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I know we definitely don't agree with this group on certain subjects but i think this was still important to share. This is what happens to anyone who poses a real threat to the imperialist narrative and by extension to the hegemony. Anyone who still thinks that the US has any sort of free speech or is in any way more "democratic" than the supposed "authoritarian regimes" that the imperialist media attacks and demonizes is deeply delusional.

What it also shows is that most of those purportedly "leftist" channels and all those "communist" twitch streamers (with far larger audiences than these anti-imperialist channels that have been getting shut down as of late) who have not been the target of such attacks and are still allowed to operate do so precisely because they pose no threat to the system of capitalism; they do so because they are compatible with imperialism.

They exist to serve as sheepdogs to reign in those with nascent leftist sentiments before they develop a real anti-imperialist consciousness and bring them back in line with political positions acceptable to the ruling class, whether this is in the form of convincing them to vote for one party of genocide over the other, or whether it's by giving them "leftist" sounding reasons to not stand in solidarity with those forces currently most actively fighting against the empire.

"Dear comrades,

Over the past couple months, you may have noticed a significant downturn in our video content output and a complete drop-off in our previously weekly live-streams. I intend to explain the reasons for TheRevolutionReport’s lack of presence, which truly are of colossal domestic and international importance, as well as the conclusions I have been forced to come to as a result of their accompanying developments.

In early September, the US Justice and Treasury Departments launched a new array of sanctions against the Russian media outlet RT, a company at which I am employed, as most of you are aware. Both government organs have combined these sanctions with criminal charges against a number of RT employees, which carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. Moreover, the Treasury Department’s report on the new sanctions appear to forbid even associating with RT in any official capacity on American soil.

According to FBI Director Christopher Wray, RT was conducting “covert attempts” to “sow division and trick Americans into unwittingly consuming foreign propaganda [which] represents attacks on our democracy.” Wray claims that $10 million of RT money was funneled into a Tennessee company that failed to register as a foreign agent and committed the heinous crime of making videos containing, “commentary on events and issues in the U.S., such as immigration, inflation, and other topics related to domestic and foreign policy.” Shockingly, Wray even admits that the videos in question were not actually Russian propaganda, qualifying his accusations by acknowledging that “the views expressed in the videos are not uniform.”

Nevertheless, these new measures amounted to the beginning of a wave of FBI terror against anyone associated with RT within the United States.

Several days after these new sanctions were imposed, the FBI burst into a Florida woman’s home early in the morning, seized some of her property, interrogated her for 5 hours, and beat her. Her crime? She worked as a producer for RT.

For former UN-weapons inspector and long-time RT contributor Scott Ritter, these sanctions were the straw that broke the camel’s back. He was forced to publicly sever ties with the media outlet, following years of harassment from US authorities.

These events even ran parallel to the trial of a number of activists from the socialist Black Nationalist Uhuru group, in which they were found guilty of apparently, “conspiring to act as foreign agents,” after they had cooperated with Russians on a UN petition. They could face up to 5 years in prison.

As for myself, I was in the United States when all this began, having returned to the land of my birth to care for my cancer-ridden mother. All of the sudden, TheRevolutionReport’s TikTok account was deleted alongside those of RT and Sputnik, following FBI pressure on the social media giant. A fleet of random vehicles appeared in front of my house overnight. When I called the township for an explanation, I was told my new friends started showing up because of construction work that made a neighboring parking lot inaccessible to them – something that had never happened throughout my entire childhood living at that address.

About a week after this campaign of FBI terror, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced at a State Department press conference that RT was, “a fully fledged member of the intelligence apparatus and operation of the Russian government.”

At that point, after days of trying brush off the severity of this situation and a subsequently sobering conversation with my lawyer, I decided it was time to leave the country.

The highest organs of state-power clearly have no problem arbitrarily enforcing vague laws against individuals unable to defend themselves in the US legal system. After all, those indicted could be accused of further violating sanctions if they were to challenge their prosecutors, using money and legal support from their already sanctioned employer in American courts.

It goes without saying that this renewed campaign against “Russian propaganda,” more aptly described as another war on freedom of speech, is obviously politically motivated. In part, the liberal-dominated state-apparatus will have a convenient scapegoat if Donald Trump emerges victorious from the fast approaching US presidential election. But the terror people like myself are now facing likely has far more to do with a candid admission from the US State Department than anything else.

At a press conference addressing these newly imposed sanctions, James Rubin, coordinator of the department’s Global Engagement Center, which is an agency essentially charged with telling people what they should believe, declared that, “the broad scope and reach of RT...[is] one of the reasons why so much of the world has not been as fully supportive of Ukraine as you would think they would be.” The writing is on the wall – Vladimir Zelensky’s clique in Kiev is holding on by a thread for which American and European taxpayers are footing the bill.

EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrel estimates Kiev could hold out for a mere two weeks without Western support at this point. Bloomberg is reporting that Vladimir Zelensky’s administration is beginning to consider territorial concessions behind closed doors. Media reports suggest the DPRK will soon enter the conflict on Russia’s side.

All this is clearly driving those governments most invested in Ukraine into desperation; and when the state becomes desperate, it employs terror and repression.

Therefore, based on the politicized nature of the US government’s decision making and my recent experiences described in this letter, I believe that TheRevolutionReport has been incorrectly flagged by US authorities as a covert Russian influence operation.

Although TheRevolutionReport Information Collective has received no support whatsoever from sanctioned entities or anyone other than our loyal paid-subscribers, I have no faith in the US Justice system’s capabilities to protect me, or anyone else for that matter, from the intrigues of the FBI and US State Department.

And so, with the safety of those in the US who have helped out over the years and my own in mind, it is with a heavy heart that I must declare this media project to have reached its conclusion.

[...]

I can only hope that Americans will one day realize that constitutional amendments about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, etc., do not present, and have never presented, any obstacle to state repression against political opponents in the United States. Those who know our country’s history know this – and those who are now living with the consequences of this reality know it even better."

From @rnintel on Telegram: "Russia's counteroffensive in the Kursk region: Russia has recaptured 519.8 sqkm of area. Ukraine still holds 559.3 sqkm"

The most surprising thing here is that this got published in The Guardian, as normally all you'd get there is imperialist cheerleading.

Arnaud Bertrand on Twitter summarized the most important points of this piece:

"This is an absolute must-read by @adam_tooze and probably the most important geopolitics article I've read in The Guardian in years:

Tooze makes the point, which I think is correct, that Washington likes to portray itself as a victim and merely reacting - often powerlessly - to events such as the war in Ukraine or Israel's destruction of Gaza and now Lebanon.

But what if, Tooze asks, "that interpretation is too benign"? What if this was all essentially gaslighting and the US were in fact in the driver seat? What if we were witnessing "the pivoting of the US to a deliberate and comprehensive revisionism by way of a strategy of tension", as Tooze puts it?

Tooze argues that Biden's foreign policy is a direct continuation of Trump's, which he calls "literally revisionist", as "he had no interest in the existing rules of the game". Biden, he writes, "has been every bit as aggressive as, perhaps more so than, his predecessor." For example, Tooze says that with regards to China Biden acted even far more aggressively that Trump did with his attempts "to stop China's development in tech" and its "strong-arming [of] allies such as the Dutch and the South Koreans" for that purpose. Similarly, Tooze argues, "in what is now called the Indo-Pacific, the US is not merely defending the status quo" but very much revising it.

Same thing with the Middle-East: despite all its propaganda about wanting peace, the basic fact remains that "the US is paying for more than 25% of Israel's rampage as it physically annihilates Gaza, victimises the West Bank and sets about uprooting Hezbollah. It has pulled allies such as Germany and the UK into line. It is shielding Netanyahu against the reach of international justice."

All in all, Tooze writes that "in all three arenas – China, Ukraine and the Middle East – the US will say that it is responding to aggression. But rather than working consistently for a return to the status quo it is, in fact, raising the stakes. While insisting that it supports the rules-based order, what we are witnessing is something closer to a revival of the ruinous neoconservative ambition of the 1990s and 2000s."

This is a point I've long made myself and the key paradox of today's geopolitics: the US largely built the post-WW2 and post-Cold War order but it's obviously come to the conclusion that it doesn't serve it anymore, and therefore has become the world's foremost revisionist power. And they do so whilst attempting to gaslight all of us with the Orwellian assertion that they do so to protect "the rules-based order

It is as we also have been saying for a long time now: the US is not being forced along this path by either the Zionists, the Kiev regime, or anyone else. Washington is very much in the driver's seat of all this escalation even as it pretends otherwise.

See also this excellent breakdown by Arnaud Bertrand of what Whole-Process People's Democracy is and how it differs from western liberal conceptions of democracy:

https://xcancel.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1843548618361582057

I know many people in the West are extremely cynical when China describes itself as a democracy - a "Whole-Process People’s Democracy" to be precise - but very few actually take the time to understand what China actually means by that, how it differs from liberal democracy and why they think it's a good system for them.

