These quotes are all from Davison Budhoo’s 1988 public resignation letter from the IMF, “Enough is Enough”, which is around 100 pages long. He goes into detail on the institutional fraud in the IMF taking examples from around that time. It’s available on archive.org here and ProleWiki’s library here.

Unfortunately, I’m not very well-read on the topic (yet) so I don’t have much else I can point you to. I do know this site focuses on this topic: Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt. They have some articles like this: “The International Monetary Fund (IMF): an ABC.”. And I haven’t read these books yet, but they’re on my list to check out: “50 years is enough : the case against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund” and The World Bank : a critical primer.

Former IMF economist Davison Budhoo:

Once we set ourselves up as part of the State Machinery that would deny benefaction to certain groups while promoting the welfare of others - and we necessarily do this when we force the government to bite our bullet - we become, by definition, a domestic political force in the job of redistributing national wealth among social groups in a particular way that can enhance the effectiveness of our “program”. We may say that we are merely out to ensure that adequate adjustment occurs in the economy - ie, that “economic and financial balance” is restored - but that’s only a fancy way of saying that we are taking a direct hand in reallocating the national cake to suit our own purpose and that we are punishing certain groups and rewarding others so as to further our own cause.

You know, not so long ago, the colonial power, in circumstances where the colony concerned was perceived to be errant, would just go ahead and suspend the constitution and take over power directly and brazenly and unceremoniously. We don’t operate that way today; internationally that is unacceptable, and logistically it is impossible, but we get the same results through other means. And unlike the colonial power of yesteryear, we can fine-tune our intervention so that we take away today only those rights and constitutional guarantees that it is necessary to take away in order to achieve our immediate ends (which of course may change from time to time). In other words, we undermine constitutional rights gradually, and in a non-visible sort of way. And before we know it (if our relationship with the country concerned is intensive and sustained enough, and if we perceive that Great Things are at stake for us) we render the government naked and defenseless and on its knees before us, and we go about our business of doing absolutely as we please. And nobody, in retrospect, would seem to know how on earth we could have managed to subjugate both government and peoples thus, and how such a state of affairs could ever have been made to exist in the first instance.

More under spoiler tags:

Remember there is c/documentaries! You might find something good there too.

Taken for a Ride - The U.S. History of the Assault on Public Transport in the Last Century - This documentary takes a look at the old public transport system of Los Angeles and follows the step-by-step process by which it was dismantled by General Motors. IMO it’s a good one for seeing a concrete example of the actual steps that privatization can take – GM bought the streetcars after a campaign calling them inefficient/run down etc., then after buying them, let them degrade in quality and service, then replaced them with a supposedly superior bus system. Then they allowed the buses to give poor service, ultimately promoting individual cars over buses and highway expansions as the solution to traffic congestion.

Former CIA Agent John Stockwell Talks about How the CIA Worked in Vietnam and Elsewhere - This interview clip is only 15 minutes long but gives a very concise and specific example of how the CIA manipulates the media by having contacts with reporters and passing them a mixture of true and false stories, basically coming up with bullshit and fake photos that will go viral and spread CIA talking points while the “source” of the information becomes more and more obscured as the story is passed around different news agencies, as well as how the CIA have funded the production of countless books, whose authors were allowed to write whatever they wished as long as they included this or that specific point, and that these authors have gone on to have solid and respected careers in academia.

Cybersocialism: Project Cybersyn & The CIA Coup in Chile - From what I recall it gives a good overview of what happened in Chile. In my opinion, due to Chile’s case being so well-documented, it’s a case which people without a lot of background knowledge can start to learn about the process of CIA coups from and how it relates to protecting the interests of the bourgeoisie. A viewer of this documentary can then start applying that knowledge to many other cases where a similar pattern comes up (country tries to nationalize industries/resources which are in foreign imperialist hands => economic loan denial/asset freezes/sanctions are implemented by the imperialists & opposition groups and terrorists in the country are funded & coups are orchestrated by the imperialist power.)

The Human Face of Russia - Simply, lots of footage of everyday life in 1980s USSR. As I recall, it was a foreign group going there to film and fact-check about the living standards and learn about various political and social activities of the people. IIRC it was a pretty calm and positive documentary, a good one if you need some time away from more heavy and upsetting topics.

