Bad news specially if as predicted Brazil fucks themselves as Lula's government is about to do with cutting social programs right before the crucial pre-'26 election cycle. Once Brazil is compromised BRICS will have no influence in the region, questionable as it already is since Cuba being a new "partner" member is not relevant yet.

Currently a big struggle within the Brazilian government along with massive progressive/left wing parties and unions pushing back. Its not even a victory to make things better which is the shit part, its always the usual fight to stop neoliberal ghouls from making things worse and in this case a completely suicidal blow to Lula's re-election chances.

Cuba made the "partners" shortlist and these are not members yet(if ever), right now its not clear if partners get anything at all besides a membership card and a meme Putin coin even.

Its not that they absolutely don't care, I'm a big critic and I'd never say say that because its simplistic.

Its more of a failure of the current ideology and possibly the consequences of Dengism successfuly pushing Marxism away from a prominient position back into the classrooms of university courses and low level party meetings instead of a relevant position at the top of the leadership.

All of the CPC decision making is done by consulting (neo)liberal economists, the same people that fully understand and submit to all the current mainstream capitalist "common sense".

Case in point the official rethoric behind the retirement age change. Its entirely a major defeat of the Chinese working class. But the CPC justifies it with common sense capitalist shit.

"Oh its what needs to be done because there is no other alternative". "It is correct because other capitalist countries have done the same." These are just a couple CGTN talking points among others.

They literally tried nothing, its completely unpopular, obviously against any socialist ideal(dengist or not).

The current state of geopolitics necessitates perhaps China to understand their own cultural and historical bias. I think popular opinion is far more anti-US than the CPC leadership even, there are readily available polls proving this.

But alas a common trend seems to be the consequences of the Sino-soviet split and the thought that fighting the US in solidarity with the global south outside Chinese sphere of influence is repeating the same mistakes of the USSR.

Pessimistically there is very little hope this will change except through US burning this bridge themselves.

The way which they massively overuse bullet points and single paragraph sections , omg its so obviously AI its sad.

Kind of shocking to see this from a huge msm site like this because it reads worse than some random wordpress blog post from 2008 about [insert trending hobby here]. Its not just obviously AI, its made and edited by someone that quite clearly doesn't give a shit too. AI is shit but you can get chatgpt to tell you something that isn't 20 paragraphs and 2 bullet point sections.

I realy appreciate your honesty and your attempt at doing what you thought was best for the community. I don't think you're high on the "do better" list either. By your own account it seems your main mistake was explicitly trusting the other mods of communities you don't even visit 95% of the time. I think that was ok and not a mistake.

It seems the critical mistake is right there in the post you linked isn't it? Those mod comments and how is it even possible for the mod team to become so completely detached from the site culture itself. All of this based on supposed anecdotal experiences?

You were already conscious about the fact you may not be a good judge and that was good self-awareness so I don't think this is necessary and if it does go through I doubt its for the better.

Great tagline potential tbh

I was here since the beginning but this is not my original account. What made HB unique to me is it was that time where this is the only place that had a concretly reasonable and different view about China and other AES countries. There were some other places like Genzedong(only a lurker there) but it was banned and it since died.

I've seen a lot of struggle sessions about that, first it was China, I particularly remember some random person willing to die on a hill that China's handling of terrorism in Xinjiang was just like the state police apparatus resembling post 9/11 America.

But 2022 was realy funny, the epic struggle session over why would Putin suddenly do this to smol bean innocent Ukraine. Again this was the only place I knew which we were even discussing about having a different opinion from the western consensus.

I think the way which we handled the Gaza genocide, again one of the few places that isn't scared of the MSM narrative or afraid to fight Zionism.

I think when it comes to the real world issues we mostly eventualy found the correct majority opinion on things that matter. If at any point I felt these positions would've been different from mine I would've probably left already.

When it comes to China I think the near constant unironic Xi posting was a bit too much for me personaly specialy. 2020-22 were great years and I would be right there 100% agreeing with this as Xi is definitely a great leader, will be remembered as a key and historically important figure, undeniably.

But the decision making that led to that horrible stupid meeting with Hitler in the middle of the genocide and their similar timid stance against Israel is the closest I've come to a serious disagreement with some people here that obviously love unironic shallow pro-CPC-Xi meme posting. As such 2023-24 are horrible years imo.

