Some Comments on Plagiarism

 

Found the image on this page, the credits for the image are as follows "Paper Trident / iStock / Getty Images Plus"

Big news on YouTube (YT), drama has ocurred that has effected several channels that I've watched on occasion. The main actors are Hbomberguy (Hbomb), with an important follow-up video by Todd in the Shadows (Todd), the main topic is misinformation and plagiarism and the main target of the criticism is another YT I've watched headed by James Somerton, the channel has the same name as its owner. I haven't James's video because the channel has taken down every video. 

If you spend a lot of time on YT then chances are good you'll know the gist of this already, but if not I'll briefly explain. Todd has a channel on YouTube that reviews music, while James Somerton and Hbomberguy are what's called video essayists, which is just what it sounds like, essays in video format. 

Both videos are quite long Hbomb's is just under four hours, though James becomes the focus in the back half, the first part is a collection of other YT channels that muddy the information waters. I previously saw a rough draft of the first part some months ago, so I skipped that part in the finished video. They are both thorough and there isn't much in the way of padding, there is some minor griping in both videos, but they mostly document serious acts of foul play, and it's clear that the minor complaints are brought up out of personal frustration and anger and not out of malice for malice’s sake. I do recommend watching them not just for context on this blog but for general viewing. 

Since both do such a good job of documenting James's many misdeeds I'm not writing this to add to them, the case is pretty well solved, I am writing this for a couple of reasons that are somewhat related. I'm a little saddened to learn about James actions, I watched his videos and was a bit of a fan. I'm openly Queer and have been looking for more queer information and content, Queer stuff isn't exactly obscure, but it is niche, gay media that isn't pornography isn't banned exactly, but it often gets stuck in a grey area where it is accessible if you put in some work to find it and can pay more, and books tend to be harder to find online, and you have to resort to out of print second or third hand copies or blogs that quote heavily from them or upload scanned pages. There's been more progress in giving queer material more mainstream exposure, but it can still be quite tricky. 

I've turned to podcasts and blogs and YT video creators. James was a big fish in a small pond, his channel was doing very well with 200,000+ subscribers and videos often in the 100,000s to a million views range. You could avoid him, but you'd have to use a plugin that lets you block certain channels. The videos had a slick look to them, they came out regularly and in large quantities, and often related to topics I had at least some interest in. I wasn't a hardcore fanatic, though I was paying just enough attention to his channel that I can confirm that parts of Hbomb's video about James deliberately trying to fire up his fan base to side with him in his feuds with others was a thing. I saw the comments and community posts where he claimed he was being attacked, didn't know the context of them at the time, I just thought it was another example of toxic interactions with others that online platforms encourage. Which, with hindsight, was correct, just not in the way I thought at the time. Another thing that James used to do that was overlooked by the two big videos is that James wasn't shy of emotional statements of vulnerability that may or may not have been true, I have no grounds or place to comment on his personal life, but, in the aftermath of the revelations I suspect were used to further manipulate his audience. I certainly felt sorry for the guy.

I can also confirm that James was very sloppy at citing sources, his videos gave the strong impression that everything he was saying in them were his own ideas or the results of his own investigations, or of someone he was collaborating with. And I can tell you first hand that he was effective at spreading misinformation, I found Todd's video harder to watch of the two because there are several points where he fact checks bits of the videos that I believed from watching those videos. I did not believe James's Gay Nazi comments which shocked me when I saw them in Todd's video because I'm already quite knowledgable on that subject, and because I was intimately familiar with the source for that video, Richard Plant's The Pink Triangle. I transcribed the damn thing as a way to help more people find out about as at the time I could only get a second hand book and the web was full of Christian right wing sites promoting the Pink Swastika, a tract of propaganda that tries to paint the Nazis as a homosexual movement. Furthermore, I can't be certain, but the part where James says the SS was full of homosexuals probably comes from the Pink Swastika, I know the Pink Swastika makes that claim and Pink Triangle does not, and I can't think of a creditable source that also makes that claim. 

I said I wouldn't join in the pile on, but that did, well, provoked some feelings. If you're curious why I didn't pick up on it at the time, I watched that video once and when I tried to watch it again to pay attention it had been removed.

Anyway, I'm going to borrow Hbomb's trick and now pivot entirely to a different subject, and that is plagiarism and the Situationist International.

 

 

Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author’s phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea.

The above text is thesis 207 of the Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord and the Situationists.  It was plagiarised from Isidore Ducasse, according to the English translator of this Situationist text. Debord has committed plagiarism, and it's sort of amusing that he plagiarised a thought on plagiarism. But, to me, the interesting part is that neither Debord nor Ducasse are talking about plagiarism. It's a statement about building off of the work of others and a rejection of the auteur and the belief that ideas are the property of one individual alone. If the thesis an advocacy of anything, it's the necessity of copyright infringement and a damning criticism of intellectual property as an obstacle to human expression and progress. 

I'm going to take that thesis again and bold the parts that point to my interpretation.

Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author’s phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea.

This is the act of adaptation and experimentation, by changing it and removing falsehoods and substituting a new "right" idea you have added your own work and altered it. Technically, plagiarism could still be present if you took credit for the whole thing including the original idea, but that isn't represented in the thesis. Going back to James Somerton and applying this thesis, we see that James does embrace many an author's phrase and makes use of their expressions, but I don't think he erases false ideas and replaces them with better ones. As Todd and Hbomb have shown, the opposite is usually true when he makes changes and inserts his own ideas. So, oddly, I think we've discovered a definition of plagiarism that James Somerton's work doesn't fall under. Perhaps a rebranding to 1950s French inspired anti-art is in store for James Somerton's future?

Generally speaking Debord and the Situationists were guilty of actual plagiarism on occasion, the thesis itself is an obvious example though there is a brief and opaque acknowledgement of where Debord got the idea within the User's Guide. As a group, they were openly contemptuous of art as a concept within capitalist society.

It is in fact necessary to eliminate all remnants of the notion of personal property in this area. The appearance of new necessities outmodes previous “inspired” works. They become obstacles, dangerous habits. The point is not whether we like them or not. We have to go beyond them.

A User's guide to Detournement 

 

But, most of the criticism and evaluations of this that I've seen associate the concept of detournement. Detournement is not just a pain to spell (I find saying it out loud helps) it's the official name for the Situationists most famous activity. The films, paintings and photographs that they altered are all examples of this. It's arguably the Situationists lasting contribution, there are still small groups and individual artists experimenting with the style and there are faint echoes of it in current internet meme culture. Yes, most examples of Detournement I am familiar with take pre-existing imagery and then change them to alter the meaning of the image. But they aren't passing themselves off as the owners of the original works, and I'm of the opinion that many of them don't work unless you are somewhat familiar with the original work and so not likely to think that Debord et al. were the original photographers. If you're not familiar with the original work, or it's one of the materials made by Situationists that were mostly or entirely original, then they often just come across as weird imagery.

Plagiarism is taking others work and passing it off as your own, that's largely not what the Situationists were doing, and when they did that it reads to me as a part of their attempt to reject art and its conventions in totality, a task in which they failed, "Situationist art" and the "Situ style" is quite recognisable, the production of the User guide itself helped codify Situationist art styles and conventions. 

