John Birch society perhaps. They were pushing it by the 60s and Kubrick made fun of them in Dr Strangelove.

I’m worried that they arrested this guy and his wife and disappeared them to a torture facility under the notion that they’re spies because they chatted with colleagues about work topics while in China thus giving away valuable 'murican knowledge and advantage to the dastardly Chinese. Either that or they got lucky and skipped the country first, hope it’s that one but I’d expect they’d be saying something.

It’s definitely a little upsetting in that I’d like such things preserved for evidence for any eventual proceedings long down the line in the far future but not surprising I suppose and part of me assumed most such evidence would indeed be destroyed. Funny how the USSR didn’t destroy its records nor did GDR when they fell. Even the Nazis failed to destroy most of their documentation. The reasons being I suppose bureaucratic insulation, layers and layers of it foiling most normal attempts and completeness but they’re being I assume quite thorough here by just bulldozing the whole structure down.

Lol he’s really trying to go there. I doubt they (SCOTUS) let him do it though because Biden was senile and there might be genuine argument his staffers and family were making these calls there is a chance they try and do a one-time only exemption just so Trump can be petty.

I think it’s telling if they don’t get rid of the Asia one but do get rid of Europe. It speaks not of empire pulling inward entirely but refocusing everything on China and on war and containment many have long predicted would come before 2030.

I just saw an article. The chief negotiator for the US with Russia intends to make part of their demands that Russia break its alliances and security pacts with the DPRK and China. This could very well just be an attempt to make peace with Russia to totally focus on destroying China. And I don’t trust Russia or Putin enough that I’m convinced they couldn’t be bribed with reintegration with Europe to look the other way and whistle while the US attacks the DPRK/China.

Yeah I feel the same. The west by this point understands China’s strategy and understands to disrupt it they can just use violence and coercion and China will blink every time as long as it happens outside their borders. That’s a weak spot. That’s one of the reasons I think why we’re seeing the shift to naked imperialism, the move away from trying to use progressive language and lofty talk of values and vague crying about security to just threats, just telling Panama they will play ball or they’ll be destroyed. It has its own limits but I’m not sure much of the world is ready or able to stand up to the US imperialist violence and regime change machine in a meaningful way yet.

Right now it seems like it’s still the right move to build up productive forces but there comes a point in the near future, probably the next 5 years where they have a decision to make and their choice there could be very key for whether anyone is willing to stand with BRICS and China or if they all fold the second the US makes a threat because China won’t do anything to help them and it’s a no-brainer that the greater benefit, the rational choice is bowing to the US. And at that point, at that moment IF China has no credibility and the US is still strong, their whole BRI, their alliances, their trade, their influence will crumble and the US will succeed in isolating them and turning up the pressure to cook them and their economy and friendship with Russia and the DPRK and Vietnam will not be enough to save their economy from the turmoil and the party’s rule will be in incredible danger at a point like that because once the economy fails, the material benefits vanish they lose the support of a lot of the people who are not shall we say ideologically committed Marxists.

Latin America is probably too far, too deep in what everyone conceptualizes as the geographically near “fair” geopolitical influence sphere of the US for China to really do much intervention there even in 10, 15 years barring US power evaporating but I hope they know to stand with Africa, with Asia, with their crucial trading partners that are more distant from US power and more critical to their global supply and sales chains.

I’ve often wondered this myself. But in truth Panama is too close to the US for the Chinese to be able to do anything. I think the explanation is they’re still buying time, trying to avoid a war with the US while they continue to build productive forces and consolidate for the next stage of socialist development. Even in a world say 5 years from now where China has a much more mature navy the task of fighting the US in Panama would be incredibly painful for them. I do think they’ll need to draw a line when it comes to countries not behind the US island chain curtain of steel, for example in Asia. But it’s a big question I’ve often asked. Which is what really is to stop the US from just continuing to destabilize west Asia (middle east) to prevent the B&R through there then in concert with that doing a kind of naval blockade using island chains to enforce strangling sanctions on China’s economy and I’m not sure there is anything really.

China is just hoping they don’t have to resort to war because well the US is deranged, has used nukes in anger before, and on the back foot, just bad combinations. They hope things get bad enough that the US is forced to retreat, that BRICS rises enough the US can’t bully them effectively without hurting themselves, and that will be the path forward.

But it’s a big question mark. The century will likely be decided by the attempts of the west to disrupt and destroy the BRI over the next 5-10 years and how effective they are. At the very least to the Chinese response and that of the rest of BRICS and how long they are willing to keep taking punches before daring to throw one back out.

Interesting in that he’s being allowed to essentially completely abandon the post WW2 international law order and institutions the west has used to get their way under the guise of impartiality. He’s instead just saying why pay all this money, just use sanctions, and threats of invasion and violence and our hegemony over the international finance system to get our way instead directly without the pretenses and annoying mediating layers.

