​In leading foreign policy magazines across the United States, the rise of China is treated as a threat which the U.S. must effectively challenge. Since at least President Barack Obama’s 2011 “pivot to Asia,” American foreign policy has been crafted towards “containing” China, and “de-linking” it from the global economy.

As has been historically the case for all empires, its treatment of its up-and-coming competition has required various tactics of dehumanization. In the eyes of their population, they need the competitor to appear as a barbaric “other,” a being fully foreign to everything their people hold sacred. This is how hybrid wars against the “otherized” country are legitimated in the native population; fear of one’s way of life being threatened drives people who have no real, material interest in supporting these policies into supporting them.

The “pivot to Asia” has been conjoined with a healthy dose of Sinophobia. Even the propaganda spewed about China itself presupposes orientalist tropes about the “backwards” Eastern peoples more predisposed to despotism than the “enlightened” Westerners. Without this ideological basis, the media’s job of convincing Americans that China is ran by an autocratic “dictator,” who somehow calls all the shots in a country of 1.4 billion people, would be significantly harder. It is a predisposed dehumanization of the Chinese that premises the acceptance of baseless claims about a “Uyghur genocide,” for which those who have plundered the predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle East for a century have never provided evidence for.

But is there any basis in this otherization? Is the “Chinese dream” and way of life really that different from the ideals that regular American people hold as common sense? All evidence points to the contrary. In many ways, the reality Chinese people experience with their socialist democracy lives up to the American ideals far better than the reality Americans experience in the U.S. itself.
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​The most influential American thinkers and leaders in American history, those whose insights have crystallized into the common sense of many Americans, have all been distrustful of those who consider it their main purpose to simply accumulate capital at the expense of society.

Thomas Jefferson, for instance, held that there was a fundamental distinction between the aristocratic and democratic man: the former is rooted in big business elitism, the latter in the people’s will. Jefferson considered that if the aristocratic man came into power, the American experiment in democracy would be threatened. Hindsight has shown how right he was!

Abraham Lincoln, for instance, held that “labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” For Lincoln, the substance of the American project was “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” as he eloquently stated in his Gettysburg Address. He would be disappointed to see how today we have government of, by, and for big corporations, investment firms, and banks.

In the 20th century, no American thinkers are as influential as the polymath, John Dewey, and the brilliant Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. While every year American politicians pay lip service to Dr. King, and while Dewey’s literal nickname was “America’s philosopher of democracy,” what is often left out of the conversation was how both were vehemently critical of how America was failing to live up to its democratic ideals, and how, if it wanted to make these ideals real, it required some form of socialism.

Dr. King argued that “if a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life, nor liberty, nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists.” China’s efforts in lifting 800 million out of poverty and eliminating absolute poverty would align with Dr. King’s understanding of what is required for authentic American democracy far greater than the condition most American working people live in, more than 60% of which are a lost paycheck away from homelessness and most of which are drowning in debt-slavery.

Likewise, for Dewey we must stop thinking about democracy as something “institutional and external;’” instead, we should treat democracy as a “way of life,” one governed by the “belief in the common man.” For Dewey, genuine democracy is a consistent practice. It has less to do with showing up to a poll every two to four years and more to do with the ability of common people to steadily exert their collective power over the affairs of everyday life. Dewey would conclude that the ideals of the founders would be realized “only as control of the means of production and distribution is taken out of the hands of individuals who exercise powers created socially for narrow individual interests.” It is in China, where capital is forced to serve the people and not the other way around, where this vision is most plentifully realized.

Dewey would wholeheartedly agree with Chinese president Xi Jinping, who asserted that “democracy is not an ornament to be used for decoration; it is to be used to solve the problems that the people want to solve.” As Xi Jinping has noted,

If the people are awakened only at the time of voting and go into dormancy afterward; if the people only listen to smashing slogans during election campaigns but have no say afterward; if the people are only favored during canvassing but are left out after the election, such a democracy is not a true democracy.

One could see words like these coming out of the mouths of a John Dewey or a Martin Luther King Jr. The ideas governing China’s socialist whole-process people’s democracy should look anything but foreign to Americans – it is what our leading democratic theorists hoped the US system would develop into. If Americans are faithful to the democratic creed of the Declaration of Independence, and to the leading theorists of our country, who have developed these into notions of socialist democracy with American characteristics, then we should be praising China for how incredibly comprehensive their socialist democracy is.

Instead of accepting the lies U.S. politicians and media spew, all of which are aimed are “otherizing” and “demonizing” China, the American people must realize that it is China where the American ideals are best embodied. Professor Zhang Weiwei is, without a doubt, correct to point out that Lincoln’s dictum “of, by, and for the people,” is much more substantially realized in China.

Instead of accepting the easily disprovable lies of U.S. officials, who in condemning China are themselves standing in an anti-American position, the American people should fight to realize Lincoln’s vision. When our government is actually of, by, and for the people, the conditions will be present for us seeing China’s rise not as a threat we must contain, but an effort we can applaud. Ultimately, if Americans are faithful to their democratic creed, they will realize that we must learn from China and work together to build a peaceful, cooperative, and ecological shared future for mankind.

At the start of this June, invited by The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, I attended the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia, a large-scale economic forum of utmost importance in Russia. The focus of the forum was on “The Formation of New Centers of Growth as The Cornerstone of a Multipolar World.” More than 12,000 members of various professions from more than 100 countries attended the forum. Russian President Putin made a keynote speech, of which some opinions are very impressive.

​First of all his brief on the global trend, where he expressed that all countries in the world are enhancing sovereignty in three aspects: national sovereignty, cultural value sovereignty, and economic sovereignty. I find this inspiring.

Secondly, he made a judgment on the world economic situation, stating that China has already emerged as the top economy globally. Although he did not explicitly mention the second-ranked economy, it is widely understood to be the United States. This is what I often express on Chinese television programs., China’s economy, measured by purchasing power parity, surpassed that of the US as early as 2014, a decade ago.

Putin then discussed how, according to purchasing power parity, India is poised to become the third-largest economy. He also emphasized the high birth rate, relatively low level of urbanization, and rapid economic growth in the South Asia region where India is situated.

Thirdly, regarding the Russian economy, he stated that Russia’s objective is to become the fourth-largest economy in the world. He then spontaneously mentioned that the World Bank had recently revised its statistics, indicating that Russia had surpassed Japan to claim the fourth spot in terms of economic scale, based on purchasing power parity. The audience erupted into enthusiastic applause at this announcement, prompting Putin to advise everyone to maintain a modest demeanor.

He emphasized, “We have now overtaken Japan and Germany, albeit by a slight margin, which we aim to sustain and expand. It is imperative for us to ensure high-speed, high-quality growth in the long term, considering that other nations, such as Indonesia, are rapidly advancing with their growing population and swift economic progress.”

Putin referenced data released by the World Bank at the end of May this year: as of the end of 2023, the global economic rankings by purchasing power parity are as follows: China in first place with 35 trillion dollars, the United States in second with 27.4 trillion dollars, India in third with 14.6 trillion dollars, Russia in fourth with 6.45 trillion dollars, and Japan in fifth with 6.3 trillion dollars. Based on these figures, China’s economy is approximately equivalent to 5.5 times that of Japan and 128% of the United States’.

The shift towards utilizing purchasing power parity as a measurement is significant for Russia, as it is perceived as a more realistic indicator. Historically, Russia had been using nominal GDP calculated by official exchange rates, resulting in a significant underestimation of its economic size and portraying a position of weakness to the West. This miscalculation led to five expansions of NATO towards the east and continuous humiliation of Russia. Presently, Russian leaders predominantly rely on purchasing power parity standards to evaluate their economic standing.

Then Putin continued on the status of Russia’s economic development and structural adjustment, with which he pointed out Russia’s GDP growth rate was 3.6% last year, above the world average. He especially mentioned how this growth comes mainly from non-resource areas. The Russian economy was, by the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse and under the influence of neo-liberalism ideology, driven afar from reality, and relied on selling resources for a long time. After Putin took presidency the situation changed. According to himself, in 2023, non-resource industries like manufacturing, architecture, logistics, information, agriculture, and electricity have grown by over 45.5%.

Some claim that Russia is only getting a higher growth rate for its war-time economy, yet from our own eyes we have seen these years Russia rebuilt. A large batch of Chinese enterprises are actively investing in Russia as well. Although Russia is bearing over 15000 various Western sanctions, the Russian market is still prospering, essentials are well-supplied, and many goods from China, including cars, phones, and appliances are seen all around.

Putin also talked about how Russia’s exporting commerce has grown immensely, and the share of “poisonous currencies” from unfriendly nations has decreased by half. Over 40% of exchanges use Russian rubles.

The concept of “poisonous currency” was first raised among Russian scholars to describe Western currencies like US dollars, now it is also widely used among Russian leaders like Putin himself. This shows Russia’s unique understanding of Western currencies like dollars, and worth our thinking as well.

During the speech, Putin also stressed that global development has shifted its center from Europe to Asia, “we should get closer to these centers of development”. Russia’s “Turning East” is not a temporary move, but a progress that is happening around the world.
After his speech, the esteemed Russian political scholar Sergey Karaganov posed an intriguing question to Putin. He mentioned that Peter the Great had intentionally constructed St. Petersburg as a gateway to Europe, securing his place in history. Karaganov asked why Putin couldn’t make a similar decision to establish a grand city in the Far East.