For example

As soon as I saw this on an image search I knew it was an original work by one of the British Situationists, and the link took me to the John McCready archive, which is a collection of British Situationist material. You can definitely plagiarise the Situationists, I wouldn't recommend it as you'd be caught pretty quickly, but it is definitely something that can be ripped off. And they are often parodied and given homage in mainstream works that aren't remotely interested in breaking the depoliticised working class out of their prisons of everyday life. Oh, and you may have noticed that this image has watermarks on it, in addition the search engine warned me that this image may be copyrighted. 

To add to the misery, detournement have also become commodities. The Situationists were a deeply flawed bunch, they were very astute in criticising much of the apparently revolutionary microgroups and reformist tendencies, but they reflected much of what they criticised and while extremely knowledge about art and its conventions often fell into the same traps, if you look up the Situationist International now many of the admirers view them as a clever curiosity, what revolutionary potential they had is just gone.

Going back to that thesis for the third and final time.

Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author’s phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea.

I disagree that this is plaigarism, but I fully agree with its intent. Progress does demand working with ideas that are not your own and allowing others to work with those that are. Copyright and the treatment of art and information as property that can be withheld dictated and traded is not only a personal failing of individual bad actors, its a direct attack on human interaction and intellectual and cultural development. This is what I get from thesis 207, Society of the Spectacle and much of the Situationist legacy is difficult to pin down into unambiguous statements of intent so I wan't say that my reading is the reading of it. I have read many of the works of the Situationists, mostly the French and British ones, but I have not digested everything they put out so these statements on the Debord and his small circle of friends are not to be taken as set in stone, they're what I think based on my experiences.

To tie these two threads Situationism and James Somerton together I will finish up with this thought. Plagairism and copyright infringement are not the same thing, but they are related. James Somerton wasn't just ripping off other writers for giggles, he was monetising them as well, the work of others became "his" and so he was entitled to exploit it for money and influence. So, yes, capitalism should be abolished and while we're at it let's through social hierarchies in the bin too, and create a perfect and harmonious communal society were labours are shared, and we'll never have to worry about the scourge of plagiraism again.

Passive Income and digital sweatshops

 Dan Olsen released a video investigating a niche internet grift revolving around the appeal of passive income. 

I had never heard of the Mikkelsen twins or Urban Writers, the principal villains of this particular scam method. But I had to keep pausing the video because much of it felt so familiar. As amateurish as a lot of the Mikkelsen twins pitch comes across the appeal is obvious, passive income is great. Everyone who isn't a lifestyle coach scam artist will admit working hard for low pay isn't great. Aside from physical and mental tiring you also have to wrestle with feelings of inadequacy and wastefulness. So getting money for a long time after you've stopped putting effort into it has its advantages.

So, while I was surprised watching the pitch get elaborated on reflection a scam that offers you the reward of passive income with zero effort, completely passive income if you will, well that's bound to attract a few individuals. It's pretty maddening to watch, but I can say from experience that this method is unlikely to work, especially now that a very big platform has publicly exposed them. 

I have some experience with working in the internet gig economy freelancing for anonymous clients using job boards that operate very similarly to Urban Writers. There were sections of the video, the part outlining the pay and conditions for the ghost writer and what it feels like to write a book yourself were unpleasant to sit through because they were very accurate to what I went through.

The response so far has been very positive, though I've seen some questions and reluctance to believe that parts of pipeline can be realistic. Artificial Intelligence programs have been getting a lot of buzz lately especially the bots that make digital artworks from prompts, some have suggested that this could explain how the writers are able to live and work on such terms. Which simply isn't feasible for a number of reasons. We're still a long way off from AI created books that are coherent much less passable, the market sites like Amazon and Apple don't care about sloppy prose and run on sentences but they do have some standards for publishing. Furthermore the intellectual sweatshops like Urban Writers couldn't survive without a large pool of desperate writers to churn out the goods. If AI could provide product to the standards a client desires then there wouldn't be much need for middlemen groups like Urban Writers, just buy or license the software and make as many low content Search Engine Optimised trash you want.

The reason these intellectual sweat shops work is simply because there's a large pool of eager or desperate people who are vulnerable enough to be open to the few crumbs thrown their way. Writing, even technical and copy writing require passion as careers. It may seem like light work if you only take into account the time spent physically using a pen, keyboard or typewriter, and assume a payment equivalent or better than average salary at the end. But as Dan's video makes clear, this is not the case, there is research time, editing, planning, and for many writers myself included time spent in a sort of mental stalling phase where you cannot easily move into any of the phases. And I can attest that Dan is correct when he states that even much of the time that's not supposed to be devoted to the writing task, breaks, other chores etc, is often time still spent obsessing over the book or dealing with anxiety or frustration over the work. I'll add that even when I've finished a project and it's been submitted, I often spend a few days in a sort of limbo where the lack of a project makes me feel restless. So it requires a lot from you, and this is probably why writers in fiction are often presented as high strung, self absorbed, fragile, and erratic individuals as that can be what's visible from the outside.

As to why this makes writers so vulnerable to these types of content farm outfits, well that's more structural. Publishing is a small world and thanks to monopolies its becoming even smaller. At the time of writing Penguin and Random House are battling in the courts for the right to merge with many celebrated authors giving evidence to the opposition as they fear the merger will severely impede their abilities to make a living and pursue a career. Just imagine what its like for someone starting out or on a much lower rung. And that's in fiction, novels are the main money and fame making area of publishing, if you're a poet, a short story writer or a non-fiction writer there are even fewer options to take. I remember when I left university I was told that a non-fiction book selling over 3,000 copies would be placed in the best seller category.

If you're not already a big name you need to build up a body of work, this is very difficult in non-fiction publishing. From personal experience the few publishers for that aren't very hospitable to original research that isn't attached to an author who's already established in a relevant field. It can even be frosty to authors who have been published but there has been a long gap between the last accepted submission and the present. Feast or famine was the advise I was given about publication, if you want to make a viable go at it you have to publish early and regularly.

These attitudes freeze out a lot of graduates and passionate amateurs. If your desperate for work, any work these shady companies can be the only game in town at least at the start. I tried to support myself in this field after graduation and my applications met with silence. I managed to get several gigs as a freelancer for several websites that were just a bit above modern clickbait mills, and some contracts on job board sites very similar to how Dan described Urban Writers system. Dan's assumptions on the emotional state of someone having to depend on such a system were spot on. I spent all day and chunks of the night grinding out assignments with limited research, and I was still making the equivalent of welfare. And that was when every other part of the arrangement was working fine, which it rarely did.

After walking away from it I wrote about the experience, looking back on that piece now I think its the most pessimistic bit of writing I've ever published. Since that time there have been some changes, the level of oversight on the self publishing market has improved a little, and some of the worst offenders have gone bust, though a few have rebranded, and overall the market has become dominated by a few big players. I still could not in good conscience recommend this system to anyone wishing to start out or make a living out of it.

