My sources for the preamble come mostly from here, here, and here.
The thread image depicts Kenyan police, trained by the Zionist entity, in a meeting with President Ruto before being sent to Haiti, sourced from this article.
As has been planned for the last couple years, foreign police officers have been inside Haiti for a few months now. It will surprise nobody to learn that this has not gone very well. Gangs continue to control much of the country, and violence has continued in the form of massacres and forced relocations (approximately 1.3 million). Something like 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, is under the control of one gang or another.
The aim by the US was to import 2500 police officers to Haiti from a wide variety of countries. One of those was Kenya; President Ruto had to fight his own country's courts to force this through, and ironically is now apparently considering withdrawing those officers once the UN mandate expires on October 2nd. The issue here is not only the limited manpower (Haiti has a population of 12 million), but also very pedestrian things, like the fact that the officers who arrive don't even speak the language.
The situation in Haiti appears to be a fairly standard operation of American national control, in which both battling sides are being supported by the US in order to create maximum disorganization and prevent a coherent political force from arising and thus threatening their Caribbean interests. While the US funds foreign forces to arrive in Haiti to "control the situation" or similar justifications, the Haitian gangs get their weapons smuggled in from the US itself. That this is happening alongside escalations against Venezuela is obviously not a coincidence - in a world in which American interests are being gradually shrugged off, and where the American state military is becoming rapidly more impotent and unable to dissuade and defeat even tiny states like Yemen, total imperial dominion of their immediate surrounding territory must be ensured by any means necessary.
The police and the gangs are likely designed to be mutually reinforcing, without even much kayfabe of fighting each other. As an example, once the Kenyan police arrived, they immediately began brutalizing anti-government protestors instead of focussing on gang activity. They were trained by the Zionist entity, after all.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Key details of China’s Unified National Market have finally been revealed. I will not go through the entire text here, you’re welcome to use machine translation to get a glimpse of the tedious details. I will highlight a few important paragraphs instead.
This is very likely to happen under the 15th Five Year Plan, as a push towards boosting domestic consumption and tackling the overcapacity problem through anti-involution policies.
The upshot is that government interference will now be minimized to allow the private market to dictate the investment and economic development. On the other hand, the government’s role will be reduced to ensuring fairness, transparency and openness.
Currently, China still regulates the flow of movement of labor (through the hukou system, which is being dismantled) and many local/municipal governments provide subsidies and through local protectionism, to attract investments to boost the local economy. The outcome is that every province wants to build new housing, every city wants to get on the train of green technology like EV and solar panels, etc. As a result, you end up with overcapacity issue because everyone invests in the same thing and caused intense and even bitter peer competition between cities and provinces, for everyone knows that when the consolidation of the industries finally arrives, some of them are going to be the losers.
Back in July, Xi Jinping gave an unusually harsh criticism against the local governments: “上项目，一说就是几样：人工智能、算力、新能源汽车，是不是全国各省份都要往这些方向去发展产业？” (“Every time a new project is mentioned, it’s always the familiar ones: artificial intelligence, computation, renewable energy cars, do every province across the country have to develop these same industries?”)
As such, the Unified Common Market will create a standardized market that will allow for the free flow of labor and capital. The governments can no longer intervene in where people can or should migrate to, nor can they interfere with the investments made by private capital. If the market believes that Anhui (as an example) should be the new biotech hub, then other cities are not allowed to intervene with the market force in any way. This will ensure the diversification of goods and services rather than the local governments all trying to invest in the same thing. Instead, the market will play a stronger role in deciding how the economy should be developed and diversified:
Translation: Balance the relationship between an efficient market and a responsible government: To achieve the basic requirements of “five unifications, one opening up”, the key is to correctly resolve the relationship between the government and the market. On one hand, to maximize the decisive role of the market in resource distribution, to enable market mechanisms to efficiently guide the logistics and allocation, to prevent the “visible hand” from intervening with the “invisible hand”; on the other hand, the government has to enact regulations for a unified market, ensure fair competition, to protect market order, and to provide high quality public services in order to promote a good environment for the market to operate. The government is to play a better role in macroeconomic policy adjustments, market regulation and public services, as well as to provide necessary interfere when the market is not operating as intended. Only with an organic combination between an efficient market and a responsible market, to allow “both hands” to work together, can we drive the development of a Unified National Market in a steady and long-lasting manner.
a couple other paragraphs
Translation: Eliminate local protectionism, and promote good business environment: To establish mechanisms for long-term clean-up, as well as to speed up the cleanup of regulations and practices that hinder unified market and fair competition. To eliminate the administrative barriers between regions. To strengthen the supervision and assessment of the local governments’ behavior, to enhance accountability mechanism, and to guide local governments to establish a correct concept of political performance. To promote the integration of inter-regional market rules and the integrated development of regional markets. To strengthen inter-regional cooperation and exchange, and to realize complementary advantages and mutually beneficial “win-win” cooperation through joint construction of industrial parks and cooperative development projects.
