Strange. Personally, I feel pretty hopeful. It appears to me like the battle lines are being drawn more clearly, solidarity is strengthening for the Axis of Resistance, and the world is seeing that the empire can bleed like anyone else.

Forgive me if I sound more poetic than materialist, but I feel compelled to say: The old world is dying. Something new is taking shape. Now is the time of beginnings, in every space carved out by the resistance, every tendril of empire in retreat. We must not let our weariness cling to the gaunt pallor of imperial inevitability and instead look to the cracks where light is filtering in to claw at them, broaden them, until they burst and the whole rapacious palace built on bones and soil soaked in blood comes crashing down.

Awesome, love to hear it. Sounds like they are solidifying their role as the center of the resistance in the region, around which others can rally.

That’s good to hear, thanks. Hoping for the best for the region. 🙏

The whiplash of this after Trump’s vaguetweeting threats. Hard to believe the Zionist entity will actually hold to a ceasefire, with how often it violates ceasefires with other places in the region.

Also wondering what this means in practice:

No further aggression (including against Iranian allies)

Like who counts as an official ally of Iran in this plan. Because places like Lebanon and Palestine really need the help, not the Zionist entity shifting its aggression mainly toward them again.

I don’t think it’s that simple to achieve though. Look at how much Yemen has done with its limited resources. Iran could inflict pain via the Strait even with more limited resources. Iran could make it hell to try to occupy due to terrain. Nukes are scary, but they are more barbaric than they are a strategic military resource. Most of their strategic power comes from MAD and deterrence. Less from actual use.

I agree with the spirit of it. I’m doubtful of anyone’s commitment to letting nukes loose though (but I fully believe there are warhawks who consider it - IIRC, the “Cuban Missile Crisis” was one such event). As Trump is a mask off version of the status quo, it makes sense he may express openly, or sound like he’s expressing, consideration of nukes.

But no matter how deranged the empire gets, setting off nukes in this geopolitical landscape is unprecedented territory. This isn’t the US bombing Japan at the end of WWII where the US was the only one who had nukes. If the US uses nukes now, anti-imperialist nuclear powers would be pressured to retaliate (namely: Russia, China). Otherwise, the new precedent is that you can nuke whatever country you want, as long as they can’t nuke back. And that sort of precedent in the hands of a declining empire lashing out would mean it starts viewing its nukes as a valid option for blowing up entire peoples.

Nukes in Iran would also not crush Iran or its resistance. It would senselessly mass murder for no real gain. Remaining Iranians would have all the more vicious hatred for the US and double-down on efforts to block the Strait and break the empire economically. Trump would cement himself as an international pariah (his ego clearly doesn’t want that).

So although I fully believe those conversations get had because the empire is brutal as hell, it would not be something it can really come back from. I think the greater likelihood is that this is spectacle and it’s Trump trying to intimidate, while they focus on a more kidnapping-of-Maduro style of operation.

Either way, I hope the anti-imperialist nuclear powers are having those conversations about what they would do if the US did try to nuke Iran.

It’s shit like that what makes me hate when people try to humanize the oligarchy. “Anyone with that much wealth would act that way.”

That’s not what the humanizing argument is. It’s that 1) human beings are in fact capable of being that fucked up, which leads to 2) we can do something about it in how we design systems going forward, i.e. it’s not an inevitability that the most monstrous of human beings exist in the first place.

If we instead insist 1) the worst of us aren’t human, that leads 2) there are literal monsters among us whose origin is beyond our comprehension and control, and all we can do is try to catch them before they do damage and kill them before they gain any power.

In practice, the first mindset is typically associated with liberation forces and what they practice and believe. The second mindset is typically associated with class and caste, racism and things like that. Note that this does not mean the liberation forces are pacifist in the face of already existing monstrous human beings, nor does this mean they feel a need to mourn the death of a violent oppressor. It just means that they do not treat the existence of the worst people as an inevitable part of life.

So, it’s not that “anyone with that much wealth would act that way.” It’s that a system that produces an oligarchy also produces and elevates sociopathic behavior. It’s not a flip of a switch that means everyone over a certain amount of wealth instantly starts acting like the top worst kind of human being. It’s more of a gradual process and we’re not going to tend to hear as much about the ones with wealth whose character is a “lesser evil”, whose ties to industry are exploitative but whose personal MO remains somewhat conscientious. After all, rare as they may be, class traitors do exist. Generalities about what a system produces do not prevent exceptions to the rule.

Right, but in the case of a settler state, they are also an occupying force, which complicates it beyond bougie and worker, and that’s the part I’m trying to get at that’s important in the US context. In a way, it’s another angle of looking at the patsoc problem: where people view things as working class and elite, but their vision of better is the working class getting more of the imperial spoils. They haven’t internalized/accepted the state as an occupying entity and only see it as one that exploits the working class.

For comparison, current Russia is capitalist, but it is not “occupying Russia”: it’s local bourgeoisie ruling over local working class, but it’s native Russian forces carrying this out, not colonizers. In the US, it is both that and occupation, and the history of the US shows that when the local working class push for better without addressing the settler contradiction, it plays out as mild reforms that struggle to stick, usually at the expense of dumping the needs of a group on a lower rung.

I think this is the most resonant analysis of the US mindset/conditions I’ve read to date. People tend to cover the “giving up” side a lot, the “not doing enough” side as well, and typically the conclusion drawn is that people are too comfortable and don’t care enough to rebel; but those other limited narratives don’t get at what you did, the rationale behind holding back because of the belief that the risk won’t actually pay off and that it will be for nothing.

