Image is from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ recent article on Kashmir.
It looks like the spat between India and Pakistan could be dying down, due to a new ceasefire. As of the time of me writing this paragraph, it seems both sides want to maintain it (despite some reports of violations here and there).
Both sides have declared victory, which is completely expected given their mutual political parties and nationalist histories. It’s a little harder to say which side has actually won, as both sides seem to have managed to shoot down aircraft and hit military bases. India has, in my opinion, had the more embarrassing moments, but international conflicts aren’t cringe compilations. I feel no good-will towards Pakistan’s comprador government, but it is at least nice to see Modi knocked down a few pegs. Regardless of the final technical victor, it’s obvious that - if the ceasefire is maintained - who won are the hundreds of millions of people who won’t have to live in fear of dying in nuclear hellfire.
This conflict is a good example of what multipolarity will truly entail. Countries that have been previously limited in their nationalist ambitions by American pressure will now take opportunities to revolt, sometimes against America itself, and sometimes against other countries in their regional neighbourhood. It’s also why, as communists, our goals do not stop at multipolarity; it is merely the establishing act of a new era of agitation against peripheral and semi-peripheral capitalist countries that are forming powerful national bourgeoisie classes as the international American capitalists are forced away.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
mysterious decoupling of crypto/gold/yields continues, while gold dropped like a stone in two weeks (by 10% to like 3200 from 3500, probably caused by india), crypto as a whole appreciated by 10% (to 3.4e12, together with dow, to be fair), dxy also rose (only by 4%), oil bounces around 65, so not danger zone to fracking. so we can assume people believe in usa economy once again
with notable exception of bond traders (still at 4.9 yields), long may they reign. * ah also atlanta super gdp-prediction tool switched back to growth, as i’ve warned aboutnow to real news: #beanwatch
is still in nothing ever happens zone, coffee/cocoa/soy are all in the same place as they were (370/10000/1050), cocoa and coffee still unusually expensive tho (2000/150 two years before).Trump’s speech in Saudi Arabia repeated a bunch of neocon talking points and principles (Iran can never have a nuke and needs to submit to American demands, Sanctions against Assad were necessary and good, Hamas is an evil terrorist organization that needs to be destroyed before Palestine can be lifted from siege, Saudi Arabia should join the Abraham accords, etc).
Then he went on to attack “neocons” who failed at nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s all such a dumb farce. Whenever rightoids complain about neocons it’s always that Garfield meme. They don’t even realize they are the neocons. Dude you had Bolton, Rubio, Kellog, Walz and more in your foreign policy department. Shut the fuck up!
At this point dropping a nuke on tel-aviv would be morally justified
Two ballistic missiles launched by Yemen at Israel, one launched at Ben Gurion airport, likey intercepted in the terminal phase by THAAD or Arrow 2 triggering air raid sirens (multiple interceptors were launched after the initial launch of Arrow 3 interceptors) with debris landing in Jerusalem, another intercepted or fell over Saudi Arabia, no air raid sirens for that missile. The air raid sirens were for
HamasPIJ’s Al-Quds Brigades rockets, in response to a large Israeli bombing in Gaza, targeting the “European Hospital”, killing 28 people. Apparently this strike was an assassination attempt on Mohammed Sinwar, but that is unconfirmed information.Yemeni Armed Forces statement on the first ballistic missile launch, no statement on the second yet:
Israeli airstrikes on the European Hospital:
NYU student talked about Palestine in a speech, was cheered and heckled, and then his diploma was withheld.
Here is a video of the speech: https://xcancel.com/prem_thakker/status/1923027614270128306 (edit: replaced with a non-Zionist source)
And here is NYUs despicable statement: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2025/may/statement-by-nyu-spokesperson-john-beckman.html
Nothing in that speech was objectionable. There was no radical element, just a basic level of humanity. But even that is too much for the fucking ghoulish administration of these universities.
Both sides have declared victory, which is completely expected given their mutual political parties and nationalist histories. It’s a little harder to say which side has actually won, as both sides seem to have managed to shoot down aircraft and hit military bases
The only evidence so far is of Indian aircraft being shot down, haven’t seen any evidence of Pakistani aircraft being shot down.