Behold! Tis lord Odesk, benevolently giving labour to
the grateful scribe

In more positive news, there is now a union for freelancers which back when I wrote digital economy was something I didn't think was possible. Its international though currently its main presence is in the USA and Canada, expansion has been slow but is happening. It has also been relatively successful in two areas, its become a method for freelancers to share experiences and information about conditions in the industry which is vital to stopping the most egregious examples of exploitation which rely on a company interacting directly with an inexperienced individual, and has had some success with campaigns targeting specific employers. 

I still freelance occasionally when time permits me, but now I mostly stick to submissions for magazines, journals and websites I've had previous dealings with. I've also started using platforms like amazon to host some translation and non fiction work. These platforms offer an alternative for authors of niche material, but a path to riches they aren't for most. Passive income is pretty good so long as you put some effort in and don't cook up a scheme that exploits others. Personally, I think the major bottleneck comes after creation. If you've worked on a book, collection of poems, audiobook, song, art, video etc. then these platforms will make your work more available to a potential audience. But it's the promotion or the lack of it that gets in the way of pivoting to this as a viable career. I was not surprised to learn that Dan's book sold one copy in its lifespan as he didn't do any promotion and because of the pseudonym kept a lot of distance from it. I wish he had kept it up after publishing the video so we could see how much even that limited and deprecating plug thirty minutes into a video did for it. 

You either have to buy advertising, which takes a low/no cost option and turns it into a high cost one, and a high cost for a gamble. Or word of mouth, and the issue with word of mouth I find is that getting people to buy something is the easy part, and I find that quite hard, its getting those customers to rate, review or even mention what they've purchased that is the truly difficult task. My sales to date across all formats, including discounts is around 400, my ratings and reviews have been less than ten. Haven't had any refunds or e-mailed complaints and the few ratings and reviews are positive, but that isn't a firm foundation for a retirement plan.

And I'm not alone here. A common question in forums for authors is "how do I get more reviews?" and I've none more than one talented artist who put a lot into a project that was selling relatively well, that burnt out because of a lack of response from the audience. It goes back to passion really, earning a living is a necessity in our times, but the feelings of failure and lack of impact can eat away at a creative type. So, if you enjoy something letting the people who made it know goes a long way.

In conclusion, well done Dan, support artists and of course

Buy my book!

The Funeral of Peter Kropotkin

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video link 

 

 Pyotr Kropotkin's funeral took place from 10th to 13th of February 1921, and it was documented by "Section of social chronicles of all-Russian cinema and photo publishing". English translation: ABC-Belarus

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpGu...

 

 

Oops! I have ADHD!

 

 video Link 

 

 

Popular youtube personality Thought Slime made a video on the subject of ADHD, and it had some special guests, including a very late just on time and just in keeping with the requirements segment by me. I think its one of the best visual depictions of living with ADD/ADHD*, multiple little bits and jokes are about things I go through every single day, and while on their own can seem small in combination which often happens and several times a day, which can often happen, on bad days these issues and tics can plague me multiple times an hour. I really appreciate TS's platform being used to give some frankly much needed awareness of this frankly constant struggle. That seem a little melodramatic and for me I have good days and bad days, but the bad days can be brutal. I meant to write this up immediately after watching the video because I mean what I say, I think it's a really, really good demonstration of some of the more common problems of life with ADHD. And by the comments of other suffers, this opinion is shared. But just didn't get around to starting it, as many things just cropped up. I don't even know if I'll finish it, I can easily see other things jumping ahead of the queue or embarrassment over fears of oversharing getting to me so that this stays in my drafts folder for years/forever. 

 I've also reached another problem, I'm not sure how to continue, I planned to write this on the 3rd, and had an entire outline worked out in my head, and could still remember it when I started working on this, but now that information is gone. Well, I guess it's time for improvisation, hopefully if you're reading this far you have watched the video, it details many of the common symptoms of ADHD and how they effect TS, though I guess it's important to make clear that these are not the only issues nor do they affect everyone equally or at all. I think in retrospect this was what drove the ADD/ADHD division in the past, since patients clearly demonstrated some but not others. The popular conception of someone with ADHD is essentially a looney tunes character who is incapable of sitting still and talks ridiculously fast. There are people who are like that sometimes, I myself am usually more physically sedate, but I've chewed my way through thousands of pen lids and pens, and worn holes in hundreds of shirts, snapped pens and pencils in half, rubbed the skin off my wrists and fingers and had been biting my nails till they bleed for years, though I've managed to stop that one three years ago. 

There are other manifestations of this nervous energy I wasn't aware of, I was once interrogated by a policeman on the street who assumed I was a recovering addict because I keep brushing my face, and apparently that's a tell. And several school and work colleagues thought I was quitting smoking (never started) because my movements are quite similar (apparently) to someone trying to kick nicotine.

But these are relatively minor issues for me, the internal issues can be much more challenging. Many of the contributors talked about executive dysfunction and how attention deficit often comes with its opposite, extreme abundance of attention. Difficulty making choices and committing to them even on minor choices can derail an entire and throw a schedule off permanently. Focus on one task no matter how random can have the same effect, there have been many times where I have spent most of a day on a project to the point where no other task is done, to the point where I've gone days without eating, I'm aware that my body is hungry, or that it's getting late, or I have something else that should be really important to do, but that awareness is still somehow distant and not really important at the time, whatever I'm focussing on must take priority. The kicker is that the only times I've seen this behaviour discussed it's either in anecdotes from other people's ADHD struggles or in horror fiction where it's used as an early warning that possession or dangerous obsession is developing. 

The guidelines for submission whereas follows 

 

 - Please email me (thoughtslimeeditor@gmail.com) a <=10 second video of you telling me something you wish more people knew about adhd - Please pretend you are speaking to me on the phone - Please use the subject line "ADHD video" - Please give me links to use in the description.
-Please introduce yourself and what you do in the video. -Feel free to do whatever jokes you want, or put your own spin on things.

Didn't feel comfortable recording myself for a video so went with a tape cassette as a sort of mock answer machine as that sort of fit in with the fake call remit. The difficulty for me was the time length, given that I'm supposed to introduce myself and what I do creatively and maybe tell a joke and my main gripe all in ten seconds seemed impossible. I guessed it was a soft limit but still the time was a bit of a barrier, so I boiled it down to "I wish people would listen to me, instead of immediately substituting what they think ADHD is and then interrogating me when that doesn't fit" but that was still to long, so I abbreviated it. 

With a longer window, there's a lot more I would've said, and I'm kinda doing some of this here. If I was making the video and had all the time in the world the video would never get done I'd probably talk about just how non-stop hostile "Normal" society is to people who think and act like myself. And how modern technology has made some of this more manageable while at the same time greatly exacerbating other issues. Virtually everything from strict behavioural standards, deadlines, services offers some challenge or potential stumbling block. The pressure just keeps building, and the really horrible thing is that much of that pressure comes from everyone else living what is for them perfectly normal lives. I do my best to cope** but there are times when I just need to drop out for a while and do something else and get away from interactions and obligations. But there aren't many jobs where you can do that and make enough to support your basic needs.

