D2. Socialism

nama Pragmatic Play menjadi salah satu yang paling sering dibicarakan oleh pemain maupun pengamat industri game digital.

Provider ini berhasil membangun reputasi kuat lewat kombinasi teknologi modern, kualitas visual, serta sistem permainan yang dinilai mampu memenuhi selera pasar global. Tidak heran jika banyak platform game online menjadikan koleksi slot mereka sebagai daya tarik utama.

Konsisten Menghadirkan Game Berkualitas

Salah satu alasan utama dominasi Pragmatic Play terletak pada konsistensi produksi game. Provider ini rutin merilis slot baru dengan tema yang beragam, mulai dari mitologi, petualangan, budaya Asia, hingga konsep futuristik.

Setiap permainan dirancang dengan detail visual yang rapi dan audio yang mendukung atmosfer permainan. Pendekatan ini membuat pemain tidak cepat bosan karena selalu ada pengalaman baru di setiap rilisan.

Beberapa judul populer seperti Gates of Olympus, Sweet Bonanza, dan Starlight Princess bahkan berhasil menciptakan komunitas pemain sendiri di berbagai negara. Popularitas game tersebut juga diperkuat oleh banyaknya konten streamer dan kreator digital yang membahas pola permainan maupun fitur bonusnya.

Teknologi yang Mendukung Pengalaman Bermain

Pragmatic Play tidak hanya fokus pada tampilan game. Mereka juga memperhatikan stabilitas sistem dan kenyamanan pengguna di berbagai perangkat.

Mayoritas slot dari provider ini sudah mendukung teknologi sehingga dapat dimainkan dengan lancar di desktop maupun smartphone. Faktor ini menjadi penting karena tren pemain mobile terus meningkat setiap tahun.

Selain itu, proses loading yang cepat dan antarmuka yang sederhana membuat pemain baru lebih mudah memahami mekanisme permainan. Pengalaman pengguna yang praktis menjadi nilai tambah besar di tengah persaingan industri game online yang sangat kompetitif.

Fitur Bonus yang Menarik Perhatian Pemain

Faktor lain yang membuat Pragmatic Play mendominasi pasar adalah keberanian mereka menghadirkan fitur bonus yang agresif namun tetap seimbang. Banyak slot mereka dikenal memiliki:

• Free spins dengan multiplier tinggi
• Fitur tumble atau cascading reels
• Buy feature untuk langsung masuk bonus round
• Jackpot dan pengganda kemenangan besar

Sistem tersebut menciptakan sensasi permainan yang lebih dinamis. Pemain merasa memiliki peluang besar untuk mendapatkan kombinasi menarik dalam waktu singkat.

Meski demikian, pemain tetap perlu memahami bahwa slot online bekerja menggunakan sistem RNG (Random Number Generator). Artinya, hasil permainan tetap bergantung pada keberuntungan dan tidak ada pola pasti yang menjamin kemenangan.

Strategi Branding yang Kuat

Dalam dunia digital, kualitas produk saja tidak cukup. Pragmatic Play memahami pentingnya membangun identitas merek yang kuat.

Mereka aktif bekerja sama dengan berbagai platform hiburan online internasional dan rutin tampil dalam pameran industri game global. Strategi pemasaran ini membuat nama Pragmatic Play semakin dikenal luas, bahkan oleh pemain yang baru mengenal slot online.

Selain itu, desain logo, tampilan promosi, hingga karakter dalam game dibuat konsisten sehingga mudah dikenali. Pendekatan branding semacam ini membantu memperkuat loyalitas pemain.

Didukung Lisensi dan Standar Keamanan

Kepercayaan menjadi faktor penting dalam industri game online. Pragmatic Play berhasil menjaga reputasi karena beroperasi di bawah pengawasan sejumlah regulator internasional.

Sistem keamanan serta audit permainan menjadi bagian penting untuk memastikan transparansi. Banyak pemain memilih provider yang memiliki rekam jejak jelas dibanding sekadar menawarkan hadiah besar.

Dengan dukungan lisensi resmi dan pengawasan sistem RNG, pemain merasa lebih nyaman saat mencoba berbagai permainan yang tersedia.

Dominasi yang Belum Terlihat Melambat

Melihat perkembangan industri saat ini, dominasi Pragmatic Play tampaknya masih akan terus berlanjut. Provider ini mampu membaca tren pasar dengan cepat dan memahami apa yang dicari pemain modern: permainan cepat, visual menarik, fitur inovatif, serta kompatibilitas mobile yang stabil.

Di tengah munculnya provider-provider baru, Pragmatic Play tetap berada di posisi kuat karena berhasil menjaga keseimbangan antara inovasi, kualitas, dan pengalaman pengguna.

Bagi banyak pemain slot online, nama Pragmatic Play kini bukan sekadar provider biasa, melainkan simbol hiburan digital yang identik dengan permainan modern dan penuh variasi.

Tema Mesir selalu berhasil mencuri perhatian karena memiliki identitas visual yang sangat kuat. Elemen seperti piramida, Sphinx, Firaun, hingga hieroglif menciptakan atmosfer misterius yang mudah dikenali.

Pengembang game memanfaatkan kekayaan visual ini untuk membangun pengalaman bermain yang imersif. Mereka menghadirkan animasi yang detail, latar musik bernuansa eksotis, serta simbol-simbol khas yang membuat pemain merasa seolah memasuki dunia sejarah kuno.

Unsur Misteri yang Meningkatkan Rasa Penasaran

Salah satu kekuatan utama tema Mesir adalah unsur misteri yang melekat pada sejarahnya. Banyak cerita tentang harta karun tersembunyi, makam kuno, dan legenda Firaun yang belum sepenuhnya terungkap.

Dalam industri hiburan digital, elemen misteri ini dimanfaatkan untuk menciptakan pengalaman bermain yang penuh kejutan. Pemain cenderung lebih tertarik pada game yang menawarkan sensasi eksplorasi dan penemuan, bukan sekadar mekanisme permainan biasa.

Kombinasi Budaya dan Mitologi yang Kaya

Peradaban Mesir Kuno memiliki mitologi yang sangat kaya, seperti kisah Dewa Ra, Anubis, dan Osiris. Pengembang game sering mengadaptasi cerita-cerita ini menjadi fitur dalam permainan, seperti simbol khusus atau bonus interaktif.

Kombinasi antara budaya dan mitologi ini menciptakan kedalaman narasi yang membuat permainan terasa lebih hidup. Hal ini meningkatkan keterlibatan pemain karena mereka tidak hanya bermain, tetapi juga “menjelajahi cerita”.

Desain Gameplay yang Variatif dan Adaptif

Selain aspek visual dan cerita, pengembang juga terus meningkatkan kualitas gameplay. Game bertema Mesir biasanya memiliki fitur-fitur seperti free spin, multiplier, hingga mini-game berbasis petualangan.

Inovasi ini membuat permainan tidak terasa monoton. Pemain mendapatkan pengalaman yang dinamis karena setiap putaran dapat memberikan hasil dan kejutan yang berbeda.

Faktor Psikologis dalam Daya Tarik Tema

Dari sudut pandang psikologi pengguna, tema Mesir memicu rasa penasaran dan ekspektasi akan “keberuntungan besar” yang tersembunyi. Simbol harta karun dan artefak kuno secara tidak langsung menciptakan persepsi peluang besar di benak pemain.

Selain itu, warna emas dan desain visual megah sering diasosiasikan dengan kemewahan dan kemenangan, sehingga memperkuat daya tarik emosional.

Perspektif dalam Industri Game Digital

game bertema Mesir menunjukkan bagaimana industri hiburan digital menggabungkan:

• menghadirkan gameplay imersif yang kaya visual
• pengembangan desain game berbasis riset budaya dan psikologi pemain
• ema Mesir sudah menjadi standar populer di industri slot global
• penyedia game besar terus menjaga kualitas dan konsistensi produk

Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa popularitas tema Mesir bukan hanya tren sementara, melainkan hasil dari strategi industri yang matang.

Kesimpulan

Game slot bertema Mesir tetap menarik bagi pemain karena mampu menggabungkan visual yang kuat, cerita mitologi yang kaya, serta pengalaman bermain yang imersif. Industri hiburan digital terus memanfaatkan tema ini karena terbukti efektif dalam meningkatkan keterlibatan pengguna.

Dengan inovasi yang terus berkembang, tema Mesir diprediksi akan tetap menjadi salah satu ikon utama dalam dunia permainan online di masa mendatang.

Provider ini dikenal konsisten menghadirkan slot dengan tema menarik, fitur inovatif, dan peluang kemenangan besar yang membuat pemain tertantang untuk terus mencoba.

Bukan tanpa alasan slot Pragmatic dengan volatilitas tinggi banyak dicari. Sensasi permainan yang tidak mudah ditebak justru memberikan pengalaman berbeda dibanding slot biasa. Banyak pemain menganggap tipe permainan ini lebih seru karena mampu menghadirkan kemenangan besar dalam satu putaran yang tepat.

Apa Itu Slot Volatilitas Tinggi?

Dalam dunia slot online, volatilitas adalah tingkat risiko sekaligus potensi hadiah dalam sebuah permainan. Slot volatilitas tinggi biasanya memiliki frekuensi kemenangan yang lebih jarang, tetapi nilai hadiahnya bisa jauh lebih besar.

Artinya, pemain mungkin harus melewati beberapa putaran tanpa hasil signifikan sebelum akhirnya mendapatkan kombinasi besar. Faktor inilah yang membuat slot jenis ini terasa menegangkan sekaligus memacu adrenalin.

Beberapa pemain berpengalaman justru lebih menyukai karakter permainan seperti ini karena dianggap lebih menantang dan tidak monoton. Selain itu, peluang mendapatkan multiplier besar atau fitur bonus premium juga lebih sering ditemukan pada slot dengan volatilitas tinggi.

Kenapa Slot Pragmatic Volatilitas Tinggi Banyak Dicari?

Popularitas slot Pragmatic bukan hanya karena nama besarnya. Ada beberapa alasan mengapa game dengan volatilitas tinggi dari provider ini terus menjadi favorit komunitas pemain.

1. Potensi Maxwin yang Menggiurkan

Salah satu daya tarik utama slot Pragmatic adalah potensi kemenangan besar atau yang sering disebut maxwin. Banyak game mereka dirancang dengan fitur multiplier tinggi yang bisa memberikan hasil fantastis dalam satu sesi permainan.

Tidak sedikit pemain yang membagikan pengalaman mendapatkan kemenangan besar setelah memanfaatkan fitur free spin atau kombinasi simbol premium. Hal seperti ini membuat game Pragmatic cepat viral di berbagai komunitas slot online.

2. Tema Permainan Lebih Variatif

Pragmatic Play dikenal kreatif dalam menghadirkan tema slot. Mulai dari nuansa Mesir kuno, petualangan, mitologi, hingga tema buah klasik modern tersedia dalam kualitas visual yang menarik.

Kombinasi desain grafis tajam dan animasi dinamis membuat pengalaman bermain terasa lebih hidup. Faktor visual ini menjadi nilai tambah yang membuat pemain betah berlama-lama menikmati permainan.

3. Fitur Bonus yang Lebih Agresif

Slot volatilitas tinggi biasanya hadir dengan fitur bonus yang lebih “liar”. Misalnya:

• Multiplier x100 hingga x500
• Free spin tanpa batas tertentu
• Simbol wild berkembang
• Buy feature
• Jackpot acak

Fitur-fitur tersebut membuat setiap spin terasa memiliki peluang besar, walaupun risikonya juga lebih tinggi dibanding slot volatilitas rendah.

Daftar Slot Pragmatic Volatilitas Tinggi Favorit Pemain

Beberapa judul slot Pragmatic berikut sering masuk daftar game paling banyak dimainkan karena terkenal memiliki volatilitas tinggi dan peluang kemenangan besar:

Gates of Olympus

Game bertema dewa Yunani ini menjadi salah satu slot paling populer dalam beberapa tahun terakhir. Fitur multiplier acak yang bisa muncul berturut-turut membuat banyak pemain tertarik mencoba keberuntungan mereka.

Sweet Bonanza

Walau tampil dengan tema permen yang santai, slot ini terkenal memiliki potensi pembayaran besar melalui sistem tumble dan multiplier tinggi saat free spin aktif.

Starlight Princess

Slot bergaya anime fantasy ini memiliki pola permainan mirip Gates of Olympus, tetapi dengan visual yang lebih modern dan efek animasi yang memikat.

Aztec Gems Deluxe

Game ini dikenal sederhana, tetapi memiliki kombinasi simbol bernilai tinggi yang sering dicari pemain pemburu maxwin.

Strategi Bermain Slot Volatilitas Tinggi

Meski menawarkan potensi kemenangan besar, slot volatilitas tinggi tetap membutuhkan strategi bermain yang bijak. Banyak pemain berpengalaman menyarankan beberapa hal berikut:

• Gunakan modal khusus agar permainan lebih terkontrol
• Hindari bermain terlalu emosional
• Pahami pola fitur bonus setiap game
• Manfaatkan mode demo sebelum bermain penuh
• Tentukan target menang dan batas kekalahan

Strategi sederhana tersebut membantu pemain menikmati permainan dengan lebih nyaman tanpa terburu-buru mengejar hasil instan.

Slot Pragmatic dan Tren Hiburan Digital Masa Kini

Fenomena meningkatnya pencarian slot Pragmatic volatilitas tinggi menunjukkan bahwa pemain modern kini lebih menyukai hiburan yang memberikan tantangan sekaligus sensasi. Tidak hanya sekadar bermain, banyak pemain juga menikmati proses menganalisis pola permainan, fitur bonus, hingga potensi kombinasi kemenangan.

Di era digital saat ini, slot online bukan lagi dipandang sebagai permainan biasa. Industri ini telah berkembang menjadi bagian dari hiburan interaktif yang terus berinovasi mengikuti tren teknologi dan preferensi pengguna.

Dengan kombinasi visual menarik, fitur agresif, dan peluang kemenangan besar, tidak heran jika slot Pragmatic volatilitas tinggi masih menjadi salah satu kategori permainan yang paling banyak dicari hingga sekarang.

Ucapan itu bukan sekadar candaan. Dunia judi online memang berkembang sangat cepat, terutama sejak teknologi Artificial Intelligence (AI) mulai masuk ke dalam sistem permainan digital. Perubahan tersebut bukan hanya terlihat dari tampilan visual yang makin realistis, tetapi juga dari cara platform memahami perilaku pemain secara detail.

Teknologi AI Mulai Mengubah Cara Permainan Berjalan

Beberapa tahun terakhir, teknologi AI menjadi salah satu fondasi penting dalam industri hiburan digital. Banyak platform game online mulai menggunakan sistem otomatis yang mampu mempelajari pola permainan pengguna. Teknologi ini bekerja diam-diam di balik layar, namun dampaknya terasa nyata.

AI digunakan untuk menganalisis data pemain, mulai dari waktu bermain, jenis permainan favorit, hingga kebiasaan melakukan taruhan. Dari situ, sistem akan memberikan rekomendasi permainan yang dianggap paling sesuai dengan karakter pengguna.

Bagi sebagian pemain, fitur ini terasa membantu. Mereka lebih mudah menemukan game yang cocok tanpa harus mencoba satu per satu. Tetapi di sisi lain, ada juga yang merasa sistem tersebut membuat permainan menjadi semakin intens dan sulit dilepaskan.

Rian pernah mengalami momen itu. Awalnya ia hanya mencoba satu permainan slot karena rekomendasi muncul di halaman utama. Namun beberapa menit kemudian, muncul lagi rekomendasi lain dengan tema yang mirip dan bonus yang terlihat lebih menarik.

“Kayak aplikasi streaming film,” ujarnya. “Semakin sering dimainkan, semakin ngerti apa yang kita suka.”

Pengalaman Bermain yang Kini Terasa Lebih Personal

Salah satu alasan mengapa AI berkembang pesat di industri game online adalah kemampuannya menciptakan pengalaman yang terasa personal. Teknologi ini mampu membuat pemain merasa diperhatikan oleh sistem.

Jika dulu permainan online terlihat monoton, sekarang tampilannya jauh lebih interaktif. Ada animasi dinamis, efek suara yang menyesuaikan situasi permainan, hingga fitur live chat otomatis yang mampu menjawab pertanyaan pemain dalam hitungan detik.

Bahkan beberapa platform sudah memakai AI untuk mendeteksi emosi pemain melalui pola aktivitas mereka. Ketika sistem melihat pengguna mulai pasif atau kehilangan minat, permainan akan memunculkan promosi tertentu agar pemain kembali aktif.

Di sinilah teknologi menjadi pedang bermata dua.

Di satu sisi, inovasi tersebut menunjukkan kemajuan luar biasa dalam dunia digital. Pengalaman bermain menjadi lebih nyaman, cepat, dan modern. Namun di sisi lain, muncul pertanyaan besar tentang batas antara hiburan dan manipulasi perilaku.

Industri Judi Online Semakin Kompetitif

Perkembangan AI juga membuat persaingan antar platform judi online semakin ketat. Banyak penyedia layanan berlomba menghadirkan teknologi terbaru agar pengguna betah lebih lama di platform mereka.

Mulai dari sistem keamanan berbasis AI, deteksi aktivitas mencurigakan, hingga fitur anti-kecurangan kini menjadi bagian penting dalam operasional situs modern. Teknologi ini membantu menjaga stabilitas permainan sekaligus meningkatkan kepercayaan pengguna.

Beberapa pengamat industri digital menilai bahwa AI sebenarnya tidak selalu membawa dampak negatif. Jika digunakan secara tepat, teknologi ini bisa membantu menciptakan sistem permainan yang lebih aman dan transparan.

Contohnya adalah fitur responsible gaming yang mulai diterapkan beberapa platform besar. Sistem AI dapat mendeteksi pola bermain berlebihan dan memberikan peringatan otomatis kepada pengguna agar beristirahat.

Walau belum diterapkan secara merata, langkah tersebut menunjukkan bahwa teknologi juga bisa diarahkan untuk melindungi pemain, bukan sekadar meningkatkan keuntungan perusahaan.