The Weight of Chains - About the breakup of Yugoslavia.

The U.S. School That Trains Dictators & Death Squads - About the School of the Americas.

Gaza Fights For Freedom - About the Great March of Return.

The Lobby - Four-part undercover investigation into Israel’s covert influence campaign in the United States.

My Life and Faith by Ri In Mo.

It’s the memoirs of a guy who grew up in rural poverty in Korea under Japanese colonization, and from a young age was involved in resistance movements, starting communist/anti-imperialist reading groups as a child, etc., and wanted and tried to join the guerrillas. After Korea’s liberation from Japan, he lived in DPRK’s early days until 1950 when the war escalated and he went to south Korea as a war correspondant. During his activities following this, he was captured and spent almost 40 years imprisoned in south Korea, being tortured along with other political prisoners in an attempt to get them to renounce communism. Finally in 1988, he was released, and then eventually repatriated to north Korea, where he wrote this memoir of his experiences.

I am only part way through this one, but so far I have found it a very interesting first person account of the liberation struggle against Japan and the early days of DPRK’s development in the post-liberation period prior to 1950, and the mentality of someone who grew up trying to find a way to end colonization by Japan since his childhood, and saw the resistance develop and participated in it, and saw the various reforms/developments being made under DPRK. I recommend it for anyone curious about Korean history or in reading the first person experiences of someone fighting colonial rule (at least from what I have read in it so far).

Also, coincidentally I just recently added a book by Gerald Horne to my reading list, but I have a few other things to get through first. He also has been interviewed several times on this channel though I have only seen one of the interviews and don’t know much about the channel.

Man I hate this dude

The history of the Middle East since 1948 shows Israel constantly striving for peace, only to be rebuffed time and again by the Arabs.

– Antony J. Blinken, “Lebanon and the Facts”, 1982

Israel is not, has never been, nor will ever be the irreproachable, perfectly moral state some of its supporters would like to see. Israelis are, after all, only human. Still, one pedestal the Jewish state can stand on–and stand on alone in the Middle East–is that of a democracy. Yes, there are tragic excesses in the occupied territories. True, the invasion of Lebanon claimed many innocent lives. The fact remains, though, that Israelis question themselves and their government openly and honestly. Eventually, as in other democracies, those responsible for wrongdoing are held accountable.

– Antony J. Blinken, “Israel’s Saving Grace”, 1982

The summer of 1982 may be remembered in history as the time Israel passed from adolescence to adulthood. The illusions of a child are left behind. But the Jewish state remains special, an oasis in a desert. Its citizens have built a working democracy from scratch in a region that has no others. Israelis must treasure that democracy, protect it with all their will. For if they don’t, the growing pains that are Lebanon, Shatila and Sabra, the repression of Arabs and the feud between Ashkenazim and Sephardim could turn into a plague.

– Antony J. Blinken, “The Danger Within”, 1983

I recommend Geopolitical Economy Report.

Edit: Just remembered there is also People’s Dispatch, whose articles I sometimes read, but they also have a YouTube channel. I haven’t really watched their videos though. Maybe someone else can comment further about it.

/c/socialistmusic: “A subreddit dedicated to sharing and appreciating music that is socialistic either in nature or in spirit.”

/c/tankietunes: “The music must apply to one or more of these categories: Communist Propaganda Music … Music from Socialist countries … from an anti-capitalist group supported by MLs … anti-capitalist songs and artists (real ones not grifters like Tupac, make sure of that), or music that is absent of politics entirely(shaky one here, don’t toe the line) like classical or instrumentals, and remixes of the previously listed items … You must put the Name of the song, and artist on the title (in that order).”

Personally, I like the simple rules of socialistmusic, which seems like if it has a socialist vibe (“in spirit”) you can post it. While it’s totally fine with me that tankietunes has such specific rules, it led me to personally not post there as much.

I do like having a catch-all socialist music sub for things like songs from labor union and civil rights movements, because sometimes those can be enjoyable or historically interesting, likewise for mainstream songs and anarchist songs and others which just strike the poster as socialist “in spirit” even if it wouldn’t qualify for tankietunes’ rules.

Edit: Just to clarify, I’m not making arguments for or against anything specific, just trying to lay out my initial thoughts.