 This is why I'm constantly shifting from project, to hobby, to interest, making some headway then seemingly dropping them only to pick it back up at some point down the line. It's also the reason why I haven't let this blog die despite its clear shifts in focus, I've somehow managed to keep it going for over ten years, and it's become something of an anchor, but it's also become a bit of a map to my state, in addition to the content showing what I've been experiencing and the pace of my intellectual development like any other blogger, the topics it focuses on and the incredibly erratic pace of updates also show how well I'm keeping all these plates spinning in the air. And if you've read my stuff and were wondering, yes this is largely why they often have a strange and inconsistent style and switch from voices or jump back and forth, its also largely why I keep editing posts weeks after publishing.

The problems with my limited ability to put things into words and this tendency a lot of people have to just latch on to their, well, best guesses, has been a major issue for me for a good number of years. There has been some change though, back in the day when I said the scary combination of letters to explain something most people asked "what's that?" and then started jumping in once I started clumsily explaining. More recently, I usually get some variation on "how's that relevant?" or "you don't act like it, are you sure?" I don't know if that counts as progress. Although none of the other submitters matched mine in words (unless I missed one) I noticed a few of them were expressing similar issues. Most of them were essentially regrets that wider society only seem to have one mental picture of a person with ADHD and are completely ignorant of virtually every other issue it causes and way it manifests, even if they're incredibly serious.

I do sort of get it, as frustrating as it is, since many of these issues are internal, it can be incredibly difficult to explain to people who don't have these issues. The joke about not being able to see a water bottle when it's right in front of your face, is an example of a very common issue many, including myself, have with perception. And yet from personal experience trying to get people to understand that this is an issue is completely miserable. I can't speak for others, but for myself my eyes are fine, I can physically see the object, but I'm not registering that I'm seeing it, or in some cases I do register that I see the object, but my mind does not acknowledge that it is the object that I am looking for. I'm sure everyone can agree that this can be quite annoying, especially when you're in a hurry, and you've already spent a lot of time getting ready and have in fact double-checked. But it can be even worse, when this problem is noticed, usually, the assumption is that I have visual impairments or that I don't have a functional mind. Really not pleasant, and that's only one of the perception differences I have to neurotypicals, and they all have caused me no end of grief.

In fact, there's another fantastic video made by someone with ADHD that uses animation to try and better express what some of this is like.

video link

I think these two videos pair well, they show some similarities but a lot of differences of degree and kind. I was surprised how much of what TS's skateboard journey reminded me of my own life, I didn't find the jokes funny though, I found them clever, but they were often tied to some unhappy memories. Abigail's video is also very clever and also brings up some unpleasant memories. I was struck by the part about being a pilot of a plane but then realising you weren't even in the cockpit. I've had that feeling several times and I do not want to feel that way ever again but I'm sure its only a matter of time. I also thought the near constant background hum and tap, tap, tapping was inspired. Sometimes for me that's litteral even tiny disturbances can wreck my concentration, but there are times when absolute silence can be just as bad, exam conditions were a nightmare even when the school agreed there was an issue and allowed me to take them in rooms on my own. Solitary confinement is considered a form of torture for a reason.

This may seem depressing, but writing it feels really cathartic, I'll try to end on a sort of positive note. I was diagnosed when I was 16, it was a surprisingly pleasant experience and in addition to the diagnosis I got a recommendation letter for treatment and support. There was however a problem, this was 2006 in the UK. At that time not only was their a divide about ADD vs ADHD there was little to no understanding of either. In order to pursue treatment options (which barely existed) I had to go to a mental health professional, there were no ADD/ADHD specialists, and the only mental health institution in my area was the staff at a confinement ward. When I went to the appointment and explained my issue and showed the documents and GP referral, the Doctor didn't know what I was talking about, she not heard of this disorder. I attempted to explain and she started taking notes. The questions very quickly started to focus on violent delusions, and I noticed that she wasn't actually taking notes, she was checking off a list. She was determining whether I was a risk to myself or others, if I continued with this line of questioning and failed she could've sectioned me. So I ended the interview and essentially gave up trying to seek treatment or extra support. You might think I was overreacting, but at the same time in a neighbouring area a boy my age went to his mental health team in a similar institution for support for his Autism. Autism was also not widely understood at this time, he was sectioned and he has remained in that ward ever since, I know this because the campaign his family has been fighting to try to get him out has become notable as an example of how horrible are system is to people who aren't neurotypical.

Since then I've been getting by with stimming (behaviour that eases the pressures).  However the good news, there has been some increase in awareness in the public and the health system, there are more treatments available, and there are now some, but not many, ADHD specialists. And I'm now once again seeking some assistance. Unfortunately its still a low priority, there aren't that many specialists, and its well known amongst ADHD circles to be a lengthy and difficult process, oh and also COVID happened. 

So yeah, don't really have a way of ending this, I did remember what my first plan for this was three paragraphs ago, but just kept on going. The ending for that wasn't very good either though. So here's a final appeal to watch the two videos I've shared if you haven't already.

*The distinction between Attention Deficit Disorder ADD and Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD has changed over the years and where you are, and the attitudes of health professionals in your country or region. When I was first diagnosed ADHD was more commonly associated with North America with the UK favouring ADD and as far as the learning difficulties and disability support assessors were concerned the two were quite different. Nowadays, the consensus is more that they are the same thing really, so if a person is diagnosed or uses one label, the other applies too.

 

** After writing this, I've just realised that the increasingly common internet joke about cope and coping probably shows some lingering and unconscious hostility towards people with anxiety and emotional and behavioural struggles.  

An Introduction and Some Thoughts on Kolektiva and Alternative Video Platforms

 

Why Youtube?

Youtube is so ubiquitous that my spell checker keeps reminding me every time I don't capitalise the t, I don't really think I need to explain the company and its services to anyone who regularly uses the internet its become so big and omnipresent. The problems with youtube are also quite well known, shady companies exploiting the copyright system to the fullest, extremist groups and paedophiles exploiting loopholes to network, advertise and groom, intrusive advertising (I've turned off all data personalisation and I regularly get bombarded with adverts for cults) abusive and toxic comment sections, targeted abuse and harassment etc. There are also other issues with the platform that are less well known because they're much harder to prove unless you're on the receiving end. Channels and videos locked into private for violating somekind of community guideline, but the system won't tell you what guideline or what exactly was causing the issue, blacklisting from the powerful algorithms that account for over 90% of audience exposure, removal of features that certain niche channels like content for disabled viewers depend on, or marking LGBTQ content across the board as adult only regardless of what the actual content of the video is. The constant headaches and bottle necking and threats of takedowns, strikes and bans has caused many to lament that there is no alternative to the behemoth. 

Alternatives  

Of course there are alternatives, thousands of them, the problem is many of them have their own drawbacks or are actively trying to ape youtube and replace it. One of the alternatives I've been interested in for a few years which I feel has promise is Peertube. Peertube is a bit hard for me to explain but they have helpfully made several easy to understand videos explaining it in many languages.

