Forwarded from Slavyangrad (J Asbery)
Shocking stat of the day:
The top 10% of US earners now reflect a record 49% of all consumer spending.
This percentage has risen +13 points over the last 30 years, marking a dramatic shift in spending power.
At the same time, the bottom 80% of earners represent just ~37% of total consumer expenditures, down -11 percentage points since 1995.
This means the top 10% account for a record 33% of US GDP, as personal consumer expenditures account for 68% of total economic output.
Meanwhile, the bottom 80% account for just 25% of the US economy.
Asset owners are the only winners in this economy.
• Kobeissi
US oligarchs have all the money. American’s often claim Russian oligarchs have all the money and everyone in Russia is dirt poor but the statistics* are Russia (33.0) is closer to Norway (26.5), then it is to the US (41.8). Other sample numbers UK (32.4), Germany (32.4), Spain (33.4), Australia (33.8).
*Gini index = lower the number the more equal and higher the number the more inequality
@Slavyangrad
The top 10% of US earners now reflect a record 49% of all consumer spending.
This percentage has risen +13 points over the last 30 years, marking a dramatic shift in spending power.
At the same time, the bottom 80% of earners represent just ~37% of total consumer expenditures, down -11 percentage points since 1995.
This means the top 10% account for a record 33% of US GDP, as personal consumer expenditures account for 68% of total economic output.
Meanwhile, the bottom 80% account for just 25% of the US economy.
Asset owners are the only winners in this economy.
• Kobeissi
US oligarchs have all the money. American’s often claim Russian oligarchs have all the money and everyone in Russia is dirt poor but the statistics* are Russia (33.0) is closer to Norway (26.5), then it is to the US (41.8). Other sample numbers UK (32.4), Germany (32.4), Spain (33.4), Australia (33.8).
*Gini index = lower the number the more equal and higher the number the more inequality
@Slavyangrad
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Blaming Trump for every crime committed by the US state is counter-productive. Biden, Obama, Bush — all of them presided over war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The problem isn’t the individual at the top, it’s the system itself. Imperialism doesn’t disappear when you swap out one servant for another. If we want real change, we have to expose imperialism in all its forms to the working class, not personalise a machinery that grinds on regardless.
The problem isn’t the individual at the top, it’s the system itself. Imperialism doesn’t disappear when you swap out one servant for another. If we want real change, we have to expose imperialism in all its forms to the working class, not personalise a machinery that grinds on regardless.
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Forwarded from The Communists
The role of social democracy and the bureaucratic layer of the ‘professional-managerial-class left’ is clear, whether it be the British Labour party and those nominally ‘outside’ of it like Jeremy Corbyn, or the US Democrats and those nominally ‘outside’ of it like Cornel West.
It exists to prop up imperialism and tie the working class in the west to its own exploiters via social chauvinism, bribery, and the cooptation of our mass movements.
Millions of well-meaning workers are being misled by bourgeois education and history. Those of us who have an instinctive ‘gut reaction’ against Iran, but are not really sure why, need to stop and think: Am I victim of western media lies?
We must not allow ourselves to be duped by our class enemies. If we want to get free, we are going to have to remove the blinkers from our eyes and the traitors from our midst.
https://thecommunists.org/2026/01/21/tv/joti-brar-nick-cruse-fake-left-supports-regime-change-iran/
It exists to prop up imperialism and tie the working class in the west to its own exploiters via social chauvinism, bribery, and the cooptation of our mass movements.
Millions of well-meaning workers are being misled by bourgeois education and history. Those of us who have an instinctive ‘gut reaction’ against Iran, but are not really sure why, need to stop and think: Am I victim of western media lies?
We must not allow ourselves to be duped by our class enemies. If we want to get free, we are going to have to remove the blinkers from our eyes and the traitors from our midst.
https://thecommunists.org/2026/01/21/tv/joti-brar-nick-cruse-fake-left-supports-regime-change-iran/
The Communists
Nick Cruse and Joti Brar on how the fake ‘left’ facilitates regime-change in Iran
Why is it that social democrats can’t help but oppose real anti-imperialism, whether at home or abroad?
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The main conversation on the left is that fascism is “on the rise”. We say no — it is being prepared and normalised.
What we’re witnessing across Britain, Europe, and the US isn’t a sudden surge of jackboots and salutes, but something quieter and far more dangerous. Anti-immigration sentiment wrapped in nationalist rhetoric, migration framed as invasion, protesters criminalised, police powers expanded, and courts increasingly weaponised, all while rising poverty at the heart of imperialism is blamed on everything except capitalism.
