By Cira Pascual Marquina

I was recently in an assembly in the west of Caracas where communards were debating how to prioritize scarce resources. The discussion was not easy. People disagreed about whether to invest first in a water system, a productive initiative, or repairing a community space. Voices overlapped at times, arguments were made and remade, and decisions did not come quickly. From the outside, it might look like a routine and even tedious meeting. From within, it is very much something else: a collective effort to think through material life under pressure.

Assemblies like this are not exceptional. They are part of the ordinary functioning of a society that, even under conditions of imperialist siege, continues to organize its material and political life. This is something that is often missed in accounts of Venezuela written from afar, where attention tends to focus on “high politics”—institutional declarations, negotiations, geopolitical responses—while overlooking the dense fabric of everyday political practice that sustains the process.

My argument here is that what might be perceived as simple inertia is better understood as something deeper: the expression of an ongoing historical process that has, over more than two decades, transformed not only institutions, but the capacities of the people themselves.

To grasp the durability of the Bolivarian Revolution just four months after the kidnapping of President Maduro and the attack on the country, it is not enough to look at the state, leadership, or even economic policy, although we should not forgo the analysis on that terrain. One also has to examine a different terrain: the production of political consciousness. What is at stake is not only sovereignty in its formal sense, but the extent to which a society has developed the capacity to understand, organize, and reproduce itself—what I have referred to elsewhere as “popular sovereignty.” This is where the question of popular education becomes central.

Imperialism operates not only through material force, but through the production of meaning. Its violence is not merely destructive; it is pedagogical. Coups and coup attempts, bombardments, kidnappings, and blockades are designed to weaken a country materially, but also to instill lessons: that resistance is futile, that sovereignty is unsustainable, that submission is inevitable.

This pedagogy extends into the symbolic realm. Mainstream media narratives speak of “normalization” in Venezuela—that is, a gradual realignment with a global order dictated from the North—or, alternatively, they refer to a “dictatorship” still in place, over which looms imminent collapse. In both cases, the operation is the same: to overwrite lived reality and produce a common sense in which alternatives to the capitalist and imperialist order appear unthinkable. In this way, imperialism seeks to shape not only what people can do, but what they believe is possible.

Unfortunately, some Left sectors end up reproducing a similar framework, albeit in a different language. When they suggest—explicitly or implicitly—that what has occurred in Venezuela after January 3 amounts to treason or capitulation, they not only misrepresent the process; they also erase the agency of the Venezuelan people. In doing so, they reproduce a logic that reduces Chavistas to spectators, rather than recognizing them as protagonists of a process they have actively built and sustained.

Learning Through Struggle

Yet this discourse encounters limits when it confronts a politically organized society. In Venezuela, imperialism’s attempt to impose a pedagogy of resignation collides with something I encounter daily: a pueblo that has learned, through practice, to interpret and act upon its conditions. Of course, this process has unfolded unevenly—as is the case in any revolutionary experience, where political consciousness and organization develop at different rhythms across territories and sectors. But that unevenness does not negate the transformation. What exists here today is a society marked by the experience of shared political practice that spans close to three decades.

From its inception, the Bolivarian Process placed education at the center of its project. Under the leadership of Hugo Chávez, it was never treated as a secondary or technical matter, but as a decisive terrain of struggle. This orientation drew from the “Tree of Three Roots,” which includes not only independence leader Simón Bolívar and campesino revolutionary Ezequiel Zamora, but also Simón Rodríguez.

Rodríguez, the teacher of Bolívar, argued that emerging Latin American republics could not be built on inherited colonial forms of thought. His insistence that “we either invent or we err” served as a methodological principle: social transformation requires the production of new ways of thinking, grounded in practice. Chávez’s emphasis on popular education can be read as a continuation of this Robinsonian tradition (Robinson was Rodriguez’s pseudonym) under contemporary conditions.

This perspective found concrete expression in initiatives such as Misión Robinson, which, with the support of Cuban internationalist brigades, brought literacy to 1.5 million Venezuelans. But to reduce the pedagogical dimension of the revolution to formal programs would be to miss its most decisive aspect. What has unfolded over the years is something broader: a vast process in which learning takes place through participation in social and political life itself—through assemblies, mobilizations, land struggles, and organized action. It was complemented by a sustained effort at political formation, in which Hugo Chávez played a central role as a popular educator, consistently linking history and theory to the concrete, lived challenges of building socialism.

