I read Superimperialism last year. I think it’s a very important theory with regards to the last century of global politics and economics. It puts into context how we got to where we are today and gives some ideas on how to get out of it. It was a bit of a slow read for me without much academic knowledge on economics but at some point I will read Global Fracture in which Hudson covers the post-gold standard events.
I also like listening to his interviews and this new podcast series. When it comes to money and economics they’re aren’t many other people as interesting and as correct as Hudson.
The things I’d be cautious of are his insistence on mixed systems, the importance of industrial capital (as opposed to financial capital), and his liberal takes on AES. He’s not a principled ML by any means, even though he meaningfully and insightfully extended and expanded Lenin’s theory of imperialism.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my favourite are the 90s kids from eastern Europe who say they experienced the horrors of true socialism.
Anecdotally, I also know a few Gen Xers who grew up in the DDR and they’re all very proud of how exploited they are in the free west.
This guy probably gets what he thinks is a decent salary so he’ll say whatever to keep the job. Doesn’t hurt that he got brainwashed by the imperial military.
The recent Geopolitical Economy Hour on inflation comes to mind. In terms of written works I’m drawing a blank today. In general it’s also a topic I’m interested in.
I do for all my machines except the daily driver and at work.
I want to switch over my main system to Linux but I’m putting it off because I feel like I need a full day or two to just transfer simple things like browser info, save games, find utility apps, etc. Plus a bunch of games that I like playing still don’t work on Linux. I also haven’t looked into how to attempt to play “unlicensed” games on Linux yet.
It was definitely one of the final nails in the coffin, in terms of public opinion at least. There was already a lot of anti-nuclear campaigning and sentiment leading up to that point in time (the sixties-seventies environmental movement was all against it But of course the anti-nuclear lobby (ie. oil companies) leveraged the existing anti-communist cultural context to make nuclear seem even more undesirable than it already was after Chernobyl. So much for “atoms for peace” and electricity “too cheap to meter.”
Not quite, but it’s quite onerous. The US taxes based on citizenship, not residency. That being said, unless you’re making well above average or have lots of property, you don’t have much tax liability. In order to renounce your US citizenship you need to already have another citizenship, make sure your tax returns are bulletproof, and pay over $2000. In any case, you have the annual stress of filing an extra tax declaration, and a lot of non-US banks won’t take you as a client because they would have too much regulatory liability.
I recently learned that of the reasons for this neocolonial population control is to make sure that over-exploited regions don’t become problematic once their natural resources are fully extracted.
Over-exploited countries are essentially forced to be dependent on the US for food. They pay for that food with some of the money generated via resource extraction. They have no agriculture of their own beyond cash crops like cocoa or coffee, which obviously cannot feed people. So once those resources are gone, the money to import food is gone, and these countries will have to experience some pretty serious population reduction before local agriculture can sustain the remaining population.
It’s not just individual malthusian billionaires peddling this either, this has been official World Bank and IMF policy since the seventies at least.
Maybe I’m too much of a techno-optimist, but I see the possibility of a sustainable population in the tens if not hundreds of billions. That doesn’t require any technological breakthroughs either, we can do it with what we have already discovered and developed.
Of course in order to have a change at doing that we need a society where sustainability in all aspects is incentivised and kept in focus.
The TikTok algorithms do seem to be better, and there’s some manual boosting of creators in the background as well. It’s also just a new platform and there’s a certain draw and hype to that as well.
Another element is that Facebook just can’t compete anymore. They’re not an innovative upstart, they’re an ossifying tech monopoly. Their growth strategy for a while was buy them if you can’t beat them (Instagram for example). But they can’t buy TikTok.
This whole anti TikTok campaign works in the favour of both the US social media monopolies and the military intelligence industrial complex. The monopolies get rid of competition and the intelligence agencies continue to have easy access to the personal information of basically everyone.
I assume it’s just the standard western liberal whining about Disney and other big US movie producers reportedly cutting out “woke” scenes and characters in order to please “CCP censors.” There’s no factual basis to it, as always, but that never stopped a lib from taking the opportunity to be anti-China.
I have a lot of the same struggles. I feel like I got a lot of my “humanist” values (compassion, empathy, desire for everyone to do well) from my mother. And I know she genuinely wants to be a good person as well.
She doesn’t engage with “politics” (ie. party politics) but just about everything she engages with on social media and in her social circles is far right. Even so, when I talk about socialism or communism, without saying those words specifically, she’s on board.
I guess all I’m saying is I hear you and you’re not alone out there. Maybe we have some differing strategies that may work to break through a little bit more, and at least expose the evil of this far right ideology.