This article written by the President of Renmin Uni­versity and just published in Qiushi (the official theoretical journal of the Central Committee of the CPC) is a relatively good primer for this:

First of all, I think we're enormously confused when we try to understand the Chinese system through our vision of the Chinese Communist Party as a political party like we think of the Democrats or Republicans in the US. And we're therefore immediately led to conclude: "one party system, therefore not a democracy".

However when you look at how the Chinese describe the CPC, the equivalent in the West isn't a political party but the Republic or constitutional order itself.

Indeed, as the article makes clear the CPC is presented as the fundamental guarantor of the entire political system and the people's interests. The article describes how "whole-process people's democracy ensures unity between the leadership of the CPC, the running of the country by the people, and law-based governance." This integration of party, people, and law presents the CPC not as one competing entity within the system, but as the overarching framework that ensures the system's coherence and functionality. The CPC is portrayed as the institution that "accurately gauge[s] the public's pulse in governance and reflect[s] the public will," a role that liberal democracies would be ascribed to the entire apparatus of democratic governance, not to a single political party.

So that's the first thing. In effect China isn't a "one-party state" but a "zero party state" with the CPC as the embodiment of the state itself, functioning not as a competitor for power but as the permanent custodian of the people's mandate.

Secondly, it's key to understand what China means by "whole process" and by "people's democracy".

Whole process effectively means that their democracy isn't limited to the periodic voting that characterizes Western liberal democracies, which China argues is too limited, too intermittent and frankly too corrupt to be truly representative of the people's will. Instead the Chinese conception, as outlined in this article, envisions democracy as a constant, pervasive element of governance and daily life.

The idea of "whole process" is that democracy should be a constant process of engagement between the government and the people in order to have policies which are more responsive to people's needs and are shaped in real-time as opposed to just at election time.

Concretely this is embodied by institutions like the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the national level (where representatives from various social groups and different parts of China offer input during the policy-making process), or residents' committees and village committees at the grassroot level which are vehicles for people to participate in decisions that affect their daily lives, from local development projects to community services. There are also myriads of channels for ordinary citizens to supervise government actions (like report corruption or misconduct by officials) or give feedback and suggestions. And there is of course the fact that there are 100 million party members in the country who live among the population and are tasked with understanding what the people need or want.

In effect what "whole process" means is that China's democracy isn't about the spectacle of election campaigns and the (often hollow) promises of competing parties, but about fostering a culture of continuous dialogue, consultation, and collaborative problem-solving between the government and the people.

It also means that China's view of democracy is outcome-oriented as opposed to procedural. The idea being that what really matters are the practical results of governance (as per the article: "delivering sustained, stable, and sound national development") as opposed to viewing mere electoral processes as the basis of democratic legitimacy.

Now, what does "people's democracy" mean? Aren't all democracies "people's democracies"?

"People's democracy" is a historical communist term to contrast with what was termed "bourgeois democracy", where the state in capitalist countries was seen as offering only formal political rights while maintaining economic inequality and the dominance of the capitalist class.

Whilst the meaning has evolved somewhat since then, it still retains this idea of prioritizes the welfare and will of the masses over the interests of elites or special interest groups. As the Quishi article states, China's policies must "truly reflect the people's concerns, embody their aspirations, promote their wellbeing, and meet their desire for a better life."

This idea also has roots in traditional Chinese culture, which has always emphasized collective harmony and social cohesion over individualism. In contrast to Margaret Thatcher's famous assertion that "there's no such thing as society" - now widely held in the West - the Chinese worldview sees society not as a mere aggregation of individuals, but as an organic entity with its own existence and importance. This perspective is reflected in the article's emphasis on "fostering social harmony" as a key goal of their democratic system.

Lastly, in a "people's democracy", there's also idea that the people are not just voters, but the driving force behind national development. This perspective is clearly reflected in the article, which emphasizes that "the people are the true driving force behind history." It goes on to state that Chinese modernization "must firmly rely on the people, respect their creativity, and harness their collective wisdom and strength."

This view stands in contrast to liberal democracies where citizens' primary political role is often reduced to choosing between competing parties. In the Chinese system, the CPC's role is also that of an organization that mobilizes and channels the people's energy and is able to effectively harness their collective power for national development.

Last point, which I'm sure many of you will be asking themselves is: "yes that's all good and well, but is it really a democracy if people can't choose their rulers?"

The Chinese view on this would be that it more democratic to have rulers selected based on objective meritocratic criteria, based on how well particular officials have served the people and on exam results, than on opinions shaped by candidates' skills at campaigning or at appealing to narrow interest groups.

