China cannot do any international power projection until they deal with the Taiwan issue first. As long as reunification is not complete, America can keep using that island as a wedge against China, both in geopolitical manoeuvring and economic trade/ warfare.

And even in the case of Taiwan where China actually DOES do power projection, they would rather resort to peaceful means of getting what they want (soft power through economic integration, diplomatic warming, cultural exchanges, and buying out Taiwanese politicians, military officers, and businesspeople) than the American brute force method of using military invasion, gunboat diplomacy, and sanctions.

Of course, this could change as the so-called Davidson window closes next year and China finally reaches military parity with the USA, but they still have to deal with the empire being on their doorstep before doing anything more to help countries like Cuba.

Oh, I don’t disagree with that, I’m more peeved at all the Western leftists that continue to uphold someone who has always held a complete and utter distain towards AES in the same vein Slavoj Zizek does.

I won’t deny he made significant contributions to the field of linguistics, although his rationalist position on the Human language is debatable, but in regard to geopolitics and socioeconomics? My guy, Michael Parenti’s works and lectures are right there. Hell, there are a plethora of Western Marxist thinkers in the last century that have far better input on how Base and Superstructure operates than Chomsky ever did. Even fucking Einstein had better takes on Socialism than he did.

Just because Chomsky is more popular and his works are cited more by liberals, doesn’t mean he should be lauded by anyone on the left as an arbiter of ‘socialist’ thought. Especially when his views on AES have always been downright reactionary and orientalist (no, not “in his late years” but for decades), calling states like the DPRK “the most horrible regime in Human history” and China “a very brutal society, a brutal government. I don’t feel any particular interest in improving relations with it.”.

As someone who descended from a family who came from that “very brutal society” I do not have any qualms denouncing someone like Chomsky who peddles bigoted views against non-western societies.

Also, I think simply calling him a “pedophile sympathizer” is minimizing his complicity don’t you think? You’re acting as if he just questioned age of consent laws or expressed sympathy to Epstein when what he really did was actively collaborate with and defend a Billionaire paedophile that he was VERY close with. He even received tens of thousands of dollars from Epstein to fund his linguistic academic pursuits lmao. Even if you ignore the whole pedo ring, he was still an active class collaborator with the American bourgeoisie (which honestly, explains his anti-communist views a lot). He may be an intellectual, but an ally of the socialist left he is not.

Perhaps most strikingly, in late February 2019, Epstein represented to an associate that he had gotten advice from Chomsky over how to navigate “the horrible way you are being treated in the press and public”.

“The best way to proceed is to ignore it,” Chomsky wrote, according to text signed under his first name that Epstein sent to a lawyer and publicist. “That’s particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder.”

How did anyone ever consider this guy an intellectual giant of the Western left is beyond me.

Hahaha silly Amerikanski it was me all along, now face the wall

Did the Romans care that the Senate and their patrons destroyed the legitimacy of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC? No, they just moved on and allowed them to create the Roman Empire which lasted for another 400 years.

I like to think we’ve moved on from antiquity, but the mentality of the average American is making me question this. As the saying goes, history repeats itself…

Not sure what BanMeFromPosting was referring to but I found this Reddit post that shows screenshots from the Epstein files that contained photos taken by medics on scene the night Epstein was found dead.

(CW: Deceased person, evidence of suicide/ murder)

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1qtk8hu/ive_found_in_epstein_files_moments_right_after/

It looks like Epstein to me, but the comments think the lacerations from the hanging are suspicious.

I never trusted that democrat supporting “anarchist”, dude wrote one good book about how US propaganda works then decided to help propagate it himself lmao.

It’s a fucking crime that Parenti dies and hardly anybody outside of socialist circles knows of him, while this fucking ghoul is still alive and kicking and mainstream Western press suck his dick.

Chomsky should be rightfully cast into the dust bin of history the same way leftists do to Orwell.