Ketika Teknologi dan Emosi Manusia Bertemu

Yang menarik dari perkembangan ini bukan hanya soal mesin atau algoritma, melainkan bagaimana manusia meresponsnya secara emosional.

Banyak pemain merasa permainan digital sekarang lebih “hidup”. Mereka tidak lagi sekadar menekan tombol taruhan, tetapi seperti masuk ke dalam dunia virtual yang penuh interaksi.

Ada suara dealer langsung, tampilan grafis ultra-realistis, hingga sistem AI yang membuat permainan terasa responsif terhadap tindakan pemain. Semua itu menciptakan sensasi yang jauh berbeda dibanding era awal judi online beberapa tahun lalu.

Namun di balik kecanggihan tersebut, ada satu hal yang tetap tidak berubah: manusia tetap menjadi pusat dari semua keputusan.

Teknologi bisa membantu membaca pola, memprediksi kebiasaan, bahkan menciptakan pengalaman yang terasa personal. Tetapi kendali tetap berada di tangan pemain itu sendiri.

Rian akhirnya menyadari hal tersebut setelah beberapa kali terlalu larut dalam permainan. Ia mulai membatasi waktu bermain dan melihat judi online sebagai hiburan digital, bukan jalan instan untuk mendapatkan keuntungan besar.

“Teknologinya makin pintar,” katanya pelan. “Makanya pemain juga harus lebih pintar.”

Masa Depan Judi Online dan AI Masih Akan Terus Berkembang

Melihat perkembangan saat ini, banyak pihak percaya bahwa hubungan antara AI dan industri judi online akan semakin erat di masa depan. Kemungkinan besar, teknologi akan menghadirkan pengalaman bermain yang lebih realistis melalui virtual reality, analisis data real-time, hingga sistem interaksi yang semakin menyerupai manusia.

Bagi industri digital, AI adalah alat untuk menciptakan efisiensi dan pengalaman pengguna yang lebih baik. Tetapi bagi pemain, pemahaman dan kontrol diri tetap menjadi hal terpenting.

Karena pada akhirnya, secanggih apa pun teknologi berkembang, keputusan manusia tetap menjadi faktor utama yang menentukan arah permainan.

We have entered a new epoch of global capitalism. It is characterized by crisis, imperial rivalry, authoritarian nationalism, and episodic, explosive resistance from below. The Trump administration’s brief year of misrule has brought all these to a head, particularly with its war on Iran. That war has put a definitive end to Washington’s imperial order of free trade globalization that it constructed within its bloc after World War II and expanded globally after the Cold War. Now the U.S. is a predatory imperialist state out for its own interests against nominal allies, rivals, regional powers, and subject nations.

Trump’s rise to power, like that of other authoritarian nationalists, did not come out of the blue. The electoral successes of the Right are the product of capitalism’s multiple crises and the establishment parties’ inability to overcome them. Their failure has triggered political polarization to the right and left. Given the revolutionary Left’s decline and reformist parties’ incapacity to deliver when in power, the new Right, in the form of authoritarian nationalism, has been the principal beneficiary. But their program of austerity, bigotry, and scapegoating has also failed to address capitalism’s systemic crises, undercutting their ability to secure hegemony and impose stable rule. As a result, political instability is the order of the day throughout the world.

These conditions have triggered wave after wave of resistance from below. But so far this resistance has been episodic and unable to win, largely because of the decomposition of class, social, and political organizations to sustain struggle and pose an alternative to the establishment parties and the Right. Nonetheless, these struggles open opportunities to rebuild the infrastructure of resistance, cohere a militant minority, and reconstruct a revolutionary Left for the 21st century.

Capitalism’s global slump

Capitalism is beset by multiple systemic crises from climate change to mass migration and pandemics like COVID. The other two, which are the most important ones for shaping our new epoch, are the global economic slump and the return of inter-imperial rivalry. The 2008 economic crisis triggered the Great Recession, which brought an end to the long neoliberal boom that began in the 1980s.

While capitalism survived, its recovery has been characterized by low profitability and slow growth, punctuated by recessions and weak recoveries. The heartlands of the system, from the U.S. to Europe and Japan, are either growing at a modest rate or are stagnant. As far as the U.S. is concerned, only the high-tech companies’ massive investment in AI data centers and the accompanying stock market bubble have kept the economy growing. But that is now in jeopardy as a result of the war with Iran. Even China, which was key to the global recovery after the Great Recession, has seen its growth drop from 10 percent a year in the 2000s to under 5 percent today.

As far as the U.S. is concerned, only the high-tech companies’ massive investment in AI data centers and the accompanying stock market bubble have kept the economy growing. But that is now in jeopardy as a result of the war with  Iran.

Inflation in the wake of the COVID recession has forced the U.S. and Europe to maintain relatively high interest rates, hampering investment and growth. On the other hand, overinvestment, cutthroat competition, and low profitability have fueled deflation in China, forcing its corporations to seek out profitable sites for investment internationally through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), while exporting their surplus products and in the process undercutting their competition everywhere.

The combination of U.S. high interest rates and Chinese dumping has triggered a double crisis in the Global South. First, high interest rates have hammered indebted countries, which are now facing the prospect of another debt crisis like the one they suffered in the 1980s. Already, creditors are demanding austerity measures from governments in the Global South. Second, Beijing’s exports have undermined the Global South’s domestic manufacturing base, reducing it to exporting raw materials to China for China’s ongoing expansion.

Thus, we are in a global slump. It will continue until a deeper crisis clears out all the uncompetitive capital in the world economy. Up to today, the main capitalist states have stopped this from happening. They have bailed out corporations they consider too big to fail, fearing mass bankruptcies and a 1930s-style depression. That has propped up the so-called zombie corporations. These are so unprofitable that they are forced to take out ever more loans to repay interest on their existing loans. As a result, the system limps along.

By contrast, ruling classes have imposed austerity measures on their workers, cutting social welfare spending and attacking wages and benefits. As a result, class inequality has deepened throughout the world. At the same time, states have turned to protectionism and other beggar-thy-neighbor policies to protect their capitals against other states and their capitals.

The return of inter-imperial rivalry

Thus, the global slump is intensifying the second key crisis—inter-imperial rivalry, especially between the two biggest economies in the world, the U.S. and China. Washington no longer oversees the unipolar world order as it did after the Cold War. The long neoliberal boom produced new centers of capital accumulation from China to Russia and a host of regional powers.

Washington no longer oversees the unipolar world order as it did after the Cold War. The long neoliberal boom produced new centers of capital accumulation from China to Russia and a host of regional powers.

The U.S. attempt to defend its increasingly challenged hegemony through wars in Afghanistan and Iraq backfired, leading to disastrous defeats. On top of that, the Great Recession hammered the U.S., Europe, and Japan, in contrast to China, which used massive state investment to keep its economy booming, and with that, all its tributary economies expanding from Russia to Australia and Brazil.

These developments led to the relative decline of the U.S. against its rivals, especially China, ushering in today’s asymmetric multipolar world order. The U.S. remains the largest economy with the biggest military and greatest geopolitical influence. Its dollar remains the world’s reserve currency, it oversees an empire of 800 military overseas bases, and uses that power to bully allies, rivals, and so-called rogue states.

But it is no longer unrivaled. China is now a potential peer competitor, while Russia, with its vast nuclear stockpile and fossil capitalist economy, is an outsized regional power with global pretensions. In this context, regional powers exploit conflicts between the great powers to pursue their own interests. Iran, for instance, oversaw the so-called Axis of Resistance, which it used to build regional imperial influence against the U.S., the Arab states, and Israel.

Faced with this new order, successive U.S. administrations have abandoned Washington’s post-Cold War strategy of superintending capitalism by incorporating all states into a neoliberal world order of free trade globalization. Obama initiated a shift toward great power competition with China through his Pivot to Asia.

In his first term, Trump enshrined great power rivalry as Washington’s new grand strategy, naming specifically China and Russia. His America First foreign policy put what he perceived to be U.S. interests over and above those of both friends and foes. He began to abandon free trade for protectionism, particularly by raising tariffs on China. But his administration’s internal divisions, hostility to traditional allies, propensity to make transactional deals with rivals, and general incompetence prevented its coherent implementation.

The Biden administration retained Trump’s focus on great power but abandoned his unilateralism. Instead, it tried to rebuild Washington’s alliance structure, especially NATO, and unite its vassals against China and Russia in defense of the so-called rules-based international order. It paired that with strategic protectionism against Beijing and an industrial policy to ensure U.S. dominance in high-tech industries, especially microchips, which it wanted to onshore from Taiwan.

Biden capitalized on Russia’s imperialist war on Ukraine to rally NATO behind Kyiv’s national liberation struggle. His aim was not to defend Ukraine’s right to self-determination but to weaken Russia. However, his administration fatally discredited its claims to support international law, human rights, and oppressed nations by championing, bankrolling, and arming Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

Waves of resistance

The global slump, growing inter-imperial rivalries, and capitalism’s other systemic crises have combined to destabilize societies around the world. These conditions have set off waves of resistance from below by various classes, from the petty bourgeoisie to the working class and peasantry. The movements have been politically heterogeneous, spanning the gamut from right-wing small business revolts to uprisings of workers and the oppressed.

Most important for the Left have been the progressive class and social struggles throughout the world from the Arab Spring revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa to the Red State Teachers Revolt, Black Lives Matter, and Palestine solidarity in the U.S. These movements have been the largest since the 1960s and have a class content more like that of the 1930s, expressing rage against the deep economic and social inequalities of our epoch.

But they all have been hampered by the weaknesses inherited from the previous period of defeat and retreat. These include everything from the collapse of the revolutionary Left to the dramatic drop in trade union density and retreat of social movements from membership-based groups to grant-funded NGOs with all their golden chains.

As a result, workers and the oppressed have gone into struggle bereft of class, social, and political infrastructures of dissent. That has impacted the character of movements today. They tend to seemingly come out of nowhere and explode in size, challenging capital and the state. Their demands are usually negative in character, like the slogan of the Arab Spring, which was “the people want the fall of the regime,” and lack a positive alternative. In the words of one analyst, they are revolutions without revolutionaries.

That makes them vulnerable in all sorts of ways. The states and capitals can crush them with brute force as the regimes succeeded in doing throughout the Middle East and North Africa. They can also co-opt them as the Ford Foundation did with key leaders of Black Lives Matter. Reformist parties can also channel uprisings into the dead-end of electoral attempts to use the capitalist state to overcome systemic crises and inequalities. The movements can also dissipate in demoralization over the difficulties of winning victories faced with the intransigence of the state and capital.

That said, more and more activists have drawn lessons from these experiences that it’s necessary to build more serious class, social, and political organizations capable of sustaining struggles for positive demands and reforms on the way to systemic change.

Political polarization to the right and left

Global capitalism’s crises and the waves of resistance have intensified political polarization to the right and to the left. The various regimes and parties of the capitalist classes offer no solutions either to the system’s intractable problems or popular grievances. Undemocratic regimes have turned to increasing authoritarianism to enforce their rule in countries like China and Russia. In bourgeois democracies, angry electorates have voted out capital’s traditional parties, searching for alternatives on the right and the left.

The chief beneficiary of this polarization has been the Right for obvious reasons. The revolutionary Left is far too weak to offer an alternative. The reformist Left has ridden the resistance to win elected office in various countries, but constrained by capitalism’s crisis and the intransigence of the capitalist class, their electoral strategy has been unable to deliver reforms to improve people’s lives. They have, at best, administered neoliberal capitalism with a human face or, worse, broken their promises and turned on their working-class base. The examples of this are legion, from Syriza’s betrayal of Greek workers to the collapse of the Pink Tide in Latin America.

The authoritarian nationalist politicians have reaped the rewards of disappointment with establishment and reformist parties. The Right’s parties represent at best a minority of capital but are mainly an expression of petty bourgeois radicalization. They have found a base in the atomized, defeated, and demoralized sections of the working class. As a result, authoritarian nationalist regimes have multiplied throughout the world, from Putin in Russia to Modi in India, Orban in Hungary, Kast in Chile, Milei in Argentina, and, of course, Trump in the United States.

But their “solutions” of class war, bigotry, and scapegoating, especially of migrants, have also failed to solve the system’s crises and address mass popular grievances from their own petty bourgeois base to the much larger popular classes. So, they too have not been able to establish stable regimes and have even been driven out of power. For instance, Hungarian voters recently voted Orban out of office. Authoritarian states also have faced resistance from below as well as other forces. President Xi Jinping faced a mass uprising against his brutal Zero-COVID policy, and Vladimir Putin faced a coup attempt by the Wagner Group.

In bourgeois democracies, when the new Right has faced governmental crises, some have been tempted to turn to authoritarian rule, like Brazil’s Bolsonaro, who tried to organize a coup after he lost the election to stay in power. He failed. In reality, few democracies have yet fallen to such seizures of power. Instead, the old capitalist parties have exploited the failure of the reformists and the Right to return to power, often by adopting elements of the authoritarian nationalists’ program, especially its attacks on migrants.

But such triangulation only confirms the arguments of the Right, giving them a new lease on life. With bourgeois rule unstable, states across the board are becoming more authoritarian, enforcing rule through coercion, not consent. At the same time, they are becoming more aggressive internationally, the great imperial powers in particular.

With bourgeois rule unstable, states across the board are becoming more authoritarian, enforcing rule through coercion, not consent. At the same time, they are becoming more aggressive internationally, the great imperial powers in particular. Trump’s authoritarian nationalism

The Trump administration is part of this global pattern of the rise of a new Right. Trump’s victory in the 2024 election was entirely the fault of the Democratic Party and its commitment to capitalism and imperialism. The Biden administration failed to address the system’s crises, oversaw the immiseration of workers through inflation, and carried out mass deportations. Abroad, it ramped up inter-imperial conflict and backed Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

Trump exploited disappointment with the Democrats, but still only managed to squeak out a narrow victory over Harris, winning around half of those who bothered to vote, only about 33 percent of the overall electorate. Like other authoritarian nationalists, he does not represent a capitalist consensus, but a rogue clique of billionaires and the radicalized petty bourgeoisie. And, at best, he won a weak mandate in the 2024 election.

But that does not make his administration any less vicious. Unlike his first term, Trump now has a coherent program in Project 2025 and a unified cabinet of sycophants that, despite their differences, support their leader, including his wildest impulses and without question. They are aggressively implementing their authoritarian nationalist project.

In the U.S., they have launched a class war, cutting taxes on the rich, firing government workers, stripping the rest of union rights, gutting social welfare, and deregulating the economy. They are carrying this out through classic divide-and-rule tactics, blaming the oppressed and scapegoating them, especially immigrants, for the system’s failures. He has poured $85 billion into ICE’s budget over the next four years to hire and unleash thousands of new agents to occupy cities and arrest hundreds of thousands of migrants, detain them in new concentration camps, and deport them back to their countries of origin

In a fit of irrationalism, Trump is also carrying out revenge on the deep state, slashing entire parts of the government bureaucracy essential for reproducing U.S. capitalism, like the National Institute of Health, and managing U.S. imperialism like the State Department. In place of professional managers, he is appointing right-wing hacks, ideologues,  and lackeys.

He’s extended this assault into the private sphere as well, targeting, for example, elite higher education, which trains future CEOs, scientists, professionals, and state managers, all personnel essential for U.S. capitalism and its state. He really seems to want to Make America Stupid Again.

Ripping up the imperial order

Abroad, largely in defiance of the capitalist class and state managers, Trump has ripped up the entire order that the U.S. built after World War II and expanded globally after the Cold War. His administration’s project is not isolationist, but one of predatory dominance in pursuit of its conception of U.S. interests against both allies and rivals. Trump’s representatives laid out this in their National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and a series of speeches by JD Vance and Marco Rubio.

Their stated goal is to Make America Great Again by putting America First, definitively abandoning all their predecessors’ project of superintending global capitalism. In geopolitics, they are withdrawing from multilateral bodies like the UN and World Health Organization that the U.S. set up to oversee the world. Trump has even gutted funding for humanitarian aid programs like USAID that used to garner support from countries in the Global South. He dismissed those as corrupt welfare schemes, essentially abandoning any use of soft power.

In economics, he has abandoned free trade globalization, establishing a protectionist trade regime against both allies and rivals. But he has run into international and domestic opposition. China, unlike most other states, stood toe to toe with his administration, imposed crippling restrictions on its exports of processed rare earths, and left Trump no choice but to lower his tariffs.

In the U.S., the capitalist class and Trump’s own petty bourgeois base of farmers forced him to grant them carve-outs. And the Supreme Court ruled against his use of the International Emergency Powers Act to impose his tariffs, forcing the administration back to the drawing board to use other powers to maintain the new protectionism.

Finally, on the military front, the administration has doubled down on hard power, jacking up the Pentagon’s budget to over $1 trillion. And now Trump is proposing to raise it to $1.5 trillion. At the same time, his regime has retreated from enforcing global order. It is demanding that its nominal allies in Europe and Asia shoulder the burden of their own security so that the U.S. can focus on carving out a sphere of influence in Latin America through crude gunboat diplomacy for naked economic gain.

The goal of its new “Donroe Doctrine” is to lock the region under its dominion, crushing opponents, and pushing out China. Already, Trump bullied Panama into withdrawing from China’s BRI, carried out a coup in Venezuela to seize control of its oil, threatened to take over Greenland to establish bases and stake claim to the Arctic’s resources, and has imposed a brutal blockade on Cuba, threatening it with regime change to open it up for U.S. real estate capital.

While that sphere of influence is Trump’s top priority, he has three others—Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In Europe, he is supporting the far Right to restore “white civilization” and imperialist pride, pressuring the EU to deregulate, and bullying NATO to increase its military spending and manage its own security, including against Russia. He has all but sold Ukraine down the river, conceding to Moscow its old sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

In Asia, he has stated that he intends to maintain the status quo standoff with China, but he’s also hinted that he might cut a deal with Beijing to concede it a sphere of influence. And in the Middle East, he backs Israel to finish off Hamas in Gaza, impose a predatory “peace” there, and dismantle the rest of the so-called Axis of Resistance, including its headquarters in Iran. After that, Trump wants to expand the so-called Abraham Accords to normalize relations between Israel and the region’s regimes, all under the thumb of the U.S., not China and Russia.

