Credit: https://youtube.com/post/UgkxH5MfKu0iw011O64mQEl8xTfVdgH8afdc

Right now, people keep asking, "Why don't Americans go on strike?" And even more Americans keep giving common excuses:

Fear. Fear of losing housing, healthcare, a job. Fear of losing the little stability they think that they still have. But the question that no one is asking is: "who taught us that not acting was safe?"

While fear isn't irrational, it is political. Under capitalism, survival is individualized. Housing is private. Healthcare is tied to employment. Food and safety are commodified, so risk feels personal instead of collective.

"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness."

When people are forced to survive alone, they begin to think alone. Which is absolutely not human nature, but rather a system producing obedience.

This is why some of the most defeatist arguments come from people who still think they have something to lose.

Lenin identified this contradiction: He wrote that layers of relative comfort inside capitalism often produce hesitation rather than resistance. Because the insecurity is masked. This is a hostage psychology.

This is also something that Marxists call silent compulsion or mute compulsion. Workers not held in place primarily by force but by contradictions that punish resistance automatically.

When you lose your job, your healthcare, your housing, the system disciplines you without needing soldiers on the street. And this is exactly what makes people say "this will never work" before it even begins.

But history contradicts defeatism. This is where this sort of American amnesia becomes dangerous. Let's talk about Seattle, the city that I live in.

You may notice this poster behind me at times, commemorating the Seattle general strike in 1919, the very first general strike in the United States, where over 60,000 workers shut down the entire city.

Transportation and businesses stopped, workers organized food distribution and essential services. There were no modern labor protections, no unemployment insurance, and a real threat of military intervention.

They knew this and they did it anyways. And the only reason it ended was because leadership lacked consensus on how far to escalate it when the National Guard was sent in.

In retrospect, Anna Louise Strong said this (please pay attention, we must learn from this!):

"As soon as one of these workers was put on a responsible committee, he also wished to stop "before there was riot and blood".

The general strike put into our hands the organized life of the city - all except the guns.

We could last only until they started shooting; we were one gigantic bluff."

The workers had the power, but many were not yet prepared to use it fully.

We learn from this. We do better next time.

We also ignore that strikes built modern America. Almost every protection working people still have in the United States exists because workers did strike. These gains were not gifts from the states, but concessions extracted under threat. Our threat.

And then globally, workers have not just improved conditions, but reshaped entire governments. All organized responses to unbearable conditions.

And across that history, workers have mobilized under conditions worse than those we face now. No protections, no guarantees, constant open violence. They weren't striking because it was safe to do so, because there was a backup plan, something to fall on.

They struck because doing nothing already killed them. It got them where they are.

We can't let fear have the authority. Are we going to let them get that far? That's what we're doing by sitting back and saying "Uh, we could never do it. It'll never happen. I might lose my job."

You'll lose your job when they kill you anyways!

What we're living with today is alienation, loss of third spaces, collapse of unions, erasure of that working class history, and an ideology that tells us survival is personal responsibility.

Antonio Gramsci gave us the clearest framework for this moment:

Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.

Revolutionary optimism is not pretending that things are easy. It's recognizing that keeping what little crumbs we have under these conditions guarantees our loss.

We are already losing what we're afraid to lose.

And right now, I'm speaking mostly to the privileged who are only just now fearing realizing they could lose something. Many before you didn't have anything to begin with.

So, are we going to lose the crumbs we have quietly? Or together, with intention, with memory of the past, with solidarity with one another?

We need to transform our conditions and become something greater. We deserve better. Don't give up. Don't give in to nihilism and defeat.

In this damning report, Kit Klarenberg exposes criminal tactics by CIJA, one of the most influential US and EU-funded groups behind the dirty war on Syria

After CIJA fell under a corruption investigation from EU regulators, its director, William Wiley, hatched a paranoid scheme to paint the investigators as Russian puppets, while enlisting a former MI6 agent to spy on and menace a former employee he accused of blowing the whistle on his crooked operation

On top of it all, CIJA appears to have manipulated evidence and tampered with witness statements to generate case files that led to wrongful terrorism prosecutions of Syrian nationals in Europe

Just wanted to vent about this topic for a bit, because this is something that annoys me to no end. You see so many people complain nowadays about how China "stole" something from the West, whether that's technology or just some idea for a product.

So many times this is just racism, but yes, there are times when Chinese manufacturers were very likely inspired by a Western design. So what? Let's even assume that they added nothing of their own to it and just took the idea as-is (which is not usually the case; as we have seen by now, imitation is only the first step; eventually China learns and starts to innovate and even advance ahead of the West).