Land struggles, countercoups, and communal assemblies are not only forms of action; they are processes of formation. In them, people learn to deliberate, to confront entrenched relations of domination, to manage collective resources, to overcome non-antagonic contradictions, and to assume responsibility for shared outcomes. Through these practices, new political subjects are formed—capable of understanding, organizing, and transforming their reality.

The result has been a broad, if uneven, transformation. The revolution has not only altered access to resources or institutions; it has expanded the number of people able to think and act politically.

Irreversibility: What Cannot Be Undone

It is here that the question of irreversibility, which Chris Gilbert brought up in a recent article, becomes decisive. Drawing on the work of the Hungarian philosopher István Mészáros, Chávez argued that revolutionary processes could, under certain conditions, reach a point of no return. This notion is often interpreted in institutional terms, but its most profound dimension is at the grassroots level, where change is, for lack of a better word, molecular.

After more than twenty-seven years, the Bolivarian Revolution has generated a dense accumulation of lived political experience. Millions have participated in processes of organization, decision-making, and struggle. They have not only witnessed politics, they have practiced it.

From within that process, it becomes clear that such experience cannot be easily reversed. Institutions can be transformed, policies overturned, and resources reallocated. But the knowledge produced through lived practice—the capacity to interpret and organize—does not disappear so readily. People (including the political direction of the process) cannot simply “unlearn” what they have lived.

If the Bolivarian Revolution has functioned as a vast field of political learning, its most developed expression lies in the communes. There, collective decision-making is a daily practice. The commune is not a local refuge from the system, nor a mere administrative unit. It is a space where new social relations are forged—where, potentially, cooperation displaces competition, and where politics becomes inseparable from the organization of life itself.

At the same time, it would be a mistake to treat the communal project as self-sufficient or all-encompassing. From a Chavista, Marxist, and Leninist perspective, the commune cannot remain isolated to fulfill its truly revolutionary potential. It must become national, articulated with other spheres of power, including the government. The horizon is not a mosaic of disconnected local experiences, but the transformation of society as a whole.

This is not an abstract concern. From where I stand, it is clear that communes—still marginal in the national economy—cannot sustain or expand themselves if the state is lost to forces hostile to the revolution. Losing the government would not mean the immediate disappearance of popular organization, but it would interrupt the possibility of advancing toward a substantive democracy capable of eroding the metabolism of capital that begins to emerge in the communes.

This does not imply that support for the government must be uncritical. The relationship between popular power and the state has been contested at times since the early days of the revolution. There have been moments when the government distanced itself from the communal project, only to return to it later under pressure from organized sectors.

Against the ‘Safe’ Bet

This brings us back to the defeatist declarations of Left intellectuals that I was mentioning earlier, who insist that the Bolivarian Revolution has already ended, that the government has capitulated, that what remains is little more than a hollow shell. From the outside, this can appear as realism. From within, it reflects a profound misunderstanding of the process. At its core lies a failure to grasp irreversibility.

Those who declare or imply that everything has been lost tend to focus on the government as if it were the sole repository of the revolution. From that perspective, any concession or retreat appears as definitive proof of collapse. What disappears from view is the accumulated political experience of millions of people who have learned, over decades, to organize, deliberate, and act collectively—and, through that practice, are also able to identify errors, advance critique, and push for rectification when needed.

This omission is not neutral. It often reflects either a Eurocentric lens that renders the Global South’s political subject invisible, or a crude geopolitical lens that privileges institutional form over lived experience and underestimates the agency of organized people. From that vantage point, the revolution becomes something that can be declared “over” from afar. From where I stand, that claim does not hold.

Declaring that “it’s over” is not simply an analytical mistake; it has political consequences. It makes it harder to struggle in a very difficult historical moment, contributes to demoralization, and weakens the collective capacity to navigate difficult terrain.