Also, as the article emphasizes in China's system accountability is built into ongoing processes and institutions (and not just through elections): "leading Party and state bodies and their personnel are required to exercise their powers in strict accordance with statutory mandates and procedures and wholeheartedly serve the people." Which is hard to argue when you look at the sheer number of officials who get disciplined or even sent to jail every year, even some at the very top. No other country on earth has its officials face such level of scrutiny and accountability. And as we've seen before there's direct public oversight here too as the people are encouraged to report officials if they're corrupt or engage in misconduct.

Lastly, as stated before, the Chinese system provides numerous channels for people to influence policy and governance beyond just choosing leaders. So the concept of "official" is somewhat different from Western notions. In China's whole-process people's democracy, officials are seen more as executors of the people's needs and will, rather than disconnected decision-makers. Their legitimacy stems not from being elected, but from how effectively they implement policies that reflect and serve the people's interests. The idea is to have a system where political legitimacy is continuously earned through tangible achievements rather than periodically granted through ballots.

So there you go, admittedly a very different view of democracy from what we're used to in the West. You're obviously free to think whatever you want about it but I like the "Ideological Turing Test" idea, where you shouldn't be allowed to criticize something if you aren't able to explain it in ways indistinguishable from that of someone who defends the position. As such this gives you a brief overview of how China sees its democracy, from their viewpoint, far from all-too-easy caricatures of it.

And personally that's what fascinates me most about China: how it sees the world in dramatically different ways from the West. Ways that challenge us to question so many things we take for granted, like in this instance the nature of representation or our approach to political legitimacy.

We often pride ourselves in the West on our openness to "diversity" but typically what we mean by that is a mere ersatz of diversity, people who remain well within the Overton window. What we have here with China is TRUE diversity, not just in appearances only, but in core concept of philosophy and societal structures. And instead of fearing it or smearing it as we so often do, we should instead engage with it, try to understand it as it offers an immensely necessary mirror through which we can reflect on ourselves.

Another summary of the latest developments on the Donbass front, accumulating reports of the grisly but inevitable slow motion collapse of the Kiev regime forces, along with a slew of panicky articles that have been coming out recently from the western media.

And for those interested in diving into some more detail, here is an additional analysis of the broader Russian operations so far from a military technical perspective with some historical comparisons and some informed predictions:

https://maratkhairullin.substack.com/p/october-the-great-offensive-is-inevitable

I don't necessarily think that these predictions will come true, or at least not in this time frame, but it is an interesting possibility to consider. And as usual: a reminder to tread with caution when it comes to these right-leaning sources. They're competent enough with military analysis, but don't go there expecting good political takes or progressive social views.

A review of Banerjee's "Fighting Imperialism and Authoritarian Regimes: Between the Devil and the Deep Sea" (2003) and Salamey's "Hezbollah, Communitarianism, and Anti-Imperialism" (2019).

Highly recommend reading this one as it addresses a ton of bad faith arguments we still see to this day when it comes to actors like Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. Basically a takedown of the western pseudo-left "anti-authoritarian" argument that leftists shouldn't stand in solidarity with global south anti-imperialist forces because they are insufficiently morally pure in some way or another. They do this same shtick when it comes to Russia, Iran, DPRK, and to a certain extent China as well, always conveniently finding some leftist sounding reason to demonize precisely those forces which happen to be the Empire's greatest foes, whether it's that they're insufficiently advanced in social justice causes, or insufficiently secular, or whatever else they need to say to get naive baby leftists to align themselves with the CIA and the State Department. This "compatible left" is and has been for a long time the greatest obstacle to real revolutionary movements in the West. So long as this chauvinism and this tailing of liberal Empire propaganda infects it, the western left will continue to be, by and large, little more than larpy liberals.

A reminder of the unparalleled advances in public health made by communist states. Even if every absurd fabrication that the anti-communist propagandists like to parrot about the millions supposedly killed by Stalin, Mao, etc. was true, those numbers would pale in comparison to the number of lives they saved, the hundreds of millions of life spans extended by entire decades. And if you want the perfect control sample of what it looks like when you start with nearly identical conditions but don't have communist central planning, look at India.

Hizbullah's Media Relations Office organised a tour of Beirut's southern suburb (Dahieh), to give the world a glimpse of the mass destruction of civilian infrastructure as a result of Zionist (Israeli) indiscriminate bombardment of the area. Laith Marouf and Dr Mohammad Marandi, along with Hadi Hotait behind camera, joined the tour and commented on what they saw, the retaliation of Iran, Hizbullah repelling invading forces, and the coming expansion of the war.

Filmed: 02/10/2024 Donate/Watch/Share elsewhere FreePalestine.Video RU: rumble.com/v5hcds5 YT: invidious.poast.org/hNwHwENm0Ds TG: t.me/freepalestinetv/24090