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Well I’m back from El Salvador and my break. Hadn’t been in a while because Bukele fans said they’d hang me from a tree with a fork up my ass lol but that clearly didn’t happen. I ended up meeting with leftists in the country who are concerned with him. Bukele is a clever person who is a good example of a competent fascist. You don’t gain control of a country as fickle as El Salvador for as long as he has without having some level of competency.

My own family are mixed on him. The men are unsurprisingly die hards who see him as some sort of tough guy while most of the women respect him cracking down on crime but want him to leave migrants alone.

You have to remember that the things he’s doing didn’t start with him but he’s making the largest spectacle out of it. The whole targeting people with tattoos was a thing that started with Honduras and Guatemala has a long history of disappearing people in US backed prisons, including American citizens.

CECOT is a big concern as well just for what it means. This sort of thing was expected with Bukele and it didn’t take long for him to lock up leftists and indigenous he has issues with. Now I said before that CECOT conditions aren’t the worst and superficially that’s true. Smaller prisons are even worse with cells that look like they haven’t been touched since being built in the 50’s. What makes CECOT stand out is the idea of nobody ever being able to get out. Guard brutality is a common thing and it’s assumed for now that prisoners either just stay until they die of old age or face some kind of death penalty. A lot of the details are murky because of how secretive CECOT is but for now it’s not quite on the same level of notoriety within the country as Izalco while still being a major concern. Even bigger is how other countries are responding. Every country in Central America did their own version of Bukele when it came to cracking down on crime. From the same people who used to always call Nicaragua authoritarian when it never went as far as Bukele did.

We have to also remember that climate change is hitting El Salvador hard. Harder than it is with Guatemala. I think Guatemala will survive by the end of the century in a very fractured state but I think El Salvador will be one of those countries that will no longer exist. This is going to make people like Bukele more common in the region as climate refugees and emigrants become more common.

Also WWE is one of the US’s strongest cultural exports. It’s pretty popular in Guatemala but the kids in El Salvador love it as well. They were talking about John Cena, Cody Rhodes, and Rey Mysterio constantly and trying to act out their moves. I would love to dissect the global presence of WWE because I’ve been to small villages in Central America where their TV’s only had three channels and one of them played WWE all the time.

I'm not used to writing long posts here but since the French communist youth (MJCF, Mouvement jeunes communistes de France) held its 44th congress recently I thought I might share some takeaways from it. Note however that I am not in France at the moment, nor was I there during the whole run-up to the congress itself, so I am sharing what I've been told by other comrades and what I can gather from the new texts that have been voted on.

According to our general secretary, the number of members doubled since the last congress in 2022.

Speaking of doubling in size, since the last congress in 2022 the size the MJCF's policy text grew from 37 pages to 56. Generally, it seems that this new text confirms the return to Marxism-Leninism that had been started by the previous congress, and clarifies many things that have been left merely implied or glossed over. One part of the text that I want to highlight is the way that the text lists the historical and philosophical foundations that make up the MJCF's understanding of Marxism-Leninism:

"It [the MJCF] draws from the French Revolution the aspiration to truly popular sovereignty, which only the emancipation of the proletariat can achieve. It rejects the bourgeois confiscation of the Republic and human rights, and asserts that only a society free of capitalism will enable the people to exercise their sovereignty fully. It also draws on universalism, the foundation of equality in rights and a necessary step towards genuine equality. It draws on French history to build its political project around the demand for a Social Republic, as opposed to a bourgeois republic.

It adopts the work of Marx and Engels to analyse and change the social relations of production. It affirms the revolutionary role of the proletariat in opposition to ["antagoniste à" in the original] the bourgeoisie, whose political and economic goal is the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and the need to socialise those means.

It appropriates Jaurès' contributions to socialist ideas in France, as well as his fights for peace and secularism ["laïcité" in the original]. He saw capitalism as incompatible with any aspiration for peace between peoples.

It draws from the work and life of Lenin his conception of organisation and the seizure of power. Without a party and without organisation, there can be no revolution and no seizure of power by the working class. It embraces Lenin's analysis of imperialism. It defines imperialism as the supreme stage of capitalism.

This is what the MJCF calls Marxism-Leninism."

Contrast this with the policy text of the 43rd congress, where the only mention of Marxism, Leninism or the rest of the movement’s historical roots was this single short sentence:

"The MJCF embraces Marxism-Leninism as the historic political current to which it belongs."