As far as a technical breakdown, on the first engagement, Pakistan shot down four Indian aircraft (2x Rafale, 1x Su-30MKI, 1x MiG 29) using their Chinese HQ-9 air defence system and J-10C fighter aircraft with no losses, while India achieved a few stand-off strikes on “terrorist targets”. Overall I think Pakistan won that engagement, India hit a very limited amount of targets at a very high cost. In hindsight this makes sense, Pakistan has more AWACS aircraft and fighter aircraft with AESA radars. See first, shoot first. However, Indian aircraft should have never been in a position to be shot down, given that they were carrying out stand off strikes, this suggests an poorly planned or ill disciplined approach.
During the second engagement, India hit a large amount of military targets in Pakistan with standoff counterforce strikes, and Pakistan responded with their own counterforce stand off strikes. The engagement was quite disproportionate, with India hitting substantially more targets than Pakistan. In hindsight this makes sense, as the Indian Air Force has substantially better and more diverse stand off strike options: subsonic stealth cruise missiles in Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG, supersonic cruise missiles in BrahMos/P-800 Oniks and Air Launched Ballistic Missiles (ALBM) in Rudram-II and ROCKS. The Pakistani Air Force’s conventional stand off capability is quite limited by comparison, with only the CM-400AKG ALBM as an option, the Raad subsonic stealth cruise missiles are nuclear only, leading to Pakistan relying a lot on their rocket troops with the Fatah 1 GMLRS and Fatah-2 Short Range Ballistic Missiles. India also has superior air defence compared to Pakistan, in the S-400 vs the HQ-9. Despite exaggerated claims by both sides, neither side lost aircraft or high level air defence systems in this engagement, but the air defences on both sides also failed to intercept quite a few of these stand off weapons, even if India’s air defence faired better. (Pakistan managed to intercept 1 SCALP-EG and 1-2 BrahMos). Pakistan lost a few radars seperate of their air defence systems. Overall India won this second engagement, hitting a lot more targets than Pakistan, and learning their lessons from the previous engagement with no losses in aircraft, as expected from a stand off strike mission.
This conflict is a good example of what multipolarity will truly entail. Countries that have been previously limited in their nationalist ambitions by American pressure will now take opportunities to revolt, sometimes against America itself, and sometimes against other countries in their regional neighbourhood.
The USA still brokered the ceasefire after receiving concerning intelligence, reportedly around potential Indian strikes on Pakistani nuclear forces. The US still very much acted as the “world police”.
Ceasefire After 4 Days: Inside Story Of How India-Pakistan Reached Agreement-NDTV
Shortly after the [Indian] strikes, Indian intelligence agencies detected high alert messages flashing across Pakistani defence networks indicating a belief that India might next target Pakistan’s nuclear command and control infrastructure.
Strategic installations in Rawalpindi, including offices linked to Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, reportedly heightened security protocols. It was at this juncture that Pakistan reached out to the United States for urgent intervention.
According to government sources, US officials had already been in contact with both sides in anticipation of escalating tensions. But the alert around strategic assets led Washington to step in more decisively.
At least one explosion took place near a known Pakistani nuclear forces facility, so it doesn’t appear to have been a bluff, even if the source of this above information is NDTV.
Apparently China is now offering to sell Pakistan the J-35 (A stealthy 5th generation analogue to the F-35 for those who don’t know) in light of the success of the PAF.
Meanwhile, Israeli media and military brass are shitting bricks because another regional power has access to these proven Chinese air superiority assets:
Egypt.
I think J-35s would only be sold to Pakistan if India get F-35s, or whatever European equivalent to the F-35 comes out a decade in the future. I can’t see China proactively pulling the trigger here.
J-10Cs went over to Egypt for a joint military exercise between China and Egypt, Egypt does not operate them yet, though they could in future. Egypt does operate the Rafale though and F-16C block 50/52 aircraft.
nah land based j-35 variant (seen in the air show this year and actualy marketed to Egypt as well this month -they brought some mock up at least-) will most likely be sold to Pakistan in the nearish future and to whoever else is interested eventualy. China likes and plans around the j-20 more for the theater its interested and it has already been testing and recieving the carrier based j-35 variant . So the land based J-35 variant is basicaly made to be exported. Maybe 1-2 countries like Algeria opt for the Su-57 if Russia manages actual production but for everyone else locked out of the f35 program , j35 will be an option given time. I doupt China cares too much and they will have their 6th gen platforms entering service before Europe manages a 5th gen program either way
I doupt China cares too much and they will have their 6th gen platforms entering service before Europe manages a 5th gen program either way
Very true, and a big letdown for Europe. China and the USA are moving onto 6th gen, while Europe can’t even get a 5th generation aircraft off of the PowerPoint.
