Why should we in Southeast Asia care about a frivolous Western social media trend like "Chinamaxxing"?

Because, let's be honest, it hasn't really gained traction in the Global South in the same way [as in the US]. The tropes of "Chinamaxxing", drinking hot water, eating rice porridge, wearing indoor slippers aren't particularly novel in Southeast Asia. We have a long history of Chinese migration, deep cultural overlap, and large Chinese diasporas.

So yes, the memes are fun, funny even, and they're welcome in a general kind of counter to anti-China sentiment. But if we're talking about "Chinamaxxing" just as a Western viral phenomenon, it falls short. It doesn't land the same way it does in in the West.

So the question that I would have first, instinctually, would be: by amplifying its importance, are we still seeking Western validation? Are we just welcoming cultural appropriation? What is the point of this?

And certainly, if we are just thinking of it as a Western apolitical social media meme, the answer to those questions would be yes. However, this is not about just social media. The phenomenon of "Chinamaxxing" is that it signals a new stage for humanity, and that is why it holds a much deeper significance.

For decades in Southeast Asia, we have lived with a Cold War era dichotomy:

On one side is US imperialism with their propaganda machine built on disinformation, smears, and the erasure of the atrocities committed in this region during its anti-China, anti-communist campaigns.

When I interviewed the Indonesian journalist Febriana Firdaus, who faced consequences as recently as 2016 for reporting on Indonesia's 1965 US-backed genocide, where anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million people were reported to have disappeared due to suspected socialist affiliations, she recounted her own personal experience of finding out years after the fact that her grandfather had been taken by government officials on this pretext. No one ever heard from him again, and no one ever talked about why he disappeared.

My father in Malaysia also recounted a similar experience of a classmate disappearing for having anti-colonial socialist leanings, and the teacher's reprimand was silence when questioned. It is a measure of how effective US anti-China, anti-communist propaganda was that all 30 of his classmates believed that this boy that was taken and detained deserved it because he was a communist.

Ultimately, these tactics worked. In the words of my father, nobody would even dare to whisper the word socialism, and the generation after my father's, my generation, knows nothing about our country's socialist histories. US imperialism disappeared a whole generation of socialist thought leaders and revolutionaries, and consequently, in the war of ideas, completely obliterated socialism in the region outside of the two countries, Vietnam and Laos, that achieved their people's revolution.

There is a trauma embedded in this erasure, and it has lasting psychological consequences. Instead of understanding underdevelopment as the direct outcome of imperialism in the forms of extraction, military aggression, and coercive economic structures, people were encouraged to internalize it as individual or cultural failure, and that extended to our view of China. China was poor because they were inferior.

We internalized an inferiority complex and a set of very potent self-limiting beliefs that corruption is innate in our populations, that incompetence is cultural, that the West is morally superior, that Western intervention is benevolent, and most importantly, that resistance is futile because there is no alternative. These beliefs were cultivated in the vacuum of historical memory and political education.

China's socialist achievements directly challenge this. They show in concrete, measurable terms that an alternative exists, and this is the other side of the Cold War that US imperialist narratives worked so hard to bury: A socialist system rooted in people's power and collective prosperity, and operating with a completely different strategy for winning the war of ideas.

China's approach is encapsulated by Deng Xiaoping's well-known quote, "Socialism is not poverty. Development is the hard truth." In other words, while the US requires us to deny reality and accept fabrication in order to uphold its imperial system, China, by contrast, argues that the most persuasive case for socialism is not messaging tactics at all, but material improvement, the ability to deliver concrete gains in people's lives.

And as China has delivered these concrete gains, we can see that it is a strategy that is currently bearing fruit.

In the West, we have "Chinamaxxing" born out of people seeing video evidence on Red Note or on social media, and celebrating that in their own way through a fun meme. In Southeast Asia, because of proximity, people are more likely to actually travel to China themselves to witness this in person.

I witnessed this myself going to China for the first time when I was nine, and then in the 2000s, and again last year. And it did aid and galvanize my own political education, which is still ongoing. It drives my curiosity, and it is a huge part of the reason for my belief that we can do better in the West, and that we have to do better.

And as my father tells me too, the very classmates who held on to their anti-China, anti-communist beliefs for decades have now themselves traveled to China and are reversing their opinions. Their first-hand experiences have led them to question the narrative that they accepted without question decades ago, and to seek answers for what happened to their classmate. (Unfortunately, he was detained, obviously without trial. No one really knows how long he was detained for, and he was quietly released.)

But this is just a testament that if we can witness with our own eyes China's achievements, the 850 million people lifted out of poverty, life expectancy gains, clear measurements of life improvement improvements, massive infrastructure systems, the deep indoctrination of Western imperialism can be broken through.

The evidence is all across Southeast Asia in the regional frameworks that provide a clear alternative to Western coercive institutions: China's prosperity for all extends outward. The countries in Southeast Asia who seize on the opportunities that China is offering are reaping the rewards.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, is currently China's biggest bilateral trade partner, and the Belt and Road Initiative has already delivered Southeast Asia's first high-speed railway in Indonesia, the China-Laos railway, Cambodia's first expressway and a new airport, Malaysia's East Coast Rail Link, and dozens of hydropower plants and special economic zones across the region.

In total, China has built or is building over 1,800 km of new rail, thousands of megawatts of energy capacity, and billions of dollars in ports and industrial zones.

On the flip side, to illustrate what happens when you embed yourself more further into US imperial systems, we have the example of the Philippines, which after decades of US-aligned neoliberal policy has been the first country to declare a national energy emergency due to the US-Israeli war on Iran.

So in conclusion, China is significant because it marks a new stage in humanity. It is still useful because it it invites curiosity in a pretty low-stakes way, safely, playfully, openly, and we don't have to manufacture anything to meet that curiosity. The reality of what people can see, measure, and experience is more persuasive than any propaganda we are fed. And I, personally, I'm hoping that this opening will allow the next generation in Southeast Asia to heal the wounds of imperialism and to rebuild the political socialist movements we need because, as "Chinamaxxing" definitively illustrates, US imperialism has failed, and the path forward for human progress is socialist.

I.M. BRATISHCHEV, First Deputy Chairman of the Central Council of the Russian Union of Socialist Researchers, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.

April 21, 2026, 11:18

“…The historical moment has arrived when theory is transformed into practice, enlivened by practice, guided by practice, and tested by practice…”

The fact is that socialist production relations, as a more complex system of human relationships than those under capitalism, do not arise within the old order. They create only the material and spiritual (particularly intellectual) preconditions for the abolition of capitalism and private property in general, while the foundation of new relations lies in the social form of ownership. Its establishment changes the very essence of society, imbuing it with a form of partnership, civilized cooperation in social production, and mutual assistance. In this case, production relations, while remaining material, objective relations that develop in the decisive sphere of people's lives—material production—begin to determine the specific nature of all other social relations (ideological, legal, etc.), forming the specific basis, the foundation, of the entire social edifice.

From Theory to Practice of Controlled Evolution

When setting out to create a socialist society, initially guided by purely theoretical considerations, its creators immediately encounter a situation described by the saying, "It looked good on paper, but they forgot about the ravines, and we have to walk through them." However, they quickly begin to understand that this complex process is of a concrete historical nature, meaning that the problems arising along the path to a new way of life cannot be resolved in a general sense. Moreover, the entire history of humanity, from its origins to the present day, has been a movement in the grip of contradictions, among which the most destructive is the contradiction between individualism and collectivism. "Mine" and "ours" permeate the entire history of humanity and its thought.

Scientific communism (and its lower phase, socialism), based on an understanding of the laws of social development, rejects any kind of pipe dreaming or utopianism, but demands knowledge. Indeed, a generation that has accomplished a socialist revolution in one form or another "finds in place a certain material result, a certain sum of productive forces, a historically established relationship of people to nature and to one another," noted V.I. Lenin. "It finds a mass of productive forces, capital, and circumstances, transmitted to each subsequent generation by the preceding one, which, although on the one hand they undergo modification, on the other hand, prescribe their own conditions of life and impart a specific character to its specific development."

In Russia in 1917, although the people began to build a new society under very specific slogans: "Peace to the Nations!", "Power to the Soviets!", "Land to the Peasants!", "Factories to the Workers!", the construction of socialism itself nevertheless began with an idealized vision of the future socioeconomic structure and an idealized rejection of the current state. In other words, it was clear that socialism was historically possible only as anti-capitalism, as an overcoming of the social condition that had developed over many centuries. This meant, first and foremost, the abolition of private ownership of the means of production as the basis for the atomization (individualization) of society and, consequently, the exploitation of man by man.

But what specific forms public ownership should take, how social reproduction would be organized across its constituent phases (production, distribution, exchange, and consumption)—these questions were already being addressed during the construction of socialism. This, of course, relied on serious theoretical, ideological, and party-political activity, complicated by the fact that at the beginning of socialist construction, that is, during the transition period from capitalism to socialism, alongside the emerging socialist order, the following orders continued to exist:

• patriarchal (in its majority it consisted of a natural, peasant economy, in which products were created for personal consumption);

• small-scale production, represented by peasant farms, one way or another connected with the market;

• capitalist private-economic, characteristic of the remnants of the so-called classical capitalism of free competition;

• capitalist state, generated by the era of imperialism in its state-monopoly form;

• socialist system.

In this classification proposed by V.I. Lenin, the second, third, and fifth stages of the transitional period from peripheral capitalism to socialism can be considered the primary ones, while the first and fourth stages are considered secondary. Lenin based this classification on two criteria. The first criterion reflected the specific economic ties characteristic of a given social economy (subsistence or small-scale), while the second (the primary one) reflected the type and forms of ownership of the conditions and results of production (private or classical capitalism, state-monopoly capitalism, or socialism).

As we can see, the complexity of socialist transformations in Russia was predetermined by both the existence of a multi-structured economy and the unique nature of the existing structures in our country. The specific nature of each was determined by the type (qualitative feature) and form (external manifestation of internal connections) of ownership of the factors of production (both material and living, represented by the labor force). On this foundation, all other components of social production emerged and began to function: productive forces, production relations, the division of labor, and its cooperation.

From the vantage point of today, as socialism in one form or another continues to establish itself on earth, and its ideas become increasingly attractive to many, many people, issues related to the methodology of scientific analysis of socialism are coming to the fore. In this sense, it is noteworthy that, as a reproducible system, socialism is a whole, but not a monolithic or cohesive whole, but an internally differentiated one, consisting of interconnected parts, their development, and their contradictions.