Fascism isn’t a movement, it’s an administration.
When capitalism enters a permanent crisis, it can no longer rule by consent, so it turns instead to force, fear, and division. Liberalism doesn’t collapse in opposition to fascism; it gives birth to it, then acts shocked at the language it produces. The far right doesn’t come from nowhere — it is cultivated and funded, then brought to the fore when useful. The state doesn’t fear fascism, it fears organised workers.
Anti-fascism itself has been remodelled into a set of safe capitalist reforms, while anything that moves beyond this, into real confrontation or organisation, is recast as the problem. The state and its actors perform the old switcheroo, blaming resistance for the conditions repression creates.
We need people to understand what fascism actually is before reactionaries are allowed to sell them more untruths. History has always been one of class struggle, and the next battle will be no different.
— Antonio Gramsci
What we’re witnessing across Britain, Europe, and the US isn’t a sudden surge of jackboots and salutes, but something quieter and far more dangerous. Anti-immigration sentiment wrapped in nationalist rhetoric, migration framed as invasion, protesters criminalised, police powers expanded, and courts increasingly weaponised, all while rising poverty at the heart of imperialism is blamed on everything except capitalism.
Fascism isn’t a movement, it’s an administration.
When capitalism enters a permanent crisis, it can no longer rule by consent, so it turns instead to force, fear, and division. Liberalism doesn’t collapse in opposition to fascism; it gives birth to it, then acts shocked at the language it produces. The far right doesn’t come from nowhere — it is cultivated and funded, then brought to the fore when useful. The state doesn’t fear fascism, it fears organised workers.
Anti-fascism itself has been remodelled into a set of safe capitalist reforms, while anything that moves beyond this, into real confrontation or organisation, is recast as the problem. The state and its actors perform the old switcheroo, blaming resistance for the conditions repression creates.
We need people to understand what fascism actually is before reactionaries are allowed to sell them more untruths. History has always been one of class struggle, and the next battle will be no different.
"The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”
— Antonio Gramsci
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Mental Health and Capitalism – Class Consciousness Project
https://classconsciousnessproject.blog/2025/11/22/mental-health-and-capitalism/
https://classconsciousnessproject.blog/2025/11/22/mental-health-and-capitalism/
Class Consciousness Project
Mental Health and Capitalism
The System Is Making Us Sick Both Mentally And Physically Article Written By Comrade Luke One of the many, and possibly more disturbing, facets of decaying moribund capitalism is the rise of the me…
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Another innocent person has been killed by the ICE militia. An organisation supposedly created to deal with illegal immigration has now killed two people in the space of a month, neither of whom were immigrants. Both were targeted during protests against this vile agency.
This is not “law enforcement”. It is political violence carried out by the state against its own population.
If this were happening in any country outside the United States, it would be condemned, sanctioned, and used as a pretext for intervention. But when the empire does it at home, it’s seen as defending US democracy.
This is not “law enforcement”. It is political violence carried out by the state against its own population.
If this were happening in any country outside the United States, it would be condemned, sanctioned, and used as a pretext for intervention. But when the empire does it at home, it’s seen as defending US democracy.
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Michael Parenti (September 30, 1933 – January 24, 2026)
Michael Parenti was an American Marxist political scientist, historian, author, lecturer, and anti-imperialist. He sadly passed away yesterday at the age of 92, surrounded by family, leaving a towering legacy. His books included the seminal Blackshirts and Reds, To Kill a Nation, and the under-read masterpiece The Assassination of Julius Caesar, a materialist history of Rome. He taught generations of readers to understand class power and to oppose imperialism. Parenti was a committed working-class intellectual, a teacher, and polemicist who never wavered in his loyalty to the working class.
Farewell comrade.
Michael Parenti was an American Marxist political scientist, historian, author, lecturer, and anti-imperialist. He sadly passed away yesterday at the age of 92, surrounded by family, leaving a towering legacy. His books included the seminal Blackshirts and Reds, To Kill a Nation, and the under-read masterpiece The Assassination of Julius Caesar, a materialist history of Rome. He taught generations of readers to understand class power and to oppose imperialism. Parenti was a committed working-class intellectual, a teacher, and polemicist who never wavered in his loyalty to the working class.
Farewell comrade.
