Pathfinder

As a US-based commie, I think we have such a long row to hoe in terms of developing class consciousness here. Decades of propaganda plus comfortable living conditions based on exploitation of people and the environment make even suggesting a socialist alternative to people makes them look at you like you have a horn growing out of your head. Hasan does good work in normalizing these ideas among young people, thus making positive contributions to developing class consciousness. Someone who isn’t as “pipeline-friendly” but more ideologically pure probably wouldn’t have a fraction of the viewers Hasan has.

Also, while I think the “crisis of masculinity” in young men is overblown, the reality is that the right wing has an entire ecosystem of people like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson who can sell young men on a false idea of a very unhealthy masculinity, and it’s been incredibly effective at pushing them to reactionary politics. Hasan is a great antidote to that as I think he (and others - I think Mamdani embodies this as well) provides a more positive version of masculinity that in itself I see pushing men leftward.

Literally just US dollars. They’re not “buying” anything with it. It’s not being used to plug a budgetary deficit (not needed for that anyway). It’s just a load of USD to be used to prop up the exchange rate, which would otherwise have the peso depreciate against the USD so prices for Argentinians on imported goods would rise significantly (i.e. more inflation). So this is just a $20B “gift” so inflation in Argentina doesn’t spike up before the election and Milei doesn’t lose more than he already will. Russia spends $200 million on “election interference” in 2016 through Facebook posts. The US spends $20B to actually interfere in Argentina’s election.

It’s the same way IMF loans work, only those have to be paid back. Poor country gets a loan from the IMF to prop up their FX rate. The rate eventually collapses anyway. Now the poor country has to pay back the loan but doesn’t have any increased means to pay it.

The IMF has been the main tool in US imperialism (arguably even more than the military) for decades now.

Thank you for sharing this, I have no doubt you are correct. Admittedly though, as someone who is not technically inclined I don’t quite know what to do with this information. Should I limit the apps on my phone to only what is essential? Use iOS with ADP and Lockdown Mode? Go with GrapheneOS? Just chuck out my phone entirely?

Americans - even Americans like Bernie - have an incredibly shallow understanding of history. They will recall a few key words and ideas from their history classes, but probably even more just from the environment around us, which is skewed towards reproducing capitalism. So they understand historical subjects only at the most basic level and usually not in a way that is correct.

I don’t think historical ignorance is a huge problem in itself. The bigger problem is, despite their incredible levels of ignorance, Americans will insist their understanding of history is inviolably correct; No American will ever say “well, you sure seem to know a lot about Stalin, I don’t know anything so tell me more”. Suggest anything about Stalin outside of “authoritarian dictator who kiled millions and made everyone clap” and Americans will INSiST you are wrong and they are right, regardless of who has actually put in any work.

To many of us, socialism is simply the opposite of capitalism rather than its negation, therefore socialism must be the absence of the most hated features of capitalism in our experiences and opinions.

I have been thinking about this since I read it a couple hours ago. Brilliant insight, thank you for sharing.

This is a very reasonable take.

The US government did not remove Nelson Mandela from their terrorist list until 2008.

I hate how everyone buys into the myth of “the government budget should operate how a household budget operates”. It’s not the fact that it’s wrong that bothers me the most, what really bothers me is how it’s nearly impossible to explain why that analogy is bad. I read a whole book about MMT in part so I could explain why that analogy is wrong, and I still basically can’t do it well. When I try people just think I’m full of shit because the analogy is so easy to understand and the real explanation is not intuitive if you don’t have a solid grasp of economics (which is maybe 5% of the population at best, and most of those people, even liberals understand why the government isn’t like a company or a household).

(FWIW I’ve fallen back on the Keynesian “deficit in a recession and surplus in a boom” even though I don’t actually believe it. That seems to be something people can grasp better)

I mean, I would never say never (also wouldn’t bet on it happening).

The real job of the US president and the US government broadly is to manage the different factions of capital into a united front against the working class (both domestic and international). Finance capital, industrial capital, tech billionaires, etc. Get everyone on the same page and make sure every group is getting something out of it. It seems to me that Trump is just completely ignoring this part of the job and is favoring some bourgeois groups over others. Specifically, it seems to me that tech capital is running the show. Of course, there’s plenty of intersection between military contractors and tech billionaires. But the tech billionaires would be perfectly happy with a pared down military budget that still funneled even more money to the high tech sector i.e. Palantir, Boston Dynamics, et al. I also think that tech capital - in contrast to say finance or industrial capital - is perfectly happy to see US hegemony and maybe even the US state nearly evaporate as they believe they will still come out ahead in that scenario. Musk, Thiel, Andresson, and that group I believe want something like an AnCap USA; and in that world they will emerge on top. Those are the people Trump is listening to right now. They are ok gutting everything and funneling it back to billionaires because they think we’re in the “rip the copper wiring out and sell it” phase of capitalism. Entirely possible other members/groups of the bourgeoisie see it that way too - no way imperialist capitalism can be maintained given climate change, the rise of China, etc so just try to cash out now.

Inshallah

The only hope Europe has of breaking its subservience to the US is to not just make nice with Russia, but to totally embrace it. That is not likely to happen anytime soon, so Europe is just going to be America’s punching bag until they get it.