It is always, of course, a much “safer” intellectual wager to declare capitulation, to distance oneself, to preserve analytical purity—it is safer since the reality on the ground is rarely pretty and never certain. But that is a wager made from the outside. Within the Bolivarian Process, the defining feature has been different: a refusal to abandon the struggle while conditions remain open. Moreover, accusations of treason or capitulation are not only false but also politically harmful. They flatten complex dynamics into moral judgments and obscure the strategic terrain on which the process unfolds.

This is not simply a question of competing narratives, but of how reality itself is produced and understood. In Venezuela, these narratives encounter a specific difficulty: they collide with a politically organized movement that has learned to interpret reality together.

There are, of course, decisions in which people do not participate directly, but the debate is always present. Moreover, in robust communes, life does not follow a logic imposed from above; it is produced together, forged in assemblies and in everyday practices. That is why listening to the Chavista base—sometimes critical of specific policies but supportive of the government—matters: it makes it possible to distinguish between what is said about our reality and what is actually lived.

To defend the Bolivarian Revolution in 2026, then, is not only to denounce external aggression. It is to defend and deepen the processes through which a pueblo is learning to govern itself. And what has been learned does not disappear with a policy shift or a moment of retreat. It persists as capacity and consciousness. And that, of course, has material implications in the struggle.

There are no guarantees of victory. Revolutionary processes unfold in adverse conditions, shaped to some degree by forces that are often beyond their control. Marx compared the revolution to a mole that might go underground but remained a telluric force. What exists in Venezuela today is not an exhausted project waiting to collapse. It is a people that has learned—unevenly but decisively—to organize, to study reality, and to struggle collectively.

That accumulated experience cannot be dismissed or wished away. Nor can it be abandoned in favor of the intellectually “safe” prediction of defeat. Chavismo, forged through years of struggle and marked by a historical accumulation of political learning, remains a force with the capacity to defend, correct if necessary, and advance the process.

I don't really know how to write this and frankly don't feel qualified to write it, and I guess that is part of the point. Certainly there's a good amount of western / white supremacist egotism still surviving in the western empire, but it's also being challenged by material realities.

The west's model increasingly looks to be on life support, amping up mask off violence in an attempt to cling to supremacy. But as an article like this one shows, even some of the more proactively plotting imperialists are having to come to terms with decline: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11590089

I always have mixed feelings about this kind of thing, lest I have too much hope too early, or underestimate the tenacity of the hodge podge of mass murderous western hegemony. But at the same time, I'm living within it and yeah, I'm impacted by my "anti" beliefs in how I look at it, but I seem to see myself reflected in others more often without them necessarily being commies.

That is, the punctured listlessness that comes from a world model coming apart at the seams. It seems annoying to mention a guy like Trump in all this, but he does have relevance in that he's quite literally a textbook clinical definition NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder). How much more fitting could it get for a declining empire based in a view of systemic superiority to be led by a guy who can't handle the idea of being inept, incompetent, unskilled, and (god forbid) somehow lesser in some measurable metric.

He's only the face of it though. The broader supremacist superstructure, and the millions immersed in it, have to contend with it too. Most of us aren't narcissists, but we (the we living within that superstructure) are still going to have characteristics of its narcissism. The clothes that come with it, so to speak.

The psychological framework of "I'm up here and you're down there and this is how it's supposed to be and it's not that somebody designed it this way, it's because I'm more deserving." But I'm not more deserving, I'm not up here (at most I am only up here in fleeting moments in my head), and the material realities bringing me closer to the soil with each step of decline.

It's not that I want to believe that I'm up here. I didn't make the world model. I didn't organize the soldiers who enforced it. I didn't work out the economics of it. But some part of me is attached to it anyway, like a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. You don't just choose to exist outside the superstructure you're in by sheer force of will and rise above, and there's that suspicious phrasing anyway. Rise above. Above to where? Rise above who? The "civil" rising above the "savage"?

It's not for me to say, but it's not for me to imply it's relative and flat either. That I can sweep away the hierarchy with a hand and pretend that it doesn't matter. It does matter, which is why I can't just walk out its door like it doesn't.

Somewhere in this morass, humility has to be learned. Not the faux humility of mea culpa and "I'm so stupid/ignorant, teehee," but the studious openness of learning from those who know. At some point, the west, who for so long used military superiority to enforce an idea of cultural superiority, has to contend with the realities of not only being culturally backward, having developed into a mechanized spear with which to stab those who defy it, but also having a declining military and economic weight with which to hide this damning fact.

