this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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Bulletins and News Discussion from July 14th to July 20th, 2025 - A Golden Age Of Copper
(hexbear.net)
Image is from this article, of a Chilean copper quarry.
Title is a reference to Trump's social media post about copper, which was, as usual, mostly deranged.
Trying to follow Trump's administration is pretty difficult, but as of right now, he is threatening 30% tariffs on Mexico and the EU starting on August 1st, as well as new tariff announcements on a bunch of other countries (including, bizarrely, a 50% tariff on Brazil), and also apparently a 50% tariff on copper, which the US imports half its supply of and is, of course, a very important metal in many applications.
I'm not sure what the plan is to bring back domestic copper production beyond hoping that it just sorta works out, but prominent copper producers, such as Chile and Canada, seem both concerned and confused. Reuters had a line that made me chuckle:
Boric said he was awaiting official communication from the U.S. government, including whether the tariffs would include copper cathodes, and questioned "whether this will actually be implemented or not."
Big mood, Boric.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
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Alright so one thing I'll feel compelled to bring up is that since I've been doing stuff in the real world for a few months is that since I've been gone I noticed that the news mega has gone really down in quality where it seems that as long as you hit a certain amount of words your analysis is deemed 'materialist' or 'marxist' or whatever feelgood word that complete doomer nonsense is not challenged like someone writing a ton of words to explain why Russia will capitulated in 2026 because Trump said they'll send some new wunderwaffen to Ukraine something that would be mocked as liberal nonsense like a year ago is just quietly accepted.
Like it feels that there's just the constant doomer faction that has completely taken over and now it's this competition to be the most doomer with the most words and churning out the shittiest takes similar to AI slop.
And the reason I'm being kind of aggressive in my calling out here is that while yes some things suck now some people just read more like some western third world maoists that have had their brains cooked and are now unable to do anything because the empire is doing 120d chess moves that mean that whatever we do we've already lost and the western population will never do anything and yadda yadda.
I get why their brain has been pickled by being in this brine of doom juice but it really feels like some people just gotta expel those 'bad humors' by doing some good old honest praxis, to feel fucking solidarity and camaraderie in this world instead of whatever this feels like.
Since you're doing a meta commentary on the "doomerism" I'll add my thoughts too. If someone doesn't agree feel free to not read, I'll write either way.
Its funny how the very first few news megas on the Ukraine war was basicaly huge struggle sessions over the libs on the website having to accept Russia wasn't the bad side and even that already caused most of them to leave permanently. We never meant to do anything but to give Russia critical support but now we're policing ourselves over being too critical of Russia's eventual downfall. Who cares if western wunderwaffenare are useless when the Russians themselves are also idiots who already made a dozen blunders in this war.
I think if there is one "hill" I'd gladly die on is that "we" are not "doing" fucking anything. Of course by "we" it boils down to the China-Russia-Iran axis and by extension the BRICS optimism too.
I will gladly die on this hill that Palestine was a litmus test for China and it failed, I too was very positive on China-Russia-Ukraine prospects up to Oct 7th. But I had my positive world view shatter by that disgusting useless meeting in San Francisco, 1 month into the genocide(Israel bombed Al-Ahli Arab Hospital on Oct 17th) and not one word was spent on anything related to Israel let alone the whole ME. How China has cooperated with Israel since Oct 7th is well detailed now.
The second point is I do not feel the need to create new accounts, I've been here long enough to see the site culture change too and the whole garbage "China wins doing nothing" comes from the optimism carried over from the reddit communities(specialy genzdong etc). For example, 1, 2, 3, 4 etc... Its always some form of economic optimism = China "winning", just look at some comments and see how similar it is to hexbear culture of the past years.
This meme represented the hopes that the dengist economic prosperity would put China in a position to not only resist but become THE leadership of anti-imperialist resistance. This has not materialized. how can you discuss current events and their prospects if you hold yourself to 5 year old bed time stories of Xi fighting the US?
Repeating this hope while China is now realistically the #1 economy, they already created their own superweapons, China Has the World’s Largest Navy. What on earth is China still building for if none of this is enough to even begin to show a commitment to the anti-imperialist struggle?
You've been here throughout 2024, you saw this same larger hexbear community cry every couple of days calling Biden 99% Hitler etc... Yet when we simply say China should not, it must not side with Hitler then its all excuses, "trust the plan bro" or "smol bean China can't help but side with 99% Hitler or else 999 nukes will fly to Beijing ~~so anyway here is a photo of the newest 126th gen PLAAF fighter or another hypersonic missile porn post~~".
