Apparently it was Germany that told Putin that if he wanted Ukraine to be able to sign the agreement that they had just negotiated he should first pull his troops from Kiev. Like a complete idiot he believed them, and this after they had just spent seven years dicking him around with the Minsk accords that they never had any intention of making Ukraine abide by.
Say what you will about the West but they would never fall for this kind of shit. They wouldn't get fucked over due to being so naive as to believe that their interlocutor was negotiating in good faith, because they themselves never act in good faith, are always lying and looking to screw the other side over and so assume everyone else does too.
Russians are like naive children sometimes. They really want to believe that they are dealing with rational, normal people in the West and they get fucked over for it every time. I hope that the Ukraine saga has finally taught them that the West is incapable of doing anything but lying and cheating and will never ever cease trying to destroy you if you don't bow down to them and let them rob and enslave you.
And i hope China has been paying attention and learning this lesson as well.
So it's even worse than it appears.
I have to wonder, at what point will a country finally have the guts to say they refuse to continue to acknowledge the legitimacy of this debt? Afghanistan for instance could easily just come out and tell the IMF to go fuck themselves. The US already stole all their sovereign reserves. What are they going to do, invade again just to get humiliated by the Taliban a second time?
and yet people keep voting the right
What would you say is the reason why that keeps happening?
By the way notice how on this entire list there is not a single "western" country. The vast majority are from the global south, with the only exceptions being a handful of former Yugoslav and Soviet republics. "Western" countries have plenty of debt but none of it to the IMF.
So what this list effectively shows is the degree to which these countries are still under the colonial subjugation of the West. If you are in debt to the IMF it is very difficult if not impossible to have sovereign control over your own economic policies, and therefore to be able to say that you are a sovereign country.
This makes it very clear that colonialism never ended. There are few actually independent countries in the world today outside of the collective West (which itself really only consists of the imperial hegemon and its various satellites and vassals). Notice how countries like China, Russia, DPRK, Iran are not on this list.
It is no coincidence that of those that are still truly independent most are in some way or another in the crosshairs of the empire.
I haven't been able to find that but here's the comprehensive list showing IMF debt by country:
https://www.imf.org/external/np/fin/tad/balmov2.aspx?type=TOTAL
It should be a trivial if slightly tedious exercise to look up each country's GDP, make a spreadsheet, divide each country's debt by its GDP and then sort the list by that ratio.
Yes but it's not sorted by it, so potentially we are missing out on some very small economies that might not make the top ten by total debt but would have a high debt to GDP ratio.
A similar thing happened in Ukraine after the Maidan coup by the way, the US just went and installed a US citizen as one of their top ministers... economy or finance i believe. It happens more often than you think. There have been other such instances in Eastern Europe, where suddenly a person who had barely anything to do with the country other than maybe their parents being from there suddenly ended up in a top position and they just so happen to come from a western country, have been educated in western institutions, worked for a western government or NGO and so on. The most blatant colonialism and nobody bats an eye.
She got given Georgian citizenship on the same day she got the post apparently. Also she barely speaks any Georgian.
True, true. I wasn't saying that this is what everyone should do, but that revolutionaries as a whole should not abandon union work.
This is the wrong approach. Unions are an essential battleground of the class struggle and abandoning them to the enemy is a grave strategic error. What should be done is agitation and propaganda work among the rank and file, first and foremost against the collaboration with the so-called "police union" (which is not a union since police are not workers but the reactionary guard dogs of capital), and secondly against the reactionary leadership which continues that collaboration. When sufficient critical mass has been built a political struggle must be launched inside the union aiming at the delegitimization and eventual unseating of the reactionary leaders.
Most recent news on this is that the French colonial authorities have declared martial law.
Edit: It is very difficult to get information about exactly what is happening on the ground but apparently various social media and instant messengers have been blocked, Tiktok banned, and the access of journalists completely restricted. If true it means the situation is getting serious. France seems desperate to prevent images and videos coming out. Protests have not subsided and there are clashes with the police and military.