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Reform present themselves as an alternative to the rest in politics, but they are nothing more than another outlet for British capitalism, dressed up in anger and nationalism. They may chest beat about the ruling classes, but will carefully avoid making any challenge to property, profit, or imperialism.
What they offer workers is not strength just misplaced anger, not change but distraction. Immigration is the convenient target, while capitalist exploitation and declining living standards are treated as facts of life rather than symptoms of a dying system.
Any party unwilling to confront capital essentially exists to defend it. Reform are no exception. Their role is not to break the system but to stabilise it by redirecting legitimate working-class anger away from the bourgeoisie.
What they offer workers is not strength just misplaced anger, not change but distraction. Immigration is the convenient target, while capitalist exploitation and declining living standards are treated as facts of life rather than symptoms of a dying system.
Any party unwilling to confront capital essentially exists to defend it. Reform are no exception. Their role is not to break the system but to stabilise it by redirecting legitimate working-class anger away from the bourgeoisie.
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Keir Starmer has joined the raft of western politicians visiting Beijing recently. What has prompted this sudden shift towards the east?
20 years ago British politicians would tell us we had entered a “golden era” of trade with China. In truth that phrase spoke more about British decline than Chinese friendship. By the late 1990s and 2000s, Britain was almost fully de-industrialised, hollowed out, and increasingly dependent on finance and foreign capital. China, meanwhile, was industrialising at speed and accumulating surpluses. The relationship that followed was pragmatic: Britain opened it's doors for Chinese investment. It was never meant as an equal partnership, but old colonial powers believing they could still dominate over the Chinese economic juggernaut.
Historically, when Britain was an Empire, the relationship was far uglier. The Opium Wars still sit in the background as a reminder that when trade stopped filling British coffers, violence and coercion replaced trade. That era ended long ago, but the instinct to dominate rather than coexist could never change in British capitalism. What had changed was Britain’s ability to enforce it.
The modern “golden era” peaked in the early 2010s. Chinese firms invested in British energy, transport, property, and finance. London became a major offshore hub for renminbi trading. China rose to become one of the UK’s largest trading partners. This was written as a strong strategic partnership, but it rested on a fragile condition: that China would not challenge the US (the new empire) technological or geopolitical dominance.
That illusion collapsed quickly and one such marker of this collapse was Huawei. The leading Chinese information and communication technology.
By the mid-2010s, Huawei equipment was already embedded across UK telecom infrastructure and formally approved by regulators. In January 2020, the UK government confirmed Huawei’s limited role in the roll out of 5G. Six months later, the decision was reversed, existing equipment ordered to be removed at enormous cost.
No new evidence emerged of spyware or anything truly malicious as chinese technology was accused of. What did emerge was sustained pressure from the United States, including threats around intelligence sharing. Britain obviously capitulated to great satan, and in doing so exposed the reality of its “independent” foreign policy.
A very swift change from David Cameron sharing a pub lunch with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, to Boris Johnson spouting Washington's line of security concerns.
Now it seems Britain, and other western leaders are pivoting again. The same leaders who spent years talking about “decoupling” are quietly walking it back like everything said before never happened.
China is the largest trading partner for most of the world, central to global manufacturing, supply chains, and the materials needed for energy transition. The United States can still project military power, but it can no longer stabilise the global economy on its own, nor absorb every crisis capitalism produces. The only shore fire way of steadying the ship is to create another war so it can pillage more sovereign countries and they don't even have the same power to do that.
This isn’t a return to the old relationship. China no longer needs Western approval and no longer offers access without conditions. Engagement now is selective and transactional, shaped by reliability. China no longer has to fear reprisal from the west and can easily function without the west.
Essentially this shift isn’t about cooperation or values. It’s about decaying capitalism in the imperial core. Imperialism is not a policy choice but capitalism in its end stage, driven to coercion as profits fall and dominance slips. As US power fades, allies adjust. The system is cracking, and no amount of rhetoric can disguise the material forces pulling it apart.
20 years ago British politicians would tell us we had entered a “golden era” of trade with China. In truth that phrase spoke more about British decline than Chinese friendship. By the late 1990s and 2000s, Britain was almost fully de-industrialised, hollowed out, and increasingly dependent on finance and foreign capital. China, meanwhile, was industrialising at speed and accumulating surpluses. The relationship that followed was pragmatic: Britain opened it's doors for Chinese investment. It was never meant as an equal partnership, but old colonial powers believing they could still dominate over the Chinese economic juggernaut.
