Critical support to Roderic from Red Sails while he tries to convince Johnstone to engage with scientific theories surrounding propaganda and political behavior (Marxism).

Brainwashing theory doesn't hold up to reality so treating it as a model of why Americans and other European diaspora are passive to supportive of Imperialism is a misdiagnosis and leads to unreliable treatment. Counter propaganda is only so effective and is never going to threaten Empire and class society in general.

So tbh, if she doesn't want to accept criticism from Marxists then we should really just ignore her and others like her. We need to put our own theories out to people we are organizing around and for.

It's important to keep in mind that, in science, all models are wrong but some are useful. If we claim to have a scientific analysis on society and politics we need to account for that : the liberal model of thought is wrong but useful to justify imperialism, the generic left model of Johnstone is wrong but useful to get people to question themselves, and yes even ours, the ML MZT model is wrong, but it's the most useful to build a strong revolution

You know, that description fits me pretty well. I've always been "left". I drifted over the line to communist, and then drifted into Marxist as I read more theory and learnt the truth about AES states. What really makes my blood boil though is imperialism, fascism, and the propaganda that enables them. I want to try to fight those as best I can before worrying about being a perfect Marxist. Perhaps it's similar with her?

She has a lot of great takes, but at one point (in like 2020?) recommended a red-brown alliance as the way to go.

I think she's well worth reading, but I have some reservations.

Like any individual she has blind spots in her analysis. Also, people can engage and view the world through a Marxist lens without formally subscribing to an ideology. She obviously is versed in leftist theory, given the general reasoning and the conclusions she comes to in her writing.

She echoes so much of what the M-L left is already saying. Her writing is useful to us in that way that it's accessible to non-communists as well.