Economic contradictions are material and objective in nature, inherent in every mode of production, as they form the source of the economic system's self-propelled development. The question is how they are resolved: spontaneously (as is the case in all antagonistic modes of production), or through society's ability to manage their resolution. In the latter case, people must be endowed with the ability to reflect contradictory reality as knowledge and transform their life activity into an object of their will and consciousness.

V.I. Lenin first raised the question of the contradictions of a socialist, multi-structured economy in his post-October works. Focusing on the specifics of Russia's multi-structured economy, he concluded that it was developing in the struggle of a new state taking its first steps toward creating a coherent national economic system with small-scale commodity production, as well as the remnants of capitalism and other systems. In the leader's figurative expression, this life-or-death confrontation, based on the principle of "who will prevail?", was irreconcilable and antagonistic. The fate, course, and outcome of socialist construction in Russia depended on its resolution. Lenin also identified other contradictions of a multi-structured economy that were non-antagonistic in nature.

In expounding on the peculiarity of Russia's multi-structured economy, he made a strict distinction between "contradiction, manifesting itself as the unity and struggle of opposites," and "antagonism" (irreconcilability). Making a marginal note to N.I. Bukharin's book, "The Economy of the Transition Period," which asserted that "capitalism is an antagonistic, contradictory system," V.I. Lenin noted: "Exactly. Antagonism and contradiction are not the same thing. The former disappears, the latter remains under socialism."

In the mid-1930s, interest in the problem of the contradictions of the transition period began to wane (again, partly due to ideological reasons), as the position became established that the transition from capitalism in Russia had been completed with the complete victory of socialism. The changing economic and sociopolitical situation in the Soviet Union during that period predetermined a shift in research interest to a somewhat different plane. And although the existence of contradictions was not publicly denied at the time, attention to this problem was clearly lacking. This negatively impacted the practice of socialist construction in the pre-war period, when so-called excesses and the dizziness of success were repeatedly documented at the official level. The euphoria of victory, in many ways truly justified, continued into the post-war period. How it all ended is well known.

The question may arise: did the contradictions of the socialist multi-structured system present an insurmountable barrier of complexity on the path to a communist society? Difficult to overcome—yes; insurmountable—no. It is generally recognized that the stages of contradiction manifestation are: development, polarization, clash, and antagonism of the parties. Socialism eliminates the private form of production and the appropriation of its results, since it eliminates the capitalist system. But the multi-structured system remains, as will the contradictions, although they will no longer be irreconcilable. Moreover, each of the contradictions that existed then continued to develop, and this development eventually acquired an extreme form of exacerbation (difference, polarization, and clash of the parties were stages in the manifestation of the contradiction itself).

Thus, in its development, the contradiction progressed from the immediate unity of opposing sides (opposites) to their struggle, and then to its resolution. Consequently, the resolution of the contradiction signified the transition of the economic system to a new quality, with new, as yet hidden, features. This is precisely why the classics considered contradiction the "core" of dialectics, which in turn serves as the source of all movement and development.

In essence, the ongoing discussion in our country on the basic economic problems of socialism (it began in the 1920s and 1930s) received a “second wind” after the publication in 1952 of I.V. Stalin’s work “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR.”

The Soviet experience, as well as the experience of countries that embarked on the path of socialist construction much later, allows us to identify the general patterns of this complex process:

— the accomplishment of a socialist revolution in one form or another;

— liquidation of the state monopoly of exploiters;

— the establishment of political power of the working masses in the person of the working class (in alliance with other strata of the population);

— socialist collectivization of the means of production as the basis for the planned development of the national economy;

— transformation of the entire multi-structured economy (including agriculture) on socialist principles;

— introducing the broad masses of people to the values ​​of national and world culture;

— development of relations between peoples based on friendship, mutual assistance and internationalism.

Following these patterns does not mean that the construction of socialism follows a single, fixed pattern. The socialist order and its transformation into the dominant economic system do not negate national characteristics, nor the unique forms and methods of socialist construction in different countries. V.I. Lenin noted this, concluding: "All nations will arrive at socialism; this is inevitable, but not all will arrive at it in exactly the same way. Each will contribute its own uniqueness to one or another form of democracy, one or another variety of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and a different pace of socialist transformation in various aspects of public life."

The restoration and growth of the socialist system will also be unique to those former socialist countries where the visibly decrepit collective West attempted to restore the bourgeois system with its market tyranny, transhumanism, political correctness, and cancel culture. This is being done with one goal in mind: to preserve the unipolar dominance of oligarchic capital on the planet. The return of these countries to the mainstream will be determined by their specific historical circumstances. But in any case, their socioeconomic development will not escape the contradictions of multi-systemic development.

It was in our country that a system of managed social evolution was created for the first time in history. For the first time, society was given a dual goal: to create a life worthy of Humanity and to shape Humanity worthy and capable of living and developing in a climate of camaraderie, not domination and subjugation. This required the formation of a new structure of social production and the transformation of the multi-structured economy so that it would be based on public, rather than private, ownership. Society initially faced several seemingly simple, but still relevant, questions:

From what sources do new property relations arise in this particular case and what are the methods of their origin (although this question is more significant for the transitional state) of economic systems, when non-economic factors predominate in the formation of new property relations, but even in mature economies the question of the emergence of “old” and “new” wealth will not lose its significance?

What are the ways and possibilities for the reproduction of property, its increase, since until it is finally formed as socialist, that is, belonging to everyone, the mechanism of its reproduction in one or another specific form cannot be considered established, and therefore, fair?

How did the socio-economic essence of a particular form of ownership manifest itself in the past and how should it manifest itself in new, socialist conditions?

In this context, the relationship between the formational and civilizational approaches to the analysis of the socio-historical process is of fundamental importance. Thus, the qualitative specificity of each socio-economic formation (including the communist one in its first socialist phase) is conditioned by the specificity of the system of production (economic) relations prevailing in a given society and their foundation—property relations. Society itself, as V.I. Lenin believed, is "...a living mechanism in constant motion (and not something mechanically linked and therefore allowing for all sorts of arbitrary combinations of individual social elements), the study of which requires an objective analysis of the production relations that form a given social formation, and a study of the laws of its functioning and development."

Fundamental changes in the deep foundations of society

Socialism changes the foundation of society—material production—and at the same time transforms people's ideal way of life, affirming and liberating creativity in their consciousness. Perhaps, in this case, consciousness, while remaining secondary, derived from natural matter, truly becomes a primary factor in people's social life, facilitating the transition of society's spiritual and moral culture to a new civilizational level. This transition presupposes the implementation of new normative and value-based regulators in social life and social relations. And, crucially, in the process of this new civilizational development, socialism preserves the spiritual code of civilization (in our case, Russian civilization).

For many centuries, various forms of private property (slave, feudal, capitalist) dominated society. But can society indefinitely exist within a system that deforms humanity and does not correspond to its essence? No, answers this question scientific socialism (or, equivalently, scientific communism, as developed by the classics of Marxism-Leninism and their successors). History confirms the validity of this doctrine, which arose not only as a generalization and practical interpretation of humanity's spiritual achievements, but also (and this is crucial) as an expression of certain economic and socio-political tendencies within the very reality of previous socio-economic formations.

Public property is the general, collective appropriation of the means of production by people. It is the equal treatment of all members of society and the collective with respect to the material conditions of their productive activity. It is precisely this appropriation—that is, the taking into one's own possession, use, and disposal of material and cultural goods—that divides property into different types and gives each of these groups a specific character, which determines the characteristics and uniqueness of each socio-economic system.

A few words about Lenin's "model of Russia's development"

Lenin's model of Russia's development was based on Karl Marx's concept of property "in general" as the conscious attitude of workers toward the conditions of production as their own, which is realized "through production itself," that is, as a dialectical unity of the economic and legal forms of ownership. This unity of the legal and economic content of property boils down to: firstly, the fact that the subject's attitude toward the conditions of production "as their own" must necessarily be legally enshrined; secondly, property becomes an economic reality only through the implementation (realization) of the entire system of production relations (only this allows a given legal entity to appropriate the produced product or part of it).

Moreover, Marxist theory and the then-current practice of transitioning from the old to the new social order made it impossible to determine what level of socioeconomic and political development in Russia could be considered sufficient to expect success. It is an undeniable fact that the Russian Empire was almost entirely peasant. In terms of economic and political development and the well-being of its population, it could hardly be considered advanced.

V.I. Lenin, earlier and more profoundly than other politicians, recognized that the situation that had developed in Russia and the world in October 1917 was ushering in a new historical era—an era of humanity's transition from capitalism to socialism and, at the same time, an era of capitalism's adaptation to new historical conditions. This predetermined the exceptional complexity of addressing these challenges:

• firstly, the absence of a verified coefficient of mixing of various economic forms and, in general, a verified structure of the national model of the socialist economy;

• secondly, the need to ensure a dynamic and open transition of society and its economy from one socio-economic quality to another – sustainable and stable;

• thirdly, the need to take into account the fact that during the transition period, society is in a state where the content and ratio of economic elements is significantly distorted compared to a normally stable period;

• fourthly, the creation of new forms and the modernization of old ones, initially giving rise to a symbiosis of the “new” and the “old”;

• fifthly, the presence of an openly hostile attitude towards what was happening in Soviet Russia (USSR) on the part of the capitalist environment.

Knowing that society develops in accordance with objective laws and that new social relations never arise before the material conditions for their existence are created, V.I. Lenin emphasized the difficulty of the task of building socialism and the novelty of this undertaking: "We do not pretend that Marx or Marxists know the path to socialism in all its concreteness. That is nonsense. We know the direction of this path, we know which class forces are leading along it, and concretely, practically, only the experience of millions will reveal this when they take up the task."

This means, firstly, that “the road is mastered by the one who walks it”, secondly, that humanity can set itself only those tasks that it can solve, and finally, thirdly, already in the process of the solution itself it is detailed, revealed in detail.