Given the thoughts and information in my head right now it’s a toss up between Truman and Johnson. From what I’ve been learning, the American industrialists and financiers who had been collaborating with the Nazis may have been treated extremely differently had Wallace been VP when FDR died - up to and including charged with treason. Instead, Truman oversaw the creation of the modern intelligence agencies headed by some of those very same Nazi collaborators, and gave the order to use nuclear weapons. Later on, JFK was resisting the entire intelligence and military complex advice on basically all foreign affairs, to the point where LBJ was getting briefings JFK wasn’t. The warmongers behind the scenes knew who would and wouldn’t listen to them. One of the last things JFK did as president was emphatically state that there would be no military action with regards to Vietnam. Then he got shot, Johnson became president, and all the MIC’s hopes and dreams came true.
As I’ve come to understand it, Nixon was more or less forced to establish relations with the PRC due to the “dollar dilemma” and related monetary issues. Of course Kissinger probably thought he could use the Sino-Soviet split as a wedge to get China onto his side as well, but the impetus of the whole thing was balance of payments and the contemporary birth of the treasury bill dollar standard.
Seriously, like how much of Linux (and “free” software more broadly) development is funded by the US military-intelligence-surveillance industrial complex? Red Hat/IBM for one is all up in that. You know, the IBM that supplied the Nazis with their census taking machines and the Red Hat that’s hard at work optimizing software for Predator drones.
And I can’t even tell you how many open-source/free/“Libre” apps and devs have UA flags all over their websites. Look at the version names of Notepad++.
“Free” software is no cure to the hegemon when the hegemon makes and breaks what’s allowed to be “free.”
Was it this Rainer Shea essay?
Or a Scott Ritter interview where Ritter says exactly what you wrote.
https://rainershea.substack.com/p/anatomy-of-a-psyop-the-incredibly
Up to the middle of January 2023 the US has lent Ukraine $47B, which excludes the value of the weapons and equipment provided.
I put emphasis on the lending part because this isn’t a giveaway. It’s lend-lease for the 21st century. Ukraine is and will be forced to sell off whatever means of production it still has left after this war to US capitalists in a desperate effort to pay this money back. Back in the WWII era lend-lease was used by the Americans to take over from the British as global hegemon and bring capitalist Europe under its wing.
I know I’ve said a lot of cringey stuff over the years. I was a lib until quite recently. From my perspective you’re being too hard on yourself. We all have our moments, and we all learn over time and through mistakes and as new evidence is presented.
Oddly enough I also try to avoid third reich analogies. Not because I don’t think they’re appropriate, but because fascism broadly and naziism specifically are intentionally misrepresented in mainstream history and media. The analogies I often want to make are based on a historical materialist and diamat understanding of the third reich, but that’s missed by anyone who hasn’t taken the time to learn that history. To most people Nazis were a flash in the pan sparked by a particularly charismatic leader (great man theory), with a little bit of “mass formation psychosis” thrown in for flavour.
Amateur historian wehraboo probably hits the mark. It’s some smug anonymous asshole who does “scientific investigations” on mostly tech libertarian topics. He wrote a whole series on the economic history of the USSR, another on how publicly funded R&D isn’t all that, and a libertarian take on women in STEM fields (they’re just not interested in those jobs guys). In a subsequent breath he says he doesn’t engage with political issues too much. Ok buddy. His USSR bit got picked up by the Adam Smith Institute and his blog got a grant from a Peter Thiel associated “research center.”
My utility bills haven’t been affected just yet as we’re in the middle of contracts, but when it does hit it’ll hurt. 20% does seem low, so it’s worth noting that official inflation figures are adjusted based on what the government/statistics agency wants to show. Tracking your own expenses and personal inflation is definitely the way to go. That’s also what I meant with “haha as if” with regards to even a 10% raise - even that doesn’t cover real inflation anymore. Meanwhile the government wants to allow hospitals and clinics to actually cut pay by up to 6% to help with tight budgets.
I’m really glad Ver.di are getting more combative. That’s the kind of workers representation we need right now. The public sector unions are also trying to coordinate strikes for maximum effectiveness. Speaking of which I’ve really gotta be agitpropping in my workplace… I have a feeling we’re gonna get a nice round 0 this year, and there’s no union in sight.
Forget food for a moment, my damn garbage bill went up 25% for this year. Meanwhile in response to most large unions striking and asking for a 10% raise to cover inflation (haha as if) the German interior minister responded with “I think the 3% offer is sign of respect to the public sector workers.” Representatives in the Bundestag are trying to figure out how to limit the already significantly conditional right to strike in this country.
Ask any white Amerikkkan what their family origin is and they’ll say “I’m English/German/Irish/Italian.” Their great-great-grandparents emigrated in the 19th century and they’ve never left the county in which they were born.