You're not going to tell me we need Uncritical support for... neolib reforms. Uncritical support for... playing both sides on Israel's genocide. Uncritical support for... AI garbage with a red paint. Uncritical support for... constantly shaking the hands of the Biden admin(and Trump too he wasn't as stupid or adversarial). Xinjiang was western media hysteria and CIA propaganda. None of these current issues with China are talking points from NYT, instead they're the first ones to support it when China does all of these things.
The recent Iran-Israel skirmish ,you can arrive at close to a 100% consensus China should defend Iran for their own economic and geopolitical self-interest and yet they didn't. So add that the list Uncritical Support^tm^ for... letting your biggest geopolitical partners get bombed to shit while you send angry letters to the UN.
Indeed some people already dropped the mask, Iran broke their brains, dipshit Carl Zha(worthless grifter) tells it straight up, "China doesn't own us anything". I've been noticing Chinese nationalists are just unapologetic and not very much committed to socialism or the global south. Chinese nationalists will continue to embrace capitalism, they'll continue to embrace selfish relations with all our enemies in the west if its good for China. For god sake just visit r/sino and they`re the better China sub, blatant chauvinism over there very often.
Nobody should pretend this is the good outcome or a good path. Chinese nationalism and chauvinism only means internationalism is dead and will remain dead since the cold war. Again, how are you going to sit here discussing news without realizing the fact there is no real actual anti-imperialist "bloc" or alliance?
Considering how much of this community identify was transformed into uncritical pro-China sentiment. I can't say more other than are some people waiting for global south countries to start burning Chinese flags so they can smugly turn around and say "hah clueless reactionary compradors they know nothing about the sacred righteous path to socialism! Dengism was absolutely the correct choice" as Xi and Biden-Trump eventually shake hands again and thousands, millions eventually billions of people die on the sidelines of this cooperation. [Insert a Xi emote here drinking liberal tears lol].
Ultimately I can say Carl Zha style Chinese chuavinists can go fuck themselves. This ought to end soon, you don't want to wait for 2050 to find out how Chinese chauvinists or "China wins doing nothing" idealists deal with climate change either.
Zha was saying that the “purists” demanding China boycott trade with Israel were being absurd and that “it would merely be symbolic” because “any economic damage would be absorbed by the US anyway, who would supply things instead”
Very indicative of the Chinese mindset of sit-on-your-ass foreverism, making excuses for materially aiding genocide with the same Zionist arguments of “if I didn’t do it, somebody else would anyway. Might as well be me profiting”
You are absolutely right that this ilk of Chinese nationalists are extremely selfish and care nothing about socialism or imperialism whatsoever outside of how they can use it as a rhetorical tool. As soon as it becomes inconvenient or unprofitable, the script flips.
Like you see that Munich conference in February right? The official media loves it to an extent that is mind boggling, as if there is no hint of irony, going to the enemy side of the cold war and being applauded by almost the same ghouls as if its a sign that justifies the dengist path so far. "See its working they love us" and then merely weeks later the Trump tariffs happened. These are events that I'd laugh even 5 years ago. "Yeah the US just bombs Chinese allies but its fine because China got a round of applause in Munich!".
Chinese pacifism is basically gaslighting themselves into thinking they're not enemies of the west.
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I agree to an extent and it's why even I don't spend as much time here any more as I used to. I think there's a decreasing sense of curiosity and an increasing sense of people fitting data-points into their personal theories along the lines of "Here's why China doing X actually confirms my theory about why it's going to collapse soon" or "Here's why Putin is doing Y, this clearly shows he's abandoned Iran and China, just as I thought."
But at the end of the day, it's not as if those who oppose those people are totally blameless either. To challenge an opposing viewpoint, you can't merely go "This person is wrong and sucks" because that only creates a void of uncertainty which will inevitably just get filled up again; you have to forcefully assert an equally-if-not-more persuasive theory of reality, with the expertise that requires.
Do you think MarmiteLover is wrong about Iranian and Israeli military capabilities? You have to become knowledgeable in and post about those things - not just in an argumentative reply-guy sense, but actual top-level comments and analysis about it.
Do you think xiaohongshu is wrong in regards to multipolarity and dedollarization? You have to assert an alternative economic model of reality that fits the facts better and uses materialist analysis, as well as just generally having a decent degree of knowledge of macroeconomics.
and so on.
There's been quite a few people who have been annoyed by users here and expressed that, but there's been much less in terms of concerted efforts to be like "No, you're wrong, and here's why: insert eight paragraphs here" It can't merely be looking at somebody saying "Here's all the reasons China is bad and sucks" and going "Okay, here's all the reasons China is good!", you have to also engage with the reasons why China sucks and give satisfying materialist explanations for those things.