  

https://kolektiva.media/videos/watch/9c9de5e8-0a1e-484a-b099-e80766180a6d

Most of it is beyond comprehension honestly, but that's mostly for people wishing to set up their own server, if like me you just want to watch videos and maybe set up an account and upload and share than its pretty straight forward, just find a server you like and go through the sign up process. Over several years I've been on a few servers and some have died or become abandoned, but overall the indications are healthy, its regularly updated, more features have been added, its more stable and the number of servers being setup, the number of videos and the number of views are also going up as the service grows in popularity. When I first started using Peertube even the introduction video on the web page of the team that developed it had just over 10,000 views, now I've encountered videos with just under a million. Its also open source and decentralised so more tech savvy types can customise and network a lot more effectively. It also has the ability to download videos and torrent them built into the webplayer which greatly helps preserving material. Its proved an attractive model for two groups of Anarchists that have years of experience making video content to educate and propagandise online. 

Presenting Kolektiva 

https://kolektiva.media/videos/watch/bcb4bbfa-c39d-4fd2-96cf-bc4747d2d9d9 

Welcome to Kolektiva, an open-source platform for hosting anarchist videos from around the world. Our goal with Kolektiva is to help increase communication and material solidarity across borders and linguistic divides. If you are interested in getting involved - whether through hosting your content with us, or helping out with translation - please contact us at kolektivamedia@riseup.net.

 Kolektiva went public four months ago and was setup by two groups Sub.Media and Antimidia, both of whom have been around for a long time and have video content of extremely high production value. Curiously both have very little traction on youtube. You might think this is because there's not much appetite amongst a mainstream audience for anarchist videos and investigative reporting on Canadian military and police attacks on indigenous communities, but the recent explosion in popularity of the "Breadtube" a collection of amateur leftist youtube personalities shows that isn't the case. I've also been subscribed to Sub.media for years and have done all of the algorithim pleasing things, liking, faving, sharing etc, but they've never popped up in my recommendation feeds. And looking at the viewing figures for new releases on their Kolektiva and youtube channels they tend to get about a tenth of the views on Kolektiva, keep in mind this is on a new platform that most people including the core intended audience don't know exists. I also thought it was strange how most of Sub's videos ended with requests for viewers to subscribe to an e-mail list to ensure they were notified of new releases. So it does seem like the group's misgivings about youtube and the other big social media companies are well founded. 

Our goal with Kolektiva is to provide a new digital platform for anarchist and anti-colonial filmmakers, collectives, and movements around the world. To share action reports, news, analysis, short films, documentaries, and other video content, with a global audience. In a time when far too much radical media content is held hostage to the algorithms of tech capitalists like facebook, google and twitter, Kolektiva will be a free, open-source alternative built on the PeerTube framework and hosted on secure servers, run and maintained by anarchists. Another important goal of this project will be to help facilitate the translation of videos into multiple languages as a way of sharing our different perspectives, stimulating increased interaction and cooperation, and breaking down the divisions caused by state-imposed borders, travel restrictions, colonial occupations, and the poison of nationalism.

 I've been using Kolektiva for about two months, and so far I've seen positive signs of growth and progress on all of these goals. There is already a lot of diverse content on their from short films, punk music, lectures and documentaries, to animations and footage of street battles and protest successes. Much is either not available on other sites or is buried. Its features also make it easier to translate content, two of my uploads now have French subtitles and I've seen groups like Antimidia release more content with subtitles and narration in other languages. And as the server federates with more servers and the word is spread increasing the userbase and viewership views and sharing of content has been steadily increasing. Hopefully this will continue, and I enthusiastically recommend them to any casual reader of libcom.org and sites like it. https://kolektiva.media/ 

 Its not a Youtube replacement, and I doubt it ever will be, even Antimidia and Sub.media the two groups most responsible for its creation still maintain youtube channels, and I do as well, but I'm finding it to be a viable way to back up content and share it with an audience. I don't think I'll have to mute comment notification there anytime soon. So yes this may be a bit optimistic and dangerously close to advertising (though alas unpaid), but I've been on youtube for over 10 years and it has steadily grown more and more hostile an environment and a business as its gone on and the recent changes to American users, which means that it will now be putting even more adverts on the platform and essentially declaring user autonomy to be dead, its only going to get worse. 

 Oh and a quick note on adblockers, they're great I use them all the time, but they're not infallible platforms like Twitch and youtube are putting more resources into countering them, and sadly a growing number of adblock plugin developers are essentially selling out and deactivating them on sites that cut them a deal. By all means keep using ones that still work, and consider switching to an open source one for greater longevity and effectiveness, but ads are only a fraction of the problems using the modern internet and the services provided by big tech and software corporations.

Josef Schultz - The Man Who Wouldn't Shoot

Map showing partisan areas of operation in 1943

Despite the staggering amount of media made about World War II we barely scratch the surface. Entire fronts of the war and its darker sides particularly those carried out by Allied powers are often overlooked with one or two exceptions. For example the Yugoslav front, while the war in Greece has received some attention, probably due to the presence of British divisions there before the country was occupied by the German army, almost nothing about what went on across the border in neighbouring Albania and Yugoslavia gets popular attention.

In the case of Albania its early annexation by Italy is brought up as an example of a missed warning sign, and the SS recruiting Albanians is brought up as footnote, often by Reich apologists to try and dispute the popular and correct impression that Nazi Germany was a nation obsessed with racial purity.

Yugoslavia tends to get much less, aside from Force 10 from Navarrone the cheaper more action pulp sequel to the famous Guns of Navarrone, it doesn't get much attention outside of Yugoslav and former Yugoslav made documentaries and books. In a way this is understandable if disappointing, the Balkans were extremely complex. Initially Kingdom of Yugoslavia joined the Axis before popular protests and a coup by officers in the armed forces installed a pro Allied one instead. A combined German and Italian force (mostly German, since Italy's failed invasion of Greece had cost it entire armies) quickly overran the country.

But instead of a quick and fairly easy occupation the region erupted into even more mass violence once the Wehrmacht had established itself. Croatian Fascists in the Ustashe movement set up an independent pro Nazi region, ran their own paramilitary and extermination camp system targeting Serbs and the Balkan Jewish community. A puppet government, Italian, Hungarian and Bulgarian occupation zones and bands of Chetniks, majority Serb armed bands that sometimes supported the Axis but over times worked independently. And then finally there were the partisans, of which Tito's Communist forces are the most well known and active.

This made for a vicious mix, with the armies of occupation and their allies often resorting to the destruction of entire villages, collective punishments and ethnic cleansing campaigns. Out of all of this confusion and terror and mythic hero was created. Private Josef Schultz, soldier of the 714th Infantry division.

Shultz is something of a folk hero in the region as a soldier who refused to take part in executions of prisoners, and according to legend was made to stand in line with those prisoners and die along side them. The existence of Josef Schultz and his deployment to Yugoslavia are confirmed, but West German investigations believe the stories around his death are fictious. Nevertheless he remains a popular folk hero.

In 1973 Zastava films made a short film about Josef Schultz, and at only 13 minutes long its one of the most moving anti-war films I've ever seen.



https://youtu.be/REkZ1gcqzL8

Short film about the life and death of Joseph Schultz, made in 1973 in Yugoslavia.

Download https://archive.org/details/josephschultz_201702

This photo often attributes the soldier without a helmet as being the last photo of Josef Schultz, sadly while this is disputed the photo is otherwise genuine. This is a real photo of a mass execution carried out by the German army.