Survival of the most vicious

With this project, the Trump administration has put the world on notice that it has abandoned the so-called rules-based order to advance its narrow economic interests without disguise. It is establishing a new world disorder where might makes right, the great powers struggle for dominance, and the weak, in the words of Thucydides, “suffer what they must.”

While other powers like the EU may pine for the rules-based order, they have no choice but to adapt to the pressure from the U.S. and other great powers to abide by their dog-eat-dog rules. In a stunning speech at the World Economic Forum, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney laid out the new global disorder in stark terms. He eulogized the old rules-based order. While he recognized that it was always a sham, he argued that at least there were some political and economic restraints on great powers.

But Trump, he noted, has laid waste to it and so-called middle powers like Canada must recognize that fact and respond accordingly, otherwise they “won’t be at the table but on the menu.” Whether he liked it or not, Carney argued, Canada has to put its imperial interests first. Already, he is advancing that project, increasing his state’s military budget, staking claims to the Arctic, and cutting economic deals with U.S. rivals like China. Other U.S. allies are doing the same. In a shocking example, Denmark actually made plans to deploy its troops to Greenland and blow up its airport runways to stop a U.S. invasion.

All states are adapting to Trump’s contest for the survival of the most vicious. The EU, NATO, and individual states, especially France and Germany, do not trust the U.S. and recognize that they have no choice but to stake out their own path. The European powers are cutting trade deals with China and Latin America in defiance of the U.S., jacking up their military budgets, and imposing austerity on workers with cuts to social welfare spending, wages, and benefits. Russia has already established a war economy to fuel its imperialist invasion of Ukraine. In Asia, Japan is doing the same. So is China, Washington’s key rival. We are thus in the midst of a new global arms race.

Iran—A turning point in world history

The so-called rules-based order was already in tatters in the wake of Russia’s imperialist war in Ukraine and the U.S. and Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And now with his war on Iran, Trump destroyed what remained of it. Flush with success after kidnapping Maduro in Venezuela and turning the remnants of his regime into a servant of U.S. imperialism, Trump thought he and Israel could do the same in Iran. Instead, it has blown up in his face with Tehran launching a regional war in response.

While the U.S. and Israel started this war together, they have different war aims. Trump had sought a Venezuela-style solution; he wanted to find a figure in the regime that would play the role Delcy Rodriguez did in Caracas and cut a deal to survive on the condition of obeying U.S. dictates. He hoped a reconfigured Iranian regime would then join the Abraham Accords along with the Arab states and normalize relations with Israel.

By contrast, Netanyahu intends to destroy the entire regime, balkanize the country, and wipe out its allies to ensure that none can pose any challenge to Israel’s regional hegemony. Thus, as Trump admitted, Israel undermined Washington’s goal by killing the Iranian leaders Washington hoped to cut a deal with. Unsurprisingly, Israel has paired its blitzkrieg in Iran with a new offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon to go with its ongoing genocide in Gaza and settlement expansion in the West Bank. It aims to carve out its own mini-empire—Greater Israel.

Of course, Israel pressured Trump to launch the war, but it did not sucker him into doing it. The tail does not wag the dog. Even Netanyahu ridiculed that idea in an interview with Sean Hannity. When Hannity said, “There are people that say, ‘Wow, the prime minister of Israel dragged him into it,” Netanyahu laughed. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “Donald Trump is the strongest leader in the world. He does what he thinks is right for America.”

Thus, Trump launched the war for his own stupid reasons. He is no puppet of Israel. But he catastrophically miscalculated. Iran is not Venezuela; it is a battle-tested, theocratic regime with a loyal base in a minority of the population. It has carried out a regional war and repeatedly crushed every democratic uprising of its workers and the oppressed peoples. And it had been elaborately prepared not only to survive a U.S. and Israeli war but also to launch a devastating counter-attack.

Catastrophic consequences

So, when Trump started this war, Iran withstood the assault and responded by firing missiles and drones at Israel, all the Arab states, and even NATO powers. It attacked Turkey and  British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia. And they shut down the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off shipment of oil and natural gas to the world. That sent fossil fuel prices spiraling upwards, threatening global economic growth and setting off inflation—the capitalist nightmare of stagflation.

And the danger to the world economy could get far worse if the conflict escalates. Already, when Israel struck Iran’s natural gas field, Tehran responded by attacking Qatar’s liquid natural gas (LNG)  processing plant in Ras Laffan, which supplies Asia with much of its LNG. That provoked Trump to tell Israel to refrain from further strikes. But the damage may have already been done. Qatar reports that it will take 3 to 5 years to repair its massive plant. One analyst said this will lead to the Armageddon scenario—the biggest oil and natural gas shock in history.

But the impact of the war will be even greater than that. Contrary to stereotypes, the importance of the region’s economy to the world extends far beyond fossil fuels. The Gulf states have transformed themselves into centers of industry, international travel, commercial shipping, and finance capital. The disruption of all this will be devastating for the system and, more importantly, for the working class and peasants of the world.

The war and the closure of the Strait are blocking the export of the region’s fertilizer industry. That will lead to shortages and drive up prices of fertilizer right as planting season starts over the next few months across the world. Farmers in the Global North may be able to stomach the costs and gobble up the bulk of the supply, but farmers in the Global South will be priced out of the market, suffer shortages, and produce lower crop yields. The combination of increased fertilizer and fuel costs will trigger a spike in food prices in the Global North and famine in the Global South.

The war is also blocking the region’s export of all sorts of fossil fuel byproducts that are essential for the global economy. For example, its plants produce naphtha, one of the key components for the global manufacturing of plastic, which corporations use for almost everything from packaging to cars and fighter jets. Another example is helium. It is essential for the manufacture of microchips, without which today’s high-tech economy can’t function.

Moreover, the region’s ports and airports are essential hubs for both international travel and commercial transit. Their disruption is causing all sorts of problems in the world economy. Even if the Strait of Hormuz reopens along with the airports, corporations will now distrust them as reliable hubs for transport and commerce, throwing into question their vast investments, infrastructure, and trade and travel routes.

Finally, the Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have turned themselves into major centers of international finance capital. They have used their funds to invest in all sorts of things, but especially AI data centers, not only in their region, but also in the United States. Now, companies will doubt the security of data centers in the Gulf states. And the Gulf states will have to pull back from their international investment and use their capital to rebuild their own infrastructure. Such a drawback will undercut the U.S. data center boom and could pop the high-tech bubble, the main prop for U.S. capitalism’s growth. Thus, the war is disrupting the whole system.

The logic of escalation

Trump has thereby stumbled into the biggest imperialist crisis since Iraq and potentially a far worse one. The U.S., Israel, and Iran, up until the ceasefire, were locked in a logic of escalation with no clear end in sight. The Iranian regime faced an existential threat and will fight to its death. It therefore expanded the war to force states throughout the region and world to compel the U.S. and Israel to stop it and prevent another one. No doubt they will be determined to build nuclear weapons after the war to deter any future attack.

Trump has thereby stumbled into the biggest imperialist crisis since Iraq and potentially a far worse one.

Iran’s counterattacks forced the U.S. and Israel to respond, prolonging what Trump had hoped would be a quick victory. Thus, like the sorcerer’s apprentice, Trump lost control of a spiraling war. And his decision to stage his own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to cut off Iranian exports has intensified the conflict’s damage to the world economy.

Faced with this crisis, Trump relented, agreeing to a ceasefire with none of his goals achieved. Iran’s regime remains in power, it still has nuclear stockpiles, it retains significant missile and drone capacity to threaten attacks on the region, and it has promised to continue support for its regional allies in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.

At this point, the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked, the talks are at stand still, and the world economy stands at the precipice of an even greater crisis. The Iranian regime clearly believes it can weather the standoff longer than the U.S.. While Trump clearly wants to cut a deal, he cannot accept one that further humiliates the U.S. Meanwhile, Israel is braying for more war in Iran and Lebanon.

Regardless of what happens, the U.S. is in the midst of a metastasizing economic, geopolitical, and military crisis. The world economy has been hammered. No one in the region can now trust the United States. All its military bases and defense systems have not protected its vassals like Saudi Arabia but have made them targets for attack. And no regime will risk normalizing relations with Israel against the wishes of the masses of the population in the region, who are now furious with the U.S. and Israel. That puts Trump’s Abraham Accords in jeopardy.

Trump has thoroughly alienated all of Washington’s allies, whom he kept in the dark about his plans to launch the war. Now, with the U.S. in crisis, none of them has agreed to bail Trump out. They all have refused to join his war and send ships to open the Strait of Hormuz. At this point, they want to keep out of it and have become increasingly critical of it. The German chancellor’s remark that Iran had humiliated the U.S. drove Trump in a fit of rage to threaten to withdraw all of Washington’s troops from Europe, threatening the entire NATO alliance.

Even worse for the U.S., Trump’s war has benefited Washington’s main rivals, Russia and China. In a desperate attempt to lower fossil fuel prices, Trump lowered sanctions on Russia’s oil exports. Putin has thus scored a victory, securing desperately needed funds to aid his ailing economy. That will enable him to escalate his imperialist war on Ukraine. Trump lowered sanctions on Russia even though it is aiding Iran by giving it military intelligence. Sensing his advantage, Putin even offered to suspend its intelligence sharing if the U.S. stops doing the same for Ukraine.

China is happy to see the U.S. bogged down in yet another catastrophic war. While it has lost oil and natural gas from Iran, it can, for now, draw on its huge fossil fuel reserves and can expand contracts for more supplies from Russia, further consolidating their “friendship without limits.” But China is not immune to the war’s consequences. It will find difficulties securing key materials for its manufacturing, the global slump will weaken its export markets that are its main engine of continued growth, and countries in its debt will find it ever more difficult to repay their loans, putting Chinese financial capital in jeopardy.

Trump’s intensifying domestic crisis

Trump’s war will intensify his domestic political crisis. Already deeply unpopular, he now faces splits in his MAGA leadership with figures like Tucker Carlson opposing the war. He has also alienated sections of his base that voted for him, believing naively that Trump would keep the U.S. out of “forever wars.” With no end in sight, this war dooms the Republican Party to defeat in the upcoming midterm elections, if they are free and fair. The Democrats will take the House, possibly the Senate, tie Congress up in hearings, block all legislation, and try to impeach Trump and members of his cabinet.

Trump knows that. So, he is turning to more and more authoritarian means to maintain power. He is trying to rig the election through gerrymandering and voter suppression, most recently with the Save America Act, which would effectively disenfranchise millions. The Supreme Court also helped Trump in its recent ruling that overturned Louisiana’s congressional map that afforded Black voters a majority in two districts. Their decision effectively guts the Voting Rights Act, risking a return to electoral white supremacy not seen since the Jim Crow era. Already, in a dangerous precedent, Louisiana has suspended the primary election to enable redistricting to the advantage of the GOP.

In an even more ominous sign, some on the right, like Bannon, have argued for Trump to deploy ICE at polling locations. Trump has already tested the water by deploying ICE to the airports across the country. Thus, U.S. norms of bourgeois democracy hang in the balance. Lest anyone think this to be an exaggeration, three new studies found that the U.S. is slipping toward an autocracy at astonishing speed.

Faced with this spiraling crisis, the Democratic Party spent the last year practically in hiding. They adopted James Carville’s “possum strategy”—literally playing dead when faced with a predator. While outliers like Bernie Sanders and AOC agitated for action against the billionaire class, the establishment Democrats bided their time, hoping Trump would punch himself out and discredit the GOP so that they could sweep the midterms. Then they could find some new corporate standard bearer like Gavin Newsom or JB Pritzker or even worse turn back to genocidaire, Kamala Harris, to win back the White House in 2028 and restore the status quo ante.

Truth be told, the Democratic Party did next to nothing to resist Trump until the Minneapolis mass strike against ICE. Only then did they challenge the funding of ICE and Homeland Security. But just like they have done with police, their demand was not for the abolition of ICE’s racist goon squad, but that its agents wear body cameras, get more training, and stop wearing masks. With those “reforms,” they have promised to grant ICE more funding! That should surprise no one since the Democrats have bankrolled DHS and ICE with billions since their creation in 2003. And, under Obama and Biden, they used ICE and Border Patrol to deport millions of people.

Their supposed opposition to Trump’s catastrophic war on Iran has been even more pathetic. Why? Because they share with the GOP U.S. imperialism’s determination since Iran’s 1979 revolution to topple the Islamic Republic. So, their initial objections were procedural—that Trump had not made the case for war, had not secured support from Congress under the War Powers Act, and had no plan or clearly stated goals. And their main concern is that Trump’s idiotic war has weakened U.S. imperialism and its capacity to fight China and Russia.

While some reformists in the party have denounced the war, they remain trapped in an imperialist party, which is both reactionary and incapacitated in a moment of emergency. As a result, despite the fact that the Democrats are likely to win the midterms, if the elections happen in any normal fashion, they remain deeply unpopular and offer no solutions to the system’s crises and popular grievances.

In resistance, there is hope

Unlike the Democratic Party, workers and the oppressed have risen up against Trump, producing a mass heterogeneous resistance. Some of its currents predate Trump’s presidency, like the Palestine solidarity movement, which persists despite state repression and hostility from liberal and Zionist forces. Most other currents have been galvanized by Trump’s unrelenting class and social attacks, particularly on ICE’s war on immigrants. All these converged in Minneapolis, culminating in a mass strike and protest that forced Trump to retreat, fire his commander of the Border Patrol, Greg Bovino, demote Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, and withdraw hundreds of ICE and Border Patrol agents.

That uprising against ICE was based on a developed infrastructure of resistance forged over the last couple of decades. That included the George Floyd uprising against police brutality, union organizing and strikes, immigrant rights struggles, and indigenous-led climate justice campaigns. But most parts of the country lack this infrastructure of resistance. And even there, the militant minority and revolutionary Left remain small as elsewhere. These hamper the organization and politics of the resistance.

Nevertheless, the struggle is forging new organizations and a new Left. The two main organized currents of the national resistance are Indivisible and May Day Strong. Indivisible was formed by two Democratic Party organizers who explicitly conceived the project as a means to galvanize its base in struggle and then turn it to elections to defeat Trump and Republicans. It is thus a popular front formation, wedding workers and the oppressed to a capitalist party in the hopes of securing liberal reforms.

It has staged three massive No Kings rallies. But, because of its ties to the Democratic Party, it has tended to exclude Palestine solidarity activists and has proved reluctant to even include opposition to the war on Iran. Its strategy is to turn the millions on its demonstrations into campaigners for the Democrats in the midterms and 2028 presidential elections. But, as we know from bitter experience, the Democrats are no alternative for the vast majority. Nevertheless, the people at those demonstrations are open to much more radical ideas and strategies.

The other formation, May Day Strong, was spearheaded by the Chicago Teachers Union. It has brought together unions, immigrant rights groups, other social movement organizations, and NGOs in a potential united front of working-class forces. It does include Indivisible and another liberal formation, 5051, and it is limited by the horizons of the left union bureaucracy. Nevertheless, it has put May Day back on the map, encouraged solidarity schools to prepare unions to stage political strikes against Trump, and pushed the slogan, “no work, no school, no shopping,” for this year’s May Day.

May Day Strong offers the Left a national vehicle to advance the argument for a general strike to challenge Trump’s increasingly authoritarian regime. Its explicit model is the South Korean strike that blocked a coup and toppled the government. That said, it does not exist in all cities and towns. It is also not immune from co-optation by the Democrats through the trade union officialdom’s alliance with the party’s reformist wing. And it is an ominous sign that Indivisible plays such a prominent role in its midst. Nonetheless, May Day Strong is an important strategic orientation for the revolutionary left in building the resistance. Our challenge is how to forge similar local formations aligned with the national coalition. It is our best shot to agitate for mass, independent working-class action to topple the Trump regime.

Rebirth of the revolutionary Left

This new epoch of crisis, imperialist rivalry, authoritarianism, and resistance is opening up space for the construction of a new socialist Left. Indeed, all political organizations are now growing from reformism to neo-Stalinism and revolutionary socialism. The struggle is on to shape a new generation’s politics, strategies, and tactics for an epoch of crisis and class struggle.

Tempest argues that the tradition of socialism from below offers the best way to fight here and now on the road to international socialism. We aim to embody these politics in an organization with branches that avoid the traps of the micro party that has paralyzed our forebears—ideological uniformity, sectarianism, ultraleftism, and organization building in isolation from the living struggle. Join us to build a socialist organization, forge new infrastructures of resistance, cohere a militant minority, and eventually found a revolutionary party. These are tall tasks, but necessary ones in our apocalyptic times.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”

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Iran is passing through a phase of exceptional violence and intensity. In the wake of the genocide in Palestine and the large-scale destruction inflicted on Lebanon, the United States and Israel are also participating in the devastation of lives, bodies, territories, and vital infrastructures in Iran.There they have been targeting not only refineries and fuel depots, but also health facilities, water resources, energy systems, oil installations, schools, and other civilian spaces. In Minab, a girls’ school was obliterated and more than 168 were killed, among them Baloch children. This war has disrupted the very conditions of social reproduction, further deepened the vulnerability of the working classes. It has undermined the material basis of social autonomy, pushing struggles from below several steps backward, and reinforcing forms of state or social-driven ethno-nationalism. The rapid shift, within the space of a month, from Trump’s promise to “make Iran great again” to the threat of reducing the country to the “stone age” dispelled any remaining ambiguity about the imperial logic at work—a formula that unmistakably recalls the language of the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq.

This imperialist “external” violence, however, cannot be understood apart from the internal crisis through which the Islamic Republic has been attempting to reconstitute its authority. Since the 2022 uprising, following the police murder of the young Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini, the Islamic Republic has continuously sought, in every war and geopolitical crisis, ways to restore some of the authority and respectability it has lost.

The paradox of imperialist assault and regime legitimacy

The war waged by the genocidal Israeli colonial power against the Palestinians after October 7, 2023, followed by the first Israeli-U.S. attack on Iran in June 2025, offered the Islamic Republic an initial framework for rehabilitation. However, the January 2026 massacre, during which thousands of Iranian demonstrators were killed in just two days by the forces of the theocratic state, simply for protesting against the economic crisis and political dictatorship, reopened an acute crisis of legitimacy, domestically and internationally, for Tehran.

