#new cold war

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Underground Empire: Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman's must-read account of "How America Weaponized the World Economy."

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

At the end of Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman's new book Underground Empire, they cite the work of John Lewis Gaddis, "preeminent historian of the Cold War," who dubbed that perilous period "The Long Peace":

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250840554/undergroundempire

Despite several harrowing near-misses, neither of the two hair-trigger, nuclear-tipped arsenals were ever loosed. When the Cold War ended, the world breathed a sigh of relief and set about refashioning itself, braiding together economic and social interdependencies that were supposed to make future war unthinkable. Nations that depend on one another couldn't afford to go to war, because they couldn't hurt the other without hurting themselves.

The standard account of the Cold War's "Long Peace" is that the game theorists who invented Mutually Assured Destruction set up a game where "the only way to win was not to play" (to quote the Matthew Broderick documentary War Games). The interdependency strategy of the post-Cold War, neoliberal, "flat" world was built on the same fundamentals: make war more costly than peace, victory worse than the status quo, and war would be over – if we wanted it.

But Gaddis has a different idea. Any effect Mutually Assured Destruction had on keeping fingers from pushing the buttons was downstream of a much more important factor: independence. For the most part, the US and the USSR had nonintersecting spheres of influence. Each of these spheres was self-sufficient. That meant that they didn't compete with one another for the use of the same resource or territory, and neither could put the other in check by seizing some asset they both relied on. The exceptions to this – proxy wars in Latin America and Southeast Asia – were the disastrous exceptions that proved the rule.

But the past forty years rejected this theory. From Thomas Friedman's "World Is Flat" to Fukyama's "End of History," the modern road to peace is paved with networks whose nodes can be found in every country. These networks – shipping routes, money-clearing systems, supply chains, the internet itself – weave together nearly every nation on Earth into a single web of interdependencies that make war impossible.

War, you may have noticed, has become very, very possible. Even countries with their own McDonald's franchises are willing to take up arms against one another.

That's where Farrell and Newman's book comes in. The two political scientists tell the story of how these global networks were built through accidents of history, mostly by American corporations and/or the American state. The web was built by accident, but the spider at its center was always the USA.

At various junctures since the Cold War, American presidents, spies and military leaders have noticed this web and tugged at it. A tariff here, a sanction there, then an embargo. The NSA turns the internet into a surveillance grid and a weapon of war. The SWIFT system is turned into a way to project American political goals around the world – first by blocking transactions for things the US government disfavors, then to cut off access for people who do business with people who do things that the US wants stopped.

Networks tend to centralization, to hubs. These central points are efficient, but (as we learned during the covid lockdown) brittle. One factory fails and an entire category of goods can no longer be made – anywhere. When it comes to global resiliency, these bottlenecks are are a bug; but when it comes to US foreign policy, these chokepoints are a feature.

Farrell and Newman skillfully weave a tale of individuals, powers, circumstances and forces, showing how the rise and rise of world-is-flat rah-rah globalism created a series of irresistable opportunities for "weaponized interdependence." Some players of the game wield these weapons like a scalpel; others (like Trump) use them like a club.

This is a chronicle of the dawning realization – among US power-players and their foreign adversaries, particularly in China – that the US lured its trading partners into entrusting it with financial clearing, IP enforcement, fiber landings, and other chokepoints, on the grounds that American wouldn't risk the wealth these systems generated by turning them into engines of coercion.

But then, of course, that's exactly what America did, from the War on Terror to economic sanctions on Iran, from seizing Argentinian reserves to freezing Russia's cash. Sometimes, the US did this for reasons that I sympathize with, other times, for reasons I am aghast at. But they did it, and did it, and did it.

America's adversaries (and frenemies, like the EU) have tried to build alternative "underground empires" to offset the risk of having their interdependencies weaponized (or to escape from an ongoing situation). But therein lies a conundrum: world-is-flat-ism has ended the age of indepedence. Countries really do need each other – for energy, materials, and finished goods. Independence is a long way off.

To create new interdependency networks, it's not enough for countries to agree that they don't trust America as neutral maintainer of their strategic chokepoints. They also have to agree to trust one of their own to operate those chokepoints. Lots of countries have come to mistrust US dollar-clearing and the SWIFT system – but few are willing to allow, say, China to run an alternative system that carries out settlements in Renminbi. The EU might be able to suck in some "friendly" countries for a Euro-clearing system, but would China trust them? How about Iran?

Farrell and Newman make a good case that US's position at the center of the web is a historical accident, and possibly a one-off, contingent on the ascendant post-Cold War ideology that said that markets and the interdependencies they create would neutralize the threat of handing a rival nation that much power.

Which leaves us in a world of interdependency in conflict. If Gaddis is right and the Long Peace was the result of independence, then this bodes very ill. The only thing worse than a world where no one can depend on anyone is a world where we must depend on entities that are hostile to us, and vice-versa. That way lies a widening gyre of conflict that felt eerily palpable as world events unfolded while I read this excellent, incisive book.

Political science, done right, has the power to reframe your whole understanding of events around you. Farrell and Newman set out a compelling thesis, defend it well, and tell a fascinating tale. And when they finish, they leave you with a way to make sense of things that seem senseless and terrible. This may not make those things less terrible, but at least they're comprehensible.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/10/weaponized-interdependence/#the-other-swifties

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

#pluralistic #henry farrell #undergound empire #chokepoints #swift #weaponized interdependency #books #reviews #gift guide #political science #new cold war #surveillance #ip #soft power #abraham newman

[theculturedmarxist]

The Biden administration's Department of Justice has just charged four members of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP) for conspiring to act as agents of Russia by using speech and political action in ways the DOJ says "weaponized" the First Amendment rights of Americans.

The Washington Post reports:

Federal authorities charged four Americans on Tuesday with roles in a malign campaign pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda in Florida and Missouri — expanding a previous case that charged a Russian operative with running illegal influence agents within the United States.

The FBI signaled its interest in the alleged activities in a series of raids last summer, at which point authorities charged a Moscow man, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, with working for years on behalf of Russian government officials to fund and direct fringe political groups in the United States. Among other things, Ionov allegedly advised the political campaigns of two unidentified candidates for public office in Florida.