It’s not a matter of copy pasting policy, it’s a matter of making sure you’re actually governing in the interests of the working class. And I do not see how Rodriguez’ sudden turn towards further privatization of the oil industry (which again, is their biggest economic output and the main source of their economic sovereignty) by American corporations is anything but an appeasement of the US empire and a betrayal of the will of the people. Having a different history does not mean you excuse a shift towards further Neoliberalism. China is rightfully criticized by many on Hexbear for their continuation of pro-market/ right deviationist policies, there is zero reason to exclude Venezuela from this.

The fact that Venezuela is not even a Marxist-Leninist state (and therefore do not approach Socialism from a scientific lens like Cuba and China do) means that we should be extra critical of the Venezuelan state, in much the same way we should be critical of Iran or Russia despite all three being anti-imperialist. Of course, it would be nice if I was proven wrong on this and Rodriguez was playing 6D chess against Trump, but that is not how dialectical materialists think.

Asking a nominally socialist government to do the bare minimum of seizing control of the legislature from the bourgeoisie and not letting western companies just straight up control your biggest economic output is an “ultra” take?

If that’s your standard for what’s considered “ultra” I guess Cuba and even China are run by ultras then.

Purge all of the capitalist opposition that is still allowed in their legislature, for one. Stop implementing socdem policies and actually collectivize their resource sector, for another. You know, stuff that another socialist state just across the Caribbean did ages ago.

You know the tides are starting to turn against US hegemony when their paid anti-China/ anti-communist propagandists are starting to say shit like this. FYI he also recently moved back to China which makes the grift even more obvious.

Well if Xi is planning to take Taiwan soon, I hope to hell he’s found his Marshal Zhukov by next year.

It’s also interesting that the one military officer he keeps on the CMC just so happens to be in charge of the military’s anti-corruption body. Perhaps to signal to the rest of the military leadership to obey party discipline and you’ll keep your position?

Another angle of the recent ICE execution in Minneapolis shows one of the agents clapping. You don’t see the victim or what they’re shooting at but still NSFW.

I don’t think this was seen from the other two publicly available recordings as they were taken from vertical vantage points relative to the scene, whereas this video was shot from a horizontal POV just a few metres down the street.

We already know that ICE agents are fully on board ideologically with the fascist state’s subjugation and terrorizing of the masses, but I think this event will completely dispel the notion for the vast majority of Americans that these people are “just following orders” or that they were forced to do it because they’re poor or some military vet with ‘PTSD’ who could only find honest work with the American Gestapo (cough Graham Platner cough).

Make no mistake, these people enjoy doing this, they are your class enemy, and don’t let any lib tell you otherwise.

The last great Western Marxist scholar of the 20th Century finally parts ways with this world. A part of me wishes he could’ve lived long enough to see the end of the American empire and the triumph of AES, but then again maybe it’s a mercy for him to bow out before things get worse for those he knew personally or having to witness the USA commit nuclear apocalypse in WW3.

Red Salute to you Mr Parenti, may the future generations vindicate everything you ever spoke of in pursuit of the better world we all strive for.

Ah, so basically the Iranian version of the also US-funded HRIC (Human Rights in China) pulling death toll figures out of thin air and claiming the government did a ‘massacre’ just like the HRIC does anytime they bring up Tiananmen Square.

At least Al Jazeera uses a more realistic figure of “hundreds” and doesn’t immediately blame the government for the bloodshed.

So I’ve been seeing reports from Western media that “thousands” of Iranians have been killed in the recent protests. What I don’t understand is how any Western outlet could possibly know this when there is still a total internet blackout in Iran which prevents almost no info coming out. Can anyone here verify the accuracy of these claims? Is it just CIA/ Mossad assets spreading misinformation to manufacture consent for a potential US/ Israel attack?

If he defected to the DPRK he would have been executed by now.

On a more positive note, the article shares this incredibly based quote from a former Bethesda PR-head:

During an interview with Vice News which centered on this outrage, Bethesda’s then-director of PR, Pete Hines, told the outlet, “Unless you’re a Nazi, there should be nobody who’s opposed to the idea of being against Nazis.” When told that the game’s aggressive marketing tone might be poking the hornet’s nest, Hines even doubled down, saying, “Maybe a little bit, but the hornet’s nest is full of Nazis so…fuck those guys. I’ll poke a Nazi hornet’s nest.”

I hope the company still has people like this working in it.