Another circumstance is noteworthy. As a consistent Marxist, Lenin understood that history is subjective. It is created by people (the masses), and therefore any changes in the life of society are the result of their activity, which can be carried out arbitrarily, as they say, "rudderless and without sails," or it can be framed by a plan, in this case, "moving toward socialism." Lenin's plan, in its most basic form, boiled down to the following:

• strengthening Soviet power as a state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat (a socialist state according to Lenin is an executive committee for managing the affairs of the broad masses of the people);

• preserving and strengthening the alliance of the working class with the working peasantry (for peasant Russia during Lenin’s time, this alliance was more than relevant);

• strengthening the friendship of the peoples of the Soviet Union on the basis of eliminating the actual inequality of backward peoples (Lenin and the Bolsheviks “demined” the relations between the peoples of Tsarist Russia, turning them into a center of dialectical unity of the national and international);

• strengthening, growth and development of public ownership of the means of production as an economic structure that directly characterizes the social connection of producers with the means of production and the development of elements of socio-economic equality in the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods created in society and the total labor force;

• the creation of the material and technical basis of socialism, the socialist transformation of agriculture through the cooperative formation of the peasantry and the construction of state farms;

• increasing the country's defense capability (defending its right to historical existence in the hostile environment of bourgeois states, the Soviet Union was forced to solve the multifaceted problems of military development, following the instructions of V.I. Lenin that "the best army, the people most devoted to the cause of the revolution will be immediately exterminated by the enemy if they are not sufficiently armed, supplied with food, and trained");

• strengthening the party and its unity, enhancing its role as the vanguard of the working class and all workers (see the works of V.I. Lenin: “Pages from a Diary,” “On Cooperation,” “How We Can Reorganize the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection,” “On Our Revolution,” “On Granting Legislative Functions to the State Planning Committee,” “On the Question of Nationalization or “Autonomization”; Lenin dictated all of these articles in December 1922 – March 1923).

In developing the foundations of the political economy of socialism as a science and a form of social consciousness (literally, knowledge), which, incidentally, was rejected by the majority of Soviet economists of the 1920s, and in creating a coherent, coherent doctrine of the necessity of a transitional period from capitalism to socialism, as a period of revolutionary transformation of the former into the latter, V.I. Lenin considered the construction of a socialist economy the most important and most complex task of the socialist revolution, especially in countries with underdeveloped capitalism.

V.I. Lenin's post-October works provide a profound and comprehensive examination of the economic role of the socialist state and its functions. They laid the foundations of the doctrine of planning the national economy as a unified whole, demonstrating that politics cannot be separated from economics nor opposed to it. V.I. Lenin's conclusion about the relationship between politics and economics was not a mere speculative conclusion. It was confirmed and developed in the New Economic Policy (NEP), proposed by the leader in 1918 and became an integral part and the scientific basis of the plan for building socialism, taking into account the characteristics of the transition period—an essential stage on the path to the creation of directly social, planned, and organized production.

V.I. Lenin resolutely opposed bourgeois notions of socialism as something static, a given once and for all. He constantly emphasized that socialism would develop and pass through various stages of maturity. It is no coincidence that V.I. Lenin's works contain such concepts as "developed," "mature socialism," "complete socialism," and "complete socialist society." For example, speaking of the historical inevitability of two phases of communist society, Lenin asserted that communism grows out of socialism "...after its complete victory..." This testifies to his consistently dialectical-materialist mode of thought, characteristic of Marxism-Leninism as a whole.

It's important to note here that the Bolsheviks, who were creating the new society, had no personal aspirations for wealth or glory, but a firm conviction in the correctness and necessity of their actions. It seems that they foresaw some possible failures and twists in the course of the experiment (as evidenced, for example, by Lenin's turn to the NEP or Stalin's withdrawal from it). But they hardly imagined the final result of the socialist experiment. "We cannot characterize socialism," wrote V.I. Lenin in 1918. "What socialism will be like when it reaches its final forms—we do not know, we cannot say. To say that the era of social revolution has begun, that we have done this and want to do that—we know, we will say... But to know now what completed socialism will look like—we do not know." And also. V.I. Lenin warned that the road to socialism would never be straight; it would be incredibly difficult. Building socialism requires the creativity of millions, a continuous quest.

“Whatever the further twists and turns of the struggle, no matter how many particular zigzags we have to overcome (and there will be a great many of them…),” said the leader, “in order not to get lost in these zigzags and twists of history and to maintain the general perspective, to see the red thread that connects the entire development of capitalism and the entire road to socialism, which naturally seems straight to us, and we must imagine it as straight, in order to see the beginning, continuation and end – in life it will never be straight, it will be incredibly complex – in order not to get lost in these twists and turns, so that in the period of steps back, retreats, temporary defeats or when history or the enemy throws us back, in order not to get lost, it is important, in my opinion, and theoretically the only correct thing is not to throw out our old basic program.”

In 1922, at the 11th Congress of the RCP(b), Lenin, understanding the complexity of the tasks facing the Bolsheviks, noted: “If we have to redo everything from the beginning not twice, but even many times, then this will show that we are approaching our greatest task in the world without prejudice, with sober eyes.”

Source -> https://kprf.ru/history/date/243188.html

Hi everyone, I'm only interested in hearing from comrades so that's why I thought this could be a good community to post, but if you think this is the wrong community please direct me somewhere else!

Today I was talking to someone somewhat close to me, he mentioned countries like Germany have an aging population and a falling birth rate and I pointed out that I believe it's connected to the cost of living crisis (especially with the expensive energy imports and with governments happily destroying the welfare state) and my friend said that he doesn't buy it and that in his opinion it's hedonism (?).

I find that kind of argument unprovable and moralistic, but it caught me off guard and I figured I'd take this as a learning opportunity. Have you heard this kind of argumentation? Am I right to assume it's just a reactionary thing? Is this worth engaging with, even if it's just for criticism, and if so how? Or should I just move on? I can't cut contact with him but I can just change the topic again if it comes to that lol.

This is an idea I had recently (maybe worth making its own community for?) for raising awareness about indigenous peoples who are very much still there and still lay claim to the land they live on.

Sources used are public information online, which appears to be official Tribal information; I want to avoid pulling from outside sources which could misrepresent them.

Comments made by me are for discussion rather than just infodumping, not a claim to informed context on the people and their ways.

Sources:

https://www.yuroktribe.org/

https://yurok.tribal.codes/Constitution

Our Mission

The mission of the Yurok Tribe is to exercise the aboriginal and sovereign rights of the Yurok People to continue forever our Tribal traditions of self-governance, cultural and spiritual preservation, stewardship of Yurok lands, waters and other natural endowments, balanced social and economic development, peace and reciprocity, and respect for the dignity and individual rights of all persons living within the jurisdiction of the Yurok Tribe, while honoring our Creator, our ancestors and our descendants.

(Stewardship is something I repeatedly hear of in the context of indigenous tribes of the region. Notably, it seems to be about caretaking of the land, rather than the capitalist view of exploiting it unsustainably.)

Yurok Tribe Constitution: Preamble

Our people have always lived on this sacred and wondrous land along the Pacific Coast and inland on the Klamath River, since the Spirit People, Wo-ge’, made things ready for us and the Creator, Ko-won-no-ekc-on Ne-ka-nup-ceo, placed us here. From the beginning, we have followed all the laws of the Creator, which became the whole fabric of our tribal sovereignty. In times past and now Yurok people bless the deep river, the tall redwood trees, the rocks, the mounds, and the trails. We pray for the health of all the animals, and prudently harvest and manage the great salmon runs and herds of deer and elk. We never waste and use every bit of the salmon, deer, elk, sturgeon, eels, seaweed, mussels, candlefish, otters, sea lions, seals, whales, and other ocean and river animals. We also have practiced our stewardship of the land in the prairies and forests through controlled burns that improve wildlife habitat and enhance the health and growth of the tan oak acorns, hazelnuts, pepperwood nuts, berries, grasses and bushes, all of which are used and provide materials for baskets, fabrics, and utensils.

(Some concrete examples of what stewardship means already.)

For millennia our religion and sovereignty have been pervasive throughout all of our traditional villages. Our intricate way of life requires the use of the sweathouse, extensive spiritual training, and sacrifice. Until recently there was little crime, because Yurok law is firm and requires full compensation to the family whenever there is an injury or insult. If there is not agreement as to the settlement, a mediator would resolve the dispute. Our Indian doctors, Keg-ae, have cared for our people and treated them when they became ill. In times of difficulty village headmen gather together to resolve problems affecting the Yurok Tribe.

Our people have always carried on extensive trade and social relations throughout our territory and beyond. Our commerce includes a monetary system based on the use of dentalium shells, Terk-n-term and other items as currency. The Klamath River was and remains our highway, and we from time beginning utilized the river and the ocean in dugout canoes, Alth-way-och, carved from the redwood by Yurok craftsmen, masterpieces of efficiency and ingenuity and have always been sold or traded to others outside the tribe. Our people come together from many villages to perform ceremonial construction of our fish dams, Lohg-en. Our traditional ceremonies – the Deerskin Dance, Doctor Dance, Jump Dance, Brush Dance, Kick Dance, Flower Dance and others – have always drawn hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of Yuroks and members of neighboring tribes together for renewal, healing, and prayer. We also have always traveled to the North and East to the high mountains on our traditional trails to worship the Creator at our sacred sites, – Doctor Rock, Chimney Rock, Thkla-mah (the stepping stones for ascent into the sky world), and many others.

This whole land, this Yurok country, stayed in balance, kept that way by our good stewardship, hard work, wise laws, and constant prayers to the Creator.

About to get heavy, what you'd expect to hear if you know anything about colonization of the region:

Our social and ecological balance, thousands and thousands of years old, was shattered by the invasion of the non-Indians. We lost three-fourths or more of our people through unprovoked massacres by vigilantes and the intrusion of fatal European diseases. The introduction of alcohol weakened our social structure, as did the forced removal of our children to government boarding schools, where many were beaten, punished for speaking their language, and denied the right to practice their cultural heritage. After goldminers swarmed over our land we agreed to sign a “Treaty of Peace and Friendship” with representatives of the President of the United States in 1851, but the United States Senate failed to ratify the treaty. Then in 1855, the United States ordered us to be confined on the Klamath River Reserve, created by Executive Order, (pursuant to the Act of March 3, 1853, 10 Stat. 226, 238) within our own territory.

In 1864 a small part of our aboriginal land became a part of the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation which was set apart for Yuroks and other Indians in Northern California. This became known as the 12-mile “Square.” In 1891, a further small part of our aboriginal land was added when “The Extension” to the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation was set aside by executive order authorized by the 1864 statute, which created the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation. This statutory reservation extension extended from the mouth of the Klamath River, including the old Klamath River Reserve, about 50 miles inland and encompassed the river and its bed, along with one mile of land on both sides of the river.