Tiananmen Square 30 Years on

Link https://youtu.be/cQqi_FA--ko

Video info

Even after 30 years...

When you're ordered to forget, to remember becomes an act of defiance.

Audio is from the History of China Podcast https://thehistoryofchina.wordpress.com/
The cable being read https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_Massacre

Footage comes from
In Remembrance of Tiananmen Square China 1989  https://archive.org/details/714698flower

And Arthur Kent's Tiananmen Square Massacre: Black Night In June (2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA4iKSeijZI

Text of the cable from https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_Massacre
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_Massacre

SECRET

D E D I P

UK COMMS ONLY

FM PEKING

TO DESKBY 051600Z FCO

TELNO 1039

OF 051421Z JUNE 89

AND TO DESKBY 051600Z HONG KONG, JSIS HONG KONG, MODUK

SIC U2b

DESKBY 051600Z MODUK AND JSIS⁠HONG KONG.

HONG KONG PERSONAL FOR GOVERNOR.

CHINA: BACKGROUND TO MILITARY SITUATION.

1.   HE HAS PASSING ON INFORMATION GIVEN HIM BY A CLOSE FRIEND WHO IS CURRENTLY A MEMBER OF THE STATE COUNCIL. THIS SOURCE HAS PREVIOUSLY PROVED RELIABLE AND WAS CAREFUL TO SEPARATE FACT FROM SPECULATION AND RUMOUR.

2. FACT. THE ARMY THAT HAS COMMITTED THE ATROCITIES IN BEIJING IS 27 ARMY WHO ARE TROOPS FROM SHANXI PROVINCE (?), ARE 60 PERCENT ILLITERATE AND ARE CALLED PRIMITIVES. THE COMMANDER OF 27 ARMY WAS YANG ZHENHUA, SON OF YANG BAIDING BROTHER OF YANG SHANGKUN. THEY WERE KEPT WITHOUT NEWS FOR TEN DAYS AND TOLD THEY WERE TO TAKE PART IN AN EXERCISE. A TV FILM WOULD BE MADE OF THE EXERCISE WHICH PLEASED THEM. THEY WERE INFORMED OF MARTIAL LAW ON MAY 20. FOR THE FIRST 4 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL THEY WERE DRIVEN AROUND BEIJING CITY TO FAMILIARISE THEM WITH THE AREA. 27 ARMY ARE AT FULL STRENGTH WITH THEIR OWN TANKS AND APCS AND A FULL OUTFIT OF AMMUNITION, TEAR GAS AND FLAMETHROWERS. OTHER ARMIES ARE ONLY AT 1 DIVISION STRENGTH. THE LEADERSHIP KEEPS 27 ARMY ON THE MOVE SO THAT IT CAN ATTACK FROM A DIFFERENT DIRECTION EACH TIME.

3. FACT. ON THE NIGHT OF 3/4 JUNE 27 ARMY WAS TO ATTACK FROM THE WEST WITH OTHER UNITS FROM SHENYANG MR. THE PLAN WAS THAT THE FIRST WAVE (SMR) WOULD ATTACK WITH NO WEAPONS. THE SECOND WAVE (SMR) WOULD ATTACK WITH WEAPONS BUT NO AMMUNITION. THE THIRD WAVE (SMR) WOULD ATTACK AS FOR SECOND WAVE BUT OFFICERS WOULD HAVE LOADED SIDE ARMS TO FRIGHTEN THE CROWD. THE FOURTH WAVE WOULD BE 27 ARMY WITH FULL EQUIPMENT AND AMMUNITION. THE FIRST ATTACKS OCCURRED AT MUCIDI AND SHILIPU. THE FIRST THREE WAVES WERE HELD BY THE DEMONSTRATORS AND SMR TROOPS TRIED TO PUSH BACK THE CROWDS TO LET 27 ARMY THROUGH. THEY FAILED AND 27 ARMY APCS OPENED FIRE ON THE CROWD (BOTH CIVILIANS AND SOLDIERS) BEFORE RUNNING OVER THEM IN THEIR APCS.

4. FACT. THE ENRAGED MASSES FOLLOWED IGNORING M/G FIRE TO NEXT BATTLE AT LIUBUKOU. APCS RAN OVER TROOPS AND CIVILIANS AT 65KPH IN SAME MANNER. ONE APC CRASHED AND DRIVER (A CAPTAIN) GOT OUT AND WAS TAKEN BY CROWD TO HOSPITAL. HE IS NOT DERANGED AND DEMANDS DEATH FOR HIS ATROCITIES.

5. FACT. ON ARRIVAL AT TIANANMEN TROOPS FROM SMR HAD SEPARATED STUDENTS AND RESIDENTS. STUDENTS UNDERSTOOD THEY WERE GIVEN ONE HOUR TO LEAVE SQUARE BUT AFTER FIVE MINUTES APCS ATTACKED. STUDENTS LINKED ARMS BUT WERE MOWN DOWN INCLUDING SOLDIERS. APCS THEN RAN OVER BODIES TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO MAKE QUOTE PIE UNQUOTE AND REMAINS COLLECTED BY BULLDOZER. REMAINS INCINERATED AND THEN HOSED DOWN DRAINS.

6. 27 ARMY ORDERED TO SPARE NOONE AND SHOT WOUNDED SMR SOLDIERS. 4 WOUNDED GIRL STUDENTS BEGGED FOR THEIR LIVES BUT WERE BAYONETED. A 3 YEAR OLD GIRL WAS INJURED BUT HER MOTHER WAS SHOT AS SHE WENT TO HER AID AS WERE SIX OTHERS WHO TRIED. 1000 SURVIVORS WERE TOLD THEY COULD ESCAPE VIA ZHENGYI LU BUT WERE THEN MOWN DOWN BY SPECIALLY PREPARED M/G POSITIONS. ARMY AMBULANCES WHO ATTEMPTED TO GIVE AID WERE SHOT UP AS WAS A SINO-JAPANESE HOSPITAL AMBULANCE. WITH MEDICAL CREW DEAD WOUNDED DRIVER ATTEMPTED TO RAM ATTACKERS BUT WAS BLOWN TO PIECES BY ANTI TANK WEAPON. IN FURTHER ATTACK APCS CAUGHT UP WITH SMR STRAGGLER TRUCKS, RAMMED AND OVERTURNED THEM AND RAN OVER TROOPS. DURING ATTACK 27 ARMY OFFICER SHOT DEAD BY OWN TROOPS APPARENTLY BECAUSE HE FALTERED. TROOPS EXPLAINED THEY WOULD BE SHOT IF THEY HADN'T SHOT OFFICER.

7. SPECULATION. 27 ARMY USED BECAUSE MOST RELIABLE AND OBEDIENT. SOME CONSIDERED OTHER ARMIES WOULD ATTACK 27 ARMY BUT THEY HAD NO AMMUNITION. ZHONGZHAI WAS PROTECTED BY 2 RINGS OF TANKS/APCS ONE INSIDE THE WALL, ONE WITHOUT.