But the text doesn't just mention Marx, Engels and Lenin here and leave it at that. Indeed, another change from the previous policy text is that there are now proper definitions of the socialist revolution, of the dictatorship of the proletariat (as part of the new definition of socialism) and of democratic centralism (which has a whole section dedicated to it). They are as follows:

"Socialist revolution consists of the overthrow of capitalist social relations through democratic control of economic, social and political institutions by the working class and the abolition of bourgeois property. […] The French Socialist Revolution will take a form which is appropriate to the material conditions of the country. It is a long-term construction which requires the structuring and strengthening of the organisation."

"Socialism is a phase in which the working class has taken control of the state and the economy, but where the reminiscences of capitalism and the reaction of the bourgeoisie remain strong. It is a phase in which workers are learning to manage society themselves, with the defence of their long-term interests at its heart. The dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e. the total exercise of power by the proletariat, is necessary to prevent the counter-revolution of the bourgeoisie and to bring the revolution to a successful conclusion."

"The MJCF does not operate on the basis of factions. It does not tolerate any strategy of entryism by other organisations into its midst and does not practise entryism in other organisations. Each level of the MJCF respects the decisions taken by the higher level. In return, the higher echelon must take into account the opinions and feedback of grassroots activists, thus guaranteeing that decisions are rooted in the reality on the ground. This ensures the unity of the movement, while guaranteeing that debates take place within the framework provided. The democratic nature of the movement is at the heart of the democratic centralism that the MJCF embraces.

Democratic centralism can be summed up as follows: ‘total freedom in discussion, unity in action’. The democratic aspect ensures collective decision-making: freedom of debate in the bodies set up for this purpose within the MJCF and constant feedback from members based on their experiences. The centralist aspect ensures unity of action, by respecting the decisions of the higher echelons and ensuring that they are strictly applied, as well as respecting the governing bodies and their members, and respect for national and federal bodies and executives. It implies a permanent link with the movement's management, particularly through regular monitoring in each federation.

Once a decision has been taken democratically, all members must respect and defend it publicly and show discipline, even in the event of disagreement. In the event of disagreement, it is essential not to express criticism in public, but to discuss matters internally in order to preserve the unity and cohesion of the organisation.

The NC [National council] is responsible for ensuring the ideological, organisational and militant coherence of the movement at national level. The monitoring system, a prerequisite for mass organisation. Monitoring members of the NC occupy a key position within their federations. They must be able to go there face-to-face several times a year and be available to federal executives, with weekly telephone calls. Executives must be particularly attentive to the profiles of comrades with experience who could be relevant for the monitoring role but who sometimes do not dare to apply to the NC. This issue is linked to the wider issue of under-candidacy for the NC, particularly among our female comrades."

There are also a lot of other important changes which I'll summarise now. There is a renewed emphasis on class struggle, the need to abolish private propriety and establish a planned economy. On class struggle, that is also shown in the updated section on the European Union, which in addition to being much longer also focuses for a big part of it on the role the EU plays in the domination of capital. Additionally, France's own role as an imperialist power is criticised more in the new text, not only within the EU and NATO but also in relation to former colonies in Africa as well as Kanaky-New Caledonia. And finally, the section on LGBTI rights is also greatly expanded in the new text, with an interesting passage on transition (defined in the text as three things: social transition, administrative transition and medical transition) as well as on the mutilation of intersex people; in contrast, the old text only had once sentence regarding LGBTI people, about how anti-LGBTI discrimination was a cause of patriarchal ideology. Here is what the new text has to say on transition:

"Transition paths must be facilitated. It is essential that these paths be supported medically and socially.

It must be possible to change one's marital status at the town hall on simple request, and the process must be streamlined. The use of hormones, regardless of the method used, must be fully reimbursed by Social Security.

A better understanding of transition paths is needed to provide this support. By transition we mean 3 different things: social transition, i.e. changing first names and pronouns in everyday life and wearing gender-affirming clothing; administrative transition, i.e. changing first names and sex on the civil register; medical transition, ranging from hormone treatment to surgery. A transgender person may undergo some or all of these transitions, sometimes without the support of family and/or friends, leading to social insecurity."

Overall I'm very happy with my comrades' work and I'm hopeful about the future of the MJCF. I'm a bit bummed out now that I still won't be in France for the next few years to see how these changes will be put into practice concretely within the movement.

Death panel. Only literally this time. And it's privatized. Palantir is not just a defense and marketing surveillance company; it's in healthcare, insurance, finance, your taxes, etc.