Not sure of my favorite but check this out

Lyrebird mimics construction sounds

Yes, that link you posted says some of the info. Additionally, the “shot in Evers’ back” refers to the killing of civil rights activist Medgar Evers by a Klansman in 1963. The Klansman went to trial twice but was not convicted, and walked free. (Though was finally convicted in a 1994 retrial.)

And as your link says, “Mr. Charlie” is an old term for referring to condescending/abusive/exploitative white people.

I just found out about this guy today, and after a cursory look into his work, I thought of your post because it seems he is potentially covering this kind of thing, Prof. Oliver Boyd-Barrett. This page lists the courses he teaches as “The Political Economy of Mass Communication”, “The Political Economy of Hollywood and the Press”, and “Media Representation and Propaganda in Times of War and Terror”. And when I looked him up he has books titled (for example) “Media Imperialism”, “Approaches to Media”, “Conflict Propaganda in Syria: Narrative Battles”, “Western Mainstream Media and the Ukraine Crisis: A Study in Conflict Propaganda”.

Considering that I only just now found out about him, I can’t exactly vouch for his work, but he wrote this 2021 article about Ukraine which is how I found him.

Ultimately it means meet/talk with other people and engage in planning and work to accomplish something together, whether that thing is big or small.

Easiest thing to do is look around for people who are already organized, e.g., a party or other org focused on a particular issue. IMO if someone has no experience with organizing whatsoever, then they can benefit from joining almost anything, even something run by liberals, anarchists, etc., just simply to see what kind of dynamics are at play when people are trying to work together to accomplish something. A lot of orgs and such are not easy to find online. It’s better to just go to protests and demonstrations or to community projects and start meeting people and learning about what they are doing by word of mouth. People who are involved in organizing are typically going to be open to teaching/involving new people. A demonstration is the kind of place where people are purposely trying to educate and involve the public. Just don’t come across as a cop and be wary that some people trying to involve you in things might be cops themselves lol. Approach groups with a critical eye, join a small-scale/low-risk org whose goals you support to learn about the practical dynamics of how organizing works and to build up a network of acquaintances and friends, and keep learning from there. Trying to organize something from scratch with no experience is possible but if you don’t have a clear idea of what you’re doing nor have a group of other people who are keen and intrinsically motivated to work on the goal, it’s going to be pretty difficult.

Here’s a documentary about it that leaves out most of the blood and gore that you could easily find if you looked: Donbass (2016). You will see a bit of people being burned to death in this documentary and some other injuries but not to the extent you could find in other videos of the time.

Here’s a scene of the burning of the trade union building in 2014. Russian speakers were protesting regarding the repeal of a law which protected Russian as a minority language (or as the Ukrainian former soldier in the video states, they were “contesting a ban on the Russian language in Ukraine.”) The protestors hid in the trade union building when Ukrainian right wing nationalists showed up. Eventually, the Ukrainian nationalists set fire to the building and many of the protesters burned to death, with those who jumped out of the windows getting beaten to death by the Ukrainian nationalists. (See also: “Burnt Alive in Odessa”).

If you can stomach seeing bodies blown up in the streets, limbs removed, dead babies, and footage of people dying, there are other documentaries around which show it. It’s not hard to find footage like this from 2014 onwards. E.g., Result of a 2014 shelling by Ukrainian military (CW: Numerous dead bodies); More aftermath of a shelling (CW: Extremely graphic, numerous mutilated bodies, and footage of a person dying).

You can make up your own mind about the conflict’s particulars as you learn about it, but it’s a mistake to ignore events happening before 2022 or treat them as insignificant.

1. DPRK mainly uses its own intranet. You might be able to access the wider internet under some limited circumstances, but I’d say don’t count on having access.
2. You can go through a tour company, imo Young Pioneer Tours is one of the better ones which seems to offer a lot of variety/flexibility of travel options and are generally respectful in how they portray the country in their material. Afaik you can contact them to customize an individual trip or join a group tour. For a longer-term stay you might consider doing something like taking a Korean course for foreigners at a university, like this for example. It says the duration is 17-29 days.

I’d be really interested in reading that

Agreed, sadly the reactionary anti-feminist MRA stuff gets spread, while people really working on men’s liberation issues are often sidelined.

