Tag: Neoliberalism

Trump, Gaza, and the Network State: Tech Colonialism Rises + Cuba

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Trump, Gaza, and the Network State: Tech Colonialism Rises

Trump’s fixation on taking Gaza, like his obsession with acquiring Greenland, reveals a clear alignment with the Network State ideology.

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But don’t take my word for it. Earlier this month, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey gave a statement to Pirate Wiresin which he proposed a new “Liberty City” at the site of the U.S. military base in Guantanamo, Cuba. (Pirate Wires is a website owned by Peter Thiel deputy Mike Solana.)

Related:

I’ve suspected for a while that these Network States could be used as staging grounds for regime change operations, and, well… seems I wasn’t too far off. 

NED targets Cuba with $6.6 million in 2025

Trump Administration Restores US National Endowment for Democracy’s Funding

Working paper: Freedom Cities-Magatte Wade-Próspera Africa-Atlas Network

TO BE LIKE BONO OR KNEECAP?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

TO BE LIKE BONO OR KNEECAP?

He hob knobbed with neoliberals such as Jeffrey Sachs, various presidents of the World Bank, promoted pharmaceutical companies in Africa and of course was on the side of Bush in the Iraq War, at least in practice and helped whitewash the reputations of many of those involved. He hedged his bets a bit on Iraq, not wanting to seem too hawkish, saying the war was justified but the US should get UN backing for it. He then went on to endorse Clinton and Blair time and again. Jim Kerr from the Scottish band Simple Minds put it succinctly at the time.

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Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Breaks Spending Record, Fueled by Out-of-State Money

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Breaks Spending Record, Fueled by Out-of-State Money

The two campaigns and their supportive outside spenders have already spent more than $73 million, and the rate of spending is likely to ramp up even more in the final week.

Crawford’s campaign spending of $19.4 million is more than double that of Schimel’s $8.9 million. (These figures are based on estimates of television ad spending, and candidate filings due this week will paint a fuller picture of their fundraising and spending.) But independent groups like super PACs and nonprofits spending untraceable “dark money” favor Schimel by a much larger margin: $12.9 million benefiting Crawford compared with almost $32.1 million boosting Schimel.

Two of the biggest spenders in the race, the Schimel-boosting America PAC and a group called Building America’s Future, have spent over $14.3 million, which is nearly one dollar for every five spent in the contest. Elon Musk has provided almost all the funding for America PAC. While Building America’s Future doesn’t reveal its donors, Musk is reportedly a major funder.

Schimel is also supported by $4.3 million from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, an industry dark money group; $4 million from Fair Courts America, a national group with ties to conservative megadonor Richard Uihlein of Illinois; $3.2 million from Americans for Prosperity, a libertarian group affiliated with Koch Industries; and $1.8 million from the Republican State Leadership Committee.

Crawford’s biggest independent support includes $6.2 million in expenditures by A Better Wisconsin Together, a state group with major donations from Wisconsin philanthropist Lynde Uihlein (a cousin of Richard Uihlein) as well as national liberal groups. The ACLU Voter Education Fund also spent $1 million boosting Crawford. In addition, liberal megadonor George Soros gave $1 million to the state Democratic party, which supports Crawford.

Related:

SourceWatch: Fair Courts America

Billionaires fight for control of Wisconsin Supreme Court

The Trumpists Agitating To Coup Honduras + More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Trumpists Agitating To Coup Honduras

Prospera, a Peter Thiel-backed crypto ‘city’ running unregulated medical experiments on a Honduran island may very well be the spark for a US coup against Honduras this November.

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Another group to have visited Prospera in recent weeks are Republicans for National renewal, a MAGA-aligned group founded by Mark Ivanyo, a former staffer in Trump’s first term Department of Justice. They touted Prospera as ‘similar to President Trump’s proposed Freedom Cities’ and also took aim at Castro, saying Prospera was ‘a bastion of pro-Americanism, economic freedom & Bitcoin acceptance in socialist Honduras.’

Prospera was also visited last week by Cremieux, an anonymous twitter account regularly retweeted by Elon Musk (and likely run by more than one white crypto-libertarian type) that helps set the libertarian discourse.

Given these links it’s inconceivable that Trump hasn’t heard about Prospera and the threats to its existence. Marco Rubio, a man aggressively hostile to anything that looks or smells like socialism in Latin America, almost certainly has as well. It was telling that he didn’t bother visiting Honduras on his recent trip to Latin America, his first outside the US.

I’ve strongly suspected that these so-called ‘Network States’ would be used as staging grounds for regime change operations. I am aware of the ones in Venezuela and Brazil, as well as a few others in Africa.

Related:

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Billionaires fight for control of Wisconsin Supreme Court

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

by Tina Antonis

Despite getting significant financial assistance from outside parties, Conservative Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel maintains that he is not for sale. Schimel’s opponent, liberal candidate Susan Crawford, has also benefited from outside funding, including a $1 million contribution from George Soros to the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Just this week, an Elon Musk-backed group spent $1.5 million on airtime in Wisconsin to support conservative Supreme Court nominee Brad Schimel over the next few weeks.

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This Valentine’s Day, Let’s Look to Marxists to Reimagine Love, Romance and Sex

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Prison Notebooks

This Valentine’s Day, Let’s Look to Marxists to Reimagine Love, Romance and Sex

It’s certainly fitting to think of what Gramsci was writing from a fascist prison in today’s political climate. But it’s also true that we’re in another sort of interregnum, one of romance, sexuality and gender itself. And this one comes with its very own set of morbid symptoms, as anyone who’s tried dating lately can attest. Dating apps are a plague, every week there seems to be a new term for bad behavior (“ghosting,” “breadcrumbing,” whatever), work demands more and more of our time, leaving less and less for love, and a constantly destabilized economy leaves us anxious and stressed even if we do happen to have stable work. Abortion is now illegal in a huge chunk of the country, and homophobic and transphobic violence — not to mention actual bans on trans healthcare and drag — are on the rise. And even if you do make it to coupledom and want to have children, our country still has precisely no support for working parents. The material basis on which you might have thought you’d be able to build a life is crumbling. 

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The Militia and the Mole

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

This whole story seems suspicious to me. The overemphasis that the mole was a loner, that he was a criminal, and legally changed his name, etc.

The Militia and the Mole

John Williams kept a backpack filled with everything he’d need to go on the run: three pairs of socks; a few hundred dollars cash; makeshift disguises and lock-picking gear; medical supplies, vitamins and high-calorie energy gels; and thumb drives that each held more than 100 gigabytes of encrypted documents, which he would quickly distribute if he were about to be arrested or killed.

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Don’t Deify Jimmy Carter

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Jimmy Carter, out of office, had the courage to call out the “abominable oppression and persecution” and “strict segregation” of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” He dedicated himself to monitoring elections, including his controversial defense of the 2006 election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and championed human rights around the globe. He lambasted the American political process as an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.”

Don’t Deify Jimmy Carter

The Soviet Union was asked by the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan to intervene to help fight against the Afghan mujahideen that the US was arming: Soviet-Afghan War

Carter, Charter 77, and Solidarność (Solidarity):

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