When Iranians were still in mourning, and while many families had not even been able to recover the bodies of their loved ones killed in January, the United States and Israel launched a new imperialist invasion on February 28, 2026, one even more violent than previous assaults. Paradoxically, the attacks have so far helped the Islamic Republic regain some of the credibility it had lost through the bloody repression of the previous month.

These two events, massacre and war, do not constitute either separate sequences or two opposing forms of violence—one repressive and the other supposedly liberatory—but rather successive, even asymmetric, moments of an interconnected counter-revolutionary process. The “external” war prolongs and deepens the internal counter-revolution, enabling the Iranian state to tighten internal cohesion and, once again, stifle popular dissent.

Recognizing this in no way minimizes the fact that Iran has been, and remains, the target of imperialist and colonial aggression carried out with impunity. On the contrary, it requires us to read this assault in terms of its deeper political function: first, as a murderous enterprise of destruction targeting civilian lives, bodies, infrastructure, and territories, carried out under false pretexts and extending the genocidal enterprise pursued in Gaza, as well as in the West bank and Lebanon; and, second, as the provision of new resources to the Islamic Republic for its own reconstitution.

What is campism?

Israeli-U.S. aggression is reinforcing Iran’s militarization, repression, and the crushing of uprisings from below. It is also intensifying a deadly political polarization. On one side, part of the opposition, especially monarchists, welcomed the imperialist bombings in the name of their hostility to the theocratic state. On the other side, other political forces have fallen back into the orbit of the Islamic Republic in the name of anti-imperialism and opposition to war. While the reactionary nature of the first current—pro-Israel, pro-U.S., and pro-genocide—has been readily opposed based on a relative consensus among the progressive and leftist forces, the second current has unfortunately captured parts of the Left and  is every bit as significant.

It is within this impasse that the question of campism re-emerges with particular urgency. By campism I mean a range of positions and tendencies that support any force or state  based on its opposition to Western imperialism regardless of its reactionary or progressive nature.

A legacy of the Cold War, campism, as articulated by self-proclaimed anti-imperialists and supporters of the so-called resistance camp, often reduces the world based on a binary logic of two “camps”: imperialism (the United States, NATO, Israel, and their allies) versus “the resistance” (Iran, Russia, China, Assad’s Syria, and so on). The democratic and subversive uprisings against the latter states, such as Rojava, are thereby dismissed as inherently suspect or as a”” Trojan Horse” of the enemy. Any criticism of dictators is immediately disqualified as “complicity with imperialism”.

Popular mobilizations are reduced to mere “Western relays”, or else instrumentalized whenever they can serve one camp. The logic of “the enemy of my enemy” becomes an alibi: it becomes an excuse for overlooking internal repression and the protests that follow,  as nothing more than parts of a larger geopolitical conflict.

The result is that internationalist, mutual solidarity based on the shared experiences and destinities of the oppressed classes becomes paralyzed, incapable of holding anti-authoritarianism and anti-imperialism together. Under the pretext of preventing any “imperialist exploitation” of revolutions, campists tend to privilege a structurally marginalized, “prudent” Left, at times condemned to perpetual defeat.

This “identity-based anti-imperialism” privileges loyalty to “anti-Western” states over an analysis of global capitalism. In so doing, it justifies repression, patriarchy, homophobia, and internal colonialism in the name of “resistance.” Absolute priority is given to the struggle against Western imperialism, and victims of these “anti-imperialist” states become “collateral damage.” .

The Irish essayist Fred Halliday described this type of thinking as “the anti-imperialism of fools.” In the name of hostility to the United States, this posture violently reinforces, in practice, a theocratic state that represses the Left, national minorities, feminists, and popular councils. The concept was later taken up by the Syrian activist Leila Al-Shami in her book Burning Country to designate supporters of Bashar al-Assad during the Arab revolution of the 2010s. From the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian uprising in Budapest in 1956 to the present, this anti-imperialism of fools has masked state violence and the crushing of revolts.

Such a tendency can be observed within certain segments of the white Western left, but also within decolonial modes of thinking. It belongs to what one might call “anti-imperialism-washing,” the strategic use of anti-imperialist rhetoric to conceal, justify, or minimize forms of authoritarianism and fascistic violence exercised within national borders, especially when these states are presented as adversaries of Western hegemonic power. While these figures denounce the colonialism of Western powers, they remain largely blind, and even complicit, when it comes to “internal colonialism,” that is, the way minoritized peoples, such as the Kurds and Baluchs, describe their relationship to Iranian state power.

This practice is also often accompanied by a form of racial gaslighting. “Gaslighting” originally referred to the manipulation of women by systematically casting doubt on their word and mental state. Having become a key term in psychology and later a critical tool of feminism, it now encompasses a form of deceitful, violent, even denialist political language more broadly. Communities that have historically been subjected both to imperial domination and to internal repression are “taught,” from positions of relative privilege, the “correct” interpretation of imperialism and resistance. This condescending posture does not merely reinscribe colonial hierarchies of knowledge; it delegitimizes the ideas and lived experiences—the very agency— of those subjected to entangled systems of violence.

The consequences are all too tangible. The Islamic Republic of Iran instrumentalizes this decolonial discourse to label demonstrators as “terrorists” and harden its coercive apparatus. This logic also helps justify the discriminatory policies directed against Afghan migrants in Iran: by portraying them as an internal threat, the state shifts onto them responsibility for difficulties that in fact stem from its own political, social, and economic regime.

No struggle should be consigned to the “waiting-room of history” in the name of a linear conception of liberation, or sacrificed to a hierarchy of supposedly more urgent causes. The counterrevolutionary logic of campism

After the genocide in Gaza and the war waged by Israel and the United States against Iran in June 2025, campism has once again  come to dominate part of the global radical Left in the West, as well as in Latin America, Africa, and the Arab world. It reduces Iranian politics to a duel between “Iran” and the “U.S.-Israeli axis.” Popular uprisings, repressed in blood since 2017, are either passed over in silence or recast through the state’s official discourse: “Mossad infiltration,” “color revolution,” “Western plot,” and so on. This framework turns social movements into a security threat and legitimizes repression—from street violence to executions—under the pretext of a “state of emergency” or an “untimely moment”. By treating insurgent people as the principal enemy, it is, in fact, profoundly counterrevolutionary.

Under the expanding regime of permanent war, people in  struggle are repeatedly told to stand down, to defer themselves for the sake of a higher urgency. Even those who recognize the repressive nature of these forces often set aside emancipatory struggles in the name of strategy. This is what Morteza Samanpour and Amir Kianpour have called “strategic campism.” Feminist struggles have long been trapped in precisely this logic: they are always asked to wait, first for class, now for anti-imperialism. But feminist politics has named the truth of this postponement with clarity: later too often means never. No struggle should be consigned to the “waiting-room of history” in the name of a linear conception of liberation, or sacrificed to a hierarchy of supposedly more urgent causes.

Recent geopolitical developments have given campists even greater room for maneuver. During Israel’s war against Iran in June 2025, often referred to as the “Twelve-Day War,” the concrete experience of destruction strengthened anti-war tendencies inside Iran. However, after the bloody massacre perpetrated by the state in January 2026, part of society, exhausted and confronted with a dead end, came to falsely view foreign intervention as a means of overthrowing the government, other internal avenues having been tried unsuccessfully and with the state not yielding to pressure. A prominent doctor reported that “at least a thousand” patients (protesters) with severe eye injuries had presented at a single hospital in Tehran following the January protests, all requiring urgent treatment in an attempt to save their eyesight.

It is precisely here that campism collapses. To condemn external war while remaining silent about internal state violence is not a principled anti-war position, but a form of relativism that effaces crucial differences between regimes and modalities of violence. This is not a claim of Iranian exceptionalism invoked to legitimize military attack, as some Trumpist and monarchist currents have done. It is, rather, the insistence that a theocratic dictatorship, in which an unelected leader exercises extralegal power over ninety million people through social terror, executions, torture, political imprisonment, digital isolation, misogynistic religious rule, and racist-colonial policies toward national minorities and Afghan migrants, cannot be treated as equivalent to states where civil and legal freedoms, however limited, still exist, and where violence operates at a structurally different scale and form. .

To condemn the external war or imperialist intervention without explicitly denouncing this internal violences, the massacre of its own population, as campists do, is both a complete political misreading of dynamics in Iran, and means siding with the state against the people it is killing. States rule by dividing people and crushing uprisings. Campists do not resist this logic; they follow it. By taking states and their geopolitical alignments as their primary point of reference, they reproduce and legitimize the divisions imposed from above, substituting allegiance to state camps for solidarities forged from below among people in struggle.

By taking states and their geopolitical alignments as their primary point of reference, they reproduce and legitimize the divisions imposed from above, substituting allegiance to state camps for solidarities forged from below among people in struggle. A betrayal of the memories of the Global South

Since the Islamic counterrevolution against the genuine 1979 revolution, part of the national and international left has subordinated class and gender analysis to its one-sided interpretation of anti-imperialism. Women’s protests against compulsory veiling, for example, were marginalized, inadvertently contributing to the consolidation of the religious and patriarchal order, and came to be presented as a guarantee of “cultural authenticity,” a sign of distinction from the West, and a marker of national independence. A dominant narrative thus took shape, one that views the Iranian Revolution exclusively through the prism of anti-Westernism and, in so doing, erases secular, feminist, queer, Kurdish, socialist, and other progressist forces. This ideology is structurally incapable of recognizing the legitimacy of internal struggles within anti-Western states. Non-Western peoples are recognized only as objects of Western imperialism, the lived experiences, collective memories, and political subjectivities of subaltern groups—women/queer communities, ethnic minorities, and the popular classes—are systematically dismissed as insignificant distractions or as being inventions of the West.

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, this orientation persisted in the form of statist Third Worldism: the loyalty of populations was transferred to “anti-American” states, and the rights of women, queer people, and minorities were subordinated to “anti-imperialist unity.” This approach, at once Eurocentric and Orientalist, ignores the subjectivity of non-Western peoples. It treats violence as serious only when it emanates from the U.S. camp and refuses to acknowledge that populations of the Global South may genuinely struggle for democratic rights and freedoms.

“Anti-colonial unity” is thus transformed into nationalist authoritarianism. And it accepts the logic of a seemingly permanent “state of emergency”: priority is given to state power, security, and geopolitical leverage (for example: “We fight in Syria so that we do not have to fight in Tehran”).

Campism turns anti-colonial memory into an instrument for legitimizing authoritarian postcolonial states. It makes the state the agent of resistance and strips peoples of both their legitimacy and their political subjectivity. In doing so, it betrays subaltern memories that were often constituted against the state itself. Paradoxically, states such as Iran are presented as “independent from global capitalism,” even as they remain machines of internal exploitation and militarism, concerned precisely with integrating themselves into and competing with other states on the stage of global capitalism.

It is precisely in its relation to Iran’s colonized margins that this logic most clearly reveals its violence. Campism does not only erase the plurality of Iranian opposition forces. Rooted in a quasi-colonial and securitized conception of sovereignty and borders, it also reproduces internal hierarchies by relegating Kurdish and other non-Persian ethnic struggles to the background, or even disqualifying them. In this respect, from the 1980 jihad against Kurdistan to 100+ recent attacks on exiled Iranian Kurdish parties in Iraqi Kurdistan during the war, campists have often shown themselves even more hostile to the Kurds than the Iranian government, minimizing or marginalizing the legitimacy of their resistance.

These violences form part of a longer history, aggravated by the active support—or the silence—of some actors in the Arab world and of certain segments of the Left. The Al-Anfal genocide carried out by Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, costing the lives of around 180,000 Kurds simply because of their identity, illustrates this dynamic. The trauma of the murderous repression was compounded by the support of part of the Arab world and the denial of the genocide on the part of intellectuals.

More recently, in 2018, the occupation of Afrin in Rojava by the Turkish army brought systematic violence, displacement, and destruction. In response, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, stated, “ victory in Afrin is a symbol of Turkey[’s] will. If God wills, we will submit great epics to help our people,” before praising the leadership of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his party, the Justice and Development Party, which has been in power for more than twenty years.

These events have unfortunately produced a lasting rupture in the ties between Kurdish struggles and those of the Arab or Persian worlds, as well as with certain parts of the self-proclaimed anti-imperialist left, which have too often failed to recognize and support the Kurdish struggle.

State instrumentalization of Western sanctions

The recent war against Iran did not emerge suddenly; it was long in the making through a sanctions regime that operates as an imperial technology for producing social vulnerability, as Iraq had already shown. Sanctions have not merely impoverished the population, fueled inflation, eroded healthcare and employment, and weakened collective capacities for resistance; they have also helped generate the very conditions for military escalation. By locking the country into a protracted siege economy, they have normalized the state of exception, consolidated the state’s rentier and security apparatuses, and displaced the costs of the crisis onto the popular classes. In doing so, they have prepared both the material and ideological terrain of war: a society exhausted, fragmented, and reduced to the struggle for survival becomes more exposed to external projects of militarization. Sanctions thus appear for what they are: not an alternative to war, but one of its preparatory forms.

Yet while sanctions are real and devastating, they do not alone account for the conditions of undignified life in a resource-rich country like Iran. Against campist readings that reduce all forms of social inequality in Iran to Western sanctions, analysis must also confront Iran’s own political economy: a capitalist order marked by harsh privatization, widespread labor precarity—with more than 90 percent of contracts reportedly temporary—and an internally organized regime of domination and deprivation, sustained in part through the extreme exploitation and expropriation of racialised and undocumented workers, especially Afghanis and Baluches. For campists, popular protests in Iran are interpreted as economic discontent, caused entirely by sanctions, thereby obscuring the central role of the state’s own policies. One implication of this campist logic is that, by minimizing the actual dynamics of the domestic opposition to Islamic Republic, it draws a false equivalence based on the mistaken notion that such “economic discontent” is consonant with the reactionary Pahlavist project of regime change from above. Contrary to the campist claims, opposing imperialist regime change does not require dismissing or delegitimizing domestic revolt against the Islamic Republic.

Widespread poverty in Iran is not attributable to sanctions alone; it is also rooted in a rentier political economy and in the monopolization of imports, both of which the Islamic Republic has instrumentalized. Its security and regional policies are not simply reactions to outside pressure. Rather, these policies are integral to the state’s logic of survival, channeling resources toward coercive institutions and ideological-military projects, while the population is left exhausted and impoverished. As Kayhan Valadbaigi argues, sanctions help intensify the concentration of wealth within the oligarchy while consolidating structures of power. They shift the costs onto the most vulnerable, justify repression, and further enrich the oligarchy. Economic shock policies—fluctuations in the dollar, the removal of the preferential exchange rate—appear as calculated measures of “survival” in a context of vulnerability.

In addition, campists erase the Islamic Republic’s violence against the people. Murders, torture, executions, the shooting of wounded people in hospitals, and attacks on mourning ceremonies are ignored or denied, and thus legitimized. This support for an authoritarian and anti-imperialist theocracy empties the language of emancipation of any real content.

Stop judging a cause by the way it is coopted

The spread of authoritarian campism takes place largely through social media. There, the legitimization of authoritarian states intertwines with a reductive anti-Westernism and, in some cases, with antisemitism and conspiratorial patterns of thought.

Despite the objective asymmetries between Israel (backed by the West) and the Islamic Republic (under Western sanctions), similar political and symbolic mechanisms are at work: U.S. and Israeli flags at certain “pro-Iran” rallies; Iranian state flags (or the Islamic Republic flags) and portraits of Ali Khamenei at certain pro-Palestinian mobilizations. These are all gestures liable to turn legitimate struggles into justifications for violence, while at the same time discrediting both the Iranian and Palestinian resistance. The same logic applies to the now-famous slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” (Jin, Jiyan, Azadî). Appropriated by the Western far right, the Iranian far right in the diaspora, and pro-genocide currents, it has been instrumentalized in support of militarized violence.

This logic is not specific to Iran. As David Brophy has argued  in relation to Xinjiang, parts of the international Left have treated the repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples less as a question of national rights and state violence than as a problem of Western propaganda, funding, or geopolitical manipulation; in the case of Vijay Prashad and Tings Chak, this apologetic posture has even relied on fabricated, apparently AI-generated sources. But the cynical instrumentalization of human rights by Western states does not make the suffering to which that language refers any less real.

We know all too well how progressive and radical movements from the Global South often end up being appropriated by the right once they are relayed in the West. But this process cannot lead us to abandon the duty of solidarity. The case of the queer movement illustrates this well: pinkwashing by states such as Israel cancels neither the emancipatory force of queerness nor the necessity of solidarity with queers who face repression in any context. The legitimacy of a resistance depends only on its emancipatory content and on its rootedness among the oppressed, never on its appropriation.

Campism contributes in very concrete ways to the perpetuation of historical and contemporary injustices. It creates a political vacuum through dispersal and fragmentation, a vacuum gradually filled by the right and the far right, both in the region and across the world. The Iranian far right in the diaspora occupies this vacuum by simplifying the revolution and demonizing “anti-imperialism.” It can thereby present itself as the only force for change. By artificially homogenizing entire populations (“All Ukrainians resisting Russia are Nazis.” “All Syrian revolutionaries are jihadists.” “All Iranians in revolt support Israel or the monarchists.”), campism becomes an accomplice in the rise of imperialist and reactionary forces.

By artificially homogenizing entire populations (“All Ukrainians resisting Russia are Nazis.” “All Syrian revolutionaries are jihadists.” “All Iranians in revolt support Israel or the monarchists.”), campism becomes an accomplice in the rise of imperialist and reactionary forces. The far right is the far right everywhere

In Europe, no consistent Left would accept rallying under the flags of the far right on the grounds that an enemy power was attacking the country. Yet when it comes to Iran, some consider it acceptable to demand that Iranians efface themselves and rally behind reactionary, nationalist, fanatical, even fascistic forces. Such an asymmetry implies, in effect, that the peoples of the Global South should be satisfied with a choice between imperial domination and internal barbarism. And yet the Islamic Republic is precisely a state that must be named for what it is: a fascistic formation, a non-Western far right, especially when it comes to ethnic-national minorities and Afghan immigrants.