Translation: Improve the level of opening up internally and promote a high level of opening up externally: To establish the great internal circulation with minimal hindrance, to accelerate the cultivation of a complete domestic demand institution. To minimize barriers for export-to-domestic sales channel, to expand the support for fiscal, taxation and financial aspects. To promote the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade. To construct a high-standard market institution, to create a market-oriented, rule-based and internationalized first class business environment. To steadily expand the opening up of institutions, strengthen rules, regulations, management, standards and various other institutions. To adhere to win-win cooperation, and promote the high quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative.
Not sure how I think about it yet. A lot of it has to do with minimizing the role of the government (both central and local) for economic planning and let the market to decide where labor should migrate to, where and what investments should be made. Seems like giving a lot of power to private capital?
From reading analyses from others, this is a step forward for China to emulate the advanced economies in the West where the government gradually gives up its “visible hand” role and let the market dictate economic planning.
I can see why they would want to minimise local government involvement, after the debt problems, corruption, and protectionism. It is broadly speaking inefficient for every province to be investing in the same industries. But it seems to me that the problem is in the incentive, not in the local government power itself. I remember in another post you said local officials wanted to pump up GDP numbers in order to get promotions. It seems like they should be reforming the internal party reward structures / targets as a priority.
Overall markets are an efficient way to distribute goods. I don't think there's a huge problem with allowing more internal market forces inherently, as long as the government retains political power over them, continues to control key national industries and services, and reins in financial speculation.
A Hexbear quote in 2025. How can anyone believe this? Even at face value by the time you take all the measure necessary for a "fair" market for all participants i.e the population it is no longer a "market" but some sort of BS distribution system with shit incentives and an absurd number of strings attached that only functions out of a sunk cost fallacy because the people in charge don't want to try any other alternative.
This is just a flavor of ultra-marxism, railing against markets as such with no regard for their function. Saying that markets are efficient says nothing about them being the most efficient all the time, but it in a specific context. China still benefits from organizing things using markets because they are efficient in their current stage and due to the relationships they have to hold with their external context (a largely capitalist-run world).
Of course we all understand limitaitons of markets, and Xi likely understands it very well. But it helps nobody to just rail against them generally as if its some principle of marxism that markets are inherently bad
Indeed, an actual Marxist interpretation understands that there are always aspects of the previous economic formation within the emerging formation, especially early in the transition. China is in the very infancy of socialist transition in an otherwise still hyper capitalist world. ultras have a similar view as anarchists, expecting a much more advanced form of communism than the material conditions demand, and anything less than this ideal is an enemy. somehow they end up spending all their energy criticizing the enemies of capitalists on the internet and never really organizing
It is quite silly how people on Hexbear can both claim to be against capitalism, but also to claim that restoring capitalists as a class, and giving them more and more power is actually somehow good, and that everybody who agrees with people like Stalin on economics is an 'ultra' and bad.
I wish people had a better understanding of the effect the presence of the profit motive has an economy, compared to maintaining a planned economy.
Read Losurdo's Class Struggle. And if you don't want to read the whole book, read chapter 3. It's not like I have no ability to see the possibility of harm from markets or a capitalist class or profit motives, it's that I understand class as more complex than vulgar Marxists and Ultras want it to be. And I understand international struggles as class struggles in themselves
Ok, does Losurdo provide any evidence for capitalist restoration somehow being good for the working class, or is that just his raw opinion with no backing there?
This is just obvious cope, frankly, and ad hoc justification for literally just giving up workers' rights to restore capitalists as a class and giving them more and more power.
So far, you don't have anything to show for this supposedly being beneficial to the working class (in a manner that isn't just bounties of colonialism).
So far, since the Sino-Soviet split, the PRC has aided NATO and has not taken action that would make up for that in terms of international anti-colonial liberation.
The PRC is still probably the best bet as a force for making the world better, but the current PRC is a far cry from the USSR and the pre-split PRC.
"raw opinion with no backing" lol being dismissive of an astonishingly well read author in a book with an enormous catalogue of valuable citations building a basic concept of class struggle and showing how it's succeeded in history empirically. Good luck with that.
I can recreate his arguments if I mist, but you're just arguing at a different level. What does "restoration" mean in a context where political and economic power are delineated?
"Cope". Well buzz off and read the book. You're responding to something you entirely misunderstand. You act like me offering you a book to read was an argument in itself. What colonialism is China benefitting from?
Your view of international class struggle is also very limited to current obvious contradictions and entirely missing the context of a history leading to this, a huge set of systems which undergird the relationships, and the real ways things change. I'd say that summarizes your mistake with regards to class struggle in China too tbh
I should say I'm also sad that China isn't doing more directly right now for Gaza in a direct way. I also understand simultaneously how a long term strategy to prevent the coming genocides can be regarded as more achievable given China's relationships to the situation beforehand and now. I'm skeptical of China for that reason, but the argument you've made are just swings and misses, entirely missing why it's Happening