In response, Putin stated that Russia could explore the possibility of creating a third metropolis in Russia, emphasizing that such endeavors should not rely solely on administrative directives but rather on the cultivation of appealing conditions.

Putin explained that the development of St. Petersburg was driven by the economic hub being located in Europe at that time. With the global economic center now shifted to Asia, he emphasized the importance of Russia turning its focus towards Asia and vigorously advancing economic growth in the Far East. During his visit to China, Putin made a special trip to Harbin.

The Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, also visited the Far East region of Russia, including Irkutsk. I see these visits as significant signals indicating the acceleration of cooperation between Russia and China in developing the Far East. During his visit to Irkutsk, Wang Yi remarked that China is actively advancing its modernization process in Chinese model while Russia is expediting the development of the Far East, presenting both countries with a historic opportunity for collaboration. Local partnerships play a crucial role in the China-Russia relationship.

I personally believe that joint cooperation in the development of the Far East region will bring substantial benefits to both nations. From China’s perspective, this collaboration will enhance the long-term energy and resource security needed for China’s economic growth. From Russia’s standpoint, it will contribute to reshaping the spatial layout of the Russian economy, creating a new hub for economic growth.

​Perhaps the critics were right.

The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States. Founded in 1982 by a cadre of social democrats, the group has since swelled to roughly 100,000 official members. Virtually all of that growth occurred after Senator Bernie Sanders launched his first presidential run, which mainstreamed socialism in America. What was once a marginal bunch now regularly makes headlines and even has members in Congress.

Yet the Democratic Socialists of America is hardly uncontroversial on the American Left. A longstanding critique is that it’s too reformist and cozy with a Democratic Party it should be trying to destroy. Rather than mobilizing to build independent institutions, leftist critics believe the organization siphons socialist energy into the duopoly’s lesser evil. That is arguably counterrevolutionary as it may further lock us into a capitalist political system which only serves the elite.

Naturally, members forcefully resist this characterization of their organization. But recent events seem to have vindicated the critics. On August 6th, the Democratic Socialist of America’s official Twitter account posted the following:

Within traditional Marxist-Leninist vocabulary, socialism and communism refer to different stages of a new mode of production.

However, the usage of these terms as a form of political identification have always had different connotations historically.

Often times, Right-Wingers love to repeat the fairytale - that 'communism,' promising 'utopia,' was a completely benign term that everyone was naive about.

It was associated with rainbows and sunshine... Until it was 'put into practice' and 999 trillion people were massacred and starved.

According to this mythology, naive 'idealists' did not realize how 'scary' communism was, until Communists actually seized power.

But the truth is that communism HAS ALWAYS been a 'bad word.'

COMMUNISM - THE SPECTRE HAUNTING EUROPE
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During the early 19th century, communism was associated with riotous working class revolutionaries throughout Europe. Masses of people, ordinary people on the street, believed there was something fundamentally wrong and rotten about the state of Europe.

Meanwhile, 'Socialism' referred to enlightened reformers and experimental utopians, who posed no threat to the ruling capitalist class  order. In fact, many members of the ruling class, in a philanthropic way, were actually drawn to 'socialism.'

Both socialists and communists understood there was something wrong with the emerging capitalist society. But "socialists" treated this problem as something that could be solved without any real trouble.

At this time, older, more traditional relations were breaking down. Peasants, forced off of their land, were being herded into cities to become proletarians.

The old feudal order and everything upon which it rested fundamentally broke down. All it's vestiges took the form of a sick and twisted hypocrisy, disguising the naked brutality of the new capitalist order - founded upon the degradation, humiliation, and rapacious exploitation of man by man.

Vast swaths of people were crammed into slums and factories, treated worse than animals. Children were not spared. Women were driven into prostitution on a mass scale.

Diseased, overcrowded, overworked, and depleted of any spiritual morale - such was the fate of Western Europe's peasant majority.

Enlightened 'Socialists' sought to provide relief from this brutality. But there was something a little bit twisted about this.

They regarded the evils and ills of the system as mere 'quirks' to be remedied, thus treating a fundamental existential loss of humanity as a mere utilitarian question - treating the very evils of capitalism under the utilitarian and crude logic of capitalism itself.

Today, this is reminiscent of the way Silicon Valley provides "solutions" and "hacks" to the outrageous problems of capitalism. No food? Have some soylent. No housing? Try pod sharing.

The more "metaphysical" (Marx would say "human") questions - of justice, existence, morality, dignity, honor, meaning - were brushed under the rug by the "Socialists."

There was something craven about the "socialists." They were conciliatory to the established powers. They did not have the courage to speak the truth.

During this period, communists were those who recognized something fundamentally rotten, false, hypocritical, and bankrupt about the emerging and "restored" (after Metternich) Europe.

They rejected the hypocrisy of the reactionaries. They rejected the "remedies" of the "Socialists." They insisted upon a FUNDAMENTAL position of existential truth and authenticity.

However inconvenient, scandalous, and "terrifying" it was to high society.

In the words of Fredrich Engels in his preface to the Communist Manifesto:

"Whatever portion of the working class had become convinced of the insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and had proclaimed the necessity of total social change, called itself Communist."

The French revolution revealed the great extent of the ancien regime's corruption. But it did not recognize the root cause of society's growing division. There began to emerge a great Elephant in the room.

The people began to acquire the awareness - they were being deprived of their economic rights on a mass scale. In a manner so open, so notorious, and so brazen that not even the most exploitative of Feudal lords, ever faced with the prospect of peasant rebellion, could have conceived of doing against their serfs.

Communists, from the beginning, represented an inconvenient truth. That something was killed with the rise of capitalism - the common, social substance of mankind. And yet it continued to haunt Europe, as a fundamental and unavoidable question looming over it.

And all the great powers of Europe were terrified of the mere whisper of this - because they too knew it on an unconscious level. People could no longer ignore the obvious truth: Something was lost that MUST be restored.

And it could not be restored by returning to the past, for its loss was an indictment on the entire history of private property itself.

Thus, there was a "spectre" of Communism. The ghosts of voiceless and forgotten martyrs of not only of capitalism but all European history (which Micheal Hudson documents as the domination of creditor classes).

A ghost that reminded Europe of a fundamental irrationality and problem it couldn't escape from.

Communists were not politicians, policy makers, philanthropists, "problem solvers." They were those who insisted upon a fundamental and total "metaphysical" (as 'positivists' would call it) truth.

They were also not anarchists. They insisted upon a LOST history, a LOST future, and a LOST civilization. By rejecting private property, they were rejecting the institution that disguised and obstructed a fundamental confrontation with a common historical situation and reality.

One that, in a sense, already existed, but subject to continual erasure, forgetting, and being swept under the rug. All the wealth of society was increasingly and in a way unprecedented being produced in common, yet appropriated privately to a likewise unprecedented degree.

Communists didn't propose a "utopia." They insisted upon a sober, authentic, and brutally honest confrontation with the present reality - of robbery, exploitation, injustice, and the destruction of humanity itself.

Communists were not "proposing" a new system or alternative. They were, to the terror of Europe's crowned heads and capitalists - declaring the existence of an entirely different cosmology, a forgotten and repressed universal whole of existence.

This cosmology was "different" - yet paradoxically so familiar. Because it's existence, weighing on the guilty conscience of all European society, was repressed.
Everyone knew that the brutality and savagery of capitalism was contrary to the very place mankind, the highest of God's creation, had within universal existence.

The inconvenient and unspeakable truth- that humanity itself had fallen in a fundamental way, that all older conventions were obsolete, that the true history of Europe, in its entirety, was too much for the established powers of Europe to bare.

"Socialists" may have proposed a completely new "system." But they did not question the fundamental cosmology, the total horizon of symbolic meaning itself - within the established capitalist order.

They did not recognize that from the perspective of universal existence itself, the prevailing order was condemned. They could only ever take a one-sided perspective, based on philanthropy, 'problem solving,' or even 'engineering.'

They did not reckon with the whole of history and human existence itself - what Engels described as the demand for "total social change."

THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC REALPOLITIK

And after decades, Europe eventually did witness the rise of a powerful 'socialist' or Social Democratic movement.

The phrase 'communism' was discarded for 'social democracy,' as a form of political realpolitik. Communism was treated as a later stage of consciousness for what was a growing yet persecuted movement.

Because society was not ready - either legally or ideologically - for the total change implied by that word, it was regarded as more realistic to place less emphasis on it.

The social democrats, because of their realpolitik, managed to create large and successful mass movements.

But over time, they forgot their original mission. They became corrupted by the legalism, the convenience, and the institutionalization of the worker's cause. They ceased to be leaders of a totally new society. They, rather, became 'part' of society.

COMMUNISM - LENIN'S REVOLUTIONARY DYNASTY

It was Lenin who reintroduced the word Communism back into the political history of mankind.

Not because Lenin was an anarchist who rejected realpolitik, and not because he was an ideological fanatic. It was because, after reading Hegel in solitude, he had the courage to accept the decisive significance of the Communist outlook in new and crucial situation.