The recent “anti-war” statement on Iran exposes the political impasse of campism: an anti-war discourse that enables certain segments of the Left to converge with fascist, antisemitic, neo-Nazi, and conspiracist milieus. The statement brought together signatories from  seemingly opposed political milieus: on the one hand, decolonial-campist anti-war figures such as Vijay Prashad, Sandew Hira, Ramón Grosfoguel, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Munyaradzi Mushonga, Ajamu Baraka, Nordine Saïdi and Paulina Aroch Fugellie; and, on the other, a range of figures—including Dieudonné, Alain de Benoist, Thomas Werlet, Jean-Michel Vernochet, Christian Bouchet, Marion Sigaut, Jacob Cohen, Pierre-Antoine Plaquevent, and Arnaud Develay—as well as organisations such as the RN, Égalité & Réconciliation, L’Œuvre française, and the Mouvement France Résistance, all associated with conservative , far-right, nationalist, or fascist currents. This juxtaposition illustrates how a purely geopolitical form of anti-imperialism can become compatible with far-right politics. Within this framework, the Iranian regime and its criminal Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, are recast as “a voice against arrogance and terrorism” while a deeply troubling tolerance toward the violence of post-colonial states against their own populations is being normalized under the banner of anti-war politics.

Political consistency requires refusing, for Iranians as for any other people, any injunction to accommodate fascism in the name of a geopolitical “lesser evil.” We should not ask Iranians to accept politically any reality that the Left would refuse to accept for themselves elsewhere. We neither march with fascists nor under their banners: we fight them, including when they appropriate the lexicon of freedom in order to invert its meaning.

Much like Stalinism, which did so much to discredit socialism, campism in Iran weakens the Left and strengthens the far right. At the same time, it deepens the North-South divide and legitimizes the repression of anti-tyrannical movements in the South. The result is the isolation of emancipatory forces, the distrust of exiles toward the Left in the North (including decolonial currents), and the collapse of international solidarity.

We should not ask Iranians to accept politically any reality that the Left would refuse to accept for themselves elsewhere. We neither march with fascists nor under their banners: we fight them, including when they appropriate the lexicon of freedom in order to invert its meaning.

While Kurdish feminist prisoners sentenced to death in Evin prison are capable of expressing their solidarity with the Palestinian resistance—even at the risk of losing part of their support in Iran—authoritarian and identity-based anti-imperialists, speaking from the comfort of the West or elsewhere, prove incapable of showing comparable solidarity with popular struggles in Iran. At times, and even more gravely, the full extent of those sufferings is denied or called into question.

It is urgent to move beyond campism. Otherwise, will not succeed in rebuilding a genuinely emancipatory left or in revitalizing a truly popular internationalism that networks such as “Peoples Want” attempt to do. Anti-imperialism is authentic only if it fights all forms of domination, everywhere and for everyone.

Parts of this text was originally published in French  -Eds.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”

Featured Image credit: C.Suthorn; modified by Tempest.

The post For an end to campism, the Iran war, and the anti-imperialist washing of the Islamic Republic appeared first on Tempest.

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• Perilaku volatilitas game

Secara teknis, pola ini bukan rumus pasti, melainkan observasi statistik terhadap perilaku game dalam periode tertentu.

Pemain profesional umumnya tidak percaya pada “kode rahasia slot”, tetapi lebih fokus membaca:

• jenis volatilitas,
• distribusi pembayaran,
• RTP,
• dan momentum permainan.

Faktor Penting untuk Membaca Pola Slot 1. RTP (Return to Player)

RTP adalah persentase teoritis pengembalian dana kepada pemain dalam jangka panjang.

Contoh sederhana:

RTP=96%=96100RTP = 96\% = \frac{96}{100}RTP=96%=10096​

Artinya, dari total taruhan 100 unit, game secara teori mengembalikan 96 unit kepada pemain dalam jutaan putaran. Namun RTP bukan jaminan hasil sesi pribadi.

Cara Menggunakan RTP untuk Membaca Pola

• RTP tinggi (>96%) biasanya lebih stabil
• RTP rendah cenderung lebih agresif terhadap bankroll
• RTP tinggi cocok untuk permainan jangka panjang

Pemain berpengalaman sering memilih game dengan RTP tinggi untuk mengurangi risiko kehilangan modal terlalu cepat.

2. Volatilitas Slot

Volatilitas menentukan bagaimana slot membayar kemenangan.

Volatilitas Rendah

• Menang lebih sering
• Nilai kemenangan kecil
• Cocok untuk modal kecil

Volatilitas Tinggi

• Kemenangan lebih jarang
• Potensi jackpot besar
• Membutuhkan modal lebih kuat

Hubungan RTP dan volatilitas sering disalahpahami. Dua slot bisa memiliki RTP sama tetapi pengalaman bermain sangat berbeda.

Analogi Praktis

Bayangkan dua game memiliki RTP 96%:

• Slot A memberi kemenangan kecil setiap beberapa spin
• Slot B jarang menang tetapi sekali menang nilainya besar

Inilah mengapa pemain perlu membaca “karakter game”, bukan hanya angka RTP.

Cara Membaca Momentum Slot Secara Praktis 1. Perhatikan Hit Frequency

Hit frequency adalah seberapa sering kemenangan muncul.

Ciri slot dengan hit frequency tinggi:

• Banyak kemenangan kecil
• Balance lebih stabil
• Bonus muncul lebih konsisten

Sedangkan hit frequency rendah biasanya:

• Banyak spin kosong
• Bonus sulit muncul
• Potensi payout besar saat menang

Pemain berpengalaman biasanya melakukan 20–50 spin awal untuk membaca ritme game sebelum meningkatkan taruhan.

2. Analisis Pola Scatter dan Bonus

Scatter menjadi indikator penting dalam observasi pola slot.

Beberapa tanda yang sering diperhatikan:

• Scatter muncul berulang di reel tertentu
• Bonus hampir aktif beberapa kali
• Free spin mulai lebih sering muncul

Meskipun tetap acak, banyak pemain menggunakan observasi ini untuk menentukan:

• lanjut bermain,
• pindah game,
• atau menurunkan taruhan.

Membaca Slot Volatilitas Tinggi

Misalkan seorang pemain mencoba game dengan:

• RTP 96,5%
• volatilitas tinggi,
• max win besar.

Dalam 100 spin pertama:

• 70 spin kosong
• 20 kemenangan kecil
• 8 kemenangan sedang
• 2 bonus free spin

Bagi pemain baru, pola ini terlihat buruk. Namun bagi pemain berpengalaman, ini normal untuk slot volatilitas tinggi.

Game jenis ini sering:

• menyimpan payout besar,
• memiliki fase “kering”,
• lalu memberikan lonjakan kemenangan besar.

Karena itu, pemain profesional biasanya:

• menyiapkan bankroll lebih panjang,
• menggunakan taruhan stabil,
• dan tidak langsung mengejar kekalahan.

Mengikuti Pola Tanpa Memahami Volatilitas

Banyak pemain mengikuti “pola gacor” tanpa memahami tipe game.

Padahal:

• pola taruhan cocok di slot rendah volatilitas belum tentu efektif di slot tinggi volatilitas,
• setiap provider memiliki algoritma distribusi berbeda.

Bermain Emosional

Ketika kalah beruntun, banyak pemain:

• menaikkan taruhan,
• mengejar kekalahan,
• kehilangan kontrol bankroll.

Dalam analisis profesional, pengelolaan modal justru lebih penting dibanding mencari pola.

Strategi Membaca Pola Secara Efektif Gunakan Pendekatan Statistik

Fokus pada:

• RTP,
• volatilitas,
• hit frequency,
• dan distribusi bonus.

Jangan terpaku pada mitos komunitas semata.

Catat Performa Game

Pemain serius sering membuat catatan:

• jumlah spin,
• frekuensi scatter,
• waktu bonus muncul,
• pola kemenangan besar.

Data sederhana ini membantu memahami karakter masing-masing game.

Tetapkan Batas Bermain

Strategi terbaik tetap berasal dari kontrol diri:

• tentukan target kemenangan,
• tentukan batas kekalahan,
• berhenti saat target tercapai.

Mengapa Pola Slot Tetap Menarik Dipelajari?

Walaupun slot berbasis, pola perilaku matematis tetap bisa dianalisis secara statistik. Inilah alasan mengapa:

• streamer slot,
• analis kasino,
• hingga komunitas pemain profesional
  sering membahas RTP, volatilitas, dan momentum permainan.

Namun para ahli juga sepakat bahwa:

• tidak ada sistem pasti untuk menang,
• tidak ada jam gacor universal,
• dan tidak ada pola yang bisa mengalahkan RNG secara konsisten.

Kesimpulan

Membaca pola slot online secara efektif bukan berarti mencari trik rahasia untuk menang terus-menerus. Pendekatan yang benar adalah memahami cara kerja game melalui:

• RTP,
• volatilitas,
• hit frequency,
• serta perilaku bonus.

Pemain yang cerdas tidak hanya mengandalkan insting, tetapi juga menggunakan observasi, manajemen modal, dan pemahaman statistik sederhana untuk mengambil keputusan bermain yang lebih rasional.

Pada akhirnya, slot online tetap merupakan permainan berbasis probabilitas. Semakin baik pemain memahami struktur matematis di balik permainan, semakin kecil kemungkinan terjebak dalam keputusan emosional dan mitos yang menyesatkan.

In February, the Department of Homeland Security purchased an idle 250,000 square foot warehouse.

Romulus, Michigan is a city of 25,000 people 23 miles outside of Detroit and home to the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. In February,  the Department of Homeland Security purchased an idle 250,000 square foot warehouse in Romulus for $34.7 million. City leaders and the community were kept in the dark as rumors circulated about the sale, including that it was sold at 56 percent more than the previous purchase price. After initial reporting on this sale, 300 Romulus High School students walked out and a thousand people gathered outside Romulus City Hall in late February when the reports were confirmed. On No Kings Day, March 28, another 350 to 400 people gathered for the Romulus No Kings at the warehouse. On Saturday, April 25, hundreds more gathered there for the Communities Not Cages National Day of Action.

A Coalition to Shut the Camps has developed out of weekly pickets at the planned detention center location. This coalition has produced a regulatory punch list and a package of letters sent to various state and local agencies demanding full transparency on all proposals and the opportunity for public meetings. The coalition has been leafleting homes and schools in the area, encouraging people to join weekly meetings and protests. Thirty-three organizations have signed onto the letters, and some are becoming partners in “Solidarity Saturdays,” collaborative events co-hosted by coalition members and other community organizations.

The National Day of Action on April 25 was called by the national coalition Detention Watch Network and involved the participation of other national organizations like Indivisible, Workers Circle, Public Citizen, MoveOn and many others. More than 200 events around the nation transpired as a result. The core campaign demands are to cancel the warehouse detention plan and stop conversions immediately; reject all public funding, approvals, and local resources for detention expansion; and require transparency and community consent before any federal detention action. In Romulus, the Metro Detroit Democratic Socialists of America, No Detention Centers in Michigan (NDCM), the People’s Assembly of Detroit, Southfield Neighborhood Action Committee (SNAC), and Community Aid for Empowerment (CAFE) from Pontiac came together with the Coalition to Shut the Camps to center the experiences of those at risk of being detained and those detained or recently released from detention.

The day of action in Romulus coincided with a hunger strike and work stoppage that began April 20 at the GEO Group owned-and-operated North Lake Processing Facility in the Village of Baldwin, Michigan (population < 1,000). The hunger strike and work stoppage were responses to the intensification of abuse in ICE detention, reflected by deaths in ICE detention entering a record high, and a continuation of unrest at the isolated Northern Michigan facility. From 2019-2022, there were multiple deaths and six separate hunger strikes at this immigrant-only federal prison.

Built in 1999 as the Michigan Youth Correctional Facility, North Lake has closed and reopened four times. Since reopening in June 2025 as the largest ICE detention center in the Midwest, North Lake has consistently imprisoned over a thousand people, many found by federal judges to be unlawfully detained. In recent months, a combination of reports of an increasingly unsafe environment, medical issues going unaddressed, and a steep decline in judicial approval of bonds has brought the North Lake detention center into the international spotlight. Following the death last December of Nenko Gantchev, an immigrant from Bulgaria who lived in the US for over 30 years, and the sharp increase in incidents requiring an EMS response, immigrants detained in Baldwin are demanding better medical care, adequate food, and their constitutional right to timely due process. They are also demanding conditions that allow for adequate sleep and an end to arbitrary rules.

No Detention Centers in Michigan (NDCM) has recently organized multiple protests and is calling for additional actions outside the Baldwin facility in solidarity with those incarcerated, such as blasting song requests from detainees with a loudspeaker to the inside. The strike has spurred calls from the ACLU of Michigan and Michigan Immigrant Rights Center for Congress to conduct formal independent investigations into neglectful and abusive conditions at North Lake.

The strike had been renewed as of April 27, despite claims by ICE denying any such assertion of the rights and dignity of those confined. A statement from a recently released immigrant affirming the courageous act of collective resistance by hundreds of immigrant men across multiple units in North Lake was read at the action in Romulus on April 25. A statement was also read there from Women’s Collective Civil Action, a group of women from another unit at North Lake who filed a joint habeas corpus petition earlier in the month. Many attendees of the Romulus demonstration made the 3.5 hour trek across the state to Baldwin the following day to express solidarity with those kidnapped from the broader region and subjected to the brutality of the state.

As Ale Rojas of NDCM put it, “This courageous collective action is a response to the dehumanization and abuse that are endemic to ICE detention, where immigrants are used as scapegoats so corporations like the GEO Group may continue to build their profits unchecked. Centering our humanity and the humanity of every person who has been kidnapped by ICE is the only way forward.”

Worsening conditions of confinement around the country and the expansion of ICE presence in Michigan with the purchase of the warehouse in Romulus has given rise to a deepened sense of alarm and more community opposition. The Ban Warehouse Detention Act would prohibit DHS from establishing, operating, expanding, converting, or renovating any warehouse or similar building for the purpose of detaining people. Congressmember Rashida Tlaib’s announcement of the bill on April 23 was a direct response to ICE’s expansion in Romulus and Southfield. She herself attended the Romulus No Kings demonstration organized by the Coalition to Shut the Camps on March 28 as well as demonstrations in Southfield opposing the leasing of office space to ICE. Her bill also addresses ICE’s plans to convert 23 such warehouses nationwide into new immigration detention and processing facilities, a plan that would expand the federal agency’s detention capacity significantly.

This legislation was drafted in partnership with Detention Watch Network and cites the likelihood that confining large amounts of people to spaces not meant for human habitation will increase the spread of illness and put people’s health at risk, increasing the chance for abuse and death in ICE custody. The group also suggests that such expansion normalizes mass confinement and will result in an increase in unlawful arrests, violations of due process rights and widespread family separation.

On April 25 in Romulus, the tenth demonstration since the end of February occurred in the city against the purchase of the warehouse by the federal government. The City of Romulus unanimously passed a resolution opposing the sale, citing proximity to nearby elementary and middle schools; negative impacts on the health, safety and welfare of Romulus residents; and negative impacts on economic development. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has also joined with the City of Romulus in a lawsuit against DHS and ICE, alleging the federal agency failed to complete necessary environmental reviews and to consider alternatives.

The Communities Not Cages demonstration featured a teach-in with speakers from No Detention Centers in Michigan, the Coalition to Shut the Camps, Detroit DSA, People’s Assembly, CAFE, and SNAC. Organizers discussed the work they have been doing to address ICE activity in Michigan, the needs for future work, how to keep building out the organizing, and how different organizations can work together effectively.

Another demonstration and march occurred earlier in the day organized by local Indivisible groups. Between the two events, roughly 500 people demonstrated throughout the day against the plans for a detention warehouse in metro Detroit.

As in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis, the potential for social upheaval has led to action, in this case Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s suit against the DHS. The lesson taken from experiences around the country has been that local officials respond to organized mass pressure from below. With May Day following the day of action against warehouse detention, there was an opportunity to deepen the involvement of organized workers. The Metro Detroit AFL-CIO recognized International Workers’ Day for the first time in decade. Members organized a post-rally march to the Detroit ICE office, with a contingent for immigrants’ rights and against wars abroad.

Union support against immigrant detentions is crucial. For example, in the nearby city of Wayne, the No Kings Day event was held at UAW Local 900, a major Ford production complex not far from the Romulus detention center project. That No Kings Day was largely focused on the movement against ICE. At a March 16 demonstration outside the Romulus warehouse, a member of UAW Local 900 expressed opposition to the warehouse detention plans. Ron Lare, a retired Ford worker and member of UAW Local 600 at the Ford Rouge plant, held a sign that read, “UAW members and leaders –– join the resistance in the streets!” Lare urged UAW members and leaders to come out to the protests at the detention center project in Romulus. “The union is supposed to stand for the principle that ‘An injury to one is an injury to all.’ It is inevitable that if this detention center opens, some UAW members will be detained inside.”

Ron Lare, a retired Ford worker and member of UAW Local 600 at the Ford Rouge plant, held this sign at the March 16 demonstration.

Against the violence and brutality of the state, there is space for exposing connections to attacks by the ruling class on people throughout the world. It is possible to deepen bonds of international solidarity that pose an alternative to the reactionary ethno-nationalism of the ruling class. The emergence of a detention state with a renewed focus on borders and exclusion is the latest phase of a long history of racialized criminalization essential to stratifying and regulating the labor-market that produces the wealth of capitalist society. Immigration enforcement is a tool of capitalist exploitation that creates a tiered labor market, providing employers with a pool of cheap, exploitable labor and exerting a downward pressure on wages and working conditions, limiting the bargaining power of the working class.

The creation of ICE in 2003, following the post-9/11 reorganization of immigration services, consolidated and militarized longstanding practices rooted in history. The struggle for immigrants’ rights must be rooted in multiracial solidarity that shatters the myth of American exceptionalism and exposes the violent foundations of capitalism and US imperial dominance. Only a united working class has the power to reorganize society on the basis of real democratic control and defend against the inevitable disappointment entailed by elite cooptation.

We must reject any hollow attempt to paint over the historical existence of racial capitalism and recognize it as the key task for socialists to actively strengthen and learn from the struggle for abolition. We must understand, as CLR James did, that those most oppressed in the class struggle “carry the hatred of bourgeois society and the readiness to destroy it” to a greater degree than other sections of the population. It is an essential question of strategy and power to center and uplift such voices in a bottom-up struggle that targets the foundations of capitalism.