But even this small remnant of our ancestral land was not to last for long. In the 1890’s individual Indians received allotments from tribal land located in the Klamath River Reserve portion of the Hoopa Valley Reservation and almost all of the remainder of the Reserve was declared “surplus” and opened for homesteading by non-Indians. The forests were logged excessively and the wildlife was depleted. Even the great salmon runs went into deep decline due to overfishing and habitat destruction. In the mid-1930s the State of California attempted illegally to terminate traditional fishing by Yurok people, the river’s original – and only – stewards from Bluff Creek to the Pacific Ocean. Our fishing rights were judicially reaffirmed in the 1970s and the 1980s after many legal and physical battles.

(How long they have been fighting...)

Throughout the first 140 years of our tribe’s dealings with the United States, we never adopted a written form of government. We had not needed a formal structure and were reluctant to change. The United States had decimated the Yurok population, land base, and natural resources and our people were deeply distrustful of the federal government.

Yet we, the Yurok people, know that this is the time to exercise our inherent tribal sovereignty and formally organize under this Constitution. We do this to provide for the administration and governance of the modern Yurok Tribe that has emerged, strong and proud, from the tragedies and wrongs of the years since the arrival of the non-Indians into our land. Our sacred and vibrant traditions have survived and are now growing stronger and richer each year.

The Yurok Tribe is the largest Indian tribe in California, and while much land has been lost, the spirit of the Creator and our inherent tribal sovereignty still thrives in the hearts and minds of our people as well as in the strong currents, deep canyons, thick forests, and high mountains of our ancestral lands.

Therefore, in order to exercise the inherent sovereignty of the Yurok Tribe, we adopt this Constitution in order to:
1) Preserve forever the survival of our tribe and protect it from forces which may threaten its existence;
2) Uphold and protect our tribal sovereignty which has existed from time immemorial and which remains undiminished;
3) Reclaim the tribal land base within the Yurok Reservation and enlarge the Reservation boundaries to the maximum extent possible within the ancestral lands of our tribe and/or within any compensatory land area;
4) Preserve and promote our culture, language, and religious beliefs and practices, and pass them on to our children, our grandchildren, and to their children and grandchildren on, forever;
5) Provide for the health, education, economy, and social wellbeing of our members and future members;
6) Restore, enhance, and manage the tribal fishery, tribal water rights, tribal forests, and all other natural resources; and
7) Insure peace, harmony, and protection of individual human rights among our members and among others who may come within the jurisdiction of our tribal government.

The full Tribal Codes can be found here: https://yurok.tribal.codes/

I'm interested in feedback on a thread like this. I'm kind of working it out as I go along, what makes sense to highlight and from where, and how to ride the line between copy/pasting information and doing uninformed commentary. I'm also not sure yet how many indigenous peoples will have resources like this to pull from, so that could impact it as well.

Let me know what you think.

The contemporary world-system, mediated by ubiquitous connectivity, has altered the logic of social organization. The hegemonic order that emerged after the war not only imposed an economic model but also achieved the naturalization of a liberal-capitalist superstructure. This ontological architecture uses the media industry to stifle dissent, making the formation of alternative political poles increasingly complex. However, the dynamism of the Eastern giants and the insurgency of the global peripheries are fracturing this common sense, providing vital categories for the analysis and invention of new proposals for political action.

American hegemony is not merely military or financial; it is a lust for power that seeks the total subordination of thought. By manipulating the institutions of international law, Washington attempts to reduce politics to an unreflective adherence to its doctrine. However, its own extractive frenzy generates the contradictions that are now fracturing its monolithic dominance. Studying these fissures is a fundamental task for those of us who seek a global organization based on self-determination, not on tutelage.

Europe, the cradle of the modern nation-state, faces a paradox today: after World War II, it surrendered its economic sovereignty to the dollar standard through the Marshall Plan. This placed the once imperial powers in a position of veiled subordination , forcing them to endorse decisions made by others. The European “welfare state” was built on the foundation of suppressing systemic criticism, turning the continent into a supporting actor in the global hegemonic drama controlled from across the Atlantic.

Faced with unipolar dominance, powers are emerging that do not align with Western tradition. The alliance between Russia—with its own historical depth and political landscape—and China—the Asian giant with an alternative production logic—constitutes the main threat to the continuation of US dominance. These actors not only compete in the market; they represent a complex and diverse formula that challenges Washington's political monologue, paving the way for a multicentric balance.

The periphery, historically condemned to be a supplier of raw materials and labor, is today the space of re-existence . The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), in their process of expansion, are not only an economic bloc; they are the architecture of a new political juncture .

By proposing an escape route from the dictatorship of the dollar and the asymmetries of development, the BRICS enable the Global South to cease being an object of exploitation and become an agent of transformation. This articulation is the driving force behind a system that progressively seeks to alleviate the structural injustices of capitalist modernity.

While states set the formal guidelines, the emergence of subaltern voices through new mechanisms of resonance allows organized people to participate in global political struggles . The construction of popular platforms that escape the bureaucratic logic of the state is a concrete reality. A global popular agenda is under construction, seeking to influence power structures and claiming the right to be “participant” in defining our shared destiny.

The technological development of the 21st century has expanded the public sphere into a borderless digital dimension. Although corporate interests attempt to capture this space, marginalized groups find avenues for resistance in open technologies.

In this scenario, Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges as the ultimate frontier in the struggle for meaning. Applying Samuel Robinson's Original Thought , we must approach AI not as a neutral tool of the West, but as a territory to be colonized by our own logic.

Robinson's method—standing outside the dominant tradition and listening to the periphery—is key to ensuring that these technologies are not instruments of control, but rather devices of social invention . The challenge is to wrest technology from hegemony and place it at the service of a new humanity that, recognizing its diversity, dares to think and act from its own historical and sovereign roots.

It's on Podcast Addict.

1. Europe’s Imperial Juggernaut - The first episode of our series establishes the development of European imperialism in the Arab world from the late 18th through early 20th centuries, the rise of constitutionalist movements that challenged monarchical absolutism, and the emergence of early labor and land reform movements. These processes shaped all political thought and action, affecting revolutionaries as well as restorationists across the region.

2. The Birth of Arab Nationalism - This episode lays out a key genealogy of 20th century anti-colonialism, forged through the “Great Revolts” in Iraqi, Syria, and Palestine, and the parallel birth of a range of ideological colorations: Arab nationalism, Islamic resistance, Ba’athism, and communism.

3. The Post-Colonial Arab State System - A comprehensive overview of the Middle Eastern Arab state system that crystallized with the end of British and French colonial rule.

4. From Nakba to Nasser - Laying out the politics surrounding the Zionist settler colonial destruction of Palestine, and the ground-shifting event that followed in its wake: Nasser’s 1952 Egyptian Free Officers Movement coup, which would set the tone for two decades of revolutionary nationalism across the region.

5. The Struggle for Syria - We trace an arc from the fight for independence, to the first (CIA-backed) coup of 1949, and the rise of the Ba’ath and Communist movements, detailing how the dye for a martial expression of politics was cast by Western subterfuge.

6. Cold War Heats Up - Laying out the intensification of the Cold War across the Middle East–specifically Nasser’s mass political campaign against the Baghdad pact, the nationalization of the Suez Canal, and the military and political responses it provoked.

7. United Arab Republic Against Eisenhower - We begin with the US’s Eisenhower Doctrine, which in 1957 inaugurated a new era of imperialism in the Middle East, including the deployment of American combat operations in the region; and end with a local political response: the Ba’ath Party driving Syria and Egypt into the United Arab Republic, a superstate under Nasser’s rule, in 1958.

8. Origins of the Arab New Left - This is a compact introduction to the Movement of Arab Nationalists, which in the 1950s built a presence that stretched across the region, from Beirut and Jordan to Cairo and the Gulf—becoming a truly powerful force in Kuwait. Led in significant part by Palestinians, its early history offers a ground-level look at the organizational and theoretical currents shaping radical Arab politics.

9. Palestinian Road to Revolution - “Palestine on the Road to Revolution” covers the creation of a Palestinian national liberation movement throughout the 1950s by a people dispersed by the Nakba: organizations, alliances, and theories of change assembled in the universities, cities, and refugee camps surrounding Palestine. We end with the 1958/59 foundation of Fateh, an organization that eventually became the largest in the Palestinian political system, primarily focusing on the idea of launching an armed revolution as the pathway to liberating Palestine. This is the story of the beginning of the Palestinian national liberation movement as we have come to know it today.

10. Iraqi Revolution, Communist Power - We learn the story of Iraq’s 1958 July Revolution: a Free Officers’ coup overthrew the imperialist-aligned Hashemite monarchy and brought nationalist Abdul-Karim Qasim to power alongside a surging Communist Party. Revolutionary currents soon turned against one another, however, as did Qasim and Nasser.

11. Ba’ath Seize Power – This episode recounts the destruction of the two giant revolutionary projects of 1958: the union of Egypt and Syria under Nasser’s United Arab Republic and Iraq’s July Revolution that brought Qasim alongside communist allies to power. The rival radical projects of pan-Arabism and communism suffered huge blows. The Ba’ath also transform in this period, from an ideological movement to a party dominated by military men who want to turn the organization into an instrument of raw domination.

12. Origins of Saudi Reaction - Abdel and Dan anatomize Saudi Arabia, a country whose reactionary, US-aligned trajectory was throughout the 1950s and 60s challenged by labor strikes, dissident currents, rebellious princes, and an anticolonial oil minister. But, eventually, Saudi royal conservatism won out, and was exported across the region.

13. Revolutionary Arabia - “Revolutionary Arabia” chronicles the armed left-wing revolutionary movements that challenged British imperial power across Southern Arabia, from the National Liberation front seizing power in South Yemen to the Dhufari revolutionaries in Oman waging a liberation war against the British and the sultan. While today’s alliance of reactionary Gulf monarchies seems inevitable, here we see they were made by colonial power–and that they were seriously contested by revolutionary movements in the 1960s and 1970s.

14. Palestinian Revolution - We cover the rise of the Palestinian Revolution and then its explosion after the Arab defeat in the June War of 1967 with the Israeli colonial state. Fateh, the Popular Front for Liberation and Palestine, and other factions launched an armed guerilla struggle, engaging the Palestinian people in a full-scale mobilization for their liberation. Also: Ba’athists Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein seized power in Iraq, as did Muammar Gaddafi’s Free Officers in Libya.

15. Black September - We address the Palestinian revolution in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan–leading up to the 1970 conflict that the national movement had with the Jordanian state and the violent expulsion of PLO guerillas that followed during Black September. Then, Egypt and Syria checked Israel’s power in the October War of 1973–only for Anwar Sadat, Nasser’s successor, to lead Egypt into Kissinger’s plan to pacify the Arab revolution.