At some point, the west is going to have to stop dancing around fancy mental gymnastics and admit that the east is red (or red enough anyway), that it's rising in material ways that colonialism could only ever borrow for a time, and that in it is the blueprint for how to escape this death cult we call colonialism and imperialism.

https://wplace.live/?lat=44.6&lng=-160.5&zoom=12

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11577115

"Donald Trump claims Iran has been "militarily defeated", but many reports have come out showing this to be a lie. Tehran destroyed the majority of US military bases in West Asia (aka the Middle East), and Iran still maintains most of its missile capabilities."

"Meanwhile, experts estimate the USA's war against Iran will cost $1 trillion."

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11580637

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11580636

"The Grayzone's Wyatt Reed recalls what it was like to visit the ruins of the Rafinia synagogue in Tehran, Iran after it was bombed by Israel this March, and describes visiting active synagogues in the city during worship services."

Joe Biden mocks Russian concerns about NATO expansion and jokes that if "looking to China" doesn't work out they should try Iran.

It's important to understand the difference between fact and narrative, especially for those of us who have grown up in the western sphere of "monotone presented as neutrality".

Here is a fairly simple example: We have two people, we'll call them Bob and Tom. The facts are that Bob punched Tom and that Tom punched Bob.

Notice that with these facts out of context, we already have a narrative forming. The order in which I wrote the facts suggests one punch happened after the other. It further suggests, due to the nature of how I'm saying it, that I am capable of being a neutral outside party who is evaluating the conflict between Bob and Tom without any personal bias toward outcome.

Now let's add more: Suppose a further fact is that Bob punched Tom because Tom first punched Bob. Now we are starting to get into order of events and motivation, and it's suggesting a narrative of self defense.

But what if that's not all there is to it? Suppose we add another layer. Though it is true that in this specific exchange of blows, Tom punched first, in previous unmentioned conflicts Bob has always been the initiator.

It can go on and on like this for a while and the more detail you add, the clearer a picture you get of what is going on. Outside of context, it is easier to presume being capable of neutral and accurate judgment, but the further you dig into the details, the more your judgment becomes an expression of what you believe in and what your interests are. The more you know about what happened and weigh in on it in detail, the harder it is to sound like an unbiased party.

Being conscious of, and accepting this, is not a bad thing. We all have biases. This does not mean it's good to lie and deceive carelessly and for selfish ends, but it does mean that no one is escaping motive. It means that when we weigh in on something, we are expressing someone's motive toward an outcome, whether it is our own or someone else's that we may not even realize we are carrying.

So when your boss sucks, make the working class motive conscious and figure out how to wield it, in context, toward a better world for yourself and the rest of the working class. When your people are imperialized, make the liberation motive conscious and figure out how to wield it toward ending imperialism. And so on.

[2026-05-06] @UlyssesFinn

A stunning investigative report by Hebrew-language outlet Ynet has laid bare the embarrassing cataclysm not only of the US-Israeli war on Iran, but the Zionist entity’s effort throughout to end the Islamic Republic via covert and overt military and intelligence operations. Violent Mossad-orchestrated protests, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s murder, and a Kurdish invasion were intended to produce regime change and “total victory” over Tehran. Yet, as Ynet concludes: “what started as a far-reaching Israeli move, rich in imagination, final in its solution, ends in heartache.”

Look

We're riding with Biden again, okay?!

Now get in the car...

cocks gun

I said get in the car right fucking now!

(also, Biden's driving the car this time as well)

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11532321

Conitnuing on from here:

https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11502106

Kinda related to this set of questions from my last post:

Not sure what else to say except:

---

• What trans organizations and gender-affirming services can I access in Spain?

• Any organizations or services for Autistic folk like me?

• How should I go about starting veganism?

• What are good ways to build muscle now fast?

• Any BIPOC orgs in Spain?

• Communist or leftist orgs in Spain?