The struggle against oppression is the prerequisite for organizing a democratic mass movement capable of confronting the ruling class. A socialist vision for immigration recognizes freedom of movement as a fundamental human right. Only such a vision can address global inequities that drive migration and fuel the fight to extend full labor rights to all workers, removing the incentive for employers to exploit undocumented labor. A genuinely internationalist solidarity can unite workers across borders and advance the global struggle against exploitation.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Ben Solis/Michigan Advance; modified by Tempest.

The post Communities not cages appeared first on Tempest.

Ardi masih ingat momen ketika simbol-simbol berkilau itu berhenti berputar dan layar menampilkan tulisan “Congratulations! You’ve Won Free Spins.” Ada rasa penasaran bercampur antusias. Tanpa benar-benar memahami cara kerjanya, ia menekan tombol mulai—dan di situlah perjalanan eksplorasinya dimulai.

Dari Coba-Coba Jadi Paham Pola

Pada putaran pertama free spin, Ardi tidak mengeluarkan saldo sedikit pun. Itu yang membuatnya terkejut. “Ini seperti bermain tanpa risiko,” pikirnya. Namun, setelah beberapa kali mencoba, ia mulai memahami bahwa free spin bukan sekadar hadiah acak. Ada mekanisme yang dirancang dengan sistematis.

Dalam slot online modern, free spin biasanya dipicu oleh kombinasi simbol tertentu—sering disebut sebagai scatter. Ketika simbol ini muncul dalam jumlah yang cukup, sistem otomatis memberikan sejumlah putaran gratis. Ardi mulai memperhatikan pola ini, mencatat kapan fitur tersebut muncul, dan bagaimana hasilnya berbeda dari putaran biasa.

Memahami Sistem di Balik Layar

Seiring waktu, Ardi tidak lagi sekadar bermain. Ia belajar. Ia membaca panduan permainan, menonton ulasan dari pemain lain, bahkan mencoba berbagai jenis slot untuk membandingkan fitur free spin.

Ia menemukan bahwa:

• Beberapa slot menawarkan multiplier saat free spin aktif.
• Ada juga yang memberikan expanding wilds atau simbol khusus yang meningkatkan peluang menang.
• Bahkan, beberapa game menghadirkan sistem retrigger, di mana pemain bisa mendapatkan tambahan free spin selama fitur berlangsung.

Dari sini, Ardi memahami bahwa free spin dirancang untuk meningkatkan pengalaman bermain sekaligus memberi peluang menang tanpa menambah taruhan.

Bagaimana Sistem Ini Dirancang

Dalam industri game online modern, pengembang perangkat lunak merancang fitur free spin menggunakan algoritma. Sistem ini memastikan bahwa setiap putaran bersifat acak dan adil.

Namun, free spin tetap memiliki konfigurasi khusus:

• Volatilitas: Menentukan seberapa sering kemenangan muncul.
• RTP (Return to Player): Persentase teoretis pengembalian kepada pemain.
• Fitur tambahan: Seperti bonus mini-game atau pengganda kemenangan.

Dengan kata lain, meskipun terlihat seperti keberuntungan semata, ada struktur matematis yang mengatur semuanya.

Antara Harapan dan Kendali Diri

Di balik semua keseruan itu, Ardi juga belajar satu hal penting: kendali diri. Ia menyadari bahwa free spin memang memberikan peluang ekstra, tetapi bukan jaminan kemenangan besar.

Ia mulai menetapkan batas waktu bermain, mengelola saldo dengan lebih bijak, dan melihat game ini sebagai hiburan, bukan sumber penghasilan utama. Pengalaman ini membuatnya lebih dewasa dalam mengambil keputusan.

Sebuah Perjalanan, Bukan Sekadar Permainan

Malam semakin larut, dan hujan pun berhenti. Ardi menutup laptopnya dengan perasaan berbeda. Ia tidak lagi melihat slot online sebagai permainan acak tanpa makna. Baginya, free spin adalah pintu masuk untuk memahami sistem, strategi, dan batasan dalam dunia digital yang terus berkembang.

3 Cards. Game berbasis kartu ini menghadirkan konsep sederhana namun tetap menantang, sehingga mampu menarik pemain dari berbagai kalangan, mulai dari pemula hingga pemain berpengalaman.

Pengalaman Bermain yang Cepat dan Interaktif

Permainan 3 Cards menawarkan pengalaman bermain yang cepat dan tidak bertele-tele. Pemain hanya perlu memahami aturan dasar yang relatif sederhana, lalu langsung terjun ke dalam permainan. Setiap ronde berlangsung singkat, tetapi tetap memacu adrenalin karena hasilnya ditentukan dalam hitungan detik.

Banyak pemain mengaku tertarik karena ritme permainan yang dinamis. Tidak seperti permainan kartu tradisional yang membutuhkan waktu lama, 3 Cards justru memberikan sensasi instan yang sesuai dengan gaya hidup digital masa kini.

Sederhana Tapi Strategis

Meski terlihat mudah, 3 Cards tetap mengandung unsur strategi. Beberapa pengamat industri game digital menilai bahwa permainan ini menggabungkan keberuntungan dengan pengambilan keputusan yang cepat. Pemain dituntut untuk membaca pola permainan serta mengatur langkah secara tepat.

Selain itu, algoritma yang digunakan dalam sistem permainan kini semakin canggih. Platform casino online modern telah mengadopsi teknologi untuk memastikan setiap hasil permainan berlangsung adil dan transparan.

Teknologi dan Keamanan Jadi Prioritas

Platform penyedia 3 Cards saat ini tidak hanya fokus pada hiburan, tetapi juga memperkuat sistem keamanan. Banyak situs telah menggunakan enkripsi data tingkat tinggi untuk melindungi informasi pengguna dari potensi kebocoran.

Teknologi berbasis autentikasi berlapis menjadi standar baru dalam industri ini. Langkah ini menunjukkan bahwa penyedia layanan semakin serius dalam menjaga kepercayaan pemain, terutama di tengah meningkatnya aktivitas digital global.

Perubahan Kebiasaan di Era Digital

Seiring berkembangnya teknologi, kebiasaan pemain juga mengalami perubahan signifikan. Kini, pengguna lebih memilih platform yang menawarkan akses cepat, tampilan mobile-friendly, serta sistem transaksi yang praktis dan aman.

3 Cards menjadi salah satu pilihan favorit karena dapat dimainkan kapan saja dan di mana saja melalui perangkat mobile. Fleksibilitas ini membuat permainan semakin relevan dengan gaya hidup modern yang serba cepat.

Selain itu, transparansi sistem dan reputasi platform menjadi faktor utama dalam membangun kepercayaan. Pemain cenderung memilih layanan yang memiliki ulasan positif serta rekam jejak yang jelas di industri.

Integrasi Teknologi yang Semakin Canggih

Ke depan, permainan seperti 3 Cards diprediksi akan semakin berkembang dengan integrasi teknologi dan pengalaman berbasis live streaming. Inovasi ini berpotensi menghadirkan interaksi yang lebih realistis dan personal bagi setiap pemain.

Dengan kombinasi antara kesederhanaan permainan, dukungan teknologi modern, serta sistem keamanan yang kuat, 3 Cards tidak hanya menjadi hiburan semata, tetapi juga simbol evolusi industri casino online di era digital.

Kesimpulan

3 Cards berhasil menciptakan sensasi permainan kartu yang ringan, cepat, dan menarik. Didukung oleh teknologi canggih serta sistem keamanan yang semakin baik, game ini menjadi salah satu pilihan utama di dunia casino online saat ini. Perubahan perilaku pengguna digital turut memperkuat posisi permainan ini sebagai hiburan yang relevan dan terus berkembang.

Platform ini sering disebut sebagai “jalan menuju profit” bagi para penggemar taruhan olahraga online.

Namun, benarkah demikian? Artikel ini mengulas CMD Sport secara objektif, mendalam, dan transparan, berdasarkan pengalaman penggunaan, analisis ahli, serta perbandingan dengan standar industri.

Apa Itu CMD Sport?

CMD Sport dikenal sebagai platform yang membantu pengguna mengakses berbagai layanan sportsbook dalam satu ekosistem. Fokus utamanya adalah memberikan kemudahan dalam:

• Membandingkan odds (nilai taruhan)
• Menilai kualitas platform sportsbook
• Menyediakan informasi bonus dan promosi
• Mempermudah akses ke pasar taruhan olahraga

Dengan kata lain, CMD Sport bukan hanya tempat bermain, tetapi juga alat bantu pengambilan keputusan.

Pengalaman Penggunaan CMD Sport Kelebihan

Dari sisi pengguna, CMD Sport menawarkan beberapa hal menarik:

• Navigasi sederhana dan cepat
  Pengguna dapat langsung menemukan pertandingan dan opsi taruhan tanpa proses rumit.
• Informasi ringkas dan relevan
  Data seperti odds, jenis taruhan, dan event olahraga disajikan secara jelas.
• Cocok untuk pemula
  Interface yang tidak kompleks memudahkan pengguna baru memahami sistem.

Kekurangan

Namun, ada beberapa catatan penting:

• Tidak sepenuhnya mandiri
  CMD Sport bergantung pada platform pihak ketiga.
• Minim analisis mendalam
  Kurang cocok untuk pengguna profesional yang membutuhkan data statistik lengkap.
• Potensi bias afiliasi
  Rekomendasi platform bisa saja dipengaruhi kerja sama tertentu.

Apakah CMD Sport Bisa Menghasilkan Profit?

Banyak pengguna tergoda dengan klaim profit dari platform seperti CMD Sport. Namun secara realistis:

Tidak ada platform taruhan yang bisa menjamin keuntungan.

CMD Sport hanya membantu dalam:

• Menemukan odds yang lebih kompetitif
• Menghindari situs yang tidak terpercaya
• Memberikan gambaran dasar pasar taruhan

Profit tetap bergantung pada:

• Strategi taruhan
• Manajemen modal
• Analisis pertandingan yang akurat

Perbandingan dengan Standar Industri

Jika dibandingkan dengan platform sejenis, CMD Sport memiliki posisi sebagai berikut:

Setara Dalam:

• Kemudahan penggunaan
• Informasi dasar taruhan
• Akses ke berbagai event olahraga

Masih Tertinggal Dalam:

• Kedalaman data statistik
• Fitur komunitas dan diskusi
• Transparansi sistem rekomendasi

Artinya, CMD Sport lebih unggul sebagai alat praktis, bukan sebagai pusat analisis profesional.

Risiko yang Perlu Diperhatikan

Dalam dunia olahraga digital, risiko tetap menjadi faktor utama. Beberapa hal yang perlu diperhatikan:

• Ketergantungan pada pihak ketiga (agent/broker)
• Perbedaan pengalaman antar pengguna
• Risiko kerugian finansial jika tanpa strategi

Pengguna disarankan untuk tetap bermain secara bijak dan terkontrol.

Layak atau Tidak? Layak Digunakan Jika:

Ingin membandingkan sportsbook dengan cepat
Mencari platform yang lebih aman
Baru memulai di dunia taruhan olahraga

Kurang Cocok Jika:

Mencari profit instan
Membutuhkan analisis data mendalam
Mengandalkan sistem otomatis

Verdict Akhir

CMD Sport bukan mesin uang, tetapi bisa menjadi:

Alat bantu yang efektif untuk meningkatkan kualitas keputusan dalam taruhan olahraga digital.

Dengan pendekatan yang tepat, platform ini dapat membantu pengguna lebih terarah. Namun, hasil akhir tetap bergantung pada strategi dan disiplin masing-masing.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on an ambitious agenda that won him the enthusiastic support of a broad coalition of voters. His charisma and boundless energy has helped to raise the hopes and expectations of many. The agenda itself should be applauded, and the emergence of this coalition, with its hopes and expectations, is a positive development that has helped create a growing audience for socialist politics.

Yet winning Mamdani’s agenda requires more than the election of a progressive politician—in this case a democratic socialist—to executive office. Arrayed against it are New York’s capitalist class, which includes the powerful real estate and financial interests based in New York City and the politicians who represent them. Without a countervailing force in the form of an organized popular movement capable of defending its own underlying class interests, and which is able, when necessary, to engage in targeted, disruptive action, strong and sustainable  progressive reform is not possible.

After almost four months in office, both Mamdani’s governing style and strategy and political events beyond his control—including the outcome of the budget battle currently being waged in Albany—have revealed how unlikely it is that his agenda will be realized. In fact, some of it has already been abandoned. And Mamdani’s responses have illustrated that while he wants to establish his bona fides as a trusted and efficient manager of New York City, there is much less evidence that he has any interest in building a movement to defend the interest of New York City’s diverse working class.

The means to, and meaning of, “Tax the Rich”

Mamdani’s “affordability agenda”—universal free childcare, free buses, a rent freeze for stabilized apartments, and an explosive growth in the number of affordable housing units—has mass support but carries with it a hefty price tag. New York City is legally unable to raise its own taxes without approval from the state. Candidate Mamdani’s explicit call to raise income taxes on the wealthy and on corporations in order to fund this agenda was (and remains) extremely popular, and was of course intended to put pressure on the New York State legislature and more particularly the governor. Without a revenue increase of many billions, achieving this agenda will be impossible.

Whether increased taxes on the wealthy can actually be won by the usual political means is now playing out in Albany. On April 22 the state legislature passed its sixth “budget extender” of the season after negotiations to resolve the state’s budget blew past the April 1 deadline. It’s not unusual for the budget to be late—last year it took until May 9—but this year negotiators have not yet gotten beyond bitter struggles over implementing climate goals and reforming auto insurance laws to more fiscally significant issues. Prominent among these are (separate) proposals by the state senate and state assembly to raise taxes on the wealthy and on corporations. Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul has been adamant in her opposition to such tax increases.

Every year, New York State’s governor and each of the two houses of its legislature devise separate budget proposals. The three proposals are a basis for the negotiations among the leaders of the two houses and the governor (a process formerly gendered as “three men in a room”—this year the only man among them is Assembly Speaker Democrat Carl Heastie). In recent years, it has become common for the legislature’s “one house budgets” to include a proposal to raise taxes on high earners, and some form of such increases has occasionally passed. This year, though, those proposals have taken on increased significance.

The revenue the city would receive under both senate and assembly tax proposals is somewhat less than under Mamdani’s own, but those amounts are nevertheless enough to have heartened his supporters. Governor Hochul, though, has not hesitated to repeat her strong opposition, and it’s hard to see where pressure sufficient to move her can come from. She dismisses passionate chants from crowds demanding these tax increases, unconcerned about any potential electoral weakness coming from their opposition, and is likely to remain firm as the budget negotiations drag on. (The pied-à-terre tax on luxury second homes that Hochul finally announced—and Mamdani applauded—on April 15 would only raise $500 million annually, while the legislature’s proposals would raise $3 billion in city income taxes and an additional $1-2 billion in direct state funding for the city. By contrast, in a document labeled “How to Pay for the Mamdani Agenda,” the mayor-to-be offered a plan to raise $10 billion.

It was never likely that a robust form of “tax the rich” would get over the hurdles that the State’s power structure imposes. Mirroring the U.S. constitutional order as a whole, the structure of New York government is notorious for serving to insulate the powerful from democratic control. The “three men in a room” is but one problem. The business lobby has made sure to fund lavishly the re-election campaigns of Hochul and others, and has made its objections to taxation publicly known. According to Crain’s, even the proposed pied-à-terre tax on second homes in New York City, “is certain to prompt a massive fight in Albany from the real estate industry in particular and delay the already delayed state budget much further”. Like the governor herself, business leaders are predicting that businesses would leave New York if their taxes are raised. Predictably, in an April 6 letter to shareholders, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon argued that cities and businesses needed to “compete,” and blamed high local taxes for his own corporation’s shifting of some jobs to Texas.

Although it is technically possible that the legislature could pass tax legislation outside of the context of the budget process, the access of New York’s capitalist class to the halls of power, and the usual nervousness of legislators looking over their shoulders in an election year, prevent any serious consideration of such legislation which would in any case require veto-proof majorities.

The Mamdani administration has no real strategy to try to overcome these obstacles. The option of cohering a sustainable mass movement to disrupt business as usual, and grow popular participation and organization, has not been on the table. To be sure, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and its sister organization, the nonprofit Our Time, have been consistent in their organizing efforts on the issue, but the tactics they have used—door-knocking and phone-banking—have done nothing to move New Yorkers beyond the atomization of individual voters calling legislators. Tactics that worked, in a particular moment, to get a democratic socialist elected are not sufficient to win a serious reform agenda.

Tactics that worked, in a particular moment, to get a democratic socialist elected are not sufficient to win a serious reform agenda.

The limitations of DSA’s strategy are apparent in the diminishing returns of its tactics. Well-planned phone-banking efforts failed to get more than about 1,700 people to ride buses to “take over” Albany on February 25, far short of what was hoped for (this at a time when millions can be mobilized to demonstrate against Trump). And having won his election, Mamdani has proven ambivalent in his support of his DSA allies’ tactics. By mid-February, the mayor made it clear that he himself would not be taking part in such “tax the rich” events. Thus, he avoided attending the Albany “takeover” and the March 29 tax-the-rich rally in the Bronx headlined by Bernie Sanders.

The mayor’s February 5 endorsement of Hochul for re-election—and the resultant demise of the campaign of her primary challenger, Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado—removed a significant source of leverage over the governor and signaled still further Mamdani’s intention to collaborate as much as possible with the powerful as an elected executive, rather than attempt to lead a popular movement against the state’s rulers and its Democratic Party machine.  NYC-DSA, for its part, distanced itself from Mamdani while indicating in a statement that the governor was not worthy of the endorsement.

Mamdani’s efforts to distance himself from his DSA allies have become apparent within the tax-the-rich movement. Winning the “affordability agenda”—or at least part of it—has remained DSA’s goal. In its messages asking members and supporters to urge their legislators to support taxing the rich, the appeal was always in the name of achieving parts of the agenda—usually, free child care. The organization pointed out, correctly, that the January agreement between Hochul and Mamdani on universal childcare was limited to funding pilot programs and the early stages of a phase-in of the program.

