Nola

Or, you could you know actually address the core points I raised(including inside your own citation that noted how this system is far more nuanced and complex then you seem to grasp) instead of whatever this pedantry is supposed to be achieving?

Like I suspect, but I don’t want to assume, that your implication is that this cadre system is itself proof by its mere existence towards the larger Chinese honeypot conspiracy being speculated. And probably rooted in some deeper China-phobic understanding of how the Chinese political and economic system itself operates. And that butts up with an internalized belief in a neoliberal worldview that has never really questioned the core social relationship between the state and private capital and by extension how many of the implications you are putting forward with your logic chain could apply to US CEO’s too. Or more accurately, could apply to all our politicians that are co-dependent to corporate money and capitalist billionaires and a state designed to uphold that system. Thus it is in fact just as possible to make a similar argument that every US CEO or politician is a asset for the US empire.

But the question still remains, what is the charge I am supposed to be outraged about here? And is there any proof of some deeper charge beyond someone that may or may not be a Chinese asset engaging in business both had a pre-existing interest in engaging in?

And?

Do you have a point beyond dragging me along as you slowly educate yourself(poorly) about the Chinese party cadre system thru your reactionary lens?

Yes, many, if not most companies inside their strategically defined industries(the commanding heights in particular) have party cadre in some capacity. I never disputed that

It is not literally every company though.

And furthermore your own citation hints at the next key point, what this functionally means and looks like varies and it’s functional relationship to the core CCP leadership is even more diffuse at times.

The system is designed to ensure Chinese capitalism remains in it’s “birdcage” and key sectors will stay aligned with larger industrial policy. Yes, I am well aware of this.

But again, the core point I was making is that that sort of criteria just makes any and everyone a “spy” for the CCP.

Which then sort of makes that designation functionally useless and taken to it’s logical conclusion would mean any romantic relationship with Chinese business leaders by Americans in positions of influence or power is fraternizing with a spy.

And so what then is the actual allegation? And why did it take a year to scandalize it?

I think the easiest argument is that you don’t need a grand Chinese conspiracy to explain mutually aligned self interest…

Jenson Huang has been in support of open-weight AI development and by extension selling to any and everyone both on a personal philosophical level and from a basic profit-driven perspective as the CEO of the company selling the mining tools for the gold rush.

Nvidia as a basic profit-seeking firm pursuing a profit and sustainability growth strategy has a vested interest in seeing Nvidia chips in Chinese data centers and having Chinese AI companies using Nvidia chips over huawei or someone else. Again, they are the people selling the mining tools for the gold rush. Of course they want to be the main supplier in the biggest gold rush markets with the deepest pockets.

And Trump’s lifestream is sustained by McDonalds and grifting.

Everything that has taken place is basically exactly what these people have wanted to do with or without this person in place.

Maybe she’s an asset, maybe she’s not. But it feels like a bit of a red herring that I am not sure what I am supposed to do with it if it is the case she’s an asset? Other then be a shocked and horrified peasant that will not question when the US government moves to intensify the Cold War posture and put more protectionism around US AI and chip manufacturing that moves us closer to a cartelification of the tech manufacturing and AI industry that all the AI ceo’s want to happen.

This front has been known for over a year. You can find Reuters or the Guardian reporting on it.

And while you are overstating Chinese corporate ownership(its more like having stakes in companies that compose 60% of their GDP, and a lot of that is concentrated in the commanding heights and the rest is often minority stakes through state linked investment firms), that sort of just makes any and everyone a “spy” for the CCP if that is the criteria.

Which then sort of makes that designation functionally useless and taken to it’s logical conclusion would mean any romantic relationship with Chinese business leaders by Americans in positions of influence or power is fraternizing with a spy

And from there what exactly is the allegation? Nvidia has a vested interest in wanting their products to be integral to AI everywhere. Including China. This is not a viewpoint Huang just established last year. It’s been his perspective from the jump, and part of a broader libertarian ethos.

Frankly, I would be asking who benefits domestically for this becoming a zeitgeist moment right now given the only thing truly new is the second affair? Like who might benefit from pushing out a CEO that supports open-weight AI strategies favored by China and putting government pressure on the company to shift away from that business strategy?

The big issue with American unions has been that capitalists were very slick with things like Taft Hartley and largely banned or made incredibly difficult sectoral bargaining.

That not only makes it very hard to unionize, it creates contradictions and alignment asymmetries that make the labor movement easier to discipline or suppress.

But as imperfect a vessel it is(american unions, for instance, were at times bulwarks of defending US imperialism), aside from actual revolution, no social democratic advancement has succeeded in a capitalist country without strong organized labor movements on their side.

This is a very good conversation about the connection with unions and socialism from a Marxist that is also colleagues or working in close proximity with other people at top levels of DSA strategy and thinking.

https://confrontingcapitalism.substack.com/p/why-socialists-fight-for-unions

Just like third party’s, I wish it were this simple…

Putting DSA in charge of the DNC will still lead to whoever that is being disciplined by the same broad economic and systemic pressures as the current corporate Dems…assuming they don’t purge and block DSA before that.

