immuredanchorite

I don't actually think the protests against Iraq were that much bigger in the US, although they were much larger in Europe. I think the biggest protest against Iraq was in NYC with about 500,000 people. There have been sustained protests across the US, with the first few mobilizations getting around 500,000 people in DC and even 8 months later drawing close to 100,000 to DC last month. I think it is also pretty impactful because back then, during the Iraq war, in the US you could be a democrat upset with Bush protesting the war and think plausibly that it wasn't a contradiction even though the Democrats voted for the war too. You could be led to think if you voted really hard the war would end. This war is Biden's and those people in the streets were all by and large current/former democrats. Not to mention the electoral effect of the muslim community turning against Biden, in states like Michigan where it is enough to completely undermine his ability to win. I get that people want to say American's don't give a fuck about the rest of the world, and that is often very true. But the past 8 months has been a sea change in comparison to the last 30 years in my opinion, and the conversation isn't about which bourgeois political clique will do imperialism best. People are involved in an anti-imperialist movement that can't be co-opted by Democrats effectively, which is distinct from a lot of the anti-war activism during the Iraq era- which was firmly ensconced in the end of history

I agree, those are contenders... there is also the war in Afghanistan, the second Congo war, syria, Sudan....They have all been horrendous. I think the war on Gaza seems like it may be the worst arguably because the speed with which high numbers of civilians are being killed, particularly children, is unmatched in nearly any sort of conflict the world has seen since the last century-- on top of the past 16 years of blockade and sanction which left Gaza an open air prison prior to this recent onslaught

I am really starting to think that the liberal infighting and constant media coverage about Biden's age is an attempt at hedging against any argument that his electoral failure is tied to his support for the genocide in Gaza. Biden was not going to win the election against trump before this debate, it was already assured that millions would refuse to hold their nose and vote for him regardless. But now the ruling class can ignore this sort of analysis and focus on, "Biden lost because he was too old, he couldn't connect with young people" and they will hammer that home until they can completely erase the effect of the first anti-imperialist mass movement in the USA since the Vietnam war. The death toll coming out from the Lancet article had really driven this home for me. They have fully convinced themselves they can invent their own reality. The public hand-wringing the Biden admin has done, all while being primarily responsible for the genocide continuing as it has, is just so absurd for anyone paying close attention. This is probably the worst atrocity of the 21st century (so far ) and they will try their best to erase any electoral consequences, and thus erase anti-imperialist discourse from popular understanding of history. Seems even more important now to symbolically vote for an anti-imperialist candidate like Claudia de la Cruz, because even a relatively large, but still marginal vote in a battleground state would be hard to ignore, particularly if liberals decide to demonize and blame 3rd party voters for a Trump victory. "If everyone who had voted for de la cruz in Georgia voted for Biden, he would have won" etc. etc.

isn't this the same group that went to Cuba and snubbed Diaz-Canal, met with "dissidents" and then wrote a lengthy article about how Cuba was bad and won't listen to other voices on "the left?"

I keep seeing articles saying that Russia has told the US it will retaliate against the US. So like, are we all going to get irradiated or worse because Biden's worm-filled brain is stuck inside the end-of-history? Is Russia in a position to end the war in Ukraine? I remember reading a lot in the news mega about the lines finally moving appreciably... but did that stop happening or is Russia advancing still? I feel like that might be the only way to actually stop the escalation. Other nations are starting to call the US's bluff, but it seems like the US regime just pretends they weren't bluffing and it keeps doing the dumbest shit imaginable and choosing mass death over a wounded ego. I just don't want everyone to die because an Alzheimers patient wound up in the US presidency in a sick combination of elder abuse, class warfare, and neoliberal hubris.

why would AOC need critical support? she isn't on our side and her vision of "democracy" "economic rights" and "civil liberties" are as meaningless as when Biden or Blinken talk about "human rights" or "democracy." she called a white supremacist a white supremacist and that's cool and all, but she upholds the system that enables people like him

The US has showed absolutely no signs of lessening the sanctions against Cuba. If anything deepening their relationship with Russia could ease a lot of their economic problems, as Russia has created parallel trade systems that avoid sanctions and the dollar. Russia actually began to cut Cuba off and abandon them before the overthrow of the soviet union, as an attempt at appeasing and winning the approval of the empire. Now that Russia has cast off any illusion of US support or cooperation, building a relationship to Cuba is desirable again. Cuba loses nothing, but stands to gain a lot

idk how anyone could allow something like that to be tabled in good conscience

lmao, i take back anything i have ever said about them that had any nuance. imperialist running-dogs.

I remember when Biden won in 2020 a bunch of his sycophant politicos were essentially saying out loud that the lesson they had learned from 2016-2020 was that they can simply invent reality. They almost used those words. They looked at polling data about peoples perceptions of the economy before and after the 2016 elections, where people gave partisan answers (like republican affiliated people saying the economy was terrible and then the weeks after trumps inauguration they said that it was doing great-- but nothing had really changed) they saw that, and the capitulation of any Democratic Party left-wing (in both 2016 and 2020) and got completely absorbed in a sort of Hegelian idealism where they are able to dictate reality to whoever identifies with the democrats (or not with the republicans).

In a way, they were not wrong about how things had operated during the "end of history", more or less, except for the fact that there are moments where 1) material conditions can deteriorate and the moment the US electorate is subject to worsening conditions their narrative can fail 2) alternative media, like what can proliferate on social media, can expose the complete disconnect between words and actions and move consciousness.

You can see the hubris, when turbo-libs talk about how the real problem is people "not understanding" or "not knowing" all of Biden's "many accomplishments" or that these simple rubes don't know that the economy is actually doing "great." They have an incredibly powerful ability to control the way reality is presented for a ton of people, and that success was even on full display during the beginning of the SMO/Russia entering the Donbas & Ukraine. For a few weeks everyone had fucking Ukrainian flags out and everyone on tv was talking about Ukraine as a bastion of freedom and democracy, without knowing a fucking thing about Ukraine. I think back to 1999 to 2012 and I think a lot of the political class believed what they were saying about this policy or that policy. Because the window of debate was so narrow nearly at all times and nothing had a sense of urgency. Now they simply rage when the public adopts a belief that falls outside of what they are trying to construct. It was partly what they were seething about with the Facebook/russia-gate/fake news conspiracies that forced the tech bourgeoisie to adopt a more hard line on "acceptable" content and deployed state-sanctioned "debunkers" ... this is also was what paved the way to banning TikTok-- it wouldn't have been possible if the ruling class hadn't identified this as their primary challenge.

Sad!

Yeah, the reputation of CPUSA being full of feds is also a reflection of the extent to which the US state has repressed the organization. There are things I disagree with about the CPUSA's politics and strategy, but state repression isn't something that CPUSA members chose and it is unfair to most of its members. Sadly, I do think that it has still had a very real negative effect on the party and the way it has developed and who has remained. It is sad because it is a reflection of the tremendous impact the party once had.