In the beginning, the communists goals were ambiguous and ill-defined. All they had was their authenticity, their willingness to accept the full and total implications of history, regardless of how terrifying the consequences.

But Lenin, in his genius, succeeded in situating the whole development of Social-Democracy up until the decisive point as communism itself in the form of political struggle.

Lenin restored the greater cosmological and "metaphysical" significance of politics. Rather than a "respectable" branch of bourgeois society, politics was the staging ground, the battlefield, and the fundamental dimension of "metaphysical" struggle.

(By "metaphysical" one refers to the positivist pejorative - for of course, what is really meant is dialectical in the fullest sense)

Politics was absolute struggle to the death. Politics for Lenin meant the same thing that it did for Gilgamesh or for Cyrus the Great. The whole of universal existence was imperiled in it. It is not a 'part' of society. It is the total existence of a society at war with itself.

It is the active form of society's most fundamental contradiction, the class struggle.

The goal of Communists was the revolutionary seizure of state power, under a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Communists were MILITANTS fighting a WAR - as Clausewitz said, war is an extension of politics and vice versa.

War for the seizure of state power from the capitalist class, from the bloodsuckers and exploiters of humanity. Lenin set all world imperialism ablaze. No Empire could survive the judgement of the stars.

Lenin's flame was the seed of a new, revolutionary dynasty, whose dominion would be greater and more exalted than all the obsolete powers of old Europe.

The dynastic succession was not based on individual blood. But on the revolutionary essence of history itself. The dynasty of Marxism-Leninism, and its five heads - Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao.

Lenin restored the cosmological significance of Communist struggle - the struggle for existence, meaning, humanity, etc. was now embedded in a nexus of global geopolitics that became the battleground for world history itself.

Before and after Lenin's revolution, a new imperialist ruling class began to usurp all the formal and constitutional rights of the people. It was destroying their SOVEREIGNTY.

Imperialism and fascism violated the very social contract that the bourgeois class had disguised its dictatorship in the name of. They trampled on the liberties of their own people - while violating the right of self determination of other nations.

They suffocated and destroyed all outlets for the people's sovereignty. And so on the basis of violating legitimate, historically constituted social contract of the people - they defined the terms of a new war.

The war did not begin with 'communist idealists' proposing a new system from scratch. It began with Communists defending the integrity of the people's common history itself.

Communism is not about forcing a new system on the people. It is about leading and educating the masses as they discover how the society, government, etc. familiar and legitimate to them is collapsing according to contradictions the Communists alone understand.

Leninism is not a rejection of realism. It IS realism - the highest insight into the contradictions driving world history itself.

It differed from social democracy precisely in that it refused to shy away from the naked Clausewitzean realism of class struggle, which was a WAR. The clausewitzean realism of the state, which is an instrument of violent dictatorship by the exploited class over the exploiters.

Leninism was never a regress into infantilism and a rejection of professionalism or mature, legal activity.

Leninism is, in addition to being a revolutionary outlook, also a wisdom: Not simply an active rejection of the entire social order, but a RECOGNITION that it is being broken down according to its own contradictions.

COMMUNISM TODAY

Now, in the 21st century, after the rise of many great Communist states, what meaning does Communism have?

The new significance of Communism is that it has become a fully integral historical outlook. The LOST history and civilization it insists upon is REAL and TANGIBLE (the Soviet Union).

The specter is real - the ghost of Soviet Communism and Lenin's revolution.

Communism today re-litigates the so-called American-led "New World Order" at the fundamental level.

It rejects the history written by the "victors" of the cold war. It insists upon the fact that the world is running away from the truth- the forgotten truth of world Communist struggle.

Communists reject the entire American-led world order, and it's falsification of history.

The Soviet Union did not need to "collapse." The Berlin wall did not need to "fall." In fact, there was no irreversible "collapse." Only an intermittent period of confusion and disarray. A period that is now on the cusp of ending.

The "collapse" was the consequence of contradictions in the world Communist movement (the Sino Soviet dispute, the cultural revolution) not the supremacy or superiority of the capitalist bloc.

The enduring strength of victorious China, which now drives almost all world economic growth, is proof of this fact.

To be a Communist today, is to insist upon the integrity not only of all world-history, but of the history of Communism in particular.

For this contains the key to everything about the nature of the current global order.

Communists are not "Democratic Socialists" who compromise with the tall-tales and spooky-stories about "totalitarianism" spun by the prostitutes of the American plutocracy.

We defend Stalin.

We defend Mao.

We defend dictatorship.

We defend Cheka.

We defend Soviet Justice (late 1930's).

We defend Tanks in Budapest and Prague.

We defend Cultural Revolution.

We defend 'authoritarian' China.

We are not "socialists."

We are COMMUNISTS.

We are not mere "socialists" who neglect the dimension of WAR and all its ugly realities in class struggle. War is ugly. Such is its nature. The question is - what war is worth fighting for?

Communists rebuke the liberal and 'conservative' hypocrites who lament the brutality of 'Communist terror.' They happily facilitate, and at best, passively tolerate, several wars of unprecedented scale and brutality, responsible for the murder of countless millions and the devastation of entire nations, for the financial gain of the capitalist class.

WAR will be fought either way. Which war are you fighting for? 

Communists ARE "tankies." We are here to herald the collapse of the entire global system with tanks, not flowers.

Communists see the rational integrity of all world history since and even before Lenin's revolution. In all its cunning, its brilliance. We see the rational necessity of everything that has happened up until this point.

Our mission is to remind mankind that this struggle, this war never ended. Only - one side stopped fighting. Not because of the invincibility of America's ruling class.

But because they lost their morale, their spiritual conviction, their belief.

Many declare Communism to be "dead."

But when has that ever stopped communists? Recall the opening lines of the Manifesto: This fateful struggle began with a ghost haunting Europe.

Now this ghost haunts the world.

The restoration of the Communist cause on a planetary scale is inescapable and unavoidable.

Resist it in vain.

Continue to spin your fairy tales and mythologies in vain.

Continue to lie and slander the heroic and sacred history.

Your words will echo less into the future of world history than a dog barking at its own shit.

You cannot stop the confrontation that is to come.

You cannot stop history itself.

At a technological level, the rise of the non-Western world, particularly China, is striking. During this year’s March Two Sessions, our Minister of Science and Technology, Yin Hejun, informed both domestic and foreign journalists that China has achieved a significant number of original breakthroughs in fields such as quantum technology, integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, biomedicine, and new energy. The export growth rates of EV cars, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic components – collectively known as the “New Three” – are remarkably promising. The Wall Street Journal reported on this development with the headline “The World Is in for Another China Shock.”

My friend forwarded me a fascinating blog post where the author made some intriguing points. The author mentioned that these “New Three” are truly formidable because China has managed to produce them at such a low cost, akin to the “rock-bottom prices.” Over the past three years of the pandemic, amidst US lockdowns and sanctions, China has been expanding its production capacity in a counter-cyclical manner, while the Western countries are moving towards deindustrialization. With high-interest rates in the US, Europe and Russia drifting apart, leading to soaring resource costs, one might wonder how their manufacturing sectors will fare. China’s next move is poised for a comprehensive breakthrough in the chip industry chain. Once achieved, it’s uncertain what headline the Wall Street Journal might come up with next. Could it be “The Shock of China’s Shock”?

In the realm of military affairs, shortly after Biden took office, in August 2021, the US military made a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. A chaotic scene unfolded at Kabul Airport as fleeing crowds chased planes on the runway, and Afghan individuals clinging to aircrafts tragically fell to their deaths. German President Steinmeier remarked that this harrowing situation at Kabul Airport was a disgrace for the United States and the Western world. Former US President Trump criticized Biden, stating, “This is the most embarrassing moment in our country’s history.” He added, “If China sees this, they must be delighted, the Chinese are laughing at us.” When asked about Trump’s comments, our Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying responded, “Is there even a need for us to laugh at?”

In recent months, the Yemeni Houthi militia has been targeting British and American merchant vessels in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait under the guise of supporting the Palestinian people. Despite the deployment of US and UK warships for protection, the situation remains tense, with reports of British ships being sunk. The Houthi group continues to launch missiles at British and American vessels, causing concern over the US’s ability to contain the situation and maintain its military dominance.

The American conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, went as far as suggesting on its website that if merchant ships from around the world start seeking protection from China instead of the US, it could signify a shift from the “American century” to the “Chinese century.” While the author expressed relief that Beijing has not yet taken on this role, it is a viewpoint that warrants serious consideration.

In the realm of ideology, the soft power of the US and the West is declining at an accelerated pace. For a long time, the US has cloaked itself in the banners of “Democracy, Liberty, Human Rights”, employing deceptive tactics to incite “Color Revolutions” worldwide, resulting in political turmoil and economic decline in numerous nations. The “Arab Spring” that erupted around 2011 ultimately led to the fragmentation of Libya and Yemen, with Syria enduring devastating levels of destruction. International evaluations indicate that the “Arab Spring” inflicted approximately $900 billion in damages to the infrastructure of countries such as Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, forcing over 15 million people into refugee status.