At the end of the day 90% of the increasing doomerism, critique or negativity towards things, and china in particulalar is justifyiable anger about China's relative innaction towards the genocide in palestine from people that are hopeless, living in countries that directly found and facilitate the genocide and not being able to square the China that they have been hopefull about as a socialist force of good with the extreme suffering that is allowed to so shamelessly happen. I dont have the answers here. Im just saying that the whole shift has little to do with any real shift in China's own economic or developmental policy or even foreign policy compared to 1-2-3-5 years ago, or some slide back to neoliberalism or whatever. Any reasons one had to believe some years ago, after analysing China's system and choices, that they are on the right path and are doing socialism and slowly solving their contradictions and overtaking the US and gaining in the balance of power etc etc they can find the same ones still being true and even more validated and clear. The sentiment driving and allowing that mood shift comes from the other stuff
As far as specific users go imma be honest, ever since i saw XHS buying and using some obvious anti-china slop stories like some Chinese sub(s) sinking sourced from some taiwanese tabloid and a single sexpat analyst to doom post, i cant take them too seriously about other matters either. You cant find those comments because XHS deletes everything and has changed like 5 accounts in two years but still despite that i have made some effort posts against some of their most "interesting" claims. But its increasinlgy meaningless to argue Pekingology but from a "find the neoliberalism" perspective based on assertions and stats that can be sourced, explained and used 5 different ways . Reality itself is and will bring the receipts. The reality im seeing isnt one that aligns with negative coverage of pretty much every single Chinese foreign, monetary or developmental choice that happened in the last 2-3 years (they have spoken favorably about things that happened before they started commenting, and things no one can deny like tech or industrial development but almost never about any contemporary choise or moves, and that favorable coverage of past moves is to say "Back then i actualy thought this and they were doing the good thing but i was naive and they libed up now") and where every other US foreign or monetary policy move was a correct chess move for the empire. Sorry if thats presumptious but its increadibly easy to just dismiss super serious monetary analysis when i remember that they also intermittently post YT/ Twitter threads tier slop like this for years:
For now i will simply glance over a comment quickly, shrug and say to myself "meh, i'll believe it when i see it".
Like I have said before, some folks act like even hearing doubt or what they perceive as doubt is going to cause everything around them to crumble. The kneejerk pushback and labeling of "doomer" is a thought-terminating cliche. It is not even people saying "China is going to collapse" or "Putin is abandoning Iran", it is any and all questions of "why is this thing not being done?" or actual analysis like "these defenses provably did not get replaced and now there are consequences", and that is somehow going to make the whole left collapse and become defeatist.
No one even wants to discuss and convince anyone, people just want to accuse one another of giving up at the drop of a hat. As if admitting or feeling that things are dire is an unforgivable sin.
Yeah. A trend that I've found myself getting frustrated about is the antagonizing against/for "doomers" and "nothing ever happens" posts. Its the kind of post that someone makes, granted only by the benefit of hindsight, where they celebrate themself for having the right take and throwing shade at other people. It's like an "I told you so 😏" kind of post that comes off as nothing more than antagonistic and like you said thought-terminating. It kind of insults people for responding to the news as it unfolds
As if we aren't all reading the same deeply fucked up news cycles, experiencing mental/emotional ups and downs about it, and doing what we can to make sense of how fucked up it all is.
Yeah, while I do fundamentally disagree with the final conclusions of some of the "doomer" posters, I hate how dismissive that term is in light of the useful analysis they provide on subjects where knowledge in the thread is otherwise lacking. I think XHS is wrong about the prospects of the "neoliberal trade order" and dedollarization, but they aren't just spitting downer shit for fun. They're providing a lot of very useful information on China's internal contradictions and their analysis is off as a matter of emphasis (imo), not fact. And they are always comradely in their communication, so what exactly is the problem with them? It's absolutely not acceptable to act like that in what should be a comradely environment where disagreement can lead to productive synthesis, not shit-flinging.
And frankly, it's just stupid and short-sighted - how often do we as western leftists get to have direct personal communication with a Chinese communist? Quit being an asshole to them or they will leave.
I don't know if OP is talking about xiaohongshu specifically, I do agree that they are usually very good at presenting the info and discussing it in a comradely manner. Edit: nevermind, they are talking about xiaohongshu specifically per a comment below.
Especially compared to the people who come to mind with OPs post who are very aggressively saying stuff like "China is basically the US now because they didn't get go to war with Israel for Iran." Most users here with that type of perspective ignore the people they claim to defend, and allege to speak for them anyway. Iran didn't ask for help and didn't need it at that moment, why should we assert that China needed to do something when Iran itself wouldn't assert it? One example of many
How is someone seriously suggesting the world's third largest nuclear power defending Iran is a bad outcome simply because Iran didn't bother asking, when literally the point is Iran getting their own nukes to defend themselves. Either Chinese or Russian umbrella would have seriously changed the calculation overnight.