You still have to fundraise, still have to staff the party, still have to support all the infrastructure to operate, still have to buy ads on oligarchy owned media, still have to provide resources for candidates etc. And that will still confer enormous power to the oligarchy to influence and discipline the party because there is currently no alternative base of organized power to counteract that.

This is not me arguing defeatism or some sort of pragmatic centrist bullshit, but it is to say that entryism can’t just be about replacement or it will fail.

Historically the only proletarian centered balance of power was not from the inside, but from the outside. Namely, organized labor and mass semi organized movements of people. The only group that can literally bring capitalists and imperialists to their knees by organizing things like strikes, mass boycotts, and coordinated vote conditioning in a way no singular politician in the American system can. It’s not a perfect tool, as history also shows, but that is also why IMO an entryist strategy should be centered first and foremost on making it easier to organize power outside of the two party system.

“The Empire and the Death Star have a right to a tax funded missile defense system to defend itself from Rebel attacks”

• Democratic Party of the Galactic Senate of Coruscant

Excuse you OP, don’t you understand that I am NOT aligned with US imperialism.

Must I tap the sign for you all AGAIN

This is missing the forest for the trees

The issue is not they missed the vote, it’s why they did and what that says more broadly about the party’s capture.

3 of those house members are explicitly on the board of this AIPAC front group, another 5 of them took money this election cycle.

In the first major symbolic vote since the election, these Dems were prostituting themselves for a front group advancing the interests of an ethno supremacist foreign government engaging in a genocide that just helped manipulate our nation into a war and is seeking to re-escalate it.

And the way you change that overton window and shift those pressures leftward is thru sustained outside pressure

Corporate Dems have no real incentive to betray their actual constituents, donors, especially when their former main lovers(tech oligarchs and Israel) are sending all the signals their pocketbooks will open back up for them if they play nice, and if voters as a whole just go back to brunch, guess who easily wins that influence battle?

So while there is a type of corporate media propaganda that I think undermines the left, this is one of those rare instances I think this sort of coverage is actually helping. As it is keeping focus on who the villains inside the tent are and that they can’t be trusted(which they can’t). And right now they are banking on people going quiet and falling in line so they can maneuver behind the scenes and preserve their power and the status quo dynamic.

The only wedge this drives though is with the vast masses against the corporatist zionist wing of the party…which IMO is the energy people need to keep up.

I don’t know of any meaningful constituency of voters that is out there angry that people are getting mad at Hailey Stevens for making her dreams of Israel come true and up and leaving, or Nancy Pelosi ironically skipping the vote to end an illegal and unjust war to get a lifetime achievement award from a veterans organization.

If I missed a crucial meeting at my work that was pivotal for positioning the future of the company, I would expect to reprimanded far more consequentially than some mean words.

I need to see more details of this

On the one hand the industry needs more regulation and frankly, far more restrictions then is currently happening, and this coming from the progressive wing and not centrists is at least a somewhat better sign.

On the other, most Dems are still corporatist ghouls, and I think even Bernie has shown some bad instincts on handling AI at times, and this reads eerily similar to the cartelification the AI companies are reported to themselves be seeking.

Where instead of the Chinese approach of open sourcing the tech more, America, in the name of national and domestic security, essentially grants the existing companies defacto protectionism and in a way that will make it impossible to dislodge them.

I must applaud this analysis cause rarely in the wild do I find sickos that know ball this well

So bravo

And cause I am also a sicko I want to add a few more things to chew on

As you already alluded to, and I will add an additional allegory, Tucker is the Daniel Day Lewis of political pundits.

When he changes characters he is in a league of his own. And part of that is he has a genius level read on the pulse of politics. And ironically, cause it is typically something you more often find Marxists doing, not so much modern right-wingers, is that he is insanely good at identifying the contradictions in our politics, in our imperialism, and even in capitalism itself.

Like if someone is so inclined, if you read the opening chapter or so of his book, I think it was Ship of Fools, it basically just reads like semi accurate leftist critique of American capitalism translated into America B language. But he peppers in just enough ethnonationalism and causation misdirection to seed people in a more right wing Trumpian direction and away from a true capitalist and class critique.

And I suspect that is what he is doing here again thru this new persona that as you rightly note is targeting the political/voter contradictions on Israel and repackaging ethnonationalist right wing economic populism and astutely incorporating some of the DSA energy as well(see him praising Abdul El Sayed and note the shift in people under 40 embracing socialism and socialist policies, even on the right).

And I will add this elite/counter-elite push and pull is a pattern we see repeat again and again in right wing politics and media.

There is the Establishment and the elites that are backing them. Then there is typically some counterfroces to their right dialing up the rhetoric on various tension points between the party elite and the right wing masses, identifying those contradictions and misalignments so they can exploit them as the more authentic voice for “the people.” Who themselves are usually backed by some counter elites seeking to gain more influence in the larger political space.