Ionov’s influence efforts were allegedly directed and supervised by officers of the FSB, a Russian government intelligence service.

Now, authorities have added charges against four Americans who allegedly did Ionov’s bidding through groups including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia, and an unidentified political group in California — part of an effort to influence American politics.

AFP reports that the conspiracy charges carry a sentence of up to ten years, with three of the four APSP members additionally charged with acting as unregistered agents of Russia which carries another five years.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen in the DOJ's press release regarding the indictments, adding, “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”

Looks like the United States has decided to dispense with those freedoms as well.

The superseding indictment containing these charges consists of a lot of verbal gymnastics to obfuscate the fact that the DOJ is prosecuting US citizens for speech and political activities in the United States which happen not to align with the wishes of the US government. The grand jury alleges that the aforementioned Ionov "directed" these Americans to "publish pro-Russian propaganda" and "information designed to cause dissention in the United States," which is about as vague and amorphous an allegation as you could possibly come up with. 

For the record Omali Yeshitela, the founder and chairman of the African People's Socialist Party and one of the four Americans named in the indictment, has adamantly denied ever having worked for Russia. Earlier this month before charges were brought against him, the Tampa Bay Times quoted him as saying, "I ain’t ever worked for a Russian. Never ever ever ever. They know I have never worked for Russia. Their problem is, I’ve never worked for them.”

But it's important to note that this should not matter. Under the First Amendment the government is forbidden to abridge anyone's freedom to speak however they want and associate with whomever they please, which necessarily includes being as vocally pro-Russia as they like and promoting whatever political agendas they see fit, whether that happens to advance the interests of the Russian government or not. The indictment alleges that the four Americans engaged in "agitprop" by "writing articles that contained Russian propaganda and disinformation," but even if we pretend that's both (A) a quantifiable claim and (B) a proven fact, propaganda and disinformation are both speech that the government is constitutionally forbidden from repressing.

It's not reasonable for the government to just dismiss the First Amendment on the grounds that it is being "weaponized". You can't have your government dictating what speech is valid and what counts as "agitprop" and "disinformation", because they'll always define those terms in ways which benefit the government, thus giving more power to the powerful and taking power away from the people. You can't have your government dictating what political groups are legitimate and which ones are tools of a foreign government, because you can always count on the powerful set such designations in ways which benefit themselves. 

There's also the brazen hypocrisy of it all. The US government is constantly engaging in foreign influence operations with outfits like the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up to help foment coups and color revolutions and advance US information interests overtly in ways the CIA used to do covertly.

As commentator Brian Berletic noted on Twitter, "The US through the National Endowment for Democracy has created armies of organizations carrying out malign influence operations around the world including here in Thailand. When the Thai government attempts to stop this activity, the US embassy shouts 'free speech.' Thailand's government and others around the world could easily cite this move by the US Justice Department to target and uproot US-funded organizations doing exactly this and worse."

So for the US government to now claim it's legitimate to start throwing US citizens in prison for a decade because they published "propaganda" for another country is absurd, and more than a little scary. The most powerful government in the world needs more political dissent at home, not less, and here they are trying to turn it into a crime.

When they claim the members of the APSP published "propaganda" and promoted "dissention", what they really mean is that they engaged in speech and political activism that the US government does not like. The spinmeisters will try to spin it, the legal mumbo-jumbo will try to obfuscate it, but that's what's happening. Don't let them conceal this from you. They're not worried about Russian propaganda, they're worried you'll stop listening to US propaganda.

#us propaganda #caitlin johnstone #African people's socialist party #us censorship #first amendment #russia #new cold war

[battleangel]

Truth, Justice & Northrup Grumman

Four genocides are happening right now:

Palestine/Gaza

Sudan

Congo

Tigra

Last 3 are in Africa so no mainstream news coverage.

US is funding the 1st one because of Zionism (Israel).

There is a 3 front war coming due to US presidential election being next November: Palestine (siding with Israel, Russia (siding with Ukraine), Iran (siding with Israel vs Iran & Palestine).

Biden is asking for $100 billion -- $60 billion for Israel & $40 billion for Ukraine.

He refuses to say how long the US engagements in Israel & Ukraine would be or to give any kind of timetable yet he is demanding 100 billion US dollars fund the genocide in Palestine & the war in Ukraine.

Biden is already openly threatening Iran using very bellicose statements that they had better stay out of Palestine and essentially doing everything he can to start WW3.

Biden is already making an argument that wars in Palestine & Ukraine are good for the US economy in trying to get Congress to approve the $100 billion in aid to Israel & Ukraine.

He claimed that US weapons manufacturing plants that make the weapons in the Israeli and Ukrainian conflicts would be responsible for creating 15k+ US jobs.

It is the Iraq War all over again.

Trumped up, contrived, fake as fuck, only happening to prop up sagging presidential approval ratings, to assure reelection & to drum up jingoism, nationalism & virulent blind patriotism that leads to nihilistic militarism, warmongering, national bloodlust & endless empire building on the corpses of young men, some idealistic, many black brown & poor, endlessly exploited by the capitalist war machine.

Ads to Be All You Can Be while Uncle Sam pays for college education that should be free when student loans literally just went back into repayment will coincide nicely with the aggressive push for WW3.

American jobs. American corpses. American mothers weeping for their dead sons.

Caskets draped in US flags for 21 year old boys.

18 year olds dying in a country they've never visited for no fucking reason.

Hamas is the enemy. Russia is the enemy. Iran is the enemy.

Go die for your country.

Go die for Biden.

Go die to build Americas empire.

Go kill people you've never even met.

Go pull a trigger when your only experience with guns is Call of Duty.

Go destroy your innocence.

Go make your parents proud.

Go risk your life for $30k.

Go risk your life for the VA to treat you like shit if you manage to survive.

Go risk your life so you can have your college education paid for.

Go get PTSD and night terrors.

Go be a man.

Go fight for your country.

Go get permanently injured and disabled.

Go be a wounded warrior.

Go for the propaganda.

Go so people can "Thank you for your service."

Go for free burgers at Applebees on Veterans Day.

Go so you can see your best friend in your squad get blown to smithereens in front of you.