The point made is Iran is China's major trading partner not the US. There is nothing to ignore here other than the fact China is the one getting fucked if they lose Iranian oil. You're asking us to justify why China wont act out of material self interest as if its an own. China is the one that constantly boasts about win-win relationships. I guess Iran is winning when they get bombed and China watches... respectfully obviously.
When the Palestinians call for a global revolution or global resistance to zionism that does not include Beijing either, clearly because Hamas didn't send a delegation to Beijing asking for a Chinese liberation force? Deeply unserious.
I think this is a great example of the type of rhetoric that attempts to seem like material analysis but is really just idealist nonsense.
Let's look at it more closely:
A good sign of idealist nonsense is saying things that aren't true as if they are true. I didn't suggest that China defending Iran would be a bad outcome, I said people demanding China to do such a thing when Iran itself isn't a consenting party is nonsense.
You are apparently one of these people, so you've decided to attempt to refute my points by initiating your critique with a thing you made up. This is peak idealism, things you made up in your head to justify your emotionally driven perspective, devoid of materialist analysis but full of really aggressive language which does well to fire up other idealist nonsense believers.
A great tactic for twitter or something but not a material analysis. It's all vibes.
the need for nuclear deterrence is existential compared to self defense via conventional military weaponry, something China is indeed supplying Iran with.
China has done a lot to defend Iran, internet strategists might not appreciate it unless they can see a PLA pilot shooting Israeli jets out of Iranian airspace but internet strategists are also typically absolute losers who have no experience in anything they talk about.
I think this one really shores up my previous statement about pretending one knows what another nation should do, as a random person on the internet who actually doesn't know anything about what they are talking about. China is certainly acting out of its own self interest at all times, if anything this is precisely why they aren't intervening in more obtuse and flagrant ways, which is what most people criticizing them are actually asking them to do. To want China to do more than they are currently doing is to ask them to go against their own national self interest and very likely against the well being of their billion plus citizens. Now you are saying they are going against their self interest by not doing that, a real contradiction isn't it? Does www.hexbear.net user BynarsAreOk know about China's self interest more than China? Time will tell.
Can you find me some statements from Palestinian resistance organizations against China? Maybe one of these 14 groups that went to Beijing last year to sign the Beijing Declaration:
Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine Palestinian People's Party Palestinian Popular Struggle Front Palestinian National Initiative Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command Palestinian Democratic Union Palestinian Liberation Front Arab Liberation Front Palestinian Arab Front Vanguard for the Popular Liberation War - Lightning Forces (As-Sa'iqa)
Are you a representative for one of these orgs? Are you a member, did you express criticism to your organization's leadership for going to Beijing to meet with these other orgs and come to a unified position? Did you say, "Hey Musa Abu Marzouk, what the hell are you doing? Don't you know China is the real enemy here?"
Am I massively misreading xiaohongshu's analysis because most of it doesn't even seem to be leading to the conclusion of China sucks? Like there seems to be some discontent in the user's analysis with China, but generally I took it as, "China is okay with taking this specific and narrow role to resolve a core contradiction of the modern era (i.e. the unbalance between the west and global south). I would vastly prefer if the nation did more, as it has the capabilities to do so, but it seems content with the role it currently plays."
Obviously, I'm paraphrasing and don't read every one of the xiaohongshu's post, but that is the vibe I got.
What? No! NGL this reads as someone who isn't even interested in Marxism economic side so why even beat yourself up for not discussing economics? Either you have the interest or you don't. I say this because absolutely nothing of what that user writes is ever complex or barely "correct" from a socialist viewpoint. The very basic principles of Marxist theory often disproves it, like with due respect, if you think you need a econ degree to contest them then idk... That said if you say "but it requires time investment and reading" then yes, I agree 100%. You need to spend some time reading and reading fairly regularly(one a month) to keep up.
Here even on reddit you can find this topic, what are some other Marxist sources. Monthly review is also a solid source though more varied.
Of course I mention Michael R. blog often because he also does excellent reviews of the broad situation e.g he does writeups on the econ confereces including the ones he visits(latest). BTW for an example talking point, you'll find Marxist economics has been trying to deal with China's "sub-imperialism" or "BRICS wont save us" for years now.
You do not need an econ degree to contest NakedCapitalism level takes, I'm sorry but no.
It is worrysome how all these people(cockshott, Roberts, Harvey, Hudson etc...) are all so old now I'm not sure who will replace their content but that is another discussion lol.