---

Anyway, I'm looking into the first one in particular.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11519656

"President, pleasure talking with you, we already had a private meeting with investment groups and they're eager to see the expansion of ZEDE (a financial paradise for investors) in Roatan and Comayagua for Palmerola, we are moving another Palmerola specifically to Roatan where there is Prospera, a base we already negotiated. Also about the interoceanic, we are handing it to General Electric and the idea is to buy all goods like metals specifically from Argentina and the US, avoiding Canada and China, these were the warnings we received. The chinese were trying to make a deal but we are not interested, we put a stop to that. There is also the plan for jail CECOT hondureno. (bukele style camp)"

TRANSLATION:

"In Honduras we need force, logistics and blood. If you want to have people under leash you need to oppress them. SQUEEZE THEM. Counter violence generating violence. It is what President Trump says, and you better believe he will be there for an eternity. I don't know how but you have to take my word for it. Don't be a softy, don't hesitate, you won't be able to do your job, that's what Pablo Escobar said." - JOH

Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.

☭ Matrix homeserver and space
☭ Theory discussion group on /c/theory@lemmygrad.ml
☭ Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna's Archive

was going to type this up as a post at first, decided to make it into an essay with fixed link for easier share.

نُشر تبادليًا من: https://hexbear.net/post/8401383

نُشر تبادليًا من: https://hexbear.net/post/8380592

I am a mother trying to protect my children in a place where even the simplest things — food, medicine, and safety — have become a daily struggle. The war may fade from the headlines, but for families like mine, the hardship has never stopped.

If you can help, even a small act of kindness can make a real difference for my family. Your support can help us hold on through days that feel impossible.

Please stand with us. [https://gofund.me/1d3ea05b6]

#Gaza #HelpGaza #Palestine #MutualAid #EmergencySupport

Everyone seems outraged by Trump, his geopolitical interpretations, his political measures, and his wars. However, both politicians and mainstream media then agree with him that the situation in Cuba is desperate and on the verge of collapse.

The scenario they promote is that of a failed state, so that a military intervention can be interpreted not as aggression, but as salvation, or at the very least, something that cannot worsen the situation. The objective, as Belén Gopegui says, is to instill the idea that "there is nothing left to do," only wait for the arrival of imperialism.

We have been to Cuba, we have seen, observed, asked questions, and taken notes. We have discovered a people battered and suffering from the energy blockade, but with a government that is managing the situation and citizens who are moving forward.

The first point to consider is that Cuba has been subjected to an energy blockade, which has prevented the island from receiving a single drop of oil for four months. This oil was previously supplied by Mexico and Venezuela. As a consequence, the island's thermoelectric plants have been left without the raw materials needed to operate. It's surprising how the world reacted to the blockade of food aid that Israel imposed on Gaza, but blocking access to energy is just as suffocating for an economy and just as criminal for a country. Can you imagine what would happen if Spain were prevented from receiving a single drop of oil or gas? Or an island like the Dominican Republic, next to Cuba? Imagine blocking the Dominican Republic's access to the 50 or 60 million barrels it receives annually, or the 2.8 million barrels per day that Japan imports. And when these countries are unable to develop due to the lack of this energy, then people will say that capitalism doesn't work.

The first paradox is that the Trump administration says Cuba is a failed state, but precisely because there is a state presence in the organization of society, the energy deficit is being managed. The Cuban state has classified areas according to energy priorities, which they call circuits with levels of importance, giving the highest priority to areas with hospitals or healthcare facilities, schools, fire stations, food industries, and so on. In these protected zones, the electricity almost never goes out.

Similarly, the Cuban government is prioritizing healthcare, educational, and social service centers for the installation of solar panels. In a race against time, and with assistance from China, solar systems supplying energy to healthcare facilities and hospitals are being inaugurated daily.

Regarding gasoline distribution, the criteria are also social; public services have a guaranteed supply, as do agricultural production and strategic companies, while private use has less fuel available at a very high price.

Similarly, the State plans territorial connections and disconnections in its thermoelectric power plants to ensure the distribution of supply and prevent the system from collapsing due to demand exceeding available electricity.

It is the State's planning that has allowed the 730,000 barrels of crude oil ("a third of what we need in a month," in the words of President Díaz-Canel) that arrived on the Russian ship Anatoly Kolodkin on March 31 to be stretched and optimized to the maximum to generate 800 or 1,000 MW, a third of everything that is needed at peak times.