Ukraine, deeply immersed in Western ideology, has faced a tumultuous fate. The “Orange Revolution” in 2004 and the “Euromaidan Revolution” in 2014 have left their mark. During the chaos at Independence Square in Kyiv in 2014, then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland personally visited to support the pro-Western faction in Ukraine. However, this key figure behind the Ukrainian “Color Revolution” and the conflict with Russia has recently “resigned.” This move is widely seen as a sign of the failure of Biden’s Ukraine strategy. Sadly, the Ukrainian people, through what they believed to be democratic means, elected a leader who unquestioningly follows the US’s lead. The outcome is a land in ruins, with widespread devastation and despair.

Personally, Ukraine gave me some special memories, because it was the 100th country I researched, and it was from July 17th to 21st, 2006. That was also my last stop in East Europe’s former Socialist countries. I have drawn a careful conclusion to my practical study: a non-western country or non-western region, if transplanted with a Western political system, could only yield one of two: from hope to disappointment, or from hope to desperation.
​
Now the Western world itself is experiencing constantly from hope to disappointment, maybe some would even face desperation in the future. I remember on January 6th, after the riots on Capitol Hill, Richard Haas, the chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, exclaimed in a post, “From now on, no one in the world will see, respect, fear, or rely on us America in the same way. If there is a starting date for the ‘post-American era,’ it is almost certainly today.”

This year the entire world shall witness American inferior democracy stepping lower into deteriorate. British media The Guardian posted an article on its website shows that over 80% of US citizens are worried about the American democratic system and future Political violence. It is one of the not much agreement the two parties may gather, that the US will get itself into such disaster.

Great Britain is not so much better, the same media The Guardian quoted a poll on March showing that 79% of the participants think of British politicians as “non-listeners to average people’s opinions”, while 43% think “the UK is downfalling”.
​
In conclusion, the four pillars of Western hegemony – Economic, Technological, Military, and Ideological – are deeply shaken today, and various reliable alternatives have emerged. Allow me to share a commentary we made shortly after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict as a fitting conclusion, showcasing the practicality of our assessment. At that time, I expressed: the conflict once again proves that the world has entered a “post-American era.” The age of US dominance as the sole superpower has ended, and the US can no longer dictate the course of the world. Consequently, a series of US-led institutional arrangements, including alliances like NATO and the status of the US dollar hegemony, may gradually decline. A truly multipolar international order will emerge through the dynamic interplay of revolution, reform, and turbulence.

Originally published: Caitlin A Johnstone Blog  on September 2, 2024 (more by Caitlin A Johnstone Blog) ​

You never see the dehumanization of Palestinians in western society exhibited so clearly as when something bad happens to Israelis during the genocidal assault on Gaza.

Today western officials are publicly weeping about six dead Israeli hostages, including one Israeli-American, who the IDF says were recently killed by Hamas.

Whoever’s been writing Joe Biden’s press releases for him published a statement about how “devastated and outraged” the president is about the death of the American hostage, Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
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The statement says the president knows Goldberg-Polin’s parents, saying “I admire them and grieve with them more deeply than words can express” and that “Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes.”
​
“I have worked tirelessly to bring their beloved Hersh safely to them and am heartbroken by the news of his death,” the statement reads, which for the record is a lie — the Biden administration has been collaborating with Benjamin Netanyahu to sabotage a hostage deal at every turn.

Similar sentiments are being expressed in statements by western officials like Vice President Kamala Harris, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

All of these statements frame the deaths of these six Israeli hostages as an earth-shakingly horrific tragedy, and all frame Hamas as a band of evil villains who must be brought to justice for their crimes.

No similar statements have ever been made by any of these officials about the far, far greater number of innocent Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza by the state of Israel with their assistance. No similar expressions of condolence have ever been uttered by these leaders for the millions of Palestinians who’ve had their lives completely ruined by Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank over the last eleven months, or for the untold thousands of parents who’ve had to bury children who were exterminated in Israel’s genocidal onslaught.

Western government officials are making it clear that they do not see Palestinians as human in the same way they see Israelis as human, as are the mass media propaganda institutions who’ve been covering the deaths of these hostages with an intensity never seen regarding the IDF’s daily massacres of civilians in Gaza. Israeli strikes killed 47 Palestinians in Gaza in one 24-hour period between Saturday and Sunday, receiving not the tiniest fraction of the attention as those six Israeli hostages.

​The message is clear: Israelis dying is a terrible tragedy, while Palestinians dying is just the normal way for things to be. An Israeli dying should matter as much to you as your own family or friends dying, while a Palestinian dying should be regarded as a routine and natural event like a drop of rain falling from the sky.

And that’s an important message for westerners to be indoctrinated with. Can you imagine if we all started caring about western bombs being dropped in the middle east as much as we would care if they were being dropped on our own country, or on a country we’ve been conditioned to sympathize with? All their carefully manufactured consent would crumble, and people would cease allowing the western empire to do what it needs to do to dominate the planet.

These people are actively working to subvert our basic sense of human empathy. To twist our psyches into being unable to recognize the same level of humanity among empire-targeted populations as empire-supported ones. To see authorized populations as worthy of care and sympathy, and to see unauthorized populations as vermin in need of extermination.

Yes, our rulers really are that evil, and so are the propagandists who run the mass media.

So today I would like to extend my deepest condolences to the millions of Palestinians who’ve lost loved ones and had their lives thrown to the winds of chaos by Israel’s western-backed campaign of extermination, ethnic cleansing, and terrorism.

And I would like to remind my readers that Israel has exponentially more hostages than Hamas has, and murders them routinely, and rapes and tortures them constantly.

And it is right that we should care deeply about that. Even if the people who rule over us do not.

 America isn’t as free as you think it is.

In 1973, during the Cold War, Grant Cooper, a respected professor at the University of Little Rock Arkansas, was dismissed after asserting he taught  history from a Marxist perspective and admitted to his membership in the Progressive Labor Party.

His comments, published in the student paper and the Arkansas Democratic Gazette, led to significant backlash. The case, which reached the Arkansas Supreme Court, sparked a debate on academic freedom and political expression, paralleling the repression faced today by pro-Palestine advocates, and mirroring ongoing retaliation against dissenting views.

A mixed reaction

Though the University faculty sympathized with Cooper in the Cooper V Henslee case, the administration initially warned him to stop making such comments and to avoid teaching history from a Marxist perspective. After he refused and defended his position, the university informed him that his contract would not be renewed (due to public backlash) under the pretext of poor classroom performance and lack of publication, according to Randy Dixon.

The dismissal sparked outrage among faculty and students alike, who saw it as a blatant violation of academic freedom. “This is a clear case of political persecution,” said one of Cooper’s colleagues. “Grant has been targeted not because of any wrongdoing, but because his views challenge the status quo.”

Anti-communist politicians, including Representative Frank B. Henslee and several Arkansas state legislators, sued the University of Arkansas Little Rock Board of Trustees to enforce McCarthy-era laws that made advocating for the revolutionary overthrow of the government illegal. Under Act 401, Cooper was required to register with state police as a Communist. Fortunately, the ACLU intervened, arguing that his firing was unconstitutional.

The Student Senate of Little Rock came out in support of Cooper. The students held rallies and solicited signatures on his behalf. Frustrated by the lengthy court process, Arkansas state legislator Bobby Glover threatened to enact legislation that would call for his removal.

A healthy mix of McCarthyism & the Jim Crow South

Act 401 of 1951, required communists and communist organizations advocating for the overthrow of the government to register with state police or face fines of up $50,000-$100,000 or a prison sentence of up to 6-24 months. Act 401 resembles pro-segregation laws from 1957-1959, such as Act 10, which targeted civil rights activists by requiring state employees to disclose their political affiliations, and Act 115 of 1958, which barred NAACP members from state jobs.

Act 401 was not just a Cold War-era law as it set the standard for the broader effort to resist black civil rights in Arkansas. Coincidentally, Grant’s father (Grant William Cooper) was pivotal in Cooper v. Aaron, a 1958 civil rights case challenging Arkansas’s defiance of the Supreme Court’s desegregation mandate from Brown v. Board of Education. As a result, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the state, reaffirming desegregation and upholding the Brown decision.

The Act 401 laws restricting free speech were eventually struck down. In the 1975 case Cooper v. Henslee, the Arkansas Supreme Court overturned a previous decision mandating Cooper’s dismissal, ruling that the 1941 Anti-Communist Act violated Cooper’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Although Cooper won the case, he did not return to teaching at UA Little Rock but received back pay through the end of his contract on May 30, 1975. This ruling, along with William Grant Cooper’s anti-segregation efforts, secured the Cooper family’s place in Arkansas history, albeit a lesser known history.

But Grant Cooper’s saga is but one Arkansas-based link in a long chain of governmental suppression of anti-imperialists and dissenting views.

Suppression of Palestine advocates & McCarthyism: A modern parallel

Walt Disney, a staunch anti-communist, accused members of the Screen Cartoonists Guild of being communist agitators in retaliation for the 1941 Disney animators’ strike, leading to their blacklisting. Later, in 1946, an article titled “A Vote for Joe Stalin” fueled anti-communist hysteria in Hollywood, prompting unions to crack down on suspected communists.

Dalton Trumbo, a member of the “Hollywood Ten,” was blacklisted after refusing to testify before HUAC in 1947, forcing him to write under pseudonyms for years. The Hollywood Ten were held in contempt of Congress, and their appeals were denied by the Supreme Court, leading to prison sentences.

