Still can't help but wonder if this whole scene, Chapo, these people, Belden, isn't some sort of deep-cover CIA operation meant to contain and guide the inevitable re-emergence of a left in this country. I mean Menaker's father being a double-agent, Belden going to Syria to fight with left flavored but CIA sponsored and approved militia, their connections to people like Dasha. It's all just a little suspicious. In a believable kind of way but also in a they people were all put together in an incubator kind of way. They wouldn't even have to be witting assets either if the CIA was trying to merely guide development in a certain direction. I don't know. It's weird here in the imperial core.

I’m here with you and i think it’s fun to consider but a few points that i think we would have to consider to either make or break this:

-the inevitable reemergence of the left movement requires enough people being in dire circumstances where joining a dissident organization makes sense.

-the US govt doesn’t need an elaborate internet media scheme to keep people pacified. They can still manipulate the standard media offering and shoot IRL revolutionaries like they do and have already done

-For people that are extremely self motivated genuinely don’t want to work for companies that support genocide, the war machine, pick any ugly aspect of clapistan, an indie media career is compelling

I don’t have much to say about the CIA connection stuff. You can’t choose your parents and since TA is the only podcast i listen to regularly i know for a fact Belden isn’t exactly rosy while describing his past self