Even in those extreme cases, either the original product was not made anywhere near as cheaply, or as efficiently, or maybe even mass produced at all. Let's say someone showcases online some artisanal design of something cool they made, but never tried or intended to mass produce, and some manufacturer (doesn't even have to be in China, can even be in a Western country) decides to take that design and mass produce it and sell it, did they really do something wrong?

Did they "steal" anything? As in physically take something away from the original creator that they now no longer possess? No. On the contrary, they worked out how to actually produce that design in a way that is commercially viable, and provided the world with a product that people would not have had if this manufacturer had not taken up that idea and actually made it a mass produced reality.

So where is the "crime"? What would have happened if the first hominid who discovered how to make fire told all the other hominids: "Hey, you're not allowed to make fires, this was my idea and if you use it for your own benefit, it's stealing!". How about the first inventor of the wheel? "No, no one else can make wheels, else you're stealing my design! Even if i decide not to make any more of them than this one prototype."

Why do so many people nowadays accept this argument, when all throughout human history this sort of behavior would have gotten you laughed out of the village? Humanity progresses by sharing knowledge, by imitating and copying other people's ideas. And if someone can implement your own idea better than you yourself can, why shouldn't they?

This isn't theft. "Intellectual property" is the real theft: theft from humanity. Holding back progress because you could have made money off of it first, or even just because your ego demands recognition, is that justified? Is that something that we as a society should accept?

This criticism of course extends even more so to the level of corporations which go absolutely crazy with hoarding patents and copyrights, often to things which they didn't even create but just "bought the rights" to (a crazy, absurd concept btw...i mean even if you believe the originator of an idea should have a special right, how can anyone believe that this right is something that can be bought and sold!?), even long past the point when they themselves are no longer using these IPs to make money. I call this is a crime against humanity.

Also, so-called "piracy" of digital media has nothing to do with actual piracy, which is actually physically taking something by force from someone else. You don't take anything from anyone when you copy a sequence of ones and zeros. The original sequence is still there, you didn't delete it, you just duplicated it.

One of the biggest psyops ever pulled on us as a society is convincing us that making copies of existing digital media is somehow equivalent to "theft".

China has achieved in a few years what took ASML decades years to achieve. The imperialists are panicking. They are calling it "China's Manhattan Project":

In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence, smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned.

Completed in early 2025 and now undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company's extreme ultraviolet lithography machines or EUVs, according to two people with knowledge of the project.

EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold War. They use beams of extreme ultraviolet light to etch circuits thousands of times thinner than a human hair onto silicon wafers, currently a capability monopolized by the West^1^. The smaller the circuits, the more powerful the chips.

^1^Not anymore, lol

China's machine is operational and successfully generating extreme ultraviolet light, but has not yet produced working chips, the people said.

In April, ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet said that China would need "many, many years" to develop such technology.^2^ But the existence of this prototype, reported by Reuters for the first time, suggests China may be years closer to achieving semiconductor independence than analysts anticipated.

^2^How embarrassing to be proven wrong not even a year later.

Nevertheless, China still faces major technical challenges, particularly in replicating the precision optical systems that Western suppliers produce.

^This is cope.

The availability of parts from older ASML machines on secondary markets has allowed China to build a domestic prototype, with the government setting a goal of producing working chips on the prototype by 2028, according to the two people.

But those close to the project say a more realistic target is 2030, which is still years earlier than the decade that analysts believed it would take China to match the West on chips.

Because China is not at all known for completing ambitious plans ahead of schedule. Oh wait...

Chinese authorities did not respond to requests for comment.

Why would they?

The breakthrough marks the culmination of a six-year government initiative to achieve semiconductor self-sufficiency, one of President Xi Jinping's highest priorities. While China's semiconductor goals have been public, the Shenzhen EUV project has been conducted in secret, according to the people.

The project falls under the country's semiconductor strategy, which state media has identified as being run by Xi Jinping confidant Ding Xuexiang, who heads the Communist Party's Central Science and Technology Commission.

Chinese electronics giant Huawei plays a key role coordinating a web of companies and state research institutes across the country involving thousands of engineers, according to the two people and a third source.

The people described it as China's version of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. wartime effort to develop the atomic bomb.

“The aim is for China to eventually be able to make advanced chips on machines that are entirely China-made,” one of the people said. "China wants the United States 100% kicked out of its supply chains."

