From Prashad himself:

The Nepali petty bourgeoisie, which sent their children to English medium schools, and often come from oppressed or “backward” Hindu castes are frustrated by the continual domination of upper castes and are inspired by the right-wing Hindutva petty bourgeoisie politics of India’s Uttar Pradesh, one of the states that borders Nepal. That is why there were many posters in the protests of Yogi Adityanath, a leader of India’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the leader of the Uttar Pradesh government. This fraction of the population is also in the mood to “return” to monarchy, which is a Hindu monarchy. Several political forces back these tendencies, such as the pro-monarchy party (Rashtriya Prajatantra Party or RPP) and its broader allies (Joint Peoples’ Movement Committee – formed in March 2025 as part of the return to monarchy protests, Shiv Sena Nepal, Vishwa Hindu Mahasabha).

Since the 1990s, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the Indian RSS’s international affiliate, has quietly built shakhas (groups) and cadre since the 1990s. The HSS – along with a tentacular group of organizations such as the Shiv Sena and the RPP – has campaigned against secular policies and for a return to Hindu Raj. Rather than merely target secularism, the Hindutva bloc has focused attention on what it says is a revolving door of elites in Kathmandu that has held power ever since the monarchy was abolished in 2008. They frame their civilizational rhetoric around anti-corruption and charity, with mobilizations through Hindu festivals and through online influencers as well as selective outreach to marginalized and oppressed castes in the name of Hindu unity. This bloc, powerfully organized unlike the youth, has the capacity to seize power and to restore order in the name of the Hindu state and the monarchy, bringing back authoritarianism in the name of anti-corruption.

Obviously, I don’t know anything about the Nepalese situation firsthand, so I’m taking him at his word.

Next thread here.

@Dessa@hexbear.net: “I am once again asking that “international” be added to the thread titles.”

Your wish is granted. Of course, US national news is still welcome when relevant, and in small doses, but this should clarify the ultimate purpose of the news mega. Or the, uh, intnews mega. Or, as I call it, the goddamn news mega.

Next thread is up!

Next thread is up!

Next week’s thread is up!

Next thread here, a few hours early to keep the firstposters on their toes.

Next thread here.

Sounds fine by me.

I’ve changed it to “Israel’s Genocide of Palestine” and changed a couple references to “Temporary Zionist” instead of “Israeli”

I check my inbox every so often, though some things might fall through every now and then given how many replies I get.

What’s up?

Next thread is up.

Next thread is up.

Next thread here

I agree to an extent and it’s why even I don’t spend as much time here any more as I used to. I think there’s a decreasing sense of curiosity and an increasing sense of people fitting data-points into their personal theories along the lines of “Here’s why China doing X actually confirms my theory about why it’s going to collapse soon” or “Here’s why Putin is doing Y, this clearly shows he’s abandoned Iran and China, just as I thought.”

But at the end of the day, it’s not as if those who oppose those people are totally blameless either. To challenge an opposing viewpoint, you can’t merely go “This person is wrong and sucks” because that only creates a void of uncertainty which will inevitably just get filled up again; you have to forcefully assert an equally-if-not-more persuasive theory of reality, with the expertise that requires.

Do you think MarmiteLover is wrong about Iranian and Israeli military capabilities? You have to become knowledgeable in and post about those things - not just in an argumentative reply-guy sense, but actual top-level comments and analysis about it.

Do you think xiaohongshu is wrong in regards to multipolarity and dedollarization? You have to assert an alternative economic model of reality that fits the facts better and uses materialist analysis, as well as just generally having a decent degree of knowledge of macroeconomics.

and so on.

There’s been quite a few people who have been annoyed by users here and expressed that, but there’s been much less in terms of concerted efforts to be like “No, you’re wrong, and here’s why: insert eight paragraphs here” It can’t merely be looking at somebody saying “Here’s all the reasons China is bad and sucks” and going “Okay, here’s all the reasons China is good!”, you have to also engage with the reasons why China sucks and give satisfying materialist explanations for those things.

Next thread is up!

where Pezeshkian and other top officials were attending a meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

The fact that they’re still gathering multiple highly important officials in one place is insane. Every high-ranking official in the Resistance should be thinking: no matter how utterly top-secret a facility I think this is, if a dozen bunker busters were to drop on my head at this instant, what actions should I take and how should I organize people and my communication lines to absolutely minimize the damage to the overall organization? If there’s ever A Time Where A Bunch Of Important People Get In A Room And Decide Things, they should do absolutely everything possible to minimize the number of people inside that room and ideally instead have some sort of secure line between isolated officials and protocols that instantly transfer authority in the case of an official not being present (either due to being cut off or being dead)

I agree; I think the understated strength of the US and its proxies is their ability to win peaces even after they lose wars, because their true strength isn’t really military, it’s economy and diplomacy and espionage. The US lost the Korean War, and what happened after? The US lost the Vietnam War, and what happened after? The US lost in Iraq, and what happened after? The US lost in Afghanistan, and what is happening after? Their victories take decades to undo, but their defeats eventually lead to victories by suffocating the victor until they accede to a neoliberal world order. You can fire guns at American soldiers, you can dig tunnels to ambush American squads, you might even shoot down American planes, but shooting the world reserve currency is much, much, much harder.

In essence: to go to war with America is dangerous, but to make peace with America is catastrophic. I think the decision for the USSR to not go to war against the US was good (as it averted a nuclear war), but I also think the Soviets were just a little too willing to go along with what the Americans clearly wanted to happen; a resource-intensive contest of proxy wars and espionage and counter-espionage and nuke-building that drained the USSR of resources and gradually isolated them. Abandoning Stalin was a critical error in that regard. It’s my main worry in regards to China, too. Binding yourself to rules of engagement will make you weaker if the person you’re fighting is willing to break those rules at a moment’s notice for even the slightest gain, and the US (and its proxies, especially Israel) is absolutely willing to do that, including among the largest terrorist attacks in human history (e.g. the Lebanon pager terrorist attack). I worry that one day, the US will pull out some economic or diplomatic superweapon or new mechanism and all China will do is go “Hey! That’s not fair!” and then proceed to not do anything in retaliation because doing so would break the rules, and if they go low then we go high!

I’m envisioning something like what the UK went through after their empire fell post-WW2, but it’ll be much worse because the UK could still rely to an extent on the new American system of neocolonialism enforced by the IMF and World Bank etc, whereas a shift to Chinese hegemony would, unless the Communist Party is liberalized, meaningfully reduce and eventually end imperialist structures.

Unfortunately, the ruling classes of the imperial core will use the working class as human shields and pass on as much misery to them as possible (like Thatcher and Reagan but much worse), so I agree with others who conclude that our job is to try and construct community structures to survive this process, even if we fail to create socialist revolutions (and we might not fail!)

Apologies for the late thread. Mondays, am I right?

dear god we live in unending hell and only a century of humiliation on the imperial core will begin the process of reparations

Next thread here.

Sorry for the lateness!