But Mamdani has had to retreat to using whatever new revenue he can get from the state to fill a $5.4 billion gap in the city’s budget, which he is legally required to balance. His appeal to the legislature on “Tin Cup Day”—the day in February each year on which officials from around the state make their case for state assistance—included a request for a 2 percent tax increase on high earners, but in his testimony he mentioned no other goal than that of achieving a balanced budget.

Mamdani’s strategy in action

In order to pressure Hochul to support the 2 percent increase, it may have been possible for the mayor to encourage the organization of activities beyond phone calls to legislators. He might have attempted, for example, to bring together unions, nonprofit advocacy groups, and other organizations to mobilize their members and engage in activities such as protests at her New York offices or holding marches in each of the city’s boroughs. Even at the level of electoral politics, he might have sought leverage by offering more support for insurgent democratic socialist candidates.

Instead Mamdani resorted to a threat to raise property taxes (which the city can do without state approval), seeking to pressure the governor into an income tax hike as a lesser evil. This was a serious miscalculation. Not only did it “greatly anger” Hochul, who viewed it as a breach of his promise to tone down his tax-the-rich rhetoric, but it backfired in the eyes of many whom the mayor should have seen as allies. The city’s property taxes are notoriously regressive, and this move left middle class homeowners—overwhelmingly in favor of taxes on the rich—feeling unsupported by the mayor. Black homeowners in Queens publicly protested and spoke to their city council representative on the matter, and this seems to have been enough for Mamdani to back off of this property tax hike proposal.

These miscues—angering a powerful Democrat he hoped to keep as an ally (despite their differences on his signature campaign promise), and alienating an important electoral constituency—can be viewed as understandable errors of an inexperienced executive. But perhaps it is more instructive to consider them as natural consequences of his strategy: From early in his candidacy Mamdani has tried to combine a style of friendly negotiations between himself and powerful players with an attempt to represent the interests of working people.

Mamdani is not responsible for the city’s fiscal woes. His predecessor Eric Adams had been overestimating revenues and resorting to accounting tricks to balance the budget. Nonetheless he clearly needed a “Plan B” (perhaps better thought of as “Plan A”) and for that he first turned to the all-too-familiar playbook of seeking systematic cuts. Even before his trip to Albany he issued an executive order mandating that every city agency appoint a chief savings officer, tasked with proposing ways to slash hundreds of millions from the budget. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that under these circumstances reforms like a robust free child care program and free buses are fast receding from what is likely.

More recently, Mamdani has found himself in a battle with the city council over his proposed budget. He has resorted to the highly unusual tactic of tapping the city’s reserve fund to avoid a deficit. Council Speaker Julie Menin, a “moderate” Democrat, defended the council’s own proposal, which includes a supposed $6 billion in savings, and argued that dipping into the reserve fund will damage the city’s credit rating and spike its borrowing costs. Each side has attacked the other’s proposal as requiring cuts in essential services.

Charm the Rich

Mamdani’s strategic approach started becoming clear after he won the election primary last year. In June of 2025, he met with business leaders from the Partnership for New York City and the Association for a Better New York, assuaging their fears about “socialism” and assuring them that his administration will behave as a partner in pursuing their shared goals of a prosperous and affordable city. He also promised to consider retaining Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch (a billionaire from the business class herself), a move which he eventually made despite his stated opposition to Tisch’s collaboration with former Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul in rolling back progressive criminal justice reforms.

Mamdani’s positioning himself as a “reasonable” politician, willing to learn from experts rather than following a particular ideological program, has also extended to the electoral arena. His endorsement of Hochul followed their joint announcement of the free child care program. The governor had made it clear that affordable child care was a goal of hers as well, and many of the state’s business leaders (with an interest in having their employees able to come to work rather than attend to the kids) backed her on this, as long as state treasuries could fund it without a tax increase. Rather than emphasize the inadequacy of the partial and temporary funding Hochul was able to come up with, Mamdani chose to cheerlead alongside her. His endorsement of her re-election was an indication of his approach and desire not to have the kind of contentious relationship with the governor that former mayor Bill DeBlasio had with Andrew Cuomo.

Mamdani [has] position[ed] himself as a “reasonable” politician, willing to learn from experts rather than following a particular ideological program…

The other leaders of New York’s Democratic Party establishment—U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries—were much sharper than Hochul in their opposition to Mamdani during the election. Nonetheless, Mamdani urged his fellow DSA members not to endorse one of their own—city council member Chi Ossé—to challenge Jeffries in the 2026 primary. In a close vote, the organization denied Ossé their endorsement.

Given this background, it’s not surprising that Mamdani relied on his ability to appear reasonable and friendly, and to use a strong dose of flattery, during his infamous November Oval Office visit with Donald Trump. In October, he had similarly flattered the members of the Association for a Better New York as “some of the most forward-thinking leaders within our city.” Despite his inexperience, Mamdani is a very skilled tactical politician and careful student of recent political relationships. New York City’s mayors have always had to rely on a positive relationship with Washington (as they have with Albany), and Mamdani had clearly observed Trump well enough to know that if any money was to flow from D.C. to New York, that relationship had to be nurtured early on.

If Mamdani’s intent has been to establish a good working relationship with the business community, he has probably succeeded. Crain’s New York Business issued a scorecard on the Mayor’s first one hundred days, rating him on several metrics. On business confidence in the new administration, he was given a mixed review, applauding his responsiveness and attempts to be engaging. On the other side of their ledger, the piece mentioned aspects such as the “one-sidedness” of his approach to “bad” landlords. But whether his friendliness to business leaders will enable him to implement his costly agenda is another matter.

The police and community safety

Mamdani has also been careful to ensure a positive relationship with the NYPD. Eric Adams, of course, began his career as a police officer, but before him Bill DeBlasio was famously despised by the cops for his support for reform measures meant to minimize killings by police. To avoid such a chilly relationship, Mamdani re-framed the purpose of his proposed Department of Community Safety as premised on removing burdens on the police in responding to emergencies involving mentally ill people, i.e., by having social workers among those responding. Police would thus be allowed to do “their actual jobs” while professionals trained to work with the mentally ill would have a different role to play.

But the new mayor was apparently overeager in this regard. In late January, the mother of a  22-year old mentally ill Queens man, Jabez Chakraborty, called 911 requesting an ambulance when her son, who lived with her, experienced a rageful crisis. Only the police responded, without an ambulance, and when the young man brandished a kitchen knife the cops shot him four times. Mamdani’s first public statement on the matter (which he later retracted) was that he was “grateful to the first responders who put themselves on the line each day to keep our communities safe.”

Chakraborty himself wound up in the hospital, in critical condition, handcuffed and shackled. The group Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), which advocates for South Asian immigrant workers and which had provided important support for Mamdani during the election campaign, published a statement by the family strongly critical of the NYPD and the mayor’s praise of them.

This case offered the purest possible example of a mental health emergency requiring a non-police response. Chakraborty’s mother did not report being in danger, and the entire incident took place inside their home. It potentially offered a perfect illustration of how Mamdani’s promise to adopt a “public health approach to safety” made sense. Instead it was perhaps the first indication that his plan for a Department of Community Safety was in trouble.

The proposed new department was meant to address crises involving mental health, domestic violence, the threat of gun violence, hate crimes, and outreach to the unhoused by relying on trained professionals to diffuse the crisis, rather than just summoning the police. Creating the department would have required City Council approval, and its billion dollar budget made that unlikely, more so as the city’s deficit became clearer. The mayor wound up retreating in mid-March by creating a scaled-down Office of Community Safety (not a deparment), which he can do by executive order.

A recent article in Gothamist detailed additional ways Mamdani has pulled back on some of his public safety initiatives. Although he remains on record as wanting to disband the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group (SRG—known for its violence against peaceful protesters) and end its gang database, both moves are strongly opposed by Commissioner Tisch. In an April 8 New York Times interview, the mayor said that in cases of disagreement between him and the Commissioner, final decisions would be his. But according to Gothamist, he has recently “tempered his rhetoric” on the SRG and failed to speak up when Tisch defended the gang database. While some have defended the mayor’s approach as necessary to “build trust” with the police, long-standing activists have demanded a different approach. They rightly argue that the mayor should take his lead from those “directly impacted by the city’s failed police-based mental health response and the organizations led by and accountable to them.”

Whether these retreats are consequences of Mamdani’s retention of Tisch in particular, or simply of his concern that he avoid the kind of conflict with the NYPD that DeBlasio experienced, is not particularly important. More significant is what they reveal about a politician attempting to undertake radical changes by relying on a passive electorate. Power must be confronted in order to make these changes, and to do so requires a self-conscious movement with clear objectives, democratic mechanisms to determine strategy and tactics, and a focus on broadening its reach and increasing its popular strength. Mere political maneuvering within an undemocratic political system, established to insulate the powerful, will inevitably fall short in winning meaningful reforms, let alone the more fundamental change sought by socialists of all stripes.

Affordable housing

Mamdani entered office having made the fight for affordable housing a central policy promise. And it’s likely Mamdani will achieve one of his goals: a rent freeze for the approximately one-third of New Yorkers living in apartments covered by the city’s rent stabilization laws. He has been able to appoint members to the Rent Guidelines Board—the agency which each year determines a maximum percentage by which rents in stabilized units may legally rise—who are sympathetic to the concerns of tenants squeezed between small wage increases and more rapid inflation. Mamdani was able to overcome the plans of outgoing Mayor Adams who almost succeeded, on his way out of office, in appointing enough landlord-friendly members to ensure landlord concerns would prevail on the board for the next several years.

But the rent freeze was hardly the only proposal in Mamdani’s platform intended to increase housing affordability. The platform promised to use city funds for the construction of 200,000 new units over ten years. “[F]or decades,” it read, “New York City has relied almost entirely on changing the zoning code to entice private development—with results that can fall short of the big promises.” Most of his plan’s funding—$70 billion out of $100 billion—was to be raised by a proposed sale of municipal bonds.

Mamdani’s ultimate support of ballot measures fast-tracking and otherwise smoothing the path for developers relies on the same market-based methods of constructing for-profit housing that have failed, over those same decades, to produce very many units of housing that most New Yorkers—certainly the vast majority of working-class New Yorkers can actually afford. (Ben Rosenfield and Holden Taylor, in an article in the Marxist journal Spectre and summarized in a Tempest interview, dig into this dynamic, and its recent history, in great detail.)

The ballot measures were backed by a coalition including developers and real estate firms, who funneled millions of dollars into the campaigns. Of course, and as Rosenfield and Taylor note, whatever housing goals Mamdani may personally favor, he “will have to navigate the limitations and contradictions of the capitalist city and state.”

Another early sign of his apparent change in approach on housing came during Mamdani’s October speech to the Association for a Better New York (co-founded in 1970 by leading real estate investor and developer Lewis Rudin). Mamdani stated that business leaders had approached him with concerns about the “affordability crisis” and their inability to employ people in an “expensive New York.” “As rents soar,” Mamdani continued, “it becomes almost impossible to attract the very kind of top talent that we need to see in this city.” One can imagine that the “top talent” people that these business leaders look to attract have a very different limit on the rent they can pay from that of the median working class New Yorker.

As for the project to build a deck over the Sunnyside rail yards which Mamdani theatrically pitched to the Developer-in-Chief in another Oval Office meeting (in February 2026), even if Trump comes through with the promised $21 billion in federal funds, the 12,000 homes it would eventually support would only become a reality several decades into the future. The housing construction itself would be separately funded.

Samuel Stein of the Community Service Society of New York, writing in Jewish Currents, runs through some of the financial limitations that a strong public housing program would face: Raising large sums on the bond market strains the city’s budget as debt comes due, and a downgrade by credit rating agencies may well increase interest payments on that debt. Paying union-scale wages on city construction projects while keeping rents low and maintaining buildings well adds further strain.

The city’s deficit—now a top concern for Mamdani—adds a new dimension to these limitations. The mayor recently broke a promise to implement a measure passed by the city council in 2023 that would expand CityFHEPS, a program providing housing vouchers intended to move homeless people from shelters into permanent housing. Eric Adams challenged the measure, and Mamdani is now continuing that challenge, saying that the city cannot afford it and battling the council—and advocates for the homeless—in court. The issue has attracted quite a bit of public attention: A recent article in Gothamist profiled several individuals fearing that they will wind up in the revolving door between homeless shelters and the streets.

Conclusions

In one sense, Mamdani himself is not to blame for the failure of his agenda. The obstacles to achieving it are not of his making. The Mayor could be criticized, though, for not pointing out to his voters how formidable these obstacles are, and thereby raising the question of what it might actually take to win. Eric Blanc and Bhaskhar Sunkara—strong Mamdani supporters very wary of (even hostile to) left critiques—warned in a December article in Jacobin against overestimating the Left’s strength based just on an electoral victory. “To push Hochul and other establishment politicians to fund reforms,” they wrote, “New York’s Left will need more popular depth and breadth. Without such a working-class movement, there’s a real danger that Zohran’s agenda will get blocked.”

As a DSA member himself (like Blanc and Sunkara), Mamdani is surely aware of this argument. He could have spoken up himself on the need to build popular power in order to prevent his agenda being blocked. But it’s clear, after his absence from tax-the-rich rallies and other events challenging New York’s Democrats, that his choice not to alienate himself from them—and from the business class—has prevented a full-throated call for a movement opposing the powerful.

Blanc and others close to him are very troubled by what they see as merely empty criticisms with no proposed solutions—attacking Mamdani (and others) from the Left, without taking responsibility for building real, lasting coalitions. But rather than taking aim at leftist critics, the socialist movement needs an open and thoroughgoing debate about how we offer a strategic alternative to what Mamdani is offering.

It is certainly not too late—especially at a time of heightened activism—for numbers of people to begin building the kind of forceful pushback that can eventually make the Mamdani agenda a reality.

The New York Times, in its “first hundred days” piece on Mamdani, didn’t hesitate to point out that “he has quickly retreated from one campaign promise after another” and that he “has little actual power to impose that ideology [democratic socialism] on city government”. But while this article has criticized Mamdani in similar respects, more important than passing judgement on the man is to point out the reality of what it will take to build and maintain the kind of power that can win what Mamdani’s voters eagerly wished for.

In a matter of weeks, it will be clear how much revenue the city can expect from Albany this year. Under any likely scenario, a tax on the wealthy sufficient to plug the budget gap and also move the needle on meaningful reforms, e.g., free buses or significant numbers of truly affordable publicly-owned apartments, will not happen. Hochul’s wildly inadequate concession in the form of a pied-à-terre tax—especially after Mamdani essentially declared victory, saying “today we’re taxing the rich”—will almost certainly be as far as she is willing to go. But in itself, this won’t necessarily lead to discouragement and lowered expectations. The outcome will depend on what conclusions people draw. It is certainly not too late—especially at a time of heightened activism—for numbers of people to begin building the kind of forceful pushback that can eventually make the Mamdani agenda a reality.

The capitalist class is powerful—New York City’s real estate and financial interests particularly so—and its political reach extensive. Without strong and growing institutions of resistance that can fight for working people’s needs, gains promised by an individual maverick politician can’t be won against such power, except in muted form. Many DSA members, as well as others on the Left who watch events closely, may find ways to come together and help build those institutions. But a different strategic vision will be required. If this happens, the momentum triggered by Mamdani’s campaign and election, rather than dissipating, will build. Otherwise, we risk the type of disillusionment with “progressive” politics, the result of which we are all too familiar with in Trump’s “America.”

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Karamccurdy; modified by Tempest.

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Anderson Bean: Could you start by introducing yourself and your role in the Guilford County Schools?

Carla Harris: I am a high school science educator. I have been teaching for the past 10 years, all in North Carolina. I am also a member of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE), and I do a lot of organizing work with them.

AB: How would you describe the current state of public education in North Carolina for both teachers and students?

CH: One word that comes to mind is abysmal. The last study I saw ranked North Carolina 50th in public school funding out of all the states, so it’s pretty difficult right now. In 2008 North Carolina was 25th in teacher pay, today it is 43rd, $14,000 less than the national average. North Carolina is also currently the only state that has not passed a state budget.

You have a lot of people in this profession who really love what we do, but it’s getting really hard for people to stay. Within the past 20 years, the General Assembly has been chipping away at the public school system in many different ways. For example, they eliminated master’s pay starting in 2014, so educators with advanced degrees now earn the same as colleagues without them. For anyone entering the system after 2021, there are no longer state-provided health benefits in retirement, which discourages people from joining the profession. North Carolina has also eliminated traditional tenure and weakened due process protections for teachers. At the same time, the pay scale is structured so that salaries increase early on but then flatten out for much of a teacher’s career, with little to no meaningful raises between, roughly, years fifteen and twenty-four.

My own health insurance costs doubled this past year. Classified staff—bus drivers, custodians, and cafeteria workers—until recently weren’t even making $15 an hour. That leads to shortages, vacancies, and burnout across the board.

Conditions inside schools are also very difficult. Because of low state funding, maintenance is not always addressed in a timely way. In my school, there are several places where every time it rains, ceiling tiles have to be replaced within a couple of days. There are ongoing leaks. In a neighboring county, schools couldn’t open on time one year because of mold in multiple buildings after air conditioning was cut over the summer to save money.

Resources are scarce. Most teachers buy their own basic supplies, tissues, pencils, hand sanitizer, things that used to be provided by the school.

Health insurance has also worsened. Costs have gone up while coverage has gone down. Starting teacher salaries are so low that, when you factor in the hours worked, they fall below a living wage, which makes it even harder to bring new people into the profession.

Most schools only have a nurse one to two days a week, with nurses split across multiple buildings. That makes it difficult for them to really know students and their health needs. Mental health services are even harder to access.

These problems are tied to broader policy decisions. Legislators have chosen to maintain one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the country, with plans to reduce it to zero by 2030. At the same time, funding is being diverted away from public schools. Over the past few years, there has been a sharp increase in private school vouchers, also known as Opportunity Scholarships. This year alone, over $500 million in taxpayer dollars has gone to these vouchers, effectively siphoning money away from public schools. And the majority of recipients are already from wealthier families.