16. Siege of Beirut - This final episode of the main series traces a massive defeat of the Palestinian Revolution: Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the brutal siege of Beirut. Under severe pressure and isolated in the wake of Egypt’s normalization with Israel, the PLO evacuated its headquarters in Lebanon. What followed was an unthinkable large massacre of Palestinian civilians and an end to the decades-long era of Arab revolutionary politics that Thawra was dedicated to chronicling.

17. Epilogue Part 1: Islamic Revolution and Gulf Wars - In Palestine and across the region, the sort of secular left wing and nationalist parties, whose stories we have dedicated Thawra to telling, were being eclipsed by conservative Islamic religious parties. That includes Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Muslim Brotherhood across the region. We end this episode by discussing the PLO's move toward the Oslo Accords.

18. Epilogue Part 2: Decades of American Destruction - How did the Oslo Accords play out through the rest of the 1990s and the years waiting up to the Second Intifada, which began in 2000? And what did the Second Intifada, these years of enormous militant mass uprising, what did that movement expose about the reality of the Zionist project and indigenous resistance to that project in post-Oslo Palestine?

19. Epilogue Part 3: Genocide and Resistance - This episode takes us from Hamas’s victory in the 2006 legislative elections, through the siege on Gaza, to October 7, the Gaza genocide, the Axis of Resistance, and Israel’s attempt to draw Iran into a massive regional war with the US.

They didn't do a full description with a donation link for this one, so here: https://lifeline4gaza.com/

A special live episode of Tankie Group Therapy! Sina, Jay, Mikey, Nora, and Adnan are all confirmed so far!

We will see you soon!

Anyways 4:20 blaze it. It's cool wgen waking up halfway through your sleep cycle temporarily awakens spiritual powers

I'm including a link to the graphics used, which is also a great didactic resource: https://padlet.com/verdigris21/understanding-key-nodal-points-4kmmgetamtlylhou

"We are told that security in the Middle East requires defeating Iran, security in East Asia requires defeating China, and security in Europe requires defeating Russia. We never discuss security in terms of how to learn to live together by harmonising interests and managing competition. This is by design. This is hegemonic peace, in which security depends on defeating rivals rather than managing a balance of power.

Subsequently, security relies solely on deterrence rather than reassurance; diplomacy is dismissed as appeasement; peace agreements are temporary and deceptive; and war is peace. Our rivals do not have legitimate security concerns, as their policies are allegedly always motivated by aggressive, irrational, or expansionist behaviour.

We have convinced ourselves that our liberal hegemony is a force for good, and that our opponents oppose our dominance because they reject our benign values of freedom. Discussing the security concerns of adversaries is believed to “legitimise” their policies, which is treasonous. The world is divided into good guys (liberal democracies) and bad guys (autocracies). We should not ask how defeating Russia, as the world's largest nuclear power, is a rational security strategy, or why our governments refuse to even speak with Moscow to discuss the European security architecture and end the war. Our governments have relabelled nuclear deterrence as nuclear blackmail to signal that there can be no more constraints.

All empires can become irrational during decline. Leaders take greater risks to avoid decline, legitimacy crises at home must be distracted with enemies abroad, outdated strategies from a bygone era of strength are still embraced, and there is a tendency to double down on narratives of being indispensable, representing universal values, and dismissing all opposition as illegitimate and dangerous. Are we the fanatics?"

A photo of the No.2 Unit of Zhangzhou nuclear power plant, located at the world's largest Hualong-1 base in East China’s Fujian Province Photo：CMG

China's total installed nuclear power capacity has reached 125 million kilowatts(KW), ranking first globally, according to a CCTV News report, citing a blue book released by the China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA) on Friday.

The report shows China currently operates 60 commercial nuclear reactors, with 36 under construction—representing over half of global nuclear construction. Another 16 units have been approved and await construction, according to CCTV News.

This year, China has broken ground on two new units and expects to bring seven units online, maintaining its position as the world's largest nuclear power builder, the report said.

The development of nuclear power constitutes an important component of China's nuclear energy sector. Under its medium- and long-term development objectives, China aims to build a strong nuclear power country by 2030, said the State Council Information Office, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Global Times

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), attached to the United States Department of the Treasury, issued General License 56 (GL 56) and Venezuela General License 57 (GL 57).

It is important to clarify, first of all, that this does not constitute a lifting of sanctions. Both instruments are part of a package of measures designed to facilitate certain economic activities in light of new foreign investment in the country.

KEY COMPONENTS OF GL 57 General License 57 (GL 57), issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), authorizes —generally and without prior individual applications— a wide range of financial transactions that were previously prohibited under sanctions against Venezuela, particularly those established by Executive Order 13884 and the Venezuela Sanctions Regulations.

Specifically, GL 57 allows transactions that are "ordinarily incidental and necessary" for the provision, export or re-export (direct or indirect) of financial services in favor of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV).

Several state-owned banks also benefit from this measure:

• Bank of Venezuela, SA Universal Bank
• Digital Bank of Workers, Universal Bank CA
• Treasury Bank, CA Universal Bank

These entities, which operate on both the first and second levels of the Venezuelan financial system, concentrate the largest mass of account holders in the country, far surpassing private banks in reach and penetration.

Furthermore, the license extends to any entity in which one or more of the aforementioned banks hold a direct or indirect stake equal to or greater than 50%.

GL 57 also includes natural persons linked to the "Government of Venezuela" who are blocked only by that generic definition — that is, those not individually designated on OFAC's Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list — including active public employees.

Authorized financial services include, among others:

• Account maintenance, operation, or closure
• Granting of loans and credits
• Fund transfers (including in US dollars)
• Payment processing (payroll, pensions, subsidies, etc.)
• Other usual banking and financial services

Transactions with the Government of Venezuela that are necessary to carry out the activities described are also authorized.

This measure opens the possibility for the BCV to use accounts in the international financial system to receive direct payments to the nation, for example, derived from oil exports.

It also facilitates Venezuela's reintegration into the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) system, the global interbank network dominated by the United States. It is important to clarify that Venezuela was never completely disconnected from the international financial system: the country had developed alternative mechanisms through agreements with China and Russia. However, the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) had been barred from SWIFT, and GL 57 now authorizes its return to this key platform.

However, GL 57 does not unlock any previously frozen assets, nor does it release the BCV's international reserves abroad, nor does it affect strategic assets such as CITGO Petroleum in US territory.

It also does not authorize transactions prohibited by other provisions of the sanctions regulations against Venezuela, unless they have separate authorizations. Furthermore, any transaction involving individuals or entities listed in the SDN is excluded.

These restrictions demonstrate the persistence of an illegal coercive sanctions framework, far from constituting a genuine lifting of sanctions. Therefore, GL 57 should be understood as a limited and conditional relaxation.

However, it offers favorable conditions for the development of economic activity in Venezuela in the short and medium term.

For the first time in years, the country could do without using intermediary accounts abroad to receive income from its oil exports, thus avoiding bureaucratic hurdles and intrusive monitoring imposed by the U.S. Treasury.

This would allow for a more timely flow of foreign currency into the national exchange system, which would contribute to:

• Reduce the exchange rate gap
• Improve the availability of foreign currency in the formal market
• Mitigating inflation and monetary volatility

Effects that, in turn, would have a positive impact on the daily economy of millions of Venezuelans.

Furthermore, GL 57 improves the business climate and strengthens the confidence of external investors by reducing operational uncertainties in the financial sector.

Finally, this opens the door for Venezuela to fully exercise its rights before multilateral organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since 2019, the country has had approximately $4.9 billion in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) blocked. Although these are Venezuelan state reserve assets, their use has been restricted due to the sanctions framework imposed by the United States and its allies within the IMF.

KEY COMPONENTS OF THE GL 56

General License 56 (GL 56) authorizes the negotiation and signing of contingent contracts — also called “preliminary contracts” — for future commercial transactions with the Government of Venezuela.

These agreements can be signed without violating existing sanctions, but their effective implementation requires subsequent specific authorization from OFAC. This provision facilitates the preparation phase for investments, projects, or commercial transactions without incurring violations during the initial stages of dialogue.

However, far from expanding flexibility in trade relations with Venezuela, GL 59 reinforces pre-existing restrictions, turning OFAC—as an extension of the US government—into a mechanism for direct control over the sovereign decisions of the Venezuelan state.

Furthermore, GL 56 reaffirms prohibitions already established in previous Trump administration licenses: it explicitly forbids negotiating and entering into contracts with entities from countries such as China, Russia, and Iran. While these restrictions are an integral part of the illegal sanctions regime imposed on Venezuela, the novelty lies in the fact that OFAC now expressly names these countries as exclusion targets, openly displaying its geopolitical agenda.

It is clear that GL 56 does not represent a lifting of sanctions, but rather a selective foreign policy tool that continues to instrumentalize economic coercion as a means of pressure.

However, it possesses a relevant attribute: it allows for the early consolidation of certain negotiations—always under the supervision and approval of OFAC—that could have significant and positive impacts for Venezuela. A key example is the recovery of the National Electric System, which has been severely deteriorated for years.

Western companies like General Electric and Siemens hold patents and critical technologies used in Venezuela's electrical infrastructure. Both companies suspended all operations in the country following the 2019 sanctions, which penalized any dealings with the Venezuelan government. Now, GL 56 opens the possibility for them to resume activities, including the supply of compatible spare parts and essential technical services.

Furthermore, the authorization of preliminary contracts broadens the range of opportunities in strategic sectors. Both the Venezuelan state and national companies could more effectively negotiate agreements with foreign partners for the provision of strategic goods, specialized services, or critical infrastructure, provided they have prior approval from OFAC.

In summary, GL 56 does not release sovereignty, but it does create conditional windows that, if used with technical and diplomatic prudence, could generate tangible benefits in areas vital to the country's economic and social stability.

THE SANCTIONS RATE PERSISTS

Objectively, if the implementation of the licenses proceeds without major obstacles, it could contribute to the improvement of certain economic conditions in Venezuela: greater investment, access to essential equipment and services, productive reactivation, a more stable flow of foreign currency, a reduction in the exchange rate gap and, consequently, a moderation of inflation.

However, the illegal sanctions framework persists, and with it, control mechanisms are entrenched, slowing down business growth and limiting the expansion of economic activities. Therefore, we are faced with a limited, conditional, and reversible easing of restrictions.

General Licenses 56 and 57 are likely a direct result of the trade schemes being rebuilt in Venezuela, driven by the return of US and Western companies—especially in the oil sector—to the negotiating table after years of absence.