Arthur Miller, the renowned playwright and ex-husband of Marilyn Monroe faced scrutiny due to his 1954 passport invalidation over suspected Communist ties, leading to a subpoena. Monroe and Miller were introduced to each other by Elia Kazan, himself a target of HUAC. Accompanied by Monroe, Miller testified in June 1956, accusing the committee of exploiting their relationship, which complicated their wedding plans (which took place 4 days later.) He was charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to name others before HUAC. Despite these pressures, Miller continued to work openly, unlike Dalton Trumbo. However, Trumbo’s career was revived when Kirk Douglas publicly credited him as the screenwriter of “Spartacus,” a pivotal moment in ending the Hollywood blacklist.

Current reprisals against pro-Palestinian advocates mirror the tactics used during the Red Scare and Lavender Scare, when Hollywood studios weaponized morality clauses and the HUAC to target communists and gays in the entertainment industry.

For example, a top talent agent at CAA, Maha Dakhil, was initially forced to step down due to her Instagram post in support of Palestine. She had posted an image with the phrase, “What’s more heartbreaking than witnessing genocide? Witnessing the denial that genocide is happening.” In another post, she wrote, “You’re currently learning who supports genocide.” She added in the caption, “That’s the line for me.” Without Tom Cruise’s public backing, she likely would have been blacklisted.

Susan Sarandon was dropped by her agency, UTA, following her remarks at a pro-Palestine rally, where she stated, “There are many people currently afraid of being Jewish and experiencing what it feels like to be Muslim in this country.” Similarly, Melissa Barrera of the Scream franchise was notably dismissed from Scream VII last year after calling for a ceasefire and posting on Instagram, “I too come from a colonized country,” with a Mexican flag and the message, “Palestine WILL be free.”

These incidents highlight Hollywood’s authoritarian tendencies in suppressing dissenting voices, which contradicts the conservative narrative that conflates the culture wars with “Marxism.” In reality, Hollywood’s “woke” ideology is heavily influenced by the state, Fortune 500 companies and capitalist billionaires. The reported plans of studio executives waiting for strikers to “bleed out/lose their apartments” in response to last summer’s SAG-AFTRA strike further illustrates their depravity and callousness.

Reprisals against working class Palestine advocates

Many celebrities are cautious about their public statements due to endorsement deals, but the working class, unlike celebrities, typically only represent themselves, making repression in academia and media especially troubling. Despite expectations of free expression at public universities, retaliatory actions still occur.

Prior to Israel’s attack on Gaza, Marc Lamont Hill used the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in a 2018 UN speech. After backlash from the ADL he was fired from CNN. The ADL has deemed the phrase “antisemitic” and as “inciting violence.” In Texas, teacher Bahia Amawi was fired for refusing to sign an anti-BDS oath, barring her from working in public schools. Currently, 25 U.S. states have anti-BDS laws prohibiting state contracts/employment with those supporting the boycott of Israel, including Arkansas.

Over the past ten months, several individuals were dismissed for being “hateful,” though only a few were genuinely fired for celebrating violence or making hateful remarks about the Gaza conflict. Lawyer Gabe Roberts explained to MarketWatch, “There is nothing inherently protected about political views, whether you’re a Trump supporter or a Biden supporter. Could you be fired for supporting Israel, and could you be fired for supporting Palestine? That question is tricky.”

The great Israel-Palestine cease-fires

Supporters of Palestine have faced dismissals for taking a stand.

Danny Shaw, a former professor at John Jay College, was terminated after a pro-Palestine speech due to a harassment campaign that pressured the university. Shaw, who was doxxed and threatened, expressed support for other dismissed professors, including Lisa Hofman Kurda from CUNY and Jairo Funez-Flores and Shellyne Rodriguez from Texas Tech University.

In another incident, multiple UT-Austin teaching assistants were dismissed after sharing mental health resources for Arab students affected by the war.

In Israel, high school teacher Meir Baruchin was arrested, fired, and held in solitary confinement for four days over Facebook posts intended to “humanize” Palestinians. He was  accused of “intention to commit treason.” Baruchin later won a lawsuit against the Ministry of Education and the municipality, securing the right to return to his school, but has not returned due to ongoing threats and abuse.

In a notable case, Briahna Joy Gray was fired from The Hill for rolling her eyes at a relative of an Israeli hostage who asked her to condemn Hamas based on debunked rape claims.

Similarly, Michael Eisen, a Jewish editor, was dismissed from eLife after retweeting an article from The Onion titled “Dying Gazans Criticized For Not Using Last Words to Condemn Hamas,” (despite his consistent condemnation of the group.) His dismissal followed a campaign by Israeli writers at the publication. Benjamin Neel, an Israel supporter, was also dismissed from NYU Langone for retweeting posts critical of Hamas, though his comments were mild compared to the vitriol seen from major Zionist accounts.

Government employees have also been targeted.

Miguel Sanchez, a city council worker, was dismissed by the Governor for attending a pro-Palestine rally and retweeting pro-Palestine posts. House Speaker Mike Johnson called for the firing of federal workers who participated in “walkout” strike, in protest of US policy on Israel in relation to Gaza. In the UK, MP Paul Bristow was dismissed after urging Rishi Sunak to implement ceasefire policies in an open letter.

Policies silencing journalists

Discussing cases where pro-Palestine supporters were terminated from their jobs, Jackie Esmonde of Cavalluzzo Law Firm in Canada explained her firm was actively working on 8-10 cases on the matter. “I’m not seeing people making what I would consider hate speech or discriminatory speech.” Companies can legally dismiss employees for political speech if they have a social media policy against discussing controversial topics or if employees are under “at-will” contracts, allowing termination at any time.

The BBC suspended six reporters for liking and posting pro-Palestine tweets and referring to October 7th as a “morning of hope,” following accusations of bias from a pro-Israel group. Similarly, former AP journalist , Emily Wilder was dismissed for criticizing the media’s portrayal of Palestinian genocide. The Associated Press acknowledged that its social media policy prohibits such criticism, stating that “employees must refrain from declaring their views on contentious public issues in any public forum.” An ex-ABC journalist, Antoinette Lattouf was fired for reposting Human Rights Watch and UNICEF content about Israel, ABC cited its social media policy, which prohibits employees from “damaging the ABC’s reputation for impartiality and independence.” However, it is unclear how her actions compromised their impartiality; her dismissal may have, in fact, harmed their reputation for impartiality. Palestinian journalist Zahraa Al-Akhrass was fired from Global News on similar grounds. The CBC barred reporters who signed a petition calling for objective coverage of the conflict from covering the issue. The CBC spokesperson emphasized the outlet was creating “editorial distance between signatories (of the letter) and our daily coverage for the near future.” Former CTV reporter Yara Jamal was fired for her comments about Zionism.

These incidents illustrate how journalists are often dismissed for political speech, under the guise of violating social media policies. Lawyers note that political speech is not protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act for private sector employees. Additionally, anti-BDS laws show that government restrictions on political speech also exist. While states like New York, California, and the District of Columbia prohibit discrimination based on political speech, individuals in these states have still faced termination.
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The ongoing crackdown on the speech of teachers, journalists, and the working class in America is a troubling trend, consistent throughout history. Only by addressing this issue and steadfastly defending free expression can we hope to effect meaningful change.
​

Zombies are at once stupified and stupify themselves they are victims while being byproducts of their own, “moral stupidity.” Zombies cannot help but “engage in forms of rapacious behavior that destroy.” These zombies cannot help but hold consumptive natures and thus seek the easiest victims to consume the youth. Where would be a better place to find a confluence of the youth than within the structures of the educational system? 

Here we do not ask who the zombies were before they turned, but simply who the zombies have become and in what manner they go about their consumption. Foremost, the zombie is inhuman lacking any care for family ties only sharing a bodily shell with humanity. The zombie is not interested in humanity as an interconnected and interdependent species, but rather only sees humans as a child sees an Oreo. Zombies due to their inability to communicate and go about interdependent action are hyper-individualistic. We may point to a “zombie language, with its appeal to the living dead,” yet this is an internalized language with no means of mutual communicability.  Ultimately the zombie only can and only wants to communicate the self, selfishness, or individuality. The zombie is motivated to teach in terms of self, selfishness, egoism, and individuality so they may isolate their victim for consumption.

It does not matter that zombies roam around in hoards, each zombie is looking to get their meal for themselves and so happens to share a space with other zombies. Yet, this shows that “zombie language is more than Orwellian,” it is perhaps a form of triple speak where only individuals jointly alone can raise themselves through a communal education system. Zombies are those who wish to individuate humans at the expense of humanity as a whole, “zombie language and its accompanying practices and policies are nourished by the egocentric politics of a rabid individualism…and the harsh logic of privatization in which all problems are now shifted onto the shoulders of individuals.” This “using individualism in its extreme,” shifts schools toward the tyrannical into, “becoming more and more undemocratic,” via producing an endless series of tyrants.