Unlike in our countries, where an energy price increase instantly translates into inflation and price hikes, in Cuba there is no increase in the prices of basic necessities. This is because the state maintains a fixed price for energy production, and there are no distributors who can speculate or hoard. Furthermore, imported products have no reason to increase in price because they are not affected by any energy blockade.

The U.S. government is proposing to allow fuel imports, but only for the private sector—that is, for wealthy individuals and private companies, regardless of their size. In other words, it wants to eliminate the social and strategic criteria of the Cuban state. Without a state to prioritize needs and coordinate supply connections and disconnections, individual demands would cause the system to constantly collapse.

He says it's a failed state, but what he really wants is to deactivate it because he knows it's not a failed state at all.

The initiative of ordinary Cubans is also noteworthy. Havana's streets are filled with Chinese electric motorcycles, and even tricycles that can carry up to six people, which have already replaced most gasoline-powered cars and, above all, taxis. These motorcycles, which are solving Havana's transportation problem, cost around $600 or $700, a significant amount for a Cuban, but it's worth remembering that they have spent their entire lives paying a minimal amount for electricity, less than a dollar a month. Now, recharging their motorcycles' batteries at home is practically free.

On the other hand, many homes already have solar panels to ensure their energy self-sufficiency. It's curious that we Spaniards are being forced into this energy transition to cope with the sanctions we ourselves imposed on Russia and the resulting increase in gas prices. Cuba is doing the same, but due to the US embargo.

The disruption to transportation means many workers are staying with friends and family to avoid the daily commute, or they're taking food and laundry to the refrigerator or washing machine of a relative with electricity. In other words, the country isn't grinding to a halt or collapsing. In fact, although we've seen fewer gasoline-powered vehicles on Havana's streets and a sharp drop in tourism, getting around the city isn't difficult; people are going to work, and on weekends, the entertainment venues can't complain about a lack of Cuban customers. Nothing like the Special Period of the 1990s.

The Cuban government's transparency regarding the energy situation is absolute. Cubans follow a WhatsApp channel run by the Cuban Electric Union, where a daily graphic of the "National Energy System Update" is shared. There, they can see that the typical peak-hour availability is around 2,000 MW (twenty days ago it was less than 1,500 MW) and a demand of 3,000 MW. The 1,000 MW deficit must be distributed according to priorities and staggered to prevent the system from collapsing.

The current situation is that China has already built 75 of the 92 solar parks it committed to deploying by 2028 in just twelve months, increasing its total energy generation from 5.8% to 20%. Each solar park costs approximately $16 million, and the 75 already built represent an investment of over $1.2 billion in energy infrastructure installed at record speed. Each megawatt of installed solar capacity represents nearly 18,000 tons of fuel that the island no longer needs to import.

Today, solar energy in Cuba already produces 1,000 MW, 20 to 25% of the country's energy needs. It's important to note that while current solar energy helps cover daytime peak demand, it doesn't solve nighttime blackouts without massive energy storage systems. We mustn't forget that Cubans use a lot of electricity at night for their air conditioners.

The speed of deployment is surprising even by Chinese standards: some parks were operational in just 35 days after the equipment arrived. In addition to the massive contribution to the electrical grid, the agreement with China includes the donation of 70 tons of generator parts and plans to install 10,000 photovoltaic systems in homes, maternity wards, and clinics.

It is clear that the objective of the energy blockade is to provoke a popular uprising against the government, something that seems increasingly unlikely and absurd. It is difficult to know precisely what percentage of support or opposition there is to the Cuban government, but it is undeniable that support is higher than the 36% Trump enjoys. I would even say it is higher than it was a few years ago. Trump's arrogance and clumsiness in stating that he wanted to "take over Cuba" has sparked rejection even among Cubans who, naively, might have thought that the US administration was ever interested in democracy or human rights for Cuba.

In conclusion, a socialist state that plans and prioritizes, Chinese solidarity, and Cuban inventiveness are ensuring that, once again, Cuba moves forward and the United States' plans to overthrow it continue to fail, as they have for the last sixty years.

• More on the reporter Pascual Serrano:

Journalist from Spain. He was the founding director of the alternative website Rebelión. He regularly publishes columns in the Spanish newspaper Público. He has written several books on journalism, communication, and politics.