Go to see civilians used as gun fodder and pregnant women used as shields.

Go to see toddlers killed and babies exploded.

Go so you can be given orders that will kill you just so your CO can look good.

Go to get endlessly hazed, bullied, harrassed and almost killed by your fellow Marines so you can get a fancy certcomm later.

Go so you can add "US veteran Armed Forces" to your LinkedIn.

Go endlessly traumatize yourself as an infantryman for noone to hire you once the "conflict" is over and you come home.

Go so you can see endless horrors in war then have endless difficulties "transitioning to a civilian career" once you get home.

Go for the death squads and rape parties.

Go to be captured by the enemy and tortured.

Go to be a prisoner of war.

Go so your weeping mother can be handed a folded flag at your burial to be put inside a glass case.

Go so you can fill the burial plots at military cemeteries across the country.

Go so Biden gets reelected and Trump gets reinstated on twitter.

Go for the chevrons and the stripes.

Go to get pinned.

Go for the trauma and nightmares.

Go so your VA benefits can get cut later.

Go so you can blow your brains out in a VA parking lot since theres still a waiting list to see a psychiatrist for your PTSD, depression, suicidal ideation, insomnia and night terrors.

Go for the sleep demon paralysis.

Go for the disfigurement.

Go for the IEDs.

Go for the bombs on the side of the road.

Go to drive a Humvee.

Go for the Nazi dress blues and shining saber.

Go for valor.

Go for courage.

Go to brag at future Christmas dinners and family parties.

Go to be a dutiful son.

Go because America needs her sacrificial lambs.

Go to be a colonizer.

Go to build empires.

Go to liberate people by destroying their country.

Go to be dehumanized in boot camp.

Go to be broken down and never built back up.

Go to be hazed by the biggest fraternity in the world, the United States military.

Go for the toxic masculinity, stay for the lifelong traumatization.

Go to be a stone cold killer.

Go to kill without blinking or thinking.

Go for the brainwashing and endless conditioning.

Go for the psychological torture.

Go for the pseudosexual sadomasochistic ritualistic tortures and humiliations of boot camp.

Go for the endless mindless roll calls.

Go for the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.

Go to lose your humanity.

Go to have your sensitivity shredded in a blender.

Go to assert your manhood.

Go because the NFL had fighter jets fly over the stadium during Sunday Night Football.

Go because youre proud to be an American.

Go because its The American Way.

Go because of Pat Tillman.

Go because its what tough guys do.

Go because you cant find a job anyway.

Go because you can make a career out of it.

Go because of Modern Warfare III.

Go because of the Star Spangled Banner.

Go because of the Stars and Stripes.

Go because of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Go for the bald eagle.

Go for Reagan and the shining city on the hill.

Go for Dubya.

Go for the rockets red glare and the bombs bursting in air.

Go for the Super Bowl honoring you at half time.

Go for the proof through the night that our flag was still there.

Go for the home of the free and the land of the brave.

Go for spacious skies and amber waves of grain.

Go for purple mountains majesty above the fruited plains.

Go to crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

Go for the blood on your hands.

Go to blow someones brains out.

Go to rape a local girl.

Go to vent some steam.

Go for the myth and to build your own mystique.

Go to build a persona.

Go to reinvent yourself.

Go for GI Joe.

Go for Captain America.

Go to be superman.

Go to be a boy scout.

Go for truth, justice and the American Way.

Go to spray nerve gas on a local population.

Go to commit war crimes.

Go for the genocide.

Go for chemical warfare.

Go for psychological warfare.

Go for espirit de corps.

Go for teen spirit.

Go for Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.

Go for Lockeed Martin.

Go for Skunkworks.

Go for the CIA.

Go because pain is weakness leaving the body.

Go to get your head shaved and humanity stripped away.

Go be a cog in the machine.

Go because you havent done anything for your country today.

Go for the military industrial complex.

Go so your father can Friday Night Lights you and vicariously live through your military experience.

Go to be a neighborhood small town hero.

Go to get your head blown off so your high school gymnasium can be named after you.

Go to be a local dead celebrity.

Go to be honored at your hometowns Memorial Day Parade next year.

Go for the NFL to have a collective moment of silence for you and the other dead boys before kickoff.

Go to be thanked in a random celebrity PSA.

Go for free pancakes at IHOP on Veterans Day.

Go to fulfill your fathers warped sense of manhood, masculinity and being a man.

Go to continue the US history of violence and patrimony.

Go for the blood.

Go for the foreign pussy.

Go for the horrors.

Go for the viscera.

Go for the spilled intestines.

Go for the agonizing screams.

Go for the panic attacks and endless insomnia.

Go be a paranoid android.

Go because you havent earned your freedom.

Go to write your name in future US history books.

Go to cotinue the endless cycle of war, terror and violence.

Go for the injustice and genocide.

Go for the inhumanity.

Go for bootcamp graduation.

Go for the framed picture in your dress blues.

Go to be brave and strong.

Go to be fearless.

Go to be John Wayne.

Go for Oppenheimer.

Go for 9/11.

Go for America.

Go because We're number 1!

Go for a US flag waving on a Ford pickup truck.

Go for a Budweiser commercial with galloping horses and amber waves of grain.

Go for the Korean War.

Go for Lyndon B. Johnson.

Go for Richard Nixon.

Go for General Dwight Eisenhower.

Go for the Department of Defense.

Go for the Vietnam War.

Go for Emperor Hirohito.

Go for Hitler, Mussollini and Stalin.

Go for General Franco.

Go for Lenin.

Go for Mao.

Go for Admiral Yamamoto.

Go for Pearl Harbor.

Go for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Go for Ferdinand being assassinated.

Go for the Hundred Years War.

Go for the Spanish Inquisition.

Go for Columbus.

Go for the Founding Fathers.

Go for the sweet land of liberty.

Go for the land where my fathers died.

Go for the Pilgrims pride.

Go for General Washingtons apotheosis in the rotunda as a American god.

Go to deify yourself as a war hero.

Go to make yourself a comic book character.

Go so Ben Affleck can play you in a war movie.

Go for Blackhawk Down.

Go for Napoleon Bonaparte.