Yup. Bad source. They do however have HQ-9Bs which were involved in at least one dead Indian jet.
Yeah an HQ-9 system, known as HIMADS in the Pakistani military, did get a kill according to them. Unknown what variant.
But building on your comment, what China should focus on is better high level specialised air defence and standoff weapons in the Pakistani context, that’s what they need more than J-35s. Pakistan did well in the air superiority mission with the J-10C, more than enough to match the Rafale. While neither system performed great, failing to protect military targets, the Russian made S-400 on the Indian side did outperform the Chinese made HQ-9 on the Pakistani side based on the disproportionate second exchange, with limited evidence of interception of BrahMos and SCALP-EG. The Chinese equivalent to the S-300V, in the HQ-18, better be real.
The Pakistani Air Force also needs more stand-off weapons, having one ALBM type in the inventory, and subsonic cruise missiles reserved only for nuclear forces, and no supersonic missiles, is a big drawback, which led to Pakistan relying on their not so great ground based rocket artillery and short range ballistic missile arsenal for a majority of stand-off counterforce strikes. They were completely outmatched by India here. That’s not sustainable as a deterrence posture versus India, nevermind in an actual war. In a tit for tat counterforce stand off strike exchange, India wins every time.
Stealth from the J-35 would enable a more traditional air campaign to be carried out, but that requires flying into Indian airspace (which is a very hard sell for political reasons in the Pakistan-India context), but stand off counterforce capabilities are a more pressing concern for deterrence I think. Got to learn to crawl, then walk, before you can run. While the Pakistani Air Force is very much ready to run/already running in an air superiority context, they are currently crawling in a strike mission context.
However, Indian aircraft should have never been in a position to be shot down, given that they were carrying out stand off strikes, this suggests an poorly planned or ill disciplined approach.
From the rumours, the original commander during a previous sortie saw the readiness levels of the PAF and called off the operation, after which he was called a coward and replaced with a yes man who would commit to the attack.
Additionally, the PL-15Es that Pakistan has may have actually been the un-nerfed 300km range PL-15 China uses domestically, which means unless India had prior intelligence of this that they might have underestimated the range at which they were vulnerable.
Archive: https://archive.is/oKT1t
UK’s F-35 exports more important than stopping genocide, lawyers to argue
Preserving the British role in the F-35 jet fighter programme takes precedence over the need to comply with UK laws on arms export controls, or any UK obligation to prevent a genocide in Israel, UK government lawyers will argue in court this week.
I love the
rules-voluntary non-binding guidelines-based international orderit’s really more of a geneva suggestion
In papers to the court, the UK has acknowledged that its supply of F-35 components for potential use in Israel is in breach of its own arms export control laws. The laws state that arms export licences must not be granted “if there is a clear risk those items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law by Israel”.
They’ve given up even pretending that a genocide isn’t happening, too.
I’m not sure which is worse: pretending there isn’t a genocide, or acknowledging that there is with an “…and we’re all in!” stance.
I feel like the former at least contains the admission that genocides are bad
Just went over the photos of the debris of the missile that Yemen fired at Israel a few days ago, and it appears that instead of using the Palestine-2 missile (a Fattah/Kheibar Shekan variant that has been in use for some time), it now appears that Ansarallah/the Houthis in Yemen now have the Fattah-1 proper. The debris on the ground in Israel is an exact match of the Fattah-1, all screws and rivet holes match up exactly. The Fattah-1 is Iran’s most advanced missile, so Iran is definitely increasing its support of Ansarallah. I’ll post some pictures below showing this, as well as the original pictures for anyone who wants to do a better Photoshop job. There are even more similarities that I haven’t highlighted, but that’s because I have poor Photoshop skills.