At this point the men’s rights groups are mainly doing harassment campaigns (leading to various cases of suicides), but outbursts like this have some precedent, e.g. in 2018: South Korean Women B‌‌e‌‌at‌e‌‌n Until S‌ku‌ll Ex‌po‌s‌e‌d For ‘Looking Like Feminists’ (some accounts of this say the women were making fun of the men, though obviously that doesn’t justify beating them), or this:

In August [2021], a South Korean man dressed as the Joker live-streamed himself harassing activists who had gathered in Daejeon city to protest against advertisers profiting from YouTube videos that promoted hatred against women.

His words were chilling: “I heard that there were f*****g feminists here; I’m going to murder them all.”

According to Lee Hyo-rin, from the women’s rights group Haeil, no passers-by stepped in as the man chased the activists down the street.

[…} Since the demonstration on August 22, Lee from Haeil has not been able to resume her normal life.

Her personal information and photographs were leaked on antifeminism forums online, and she was caught up in a violent cyber-harassment campaign that included death threats.

A report by local broadcaster SBS last month said a woman was asked about her opinion on feminism during a job interview. She was also asked whether men and women had distinct physical strengths and told to remove her face mask so the men who interviewed her “could judge her facial expressions”.

Eun, 24, told This Week in Asia she was asked whether feminism was the reason behind her short haircut during a job interview in Seoul earlier this year. The male interviewer said it did not fit the image expected of her by the company.

[…] Suicide rates among South Korean women in their 20s rose by more than 40 per cent last year, while the figures among men of the same age declined during the same period.

As for attacks on women in general (without the feminism component), those of course happen as well, e.g.: After another femicide, many Korean women say nowhere feels safe.

Note I haven’t carefully read the above articles nor am I informed enough on this issue to produce a thorough analysis, this is just to give the general idea of the tense environment around feminism and MRAs in south Korea’s public discourse, obviously these articles approach from a liberal lens.

Richard Medhurst posted a couple of videos recently talking about this:

Part 1 - “Israel and the United States want the giant amounts of gas in Gaza, and to create a rival to China’s New Silk Road.”

Part 2 - “Israel and the United States plan to turn Gaza into the “Ben Gurion Canal”, a rival to Egypt’s Suez Canal. This is about controlling the world’s most geostrategic shipping lane.”

When reading books written in the imperial core, about the enemies/targets of imperialist nations, I would keep this in mind:

Former CIA case officer John Stockwell: Well for example, in my war, the Angola war, that I helped to manage, one third of my staff was propaganda. […] We would take stories which we would write and put them in the Zambia Times, and then pulled them out and sent them to a journalist on our payroll in Europe. But his cover story, you see, would be what he had gotten from his stringer in Lusaka, who had gotten them from the Zambia Times. We had the complicity of the government of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda if you will, to put these false stories into his newspapers. But after that point, the journalists, Reuters and AFP, the management was not witting of it. Now, our contact man in Europe was. And we pumped just dozens of stories about Cuban atrocities, Cuban rapists–in one case we had the Cuban rapists caught and tried by the Ovimbundu maidens who had been their victims, and then we ran photographs that made almost every newspaper in the country of the Cubans being executed by the Ovimbundu women who supposedly had been their victims.

Interviewer: These were fake photos?

Stockwell: Oh, absolutely. We didn’t know of one single atrocity committed by the Cubans. It was pure, raw, false propaganda to create an illusion of communists, you know eating babies for breakfast and the sort. Totally false propaganda.

Interviewer: John, was this sort of thing practiced in Vietnam?

Stockwell: Oh, endlessly. A massive propaganda effort in Vietnam in the '50s and in the '60s, including the thousand books that were published–several hundred in English–that were also propaganda books sponsored by the CIA. Give some money to a writer, “Write this book for us, write anything you want, but on these matters, make sure, you know, you have this line.”

Interviewer: Writers in this country? Books sold and distributed in this culture?

Stockwell: Sure. Yeah. English language books, meaning an American audience as a target, on the subject of Vietnam and the history of Vietnam, and the history of Marxism, and supporting the domino theory, et cetera.

Interviewer: Without opening us up to a lawsuit, could you name one of them?

Stockwell: No, I could not. The Church Committee, when they found this out, demanded that they be given the titles so that the university libraries could at least go and stamp inside “Central Intelligence Agency’s version of history,” and the CIA refused because it’s been commissioned to protect its sources and methods, and the sources would be the authors who wrote these false propaganda books, some of whom are now distinguished scholars and journalists.