Historically, when Britain was an Empire, the relationship was far uglier. The Opium Wars still sit in the background as a reminder that when trade stopped filling British coffers, violence and coercion replaced trade. That era ended long ago, but the instinct to dominate rather than coexist could never change in British capitalism. What had changed was Britain’s ability to enforce it.
The modern “golden era” peaked in the early 2010s. Chinese firms invested in British energy, transport, property, and finance. London became a major offshore hub for renminbi trading. China rose to become one of the UK’s largest trading partners. This was written as a strong strategic partnership, but it rested on a fragile condition: that China would not challenge the US (the new empire) technological or geopolitical dominance.
That illusion collapsed quickly and one such marker of this collapse was Huawei. The leading Chinese information and communication technology.
By the mid-2010s, Huawei equipment was already embedded across UK telecom infrastructure and formally approved by regulators. In January 2020, the UK government confirmed Huawei’s limited role in the roll out of 5G. Six months later, the decision was reversed, existing equipment ordered to be removed at enormous cost.
No new evidence emerged of spyware or anything truly malicious as chinese technology was accused of. What did emerge was sustained pressure from the United States, including threats around intelligence sharing. Britain obviously capitulated to great satan, and in doing so exposed the reality of its “independent” foreign policy.
A very swift change from David Cameron sharing a pub lunch with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, to Boris Johnson spouting Washington's line of security concerns.
Now it seems Britain, and other western leaders are pivoting again. The same leaders who spent years talking about “decoupling” are quietly walking it back like everything said before never happened.
China is the largest trading partner for most of the world, central to global manufacturing, supply chains, and the materials needed for energy transition. The United States can still project military power, but it can no longer stabilise the global economy on its own, nor absorb every crisis capitalism produces. The only shore fire way of steadying the ship is to create another war so it can pillage more sovereign countries and they don't even have the same power to do that.
This isn’t a return to the old relationship. China no longer needs Western approval and no longer offers access without conditions. Engagement now is selective and transactional, shaped by reliability. China no longer has to fear reprisal from the west and can easily function without the west.
Essentially this shift isn’t about cooperation or values. It’s about decaying capitalism in the imperial core. Imperialism is not a policy choice but capitalism in its end stage, driven to coercion as profits fall and dominance slips. As US power fades, allies adjust. The system is cracking, and no amount of rhetoric can disguise the material forces pulling it apart.
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Forwarded from The Cradle
❗️Scottish court moves to challenge UK ban on Palestine Action
Scottish judges have approved plans for a judicial review of the UK government’s pronoscription of the direct action group Palestine Action. The Court of Session granted permission for the case to proceed, with hearings scheduled for 17 and 18 March, following a procedural session on 23 February.
The challenge was brought by former British diplomat Craig Murray, who is asking Scotland’s supreme civil court to declare the ban ultra vires, arguing it falls beyond the legal authority of the home secretary. UK government lawyers raised objections over Murray’s standing and claimed the Scottish case should not advance while a separate judicial review is ongoing in England and Wales, but the judge ruled the Scottish proceedings could move forward regardless.
The campaign group Defend Our Juries said the review could overturn the ban in Scotland, creating a constitutional clash if the pronoscription remains in force elsewhere in the UK. The case comes amid mounting scrutiny of the decision, including reports that Scotland’s counter-terrorism board concluded Palestine Action’s activities did not meet the statutory definition of terrorism, while critics accuse the government of using terrorism legislation to shield the Israeli weapons trade.
Scottish judges have approved plans for a judicial review of the UK government’s pronoscription of the direct action group Palestine Action. The Court of Session granted permission for the case to proceed, with hearings scheduled for 17 and 18 March, following a procedural session on 23 February.
The challenge was brought by former British diplomat Craig Murray, who is asking Scotland’s supreme civil court to declare the ban ultra vires, arguing it falls beyond the legal authority of the home secretary. UK government lawyers raised objections over Murray’s standing and claimed the Scottish case should not advance while a separate judicial review is ongoing in England and Wales, but the judge ruled the Scottish proceedings could move forward regardless.
The campaign group Defend Our Juries said the review could overturn the ban in Scotland, creating a constitutional clash if the pronoscription remains in force elsewhere in the UK. The case comes amid mounting scrutiny of the decision, including reports that Scotland’s counter-terrorism board concluded Palestine Action’s activities did not meet the statutory definition of terrorism, while critics accuse the government of using terrorism legislation to shield the Israeli weapons trade.
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