GenZedong

Good day comrades. Those of you who watched news recently surely heard about a "coup" in the Republic of Niger. Apparently Westerners are very mad because I am hearing of the west cutting diplomatic ties and thinking of imposing sanctions.

Now, as you know, Western news sources are not reliable when it comes to the happenings in other countries - especially in those that are either not west-friendly or part of the Global South. My question is, can anybody here explain to me what exactly happened in the Republic of Niger and if possible, provide a Marxist estimate of the situation? Is the "coup" (I'll use the term for now because of a lack of better knowledge about the situation) good or bad for the working class of the Republic of Niger? Is it good for the global working class movement? I have seen pictures of protestors waving the Russian flag and some Western media is already claiming this somehow benefits Russia. What is going on?

Thanks in advance.

Personally I'm not that good at countering liberal comments on our posts, which seems to be happening more and more frequently with any posts relating to China. It'd be a lot easier if we could have a big pinned post with all the materials we need so we can just link to it whenever we need to.

CNN wrote that China has an employment problem because the jobless rate for 16 to 24 year olds in urban areas hit 21.3% last month, a record high.

When read uncritically this sounds pretty bad, and CNN relies on the fact that the readers will not analyze this statement further. Let's take a look at how absurd the argument in the article actually is.

First, why are they counting from 16 years old. I realize that child labour is being normalized in US right now, but in civilized countries kids don't work and they go to school. A serious unemployment statistic wouldn't include children.

Second, the article presents this as an abnormal situation, but is it actually.What is the situation like in Europe for example?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/613670/youth-unemployment-rates-in-europe/

Turns out that it's pretty comparable, yet we don't see CNN writing sensational articles about a youth unemployment crisis in Europe.

To sum up, CNN created a story out of whole cloth that relies on the readers not being curious enough to read it critically.

This is what much of reporting in western media looks like. Yet, a lot of people genuinely think that the media they consume is factual and unbiased allowing it to shape their views of the world.

Another declassified study shows the Air Force misled the public in the 1950s about UFOs to conceal the CIA's spy plane testing.

I’ve listened to the Poor Proles Almanac and they’re basically left-unity (anarchist) preppers. Their information is probably useful either way, though. I just started listening to It Could Happen Here, and the first episode is pretty cringe. Robert Evans is anti-Assad and thinks a Syrian civil war type scenario could happen here. He praises maidan coup fascist protesters (without mentioning their fascism or US backing). And of course, he thinks a collapse could be soon in 2019 and a lot of crazy stuff has happened since, but no civil war. I’ll keep listening critically to see if he has anything decent to say, but not looking good. As the empire crumbles and climate change gets worse is a collapse scenario realistic?

From a comment I made earlier, I thought it would be good to make a post about it for visibility.

The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41e44JwMY6Y&list=PL6UESfsY6DFtN4rbXh3WYI8OEI78Lt9vi&index=6

The BBC article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57780023.amp?s=09

Now, one might assume that the Youtuber is lying, and this is definitely what any lib coming across the Youtube video would think, especially if they look up the article and notice the image is unaltered.

Think again, the BBC has since changed it back to the unaltered version, this shit is infuriating because,

1. anyone seeing this video would think the youtuber is lying, and

2. whoever read the article at first has already been lied to.

Here is the article before the image was changed to the unaltered version (Likely in “response” to the Youtubers video, BBC obv. doesn’t mention or apologize for this blatant disinformation): http://web.archive.org/web/20210711221132/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57780023

I initially (although only for a while since I am critical towards my sources) thought that the youtuber had lied after looking up the BBC article, shame on me … But thank fuck for archive.org.

Another example (Credit: @qwename)

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202102/1215710.shtml

BBC News posted Chinese and English versions of a video titled "How everyday life has changed in Wuhan" on Youtube. Although the two versions have the same content, netizens found that a filter was added to the English version that made the footage more greyish.

I won't hold my breath for more but it's good to see Marxist ideas appearing in the mainstream press:

Liberal antiracists have succeeded over the last half-century in reducing racial prejudices in interpersonal relationships. And they have transformed popular culture: people of colour are now represented in Hollywood movies at levels proportionate to their presence in the US population. But advances in reducing prejudice and improving representation have not lessened the racism that exists in law, policy and broader economic and institutional practices.

Take, for instance, the expulsion of more than a million, mainly Mexican, people from the US in 2021. This policy behind this is driven by the need to maintain a worldwide racial division of labour. It makes no difference if the immigration officer who carries it out and the employer who profits from it have worked really hard at their diversity awareness training. And it is at the structural level where, since the 1970s, racism has reproduced itself, as ruling classes in the US and Europe mobilised a neoliberal conception of market forces to defeat mass movements for the redistribution of wealth. With those defeats, new ways of dominating Black people and the global south became possible.

It was not simply that racism became more subtle or unconscious after its overt forms had been defeated. It was more that there was no longer a need to routinely make explicit assertions of racial superiority. Racial inequalities were reproduced through market systems, alongside newly intensifying infrastructures of governmental violence, carried out in the name of seemingly race-neutral concerns about crime, migration and terrorism. …

The many millions of people around the world judged surplus to the requirements of neoliberal capitalism, and framed as bearers of cultural values antagonistic to market systems, are the targets of this form of violence. …

Liberal antiracists are powerless against this new structural racism. They demand we use the correct racial vocabulary, shaming Conservative MPs or sports commentators when they use derogatory terms; but abolishing a word does not abolish the social forces it expresses. They implement diversity training programmes, but these fail, owing to the mistaken premise that racism now resides primarily in the unconscious mind. … By relocating racism to the unconscious mind, to the use of inappropriate words and to the extremist fringes, liberal antiracists end up absolving the institutions most responsible for racist practices. They are effective at getting more people of colour into senior jobs in police forces, border agencies and the military, but unable to get fewer people of colour killed by those same agencies.

For these reasons, to look to liberal antiracism as the solution – with whatever good intentions – is to help sustain structural racism. White liberals can heroically confront their own unconscious biases all they want, yet these structures will remain. To be antiracist today means working collectively with organisations to dismantle racist border, policing, carceral and military infrastructures. It means organising in the community to get the police out of our schools; taking direct action against deportations; and confronting corporations that trade in violence. It means understanding that the poor of the global south are as equally entitled to the world’s resources as the wealthy residents of the north. In the end, it requires us to build an economy of care, not killing – uplifting all working classes of whatever colour. The radical tradition, with its anticapitalist impetus, might once have seemed impractical. Now it is the only viable antiracist politics.