Currently, the U.S. government maintains a form of financial pressure by conditioning Venezuela's access to the resources generated by its own crude oil exports. The revenues from these sales flow into an account called "Venezuela" at the Treasury Department, managed under strict, opaque, and highly discretionary bureaucratic mechanisms.

According to various media reports , US companies themselves have faced difficulties in meeting their payment obligations related to essential services, due to the convoluted flow of capital to Venezuela.

Furthermore, sources cited in the press have indicated that the slowness and arbitrariness of the US government in processing disbursements destined for Venezuela has become a new obstacle for the national exchange system, exacerbating uncertainty, volatility and distortions derived from the exchange rate differential.

In this context, acting president Delcy Rodríguez has repeatedly insisted on the need to definitively dismantle all sanctions imposed against the Venezuelan economy. She has emphasized that the temporary and revocable nature of these licenses creates legal uncertainty and hinders the implementation of long-term investment agreements, precisely when the country requires stable and predictable commitments for its economic recovery.

The US government has removed from its public discourse almost all the claims that in recent years “justified” the illegal sanctions, which referred to Venezuela as a “narco-terrorist” “dictatorial” state.

Now, that same sanctions map – despite the licenses – continues to distort the business climate in Venezuela and goes against the interests of US and Western companies that now do business with the Bolivarian Government.

o7

Posting for no reason 👀

Marco Lobo, a congressman from the Freedom and Refoundation Party (Libertad y Refundación – Libre, in Spanish), confirmed Ochoa’s exit, stating that the magistrate will initiate an asylum process abroad. Ochoa believes his life is in imminent danger due to his unwavering stance against the alleged electoral manipulations.

“There is clear evidence that he wants to be hurt, so he has decided to leave and start a political asylum procedure”, declared Marco Lobo.

The Counselor’s departure coincides with a political trial approved by the National Congress, which is predominantly controlled by right-wing factions. The legislative body is seeking the removal of both Ochoa and Mario Morazán, the representative to the Electoral Justice Tribunal, both of whom are affiliated with the progressive Freedom and Refoundation Party. This move is widely seen as an attempt to silence dissenting voices and consolidate power following the contentious 2025 elections.

The Parliament, controlled by right-wing parties, voted 91 to authorize the impeachment proceedings against the two officials. Congressman Lobo emphatically declared that there is clear evidence of plans to harm Magistrate Ochoa, which ultimately drove his decision to leave the country. “There is clear evidence that they want to harm him, which is why he has made the decision to leave and initiate an asylum process”, he expressed.

Text reads: “They are preparing the return of the boss; I am a witness and they will not silence me.”

Days prior, Ochoa had announced his refusal to participate in the Congressional political trial, asserting that the process lacked impartiality and that its outcome was predetermined. He accused the “corrupt and bipartisan right-wing” of using the trial to conceal the electoral fraud that allegedly occurred during the 2025 general elections, after exposing alleged irregularities, electoral fraud and United States interference.

In a public statement addressed to the citizenry, Ochoa declared that he does not recognize the legitimacy of those who have already condemned him, arguing that appearing before the Legislature would be tantamount to endorsing a biased process, which he characterized as a “brutal offense against Honduran democracy.”

The Freedom and Refoundation Party’s legislative bloc condemned the proceedings as a “political lynching” that disregards institutional due process. These parliamentarians warned that such judicial actions are steering Honduras towards a new dictatorship, drawing parallels to the constitutional breakdown that occurred in 2009. That historical event, often referred to as a coup d’état, saw the removal of then-President Manuel Zelaya, creating a precedent for political instability and raising fears of a repeat of unconstitutional power shifts.

Ochoa revealed that the threats intensified after his refusal to endorse electoral results that he deemed illegitimate. He cited fraudulent manipulations within the data transmission system and external interference aimed at imposing a decision contrary to the sovereign will of the Honduran people. This alleged U.S. interference, a recurring theme in Latin American politics, highlights concerns about external influence undermining national self-determination.

For its part, the Freedom and Refoundation Party has declared a state of “legislative insurrection” to denounce the encirclement of its representatives in electoral bodies. The organization maintains that the right-wing Government of Nasry Asfura seeks to silence key witnesses to the technical anomalies detected during the general scrutiny of the votes.

This development underscores the escalating tensions between progressive and right-wing forces within the country, raising international concerns about the state of Honduran democracy.

El 8 de febrero de 1904, Manuel Bonilla fundador del Partido Nacional disolvió el Congreso y encarceló diputados por no someterse.

Hoy, Tomás Zambrano sigue ese camino: pretende silenciar a la oposición, imponer ley mordaza y robar salarios por protestar.

No es patrón de… pic.twitter.com/WKx2EZpeis

— Partido Libre (@PartidoLibre) April 16, 2026

Text reads: “On February, 8, 1904, Manuel Bonilla, founder of the National Party, dissolved the Congress and imprisoned deputies for not submitting. Today, Tomás Zambrano is following that path: he intends to silence the opposition, impose a gag law and steal wages for protesting. He is nobody’s patron. Deputies represent the people, and they have to defend them.

When the Constitution is violated for revenge with political trials and power is concentrated, absolutism is born that corrupts looting and pillaging with impunity. When a people is denied the right to protest, it intentionally opens the way for unwanted violence!”

Author: Laura V. Mor

Source: Agencies

IN THIS ARTICLE

The Radical Academy is Open! Office Hours returns Friday April 17, 5pmET/2pmPT, for an exploration of "Iraq and the Wars in the Gulf". We'll explore Iraq's recent history and its relevance to contemporary geopolitics with a superb historian Prof. Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt of California State University-Stanislaus. Join us to cover the Gulf War, the Iraq War and occupation, the relationship to the other Gulf countries and Iran. Iraq is a keystone of the gulf system. Let's learn more! Come with your questions and comments about Iraqi history and the context of its relationships now.

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From left to right: Former New Zealand PM John Key, Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, and Xero founder Sir Rod Drury

New Zealand Police used software from controversial tech firm Palantir as part of their response to the March 2019 Christchurch massacre, Exit From Affco can reveal.

Beginning shortly after the massacre and ending on December 15, 2019, the Police’s High Tech Crime Group “had access to a Palantir platform” to “analyse data including social media returns”, according to information the Police released in response to an Official Information Act (OIA) request from Exit From Affco.

The Police were given a trial of the Palantir software shortly after the Christchurch massacre, but could not reach a long-term agreement with the software vendor as the Police were unable to afford Palantir’s asking price for the product, a source with knowledge of the matter told Exit From Affco.

In 2023, the Police also considered Palantir’s Gotham platform alongside other providers for an intelligence and data search system but cancelled the project due to supposed ICT workload concerns, according to Radio New Zealand.

Founded in 2003, Palantir provides software which specialises collating and analysing data to governments and private companies alike.

The company’s two main offerings are Palantir Gotham, designed for defence and intelligence purposes, and Palantir Foundry, used for civil government and commercial uses, but they often create custom software for clients for more specific use cases, especially the US government.

The company has long been controversial for its services and clients, with critics especially concerned about surveillance, data collection, data sovereignty, and where that all that information they handle ends up going.

Social media and the usage of it by Christchurch attacker Brenton Tarrant prior to the shooting has been a key issue in subsequent investigations into the massacre, and the Police’s use of Palantir to analyse social media content could have been an attempt at course correcting after prior law enforcement and intelligence failures.

The final report of New Zealand’s royal commission (a type of government inquiry in Commonwealth monarchies) into the massacre wrote that the survivors and victims’ relatives felt that “if Public sector agencies had monitored social media, this may have alerted them to the potential threat” and that they “did not understand why [Tarrant]’s social media was not monitored.”

Prior to the massacre, Tarrant was in numerous Facebook groups affiliated with Australia’s far-right movement, and was Facebook friends with several influential Australian far-right figures.

An employee of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (SIS) – New Zealand’s domestic security agency – claimed to have seen Facebook posts made by Tarrant in an internal report that was made prior to the massacre, but did not believe they warranted escalating the matter, according to the Arotake review – the SIS’ own investigation into its actions.

The royal commission’s report identified the employee as having belonged to the SIS’ Combined Threat Assessment Group branch – which is responsible for assessing threats and preparing reports for decision makers – and said the employee claimed to have seen the posts in 2018.

The inquiry accused the SIS employee’s memory of being “awry” and claimed to have been satisfied that “the employee could not have seen these posts before 15 March 2019”, the date of the massacre, because the SIS claimed to have not found any report which included Tarrant’s Facebook posts.

In the 48 hours prior to the shooting, Tarrant posted a flood of anti-immigration and fascist content to his social media pages. He also posted photos of firearms, magazines and tactical gear that had Nazi imagery, references, and slogans drawn on them, alongside the names of people Tarrant would later claim he wanted to avenge.

The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) – New Zealand’s largest intelligence agency – told the inquiry that social media accounts “posting weaponry” were not tracked as “[p]osting weaponry … is not an illegal activity”.

The inquiry did not address the fact that Tarrant’s weaponry had fascist references on it, or that he posted it alongside a plethora of violent right-wing content.

A 2025 University of Auckland study found that Tarrant had likely publicly posted on the notoriously far-right Politically Incorrect (/pol/) section of 4chan since at least 2015 about his support for and intent to carry out far-right attacks, a community known to have hosted previous mass shooters.

In March 2018, a year before the massacre, a user very likely to be Tarrant joined a thread about the South Pacific.

When discussion conversation turned to Muslims in New Zealand, the user joined in on expressing hatred, identifying himself as a Dunedin resident at the same time Tarrant was living there. His country, New Zealand, was visible through a flag next to the post ID. After someone egged him on to do something about it, the user posted “[D]on’t worry lad, I have a plan to stop it. Just hold on.”

In another August 2018 thread, a user likely to be Tarrant joined discussions about the locations of mosques in New Zealand.

“Tarrant wrote angrily about mosques and refugees in the South Island, including ‘here in Dunedin.’ He wrote: ‘F***** dunedin and christchurch both have mosques, christchurch has two of them for fucks sake.’ And again: ‘Want to hear some crazy shit? Ashburton now has a mosque, they converted a church.’ Four of the posters, including Tarrant, called for violence against the mosques. One commented that a particular mosque would be easy to firebomb. When another posted an image of a matchbox, Tarrant replied with only “Soon.” Seven months later, Tarrant attacked two mosques in Christchurch”.

The findings raise “serious questions, not only about why this posting was not detected, but also why it has not been discovered in the five years since the attacks”, the study’s authors wrote in a 2025 article for The Conversation.