Go for Ridley Scott.

Go to be a gladiator.

Go for Julius Ceasar.

Go because Rome was built in a day.

Go for Christendom.

Go for Alexander the Great.

Go for manifest destiny.

Go for militaristic expansionism.

Go for your corpse to be found on the side of the road in a foreign country you cant even find on a fucking map.

Go so your Humvee can be exploded.

Go to terrorize the local populace.

Go to put on the armor of God and breastplate of righteousness.

Go be a christian soldier.

Go climb Jacobs Ladder.

Go be a soldier of the cross.

Go to be baptized in the blood.

Go wade in the water.

Go for the homesickness and depression.

Go for the drugs and alcoholism.

Go for the panic attacks and anxiety disorders.

Go have your sensitivity, vulnerability and innocence destroyed.

Go to be violated.

Go for the smell of napalm in the morning.

Go for Apocalypse Now.

Go for the victory formation.

Go for the mushroom cloud.

Go for the blitzkrieg.

Go for Army vs Navy.

Go to be politely saluted by strangers at airports.

Go to be a commissioned officer.

Go for the honorable discharge.

Go help Biden beat Trump.

Go help the Democrats look tough.

Go help the Army go viral on TikTok.

Go so Sexyy Red names her baby after you.

Go be used and abused.

Go for Saving Private Ryan and Tom Hanks.

Go for Schindlers List.

Go for Braveheart and Mel Gibson.

Go to remeber the Alamo!

Go for General Custer and Henry Fonda.

Go for John Ford and John Wayne.

Go for Green Berets.

Go for The Last Samurai and Tom Cruise.

Go for Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Go for Star Blazers and the Battleship Yamato.

Go to rape comfort girls.

Go for Voltron.

Go to transform like Optimus Prime.

Go for the Gram.

Go for the likes.

Go for the follows.

Go for the LinkedIn reactions.

Go for a pinned tweet.

Go to blow up on the for you page.

Go for virality.

Go for the silver play button on Youtube.

Go for the blue checkmark and verified account.

Go for the clout.

Go to be respected and admired.

Go to be shipped home to your mother in a pine box.

Go to prove youre a man and unafraid.

Go to be a Roman gladiator in the arena.

Go to slay the dragon.

Go to be King Arthur.

Go for the Sorcerers Stone.

Go for the key to the Euphrates River.

Go for the Sword in the Stone.

Go to be a Knight of the Round Table.

Go for the Queen of England.

Go for King and Country.

Go for your rightful place on Mount Rushmore.

Go for E Pluribus Unum.

Go for the Iliad.

Go for The 300.

Go for Thermopylae.

Go to bring down the walls of Jericho.

Go for Numbers 31:18 -- "Kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves."

#ww3 #world war 3 #militarism #military industrial complex #nihilism #war machine #propaganda #nation building #endless war #new cold war #end genocide #free palestine #anti zionisim #anti capitalism #lockheed #northrop grumman #raytheon #skunkworks #war crimes #ethnic cleansing #chemical warfare #free sudan #free congo #free tigray #colonialism #biden #trump #two party system #green party #socialism

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Stephen Millies

New York City’s Times Square was packed on April 10 with a protest against the U.S. military’s latest incursion on Philippine sovereignty.

The Pentagon has sent over 12,000 troops to the Philippines for the annual Balikatan (“shoulder-to-shoulder”) military exercises. Along with them are 5,400 Filipino forces.  These maneuvers ― the largest in their 30-year history ― are aimed at the People’s Republic of China.

#Philippines #Balikatan #war games #imperialism #HandsOffChina #New Cold War #Pentagon #national liberation #Bayan #protest #NYC #Struggle La Lucha

[loneberry]

The new route Russia is using to export its oil to China. Unfortunately global warming and the melting of the icecaps only benefits Russia geopolitically. What’s the big deal? you might wonder. A 10-day reduction in transport time is huge when it comes to the velocity of capital. Power accrues to the nations that control key maritime trade routes.

*

Between climate change and the new Cold War, the future doesn’t look pretty. China’s economy is imploding thanks to their reliance on a debt-fueled real estate bonanza, their misguided zero COVID policy, and Xi Jinping’s head-scratchingly bad policies (and of course, his consolidation of power). Siding with Russia was a huge mistake… Now China’s biggest export markets are trying to decouple or at least diversify away from them. Youth unemployment is so bad in China (21%, but possibly significantly higher) that the government has decided to stop publishing such data. The Philippines and Vietnam are pivoting toward the US. South Korea and Japan are putting their long, historical feud aside to join forces against China. Japanese military neutrality is over. Meanwhile a tiny island called Taiwan makes over 92% of the world’s advanced semiconductors and will likely be invaded in our lifetime. Will an (economically) weakened China make it more or less likely that Xi will invade Taiwan? (Strongmen facing a domestic crisis and loss of popular support do often start wars as a kind of ���gamble for resurrection,” but Xi might have become more risk adverse as he observes Russia’s debacle in Ukraine. Plus, an amphibious invasion is logistically extremely difficult to pull off.)

Defense spending worldwide is skyrocketing, climbing back toward Cold War levels. The lines on the map are hardening, particularly in the Asian/Pacific theater and the European theater. A nuclear trifecta of Russia-China-North Korea is emerging. Yes, it is a marriage of convenience, but quite a dangerous one given that Russia will likely transfer technology (specifically, platforms to deliver nuclear warheads) to North Korea in exchange for Soviet-compatible ammunition/arms to use in Ukraine. I hate feeling like the world is a frog getting boiled but as I finish this 26-part BBC documentary on World War I, I can’t help but feel that the geopolitical situation is very unstable.

Oh, the madness of nation states! Wake me up when it’s over.