Huawei, the State Council of China, the Chinese Embassy in Washington, and China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology did not respond to requests for comment.

Please China or Huawei, hire me as your PR person, let me write the replies to the comment requests. I only need three words: "COPE AND SEETHE"

Until now, only one company has mastered EUV technology: ASML, headquartered in Veldhoven, Netherlands. Its machines, which cost around $250 million, are indispensable for manufacturing the most advanced chips designed by companies like Nvidia and AMD—and produced by chipmakers such as TSMC, Intel, and Samsung.

ASML built its first working prototype of EUV technology in 2001, and told Reuters it took nearly two decades and billions of euros in R&D spending before it produced its first commercially-available chips in 2019.

“It makes sense that companies would want to replicate our technology, but doing so is no small feat,” ASML told Reuters in a statement.

ASML's EUV systems are currently available to U.S. allies including Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.

Starting in 2018, the United States began pressuring the Netherlands to block ASML from selling EUV systems to China. The restrictions expanded in 2022, when the Biden administration imposed sweeping export controls designed to cut off China's access to advanced semiconductor technology. No EUV system has ever been sold to a customer in China, ASML told Reuters.

The controls targeted not just EUV systems but also older deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines that produce less-advanced chips like Huawei’s, aiming to keep China at least a generation behind in chipmaking capabilities.

The U.S. State Department said the Trump Administration has strengthened enforcement of export controls on advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment and is working with partners "to close loopholes as technology advances.”

The Dutch Ministry of Defence said the Netherlands is developing policies requiring “knowledge institutions” to perform personnel screenings to prevent access to sensitive technology “by individuals that have ill intentions or who are at risk of being pressured.”

Export restrictions have slowed China's progress toward semiconductor self-sufficiency for years, and constrained advanced chip production at Huawei, the two people and a third person said.

The sources spoke on condition they not be identified due to the confidentiality of the project.

CHINA'S MANHATTAN PROJECT

One veteran Chinese engineer from ASML recruited to the project was surprised to find that his generous signing bonus came with an identification card issued under a false name, according to one of the people, who was familiar with his recruitment.

Once inside, he recognized other former ASML colleagues who were also working under aliases and was instructed to use their fake names at work to maintain secrecy, the person said. Another person independently confirmed that recruits were given fake IDs to conceal their identities from other workers inside the secure facility.

The guidance was clear, the two people said: Classified under national security, no one outside the compound could know what they were building—or that they were there at all.

The team includes recently retired, Chinese-born former ASML engineers and scientists—prime recruitment targets because they possess sensitive technical knowledge but face fewer professional constraints after leaving the company, the people said.

Two current ASML employees of Chinese nationality in the Netherlands told Reuters they have been approached by recruiters from Huawei since at least 2020.

Huawei did not respond to requests for comment.

European privacy laws limit ASML's ability to track former employees. Though employees sign non-disclosure agreements, enforcing them across borders has proven difficult.

ASML won an $845 million judgment in 2019 against a former Chinese engineer accused of stealing trade secrets, but the defendant filed for bankruptcy and continues to operate in Beijing with Chinese government support, according to court documents.

ASML told Reuters that it “vigilantly guards” trade secrets and confidential information.

"While ASML cannot control or restrict where former employees work, all employees are bound by the confidentiality clauses in their contracts," the company said, and it has "successfully pursued legal action in response to the theft of trade secrets.”

Reuters was unable to determine if any legal actions have been taken against former ASML employees involved in China’s lithography program.

The company said it safeguards EUV knowledge by ensuring only select employees can access the information even inside the company.

Dutch intelligence warned in an April report that China "used extensive espionage programmes in its attempts to obtain advanced technology and knowledge from Western countries," including recruiting "Western scientists and employees of high-tech companies.”

The ASML veterans made the breakthrough in Shenzhen possible, the people said. Without their intimate knowledge of the technology, reverse-engineering the machines would have been nearly impossible.

Their recruitment was part of an aggressive drive China launched in 2019 for semiconductor experts working abroad, offering signing bonuses that started at 3 million to 5 million yuan ($420,000 to $700,000) and home-purchase subsidies, according to a Reuters review of government policy documents.

Recruits included Lin Nan, ASML's former head of light source technology, whose team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Shanghai Institute of Optics has filed eight patents on EUV light sources in 18 months, according to patent filings.

The Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics did not respond to requests for comment. Lin could not be reached for comment.

I love how absolutely no one wants to talk to Reuters. Get fucked propagandist scum.