Yet, zombies cannot just jump straight into a tyrannical dividing and conquering of children within the education system. No, zombies must justify their division and consumption lest they be overrun by humans in collaboration against them. The public is first convinced that the children are unruly, violent, undisciplined, and just overall need correction. Since it is the state in the form of public education that in the majority of cases spends the most time with children as opposed to their caregivers, it is this very public education system that has the most influence upon children. As states and their school focus more on individualization in education they acquire, “zombie-like governance based on the crudest forms of disciplinary control,” such as corporal punishment. In Oklahoma for example, “hitting, slapping, paddling, or any other means of inflicting physical pain” are allowed to be used by Oklahoma school employees. Only when humanity is beaten out of a human can the zombie begin their consumption.

Still, what motivates the zombie “that celebrates death over life.” It is hard to be certain about the origins of a parasitic infection. So instead of concerning ourselves with how or why zombies emerged, we must instead deal with them as a social reality without certainty of their origin point. This zombie plague has spread throughout the public and has most greatly harmed the young. The youth are being taught to fend for themselves from the very monsters tearing away their social fabric. Once, the zombie takes hold of a youth they teach said youth on matters of illiteracy. The zombies know they can defeat humanity by swarming the young first, there is a “zombie-like war being waged against young people.” The zombies are propagandizing against collective action, discussion, mutual aid, and anything that is group-oriented. The zombie teaches only of individual success, the pulling of bootstraps, and great man theories of history. This zombie education is not simply limiting but is damaging.

Zombie education emerges in contexts where “the social state has been hollowed out and largely stripped of its welfare functions, [where] youth are no longer provided with the economic, social, and cultural supports that offer them dignity, prosperity, and the promise of a better future.” In these sorts of situations, the youths are not only taught to fend for themselves but exist in a context where they must fend for themselves. As an example, “Project 2025 does not propose eliminating free school lunches. However, it does call for narrowing the program’s eligibility requirements so that fewer students would receive free or low-cost lunches through it.” Zombie education does not teach youth how to acquire literacy for themselves but instead hampers illiteracies toward the passing of standardized tests. Of course, “illiteracy is not the cause of our problems,” in a zombie educational system. Rather, it is the ethical egoistic framework behind zombie education that is so limiting and damaging to the young. The zombies are not teachers but preachers of individual self-interest and freedom from constraints.

Ironically, however, zombie education creates a collective identity, a zombie hoard of sorts. Zombie education is built to churn out egoists if successful and narcissists at second best. Zombie education does not wish to create individuals who will seek collective goodness as this directly clashes with the zombie’s individualistic nature and desires. In the American context, a zombie wants nothing more than to consume others to acquire material possessions, but it is to be noted that this is just “a kind of zombie state.” In different contexts, zombies will always be consumptive of others yet may be consumptive toward differing selfish ends. An ill-educated mass is easier to consume than a collectively educated mass. So oxymoronically the zombies work alone together to promote individuality at all costs. The zombie is merely concerned with its hunger and is somewhat satisfied as long as it gets its fill time after time.

Zombie education cannot simply have students stupified for a temporary period. The zombie needs a life source to drain akin to its mythic counterpart the vampire. However, the vampires are the old aristocratic guard that plagued society, zombies are the new myth and their kind can come from anywhere. Zombie education seeks not only to find those who can be ever victimized but also those who will perpetuate the doctrine of ethical egoism. Most likely the new zombies will come from the aristocracy, however, unlike vampires, zombies are not solely dependent on drawing from their guard. A zombie, in theory, can come from any class, race, ethnicity, orientation, and so on of the sort. A zombie must simply present an effective willingness and ability to preach the doctrines of egoism.

It is not a bug, zombie education “has as one of its distinctive features the violence it wages against young people.” Only via violence can such individualistic educational doctrines maintain themselves, in all, “public schools in 22 states reported using physical discipline on students during the 2017-18 academic year.” Individuality is forced upon students by a zombie hoard that seeks to devour them once said student is individualized enough. To stop the consumption, especially of our global youth, we must bring about forms of collective education. Whether these collective forms of education are resurrected hyper-dead collectivist ideas of education or new collectivist educational ideas, collectivist education would improve the quality of life for students in comparison to any form of zombie education. Until then the zombie educational system will only become ever more efficient at isolating the youth and devouring them one by one because as it goes with zombies their numbers grow exponentially. ​

In societies fractured by class antagonisms, the ruling elite who control the means of production, and hence, the politics, judicature, education, etc. of society, requires that those whom they extract value from, indebt, and oppress, split themselves into as many groups as possible. For the ruling classes, the principle of divide et impera, divide and rule/conquer, has always been necessary. In factionalizing the propertyless masses they win. This is why Marx calls racism “the secret through which the ruling class maintains its power.”[1] A similar sentiment is admitted to in James Madison’s Federalist 10. When writing to the owners of capital in his time, he promises that a faction across the lines of the property question could be avoided only insofar as more factionalism is promoted amongst those without property.[2]
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It is clear that to challenge this division of the people imposed by the elites, unity of the people is necessary. Kwame Nkrumah emphasizes that since balkanization is a pivotal tool in the imperialist’s struggle to keep Africa divided, weak, and subjugated, African unity is the only way to combat it.[3] Likewise, the anti-colonial Cuban philosopher and poet, José Martí, urges that for Latin America to defend itself from U.S. imperialism, it must be united. Divided they will fall. Using the European folklore of the giant of the Seven-league boots to represent U.S. imperialism, Martí writes that “The trees must form ranks to keep the giant with seven-league boots from passing! It is the time of mobilization, of marching together, and we must go forward in close ranks, like silver in the veins of the Andes.”[4]  
But not all unity is of the same character. Not all unity serves to undermine the division imposed upon the people by the ruling class. The unity of working people artificially divided by the ruling class is one thing; unity of various “leftists” is a whole different affair. The former undermines the division the ruling class imposes on the masses, the latter often intensifies it under the auspices of uniting. We must recall what Lenin long ago taught us: “Unity is a great thing and a great slogan. But what the workers’ cause needs is the unity of Marxists, not unity between Marxists, and opponents and distorters of Marxism.”[5] Lenin urged us to always ask: “unity with whom?”[6] One undermines the cause of uniting the people when unity includes those who, in their very political practice, promote division. Unity with a purity fetish left, which consistently treads in petty-bourgeois moralizing, identity politics, and cancel culture, can only serve the cause of division and factionalism.[7] A left for whom large swaths of workers are far too ‘impure’ to organize will only ever undermine the class struggle and serve the interests of the ruling elite.

It is sufficient to look at the million ‘new’ organizations and parties that pop up left and right, seemingly out of nowhere, to conclude that something about this so-called “left” is rotten. Irrespective of whatever “radical” veneer they might put on their politics, they are not only fully compatible with the dominant order, but an indispensable component of it. A left that requires a checklist of positions workers must hold with regards to issues of gender, sexuality, national history, or whatever else, will only ever end up preaching to the choir… a choir that will get smaller and smaller as the people in those spaces who are more serious about the class struggle leave.

Unity, therefore, cannot be accepted as an abstraction. It must always be examined concretely. Unity of whom? Towards what ends? With what results? In what context? These are the questions we must ask. Class collaborationist unity with the imperialist bourgeoisie, clearly, is not the unity that will advance the class struggle. Unity with “leftists” who base their politics on a monastery-like purity of ideas, and who shun all those who don’t measure up to such purity, can likewise only hinder the class struggle. As the young Karl Liebknecht wrote,

"Not all unity means strength. Unity between fire and water puts the fire out and causes the water to disappear as steam; unity between a wolf and a lamb results in the lamb finding itself inside the wolf; unity between the proletariat and the ruling class is to sacrifice the proletariat; unity with traitors means defeat."[8]

Unity between the fire of the intensifying class struggles of the 2020s, driven by the necessity of such struggles in our period of decaying capitalist-imperialism, with the water of the old leftist dogmatists and purity fetishists, can only serve the cause of exterminating the fire, or at best preventing its spreading.

If in the past, because of our inexperience and youth, we urged such unity, we were wrong.[9] Concrete experience has taught us that no unity can be achieved with those who, while calling themselves “leftists,” “socialists,” or “communists,” produce only division in their actual political practice. Unity with a fake, compatible, purity fetish “left” only serves the cause of division and social insularity. Clear lines must be drawn between those who are serious about the class struggle, and those who are only committed to sustaining the purity of their abstract ideas. Unity with this middle-class left, fabricated historically by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and major capitalist foundations, is akin to unity with the imperialist bourgeoisie – a hindrance at best, and betrayal at worst, of the class struggle. The unity we must secure, and which the American Communist Party has accomplished in its very act of launching, is unity between serious, actual Marxists, who propose for themselves not the task of developing the loftiest pure ideas, but of concretely advancing the class struggle.

In the dialectic of unity and division, we have found, therefore, that certain forms of unity serve the cause of division, and certain forms of division serve the cause of unity. Abstractly, “unity” and “division” are devoid of content; empty causes in whose ambiguity can serve both sides of the class struggle. Dividing serious Marxists from the ruling class and their “leftist” agents is indispensable for the task of united working people and fighting for socialism.

