Lots of comments saying that there's a "perception of a strong left" but I think that's also missing the point, alongside Finkelstein. I'm responding to them rather than Finkelstein because I don't even see an argument worth considering in what he's saying.

There's no relevant organised opposition to capital at this moment in the US, but the contradictions of capitalism are intensifying even in the core of the core.

People are struggling to make ends meet and taking 2 or 3 jobs, going bankrupt, saddled with debt. Students are occupying universities against Israel and Black Lives Matter does the occasional protest that is significantly large. Last years had the most labour strikes in a while. A guy shot down a healthcare CEO and is being unanimously praised as a hero.

And outside the core, the US is quickly losing its economic and cultural hegemony, which will require disciplined military action to maintain or regain.

So yes, there's a messy and disorganised opposition internally. It's angry and desperate but doesn't know how to put that hate into practice. And internationally there's a hell of a lot of opposition that'll require "order at home" to defeat. And fascism is useful for those things, though in the US case I believe fascism will win due to that lack of organisation.

Aimé Cesaire quote.

Whether one likes it or not, at the end of the blind alley that is Europe, I mean the Europe of Adenauer, Schuman, Bidault, and a few others, there is Hitler. At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophic renunciation, there is Hitler.

To be surprised is to not be paying attention.

Yoon trying a coup. Scholz cabinet collapsed. Almost 3 million signatures for a new election against Starmer. Trump elected and won the popular vote. And now this crisis.

I'm trying to keep an account of the dwindling legitimacy of NATO (or NATO+) regimes and it's happening so fast I can't keep track.

The USA is the leading tiktok-using country, I'll give them that. But according to this statista page, the following three countries already double the total of USA users.

That means ByteDance stands to lose way more by divesting themselves of TikTok than losing their USA audience. Not only are they isolating themselves diplomatically and economically from the rest of the world, now they're backing down in hubris culturally as well.

Although I really dislike the TikTok business model for obvious reasons, banning it on USA territory is going to be really nice for the whole TikTok ecosystem.

So, when poor oppressed Americans are going to start getting VPNs to escape their Great Firewall?

Putin and Xi browsing Reddit after that one.

Because this whole thing pissed me off a lot when it was approved, have the webpage of the bill for this law. Note how it passed unanimously in the senate.

Note that it also restricts property ownership for people from Russia, Syria, Venezuela, DPR Korea and Cuba.

Note also how vague the wording is on the definition of a "foreign principal".

It also requires those "foreign principals" that already own property to register themselves with the state government.

Move fast and break ribs.

Awful lot of Windows in this thread. Let me contribute. Yes, there are no icons because I didn't bother configuring it to display those, and I think it looks prettier that way.

A guy wearing a Guy Fawkes mask helping a cop wash tear gas off of his face is an image I never thought was possible. Zionists have managed become everybody's enemies.

Wasn't that why Venezuela got even more sanctioned to hell with their Petrocaribe program? IIRC a fuel crisis (due to the end of the aforementioned Petrocaribe) was also part of the conditions for the current Haitian situation. The USA can't expect to control the entirety of Central America through sanctions alone. Hope AMLO follows through on that promise and Mexico can weather the storm.

It's unfair to even call them "dating apps" as if a majority of the people in those apps even get to go on dates regularly with them. They're basically cassino slot machines, but with faces instead of symbols, and affection instead of money. Their entire business model is based around either keeping people scrolling or fooling people into paying thinking it'll help them find somebody. It won't, not only does it make people look extra desperate, it also creates a negative incentive to helping them find somebody.

So are we just supposed to allow (heck, even support!) Ukraine despite them implementing a system of modern slavery for their people, blocking civilians from fleeing, and forced conscription, some of it even slated to last even beyond the end of the war, because to even criticise it is "helping Russia"? Helping Russia do what, exactly? Look better than Ukraine? That's on Ukraine to be the big boy.

This is not Call of Duty, a war is waged for political reasons, and therefore the politics of it should be laid bare.