But otherwise I don't see a reason why I'd ever leave. We'll see how this community handles China in the future, for both ourselves and the future of socialism I hope the CPC wont continue with this shitty timid conciliatory stance towards the west as the world continues to burn and the ropes tighten.

oh also the people dunking on people online for being sad about the election results. yeah kamala winning probably wouldn't be better but assuming everyone who's sad is a democrat is massively uncharitable

This is an extremely L take, you're talking specificaly about the election results yeah? That already excludes people who are sad about both candidates being the same on issues like Gaza. If you already understood both candidates are shit the election itself shouldn't make you any more sad then any other day during the past year of genocide for example.

To be sad about Trump winning means the actualy believe the mainstream rethoric, which means they're not an ally or at best they're still very far away from having a concrete view about current issues so their opinion is mostly worthless or at the very best just noise.

Its not uncharitable to say if you're only sad now that you're probably a shit lib that deserves to be dunked on. We're not changing their minds, if we were capable of that then they've turned into a socialist or abandoned the dems at least when they saw any of the Gaza hospitals being bombed and not when orange man won the election.

Point is, even if you're not necessarily a socialist but already abandoned the Dems following Oct 7th you're not going to be particularly sad about Trump. Same on any other issue the dems refused to fight on.

Neolibs still want to preserve the "rules based order" in a more literal sense. Neocons want the American Empire and are not afraid to admit it. Neolibs also want it, but tend to believe this is achievable or even already achieved through the liberal world institutions and "globalization"(Marxist imperialism). Wars are not inherently good, despite being profitable, it must not be the first solution and/or it must be justified through these liberal institutions.

So in comparison, neolibs actualy believed in end of history, there are no more true enemies and everyone will eventualy accept the market or bend to economic interests e.g what they believed about China.

Neocons believe that is not enough or not yet and America must continue to fight their strategic enemies. They always saw China and Russia as key strategic enemies where the only solution is domination, they're very open about continuing with the Cold war mentality despite Russia's defeat.

When looking at a Trump government I think he wont be able to just impose his neocon idiot wishes without some pushback.

For example the current US military buildup against China is definitely a neocon initiative. Neolibs go along with it because they dare not confront the MIC but they also believe they can dominate China economicaly see CHIPS act, Yellen/Blinken going to China to threaten them with economic consequences and tell them they're wrong. They believe they can outcompete China but first China must play "fair" i.e become a western style economy based on consumption.

Neocons instead want war and real containment no matter the cost. So Trump will have to deal with a lot of western CEOs and investors that understand a significant part of their profits come from China. Neolibs want to contain China but don't necessarily agree with a full war, even more so US illegitimate aggression. Its why Taiwan is the "key", its the bait.

To give a better example, Musk loves Trump but he will also go to China and praise China. Why?

His second trip to the country in less than a year included a meeting Sunday with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who praised Tesla as a “successful model” for US-China collaboration.

Because he understands China was one of his biggest market. Neolibs don't want to face the real consequences of a global war and global crisis. Money talks.

For neocons it doesn't matter as much as building the American Empire, an eye for an eye as long as the US wins in Asia it will be worth it, they fear to be missing the opportunity.

There was no discussion lol. They discussed this among themselves only, this is a post facto announcement post.

Sanctions on BRICS already exist and they'll continue regardless.

I think for now many of the social media/mil bloggers are saying the war will continue and Trump is mostly shit. Here Yuri Podolyak https://t.me/yurasumy/19005 Google TL

Will President Trump Achieve "Peace in Ukraine": Positions of the Parties and the Experience of the DPRK...

Back during his election campaign, then presidential candidate Donald Trump said that he would quickly solve the problem of Ukraine and stop this war. And now he is the president and, as they used to say in my youth, "you have to answer for your words." And so, already yesterday, the future key figures of his administration began to carefully test the waters in this direction, making various statements about their vision of solving the "Ukrainian problem." If we isolate the main thing, then they understand it like this - freezing the conflict on the current front line, temporary non-acceptance of Ukraine as a member of NATO, peacekeepers in the buffer zone. In essence, the Trump administration is offering Russia yet another Minsk agreement. We already know the price of such "agreements."

This is actually a respite before pumping Ukraine with NATO weapons in large quantities and, in the future, another attempt at revenge in our generation. Meanwhile, yesterday at Valdai, our president, answering questions about Ukraine, once again threw his vision of solving this problem to the other side. The West must accept Russia's new borders. Moreover, given that the war continues and the "front is dynamic", other possible expressions of war by citizens (if any) must also be taken into account in the future agreement. Also, literally the day before, it was once again emphasized that the remaining demands - neutral status, disarmament and denazification of the remnants of Ukraine ... are not discussed. This must be part of the agreement.