#geopolitics #political economy #trade #war #military industrial complex #cold war #new cold war #russia #China #capitalism

[999-roses]

#new cold war #manufacturing consent #ben norton #usa pol #sino #... preparing myself to experience more than red scare 'spy' balloon and sunbear-is-a-man-in-a-suit sinophobia #and other manufacturing consent initiatives in the western mainstream media #oh also the 'there's a muslim genocide in xinjiang' atrocity propaganda cropping up again. despite that additional vocational schools #have been finished for years now. ahhh but but the adrian zenz shit papers about birth control 🤪 #i peeked at the foreignaffairs article in question #(used archive.[] to bypass having to give foreignaffairs my fucking email. 12ftio wasnt cutting it) #yeah it's literally full of misinformation & related manufacturing consent content #which I guess would be good to put up as an example of what that looks like but tbh don't have the energy to point out every single one #& I'd rather not put that here without that. or actually with it either because i dont care to deal with #some 'ok so the USgov lies & pays well for it but china is still bad right' chucklefuck wandering in and going '🤓👆well you see'

[uboat53]

I had a discussion with a friend of mine in the (US) military recently and it reminded me that most people in the US and, in fact, in the world, are almost entirely unaware that there is a new Cold War taking shape. I think more people should be aware of it, knowledge is power after all, and knowing about something gives you the opportunity to help shape it, particularly if you're a citizen of a country where your voice has an impact in government. I hope this LONG RANT (TM) helps someone better understand.

INTRODUCTION

As I said, there's a new Cold War beginning, and, like the previous Cold War, there's a strong component of ideology to it. Specifically, the world is beginning to fracture between liberal democracy and autocracy.

What makes this conflict particularly complex is that we're at the early stages. When thinking about the Cold War, capitalism vs communism, it wasn't until the 1950s, 1960s, or even the 1970s in some cases that it was really clear which side most consequential nations would end up on. It was pretty obvious that the Soviet Union and the United States would be the major communist and capitalist powers, respectively, but the status of many other nations didn't become clear until long internal political debates and outside interventions had a chance to play out.

So, without further ado, let's get into it.

WHY IS THERE A CONFLICT AT ALL?

This is one of the key questions and, honestly, it all comes down to the interconnectedness of the modern world. You see, modern autocracies that don't rely on the divine right of kings to justify their rule generally justify it by results. In order to make sure the results come out correctly, they control the information available to their people to ensure that their people are told that the autocratic rulers are giving them the best results, whether that's in terms of economics, culture, religion, or whatever else they want to focus on.

As my old boss used to tell me a decade and a half ago, "North Korea can't afford to allow YouTube to get to the average person even if the average person just watches stupid videos because it's going to become really obvious that, yes, this person is an idiot, but that idiot has a fridge, a TV, a car, and has obviously never missed a meal in their life; they can't possibly be poorer than us."

In the olden days that would be fairly easy. Radio signals only travel so far, so as long as you control the TV and radio stations and limit the ability of printed media to spread too widely, you could completely control what information your population receives.

Nowadays, however? Well, that's very different. The internet allows people from all over the world to talk to each other in an instant and it can even go a long way to easing language barriers. The advent of satellite internet means that even efforts to control internet traffic such as the so-called "Great Firewall of China" will be increasingly limited in their effectiveness.

Today, in order for an autocracy to control the information their people receive, they not only have to control the information environment in their own country, they have to control the information available in other countries as well. That's the reason you're seeing things like the Saudi Arabia's murder of dissident Jamal Khashoggi, Russia's poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei and Yulia Skripal, a Chinese attempt to kidnap dissidents in the US, India's alleged killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and it's attempt to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

All of these were killings or other physical violence that took place in liberal democratic countries (except for Khashoggi who, though American, was lured to the Saudi embassy in Turkey where was killed) where what the individuals were doing was perfectly legal. This is the driver of conflict today, authoritarian nations attempting to maintain their monopoly on the information their citizens receive in a global information environment.

THE EARLY DAYS

We're currently in the early days of this autocracy vs liberal democracy competition and there are numerous nations currently in conflict over which side they're going to be on including, unfortunately, our own. In order to explain that, I need to get a bit technical over the difference between "democracy" and "liberal democracy".

Democracy, basically, can describe any situation where leaders are elected by some kind of popular vote. If you look closely at that for a second, you'll realize that it's such a broad category that even the autocratic Soviet Union technically qualified. Obviously, a category broad enough to include actual autocracies isn't really in opposition to them.

Liberal Democracy, on the other hand, is a Democracy, but with a whole bunch of other things as well. In general, a Liberal Democracy will feature multiple distinct candidates and/or parties in their elections, some sort of separation of powers between branches of government, the rule of law (law that applies equally to all), an open society (one in which individuals make choices rather than being controlled by tribes or other type of collectivism), a market economy with private property, universal suffrage, and the protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms for all people.

(That definition borrowed almost entirely from the Wikipedia article on Liberal Democracy, check it out if you're interested.)

In other words, Liberal Democracy is more than just "do people vote for leaders?", but encompasses just about everything we'd associate with individual rights and liberties and the structure of institutions to ensure them. People in an Illiberal Democracy may technically vote for their leaders but, without all of these other rights and protections, they can hardly be said to have truly chosen them. And, when you define it clearly, you can see that there's a bit of a disagreement about that in American politics right now.

The Republican Party, and particularly its MAGA wing, is increasingly of the mind that not everyone's vote is legitimate and has been putting in place barriers to voting that disproportionately affect disfavored groups. In addition, they're pushing to end much of the separation of powers, putting more unchecked power in the hands of the president at the expense of checks, balances, and sometimes guarantees of individual liberty. Democracy would continue, but Liberal Democracy would end.

To be clear, this isn't just an American problem, but one that is faced by nearly every Liberal Democracy today. As part of autocrat's efforts to control information outside of their own borders, they've been attempting to influence politics within Liberal Democracies and promote internal autocratic movements; usually right-wing nationalists. From the Republican Party's MAGA wing to France's National Front to Germany's Alternativ Fur Deutschland, just about every Liberal Democracy in the world now has a fundamentally autocratic right-wing party that is doing much better than it did just ten or twenty years ago and, if you scratch the surface, you will find support for them, both financial and otherwise, from autocrats around the world.

Of course, it's not just the far-right either, autocrats have been promoting the far-left in Liberal Democratic countries as well. While the far-right has had much more electoral success and is much more politically organized in the west and, thus, has received more attention, we can't ignore the fact that autocracy is largely neutral on the political scale and operates anywhere that conspiratorial thinking can take hold and distract people from the removal of their freedoms or even convince them that those freedoms hold no value in the first place.