It's not just "fake news" or just crude propaganda. It's something more subtle and more dangerous:

It is the art of making the exploited end up defending the exploiters.

It is to numb our class consciousness so that, instead of uniting against the exploitative system, we fight amongst ourselves for a few crumbs.

The bourgeoisie no longer needs to censor exclusively with bayonets. It suffices for them to shape what we feel, what we see, what we believe is possible. And for that, they use science, data, and above all: the platforms we use every day.

Networks are not neutral: they are factories of meaning.

If the owner of any factory decides what is produced, how, and for whom... why would it be any different with digital platforms?

The algorithm is not an impartial device: it is a social relationship crystallized in code. Its job is to keep us hooked, not well-informed.

Your attention is their raw material: every like, every scroll, every minute on screen generates value for them. We all work for free so they can gain money and power.

Polarization is at the heart of the business: if we are divided, angry, and confused, we cannot organize. And if we cannot organize, the system will remain unchanged.

Class consciousness does not "appear" on its own.

Lenin stated it clearly: revolutionary consciousness does not arise spontaneously from discontent. It requires study, organization, and political leadership.

Today, the digital environment makes that transition more difficult:

• It shows you a thousand injustices, but it takes away the tools to understand their common root: capital.
• It invites you to "activate" with a click, but it distances you from collective, radical, strategic construction. It offers you fragmented identities ("I am from this side", "I hate that group") so that you forget the fundamental belonging: we are the working class.

And what about the "zone of proximal development"? Is it useful to us?

Vygotsky spoke of how we learn with the help of more expert individuals. In revolutionary terms, this translates as follows: The gap between what we understand today and what we need to understand to transform reality is not crossed alone. It is crossed through organization, with theory, with practice, with colleagues who lend us a hand.

The problem is that today, on social media, the "expert" who guides you is not a trained professional who challenges the system, but an algorithm designed to sell you something or mislead you.

But be aware: the tool doesn't have the final say. What matters is who controls it and for what purpose.

• Under bourgeois leadership: platforms fragment us, tire us, adapt us.
• Under popular direction: they can serve to connect struggles, share analysis, organize actions.

Technology is not the enemy. Capitalism is.

So what do we do?

Simply "disconnecting" isn't enough. The battle is for awareness, and that's where we need to be. Some key points:

1. Study to avoid being manipulated: read, discuss, train cadres. Theory is not a luxury: it is a weapon.
2. Organize, don't just voice opinions: indignation without strategy is fleeting. Let's defend our real structures: unions, assemblies, the party.
3. Contest the means of "mental production": let's not allow platforms to be just enemy territory. Let's create counter-information, popular networks, and revolutionary digital pedagogy.
4. Uniting struggles without erasing differences: the cognitive war wants us to be pitted against each other (worker vs. migrant, woman vs. man, urban vs. rural, white vs. black). Our real strength lies in anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist articulation.

Source -> https://t.me/LaManiguaRevolucionPaRato/4993

Verse 1

I got a message from Donroe Don

He said we must invade Iran

Like he said, those many years ago

Said it wouldn’t take too long

Said we just had to look strong

Just a job we had to see through

Chorus

Donroe Donald told the nation

“Have no fear of escalation

We will make peace with a victory

Just to quickly win this war

We’re sending bombers more and more

To help me free Iran from Iranis"

Verse 2

We pulled back from our own base

When Iran struck back in its haste

I stayed low till the sejjils just died down

Never mind how much it’s costing

Think of all the sites we’re hitting

Just don’t buy some gas inside of town

Chorus repeat

Verse 3

Every week a trading partner

Pays Iran to cross its waters

They pay dearly for the Yank regime

Despite the initial trauma

They replace their Ayatollah

And start blocking trade routes in his name.

Chorus repeat

Verse 4

We’d go around with bunker busters

Hitting bridges, missile centers

Only for new ones to come replace

Command says we wiped them out

Says they’re close to giving out

But they keep on fighting just the same

Chorus repeat

Verse 5

Well here I sit in my hotel room

Hearing all that fear and gloom

They say it’s the cost of victory

Still I think back to before

When he swore there’d be no war

And none of this would ever come to be

Chorus repeat