Thus, we see that the positions of the parties (the US and Russia) on the issue of peace in Ukraine are still very different. And I would also like to remind you here that during his last term, Donald Trump already promised to "quickly resolve" the DPRK problem. And he really did it very actively and demonstratively. Only in the end, he was unable to reach a real agreement, and the DPRK is now a reliable ally of Russia.

a bunch of powerless people venting their rage by getting mad at other powerless people is toxic and fosters misanthropy, the outlawing of dunking on private people is meant to shift the rage to more deserving targets

Excuse me but seriously? The same people featured in those comms that would rather put US in front of a wall or in the genocide camps.

We're not riding this out with naive ideals about peace and love of the human race. Its fine to have enemies, as a matter of fact we have enemies, a lot of them. For some of the LGBTQ on this community they know even better. This is liberalism period. Love everyone kindly we say as they put the guns in our forehead and prepare to shoot?

IMO real misanthropy is actual fascism or things like e.g ecofascism. We're nowhere near this as a community and its even silly to suggest posting about random Muskoid #2156 being horrible is pushing us there specialy when its that chud that would gladly be the first one to put everyone here in a camp or worst.

This type of reasoning is so extremely naive its not even funny. You'll not get people to stop wishing for westerners to suffer just because the dunk tank is gone. Have some introspection. People are frustrated exactly because nothing is being done and nothing is changing except for the worse. The root cause is not a random comm of a website with like 200 active users.

The frustration that manifests with wishes of retribution and even violence are rooted in real events, Oct 7th being the obvious one. You're not changing anything here and seems largely missing the point of how we got her.e.

You're correct, this is is my overall sentiment too.

But are you hyped for the Chinese century?

All it takes is for Trump to be mildly friendly towards China.

The DPRK deal is a sign Russia is confident they can go on this war for the long term, including the fact they're potentialy agreeing to pivoting to Asia if necessary it would be stupid then to compromise on a war they're massively winning right now.

Also keep in mind there are people further right from Putin that would seriously threaten the government if they fumble this war.

didn't have support because he was seen as an idiot, selfish who was threatning the war goals with his petty shit. No matter the popular grievances against the MOD/military incompetence at the time, the bigger picture will always win.

But Putin taking some shitty deal right now is definitely going to be the wrong move that puts his own credibility on the line, you can't talk about "denazification" or even dog whistle about conquest and then turn around and take this sort of compromise, not right now anyway.

I'm sorry dude, but please understand that the entire left, not just PT got absolutely crushed during the mayoral elections. If you know even some spanish I realy recommend turn on the auto subtitles and watch Jones Manoel(historian, Marxist-Lenist), here just on the first 5 minutes Jones Manoel analyzes the direction of the left in Brazil after the elections

And you'll look at the results, one worse than the other, on the one hand, on the other, in the Brazilian northeast, there is a myth that the Northeast is progressive, that the Northeast is left-wing, that the Northeast is the barrier against fascism. In the Brazilian northeast, of the capitals, the extreme right only didn't win two: Recife and Fortaleza, the extreme right and the traditional right, right? And even so, in Recife, you can't call João Campos left-wing, right? We can develop this better, but this way it's not a one.

In the northeast there was a huge advance in the traditional right and the far right with some very striking results, for example, Bruno Reis managed to be reelected in the first round with an overwhelming vote, being the fifth term of the PT in Bahia, right? The government, Bahia is 20 years old. You see, and the third striking fact that we can't ignore is the result of the election in Porto Alegre and São Paulo, right? Rio Grande do Sul.

In the 103 largest cities in Brazil, where is the center of the political and economic population dynamics, what was the result? Left slash center left only won 10 city halls. The far right and the right won 93, it's 93 to 10. You know, this is like making a football metaphor of losing to 7 to 1. Oh, I scored a goal, but we conceded seven. You see, 9 to 1 is actually the far right and the right won in 93 cities. Of the 103 largest cities in Brazil, which concentrate the majority of the population's GDP, you see.