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Been here since the beginning, and I don’t think you could be more wrong. I think especially what happened in Syria has given us all a lesson in humility. The way this mega handled the situation with Israel/Iran was excellent; level-headed and sober. Things might swing a bit in the moment but we are literally just responding to events as they happen.
That was absolutely not the point of my post, again why are we doing this weird subposting thing instead of directly replying? It wasn't even an analysis, it was merely stating that there's a lot of talk about the US giving Ukraine access to long range weapons with the range to hit Moscow, what that means is that these are the weapons systems are under consideration, with the range and a very brief overview of their capabilities and why that would be different than previous long range weapons deliveries. While expressing significant doubts that such a move will go ahead, no one should be surprised if it does. There was no analysis given at all to be honest.
For analysis, my analysis is not insightful and very basic, honestly not worth writing out or posting. A war of attrition cannot go on forever (given Ukraine's manpower issues, and Russia, while having a ton of equipment, does not have infinite stocks), so there will be attempts to break the attritional state. Russia chose to escalate the conflict again via large scale air attacks, similar to October last year. There is also much talk of a significant Russian summer offensive, to break the attritional state. However, this time around US/NATO/Ukraine had a different response to the air raids, starting with operation Spiderweb where they destroyed over 10 long range Russian bombers. Their response will continue to be different than before, and a significant part of that will be giving Ukraine better defenses, and it's own long range strike capabilitiy (currently with Ukrainian designed and manufactured weapons, funded by European NATO members, along with previous deliveries of US and European made weapons), and it should not come as a surprise if this long range strike capabilitiy includes new US or European made weapons, as though I have significant doubts, it is still very much a real possibility. I have no idea who will win such a battle (Russia is currently winning in the ground), but for the first time since 2022, there is actually an attempt from both sides to change the situation. (The Ukraine summer offensive of 2023 was wishful thinking).
I don't care about being called a doomer, a fed, NATO propagandist, or whatever nickname I'll get next week (this has been happening since Assad fell in Syria), it's happened so many times now that it doesn't matter. Label this account whatever you want. I don't see myself as any of those things anyways and know I am not that, obviously. Usually what I say gets proven correct in some form, and to me that is most important as I try to base what I write here on factual information, and do not care for telling others what or how to think. I have also given public apologies when I have said something that is incorrect.
Dawg I didn't even mean you in that specific call out but someone else that wrote something like 'I think Russia is going to throw in the towel in 2026' so I dunno stop being so prickly? Like yeah you are a doomer and I think this shit actually decreases the quality of your posts but again....
If me calling out the quality of the posts dropping has you this agitated then maybe stop cooking your brain in this toxic doomsludge the fact that you wrote out 'I don't care about being called a doomer, a fed, NATO propagandist, or whatever nickname I'll get next week, it's happened so many times now that it doesn't matter. I try to base what I write here on factual information, and do not care for telling others what or how to think.' is some real geh facts don't care about your feelings type shit and you should look at your mental well being because your brain sounds pickeled and needs some actual praxis.
I see I've upset you.
Frankly I feel this site and others needs a bit of (non-liberal-brained) dissent against the circlejerk so readily adopted in the vein of "oh Russia is going to crush the west, NATO stands no chance, Ukraine is going to be fucked up, Russia will win handily and is just going slow as a brilliant strategy of grinding down which has no downsides even as the west is scrambling to build capacity because they can't do that despite recent history showing they can" and that plus the "any month now their lines will break" which I have been seeing from hopium parties I won't name since the start of this conflict with persistent predictions that oh 2024 would be the end, the wrap-up, and now it's 2025. Or the China hoperism which gets to the point of blindness in seeing any weaknesses or problems in the grand chessboard they're going to be playing on given the plays the US/NATO is making. I'm still broadly hopeful but the chessboard for China and our side is definitely not as rosy as it was only 3 years ago. Some sobriety is helpful.
Sometimes I just post kind of thoughts, not all are terribly well thought out as in I've sat down and really thought about it. In fact I welcome reasoned or well sourced rebuttals as those help me sharpen my own thinking and I think that kind of interaction leads to real growth.
As someone else said if you want an echo-chamber of nothing but positive spin and propaganda this site isn't that.
Anyways I just noticed the old mega is locked so I'm going to post a reply I wrote up to someone else who objected to my post there before noticing the post was locked.
spoiler
Don't read it so have no idea how I could swallow it. I consume next to zero western press beyond headlines and scoff every time I see something about Ukraine in the headline, promptly mentally discarding whatever it is I just read.