They embrace positions, posturing, and/or manufacture a movement that presents like it is challenging the Republican Party, eschewing unpopular aspects while fronting certain populist energies thru that anti establishment image. Gain enough support for it to create a crisis within the existing status quo, use that to leverage to gain more power and influence within the party/politics in exchange for sheep-dogging people back into the party.

Reagan Revolution, Moral Majority, Tea Party, Trumpism, etc. All followed a similar pattern.

And on the media side no one has done it better or more often then Tucker. He is a bellwether people should not ever ignore or underestimate.

And a cheat code for seeing who and where people are aligning themselves is not to just look at what they say, but what they do behind the scenes.

Peek thru the veil at Tucker and you will find someone maneuvering in between his post Fox News backer Omeed Malik and toward the JD Vance wing of oligarchs(not a fan of the source but it is the one I could find reporting on this recently)

https://jewishinsider.com/2026/08/vance-fundraiser-with-tucker-carlson-backer-omeed-malik-raises-eyebrows/

My personal theory is Tucker, and this is based on his movements behind the scenes, is trying to position himself as a kingmaker voice in 28 for using his clout on this issues he is on the correct side of to then sheepdog people into Vance. Which he will use to demonstrate he is a goodboy to the Thiel wing of the oligarchy he is trying to ingratiate with, and he is smart enough to know Vance has no chance in 28(in 150 years no party with an incumbent president anywhere near this unpopular has won a non-incumbent presidential race and the Republican Party under current material conditions is in no position to break that trend).

And I would also go out on a limb and say I would not be shocked if Tucker wants to then position himself as a Trumpian like figure for 2032 or 2036.

Why do we assume this is real to begin with and not just more theater in the lead up to the re-escalation?

Nothing Hegseth did was without the explicit consent of the president and the implicit consent of Republican controlled congress(and quite a lot of Democrats)

And at ANY TIME congress could have pulled funding for the war as is their power constitutionally.

This is simply a way to shovel all the blame onto one person while obfuscating their own accountability, Trump’s own accountability, and Israel’s accountability.

While actively avoiding the mechanism in their face that could end this war tomorrow because deep down most Republicans and a good chunk of Democrats support these actions or at least the larger foreign policy behind it.

Which TBC also only works if Trump doesn’t continue the war and goes further up the escalation ladder. Which by all accounts he is positioning to do.

No one does false flags

I wouldn’t go that far…

Second Gulf of Tonkin, The Nayirah Testimony, Operation Northwoods, USS Liberty, Gleiwitz Incident, Ryazan, Lavon Affair, USS Maine

And it depends on how strictly we are defining that term, cause CIA activities are awash in operations meant to create or foment incidents, create pretenses for further interventions/escalations, and obfuscate US or western responsibility.

It’s not a bad litmus test under current US politics.

It is about the most powerful third rail in politics right now that exposes the contradictions within the Democratic Party and their voters

Someone that is an Israel First Democrat is basically a 1 for 1 for being corporate captured on other issues as well.

And a willingness to call Israel a genocide, an apartheid, and support a full arms embargo(including defensive weapons) is also a good clue they won’t be speaking half measured on healthcare policy, housing, wealth taxes, universal childcare, fighting Trump, ending Citizens United, supporting unions, banning AI data centers, a living wage, and any other issue that faces internal contradictions with Establishment corporate Dems and their voters.

And sure enough, Ossoff is problematic on all those domains as well.

Why Immigration Agents Don’t Quit in Protest

Money(and power)

ICE at it’s core is a jobs program

It’s shitty but this is one way that fascism has historically rooted itself into a nation.

It shores up support by creating a defacto jobs program for disaffected, immiserated, and angry people that buys their loyalty by providing them a good salary and the promise of social status as an enforcer of the regime. And for others it is a job that was hiring in a economy with a precarious job’s market. Which creates a golden handcuff problem under capitalism.

And the other side of this is that for many supposed “pragmatic” oppositional politicians they recognize this co-dependency and are scared of dismantling it. In part cause they might risk losing voters(see Talarico in Texas) but also cause they will simultaneously be beholden to their own oligarchical dependencies, typically thru the donor system or party disciplining, that prevent them from offering what is actually needed which is a replacement jobs program, or wholesale economic restructuring that deals not just with this problem but the larger driving forces of broad economic immiseration, alienation, and disaffection. But because that runs afoul with many of their donors(and in some cases constituents), they box themselves into this “reform” posture both toward ICE and larger economic fixes.

Which just ends up as someone being another do nothing Democrat.

And while this author gives good analysis to this economic relationship and offers some tactical advice for the oppositional movement, it similarly fails to offer a deeper fix for the underlying class and economic problems that not only risk still remaining, but actually risk intensifying if not addressed simultaneously.

Democrats are the HR department of the Oligarchy