As an example, we have people like Aaron Bushnell to look at in fear. This guy who martyred himself for Palestine and it was a blip of attention in a sea of spectacle. To the point you make about atomization, if most people in the US saw Aaron Bushnell as a brother, as family, they would not only have been aware of what he did, but been spurred to action. Instead, he’s “just a name.” Some people try to honor what he did, but they aren’t in military buildings, breaking things in them as a consequence for the military creating a world where one of its own would choose to do what he did.

People are conditioned instead to look at things like “I got mine”, or at most, “I got mine for me and my immediate family / circle of friends.” Minneapolis appears to be a situation where that attitude didn’t hold and people started seeing Minneapolis as one and ICE as outsider invaders.

As communists, we like to talk about building class consciousness and that does matter, but this train of thought makes me wonder if the more pressing consciousness is US people coming to understand the US state apparatus as like invaders. Substantively, it is like invaders for the indigenous population, since its inception. And the ramping up of policing/ICE/militarization/etc. may make the US state more like invaders for the general population as well. This is perhaps a reason why Minneapolis stands out.

The conditions are already coming, already there for some people, that the state is turning its conquering nature inwards, but people need to learn still to not scramble to get out of the way and hide, and instead find solidarity with the indigenous and their priorities; they are the ones who have known invasion for the longest time.

This feels a bit rambly, but anyway, great analysis, gets me thinking and is somewhat cathartic to have that feeling named, of wondering how worth it is, to risk.

Yeah I don’t even know how to process that part. Like what. That part reads like someone hacked the account and took over, it’s so random.

Tbh, I’m skeptical this was written by him. I’m not saying it’s not a real tweet (I saw your link). But he has a very specific style of unhinged word salad. The line “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell” reads like someone trying to put an action hero 'murican movie president spin on his normal ravings.

Not to say it’s outside the realm of possibility that he wrote or dictated all of it. He is performative after all, unhinged even before this, and his mind may be literally going. But it strikes me as a bizarre kind of coherent incoherence in this case. I’m not sure how much it matters, it just sticks out to me as odd even by his standards.

Gonna go arrest everyone with the last name Adams for their part in founding the US.

I will admit, I don’t quite understand the context. By the UN “preparing for this”, what does this mean in practice? I know the UN is kind of a sham as balance of power goes, but I didn’t think it was totally in the hands of the empire. Who would be working on such a decision in the first place and whose responsibility would it fall on for enforcing it?

I don’t expect you to know, but putting the thought out there.

I don’t know what it is about this one that is enraging me more than other stuff. There’s already so much that’s horrific. I guess something about the terrorist nature of turning someone’s own land into a potential death field, via randomness. Mines are already bad enough as it is without that. Like I don’t see how there is any other way to see it than intent to terrorize. Whoever invented these has a lot to answer for.

Iran keeps demonstrating that “decline” of the empire is not just a criticism or a word on a page, but a material reality that you can put on display when you have the resources to fight back. Lessons for every country that is looking at their chances when considering whether to capitulate or push back.

They’re probably afraid he’ll go off on / fire them if they are too honest about how it’s going. A self-defeating aspect of narcissism in charge and rule by fear.

Reads like a big load of bullshit to me. It’s the Korea Times, an occupied Korea publication. And it has such incredible analysis as:

Kim warned that any South Korean provocation against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea would “face merciless consequences without hesitation” and reaffirmed the North’s nuclear posture, saying Pyongyang would “firmly consolidate our status as a nuclear weapon state with no retreat.”

The term “hostile state” was first mentioned by Kim in late December 2023, when he said “the two Koreas are hostile nations at war” during a party meeting. Ever since, Kim has repeated the term regardless of presidential changes in South Korea. While Pyongyang has not publicly released its revised constitution, analysts widely expect it to legalize or stipulate the language.

In response, Seoul’s unification ministry said it would press ahead with efforts toward peaceful coexistence while keeping unification as its long-term goal.

“The South Korean government will continue to make consistent efforts under the policy of developing inter-Korean relations into peaceful and coexisting relationships centered around unification.”

So basically the usual imperialist nonsense. “Your self-defense is hostility. My occupation and domination is a desire for peace and coexistence.”

If we compare it to the situation with Iran, I think it becomes more obvious. The DPRK is just talking in similar ways as Iran did, that a hostile entity on its doorstep will face retaliation if it does an act of war.

Edited to add: What we maybe can meaningfully glean from it is the empire may be wanting to start another war by getting something going between occupied Korea and the DPRK. Considering the pattern the US has been using lately of talking about peace translating to “trying to get their guard down so we can attack.”

He’s old enough at this point, it could genuinely be his mind going, causing so much flip flopping. OTOH, him having spent his life used to calling shots and people listening, it may be breaking his brain a bit that he is currently holding one of the most powerful positions in history and Iran is not only not doing what he demands, they’re actively destroying components of what makes that position powerful in the first place with no end in sight. He is getting humiliated on a large scale and for someone like him whose life revolves around ego, it’s gotta hurt; that is, if he’s still coherent enough mentally to comprehend it properly.

Though this is also assuming any sort of accuracy to the information he’s getting. He could be insulated from some of the reports and reacting to whatever he hears from advisors or Fox News without any kind of comprehensive picture given to him on what’s going on.

Whatever the cause, the character of it looks very tantrum-like.

The vacillating back and forth is wild. “NATO sucks” “but we didn’t need them”, “the fight is won” “but they won’t help us continue it”, “a simple military maneuver” “but we need their help with it but it’s so easy to do with so little risk but we don’t need their help”. Reminds me of the old “the enemy is strong and weak at the same time” aspect associated with fascism.