I said nothing about interception. Fact is Russia does not have air dominance over Ukraine. Ukraine has a lot of western supplied anti-air assets which make it dangerous or impossible for bombing raids with Russia's limited force of heavy bombers. They hit the front lines where they've softened up the anti-air with glide-bombs sure but they don't strike Kiev with bombers or the middle of the country because they can't get close enough. They're relegated to using very expensive and limited production hypersonics and drone swarms. The latter of which cannot take out hardened targets and can't deliver enough payload to take out large targets (like manufacturing) either and is mostly used for clearing trenches, taking out vehicles, hitting anti-air units in forward operating areas. Russia is not the USSR, Ukraine is still operating F-16s and other fighters deeper within their country as well. Despite Russia bravado about how they'd "burn" Russia has taken out only a portion of those delivered. Frankly this is down to intelligence capabilities.
I notice you didn't even address my point about intelligence which is a real problem because you need intelligence for targeting. Look at the zionists, they have excellent intelligence and were able to assassinate Nasrallah and attempt to kill Iran's leadership because they know exactly where their command bunkers are. The US is part of that and has excellent intelligence. A massive satellite spy network much larger than what Russia runs and more modern with more capabilities to watch more places at once. They also have more funding, more people working on analysis. They have deep penetration via hacking, human-int assets (Russia's CIA network was never rolled up like China's because they used an older system that wasn't compromised and even without that there are so many west-brained, west-loving, liberalism and west as absolute saviors on a shining city on a hill types in Russia that they can get a decent amount of cooperation from that angle alone). And massive signals surveillance of course as well. Most of Russia's big hits on say officer gatherings have been luck, things like some fool posting about it online and Russian intelligence noticing as I don't think Russia is even able to remain embedded via hacking in Ukrainian networks as the NSA is successfully repelling them and maybe Russia is reluctant to burn cyber-weapons on it.
If you want a left wing Fox News, then maybe this isn’t the place you should be looking for.
We all have different opinions here and the discussions on the news mega have been, for the most part, free from toxicity. It’s a place for discussion and to learn from one another, which means you should expect to read stuff that you don’t like or don’t agree with. At least we do our best not to post chud/reactionary stuff here.
Yeah I feel like there are some people that just want to consume meaningless “China collapsing tomorrow, Xi PANICKING” slop but in the opposite direction. It’s more exhausting each time to see mostly vibes-based assertions that US/Israel are headed by stupid people and are teetering on the brink of collapse. The most egregious I’ve seen is the idea that Israel won’t exist by 2030. Or war with China by 2027 (I still haven’t seen an adequate explanation for why the US or China would choose to end human civilization instead of cruising to victory on the status quo). Madman theatrics by politicians are taken way too seriously.
I think since people want some cataclysmic karmic destruction of the US/Israel to happen that confirmation bias is going into overdrive. So people keep getting excited about Putin’s nothingburger speeches, showman statements from the Russian or Chinese MFAs, etc. People thought Iran/Israel was going to start WWIII. Well, war with China isn’t happening, so by definition WWIII isn’t happening either. The cathartic sudden destruction of the US is just something that is not going to happen.
just be normal
???
g is near t, "teh" is a common "the" misspelling, hopefully that's all that is
Agreed.
Honestly it isn’t so bad. Marxism is a scientific approach and it’s actually good to see that people calibrate their views/models based on newly available information, even though the news haven’t been positive for us lately. The goal is to discuss how capitalism works on a geopolitical level and while we are not an academic forum, at least the attitude here is closer to that.
The worst are the NAFO liberal space and the pro-BRICS “alt media” space where those people just continue to double down with their cognitive dissonance after boasting so much about how “Russia/China will collapse soon” or “US/Ukraine/Israel will collapse soon”. While some of their analyses are grounded, they seem more interested in selling a dream without substance. And I’m glad we are not those spaces, where they are also - perhaps not so coincidentally - occupied by a fair amount of reactionaries.
Doomerism would imply spreading doom that does not comply with reality, which may have happened with a few users but mostly people here are just discussing the current events and voicing their own opinions.
It's pretty wild that I say 'The Doomer faction has completely taken over' and the most doomer poster is telling me 'honestly it's not so bad'. Like you aren't really making your point well but sure I'll bite. You are one of the most prolific doomer posters and I did appreciate your takes when it came to china because afaik you are at the very least living in china and so your perspective was closer 'to the ground'. But just recently you basically engaged in that same behaviour here, this is just an actual garbage take and you didn't bother to read anything. In fact most of the posters there didn't bother to read anything which is the larger point of me saying 'the quality has gone down'. I'm sorry but that just means that your take is just your perspective, and as someone once said 'No investigation no right to speech'.