And then if we go making the cut by capitals the situation doesn't improve I was here with the data it's easy but I ended up losing it I found capitals There are 26 capitals right the PSD took five the MDB took five União Brasil took four the PL took four PP took two Podemos took two PT PSB Forward Republicans one of each When you will see the division in the 26 capitals there are 13 governed by the extreme right 2 by the left slash center left and 11 by the right and center right

it is worth saying one thing that is fundamental it is worth saying one thing see the president Luís Inácio Lula da Silva remained oblivious to the campaign knowing that it was Rota and admitting his very low capacity to transfer votes he was left out of the Municipal campaign so the government already admits that the President of the Republic does not have the capacity to effectively transfer votes and withdrew from the dispute so as not to stick the defeat to the presidency itself I think this says a lot about the direction of this so whoever calls this a Victory is deceiving themselves

Ok so its not just about economics even though its what we talk about here.

The main issue stems from the Dilma coup, the neoliberal governments since 2016 until now including Lula 2.0(Lula 1 in some ways and certainly Dilma were already neolibs but I digress). Among all the usual austerity measures is the most important one, the Constitutional Amendment of the Public Expenditure Cap.

This is the key the underlines any Brazilian government since 2016 and is the main issue the left and Lula needed to fight in order to not lose again.

This budget cap is one of the most insane pieces of legislation anywhere in the world. It mandates a 20 year freeze on spending. It does not recognize Brazil as a third world country that needs disproportionaly higher social spenditure to "catch up".

But the key is it is incompatible with the long established constitutional mandated healthcare and education spending floor. Currently Brazil has a mandated floor of 15% and 18% for each.

So why both of these matter? The attack is currently coming together almost as if perfectly timed to coincide with the leftist in power. Its not like this is new though, from the beginning 8 years ago everyone knew eventualy the healthcare and education spending floor would be attacked.

The neoliberal financial market is currently attacking through high interest rates and inflation fearmongering and the left/Lula government is capitulating. Brazil looks at curbing health, education spending in fiscal package, sources say.

Government austerity means cutting social programs, worst case scenario perhaps even significantly gutting the public healthcare system(SUS). Ultimately this is political suicide. The left will be absolutely crushed in 2026 as the left was already completely crushed during the latest mayoral elections last month.

It is a warning that the Worker's Party doesn't care. The Brazilian mainstream left got a serious Lula worship problem. It realy is TINA but its clear from the recent elections this will be a crushing defeat.

Economically the bigger picture it means several things including the future prospect of a complete victory of the financial rentier capital class over the still relatively strong and rich agricultural exporting capitalists(beef, coffee, soybean both for US and China etc).

If this victory is confirmed its going to be far worse than Argentina. It means no BRICS or China relationship. It means a possible Venezuela invasion or worse.

So is it all just about Trump? Not realy, Trump's victory is a financial market dream giving every excuse to shit on emerging market currencies.

Good depends how you look at it, its actualy terrible. I could make an effort post but ugh.

For example Brazil is currently under a extremely heavy US/neoliberal market attack, it doesn't help that Haddad is a neoliberal himself but in the short term either the Brazilian left draws a line or the market will keep pressuring for higher interest rates.

Brazil set to speed up interest rate hikes or here in Portuguese, they're talking about an insane 15% interest rate

The country is perfectly fine but the neoliberal market is demanding higher interest rates and with the US situation now its pretty much inevitable. Trump's policies may be incredibly good for the USD in the short term which is the perfect excuse to destroy the global south.

To be clear, this is pretty much destroying Lula's government and reelection chances and the Brazilian far right will likely win by ridiculous margins. With a Trump victory and support all cards are off the table including a real and successful military coup to remove them from BRICS.

Most of the global south economies are in a situation like this. There is no alternative to neoliberalism.

I know I repeat this but there is no Chinese pressure or support beyond just talks and trade deals. We may well look back and say the 21th century was lost on the contradiction between Chinese internal vs external policies.

Either way the local economic situation may be fine, certainly Brazil is well enough economicaly that interest rate hikes is economic suicide. In turn this is the perfect vehicle for right wing radicalization.

And worst of all nobody is resisting. Brazil is about to raise interest rates another .5%, its a catastrophe.

Russian neoliberalism is already putting into question the whole war economy boost.

Venezuela got fucked.

Iran is about to get bombed etc.

China is literaly bending their backs to the market while saying US very very bad.

The worst part is we can't say its because of Trump, these are tendencies happening for years now, but now it seems there will be no turning back, this is the path.

To be fair technically it can use the internet, its just a deliberate decision not to allow internet searching for "reasons", perhaps that would make it even worse given the plagiarism.