• Palantir: The New Deep State

U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, ordered the Pentagon to brief Elon Musk on approximately 20 top secret China-related issues, without the approval of a legal advisor or the President – CNN

Kristi Noem's purse, which had $3,000 in cash, had been stolen while she was dining with her family at a restaurant. Inside the secretary of Homeland Security's purse were also blank checks and DHS login credentials.

• Telesur English

Garnishing wages of people with student loan debt is just another tax draining demand for real goods. Good job.

Chris Hedges interviews Norman Finkelstein. The Fink is right about a lot of stuff, I think. Such as Israel accelerating not because Trump "gave him the green light', but simply because Trump is taking the media spotlight constantly, and Israel knows very well how to take advantage of that. And, unfortunately, that the resistance (nor anybody else) probably doesn't stand much of a chance of keeping the zionists from "finishing the job".

• Emptying Gaza (w/ Norman Finkelstein) | The Chris Hedges Report

Unfortunately the Fink also shows his brainworms and blames "wokeness" for a lot of the attack on academic freedom. Hedges doesn't really challenge him on that, but does kind of shunt the conversation away from it. Probably still worth watching/listening to.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to British mass media claims of Russia supposedly agreeing to "freeze" the conflict:

https://www.rt.com/russia/616126-only-trust-firsthand-sources-on/

In an interview with RIA Novosti on Tuesday, Peskov was asked to comment on a recent report from the Financial Times that claimed Moscow is ready to halt the hostilities in the Ukraine conflict along the current front line.

“A lot of fakes are being published now, including by respected publications, so you should only listen to the primary sources,” he said.

According to the FT article from Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to freeze the conflict along the current front line during his meeting with US special envoy Steve Witkoff earlier this month in St. Petersburg.

US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 39th night in a row.

Multiple rounds of airstrikes have targeted Taiz, Hodeidah and Saada Governorates, along with Kamaran Island.

More airstrikes in Ma'rib Governorate.

Ballistic missile launched at Israel from Yemen, was reportedly intercepted.

Warning for potential graphic imagery of casualties during ongoing airstrikes:

Al Masirah TV twitter

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The Yemeni Armed Forces released a statement earlier today, about shooting down another MQ-9 Reaper drone, along with launching cruise missiles and drones at US Navy warships. Their anti drone air defence systems are proving very difficult to suppress under current SEAD doctrine.

In more US military movements to the region, two E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft arrived in Saudi Arabia today, and a third could be on it's way. This is quite a significant development, to move airborne warning and control aircraft to the region.

Lots of strategic bomber movement within the United States tonight, with a B-52 now tracking east over the Atlantic Ocean. We may see yet another bomber deployment, on top of the 10 USAF bombers currently forward deployed (6 B-2s in Diego Garcia, 4 B-1s in Japan).

The B-52 is currently approaching two mid air refueling aircraft over the Atlantic.

TSLA 2025Q1 results are out. Keep in mind that "estimated" comes from Tesla-friendly analysts who waited until the last two weeks before the earnings to suddenly drop their estimates, making Tesla look closer to estimates than it was not so long ago. Even so, results are not good. And this is before all the tariff stuff that should seriously hit Tesla's energy business, since they import the majority of the cells and solar panels for their battery storage and solar division.

Earnings per share adjusted: 27 cents vs. 43 cents estimated

EPS: 12 cents vs 34 cents y/y

Revenue: $19.34 billion vs. $21.11 billion estimated

Automotive revenue dropped 20% to $14 billion from $17.4 billion in the same period last year.

Earlier this month, Tesla reported a 13% decline in deliveries to 336,681.

They "achieved" $660 million in free cash flow, but their accounts payable are up by $1 billion (despite lower production), this means that they are probably delaying payments to their suppliers until the end of the quarter to make this quarter look better. Despite the fact that Tesla is supposedly developing all this new stuff - robotaxis, FSD, autonomous robots and so on, their capital expenditures are down by like 50%. It looks like they are already trying to conserve spending.

[edit] Naturally, the stock is up by 0.5% on this terrible news. The Tesla piggies are going for the worst price/earnings ratio in history.

Freezing the conflict along the current front line was Vladimir Putin's proposal, Western media say

According to their information, Trump expects a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia to be concluded by April 30, by which time Russia will allegedly completely expel the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the Kursk region and end military operations.

• Telegram

Zelensky: 'Ukraine will never recognize Russian-occupied Crimea as part of Russian territory, it is the sovereign territory of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people

• Telegram