The article doesn’t mention it, so to clarify: Jin Mingri was arrested because if you want to accept funds from the US as a church, you need to register and disclose sources - a totally reasonable requirement. The Chinese government gave Zion Church seven years to do this, they refused, so they are just now facing consequences.
Also, Jin Mingri’s daughter (and media advocate) in the US studied “human rights” at a university in… Tel Aviv.
Sometimes the ops are just that obvious.
Literally just US dollars. They’re not “buying” anything with it. It’s not being used to plug a budgetary deficit (not needed for that anyway). It’s just a load of USD to be used to prop up the exchange rate, which would otherwise have the peso depreciate against the USD so prices for Argentinians on imported goods would rise significantly (i.e. more inflation). So this is just a $20B “gift” so inflation in Argentina doesn’t spike up before the election and Milei doesn’t lose more than he already will. Russia spends $200 million on “election interference” in 2016 through Facebook posts. The US spends $20B to actually interfere in Argentina’s election.
It’s the same way IMF loans work, only those have to be paid back. Poor country gets a loan from the IMF to prop up their FX rate. The rate eventually collapses anyway. Now the poor country has to pay back the loan but doesn’t have any increased means to pay it.
The IMF has been the main tool in US imperialism (arguably even more than the military) for decades now.
Thank you for sharing this, I have no doubt you are correct. Admittedly though, as someone who is not technically inclined I don’t quite know what to do with this information. Should I limit the apps on my phone to only what is essential? Use iOS with ADP and Lockdown Mode? Go with GrapheneOS? Just chuck out my phone entirely?
I moved out at 22 (went away for college at 18) and I do sort of regret it. I get on great with my parents despite some of their religious and political ideas. I could lived with them for years and been pretty happy. But I moved out because that was just what you did (this was the mid 00s).
As a US-based commie, I think we have such a long row to hoe in terms of developing class consciousness here. Decades of propaganda plus comfortable living conditions based on exploitation of people and the environment make even suggesting a socialist alternative to people makes them look at you like you have a horn growing out of your head. Hasan does good work in normalizing these ideas among young people, thus making positive contributions to developing class consciousness. Someone who isn’t as “pipeline-friendly” but more ideologically pure probably wouldn’t have a fraction of the viewers Hasan has.
Also, while I think the “crisis of masculinity” in young men is overblown, the reality is that the right wing has an entire ecosystem of people like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson who can sell young men on a false idea of a very unhealthy masculinity, and it’s been incredibly effective at pushing them to reactionary politics. Hasan is a great antidote to that as I think he (and others - I think Mamdani embodies this as well) provides a more positive version of masculinity that in itself I see pushing men leftward.