Here are some news sites I found and some context. Others much more knowledgeable than I can provide a better summary, but I hadn't seen a response yet so thought I'd give it a shot.

After the Second Civil War, a unity government called the Government of National Unity (GNU) came to power. This is the government of the prime minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh

According to their own website

The “Stability Support Apparatus” [SSA] was established by decision of the Presidential Council No. 38 of 2021, and Mr. Abdelghani Belqacem Khalifa was assigned to head the apparatus.

And as Reuters puts it,

SSA is under the Presidential Council, which came to power in 2021 with the Government of National Unity (GNU) of Abdul Hamid Dbeibah through a UN-recognised process

It appears to be a militia under the GNU. Perhaps that isn't the correct framing though and others can provide a correction.

There is also a rival government, the Government of National Stability which is backed by the House of Representatives and is based in the east of the country. This government hasn't appeared in the stories I've seen yet, but it may come into play eventually.

The current events surround the death of the leader of the SSA

Armed groups clash in Libyan capital

Head of UN-backed government’s security force reportedly killed

According to Al Jazeera, Abdul Ghani al-Kikli, head of the UN-backed government’s Stability Support Apparatus (SSA), was killed in a firefight in southern Tripoli. The incident reportedly took place inside the headquarters of the 444th Combat Brigade after “failed negotiations.”

Local media reported fighting and troop movements in the Abu Salim and Mashrou neighborhoods. Al Jazeera cited witnesses as saying that soldiers from the 111th and 444th brigades stormed the SSA headquarters, with gunfire and explosions heard in various parts of the city.

According to Al Arabiya, militias from Misrata and other cities began moving toward Tripoli last week

The SSA was established in 2021 by the Government of National Unity to maintain security in the capital and combat organized crime.

Libya descended into civil war in 2011 after a NATO-backed uprising that resulted in the death of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

The last major clashes between militia groups in Tripoli occurred in August 2023, leaving 55 people dead and nearly 150 injured. In February 2025, State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Adel Juma survived an assassination attempt.

Heavy gunfire, clashes in Libya’s Tripoli after killing of militia leader

The United Nations has called for urgent de-escalation in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, as rival gunmen exchanged fire in the city’s southern districts after the killing of a powerful militia leader

Al Jazeera’s Malik Traina, reporting from Libya’s Misrata, said security sources had confirmed the killing of Abdel Ghani al-Kikli, widely known as “Gheniwa”, who is the head of the powerful Stability Support Authority (SSA) militia.

Al-Kikli was one of the capital’s most influential militia leaders and had recently been involved in disputes with rival armed groups, including factions linked to Misrata.

SSA is under the Presidential Council, which came to power in 2021 with the Government of National Unity (GNU) of Abdul Hamid Dbeibah through a UN-recognised process.

Traina said that at least six people have been wounded, although it remains unclear whether they are security force members or civilians.

The GNU’s media platform said early on Tuesday that the Ministry of Defence had fully taken control of the Abu Salim neighbourhood.

Two others told Reuters that the gunfire was echoing all over their neighbourhoods of Abu Salim and Salah Eddin.

State of emergency declared in Tripoli after senior officer’s death

Violent clashes erupted in Tripoli after the death of security officer Abdul Ghani Al-Kalaki, prompting Libya’s GNU to declare a state of emergency.

The officer, Abdul Ghani Al-Kalaki, believed to be affiliated with GNU security forces, was killed under unclear circumstances. His death sparked widespread violence in several districts of Tripoli, with residents reporting sustained gunfire and explosions as rival armed factions exchanged fire throughout the night

Mitiga International Airport — Tripoli’s main airport — announced a full suspension of air traffic. Incoming flights were diverted to Misrata Airport, located east of the capital.

The unrest prompted the University of Tripoli to suspend all academic and administrative operations, including classes and examinations, until further notice. Several other institutions in the capital have also paused their services

Whenever things feel too down or Imperialism feels too powerful, I keep in mind the article that 72Trillion posted months ago (and others have shared)

https://reportofanimals.com/2024/11/05/the-demiurge-does-not-exist/

72's post and summary is found here:

https://hexbear.net/post/3937061

Essentially it is an argument against pessimism - feeling as if imperialism is some all powerful 10d chess master demirge who always comes out on top. And for revolutionary optimism grounded in historical materialism and an analysis of the current situation.

There is reason to be optimistic. (Though in the short term I definitely feel you when it comes to doom. Our moment is a sad and painful one.)

Portraying or pointing to the inequalities and abuses of capitalism has to come with the practical solutions to these problems, otherwise it is an exercise in despair – an informed despair, yet despair nonetheless. ...  Something missing from documentaries and books like Shadow World is the premise that despite the overwhelming power of the U.S Empire, it is inevitable that it will fall.

and the article goes on in much detail to argue this not from some "everything must come to an end" angle but from an analysis of the real decline of US power and the emergence of alternatives. From the unsustainablility of imperialism itself as a system.