8. RUMOUR. SOME SMR HAD RETURNED TO HOME BASES FOR AMMUNITION. ARMIES FROM SHANDONG, JIANGSI AND XINJIANG HAD LEFT BASES WITHOUT ORDERS FROM BEIJING TO DESTROY 27 ARMY. THE MR COMMANDERS FROM GUANZHOU, BEIJING AND SHENYANG HAS REFUSED TO ATTEND A RECENT MEETING OF MR COMMANDERS CALLED BY YANG SHANGKUN.

9. FACT. BEIJING MR COMMANDER HAD REFUSED TO SUPPLY OUTSIDE ARMIES WITH FOOD, WATER OR BARRACKS. SOURCE SAID MANY BARRACKS IN BEIJING BUT NOTE TV PICTURES OF TENTS. 27 ARMY WERE USING DUM-DUM BULLETS. 27 ARMY SNIPERS SHOT MANY CIVILIANS ON BALCONIES, STREETSWEEPERS ETC FOR TARGET PRACTICE. BEIJING HOSPITALS HAD BEEN ORDERED TO ACCEPT ONLY SECURITY FORCE CASULTIES. SO FAR 6 FOREIGN STUDENTS AND 23 FOREIGN JOURNALISTS HAD BEEN KILLED IN THE FIGHTING (NOTE: WE HAVE NO EVIDENCE OF THIS).

10. FACT. THE FIRST PHASE OF THE OPERATION WAS TO SECURE TIANANMEN. THE NEXT PHASE WOULD BE TO CONTROL MAJOR ROADS AND INTERSECTIONS AND MOVE OUTWARDS FROM CENTRE. THIS WOULD START WITHIN 2 DAYS.

11. FACT. YANG SHANGKUN AND DENG XIAOPING WERE VERY CLOSE FRIENDS. SOME MEMBERS OF THE STATE COUNCIL THAT CIVIL WAR IS IMMINENT. QIN JIWEI WAS FORCED UNWILLINGLY TO APPEAR IN BACKGROUND IN TV PROGRAMME ON 20 MAY TO GIVE AURA OF UNITY. MINIMUM ESTIMATE OF CIVILIAN DEAD 10,000.

DONALD 

Marximation

This January there was some strange news from China, the airing of a Karl Marx animated series usually called Karl Marx the anime, but actually titled The Leader. There was quite a bit of fuss on news sites and social media, but oddly once episodes started floating around the net it quickly disappeared. It doesn't seem to have gained much traction even in the circles that make image reactions and jokes.

I found a youtube channel that not only uploaded all seven episodes but had also fansubbed the Chinese dialogue into English and Russian. I watched the whole show, and I think I see why it didn't last. Using the channel statistics as a guide, episode one has 100,000+ views, episode 2 though plummeted to 15,000 and the drop continued with the last episode getting around 7,000. There's a lot to untangle so I'm going to break it down a bit.

Expectations

I wasn't expecting much going in, its a biopic of Karl Marx that's seven episodes long. Each episode is around 24 minutes long, but at least four of those minutes are dedicated to credit sequences and a preview of the next episode. I was expecting more of a brief timeline and introduction to his ideas and inspirations. This seems to be what they were aiming for and some episodes mostly live up to this but the rest fall quite short.

The Look

Bluntly the show is very incompetent, both in animation and story structure, it seems to have deliberately gone out of its way to show off how poorly made much of it is. There's no consistency, it switches between 3D and 2D animation styles arbitrarily, the models are extremely janky in movement and stick out from the backgrounds. They often look creepy especially when laughing.

The models are also recycled heavily, Marx doesn't appear to age or change his clothes much from age 17 until the 1850's when he starts to show the beginnings of a beard. His wife Jenny is usually seen wearing her wealthy noblewoman dress and her maid is wearing a sexy formal French maids outfit. The crowds are some of the laziest I've ever seen, a good chunk of multiple episodes are dedicated to Marx giving a speech, and we get reaction shots from the audience, but whats weird is that these audience usually stay motionless until the speech is finished, and then they applaud robotically. Most do not even emote during, and many not in the front row despite being clearly visible often do not have faces.

This is not the worst example of lifeless crowds, this is only the first example. From the first episode, about two minutes in

It looks cheap and its very jarring. Even the show opener highlights many of the worst features of the animation. But what's really strange is that the first episode is the cheapest looking one, every other episode while not perfect is an improvement. Now animations having spikes and drops in quality is nothing unusual, budgets of both time and money can effect production, but I've never known the opening episode to be the one that's the most cheap looking. I honestly had to pause the episode multiple times to process what I was looking at, its not just that it looks bad, it often actively confuses.

An obvious 3D Gatling gun model

One two second cut later, and its transformed

I think the last episode looks the best, and its much easier to follow, but that's mainly because aside from an epilogue it focusses mostly on Marx coming to terms with his age and ill health. The section with him and his wife Jenny was surprisingly quite emotional.

 The Education

I was expecting this to be a brief introduction friendly to people who knew nothing of Karl Marx, and I think that was the intent, but it often falls short. I personally think it might be better to skip episodes 1 and 2 and start with 3, not only do the production values increase but not much is lost. Though later episodes do still have some pretty serious issues. 

It presents the information in small chunks, but sometimes it does so in a way that only makes sense if you already familiar with the topic at hand. The bits on Hegel and Kant are pretty blatant examples. Episode 2 covers the deep impression Hegel made on Marx, particularly the "Dialectic" but it doesn't explain what that is, and both philosophers and many others that pop up in the show are reduced to some very quick summaries that rely on terms that aren't in common usage. 

Another time Marx is outlining his ides on Historical Materialism, and his brief explanation is overlaid random scenes on a street in Brussels, but the connection between what he's saying and the imagery is not made clear.

Episode 5 the highpoint for me, is the best at this, it takes its time explaining some of the passages from Capital, and its framing works in the episode. It also has an effective use of colourful imagery, the Vampire like capitalist relationship. Other than that its main problem is its brief run time, big and important ideas and lessons are briefly mentioned and then everything has moved on.

I picked out this comment to highlight how poor a job it seems to be doing in teaching people about Karl Marx, most of the other comments weren't much better

The Revisionism

This overlaps a lot with both education and looks, but I wanted to make this its own section for clarity sake. While focussed almost exclusively on Marx, -with one exception to be dealt with later- it does reference and introduce, often for less than a minute some of the other political radicals that Marx rubbed shoulders with. Including his criticism of them. with the exception of Ruge whose briefly mentioned before he appears everyone else Marx interacts with just turns up is introduced by a brief name plate, cross swords with Marx and either immediately leaves to be banished for ever, or like Engels sticks around to become his admirer.

Episode 4 takes this to the extreme. Wietling walks into the Marx home, is briefly introduced for his accomplishments, he then talks and moves incredibly smugly, talks about Christian communism for a bit and toasts himself before Marx speaks up. Every part of this scene, the dialogue, the character movements, the facial emotions etc. Is telling the audience to dislike him, but the argument between him and Marx is so quick and surface level its mostly just angry words. The only part of the disagreement that's clear between the two if you don't already know all about their ideas is that Wietling thinks workers allying with the bourgeoisie is a mistake because they are enemies, and Marx disagrees because of his views on history. 