Much, much worse. She is a French citizen with virtually zero connection to Georgia who was placed there to act like a colonial administrator of the olden days doing the imperial master's bidding and keeping the colony on a leash.
For me the central passage of that text is this:
"We can (and must) begin to build socialism, not with abstract human material, or with human material specially prepared by us, but with the human material bequeathed to us by capitalism. True, that is no easy matter, but no other approach to this task is serious enough to warrant discussion."
It is in effect a complete rejection of idealism, the recognition that we must work with the material reality at hand and not with the fantasy of an idealized revolutionary subject which we have constructed in our minds.
It's funny you should bring this up because i know someone else who also asked this same question once upon a time: "Should Revolutionaries Work in Reactionary Trade Unions?". Of course the conditions today are very different so you cannot simply transfer their conclusions one to one to your situation, but it helps us understand how a revolutionary ought to think about and discuss these sorts of questions.
Study your conditions, analyze them and apply the dialectical materialist method and draw your own conclusions.
I'd say it's a combination of both. The media is a powerful force and it does fool many people, but just like with what was happening in Nazi Germany, deep down most people probably know what is really going on, in general terms at least if not the specifics...they simply choose to tell themselves that they don't because that makes it easier for them to go along with it.
if you could instantaneously pull the lever while simultaneously attempting to get people off or derail the train or sabotaging the track
You can do that. You can do that by voting third party or abstaining. As i tried to explain to you, these are also choices. These are also levers that you can pull, you are not forced to choose between pulling the red or the blue lever. Choosing such a third option has the beneficial effect of decreasing the legitimacy of the duopoly. The more people that choose to do this, the less believable the claim will be of whoever wins having a "democratic mandate".
Further, as i have repeatedly tried to explain to you, it is not clear which if any of the two tracks that you think you have to pick from is actually the lesser evil. You axiomatically assume that you know which of those two tracks is less harmful, but you don't.
One side has genocide, the other side has genocide and destruction of the environment
No, actually both sides have destruction of the environment. Biden blew up Nordstream in the worst act of ecological terrorism in history, forcing Europe into dependency on American LNG transported by highly polluting tankers. Biden just imposed massive tariffs on Chinese EVs and continued previous tariffs (imposed by Obama) on Chinese green energy tech. Biden has chosen to ramp up military production and give billions to the military industrial complex knowing full well that the US military is the biggest polluter on the planet. Democrats do jack shit for the environment, they are lackeys of the fossil fuel industry same as Republicans are, they are just better at virtue signaling, gaslighting and selling you false promises.
No. The trolley problem is an oversimplification that can never accurately reflect reality.
Another problem with the trolley analogy is that in the case of the idealized thought experiment you have perfect information. You know for sure which choice will lead to less harm. That is not the case in reality. In reality you are dealing with incomplete, imperfect information.
Furthermore, in reality there is always a third choice. Whether that's third party or boycotting the vote, you can still make a choice that is consequential and distinct from the false dichotomy. This is not the case in the trolley problem where no such third option exists.
And lastly, in reality your choice of actions is not limited to the pulling of a lever. What if in the trolley problem you tried to get the people off the tracks? What if you tried throwing something on the track to derail the whole train? What if you worked to sabotage or dismantle the track itself? In other words, direct action.
You just need some courage and imagination to come up with alternative solutions. You don't need to allow yourself to be limited to the lever-track paradigm. If you only have the audacity to think outside the box you can break out of the mental prison of "liberal democracy".
For those interested, here is the full text (in Chinese, but i assume you all know how to use machine translation) of the joint statement that was put out in the wake of the recent visit of the delegation of the Russian government to China.
It's a long and fairly dry read with a lot of the usual diplomatic boilerplate language but it's an important document that basically lays out the direction in which the multipolar world is heading. If someone wants to summarize the most important points that would be very helpful to give an overview to people who don't have the time to read it all.