Original pictures:
Intact Fattah 1:
Debris in Israel:
Also don’t expect posts for a few days, I’ve been locked out of some accounts and lost a ton of sources, and I think I’ve been IP/device fingerprint banned from twitter, also called X nowadays. If it’s a device fingerprint ban, I don’t think that even a VPN will help me. It’ll take a while to recover, however the sources are all public accounts mainly on twitter, albeit low follower obscure ones. If anyone on here still has a Twitter account (yeah I know it’s a terrible website run by Musk, but unfortunately a lot of information is on there, I got the original images from twitter for example), feel free to send a private message if you want access to the sources or help in the recovery process.Nevermind, twitter finally loaded for the first time in 10+ hours, and forced me to complete an extremely long 10 part capcha to prove I’m not a bot and remove my IP/device fingerprint ban. Still lost the original account, but I can create a new one at least.
shout out to Trump for actually doing the so called white genocide by dislodging Afrikaners from south Africa
Update on the United States Air Force Strategic Bomber Task Force deployments: A further 3 B-2A Spirit stealth bombers have headed back to the United States, following the bilateral ceasefire between the USA and Yemen, which excludes Israel. There are no more B-2s currently forward deployed. However, a squadron of at least 4 F-15E Strike Eagles has been deployed to Diego Garcia, and more are on their way at this time. Although they are not strategic bombers, 1 F-15E can carry 5 JASSM stealth cruise missiles, allowing for a squadron of 4 F-15Es to replicate the role of 1 B-52. F-15Es can also act as combat air patrol aircraft to protect the island from any surface or aerial threats (boats and UAVs). This leaves 4 B-52s at Diego Garcia, and at least four F-15Es. The F-15s are a noticable deployment, with the dual capability of carrying out strikes and defending the island.
There are now a total of 8 United States Air Force Strategic Bombers forward deployed, along with at least 4 F-15Es:
Stationed at Diego Garcia:
- 4x B-52H Stratofortress bombers.
- 4x F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft at least, equipped with 5 JASSMs in this picture (1 on each wing, 1 on each aft station, and one barely visible on the centerline of the aircraft).
Stationed in Japan: - 4x B-1B Lancer supersonic swing wing bombers.
This means that the maximum JASSM conventional cruise missile salvo per sortie from bombers and strike fighters deployed at Diego Garcia is now 100 JASSMs, and the maximum AGM-86 nuclear cruise missile salvo remains at 80 missiles.
The maximum JASSM or LRASM (anti ship version of JASSM) conventional cruise missile salvo per sortie from bombers deployed at Japan remains at 96 missiles.
- 4x B-52H Stratofortress bombers.
the zionist entity created a classified team inside Google for use of its cloud tools
Google Worried It Couldn’t Control How Israel [sic] Uses Project Nimbus, Files Reveal | The Intercept
Both documents spell out that Project Nimbus entails a deep collaboration between Google and the Israeli [sic] security state through the creation of a Classified Team within Google. This team is made up of Israeli [sic] nationals within the company with security clearances, designed to “receive information by [Israel [sic]] that cannot be shared with [Google].” Google’s Classified Team “will participate in specialized training with government security agencies,” the first report states, as well as “joint drills and scenarios tailored to specific threats.”
Damn that’s scary from how much information Google has and how fascist Western countries are getting about pro-Palestine protestors and speech (they arrested someone for just writing an Op-ed in the US). Helps me feel more justified in buying a Roku Ultra so I can bypass my new TV’s native Google TV system. I did it mostly because I prefer the simpler UI, but hey, if it helps me to de-google that’s also a nice side benefit. I already rarely use Chrome (I use Firefox in my desktop and Brave in my phone) and only use my Gmail for things I don’t care about (for Proton Mail, but looking for other good private mailboxes, too). I’ve still got an Android phone and I’m sure there’s other things I’m forgetting, though. It’s so difficult with big monopolies.
roku sells a lot of user data too iirc make sure you are blocking the roku log servers
Ya that make sense. I figure they would suck, too, in some way or another. Do you or someone else else know how I would block that? Would I need another device, like a pi-hole, or can I just mess with my router? I’ve always been into privacy but now that my organizing is ramping up at the same time fascism is, it feels doubly important nowadays lol.
I think there are ways to change your upstream DNS on your router, or run a DNS filter on your router, without a separate device. but a raspberry pi is like 20 dollars I think
if you are running openwrt this is a filtered DNS that runs on the router
https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/services/dns/adguard-home
Proton is CIA
Email is inherently insecure and should be treated as such regarding corporate-government surveillance. This goes double for any company hosting an inbox. At minimum you need to control your own inbox, but of course that just means you’re as vulnerable as the outbox of who sends you emails and the inbox of those you send emails to. Using gmail is just making it extremely easy for a spying-friendly group to see all your info, but degoogling isn’t enough to have decent infosec.