Who was right? Well we're supposed to sympathise with Marx and Wietling literally storms out of his house never to be seen again so I guess that's a win for Marx*. The International Working Men's Association is depicted as being the soul fruit of the labour of Marx, and it largely accords with his views. The reality was that it was diverse body full of people he couldn't stand and didn't fall under his direct control until 1872, when it promptly haemorrhaged members and collapsed.

In episode 6 there is a Marx/Bakunin stand off at the Hague Congress, Marx ridicules Bakunin as a conspirator, Bakunin has no allies, and he and his group are expelled. In reality Bakunin was never at the Hague Congress, Marx's motion to expel Bakunin failed, he was later expelled for questioning the new General Council, and when he left the majority of the membership also left, either to join him or like the other non Marx non Bakunin aligned groups like Blanqui's supporters simply to get away from the direction Marx was driving. The narration and the final episode don't acknowledge this at all, they give the impression that Marx's decision to prevent a split of the international, by well splitting the international was roaring success. 

This episode (heh) demonstrates a key failing in The Leader. Its supposed to be biographical, but it won't tolerate even mild and universally accepted criticism of Marx as political advocate or as a human being. Marx is apparently faultless, when I saw they were including Helene Demuth the maid I wondered if they'd dare depict him getting her pregnant. They didn't, it'd probably get in the way of depicting his relationship with Jenny as a fairy tale romance. His well known binge drinking is also absent, at one point he even criticises other revolutionaries for drinking too much. His behaviour with his enemies real and imagined is always depicted as noble and correct, but it can't go into detail about their opposing views and criticisms even to set up their defeat, so it all comes across as extremely shallow, which also makes Marx the character seem shallow and clueless. Marx never really convinces by the power of his argument, he just registers his dislike and the reactions of the characters does the hard work of presenting this as a victory to the audience.

Self Sabotage

Again this is tied in with all the other examples. A bizarre fault with the show is that it kept undermining what it was trying to achieve. An early scene in episode one that seems based on that famous scene from Good Will Hunting with the Bully, is supposed to establish Karl Marx as a genius but it totally undermines itself. Marx does this by reciting a very simplified explanation of Kant's views on dogmatism and scepticism, which shouldn't be a problem, but this is shown to stump all the other students, and more importantly the scene immediately before that was Karl Marx in a class room listening to his teacher tell him this. So we're supposed to be impressed by his ability to remember basic information told to him three hours earlier.

Another example in episode 3 and 4 they address the poverty of the Marx family, but each time this done while the maid and his wife are onscreen in there expensive clothing, because they were too cheap to update their models. Shortly after criticising Wietling, Marx starts ripping into Kriege's ideas on universal love, specifically the absurd notion that capitalists and lenders can be reached by appeals to their better nature. He's saying all of this to his good friend and dependable comrade Friedrich Engels, whom the show has established is a factory manager, and was moved to become a Communist because witnessing the plight of the working poor appealed to his better nature.

Lest you feel I'm being a bit hard, I personally agree with the criticism of Kriege, its just that The Leader is just giving out mixed signals in its incompetence. 

Last but not least, there's the case of Pierre Proudhon. Engels gives Marx a copy of his Proudhon's new book Philosophy of Poverty. While Marx is holding the book unopened, two random people start throwing out snippets of Proudhon's beliefs. At which point Marx still holding the unopened book starts ranting about Proudhon's "Petits-bourgeois" socialism and declares he will write a criticism called Poverty of Philosophy. It was at this point that I wasn't sure whether some of the instances of self sabotage were deliberate or not, Marx did write Poverty of Philosophy as an attack on Proudhon, and for many years it was considered a masterpiece in Marxist criticism. 

Until people started reading Proudhons book, where it was discovered that many of Marx's criticisms were incredibly inaccurate if not made up.

Propaganda

AKA, the reason this was really made. The Leader isn't really supposed to be an educational text, its made to capitalise on Karl Marx and use his legacy to legitimise the Chinese Communist Party. The CPC fully supported the creation of The Leader, particularly the Propaganda Department of the Communist Youth League and the  Central Office for the Research and Construction of Marxist Theory were involved.

This is the final image of the end credits of every episode. The credits are a timeline of Karl Marx's life so the connections aren't subtle.

It was made and released just before the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's death, and the first speech Karl Marx gives on the show “Reflections of a Young Man on the Choice of a Profession” was also chosen as an extract for Xi Jinping's speech commemorating the 200th anniversary. 

“If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually be at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.”

Even the titles for the episodes sound like they were taken from propaganda posters

1. Different Youth
2. Defending the Rights of the People
3. New World View
4. Scientific Socialism Shines Brightly
5. Great Work Das Kapital
6. First International
7. Marx Forever

And of course the name of the series The Leader isn't exactly subtle. But in case you didn't get it the last part of the final episode really drives it home. The ending credits are a timeline of key events in Marx's life, except for episode seven. In that episode the timeline is replaced with a history of Marxism-Leninism, through to the present day in the People's Republic. Complete with a narrator praising Mao Zedong, then Deng Xiaoping then the Three Represents and then finally Xi Jinping.

Xi Jinping's new era of socialism with Chinese Characteristics together will bring the people forward into a new era for China 

The intention is of course is crystal clear, Karl Marx is the indisputable leader of Communism, and the CPC is the heir to Communism, and so it is the heir to Karl Marx.

Of course its not exactly a new claim, just a few more heads to squeeze on the banners.

There is some attempt to justify this posture though, in an early episode Marx is absolutely indignant at the oppression of peasantry by the landlord class, and the Paris Commune is criticised for not having a strong central leadership. Also Marx did briefly talk about the importance of theory adapting it to historical conditions and reality. Which the narrator echoes at the end by claiming that Maoism through to Xi is just the Sinification of Marxism.

I also think though this is speculation that the propaganda potential of the series is the explanation for its poor production values, especially in earlier episodes. The series premiered on the 28th of January, with an episode a week, meaning it ended roughly around the anniversary date. If the decision to make the series had come late, with the anniversary being the hard deadline it must reach, then that would explain why the earlier episodes are the worst with the most obvious time and cost cutting. The later episodes which look much better would have had more time available to work on. But even in the last episodes there are obvious signs of short cuts in some sequences.

Conclusion

I think The Leader is doomed to be a curiosity, unless the CPC believes it was successful at propagandising to the youth of China I can't see this experiment being repeated. Its a shame but I don't recommend it, its not without its charms, but the combination of animation issues, shallow information, and propaganda distortions -and there were many more examples I could have listed- leave this as something best avoided. 

Which is a shame, as I don't believe the idea of an animated series is without merit, the Manga adaptation of Capital was largely a success, the films Young Karl Marx and the West German film about Rosa Luxemburg were very informative and interesting to watch, and historical drama's are becoming increasingly common and more refined. If the CPC didn't cobble this together to meet its targets and it was allowed artistic freedom it could've been something great. For all its faults the final episode was quite good so the people doing the actual work of making the production seem to have been capable of doing good work.

* Incidentally this same episode covers the revolutions of 1848, during which time many of Europe's bourgeoisie eventually allied with their despotic aristocracy to destroy the more radical workers and student revolutionaries. So it seems like Wietling was largely correct on that point but this is never addressed.