WHERE WE GO FROM HERE

Well, that's the trillion dollar question, isn't it?

Conflict will likely continue between autocratic and liberal democratic states, but the complexities are growing. Much like communism vs capitalism, autocracy vs liberal democracy is more of a spectrum than a hard binary and many states are actively sloshing around along that spectrum.

There's also the uncertainty of how different countries react to incidents like the ones we're seeing. Technically, killing a person on the soil of another country is an act of war, but not many people in the modern world are willing to go to war for the killing of one person. Most likely what we'll see is a gradual hardening of blocs as liberal democracies react to provocations by slowly pulling back from cooperation and connection with autocratic nations.

We're also likely to see countries switch sides. Unlike the rapid shift in allegiances that we saw during the Cold War, however, these are likely to be more gradual shifts like what we've seen in Hungary and Turkey where individual rights are stripped away gradually and a governing autocrat is slowly ensconced in power rather than a hard and fast coup. We could, of course, see countries go the other way as well, as in the case of Ukraine which has slowly strengthened individual rights and overthrown its autocrats.

All of this, the solidification of blocs and the shifting of countries within this spectrum, is going to create the opening situations for this particular conflict. Whether it becomes a conflict of more rigidly defined blocs or even sparks proxy wars remains to be seen.

CONCLUSION (TL;DR)

The days of a fairly open world, both in physical travel, the movement of goods, and in communication, is starting to come to an end as that openness begins to threaten the hold of autocrats on power. Those autocrats are attempting to keep both the openness and power by working to control the information available in countries that practice Liberal Democracy and generally guarantee individual liberties.

Over the next several decades, it is likely that we will see increasing separation between a bloc of autocratic nations and a bloc of liberal democracies, much as the Cold War saw separation between pro-capitalist and pro-communist countries. Some of that separation will likely not go smoothly and we will likely see at least some military tension and possibly even armed conflict as leaders react to changes or even try to distract from them with military force.

Just as importantly, we are likely to see tension within countries all over the world as autocratic political parties attempt to take control of liberal democracies and pro-democracy movements attempt to overthrow autocrats.

I'll admit this isn't the most hopeful vision of the future that we'd like to see, but I think it's fairly realistic given the current realities we see. I hope that this gives you some insight into what's going on and allows you to plan accordingly.

As always, let me know if you think I missed something or got something wrong, I'm always up for adjusting my thoughts, and I hope you enjoyed the read.

#politics #international politics #liberal democracy #democracy #individual rights #autocracy #cold war #new cold war #long rant (tm)

[kneedeepincynade]

The truth is more stubborn than Washington lies, and reality can not be distorted forever

The post is machine translated

Translation is at the bottom

The collective is on telegram

🇺🇸 Gli USA e i loro lacchè, tra cui l'Italia, hanno sempre promosso - negli anni - la disgustosa idea «Musulmano = terrorista», ma - per lo Xinjiang, si sono riscoperti "alfieri" dei diritti dei Musulmani, in funzione anti-Cinese 🤡

🇨🇳 Col desiderio di interferire negli affari interni e di voler balcanizzare la Cina, gli USA hanno artificialmente costruito il "Caso dello Xinjiang" - articoli con notizie non dimostrate, notizie scorrette o addirittura inventate di sana pianta, spacciandole per verità 🤮

🌸 Il Collettivo Shaoshan ha trattato questo argomento nel dettaglio, smentendo ogni menzogna anti-Cinese:

🌺 Master-Post sullo Xinjiang 🇨🇳

🤔 Cosa intende l'Occidente quando parla di "disgregazione" della Russia e di Separatismo anti-Cinese mascherato da Democrazia? 🇺🇸

😱 Queste notizie, inoltre, vengono «lanciate» agli utenti Occidentali da persone che non conosco niente della Cina, si spacciano per "esperti di Cina" ma non conoscono neanche una parola di Cinese, sono Asset dell'Impero USA. E le persone, in Occidente, dovrebbero fidarsi di loro? È ridicolo! 😡

⭐️ Il Compagno Liu scrive:

💬 «Chi inquadra la Cina dovrebbe almeno imparare un po' di Cinese, non solo affidarsi all'immaginazione. [...] Il canadese nel video si chiama Lyman Stone, ricercatore presso l'AEI e l'Institute for Family Studies, ed Ex-Economista presso il Dipartimento dell'Agricoltura degli USA, ed è abbastanza sicuro di poter cercare e acquistare su Taobao degli "schiavi uiguri"» 🤦‍♀️

🤔 Fermiamoci un attimo: ma come si fa a dire che si può comprare uno "schiavo uiguro" su un e-commerce?! Qui siamo al livello ridicolo della propaganda sulla DPRK, chi ci crede è un 没有救赎可能的白痴! 😂

💬 Tuttavia, «quando Carl Zha gli ha immediatamente chiesto di cercare e acquistare su Taobao uno schiavo uiguro, ha rifiutato (❗️), dicendo che non sapeva il Cinese e non poteva usare quindi la tastiera Cinese», per poi dire che forse non era Taobao, ma su «altri siti», in pratica è stato smascherato 🤡

🌸 Iscriviti 👉 @collettivoshaoshan

🇺🇸 The USA and their lackeys, including Italy, have always promoted - over the years - the disgusting idea «Muslim = terrorist», but - for Xinjiang, they have rediscovered the "standard bearers" of Muslim rights, in an anti - Chinese 🤡

🇨🇳 With the desire to interfere in internal affairs and want to balkanize China, the US has artificially constructed the "Xinjiang Case" - articles with unproven news, incorrect news or even fabricated news, passing it off as the truth 🤮

🌸 The Shaoshan Collective covered this topic in detail, denying any anti-Chinese lie:

🌺 Xinjiang Master-Post 🇨🇳

🤔 What does the West mean when it talks about the "breakup" of Russia and anti-Chinese separatism masquerading as Democracy? 🇺🇸

😱 These news are also ′′ launched ′′ to Western users by people who don't know anything about China, posing as ′′ China experts ′′ but don't know a single word of Chinese, they are Assets of the US Empire. And should people in the West trust them? It's ridiculous! 😡