Source (video interview)

Also note:

• It’s a recognized problem in south Korea that “time and time again, conservative outlets and foreign media circulate and reproduce rumors [about DPRK] based on questionable sources … retractions and apologies are rarely ever provided when the reports are shown to be false” and “Sometimes, the South Korean government itself has been the epicenter of false reports … The situation has been made worse by defector groups aggressively proliferating claims from unverified ‘North Korean sources,’ as if attempting to draw attention to themselves.”

• South Korea’s national intelligence service (NIS) forges documents to frame people and tortures them into false confessions as well as pays defectors for sensational stories and harasses and silences people who say positive things about DPRK (and takes away their passports so they can’t go back, even when they came to south Korea against their will)

• UN human rights researchers who have worked directly with defectors from DPRK have written about how testimonies are made unreliable by cash incentives paid by the NIS and other organizations: “North Korean refugees are well aware of what the interviewer wants to hear. … The more terrible their stories are, the more attention they receive. The more international invitations they receive, the more cash comes in. It is how the capitalist system works: competition for more tragic and shocking stories. … In my 16 years of studying North Korean refugees, I have experienced numerous inconsistent stories, intentional omission and lies. I have also witnessed some involved in fraud and other illicit activities. In one case the breach of trust was so significant that I could not continue research.”

Edit: So, to summarize – Former CIA case officers have discussed how they pay academics and journalists to write thousands of books about foreign communist enemies that contain whatever content the author wants as long as it pushes certain specific lines; the CIA regularly plants false stories into foreign newspapers and gets them circulated around; the NIS (formerly the “KCIA”, formed on the US-backed side during the Korean War to combat communists) is known to forge documents, extract false confessions, pay people to lie or embellish to the point that mainstream south Korean liberal media and UN researchers say it’s making it too hard to tell what’s true; defectors with sensational stories receive payments and get book deals and international speaking tours while people with positive things to say get arrested and surveilled by intelligence agencies…So, keep that info in mind as you consider what’s going on with these books.

The New Atlas touches on and reads some quotes from this paper a bit in this video: https://www.yewtu.be/watch?v=MWzF5NvFdOs&t=2507s (@41:54)

A very normal quote from the paper:

…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.)

An example of what’s discussed in the New Atlas video:

[Brian Berletic speaking about the paper] They also laid out the the whole Iran nuclear deal, they didn’t mention it by name, but they were talking about a deal they would propose to Iran, deliberately sabotage, blame its failure on Iran, and then use that as a pretext for military aggression. So it says, “in a similar vein any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper International context both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to and minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support, however grudging or covert, is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer”–and they’re talking about a widespread conviction–not an understanding of a fact, but the belief in a US fabricated lie–so they say to “strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer, one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down” because, for the wrong reasons they admit in this paper–and many other policy papers, including from the Rand corporation–that if Iran ever did have nuclear weapons they would be used solely as a deterrent.

It says, “under those circumstances the United States or Israel could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians brought it upon themselves by refusing a very good deal.” I mean remember shortly after this paper was published, under the Obama Administration the Iran nuclear deal was proposed. Eventually it was signed, it was implemented, the Iranians adhered to it, and then under the Trump Administration it was the US unilaterally withdrew from it, blaming Iran, just as the Brookings institution spelled out. And the Biden administration was supposed to reinstate it, but of course that was never going to happen because that was not the plan as laid out by the real policy makers of US foreign policy, these unelected, corporate-funded think tanks.

These think tanks produce these policy papers, teams of lawyers craft parts of these policy papers into bills, the bills go with lobbyists to Washington to be rubber stamped–many people in Washington don’t even read them–and then the bill is sent to the corporate media to sell these policies to the public. It’s very important to understand how the US really operates where foreign and domestic policy really stem from. Not your elected representatives, unfortunately. The fact that this Brookings institution ploy to propose sabotage, unilaterally withdraw from and then use a deal with Iran as a pretext for military aggression transcended the Obama, Trump, and Biden Administration. This demonstrates the continuity of US foreign policy regardless of who sits in the White House and whoever is running Congress.

I’m glad you found it worthwhile!