non-white non-murricans - tens of thousands

Try millions.

Isn’t it interesting how so many people were saying there is no way to mobilize Americans to a general strike or to want to pick up arms against their government…until a fraction of the violence that the empire inflicts abroad (and even domestically but done to immigrants and minorities) year after year happened to hit one of them, now suddenly everyone is outraged?

The same phenomenon is occurring all across the former socialist bloc. I can personally confirm that this is also happening in Romania.

I would be very interested in that as well. How many people in the US “buy” a house by taking out a mortgage and then don’t even get close to fully paying off the mortgage before moving again, “selling” the previous house and “buying” another one?

The US is an especially bad case because people move so frequently in the US. And almost no one buys a home with the full amount up front. Taken together this means that most homes are never fully paid off and the house is just sold and a new one bought before any “real” ownership (i.e. the bank isn’t able to reposess your house if you stop making mortgage payments) occurs.

So I would say there is a dramatic difference between allying with existing liberation forces in a country vs. coming in and trying to quickly force development in a paternalistic way.

Indeed. And I think that what we have seen is that China is willing to offer help to liberation forces that have already become the dominant force in their country, like what happened in the AES (Sahel) states. But it would be damaging to the struggle if China were to throw their support behind groups that are still in the minority. That would make those groups look like proxies of an outside power, which would undermine their legitimacy.

The situation in Palestine is complicated because the officially recognized representative of the Palestinians is the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, China, just like Russia, cannot give help that has not been asked for. Did for example Iran request direct Chinese help beyond economic engagement? Did Venezuela? China does have military deals with Pakistan and an alliance with the DPRK.

And of course their direct involvement in Korea was absolutely correct. Not only was it in their own immediate security interest, but more importantly it was in aid of the officially recognized government of the DPRK and completely in accordance with what the majority of the people there wanted.

Of course you are correct to point out that ideology results from material conditions, which can and do change. What is necessary and correct today may not be the right policy tomorrow.

That being said, i think the point that is being made here, if i can paraphrase a little, is that you cannot force liberation on people who don’t understand that they need it yet. That just leads to resentment.

If the liberation movement is not organically grown through the experience of struggle but imposed from outside, then the resulting system is inevitably going to be fragile. If you do that then people will continue to cling to the idea that there was a better path that they weren’t allowed to try.

People need to be allowed to make their own mistakes and experience first hand why those are mistakes. Just like China had to first experiment with the bourgeois model during the Republican period before understanding that only the socialist path could lead to liberation, sovereignty and prosperity.

The other argument for China’s form of non-interference, which offers development and economic benefits but does not get involved in military conflicts, is that it allows imperialism to expose and discredit itself without being able to justify itself with the excuse of countering interference and global maneuvering by socialist states.

Meanwhile China presents itself as a beacon of stability, a stark contrast to the chaos of the declining imperial hegemony, an always reliable economic partner, a principled respecter of sovereignty, and ultimately a role model for other states to follow if they want stability, sovereignty, development and prosperity.

The biggest blunder that the dying US empire is currently making is giving up on its soft power, blowing up the ideological framework that had justified its hegemony for decades. They are falling into the trap of believing that you can dispense with the ideological pretense and just use hard power. But that pretense was necessary, even if it was understood by most to be a figleaf in front of the threat of hard power.

China is building up the new ideological framework to justify the post-hegemonic, multipolar world order. And for that it is vital that they cultivate an appearance of non-interventionism.

Contrary to popular belief, China’s “Do nothing. Win.” approach actually involves doing quite a lot of things.

NATO deleted this off their website. Unfortunately for them, the internet doesn’t forget.

I don’t know…i see a lot of US “leftists” defend veterans…

Ah. Right. No, sorry, i can’t help there. Have you tried ProPublica?

Regardless, i don’t think anyone has any doubt that the NED is funded by the US government. You don’t need an IRS form to know that. And the fact that these US based “Iran Human Rights” orgs work with the NED is publicly documented on their sites:

Here is NED calling them a “partner”: https://www.ned.org/ned-partner-recognized-for-promotion-of-human-rights-and-democracy-in-iran/

And here is the group admitting to receiving NED funding: https://www.hra-iran.org/article/an-inner-view-to-the-human-rights-activists-in-iran-keyvan-rafiee-founder-and-director-of-human-rights-activists-in-iran/

Therefore, HRA expanded its network and decided to start receiving financial aid from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a non-governmental and non-profit organization based in the United States.

Someone posted this on Twitter:

I don’t know if that’s what you’re looking for or where to find the full document.

I hate to defend BE but in this case it is pretty clear what point he is trying to make: he is deliberately using the same arguments and the exact same phrasing that many leftists use when defending people who join the US military. BE has had a long standing beef with leftists who defend US veterans.

He has made it very clear that he doesn’t agree with making excuses for people who, for whatever reason, choose to become soldiers for the US empire, and he is drawing a parallel between them and ICE, pointing out that if you think working for ICE is indefensible you should also think being in the US military is just as irredeemable.

Whether he is right about that is debatable but clearly that is the point he is making here.

Thank you for posting this! I hope this will once and for all put an end to the confusion around why some Venezuelan “communists” are so anti-PSUV and literally parroting imperialist and far right propaganda.

The best was the Tiananmen square mention. Comparing an event that you don’t understand, where you are being lied to about the number of casualties, with another event you don’t understand, where you are also being lied to about the number of casualties. Prime lib shit.

Case in point. CBS is literally ran by a pro-genocide Zionist.

They are if the year is 1637

This excellent information! Should probably be its own post, especially the part about the “Which Path to Persia” think tank paper. Anyone following what is happening with Iran needs to read it, just like anyone following Russia-Ukraine needs to read RAND’s “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia”.

My father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate says it was 100,000!

The good news is that there is no space in the Netherlands for large vineyards. The useable land is already full with tulips and the rest is marsh.

Italy looks to be hit the hardest. Southern Romania also not looking well, but at least they can make up for it with gains in Transylvania.