This does not mean, however, that there is something ontologically wrong with the individuals that find themselves in these divisive “leftist” spaces. For many, these are the only areas they have found “dissident” politics to be present. This is not unintentional; the ruling order needs this to be the areas where dissenting young people go to. What we condemn, therefore, are not individuals. Many of them, if they’re serious about the class struggle, will in time end up on the right side. It is the fundamentally divisive politics of the middle class “left,” a politics indispensable for the ruling system keeping working people away from socialism with a ten-foot pole, that we condemn. As my colleague, Eddie Liger Smith, recently said: “for those people who do nothing but deride, attack, and smear us, guess what? The door will always be open. We’ll be here building when you get over your purity fetish and decide to come help us change this social system into one that actually serves the people.”[10]

Citations

[1] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Ireland and the Irish Question (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), 407-408.

[2] James Madison, “The Federalist Number 10, [22 November] 1787,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0178. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, vol. 10, 27 May 1787–3 March 1788, ed. Robert A. Rutland, Charles F. Hobson, William M. E. Rachal, and Frederika J. Teute. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1977, pp. 263–270.]

[3] Kwame Nkrumah, Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism (London: Panal Books, 2004), xiii.

[4] José Martí J, “Tres Héroes,” In Páginas Escogidas, ed. Óscar Montoya (Bogotá: Editorial Norma, 1994), 41.

[5] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works Vol. 20 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), 232.

[6] Ibid.

[7] See Carlos L. Garrido, The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism (Dubuque: Midwestern Marx Publishing Press, 2023).

[8] Karl Liebknecht, “The New ‘Civil Peace,’” In The German Revolution and the Debate on Soviet Power (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1986), 84.

[9] I am here being self-critical of my younger writings, when I was still too naïve about the effectiveness of “leftist” unity in the U.S., although I nonetheless still emphasized, rightly, the centrality of class unity and economic organization. See, for instance, this passage from 2020: “The American left focuses the majority of its efforts in pursuit of electoral victories without the prior existence of organization among class lines. Until the irrational divisions of socialist parties and organizations in the US unite and focus their energies on workplace organization as the necessary predecessor to the electoral struggle, we will continue to face futility in the political sphere.” Carlos L. Garrido, “Revolutionizing in America the Hope Bolivia Has Given Us,” Midwestern Marx Institute (October 20, 2020):
https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/revolutionizing-in-america-the-hope-bolivia-has-given-us-by-carlos-l-garrido  

[10] Edward Liger Smith, “Speech at the Institute for a Free America,” Midwestern Marx Institute YouTube (May 28, 2024): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOT1HwOwZ-I

​He’s the name on everyone’s lips. Whatever you think of him, at just 24 years old, Jackson Hinkle is a bonafide political force. Host of The Dive and co-founder of the Institute for a Free America, the California native boasts an impressive following.
 
Late last year, Hinkle — thanks mostly to his pro-Palestine content — became the world’s most viral Twitter personality. The self-described communist garnered a whopping 3.5 billion impressions in just one month. Elon Musk, Twitter’s megabillionaire owner, only managed 3.1 billion despite rigging the algorithm to promote his posts.
 
When not posting about Palestine, Hinkle tweets in support of other anti-imperialist struggles. Most recently, Hinkle has emerged as a prominent opponent of American efforts to coup Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. Hinkle even visited the coastal nation to monitor the latest presidential election and interviewed its besieged executive.
 
While international commitments send him to far-flung corners of the globe, Hinkle remains committed to building the American Communist Party. As a member of its Executive Committee, Hinkle has been central to the launch of this budding political organization. While still in its infancy, the American Communist Party has already begun cleaning and clothing communities. It has even started developing relationships with other anti-imperialists throughout the world.
 
The Party’s International Secretary Chris Helali recently met with Nicaraguan ambassador Mauricio Lautaro Sandino Montes at the World Anti-Imperialist Platform. And the Party’s Secretary of Education, Carlos Garrido, met with the vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela last month. Given Hinkle’s centrality in the party, his contacts in Yemen, Russia, and elsewhere may also develop connections with it. The American Communist Party has 13 chapters in the United States and Canada with more soon to come.
 
Hinkle is not just a social media presence but does anti-imperialist work on the ground too. Given that, you might expect the Left to uniformly embrace him. But opinions are divided. Detractors see Hinkle as more enemy than friend. Socialism Done Left, a popular creator of political explainer videos, has called him a “conservative [grifter]” for his attempts to court Republican voters. Progressive YouTube streamer Vaush even went so far as to compare Hinkle to neo-Nazis.
 
Hinkle’s defenders are no less forceful. They see him as a principled and savvy media operator, and a standard bearer for their foreign policy aims. For example, The Midwestern Marx Institute said those opposing Hinkle “side with the forces of empire.” Similarly, RTSG — a leftist research collective — considers Hinkle authentic, committed, and willing to sacrifice for righteous causes.
 
Now, Hinkle is of course far from perfect. Given the accelerating climate catastrophe, his environmental views — for example — are sometimes wildly errant. Hinkle calls himself “pro-fossil fuel” despite the need to “keep it in the ground” to avoid apocalyptic global temperature rises.
 
Yet this doesn’t justify abandoning him. The campsite rule provides a useful guide to assess whether Hinkle’s environmental views should be disqualifying. It asks if the person’s influence is a net positive. The rule gets its name from campsite signs that urge campers to leave the grounds better than they found them.
 
Undoubtedly, we’re all flawed. But the campsite rule counsels that, if the figure left the world better than they found it, you should support them. It’s a fundamentally utilitarian but fairly ironclad premise.
 
Despite erroneously promoting fossil fuels and calling environmentalism “anti-human,” Hinkle passes the campsite test. Hinkle’s ecological views are a vanishingly small part of his public presence. The bulk of his advocacy is anti-imperialist, exposing American empire and promoting those fighting to dismantle it. Hinkle’s fans know and love him for that, and may not even be aware of his environmental stances. Just as many leftists revere Joseph Stalin despite his affinity for oil drilling, they should support Hinkle.
 
Yet much of the Western Left seems content to purity test and summarily discard Hinkle for his least savory views. That is misguided as it risks letting perfect be the enemy of the good. Even if you grant that Hinkle has some bad takes, most are good. That’s especially true of the ones about he’s most vocal about — supporting economic independence and opposing exploitative neocolonial powers.
 
While those are the perspective he foregrounds, critics often fixate on Hinkle’s supposed social conservatism. Yes, he seemingly isn’t a rigid adherent of Western gender or sexuality theory. In fact, he appears to tolerate if not celebrate governments that endorse more traditional cultural values like Russia and China.
 
It’s understandable why leftist critics might reject what they see as Hinkle’s traditionalist streak. But it’s telling that they focus on Hinkle’s social views and not his foreign policy. The reason is simple. An unnerving number of Western leftists either don’t care enough about imperialism or, worse, believe State Department lies.
 
Too many professed socialists in the imperial core have drank the proverbial Kool-Aid. On issues from the Russo-Ukrainian conflict to airstrikes in Yemen, they sound just like John Bolton and Victoria Nuland. Vaush and his ilk seemingly take pride in being NATO’s biggest cheerleaders. Somehow the communists of the West cheerlead the world’s foremost anti-communist alliance. It’s no wonder they don’t credit Hinkle for his anti-imperialism; they’re on the opposite side of the struggle.
 
That’s no accident. For decades, elites have sought to sow within the Left the seeds of its own demise. In 1950, the CIA created the Congress for Cultural Freedom — a covert anti-communist civic organization. The Congress for Cultural Freedom operated in a smattering of countries throughout the West, and 35 globally.
 
It pushed intelligentsia — including ostensible progressives — to denounce socialist experiments, pulling the public away from Marxism and toward colonial capitalism. The Congress for Cultural Freedom dissolved in 1979. But an unfortunate number of Western leftists still follow its playbook.
 
Jackson Hinkle is not one of them. He’s an unabashed anti-imperialist stalwart, and even shines a light on the clandestine actors who seek to thwart his movement. Because Hinkle’s advocacy is comprised of overwhelmingly constructive positions, his impact is — on the whole — positive. He’s moving things in the right direction. Therefore trying to cancel Hinkle is actually anti-progressive. Western leftists harm their political ends Hinkle is helping advance by preferring to sacrifice that progress for purity’s sake.
 
Other critiques are more targeted and specific to Hinkle’s tone of commentary. Some contend that he jettisons nuance, painting the world in a Schmittian black and white of good versus evil. They see Hinkle’s adoption of conservative buzzwords like “deep state” and “cabal” as regressive and divisive — unbecoming of a political analyst. But there are a few points here.
 
First, Hinkle is still quite young. He hasn’t been on the far Left for very long. Like many young radicals, he began as a garden variety progressive before his recent political maturation. In other words, Hinkle is just 24. Give his skills of political analysis time to develop. They are already far beyond his years. Greater nuance will come and early signs are apparent to anyone who listens to his Rumble show The Dive.
 
But perhaps Hinkle isn’t a conventional political analyst. Maybe he’s better thought of as an agitative propagandist. Hinkle’s Twitter feed is one of forceful and repetitive political slogans that unambiguously express where his followers should stand. That is the essence of agitative propaganda. And the numbers don’t lie: Hinkle is one of the most effective digital propagandists on Earth. The movement needs people like him as revolutionaries of old recognized.
 