And it is paying some results. Panama has bowed, left the belt and road, is going to be subject to further pressure probably to annul or modify their agreements with China on ownership of the two ports and the overpass they’re constructing (wouldn’t be surprised the US forces them to seize such property in future and deny China any benefit from it, theft is their MO).

These are dangerous times filled with opportunity and risk.

How have they allowed archive dot org to remain up for so long is my thinking. One of these days soon they’re going to kill it for enabling stuff like this.

It’s depressing how many people just are so willing to throw themselves and their loved ones into the meat grinder on command from the empire. I’m convinced once the US tells Taiwan to declare independence and then China reacts by invading these same indoctrinated tools will claim it was “unprovoked” and that we have to send people to die against them.

Which does raise an interesting thought. (Warning: Tangent) Think tanks have variously pegged 2026-2028 as the latest the US can get into a war with China and prevail. The whole Biden chip strategy of just trying to bribe chip makers to return production only had limited returns. If the empire KNOWS for a fact it’s going to start a war and either sacrifice Taiwan or lose access to its chips when they blow up the foundries then IF (big if) Trump actually makes good on his threat of slapping 25% tariffs on Taiwan chip exports it would be a further sign that this is part of a desperate plan to force as much decoupling as they can, to get as much production back in the US before they pull the trigger and start the war. It could yet still be Trump bluster or bullshit (or an attempt to fish for bribes or concessions) but the whip coming in following the carrot in such a short time span is suspicious and alarming and if such tariffs do go through and are not immediately repealed by demand of the tech bourgeoisie then I think it’s a sure sign that the US is going to pull the trigger on war with China over Taiwan and use that to institute further decoupling, that the bourgeoisie are onboard with this, at least the old money ones who may be forcing new money to heel.

People have long doubted the will or ability of the US to decouple from China on here and HB, yet the bourgeoisie seem to be lining up in ever increasing class solidarity with the aims of empire even as such aims hit individual interests and wallets.

Regardless of whether you think this test had issues or was gamed like the Millennium challenge it’s really only a matter of time before the US obtains a working, quality hypersonic missile platform, they have too many people with too much money thrown at it that even with defense contractors intentionally slow-walking it they have to stumble into success eventually and be unable to hide it at which point the only thing to do is go into production and lobby for the US buying thousands of them which the US will almost certainly be happy to do as it needs them for its coming attempts at suppressing multi-polarity. It’ll sell some to Europe and its NATO vassals, some to perhaps its Japanese and occupied Korean vassals, etc.

I say this because there are those in anti-imperialist spaces who seem to at times assume that the Russian/Chinese advantage in this space would last through the coming war against China before 2030 and that the US would remain unable to get a working system anytime in the near future.

Let us remember that it’s not who gets there first. As the US is the one who sets the start time for the conflict whether that’s WW3 or a regional showdown against China. “China can produce more” yeah I get it, that’s obvious but the west knows this too by this point and frankly I think their choice is likely to do a first strike, possibly nuclear and attempt to use this to deliver such a strike and then suppress the Chinese response using their first/second island chain advantage to intercept before terminal phase is reached. For this reason I hope China moves very speedily to move the majority of their nuclear arsenal to their hypersonic delivery vehicles to blunt such a move having success.

Just the same it should make everyone very nervous the US has something that can hasten the already quick speed with which it can deliver first strikes with conventional and nuclear weapons.

I really hope the Chinese are working on defensive systems that are comparable to the Russian S-600/500 though I don’t think Russian style tactics will work as well against the US for China as they’ve been using Ukraine as a test laboratory to see what modern warfare looks like and adapt secret battle-plans for winning it with new doctrines and technologies.

They’re calling for doubling down on sea-born drone fleets. They think that’s the future it seems and that lines up with high talk of filling the Taiwan straits with drones to deny Beijing. Perhaps they think they can get around the problems of spending human lives and blood in increasing unpopularity of imperialism by moving the work to disposable machines that won’t create any backlash at home just jobs doing vidya game like killing of others.

It sucks voting here as an ML. There’s all these hopeful sounding propositions on things like this and rent and so on and then inevitably every single one that in any way challenges any powerful group gets quashed handily and easily, often without any real propaganda campaigns required either because these liberal NIMBY fucks just vote against that kind of thing.

IMO that movement has many of the hallmarks of being a propped up US/western destabilization and balkanization operation much like their support for that terrorist movement in Xinjiang in China. Their support is lower key perhaps because they want to maintain good relations against India to use it against China but it’s still there.

I’m glad Kamala lost but upset that Claudia didn’t win.

Instead it’s this orange guy who occasionally says something funny.

But at least I get to drink liberal genocide apologist tears, everyone be sure to drink plenty of genocide apologist tears and scold them for supporting a genocidal party and candidate that moved right and try to teach them something for once.