Roots of the country’s problem lie in the Norman king’s system of lease and ownership
"Don't blame the system of capitalism, parasitic landlords or the bourgeois government for the abysmal state of housing on TERF island! Blame this French bastard who has been dead for a millennium! It's not like we had hundreds of years to change these archaic laws but didn't because they benefit the landowning aristocracy that still rules this backwards shithole..."
This year marks the 65th anniversary of the historic visit to China by Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, where, together with his wife Shirley Graham Du Bois, the great sc...
Chancellor Olaf Scholz must intervene before the humble doner becomes “a luxury item,” the Left party has demanded
"The United States, the UK, Germany, and France—these are some of the most oppressive and repressive governments in the world if you remove all of the self-praise and the propaganda that they spew about themselves and about freedom and civil rights and so on.
They are a Western axis against freedom, and if you don't know that—I mean, if you live there and you don't know that—then you just haven't tested it.
The only way that you can live in any of those countries—and increasingly in the US—and not know that they are despotic tyrannies, is if you have been so numbed and so brainwashed that you hold no opinion in your head that wasn't put there by the state, that wasn't injected into your lifeless brain by the mainstream media.
So, you never had anything to protest about.
You never questioned your government.
You never challenged the official narratives about anything.
That's the only way that you can't know what I'm talking about.
And that makes you even more repressed, more oppressed, and more tyrannized than the people who are getting beaten and who are getting detained for objecting to their government's brutality.
You're even more of a victim.
You're even more abused than those protesters who are getting clubbed upside the head and getting choked and getting abused by the security forces because your government, your rulers, your ruling class has never let you live a day in your life without telling you what to think and sabotaging your ability to think for yourself.
You're the most abused in your society.
What they did to you is worse than beating; it's worse than detention; it's worse than imprisonment.
At least those protesters who are getting beaten and arrested by the police—at least their minds are free, at least they have their own thoughts in their heads.
But you—your leaders have made you a zombie that thinks that the right thing, the moral thing, is whatever power chooses to do; your government has put you into a moral coma.
You're morally comatose.
They put you under an induced coma so that you can't see them sponsoring the wanton murder of 34,000 people, some 24,000 innocent women and children.
You can't see that there's anything wrong with that.
You feel nothing, or even worse, you think it's the right thing, you think it's the moral thing, you think that what your government is doing is good by sanctioning indiscriminate slaughter; you think that's fine.
Why?
They've robbed you of your very humanity, and that's the only reason that you can believe that you live in a free society.
That's the only reason that you can believe that you live in a society with civil rights and liberty and free speech and all of those other wonderful things that you never had and never will have.
The only freedom that you have in those countries is the freedom to agree with power.
You're free to submit to the powers that be."
Source: https://twitter.com/nxt888/status/1784491213548368231
Disclaimer: i could not find a more solid source for this quote. The tweet attributes it to a person named Shahid Bolsen. I do not know anything about this person. Cursory research indicates they are a somewhat obscure middle eastern political commentator. This is not an endorsement of whatever other political views they may or may not hold, as i have no clue in that regard. Regardless who said it and whether or not they are someone we would agree with more broadly, this is in and of itself an excellent quote that perfectly encapsulates the reality of western societies: we are the most propagandized people in the world.
In a failing quest to maintain its 'primacy', the US has cast China, Russia and Iran as global villains
A breakdown of how organisations like the Psy-Group, the Integrity Initiative, ARC, Albany, Zinc, and other companies work with governments to create alternate realities in order to manufacture consent, and undermine opposition.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1782944981881065602.html
Full text:
"Today is a sad day. Because of the veto by the United States, the application by Palestine for full membership at the UN has been rejected, and the decades-long dream of the Palestinian people ruthlessly dashed. China finds the decision by the US most disappointing.
An independent State of Palestine has been a long-cherished dream of generations of Palestinian people. Its full membership at the UN is a crucial step in that historical direction. As early as 2011, Palestine submitted an application. Because of some countries' opposition, the Council's action at that time was put on hold. 13 years is long enough. Yet we still hear some complaints asserting that there is not enough time and there is no need to rush into actions. These claims are disingenuous. The admission of Palestine as a full member of the UN is more urgent now than ever before.
