureness

    • @darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      And if I was in charge of combating communists (e.g. had no morals, no restraint, and was ontologically evil while convinced of my own superiority and the necessity of taking any action necessary to destroy a group) I would absolutely manufacture accusations and maybe even charges like this. They’re considered just about the most heinous thing you can be without smoking gun evidence being required by most people to seriously entertain and believe it.

      The Julian Assange r*pe accusation for example always smelled like CIA to me to get him to a place where he could be quickly extradited. Not that he couldn’t have done it and maybe he did. It’s just given how often its used as a lie by reactionaries, the Satanic sexual abuse panic complete with false implanted memories of the 80s/90s still fresh in memory… yeah.

      Also, shout-out and reminder that the Hexbear site’s original main admin stepped down over some almost certainly fake and concocted by 4chan grooming allegations. If a bunch of basement dwelling reactionaries can do something like that, imagine what intelligence services with the help of police, informants, and of course the complicit bourgeois press can do if they want to.

      People do need to be vetted and we shouldn’t just wave away every accusation that has reliable supporting evidence immediately as doing the CIA’s work but well we are entering an era where very convincing if not completely photo-realistic evidence can be manufactured within minutes on demand by generative machine learning networks for dollars a month that are only getting better and better by the day.

      The time may come for communists where we must completely disbelieve our eyes and ears when it comes to anything we haven’t personally witnessed with our senses. Where were are presented with a firehose of alleged evils we cannot debunk other than to say we don’t trust the source. When the torrent of falsity meant to tar enemies of empire is not just badly put together stories from the usual suspects but seemingly realistic video of horrendous atrocities all simulated and created out of thin air and which most people in the west will gulp down and which will allow them to harden their warmongering towards whoever they choose. They already manufacture the most abominable things with their lies about the situation in Xin’jiang, how much worse would that be in a world where Zenz could conjure up a video of Chinese police officers committing sexual assault? Murdering children? Both together (Aka the hobby of many an American soldier in the middle east)? They already used AI’s to create fake pictures of arrestees, it’s only a matter of perfecting it so it cannot be debunked by other AI’s as determined reliably to be faked.

      • Muad'Dibber
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        191 year ago

        This is a big problem especially in the US, where anarchists will do the FBI’s job for them and believe any accusation, no matter how unsubstantiated, and use it as ammunition against every other group. Very effective way to wreck solidarity and divide and conquer.

        Of course some claims are true, and some aren’t, but they need to be investigated and questioned. Most times when you ask for evidence, it never gets beyond “this 3rd party I know said they were bad”. We know the CIA uses these tricks against black separatists, communists, hell even pacifists like MLK, and any group they don’t like, so we have to stay vigilant.

      • @TarkovSurvivor@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Extradition wasn’t the motive, extradition from the uk to the usa has a lower burden of proof than from Sweden. The aim was primarily to discredit Assange in the court of public opinion and deprive him of support once the us put charges

      • @cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
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        -41 year ago

        I completely agree with what you’re saying, but for me, I find the Occam’s Razor explanation to be that Medhurst is a pedophile. The background pictures alongside his texts are pictures from what looks like a carbon copy of his room. This doesn’t diminish his work, but it does him as a person.

    • Muad'Dibber
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      181 year ago

      Preach comrade. These streamers goal of making money through youtube’s psychologically harmful “engagement” algorithms is toxic and harmful to everyone they come in contact with. Their drama-inciting hair-pulling content is not helpful or beneficial for anyone but themselves.

    • @SpaceDogs@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      131 year ago

      Yeah I stopped watching their videos because their streams aren’t great. I’m okay with leftist streamers but it’s less than educational and just uninteresting. I hadn’t heard about the allegations against Medhurst till yesterday. Paul Joseph Watson is evil as hell but I don’t even know what the podcast with Richard was about so I’m slow to judge him.