Yemen launched another ballistic missile (Likely Fattah-1) at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport. The missile was intercepted by what appears to be the Arrow 2 system in the terminal phase, which means it evaded the Arrow 3 midcourse interception system, and either evaded the THAAD system or flew under it’s altitude floor (THAAD can only engage targets at altitudes above 40km, Arrow 2 is responsible for interceptions between 8-50km altitude).
What’s happening in the video is that Arrow 2 uses both a kinetic hit to kill interception, as well as a blast fragmentation warhead to intercept ballistic missiles. The kill vehicle of Arrow 2 is designed to achieve a hit-to-kill interception, but simultaneously the kill vehicle will also direct warhead fragments at the target shortly before reaching the closest point to the target, once the proximity fuze sets off, in case a hit to kill interception is not achieved. The high explosive directed blast fragmentation warhead is capable of destroying a target within a 40–50 m (130–160 ft) radius.
Here, the kinetic interception was achieved and successful (the two objects impacting each other), but the directed blast fragmentation cloud completely missed the missile (the explosion in the video that takes place just before the kill vehicle and missile impact each other). This is why kinetic hit to ki intercept is an important capability for anti ballistic missile defence systems. If Arrow 2 relied purely on blast fragmentation, the intercept would’ve missed completely due to the Fattah-1s maneuverability and speed in the terminal phase.
I don’t understand why any of these countries shedding crocodile tears for Palestinians are even pretending to care. What would they even lose by fully and publicly committing themselves to Israel’s genocide?
Fucking hell all of Israel’s allies (like, 99% of the world) might as well drop all pretenses and self-annex themselves into Greater Israel.
Here’s an extremely black-pilled take:
spoiler
I’m gonna say this now. With all the continued support Israel’s been getting from nearly the whole fucking world, this isn’t just Palestinians vs. Israel, it’s Palestinians vs. (almost) the whole world. They all want Palestinians gone. Every country wants them gone just so they can shrug their shoulders and stop thinking about them, because they’re “inconvenient” for their relations with Israel. They want them gone so they can embrace Israel as the forever empire of the Middle East.
Many people are rightfully angry about Trump’s assault on public institutions, but I believe the endgame is far more sinister than “fascists are dumb and fell for the DEI bullshit so they sabotage their own country”.
One question I’ve seen some people raising is: why don’t the bourgeois elites do something about it? Why let Trump ravage cut off billions of university fundings and cleaving off many government agencies that serve actual purposes, to the detriment of even the bourgeois class itself?
Well, if you follow the trajectory to its endpoint, it all makes sense. The bourgeois class is poised to reap the ultimate benefits of Trump’s misbehavior.
Many people can see the goal of ultimately privatizing these government agencies, but this is not just a mindlessly forced privatization of public institutions. Instead, it is to foment a new narrative about the perils of nationalization.
As people are becoming increasingly critical about billionaires and private capital owning large chunks of the economy, left wing narrative on nationalization has gained traction in recent years, at least in reasserting control on critical sectors.
In my opinion, Trump has correctly demonstrated the true unfettered authority of the federal government. Yes, the executive branch can really do all that and get away with it, in spite of what the Democrats tell you about the complex rules and Republican obstructionism. The federal government is so powerful that it can literally tax away all the wealth of the billionaire class and get away with it. Not even Harvard backed by multi-billion private capital can possibly fight the authority with the power of the purse. The government can end homelessness and give free universal healthcare in a moment’s notice.
These would have infinitely improved the lives of the people and curbed the political and economic influence of the wealthy elites. But… there is a BUT:
What if the government use its authority for nefarious purposes, like Trump is doing right now?
“What, you want universities to be funded by the government? Have you seen what Trump has done? Do you want billions of funding to be abruptly cut off just because right wingers are scared of DEI? That’s why you need FREE MARKET! No matter your ideology, there will be someone willing to finance your institutions. Free market is DIVERSITY! Nationalization is authoritarianism where absolute power will absolutely corrupt!”
I think when Trump’s shenanigans finally end, a new wave of criticisms against the excess power of the federal government would emerge. This will lead to further decentralization of its authority, and pave the way towards mass privatization with consent manufactured.
