CLASS ANALYSIS

HUA BIN—An American youth YouTuber, Speed (a.k.a. I Show Speed) shot a series of videos for his trip to China where he drove a “dancing” BYD car, rode in an unmanned flying car, boxed with a kung fu master, and met the Chinese Trump in Chongqing. His videos garnered hundreds of millions of views.

Though those clips are filled with details and granular observations, it is hard to get a wide-angled view. So I thought it might be interesting to share a few short videos that show aerial views of a few Chinese mega-cities including Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Chongqing.

TGP—Gabriel Salazar’s interview offers a sweeping diagnosis of Chile’s political and social crisis, deeply intertwined with global upheavals and the disintegration of neoliberal consensus. His historical perspective reveals the persistent failure of political representation and democratic legitimacy, the emergence of citizen-led social movements, and the critical need to reimagine democracy as a participatory, mandate-driven process rooted in local communities. Salazar’s cautious optimism rests on the resilience of life and human dignity, calling for renewed citizen engagement to navigate the complex challenges ahead.

MR ONLINE—In this first part of a two-part interview with Prof. John Bellamy Foster, we analyze the MAGA phenomenon from a materialist perspective, highlighting the main social composition of the classes that form the base of support for the trumpian regime. John Bellamy Foster begins by rejecting the idealist categories through which, in the West, the concept of fascism has come to be analyzed.
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Instead, Foster proposes a classical analysis of the fascist phenomenon, locating its nature in the social composition of the classes that constitute its foundation. In the current historical period, this consists of an alliance between monopoly capital (including the decisive role of Big Tech) and what Foster calls the “lower middle class.” This class is marked by contradictory elements and has historically been used by ruling classes for reactionary purposes.

DD—The video transcript presents a wide-ranging and highly critical commentary on contemporary political and social issues, focusing primarily on U.S. politics, immigration, racial tensions, Israel and Zionism, domestic surveillance, and controversies within conservative circles. The hosts begin by discussing former President Donald Trump’s blatantly racist remarks about Somali immigrants in Minnesota and the community’s humorous and defiant response to these attacks. They then pivot to a detailed critique of Zionism, highlighting a recent conference where Israeli-American donors and politicians openly expressed anti-American sentiments and ambitions to reposition Israel as a global financial hub, marking a shift in geopolitical power from the West to the East.

LIZZY—In just over a decade, China has built over 40,000 km of high-speed rail with trains traveling at speeds of between 300-350km/h. It’s the world’s longest high-speed railway network and most extensively used. There’s no other country in the world that even comes close to China’s record. Certainly not India with their big population but poor railway.