The relevant countries claim that they do not support Palestine’s full UN membership because the State of Palestine does not have the capacity to govern. We do not agree with this assessment. Over the past 13 years, the situation in Palestine has changed in many ways, the most fundamental of which has been the expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Palestine’s survival space as a state has been constantly squeezed, and the foundation of the two-State solution has been continuously eroded. The relevant countries have ignored this and adopted an attitude of acquiescence or even connivance. And now they are questioning Palestine’s capacity to govern. This is gangster logic that confuses right and wrong.
What is even more unacceptable is some countries are challenging Palestine’s eligibility for membership of the UN under the UN Charter, implying that there still remains the question of whether Palestine is peace-loving. Such an allegation is outrageous and a step too far. For the Palestinian people who are suffering under occupation, this is tantamount to rubbing salt in the wounds. It is extremely insulting. If it is out of political calculation to oppose Palestine’s full membership of the UN, it would be better to simply say so, instead of making excuses to re-victimize the Palestinian people.
Independence with statehood is the inalienable national right of the Palestinian people. This is unquestionable and untradeable. The relevant countries make the direct negotiations between Palestine and Israel a prerequisite, claiming that Palestine’s membership at the UN can only be the result of negotiations. This is putting the cart before the horse. As it is more and more clear that the Israeli side is rejecting the two-State solution, the admission of the State of Palestine as a full UN member would allow Palestine to enjoy equal status with Israel and would help create conditions for the resumption of negotiations between the two sides. All countries that genuinely support the two-State solution should not stand in the way of Palestine’s full membership at the UN.
The wheel of history is rolling forward. The trend of the times is irresistible. We are convinced that the day will come when the State of Palestine will enjoy the same rights as other member states at the UN, that the two states of Palestine and Israel will be able to live side by side in peace as neighbors, with the two peoples, Palestinians or Israelis, living in tranquility and happiness. China will continue to make unremitting efforts and play a constructive role for the early realization of that day."
Iran made history yesterday by launching “Operation True Promise”. In our usual style here, let’s cut through all the noise currently clogging up social networks and incisively demonstrate the facts as thoroughly as possible, while also pointing out how this was a game-changing and historic event wh...
A bit late posting this one but i thought it wise to wait a few days for the fog to clear so to speak on whether the analysis is accurate. It's not always good to try to draw conclusions too soon after an event when not all of the information is available yet but it seems this is again a solid piece. The final section is the most interesting to me as it discusses broader geopolitical implications.
Some have argued that "Israel" is attempting to gaud Iran into retaliation in order to force the US into war with Iran. However, Iran has no choice but to respond.
"The war's aims won't be achieved, the hostages won't be returned through military pressure, security won't be restored and Israel's international ostracism won't end"
The Treasury secretary’s plan is a protectionist disaster that will impede the path to net zero.
But why, the reader will ask, does the spontaneous movement, the movement along the line of least resistance, lead to the domination of bourgeois ideology? For the simple reason that bourgeois ideology is far older in origin than socialist ideology, that it is more fully developed, and that it has at its disposal immeasurably more means of dissemination.
It is often said that the working class spontaneously gravitates towards socialism. This is perfectly true in the sense that socialist theory reveals the causes of the misery of the working class more profoundly and more correctly than any other theory, and for that reason the workers are able to assimilate it so easily, provided, however, this theory does not itself yield to spontaneity, provided it subordinates spontaneity to itself. Usually this is taken for granted, but it is precisely this which Rabocheye Dyelo forgets or distorts. The working class spontaneously gravitates towards socialism; nevertheless, most widespread (and continuously and diversely revived) bourgeois ideology spontaneously imposes itself upon the working class to a still greater degree.
—V.I. Lenin, "What Is To Be Done?"
A uniquely Ukrainian strain of Neo-Nazism is spreading throughout Europe, which openly advocates violence against minorities while seeking new recruits. With Kiev’s army collapsing and a narrative of Western betrayal gaining currency, the horror inflicted on residents of Donbas for a decade could ve...