I haven’t seen people from the left talking about this and I think that if the left is serious, they have to start conceiving of counter-narratives, or else they’ll just be caught off guard by this new phase of capitalism, once again. Remember when the American left completely failed to achieve any concession on healthcare during Covid because they were so afraid of being seen as touting right wing conspiracy theories? Same principles here.
Remember when the American left completely failed to achieve any concession on healthcare during Covid because they were so afraid of being seen as touting right wing conspiracy theories? Same principles here.
To achieve concessions you need power, and the American left doesn’t have any of that. Both electorally and amongst the masses. We had a historical rebellion at that same time and barely got concessions from those (and in many cases the reactionaries got further concessions).
If your analysis of those failures starts with some posts you saw on twitter (and there’s plenty of contrary evidence of the ‘left’ organizing, albeit ineffectively, around health care), you’re missing the forest for the trees.
I’m not sure what exactly you’re flagging that you think “the left” is missing. The DNC are feckless controlled opposition, presumably that isn’t the left you mean. For anyone else, it’s pretty clear that Trump/modern republicanism is a continuation of starve the beast for everything but the security-carceral state, which ends in privatization of social services and exclusion of who those services are available and accessible to.
trump is making a great case for dual-power and anarchism
I think one thing we all are missing is that thinking state is slave to the capital. State serves capital but at the end of the day, state is the only owner of legitimate violence. Capital donates to the parties so parties don’t fuck them over when they win because state stil has the power. Parties won’t destroy their own power
Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t think they needed consent manufacturing. Consent has been manufactured long time ago. They always had the rhetoric of “using your power to do stuff is dictatorship, less you use power, less of a dictator you are”. They could have destroyed the power after winning with this rhetoric. Besides, they could have done it even without manufactured consent
I think one thing we all are missing is that thinking state is slave to the capital. State serves capital but at the end of the day, state is the only owner of legitimate violence
You might like some of these letters of Engels’.
spoiler
[…] Society gives rise to certain public functions which it cannot dispense with. The people who are delegated to perform them constitute a new branch of the division of labor within society. They acquire therewith special interests in opposition even to those who have designated them; make themselves independent of them, and the state is here. And now the same thing takes place as in commodity exchange and later in money exchange: while the new independent power must, on the whole, submit to the movement of production, in turn it also reacts, by virtue of its immanent, i.e., its once transmitted but gradually developed relative independence, upon the conditions and course of production. There is a reciprocity between two unequal forces; on the one side, the economic movement; on the other, the new political power which strives for the greatest possible independence and which having once arisen is endowed with its own movement. The economic movement, upon the whole, asserts itself but it is affected by the reaction of the relatively independent political movement which it itself had set up. This political movement is on the one hand the state power, on the other, the opposition which comes to life at the same time with it. Just as the money market reflects, on the whole, with the qualifications indicated, the movement of the industrial market, but naturally in an inverted fashion, so there is reflected in the struggle between government and opposition, the struggle between already existing and contending classes but again in an inverted form, no longer direct but indirect, not as a class struggle but as a struggle for political principles. So inverted is this reflection that it required thousands of years to discover what was behind it.
The reaction of the state power upon economic development can take a three-fold form. It can run in the same direction, and then the tempo of development becomes accelerated; it can buck up against that development in which case today in every large nation the state power is sure to go to smash for good; or it can block economic development along some directions and lay down its path along others. This last case is ultimately reducible to one of either of the foregoing two. It is clear that in the second and third cases the political power can do great damage to the course of economic development and result in a great waste of energy and materials.
The last 24 hours in Gaza the zionist enemy has killed 120+ martyrs. Every crime is worse than the last…
At least 120 Palestinians, most of them children, have been killed since dawn on Thursday in deadly Israeli attacks targeting crowded residential areas, tents, a clinic, and civilian gatherings across the Gaza Strip.
A whole group of orphans gathered at Al-Tawbah Mosque in Jabalia to receive orphan sponsorship money, and they were bombed! All the orphaned children and the association’s staff were martyred.
(Journalist in Gaza Meqdad Jameel)
The aftermath… oh God
https://tiktokgenocide.com/uploads/horrible-israeli-massacre-at-al-tawba-health-clinic-and-mosque