As for the worst are the NAFO liberal spaces.... You are right this place is better than those youtube channels that go 'THIS IS HUGE' 'CHINA HAS 25 DAYS LEFT' '13 DAYS TO COLLAPSE' because our enlightened 'marxist' discussion is 'Russia has 6 months left actually.' Like I'm sorry but you are actually further proving my point here.
Not sure what’s the problem with my comment that you linked. I asked for clarification, and even added my explanations to note that the principal contradictions of these countries cannot be resolved if those questions aren’t answered. Like, it’s fine to disagree but what exactly about it was garbage?
Also I disagree that I am doomer at all. If anything, I am one of the few posters that say China already has the capacity to take on the US hegemony both economically and financially. It is the people that keep making excuses for China that “it’s still building productive capacity” (China already has 31% of global manufacturing share!) and “China is playing the long game” that’s intrinsically admitting that China is too weak to do anything and therefore cannot challenge the US domination.
You catch a lot of shit because you, rightfully, criticize China & the CPC's willingness to embrace neoliberal economics and institutions like the IMF, and don't pull any punches. To the "AES can do no wrong" crowd, this is a severe transgression, one that shatters the comfortable zone they prefer to occupy with clean good guy / bad guy divides.
Sometimes I think your takes may be a tad more harsh than necessary or not giving China enough credit for what they do right, but all-in-all, you have some of the best takes on this site, ones that are grounded in reality and materialist thinking and offer a useful perspective that usually gets filtered by the rosy lenses we analyze China through.
You have some of the most sober-minded analysis here, but people don't like that because it occasionally rips people from the comfort of believing someone else is gonna fix the world for us. I especially appreciate your style of posts because it offers a critique of China's decision-making without the stink of western leftists being chauvinists disconnected from actual socialist developments. It's the exact type of check on our own cognitive dissonance we all need here.
lmfao
When you are the only country with a chance of winning, and when defeat would mean another century of waiting for the working class (and who knows how bad climate change will get under capitalism), wouldn't you want to be absolutely sure of victory before making your move? And would it not be better to get as many of the neutral countries on your side as possible first? Or even to have the request for an alternative system come from a neutral country / ex-US ally who is now being bullied by the US, so even the local bourgs in all the other fence sitting countries can see who is their friend and who is their enemy?
But that’s not what’s happening. China does not want to take action - that’s the whole point. It could, but it doesn’t want to.
And if China doesn’t want to de-dollarize during the first couple years of the Ukraine War, and instead doubled down on defending that and allowed the US the time to recover from that, what makes you think we’re going to get another chance to de-dollarize again?
What we are seeing right now is that the US is actively using global tariffs to reshape the global supply chain by threatening to wreck the export economies in the Global South, and because there is no alternative to absorb their surplus exports, these countries had to make deals with Trump.
China showed the world how easily it could kill the Western industries with its rare earth card. It’s too bad that China wants to use it to restore the neoliberal status quo, instead of forging a new path for the world.
And these aren’t just conjectures or some fantasies I conjured up. Read the Russian proposal at the BRICS Kazan summit last year and it’s clear that the motivation to de-dollarize just isn’t there anymore (and China never even bothered despite the wishful thinking of many, including myself at one point).
The US is only “winning” because the big players don’t want to challenge them properly.
Listen if you can't see why you saying 'Well I haven't read it but xyz' and then the rest going 'Well I haven't read it but xyz' is not indicative of the quality going down then I don't know what to tell you. Like all you did was navel gaze and throw some words around like they mean anything when really nothing of value was gained.
Here's what the report says in the very first pages 'France and Europe needs to break with 'Westernism' and 'Block-logic' promoted by the American hawks to prevent being a vassal of the United States' and says that the 'Resolute atlanticism adopted by europe has drawn them into a trade war against China which is to the negative of European-Chinese relations and our economy and is doomed to fail and hurts us and our credibility.'
'We can see how the dogma of free and non -distorted competition opposes it. The axis of this report is the search for found sovereignty. It is no longer a question of passively depending on the supply chains piloted by other powers, but of finding democratic control over what we produce,'
This is all stuff that one could've gotten with a glance and there's much more in this 134 page document but just at a quick glance at the 3 pages which are the synthesis of the rapport would tell you that actually this is somewhat substantive and does call out the vassalization attempts from the US, that trade with China is desirable and that there have to be adjustments to the economic system to regain sovereignty.
Again this is the kind of quality that we should expect not saying 'well I haven't read it but the contradictions and the material reality and marxism' is 'good enough'.
As for you disagreeing that you aren't a doomer like why did you give a take that was 'Well I haven't read it but I don't think it matters' if your outlook is not pessimistic and you aren't spreading doomer shit.