Tarrant publicly stating his intention to attack significantly contradicts the royal commission’s remark that it would be “unlikely that the individual [Brenton Tarrant] would have wished to do anything that might attract the attention of international intelligence and security agencies.”

The royal commission’s belief that Tarrant desired to act covertly was used to justify not investigating whether Brenton Tarrant met with Martin Sellner – a far-right Austrian activist known for his advocacy for remigration (a euphemism for mass deportations) – after Tarrant donated approximately $2,300 Australian dollars to him in January 2018 and they subsequently discussed the possibility of meeting up in Austria over email.

Shortly after the massacre in March 2019, Austrian police raided Sellner’s residence over his ties to Tarrant. Sellner destroyed copies of his communications with Tarrant 40 minutes prior to the raid, suggesting that he had foreknowledge of an investigation into him. The only correspondence Austria’s authorities were able to recover came from screenshots that Sellner himself intentionally chose to preserve.

In late 2018 – just months before the massacre, Tarrant spent 9 days in Austria.

According to the Lone Actor podcast, an Austrian intelligence report has it that a rental car Tarrant used during his trip travelled about 2,000km during the trip.

The royal commission’s final report dismissed all this evidence, and made no mention of Tarrant’s extraordinary usage of a rental car during his Austrian excursion. Instead, the inquiry took him at his word.

Tarrant told the royal commission “that he did not meet Martin Sellner” and “had not tried to do so” during the late 2018 visit, according to the report.

“We [the inquiry’s commissioners] are inclined to accept this denial. There is no evidence to suggest they [Tarrant and Sellner] did meet”, the inquiry said, seeming all too eager dismiss the claims, which risked undermining the inquiry’s finding that Tarrant was a “lone actor”.

Since the massacre, Sellner has gained prominence and influence among Europe’s right-wing, and has popularised remigration.

In November 2023, he hosted a secret countryside conference with top brass of Germany’s right-wing CDU and AfD parties – some of whom were sitting members of parliament at the time – to plan how mass deportations could be implemented in Germany. Following the conference, AfD’s co-leader, Alice Weidel, publicly committed to implementing remigration.

The Police’s brief flirtations with Palantir does not mark the first time that New Zealand’s public sector has jumped into bed with the firm.

In fact, the government’s relationship with Palantir began when the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) started a pilot programme in 2012, including acquiring licenses for Palantir technology and the training of 100 NZDF personnel, around the same time Palantir opened a dedicated Wellington office.

The programme soon expanded to an “ongoing contractual relationship”, including the “acquisition of additional hardware and annual Palantir licences”, the NZDF said in response to an OIA request from Exit From Affco. The NZDF also released the manual for Palantir’s Gotham software to Exit From Affco.

By 2018, the NZDF was spending over $1.8 million NZD a year on its contracts with Palantir, and had spent $7.2 million NZD between 2012 and 2018, according to a report in the New Zealand Herald.

The SIS and GCSB are also known to use Palantir software, in a relationship which the New Zealand Herald says also dates back to 2012.

In March 2020, Palantir approached and met with the Ministry of Health and Privacy Commissioner, offering to “rapidly set up COVID-19 data-crunching capabilities” as it had done in Italy and the UK at free or little cost. The Ministry of Health then sat on the offer for a month, before announcing it had no plans to retain Palantir’s services.

Private sector health firms in New Zealand have also begun to make use of Palantir’s offerings, a source has claimed to Exit From Affco.

An OIA request from academic Marco de Jong revealed that then-defence and intelligence minister Judith Collins met with the head of Palantir’s international operations during her February 2026 visit to the Munich Security Conference.

The briefing was mostly redacted, but it saw her “acknowledge the importance of an ongoing effective partnership” and ask whether there were any “opportunities of interest for New Zealand in new technologies and emerging capabilities in this sector”.

[

Marco de Jong@MHdeJong

OIA - 23/02/26 A briefing to support Minister Collins in a meeting with Palantir Technologies International President Laurence Lee, during an overseas visit to Germany during February 2026.

8:50 PM · Apr 7, 2026 · 822 Views

1 Reply · 1 Repost · 6 Likes

](https://x.com/MHdeJong/status/2041619660119142675)

Chris Penk, who replaced Collins in her ministerial roles, told RNZ that “the NZDF has no existing plans to use Palantir in the emerging technologies space”, “the NZDF uses Palantir as an analytics platform to aid with planning”, and that “the Government’s ongoing partnership with Palantir is led by the GCSB.”

However, the NZDF over recent years has been helping test and develop the US military’s new Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) system, a network to link together all sensors and data from the US military and its allies to enable more battlefield data collection, analysis, and interoperability. Palantir helped develop the Maven Smart System platform alongside the US military as their interface for this command and control network.

In May 2024, as revealed by documents found in a Salvation Army op-shop and given to Nicky Hager, NZDF staff attended a secret “Five Eyes community Combined Digital Leaders Forum” in the United Kingdom to discuss the new “Five Eyes C5 Campaign Plan” and how the five member countries would integrate their military command and control systems. This would include sending data, intelligence and information to other partners and be analysed in a “federated [Five Eyes] data fabric”, which Hager describes as “a worldwide system where all intelligence and information from the five partners is shared and woven together to support the dominant partner”.

New Zealand naval officers had meetings with other Five Eyes partners in September last year ahead of RIMPAC 2026, the US Navy’s biennial naval exercise in Hawai’i (and the largest worldwide). These meetings were to discuss Project Overmatch, the US Navy’s initiative for integrating the CJADC2 system, and testing it during exercises at this year’s RIMPAC. The NZDF announced earlier this month it would be sending 50 personnel to the Project Convergence Capstone 6 event later this year in Arizona, where the US Army doing their annual testing of their implementation of CJADC2 by putting soldiers alongside aerial and ground drones.

New Zealand’s relationship with Palantir started shortly after one of its co-founders, Peter Thiel, was naturalised in 2011, while meeting none of the statutory requirements, and having only spent 12 days in the country, through an unusual and informal understanding with the John Key government: that Thiel would invest heavily in New Zealand’s technology sector.

Thiel didn’t hold up his end of the bargain. Valar Ventures, the venture capital firm Thiel set up in 2010 specifically for his New Zealand ambitions, ceased making investments in New Zealand shortly after Thiel had received his citizenship. By 2017, Valar had almost completely divested from New Zealand.

Thiel was able to keep his citizenship secret for almost five and a half years, until the New Zealand Herald revealed it in January 2017.

Valar Ventures was recently revealed to have received $40 million in investment from late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2015.

Sir Rod Drury, founder of fintech firm Xero, became one of Thiel’s surrogates in New Zealand after the billionaire made an investment into both Xero and Pacific Fibre – a failed venture Sir Drury co-founded to build an undersea fibre optic cable between the United States, New Zealand, and Australia.

Pacific Fibre had no less than $5.5 million in investment from Valar, and documents on Thiel’s citizenship released by New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) show that his VC firm’s holding in the company had significant weight on the decision to grant him citizenship.

Sir Drury, who was described by the New Zealand Herald as “the biggest winner of Thiel’s brush with New Zealand”, was one of Thiel’s character references, and wrote to New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs in support of Thiel’s citizenship application.

Sam Morgan, co-founder of Pacific Fibre and then a director of Xero, also wrote to the DIA in 2011 in support of Thiel’s citizenship application.

In 2013, whilst Thiel’s citizenship was still a secret, then-Green Party co-leader Russel Norman issued a press release questioning whether the Key government was working with Palantir to spy on New Zealanders after it was revealed Key had met with Thiel multiple times, the company had opened a Wellington office, and had posted a job listing for an analyst to be embedded inside the New Zealand government.

After Norman posted a tweet writing “When crony govt meets surveillance state - John Key appoints Peter Thiel’s Palantir to spy on NZers”, Drury quoted the post and wrote “Don’t be wankers”. Sir Drury and Norman then got into a heated Twitter dispute, with Sir Drury writing that the Greens were “ruining relationships and/by insinuating cronyism is vandalism”.

[

Rod Drury@roddrury

Don't be wankers @RusselNorman: When crony govt meets surveillance state - John Key appoints Peter Thiel's Palantir to spy on NZers.

2:42 AM · Jun 12, 2013

2 Replies · 4 Reposts · 6 Likes

](https://x.com/roddrury/status/344645893049430016)

In later comments to Stuff, Sir Drury said Thiel was “an incredible friend of New Zealand” and was annoyed at the collateral damage Norman’s comments had caused.

In 2021, Sir Drury applied for a resource consent to build ‘Te Wharehaunui’, a bunker-like compound on his 29ha section of Queenstown to host meetings for “government leaders and global technology innovation company executives”.

The application said the meeting house would bring “very influential people” to Queenstown who would hopefully invest in the region. The region has become a popular location for property among the international elite, including Peter Thiel, who has been attempting to build a luxury lodge overlooking Lake Wānaka despite legal challenges.

Sir Drury has allowed his Queenstown property to be used for diplomatic meetings, including Australian PM Albanese’s visit last year. A source in New Zealand’s public service claimed to Exit From Affco that Sir Drury’s property has also been used to host meetings for the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

The source alleges that to accommodate these meetings, a sensitive compartmented information facility was built on the property, making it suitable to discuss and handle secret or classified information.

New Zealand’s outgoing defence and intelligence minister Judith Collins denied the claims in response to both a request for comment and OIA request from Exit From Affco.

_“_Minister Collins rejects both assertions”, Collins’ press secretary said.

In September 2022, top officials from all Five Eyes partners flew into Queenstown for a secret meeting, with attendees suspected to have been hosted at the Millbrook Resort near Arrowtown, just a 10-minute drive from Drury’s property.

Drury’s alleged relationship with the Five Eyes, and with Thiel – who is closely tied to the alliance himself – may warrant taking another look at their failed effort to build an undersea fibre optic cable connected to New Zealand.

Pacific Fibre’s cable was being planned around the same time the GCSB – in partnership with America’s National Security Agency (NSA) – was starting up the Speargun mass surveillance program. Revealed by leaks from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the program saw covert surveillance of New Zealand’s internet traffic and metadata, collected by bugging the Southern Cross Cable Network in the North Island, which at the time was the only undersea fibre optic cable connecting New Zealand to North America, as well as handling the vast majority of traffic routed through Australia, thus seeing most of the country’s international internet traffic.

On Wednesday – just a month after he received the New Zealander of the Year Award – Sir Drury was publicly accused of inappropriate behaviour during his time as CEO of Xero by a former employee, which resulted in an internal misconduct investigation being launched in December 2017.

Drury abruptly stepped down as from his CEO role four months later.