I really, really, really hope she wins every remaining state but Michigan and the Dems get to know for a fact that she probably lost over supporting a genocide but I think that may be overly optimistic as it looks like her path to victory is closed off in AZ and NV. I mean fuck with our luck she’ll somehow win Michigan anyways and the message Dems will take is genocide is okay but PUTIN personally (with the help of re-animated Stalin) stole the election with Russian brainwashing and troll farms.

Ah well. This bodes badly for the US I think.

Also be sure to be there for the mental health of those vulnerable friends of yours who maybe are a bit liberal and take this hard, good opportunity after comforting them to maybe lead them out of the blue-anon propaganda.

It’s really hard to say. I could see the strategy of appealing to young men by telling them Trump and project 2025 are going to ban porn on top of the abortion issue pushing Kamala over the edge but right now I think Trump has an atomically small edge and seems ever so slightly more likely to win given how bad economic conditions are for working people and the tendency of Americans to change parties over things like that. Even if Trump loses if it’s close enough they can just pull a 2000 and steal it with lawyers and the Supreme Court so he has that going for him as well. Bourgeoisie in the tech sphere seem to be for Trump with Bezos and Musk seeming at least neutral or in Musk’s case all in.

You assume that Cornel is not a spoiler and a sheep-dog? He’s an anti-communist who thinks Reagan was great for destroying the USSR and I believe buys into the China hate and atrocity propaganda. Anyone who helps spread the current imperialist propaganda which does the consent for war against China like him is not an ally but an enemy. Fuck his weak, liberal “brother”/“sister” preacher bullshit. He calls white supremacists brother too, he calls arch reactionaries brother too, because to a Christian like him they are brothers and class and material interests don’t matter. Systems don’t matter.

There’s a reason they killed Malcolm, King, Hampton but left this guy alive and give him TV appearances and that’s because he’s a false consciousness preacher. He has a fetish for defeat, he is the type of person talked about in “Western Marxism, the fetish for defeat and Christian culture”.

Jill Stein is also not a Marxist and winning a single district with some anti-war unity ticket wouldn’t do anything. We vote for Marxists here because we aim to raise consciousness. A single person winning a district can’t even slow the war machine so it’s pointless if they’re just another liberal whose voice will be drowned out by the sea of propaganda and reality invention which will push for the next conflict. Being smugly right after the fact 15 years later does jack shit because they’ll be out of office by then and will have stood for nothing but their own name and vague anti-war-ism that can’t latch onto the public consciousness or provide explanatory power like a Marxist candidate can.

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if these drones were flown by the CIA or another US agency trying to provoke some sort of reaction like this so they can use it as a pretext for more power for the military and more funding for themselves to stop those dastardly Chinese/Russians/Iranians whoever the cartoon villain of the week is.

Short of the US getting pulled into an extended war elsewhere it cannot extricate itself from until China is too much of a peer power to even risk a fight it is going to fight China as part of the larger push of decoupling, containment, humiliation. Almost certainly over Taiwan, they don’t need to win per se, just inflict damage, bleed China and rally the western world and any hangers-on (India probably) to their side for sanctions and cutting economic and cultural ties as they do to China and Chinese people and culture what they did to Russia with the Ukraine war but much worse.

China just needs to be prepared and accept this. They need to prepare for war, they need to prepare for the possibility of cold war, of being completely cut off from the west and make plans for how they’ll restructure their economy to survive that if it comes. They need to build out their nuclear deterrent as much as possible to deter the US from a decapitating strike attempt and they need to prepare for a much more hostile and western empowered India on their border.

Somewhat. Russia doesn’t produce a lot of the things the US produces. For wheat and certain other things sure, but for soybeans, for fresh green vegetables, for nuts, for fruit? A lot of that stuff Russia doesn’t have the right climate for whereas the US has a uniquely diverse climate that allows them to from California to the plains and mid-west to the south to the northeast grow a variety of cultivars spanning everything from cheap corn and wheat to most every type of green vegetables, roots, nuts, fruits, etc. California alone has enough fertile soil and farmland to feed hundreds and hundreds of millions of people, maybe a billion if supplemented with grain staples from elsewhere.

As I said China won’t starve thanks to their own work in this area and their friends in Russia but well the Soviet people didn’t starve but they also didn’t have supermarkets with fresh tropical fruit or often an abundance of typical fruits and certain types of vegetables were not in the fullest supply due to the constraints of what they could grow. Agriculture has advanced somewhat but there are still limits and being cut off from the US and its incredible amount of produce will certainly drive up prices for Chinese people. This is why I think the CPC had that push to reduce food waste. If this comes to pass the Chinese people will need to be a bit more frugal with food.

For China to truly replace the US they need to free from the grips of US hegemony and maintain good trade relations with parts of the global south in Asia and Latin America which is still a work in progress. As I said as long as US controls global finance they can cut off trade or make it very expensive and for perishable goods like food that’s a real problem because you can’t afford another stop in your supply chain in another intermediate country and routing through shell companies for all of this stuff and even for stuff you can it introduces another point of spoilage and rot.