Essentially the author offers a critique of fetishizing power. Treating it as if exists in itself and can perpetuate itself without material limits.

And like others here have argued. I really respect shipwreck and their knowledge. They add a lot to this mega. But I often have this feeling that their focus of analysis treats finance as if it is the end-all be-all power. I believe they've even said that money is the closest thing to magic we've encountered. And I don't know enough to articulate my views, so i can't offer much more than vibes, but I fear that too much of an emphasis on finance and money, without an analysis of production and labor falls risk of fetishizing financial power. Money only has power because if can direct social labor. And it is this labor, i.e the people themselves, where real power lies and real change lies.

The brilliance of a work like Marx’s Capital is that it demonstrates the sheer power of capitalism, its ability to extract immense quantities of wealth and social control, while simultaneously showing the power of labour, the protagonist who will break its chains and bring in the next necessary stage in human development

I try to keep that in mind when others give the impression there's some 10d financial move that people say will secure the next thousand year American Reich.

The demiurge does not exist. Even if its presence is felt.

Our optimism ... is justified by the new world emerging before our eyes. Challenges and contradictions will remain, History never ends, but we should hold dear to the knowledge that it is progressing.

It's happened at my workplace, we all got the email today to remove any and all 'gender ideology'

No, history is over now. Materialism is dead. The old rules no longer apply. We have the internet, cell phones, and reddit upvotes. It's uncharted territory

Every four to eight years Americans' brains reset and they have to learn all of the same painful lessons from scratch. Repeat forever

Third Impact

Caussidiere for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Mountain of 1848 to 1851 for the Mountain of 1793 to 1795, the Nephew for the Uncle, and the CHESTER'S® for the Cheeto

There are many different interpretations and solutions to the transformation problem (how are values "transformed" into prices). They range from ignoring it, making it more qualitative, reworking the math or definitions of value, etc. I'm not versed enough in all different interpretations, but one that I feel that I "get" and could explain is that offered by Ian Wright. Though his politics are too Trot for me, his correction of the transformation problem makes sense to me and I've wondered about doing a write up on it. It is under the framework of Input Output analysis with natural prices (equilibrium prices that act as an "gravitational attractor" for long term prices, this is also in the sphere of work done by economists such as Sraffa and Pasinetti), and he effectively takes Anwar Shaikh's critique of Sraffa's students (the Neo Ricardians) and applies this critique to their own model to show how the labor values of a good gives you natural prices but it requires care to ensure one is using the appropriate commensurate measure of labor in a commodity.

Effectively his response, and that of Shaikh from what I can tell, is that the profit of capitalists appears as if it comes out of nowhere and can't be explained by the standard definition of labor value in Sraffa's economic model. But the profit that capitalists make (after spending on means of production) get spent back into the economy (in the sphere of circulation) on real use values (say for their class consumption) which have a labor content due to being products of labor. If you "complete that path" of capitalist consumption goods back to their source (labor) and add that labor back into the labor content of a commodity, then boom - labor values march natural prices in Sraffa's own model.

In other other terms: the standard view of a labor value is the amount of labor needed to create one unit of net output (the quantity of goods available for consumption after reinvesting some portion of them as materials for production). So this is labor that's directly required for the production of the unit net good plus labor for the materials required for the unit net good. But, capitalists consume part of this net product and laborers only consume part of it. If the prices of the unit net good matched this measure of labor then prices would be low enough that workers could theoretically buy back with their money-wage their entire net product - leaving none for the capitalists. Some "markup" appears to exist and classical Sraffian model couldn't explain this markup in terms of labor.

But if you measure a "non-standard" labor value (a la Wright) as the amount of labor needed to produce the commodities that only the working class consumes then you get a labor value that also explains this mysterious "markup".

A non-standard labor value counts the amount of labor that is directly and indirectly required to produce a good due to technical conditions, but also the amount of (surplus) labor that is socially/institutionally required by workers to create their real wage (i.e. their consumed product)

I don't claim to understand all of it, or be the best at explaining it. So my apologies for the difficulties. But it is an explanation that meshes with me, and my math-brain seems to get it (the original papers require knowledge of Linear Algebra). It also "cleans up Sraffa's and Pasinetti's economic work and brings that back into alignment with Marx.

Wright also has a dynamic version of this description which better gets at what is usually meant when people say a labor theory of value (the feedback loop between prices, values, and social division of labor)

Yeah I was unpleasantly surprised by their comments. When you value human life that little to the point that you give Hitler a pass because he shares your love of dogs... Shit fascists say

Bookstores make me cry.

Thanks!!