My friend, I literally said that the article was hidden behind Substack paywall and asked clarification from others who speak French to see if there are any of these info contained the original French document. Is that too much to ask?
I’m not paying for that Substack subscription and it’s fair to ask for details when someone makes a claim. Notice that all of my arguments are backed by my own explanations, even though people may not agree with them, at least I provide a framework for the analysis.
You can literally find the original rapport like again if you don't bother to look that one up why bother to respond. I didn't pay for the substack subscription I just pulled up the rapport and read it.
My friend, I cannot read French. What’s so hard to understand? That’s why I asked others to look for the specific information I made in my arguments. Is this too difficult to understand?
I never blamed anyone for not being able to read Chinese articles. If anything, I have spent countless hours painstakingly translating Chinese articles and posted them here (not using machine translation because it isn’t always accurate in many cases).
My friend you can copy the text and let a machine translate it. While it will mess up parts it might be able to give you a slightly better understanding than not having read it at all. What difference is between you, a person that uses marxist words to describe their vibes about a country (France) that you probably don't know anything about, not that you need to of course. And a lib on reddit that uses yank words to describe their vibes about a country (China) that they don't know anything about?
That is my point, it is not that I have a problem with the take, it is a problem I have with the quality. This isn't difficult shit I mean I guess for you it is difficult to admit that you were lazy. That people in the news mega got lazy and as a result the quality dropped. Not a single person, I'm talking not just you but all the others, didn't bother to read the 3 pages in the rapport, but everyone felt the need to give their take. Why is that so hard to admit?
The French document was 153 pages lol! Are you being serious?
If you disagree with my arguments, feel free to retort. This is a place for discussion after all.
Ima be real you are embarrassing yourself there is literally a 3 page summary at the start of the rapport which is clearly what I was referencing if you actually bothered to look at the document at all which you still didn't so what evidence you are just saying nonsense we cannot argue because you didn't bother to do the minimal amount of looking. Like I'm sorry but you are being a complete ass here. You don't have an argument all you have is doomer vibes.
The exact opposite is happening. You started this thread by saying you touched grass and how you can now see how out of touch people in this thread are, but have been launching unreasonable personal invectives over several comments and have been escalating yourself. That doesn't work irl for any kind of organizing. It is, instead, a habit that is destructive to an organizing space.
I recommend that you take a short break before continuing responses.
It is crazy that they didn't even respond to people they have problems with. They vague posted and then admitted who they actually dislike. As well as bringing up old beef with them. Came in, complained about people being too debate focused, proceeded to instantly debate people. This shit is so immature
They specifically asked a comrade who read the whole thing to summarize it, a 3 page summary written by neoliberals is not going to be a historical materialist summary of the 150 pages
Do some self crit
So they're 'a complete ass' but you saying "all you have is doomer vibes" and "
" are mature non-ass arguments?
I did what you asked by stopped being lazy and translated the first 3-page summary, and it still doesn’t address any of the questions I asked?
Specifically, how does the report address this problem (i.e. China dumped their exports into the EU while substantially reduced their imports from the EU, as American tariffs threatened to reduce its consumption demand for global exporters goods):
This is a very valid question with data to support.
It’s not some fantasy scenario or a “maybe” scenario, it’s ALREADY happening and China is already doing that to the EU. I don’t see why it’s invalid to ask the pertinent questions when it is already a reality that the EU has to face.
But more importantly, why is it that my inability to read a language is being used to label my character as “lazy”?
The Twitterer made a claim, I asked for clarification and posed the questions so anyone who can read French can look for those information. Is this not allowed?
If you have actual arguments, then I’d love to hear it. No need to be hostile.
I'm not sure I understand why the Chinese export policy is an insurmountable contradiction. Isn't it possible that the motivation here is a recognition by the French ruling class that they are in an untenable position to be hostile to China while depending on an also hostile USA? And that by pursuing better diplomatic relations with China, they might be able to negotiate better terms for trade since they clearly can't achieve those terms with their current diplomatic stance.
Now, that could be an idealistic strategy for a few reasons. Maybe China isn't actually interested in multilateral dialogue and mutual cooperation like their foreign ministry always claims, and in fact they are seeking to deliberately cripple Europe's economies no matter what they do. Or maybe there isn't the political will in France or the EU for the neo liberals and the capitalist class to make that kind of pivot because it's against their perceived short term material interests. But I'd love to hear what your thoughts on that are.
The newsmega lost a lot of relevant voices after the last big site kerfuffle and it's just kind of been losing steam since. I see takes I disagree with but don't really bother to reply because I don't care to argue with doomers whose opinions I increasingly don't even want to read. Ultimately I end up skipping a lot of very long comments by doomposters most of the time because they're so prolific and accepted.