⭐️ Comrade Liu writes:

💬 «Those who frame China should at least learn a little Chinese, not just rely on the imagination. [...] The Canadian in the video is called Lyman Stone, a researcher at the AEI and the Institute for Family Studies, and Ex-Economist at the US Department of Agriculture, and he's pretty sure he can search and buy at Taobao of "Uyghur slaves"» 🤦‍♀️

🤔 Let's stop for a moment: how can you say that you can buy an "Uyghur slave" on an e-commerce?! Here we are at the ridiculous level of DPRK propaganda, whoever believes it is a 没有救赎可能的白痴! 😂

💬 However, "when Carl Zha immediately asked him to search for and buy a Uyghur slave on Taobao, he refused (❗️), saying he didn't know Chinese and therefore couldn't use the Chinese keyboard", to then say that maybe it wasn't Taobao, but on «other sites», it was basically exposed 🤡

🌸 Subscribe 👉 @collettivoshaoshan

#socialism #china #italian #translated #china news #communism #collettivoshaoshan #marxism leninism #xi jinping #marxist leninist #marxismo #marxist #marxism #multipolar world #multipolarity #geopolitica #geopolitics #new cold war #asia news #american news #canada news #xinjiang #uyghur #western propaganda #propaganda #chinese communist party #socialismo #socialist

[gameofthrones2020]

The End of Germany as We Know It

The End of Germany as We Know It and how the German ethnicity has been on delice for over 100 years and how German shot its self in the foot

Germany faces three major problems, with two currently out of Germany’s control. No matter what happens, we will be witnessing the end of Germany as we know it over the next three decades and the end of the German ethnicity and culture within our lifetime. Either way, Germany grew as a culture and nation, and we know today won’t be here by the end of the century. The three issues that will…

View On WordPress

#China #Decline in Population #Geopolitics #New Cold War #Peter Zeihan #The End of Germany #Ukraine War

[alanshemper]

The way American entertainment media tracks and supports State Department foreign policy goals at any given time is awe-inspiring. It is hard to imagine a more disciplined consent-generation propaganda machine. I grew up with the infamous “War on Terror,” and off the top of my head I can recall the following media items: Counter-Strike (1999), Three Kings (1999), Rules of Engagement (2000), 24 (2001-2010, 2014), Black Hawk Down (2002), Jarhead (2005), Flight 93 (2006), World Trade Center (2006), The Hurt Locker (2009) [6/9 Oscars], Generation Kill (2008), Homeland (2011-2020), and Zero Dark Thirty (2012) [1/5 Oscars].

#xinjiang #china #new cold war #information warfare #long read

[notgreek]

original post (which tumblr doesn't allow me to heart or reblog for some reason)

#western propaganda #communism #cold war #no cold war #new cold war

[americanredragger]

David E. Sanger - “New Cold Wars” with Russia & China | The Daily Show

#youtube #god bless John Stewart for asking the hard questions that SHOULD be obvious for the rest of the media #john stewart #cold war #new cold war #russia #china

[theculturedmarxist]

Full text after break

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday made a speech at the Closing Ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum 2023, which was read out by Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao. 

Following is the full text of the speech:

Enhancing Solidarity and Cooperation To Overcome Risks and Challenges And Jointly Build a Better World

Your Excellency President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa,

Members of the Business Community,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Friends,

I wish to extend my warm congratulations on the success of the BRICS Business Forum in South Africa!

Ten years ago here in South Africa, we BRICS leaders witnessed the birth of the BRICS Business Council. Since then, the Council has stayed true to its founding mission. It has seized opportunities to deepen cooperation, contributing to economic and social development of BRICS countries and helping sustain global economic growth.

Right now, changes in the world, in our times and in history are unfolding in ways like never before, bringing human society to a critical juncture. Should we pursue cooperation and integration, or just succumb to division and confrontation? Should we work together to maintain peace and stability, or just sleepwalk into the abyss of a new Cold War? Should we embrace prosperity, openness and inclusiveness, or allow hegemonic and bullying acts to throw us into depression? Should we deepen mutual trust through exchanges and mutual learning, or allow hubris and prejudice to blind conscience? The course of history will be shaped by the choices we make.

An ancient Chinese thinker observed that “following the underlying trend will lead one to success, while going against it can only cause one to fail.” We humankind have achieved notable economic development and social progress over the past decades, and that is because we have drawn lessons from the two world wars and the Cold War, followed the historical trend of economic globalization, and embarked on the right path of openness and development for win-win cooperation. Our world today has become a community with a shared future in which we all share a huge stake of survival. What people in various countries long for is definitely not a new Cold War or a small exclusive bloc; what they want is an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys enduring peace, universal security and common prosperity. Such is the logic of historical advance and the trend of our times.

Ten years ago, I made a proposition of building a community with a shared future for mankind, calling on all countries to build this planet we all call home into a harmonious family. In the face of high winds, choppy waters and even treacherous storms, we in all countries need to uphold the correct views of the world, of history and of our overall interests, and act to translate the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind into reality.

—We need to promote development and prosperity for all. Many emerging markets and developing countries (EMDCs) have come to what they are today after shaking off the yoke of colonialism. With perseverance, hard work and huge sacrifices, we succeeded in gaining independence and have been exploring development paths suited to our national conditions. Everything we do is to deliver better lives to our people. But some country, obsessed with maintaining its hegemony, has gone out of its way to cripple the EMDCs. Whoever is developing fast becomes its target of containment; whoever is catching up becomes its target of obstruction. But this is futile, as I have said more than once that blowing out others’ lamp will not bring light to oneself.

Every country has the right to development, and the people in every country have the freedom to pursue a happy life. With that in mind, I have proposed the Global Development Initiative, with the goal of promoting development for all by the international community and boosting the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. With the support of many countries, solid gains have been made in pursuing this initiative, with cooperation flourishing in various fields. China will work with all other countries to speed up cooperation under the Global Development Initiative, strengthen drivers of global development, promote the reform of the World Trade Organization in a comprehensive and in-depth manner, meet common challenges together and make life better for people across the world.