On Wednesday, Xero said that it began an internal review of its handling of the allegations.

The Central Intelligence Agency’s investment firm, In-Q-Tel, bootstrapped Palantir’s founding in 2003 with a $2 million investment, and the US government has subsequently become their biggest customer. Palantir has contracts with the US intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, law enforcement agencies, and police departments across the United States.

The Maven Smart System platform for the US military’s CJADC2 system, co-developed by Palantir and the Pentagon, is currently being used for data analysis and target selection in the US-Israeli war on Iran according to an early February report in the Washington Post. Some US lawmakers believe Maven may have chosen to target a girl’s primary school in the country’s invasion of Iran at the beginning of February, which killed at least 175 civilians, most of whom were young schoolgirls.

Palantir’s contracts with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have long been controversial since they began in 2014, but their collaboration increased heavily under the first and second Trump administration. To assist with Trump’s mass deportation program, Palantir was contracted in 2025 to develop ImmigrationOS, a platform which uses data collection and AI analysis to find, track and help ICE deport suspected noncitizens.

Palantir software has been used extensively by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in the Gaza genocide and their wars throughout the region, with CEO Alex Karp saying in February 2024 he was “exceedingly proud that after Oct. 7, within weeks, we are on the ground and we are involved in operationally crucial operations in Israel.” Palantir has been repeatedly accused of complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity due to the IDF’s actions in Gaza. When confronted with these accusations at a Cambridge Union event, Peter Thiel responded that his “bias is to defer to Israel”.

Palantir is eager to onboard governments and institutions to their services, often offering free or discounted rates and being proactive in approaching potential clients.

Palantir has often been criticised for enabling aggressive data collection and surveillance by providing these services to clients and allowing them to connect vast sources of data much more easily. There have also been concerns raised about data sovereignty, where data is processed or stored, and whether any data is shared elsewhere by Palantir. In 2024, the Swiss government decided to abandon their plans to work with Palantir after officials couldn’t guarantee there was data sovereignty, writing in a report that “there is a possibility that sensitive data could be accessed by the US government and intelligence services.”

Palantir has also recently begun rapidly expanding its relationship with the United Kingdom. Palantir’s London based European branch, chaired by Louis Mosley – the grandson of Nazi collaborator and British Union of Fascists leader Sir Oswald Mosley, has signed numerous contracts over the past decade with England’s National Health Service (NHS), the Britain’s Ministry of Defence, and the Met Police.

Tarrant himself was a fan of Sir Mosley, having posted links to his works prior to the massacre, and even gifted one of Sir Mosley’s books – Fascism: 100 Questions Asked – to his sister’s mixed race partner.

Ironically, the Police sought solutions made in part by Sir Mosley’s grandchild in the wake of the massacre.

Do you have any information about Palantir’s use in the government or in the Christchurch shooting?

· Securely contact Smith K. Stead through email at smithkstead@protonmail.com

· Securely contact William Evans through email at williammaxwellevans@protonmail.com or through Signal at the username william.69

@GabrielRockhill @eyesonsouth1 @vocalpolitics1

The professor is also on Substack.

Eyes on South is also on Telegram.

This war sucks, but it's lead to some amazing conversations between people I didn't expect to touch base.

@cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml: This is a russophobic and paranoid lib hit piece against anti-war activists trying to tie them into some grand conspiracy web of association with an irrelevant and long dead marginal figure in American politics. None of these people are comrades but they are also by far less damaging than your average Democrat or Republican imperialist warmonger Nazi sympathizer. This piece transparently attempts to smear any and all voices who are speaking out against the insanity and delusion of the mainstream pro-Ukraine propaganda narrative. It is also an old and extremely irrelevant article at this point because none of the fearmongering predictions about Gabbard or Patel playing some kind of anti-war role in the administration have played out. The author can rest easy knowing that peace in Ukraine has been successfully prevented and these dangerous anti-war views have been successfully neutralized.Anyway, if i were you i would delete this post since it is such an outdated piece of propaganda with little to no bearing on what is happening at present. It's not even interesting or funny enough to be in SRS.

That is the correct response for the most part, Mister Gaussian. The Hypernormalization "and then something strange happened" shit is useful to nobody. This is the exact kind of wishy-washy framework that was used to smear the Uhuru movement, which has also had issues with the PSL I will add. I do actually consider the RAtWM "activists" less odious than the DSA, let alone standard DC suits. I don't view their ideology as a serious political project, though, at least not as stated. It's an influence operation. However this alt media network is being used to influence semi-peripheral & peripheral countries that I care about a great deal, e.g. Iran & Russia (they are not being funded by Russia, they are frequently applying for jobs at RT though, & enough CIA agents have worked there already), minimal success with China. I'm posting this so that people are aware of these obscure connections, I'm pretty sure most of you thankfully forgot Jimmy Dore exists. The social links are difficult for me to remember so Robeson's page was worth bookmarking.

My one quibble is that these people are no more in the "anti-war" struggle than their Brian Beckerite counterparts, or fucking Amy Klobuchar marching with the CPUSA.

April 14, 2026 is a day that will go down in infamy as the Lebanese government succumbed to the American demand to enter into direct negotiations with the Zionist entity.

America wants to bring Lebanon back into the government and army restructuring of 1982-1983, when the 1978 “israeli” invasion and 1983 normalization agreement was used as leverage to bring Lebanon completely under the US/Israeli fold.

The brutal normalization attempt, which involved the US restructuring of the Lebanese army from 1982-1984, witnessed the carpet bombing of Dahiyeh by then Lebanese Army commander Ibrahim Tannous or the direct support of “israel” to then SLA leader and President-elect Bachir Gemayel.

Though this time gave rise to the fiercest resistance, such as - but not limited to - the SSNP’s Habib Shartouni assassinating the treasonous agent Gemayel in September 1982, the elimination of Zionist soldiers in the Wimpy Cafe in Beirut that same month by Khaled Alwan, the martyrdom operation of Sanaa Mheidly.

Behind the Lebanese government’s traitorous moves, handing the south to Israel through the Zionist-backed SLA gave rise to Hezbollah, the fiercest and most successful resistance organization in the region.

In the honor of the martyrs from Hezbollah and the unified resistance, Lebanese - from Thursday to Saturday - took to the streets in protest before the Government Serail in Downtown Beirut, voicing their opposition to the Vichyist government and the historical betrayal unfolding this week.

This sentiment also intensified by the dishonor and disgrace the commencement of direct talks with the Zionist entity poses as the blood of hundreds of civilian martyrs across Lebanon hasn’t even dried yet after daily nonstop attacks murdering state workers, women and children, paramedics – one infant girl was even murdered at the funeral of her own father.

The massacres that represented “israel” imposing its will on the Lebanese government, however subservient, were defied by the material equation Hezbollah and Iran are setting on the ground.

USIsrael’s incredible pressure on Lebanon represents growing wrath with Iran’s victory and consequent weakening of US hegemony regionally

The more they lose on the ground, the more “israel” has to try to convince the world otherwise that its “Greater Israel” plan is underway.

But no matter how much Smotrich wants to take to the podium and announce it, that doesn’t change the reality on the ground that tells a very different story.

Israel may claim Bint Jbeil is encircled - the same Bint Jbeil that the IOF themselves said in the 2007 Winograd report was a “symbol of the unsuccessful action of IDF throughout the fighting” with a force of 5,000 occupying soldiers defeated by 150 Hezbollah fighters maximum.

This same Bint Jbeil that is right now, with the resistance continuing to hit artillery, Merkava tanks – 120 burning and counting – soldier groupings and occupying army barracks.

Despite the Enemy narrative that they have the town surrounded, any advancement made in the last month and a half was thanks to ordered Lebanese Army withdrawals from Christian villages like Rmeish, Debel, Ain el Ebel, Alma as-Shaab with no Hezbollah presence in them.

“Israel” made the same claims of encirclement and advancement around Khiam a couple weeks back, using its presence there accomplished through ceasefire violations and illegal incursions during the previous 15 months to today as evidence of an advancement that couldn’t even hold as the IOF was forced to withdraw to its occupation point in Hammames hill and to today cannot make any advancements in the Naqoura/Tyre axis, is being fought off in Bint Jbeil, failed miserably in Nabi Sheet at the very start, and has yet to make any progress in Khiam.

So in light of this demonstrated strength by the resistance, the level of comprimization extends mere cowardice – PM Nawaf Salam joined in on Israeli/American framings of a Lebanese ceasefire to be separate from the Iranian ceasefire, despite one of Tehran’s core demands being a cessation of violence in Lebanon.

By saying that “Iran should not negotiate on behalf of Lebanon,” Salam is enabling the US/Israeli shaping of terms, where the Lebanese state, instrumental as a vehicle to invite normalization, can put seemingly ‘independent’ conditions that actually represent American demands aimed at forcibly disarming the resistance.

The same resistance, by the way, that can give Lebanon - as a state - leverage over Israel in negotiations that don’t even have to be direct.

Direct negotiations are completely unnecessary and symbolic means of the US and Israel to pass through symbolic victories amidst losses and blows by Iran and the Hezbollah resistance group in the South of Lebanon.

In 2022, Lebanon was able to force “israel” to accept the country’s maritime rights while refusing its attempts at making even a symbolic victory in the format of a direct negotiation.

So there is both historical precedent, and material logic, regardless of ideology, in leveraging Hezbollah’s strength to safeguard a modicum of sovereignty just as Iran is nullifying US power projection through its resistance.

The current Lebanese government is made up of minds so colonized that they disregard this material equation and internalize their own sense of inferiority, rushing to sell their own country to appease a moribund empire.

This is an unfortunate historical reality in a country like Lebanon caught between a comprador class comprising a compromised subservient state, and a historically revolutionary and strong resistance capable of confronting the Zionist entity while solely demonstrating the political will towards a truly sovereign domestic settlement.

In the face of a historic victory for Hezbollah and Iran, Aoun and Nawaf Shalom decide its a much better idea to literally hand the country over to Satanyahu and Trump. But no matter how much they try to even criminalize the discourse of resistance in the country, they’re simply dishing out the orders of an empire that is witnessing its political leverage weaken in real time.

As Georges Abdallah said upon his release from prison [in an interview with arab-i]: “The one who holds the weapon has the final say” — this isn’t a matter of preference but a dialectic trajectory that reflects the real-time trajectory of power, which since 2000 is increasingly in the hands of the resistance.

The real negotiation that the enemy understands - and that will determine Lebanon and the region’s fate - is taking place not in Washington.

But in Bint Jbeil.