Yet by far the biggest problem Hinkle’s leftist critics have with him is his promotion of “MAGA communism.” Founded by fellow American Communist Party Executive Chairman and content creator Haz Al-Din, the apparent oxymoron consists of two basic premises. First, MAGA communists believe the irreverent movement behind Donald Trump held the potential to radicalize the American Left and Right. Second, they observe that many Trump fans detest the status quo and therefore might be open to communist ideas. MAGA communism was fundamentally an attempt to court Trump’s working-class base, rather than writing them off as a “basket of deplorables.” To that end, MAGA communists used patriotic imagery typically monopolized by the Right to woo Trump’s nationalistic base.
 
And that elicited the ire of many. Progressive author and academic Alexander Reid Ross dubbed MAGA communism “a deranged fringe movement.” Sam Seder, host of the left-wing Majority Report radio show, called it “word salad.” Others are even harsher. Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks suggested MAGA communism is akin to Nazism, coopting socialist rhetoric for fascist aims.
 
The criticism seems a bit hysterical when you consider that MAGA communism largely just synthesizes longstanding, formerly uncontroversial leftist ideas. Start with the idea that the Trump movement could create space for a more radical Left. Hinkle and his ilk were hardly the first to say this. It was the primary reason cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek, to many’s surprise, endorsed Trump in 2016. Even the late socialist commentator Michael Brooks, who ultimately endorsed Hillary Clinton, echoed the view. He said the rise of Trump and Bernie Sanders strengthened his conviction that the status quo could be broken. While Žižek faced backlash for endorsing Trump, his belief that MAGA could help catalyze a radical Left was widely shared. Yet Hinkle’s fellow leftists attack him for believing the same thing.
 
Similarly, Hinkle caught heat for believing the Left should try flipping Trump voters instead of dismissing them. But those same critics lauded Sanders for entering the lion’s den of Fox News to present his case to conservatives. In 2019, Jacobin magazine — America’s largest socialist publication — denounced the idea that most Trump voters are “an irredeemable monolith.” And it stressed the need for leftists to try reaching them. Hinkle merely shares this view. Unlike Jacobin, however, he has gotten seemingly endless flack for it — unjustifiably so.
 
MAGA communism isn’t a flavor of fascism, as Kasparian suggests. It’s merely a mode of outreach to anti-establishment conservatives. Hinkle is pulling people toward leftism — not Trump. Proof of this is that — especially as of late — Hinkle relentlessly criticizes the former commander in chief. Hinkle calls him “Zion Don” and “disgusting” for his pro-Israel exploits and has likened Trump’s genocide support to Nazi apologia.
 
But that doesn’t stop critics from attacking Hinkle’s use of patriotic symbols like the flag and other mainstays of Americana. This practice too was not just historically uncontroversial but a strategically obvious way for the Left to broaden its appeal. For example, renowned social scientists Karen Stenner has long called for leftists to adopt unifying symbology. In The Authoritarian Dynamic, Stenner advocates championing the pledge of allegiance and other patriotic practices to keep reactionaries at bay. What felt like common sense from the ivory tower suddenly became toxic when Hinkle said it.
 
Perhaps that’s unsurprising. After all, it’s easy to hate Hinkle, who’s a confessed provocateur. He admits to phrasing things in inflammatory ways for clicks. But he’s far from the only one doing that. Controversy and intrigue are the keys to survival in this saturated media market. Hinkle’s simply doing what it takes to elevate his message, which is a generally positive one. In that respect, he’s hardly unique.
 
Yet, in other respects, he absolutely is. Hinkle’s aesthetic isn’t that of the typical Western leftist. Between his movie star headshots and shirtless gym selfies, Hinkle doesn’t look especially bookish. He doesn’t wear flannels or don spectacles. Nor does he have the sort of beard that is oddly ubiquitous among white men on the American Left.
 
Hinkle’s leftism is virile and manly. Andrew Tate and his acolytes tell men to reclaim their masculinity by being sexist, materialistic degenerates. Hinkle is an antidote to this toxicity, telling men to instead reclaim their masculinity by being fiercely anti-imperialist. In other words, Hinkle speaks to disaffected young men and channels their frustration into productive causes.
 
For a long time, leftists have urged their side to do just that. Vaush and Kasparian did an entire segment condemning the leftist folly of ceding alienated young men to the Right. Hinkle doesn’t fall into that trap. Rather, he couples traditional masculinity with a compassionate politics — thus demonstrating that you can simultaneously be tough and kindhearted. Hinkle is precisely the sort of positive masculine influence the Left sorely needs. Yet the musclebound, cigar-smoking commentator who dates models seldom if ever gets credit for that.
 
Just looking at Hinkle, you’d probably guess he’s a conservative. He looks like your high school bully, and was himself homecoming king. That Hinkle superficially resembles the out group might reflexively bias some leftists against him, at least partly explaining their disdain.
 
But it’s incumbent upon them to overcome that base instinct. The popular criticisms of Hinkle lack teeth, and his impact is overwhelmingly positive. Hinkle achieved fame promoting exactly the sort of anti-imperialist positions necessary to overturn capitalist hegemony and build a better world. It’s an inspiring story — a dose of optimism in a political context that provides no shortage of reasons to despair. We should celebrate — not hate — Hinkle’s rise, and hope that more Hinkles will soon emerge.

Author

Youhanna Haddad is a North American Marxist of the Arab diaspora. Through his writing, he seeks to combat the Western liberal dogmas that uphold racial capitalism. You can contact him at [email protected].

T​he last few days have seen the U.S. ramping up its war on domestic political dissent in multiple ways, with U.S. lawmakers petitioning the Biden administration to crack down on anti-genocide protesters it suspects of foreign influence, and a journalist critical of U.S. foreign policy coming under the crosshairs of Washington’s increasingly weaponized Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

The FBI has raided the home of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy toward Russia.

Consortium News reports:

• Federal agents removed Ritter’s electronic equipment and numerous boxes of paper files from his Albany, N.Y. area home Thursday on suspicion that the former U.N. weapons inspector is violating the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act.
• In a video posted to his Substack page, Ritter said that normally in alleged FARA violation cases the authorities send a letter to the subject of the inquiry informing them of the investigation. They do not send numerous F.B.I. agents to the door with a warrant to search and remove potential evidence.
• The warrant, a copy of which Ritter posted, only called for electronic devices to be removed, but the agents, whom Ritter said acted professionally, also removed boxes of paper United Nations files from his days as a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq in the 1990s. As Ritter says in the video, U.N. documents are never classified and could have nothing to do with the alleged FARA case against him.
• ‘So the idea that, this is normal procedure is absurd in the extreme. I’m not a foreign agent. What I am is a journalist. And this is how we need to couch this entire thing. What the F.B.I. did yesterday, what the United States government did yesterday, was a frontal assault not only on free speech, but a free press,’ Ritter said in the video.

​The U.S. has been getting increasingly aggressive in using FARA to suppress political speech that is critical of U.S. foreign policy, with dissident voices being increasingly targeted by the Department of Justice on accusation of circulating unauthorized ideas in collaboration with governments like China and Russia.

This coincides with a report from Ken Klippenstein about a letter sent to the White House by 22 members of Congress demanding that protesters against the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza be investigated for any unauthorized affiliation with foreign governments, and severely penalized if any ties are found to “the Iranian regime”.

Klippenstein writes:

• Last Thursday, 22 members of Congress sent a letter to the Biden administration demanding the investigation and criminal prosecution as well as financial ruin of Gaza war protesters, whom they claim have received funding from Iran. ‘We write today regarding recent revelations that certain anti-Israel organizations in the United States have received funding from the Iranian regime,’ the letter begins. The revelation originated in a recent statement by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, on top of statements by FBI director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco that Iran is trying to influence public opinion.
• The letter goes on to call for the Justice Department ‘to criminally prosecute and pursue civil forfeiture actions against any individual or entity that violates the law by receiving funding from the Iranian regime.’ It ends by urging ‘the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and Treasury to make public all available information, without compromising sources and methods, regarding Iran’s funding of these pro-Hamas organizations so that the American people can see who these groups truly are.’

​Klippenstein notes that the letter demands a list of individuals and organizations that have received direct or indirect support from Iran or any of its “affiliates”, copies of banking information on “anti-Israel groups” believed to have received sanctioned funding, and information regarding what “severe monetary penalties” will be imposed on those found to be in violation.

The U.S. empire has been doing everything it can to restrict the flow of inconvenient information as public opposition to its criminality swells at home and abroad. Propaganda, censorship, the war on the press, banning TikTok, consolidating the collaboration of Silicon Valley with U.S. government agencies, police crackdowns on campus demonstrators, and quashing political dissent are all outward manifestations of the agenda to manipulate the way the public thinks about what’s happening in the world.
​
The leaders of the U.S.-centralized empire understand that real power lies in the ability to control not just what happens in the world but what people think about what happens, because doing so allows them to act however they want to act without the risk of revolution. Our task as ordinary members of the public is to weaken their control of the dominant narratives in our civilization, and wake the public up to the truth of what’s really happening under the rule of this tyrannical power structure.

Author

Caitlin A. Johnstone is a rogue journalist; bogan socialist; anarcho-psychonaut; guerilla poet; utopia prepper. You can read Caitlin’s articles on Medium, Steemit and at her website. Caitlin is proudly 100 percent reader-funded through Patreon and Paypal. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook, and subscribe to her mailing list.

Originally published: Caitlin A Johnstone Blog