Two additional people familiar with China’s recruitment efforts said some naturalized citizens of other countries were given Chinese passports and allowed to maintain dual citizenship.

China officially prohibits dual citizenship and did not answer questions on issuing passports.

Chinese authorities did not respond to requests for comment.

INSIDE CHINA'S EUV FAB

ASML's most advanced EUV systems are roughly the size of a school bus, and weigh 180 tons. After failed attempts to replicate its size, the prototype inside the Shenzhen lab became many times larger to improve its power, according to the two people.

The Chinese prototype is crude compared to ASML's machines but operational enough for testing, the people said.

^More cope.

China's prototype lags behind ASML's machines largely because researchers have struggled to obtain optical systems like those from Germany's Carl Zeiss AG, one of ASML's key suppliers, the two people said.

Oh yeah, i'm sure China will never figure out how to polish some lenses and mirrors... Germans have have superhuman abilities that no one could possibly replicate!

Zeiss declined to comment.

The machines fire lasers at molten tin 50,000 times per second, generating plasma at 200,000 degrees Celsius. The light is focused using mirrors that take months to produce, according to Zeiss' website.

China's top research institutes have played key roles in developing homegrown alternatives, according to the two people.

The Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CIOMP) achieved a breakthrough in integrating extreme-ultraviolet light into the prototype's optical system, enabling it to become operational in early 2025, one of the people said, though the optics still require significant refinement.

CIOMP did not respond to requests for comment.

In a March online recruitment call on its website, the institute said it was offering "uncapped" salaries to PhD lithography researchers and research grants worth up to 4 million yuan ($560,000) plus 1 million yuan ($140,000) in personal subsidies.

Good time to be a lithography researcher in China.

Jeff Koch, an analyst at research firm SemiAnalysis and a former ASML engineer, said China will have achieved "meaningful progress” if the “light source has enough power, is reliable, and doesn’t generate too much contamination.”

"No doubt this is technically feasible, it's just a question of timeline," he said. "China has the advantage that commercial EUV now exists, so they aren't starting from zero."

To get the required parts, China is salvaging components from older ASML machines and sourcing parts from ASML suppliers through secondhand markets, the two people said.

Networks of intermediary companies are sometimes used to mask the ultimate buyer, the people said.

Export-restricted components from Japan’s Nikon and Canon are being used for the prototype, one of the people and an additional source said.

Nikon declined to comment. Canon said it was not aware of such reports. The Japanese Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

International banks regularly auction older semiconductor fabrication equipment, the sources said. Auctions in China sold older ASML lithography equipment as recently as October 2025, according to a review of listings on Alibaba Auction, an Alibaba-owned platform.

A team of around 100 recent university graduates is focused on reverse-engineering components from both EUV and DUV lithography machines, according to the people.

Each worker's desk is filmed by an individual camera to document their efforts to disassemble and reassemble parts—work the people described as key to China's lithography efforts.

Staffers who successfully reassemble a component receive bonuses, the people said.

HUAWEI SCIENTISTS SLEEP ON-SITE

While the EUV project is run by the Chinese government, Huawei is involved in every step of the supply chain from chip design and fabrication equipment to manufacturing and final integration into products like smartphones, according to four people familiar with Huawei’s operations.

CEO Ren Zhengfei briefs senior Chinese leaders on progress, according to one of the people.

The U.S. placed Huawei on an entity list in 2019, banning American companies from doing business with them without a license.

Huawei has deployed employees to offices, fabrication plants, and research centers across the country for the effort. Employees assigned to semiconductor teams often sleep on-site and are barred from returning home during the work week, with phone access restricted for teams handling more sensitive tasks, according to the people.

Inside Huawei, few employees know the scope of this work. "The teams are kept isolated from each other to protect the confidentiality of the project," one of the people said. “They don't know what the other teams work on.”

What would our world look like without borders? A video on the history, politics, and human impact of global border regimes. How we manufacture “illegality,” why borders create inequality, what an abolitionist future could mean for all of us. Borders reinforce capitalism, racial hierarchy, and imperial power structures, and we think that a world with free movement is not only possible, but necessary.

A long-ish video but very thought provoking. Worth listening to if you have some time to spare.

"Where will you get a conception of society and progress in general if you have not studied a single social formation in particular, if you have not even been able to establish this conception, if you have not even been able to approach a serious factual investigation, an objective analysis of social relations of any kind? This is a most obvious symptom of metaphysics, with which every science began: as long as people did not know how to set about studying the facts, they always invented a priori general theories, which were always sterile." - What the “Friends of the People” Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats (1894)