—We need to achieve universal security. Recent years have seen a turbulent world; many countries and regions are plagued by wars and conflicts and many people are displaced. Members of the international community share the pressing hope to eradicate the root cause of conflicts and wars, and find a fundamental way to realize enduring peace and security globally. Facts have shown that any attempt to keep enlarging a military alliance, expand one’s own sphere of influence or squeeze other countries’ buffer of security can only create security predicament and insecurity for all countries. Only a commitment to a new vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security can lead to universal security.

Last year, I put forward the Global Security Initiative, and it has gained support from over 100 countries and international organizations. China stands ready to jointly pursue this initiative with all others. We should have dialogue and oppose confrontation, forge partnership but not alliance, and pursue win-win outcome and oppose zero-sum game, and work together to build a community of security.

—We need to stay committed to exchanges among civilizations and mutual learning. One flower alone cannot make a beautiful spring; only blossoming of a rich variety of flowers can bring spring to the global garden. Human civilization is colorful by nature. It is precisely because of their differences in history, culture and system that all countries need to interact with one another, learn from each other, and advance together. Deliberately creating division with the assertion of “democracy versus authoritarianism” and “liberalism versus autocracy” can only split the world and lead to clash of civilizations.

I have put forward the Global Civilization Initiative, calling for promoting diversity of global civilizations, the common values of humanity, and people-to-people and cultural exchanges and cooperation. China welcomes all other countries to get involved in cooperation under this initiative. We should encourage different civilizations to bring out their best and flourish together; we should break barriers to exchanges, and renew human civilization.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Friends,

As an ancient Chinese philosopher observes, “Change is the nature of the universe.” The collective rise of EMDCs represented by BRICS is fundamentally changing the global landscape. EMDCs have contributed as high as 80 percent of global growth in the past 20 years, and their share in the global GDP has increased from 24 percent 40 years ago to more than 40 percent. Just as a line in a Chinese poem reads, “No mountains can stop the surging flow of a mighty river.” Whatever resistance there may be, BRICS, a positive and stable force for good, will continue to grow. We will forge stronger BRICS strategic partnership, expand the “BRICS Plus” model, actively advance membership expansion, deepen solidarity and cooperation with other EMDCs, promote global multipolarity and greater democracy in international relations, and help make the international order more just and equitable. The gathering between BRICS countries and more than 50 other countries in South Africa today is not an exercise of asking countries to take sides, nor an exercise of creating bloc confrontation. Rather, it is an endeavor to expand the architecture of peace and development. I am glad to note that over 20 countries are knocking on the door of BRICS. China hopes to see more joining the BRICS cooperation mechanism.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Friends,

China stays committed to an independent foreign policy of peace and the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. As a developing country and a member of the Global South, China breathes the same breath with other developing countries and pursues a shared future with them. China has resolutely upheld the common interests of developing countries and worked to increase the representation and voice of EMDCs in global affairs. Hegemonism is not in China’s DNA; nor does China have any motivation to engage in major-power competition. China stands firmly on the right side of history, and believes that a just cause should be pursued for the common good.

At present, we Chinese, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, are advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts by pursuing Chinese modernization. Chinese modernization aims to achieve common prosperity, material and cultural-ethical advancement, harmony between humanity and nature, and peaceful development for a huge population. Chinese modernization has created a new form of human advancement and presented a new future of modernization. We hope that other developing countries can draw on the outstanding achievements of human civilization and find their own paths to modernization in keeping with their national conditions.

Achieving high-quality development is a top priority in China’s goal of fully building itself into a modernized country. We are committed to applying a new development philosophy and creating a new development paradigm. In the past decade, China has contributed more than 30 percent of annual global growth. This year, the Chinese economy has maintained the momentum of recovery and growth. China enjoys several distinct advantages: a socialist market economy in systemic terms, a supersize market in terms of demand, a full-fledged industrial system in terms of supply, and abundant, high-caliber labor force and entrepreneurs in terms of human resources. The Chinese economy has strong resilience, tremendous potential and great vitality. The fundamentals sustaining China’s long-term growth will remain unchanged. The giant ship of the Chinese economy will continue to cleave waves and sail ahead.

China will remain an important opportunity for the world’s development. Our door is wide open to anyone who wants to engage in cooperation with us. As a supersize economy, China will remain firm in advancing high-standard opening-up. We will continue to expand market access, cut the negative list for foreign investment, and further open the modern services sector. We will steadily improve the business environment, provide national treatment to foreign-invested enterprises, foster a world-class, market-oriented business environment governed by a sound legal framework, and build a globally-oriented network of high-standard free trade areas. We will continue to advance ecological conservation, accelerate the building of a Beautiful China, actively and prudently move toward carbon peak and carbon neutrality, and pursue all-round green transition in economic and social development. Going forward, as it endeavors to achieve modernization for its more than 1.4 billion people, China will surely contribute even more to the global economy and provide even more opportunities for the global business community.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Friends,

A formidable mission is a magnificent and glorious mission. As long as we work in unity and strengthen cooperation, we will not be intimidated by any risk or challenge on the way ahead, and we will surely steer the giant ship of human development to a brighter future!

Thank you.

#xi jinping #BRICS #brics summit #global development initiative #global security initiative #new cold war #communist party of china

[realpathtopeac]

New Cold War | Solidarity publication

There are lots of  complexities of the New Cold War at the Anti-War Rally. Join the peace movement and denounce Sinophobia. There are many victims abroad as well as home in case war buildup continues. FOR MORE INFORMATION READ BLOG.

#New Cold War #Anti-War Rally

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Gary Wilson

Biden’s massive military budget must be paid for by the workers. The U.S. is imposing a wartime economy, hoping to rescue the capitalists from the coming economic collapse while at the same time threatening imperialist war around the globe.

#imperialism #Joe Biden #Bidenomics #war economy #FreePalestine #GazaGenocide #New Cold War #proxy war #Ukraine #Russia #China #Taiwan #Iran #Israel #Marxism #Struggle La Lucha

[kaydub80]

In one breath, the NYT talks about "Stop Asian Hate" while in another breath, deliberately undermines that mindset.

#manufacturing consent #nytimes #Youtube #china #new cold war