AB: What is NCAE organizing for May Day, and what are the main goals of the action?

CH: To coincide with the nationwide call to action on May Day this year, NCAE has organized a day of action under the slogan “Kids Over Corporations.” They are inviting all school employees, along with the broader community, to come to the Capitol in Raleigh. The goal is not only to stand in solidarity with one another, but also to get legislators’ attention and begin shifting policy back in our direction.

School employees are being asked to call out of work that day. The central demands are for increased funding for public education by redirecting money away from corporate tax cuts and private school vouchers.

It has been made clear that this is not a strike, but a one-day action that can serve as a step toward larger actions in the future. A longer-term goal of NCAE is to become a formalized union and win collective bargaining rights, and this action is part of building toward that.

To coincide with the nationwide call to action on May Day this year, NCAE has organized a day of action under the slogan “Kids Over Corporations.”…School employees are being asked to call out of work that day. The central demands are for increased funding for public education by redirecting money away from corporate tax cuts and private school vouchers.

So far, over fifteen school districts have been forced to close for the day. This happens when enough workers put in absences that there are not enough substitutes to cover positions, which forces districts to convert the day into an optional teacher workday. We expect that number to grow, and there are also educators participating from districts that have not officially closed.

These decisions are made at the county level. Some districts have made the day an optional teacher workday, while others have required employees to use annual leave. These kinds of responses reflect attempts to limit collective worker action.

AB: How does this year’s May Day action compare to the 2018 “Red for Ed” mobilizations in North Carolina? What feels continuous, what’s different, and how does this moment compare to being part of the broader national wave back then?

CH: North Carolina had similar actions in 2018 and 2019. In 2018, there was a national teacher strike wave across multiple states, including Arizona and West Virginia. That created a lot of momentum, and people here were ready to take action because they could see what was possible when educators organized collectively.

Now, we are building on the lessons learned from those experiences. In both moments, there has been a strong emphasis on grassroots organizing—attending local meetings, connecting with educators across districts, and collectively developing strategy. It’s often a year-long process to build toward actions like this.

This year, one of the key strategies has been organizing coordinated absences. In some districts, educators formally entered their absences into the system, while in others, workers signed commitment forms indicating they would do so if necessary. In my district alone, there were nearly 800 commitments, which was enough for the school board to act before everyone even formally submitted their absences. The collective action itself was enough to force a response.

While the numbers may be smaller so far than in 2018, we are seeing broader connections with other organizations this time. There has been collaboration with immigrant rights groups, voting rights groups, and other community organizations. There have been art builds to create banners and materials, as well as coordinated actions like banner drops and rallies. There is also a larger coalition coming together for events around May Day.

So while 2018 was defined by a powerful national wave of teacher strikes, this moment is characterized more by coalition-building and deeper connections across movements.

While [the 2018 “Red for Ed” mobilizations in North Carolina were] defined by a powerful national wave of teacher strikes, this moment is characterized more by coalition-building and deeper connections across movements.

AB: GCAE has also been active in the Triad labor movement, including solidarity with UAW struggles. Can you talk about the importance of cross-union solidarity in the region? [The Piedmont Triad is a metropolitan region in the north-central part of North Carolina that make up three cities: Greensboro, Winston Salem and High Point. – EDS]

CH: GCAE, as a local chapter of the statewide union, has supported UAW organizing efforts. That connection is very real, UAW workers manufacture our school buses, and their children attend our schools. It highlights how interconnected working-class struggles really are.

We’re all working under the same system, and we recognize that the system is not working for us. Organizing around public schools is a powerful way for people to connect because over 80 percent of working-class families send their children to public schools. Most people have some connection to a public school, which creates natural links between different struggles. Schools become a central place where broader working-class solidarity can grow.

AB: How are the struggles of other school workers, like bus drivers, cafeteria staff, and support personnel, intersecting with those of teachers right now?

CH: There’s a misconception that this action is just about teachers. NCAE represents all public school workers, so when we are asking for more funding, we are asking for better pay and improved conditions across the board.

When school funding increases, salaries can go up for everyone, and conditions improve for all school employees.

We’ve seen this in recent struggles. In Guilford County, school nutrition staff organized a two-day walkout in 2023 to demand higher wages. That action led to raises, though there were still concerns about how those increases were structured.

Even before that walkout, GCAE spent over two years organizing to raise classified staff wages to $15 an hour. That campaign shows how long it can take to win even modest gains. When we push for larger changes now, we understand that this is a long-term fight.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Anthony Crider; modified by Tempest.

The post Kids Over Corporations appeared first on Tempest.

When we speak of a revolution’s failure, we usually mean that it did not fulfill its stated aims. In the case of Iran’s 1979 revolution, however, the failure runs far deeper. That revolution not only failed to achieve its declared objectives; it failed in the most profound sense. It brought to power a force even more reactionary than the one it overthrew. What occurred was not simply a transfer of power but a historical regression whose consequences endure to this day. This regression extended beyond politics into the social and cultural fabric and even reshaped the intellectual horizons of society, setting the trajectory of development sharply backward.

It is within this context that the discussion of the “bleak scenario” versus the “bright scenario” acquires meaning. This distinction does not stem from naïve optimism about revolutionary processes, but from a concrete historical concern. In classical—and, to some extent, ideological—communist theory, political change is typically imagined as a revolutionary process in which the working class and organized popular forces seize power from the bourgeoisie to establish a new order. This vision presupposes a minimum level of social organization, continuity of production, and the capacity for political reconstruction. In other words, even amid revolution, it assumes that society does not disintegrate entirely and that the essential foundations for rebuilding remain intact.

A coherent state in the conventional sense has never fully taken shape within the Islamic regime. What exists instead is a constellation of rival power factions.

The realities of Iranian society under the Islamic regime cast doubt on such assumptions. The systematic and often brutal destruction of every form of independent organization has rendered such social structuring practically impossible. For nearly five decades, the regime has crushed collective organization with extraordinary severity: dismantling political parties, dissolving councils, erasing labor unions, and imprisoning anyone who attempted to organize. Under such conditions, the idea of a coherent, conscious transfer of power to emancipatory forces seems less a political possibility than an expression of hope divorced from reality.

At the same time, Iranian society is caught in a structural deadlock. The Islamic Republic has reached a point where it can neither retreat nor advance. There is no clear horizon for resolving its intertwined economic, political, and social crises. Structural reform has become unfeasible, yet maintaining the status quo demands ever-deeper repression. This stalemate creates a situation where social explosions are always possible, but the organizational capacity to direct them is extremely weak—if not entirely absent. This tension between an explosive potential and the absence of conscious direction forms the primary foundation of the “bleak scenario.”

Moreover, the very structure of the Islamic regime has evolved into a permanent source of instability. From its inception, the system has been anchored in an apocalyptic religious ideology that has shaped not only politics but also economic life, culture, and foreign policy. This ideology, animated by a self-ascribed historical mission, transcends the rational logic of a modern state. Decision-making, therefore, has been guided not by functional necessities but by ideological and security imperatives. (I have increasingly come to believe that the Islamic regime does not perceive itself as a conventional state. Instead, it acts as a marginal, semi-insurgent force with nothing to lose—resembling groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, or Hashd al-Shaabi. Interestingly, Putin once referred to it in similar terms as a “rogue” entity.)

Continuous repression has destroyed parties and civil institutions, creating an ever-wider gulf between society and the state.

Over the following decades, segments of the ruling establishment began to recognize this contradiction. They understood that governing a complex society in the 21st century through rigid, theological instruments was unsustainable. Attempts were made—under banners such as “reconstruction” and “reform”—to adjust the system, yet always within the same ideological limits. Each time demands for change surfaced, core power centers and autonomous hardline networks blocked them. Thus emerged a dual reality: the necessity of change, and the structural impossibility of realizing it from within. The result has been the cumulative deepening of crises and a progressive erosion of governing capacity.

Consequently, a coherent state in the conventional sense has never fully taken shape within the Islamic regime. What exists instead is a constellation of rival power factions, shifting with each presidential administration, each seeking to consolidate its own position and privileges. These are not merely political rivals, but entrenched networks embedded across institutions. With each change at the top, these networks are reshuffled while the underlying logic persists. Each faction strives to expand its grip over resources—from state contracts to financial assets. Over time, this dynamic has produced a rentier, predatory political economy. Economic decisions serve factional interests, not societal needs. Development projects function primarily as mechanisms for distributing rents. Public wealth is systematically siphoned into private networks—oil rigs can vanish overnight. In such an environment, long-term planning becomes meaningless. Even at managerial levels, instability reigns: each political shift brings sweeping replacements, erasing institutional memory and undermining policy continuity.

A transition beyond the Islamic Republic will not, by necessity, produce a more progressive or stable order—though such a future remains possible and desirable.

The real danger becomes evident when this exhausted structure faces an acute crisis. The same factions now competing over resources may become the drivers of the “bleak scenario” during collapse. Importantly, this scenario is not chiefly produced by opposition groups. While external opposition may play a role, the core threat stems from forces currently inside the system. Each network, in its bid for survival, may resort to violence—some through direct repression, others through paramilitary or localized armed groups. In such conditions, rivalry over resources may evolve into open conflict. Past experiences—the brutal crackdowns of January 2018 and November 2019, and the regime’s intervention in Syria—show that the ruling establishment recognizes no limits when it comes to violence. This violence is not merely reactive but intrinsic to its mode of survival. When real solutions are unavailable, repression becomes the only remaining tool—not to resolve crises, but to buy time. Yet this delay yields nothing: there is neither a strategy for exit nor the will for transformation. Each new wave of repression only deepens the crisis and moves society closer to explosion.

For this reason, whether in the context of external war or mass protest, the risk of widespread violence is very real. The ruling factions see themselves as the rightful owners of the country—and particularly its wealth—and perceive no viable path toward relinquishing power or achieving peaceful transition. Meanwhile, a society deprived of organization and intermediary institutions lacks the means to manage a complex transition. Continuous repression has destroyed parties and civil institutions, creating an ever-wider gulf between society and the state. In such conditions, large-scale protests risk encountering both extreme violence and the absence of structures capable of guiding them. This volatile mix is what makes the “bleak scenario” genuinely possible. At the regional level, the Islamic Republic’s close ties to aligned militant groups only heighten this risk, allowing domestic crises to escalate and spill beyond borders.

The central question … is how to carve out a … path amid this dark horizon … that neither rests on revolutionary illusions nor surrenders to the existing order.

Thus, discussing the “bleak scenario” is not an abstract exercise but a sober warning. It underscores that a transition beyond the Islamic Republic will not, by necessity, produce a more progressive or stable order—though such a future remains possible and desirable. The immediate aftermath may involve instability, violence, or even social fragmentation. Yet this is not a historical dead end. Eventually, society will be compelled to move beyond it. The crucial point is that this transition—whether imminent or delayed—will inevitably carry immense tension and cost. The current structure is incapable of stepping aside or yielding peacefully. The longer the transition is postponed, the deeper and more destructive the coming crisis is likely to be. Hence, the issue is not one of when, but of how—of the quality and character of that transition.

The central question now is how to carve out a genuine path amid this dark horizon—a path that neither rests on revolutionary illusions nor surrenders to the existing order. A path that, even under these harsh conditions, can nurture organization, solidarity, and conscious agency. Addressing this question demands further analysis, which I hope to undertake in a future piece.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Khamenei.ir; modified by Tempest.

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This May Day will come after nearly sixteen months of authoritarian rule marked by brutal domestic and global violence.

At home, the state has deployed terror against the most vulnerable members of the working class—our immigrant neighbors—and anti-ICE protesters.

World politics has entered a new era with the illegal and unconstitutional U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. The ongoing war is yet another morbid symptom of the late American empire. Conscious of its declining power and driven by a lunatic narcissism reminiscent of Caligula or Nero, the Trump administration seeks to demonstrate its virility through violence. The war’s horror is only matched by its absurdity, as it becomes increasingly clear how little the U.S. state thought through the consequences of their reckless actions.

This disastrous war is a great setback for the regime. But as Trump and company become weaker, they also become more volatile and dangerous.

With Trump’s approval ratings sinking and likely to fall lower given the shock to the economy, the midterm elections pose an existential threat to his administration. The likelihood of a manufactured crisis being used as a pretext to destroy democratic rights looks increasingly probable.

In the face of war and authoritarianism, most workers realize we must act to stop this regime, and many are looking for alternative political strategies.

Building the resistance

The resistance in Minneapolis, culminating in mass strikes at the end of January, gave us a glimpse of potential working-class power.

The question is how to transform broad yet diffuse opposition to Trumpism into the kind of organized labor action that can take powerful and decisive action against the regime.

We have seen resistance in varied spaces, from mass protests like No Kings to neighborhood networks to community and labor activism. While all these play a role, unions are of particular importance because they remain the one organized section of the working class with mass numbers, even while unionization levels are low. Organized labor’s reawakening to politics, uneven and contradictory as it may be, represents a significant breach in the post-war consensus that has dominated the movement for the better part of a century.

The resistance in Minneapolis, culminating in mass strikes at the end of January, gave us a glimpse of potential working-class power.

The primary task for activists is to enter all these arenas and help build them out into democratic infrastructures of dissent, spaces and networks where we can further discover our strength as workers. We want to build a left-moving pole of attraction based on class independence, broad democratic decision-making and collective action.

Building these structures is a precondition for resisting the threat of authoritarianism and the entire right-wing political system, and for articulating firm political demands that resist co-optation by the Democratic Party.

The labor-led coalition May Day Strong offers a potential alternative to politics as usual, one that reawakens a long-neglected tradition of political working-class activity and, especially, an orientation on strikes—the only weapon available to us with the power to stop the regime.

Ironically, the authoritarian onslaught is spurring organized labor to reconnect with its power and its ability to change the world.

Towards a general strike

The call for this May Day, “Workers over Billionaires: No Work, No School, No Shopping,” connects with a powerful radical tradition based on independent working-class power. Although its origins are in the United States, International Workers’ Day has largely been a forgotten holiday here. This is not an accident but a result of the deeply anti-worker and anti-socialist nature of the U.S. state, which has actively divorced organized labor from projects against capitalism and for universal human liberation.

Small groups cannot will a general strike in to being, and verbal radicalism cannot substitute for sustained organizing.

This May Day marks an important moment in the process of rejoining labor to its unique ability to fundamentally transform society. The violent and tyrannical capitalist system gave birth to Trumpism and has worse horrors in store if we do not alter its course. Our labor creates and recreates this system, but by refusing to work, we can shut it down.

While we have seen some significant May Days in recent history, most notably the 2006 “Day Without an Immigrant,” this May 1st promises to be a celebration of working-class strength like nothing we have seen in decades. Spearheaded by the Chicago Teachers Union, the May Day Strong Coalition is organizing major unions to turn out for this holiday in a way not seen in living memory. Some strikes have even been called against the Trump administration’s policies, including a shutdown of all the ports on the West Coast, from Alaska to San Diego.

It is crucial that we maintain our independence from the bankrupt two-party system and build our own numbers and power from below.

But we are also seeing attempts by conservative forces— Indivisible, the NGO bureaucracy and labor officialdom—to steer all the energy of the anti-Trump resistance back into efforts to elect the Democratic Party. We cannot entrust our precious rights to the very people who got us into this mess in the first place and who have waged no substantive opposition to the far right. Their aim is to restore the bankrupt status quo that germinated Trump. Regardless of what we do at the ballot box, when it comes to organizing, it is crucial that we maintain our independence from the bankrupt two-party system and build our own numbers and power from below.

The symbolic and practical significance of reclaiming May Day in these ways is hard to overstate.

The tasks of the moment

May Day will highlight the potential of working-class power to resist war and authoritarianism while resurrecting a radical labor tradition. But the prospect of mass political strikes that pose a tangible threat to the economic order remains distant.

We still have low levels of workplace organization, in terms of both formal unionization and informal activity. In the current climate calls for general strikes will be hollow if they are not backed up by mass collective organization, disciplined preparation, education and training. Small groups cannot will a general strike in to being, and verbal radicalism cannot substitute for sustained organizing.

This May Day and beyond presents the opportunity to foster our collective strength and become strike-ready. We do this through collective activities such as attending protests as a contingent with T-shirts and banners, pursuing workplace grievances, launching union drives, holding strike schools and forming rank and file groups prepared to push for radical action even in the face of reluctant union officials.

We can only unite as a class if we challenge all the oppressions our rulers use to divide us.

We can only unite as a class if we challenge all the oppressions our rulers use to divide us. If we are to uphold the great slogan of the labor movement, “An injury to one is an injury to all,” we must defend anyone who is under attack without exception. This includes forming emergency defense networks against ICE raids, standing with survivors of sexual violence, and advocating for trans rights, reproductive rights, Palestinian liberation and more.

These are the conditions in which we can build grounded socialist organizations that offer a genuine alternative.

Trumpism cannot be stopped with a vote or a promise. We must rip up its very roots by challenging the capitalist system that created it. There are no short cuts to this goal, but the keywords are organization, political independence, and working-class power.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Walter Crane, Walter Crane; modified by Tempest.

The post The cause of labor is the hope of the world appeared first on Tempest.

Dalam beberapa tahun terakhir, pemain beralih dari platform tidak jelas menuju layanan slot resmi. Mereka mencari keamanan data, keadilan permainan, serta kepastian sistem. Operator pun merespons tren ini dengan meningkatkan teknologi dan standar operasional.

Pengalaman Pengguna Jadi Prioritas

Banyak platform slot resmi kini berfokus pada pengalaman pengguna. Mereka mengembangkan antarmuka yang intuitif, responsif di berbagai perangkat, dan mendukung transaksi cepat. Pengguna dapat mengakses permainan melalui smartphone tanpa hambatan berarti.

Selain itu, sistem navigasi dibuat lebih sederhana. Pemain bisa langsung memilih jenis permainan, melihat riwayat transaksi, hingga mengatur batas permainan. Pendekatan ini menunjukkan bahwa operator memahami perilaku digital modern yang menuntut efisiensi.

Sistem RNG dan Transparansi Teknis

Slot resmi menggunakan teknologi Random Number Generator (RNG) untuk memastikan hasil permainan tetap acak dan adil. Sistem ini bekerja secara algoritmik dan telah melewati pengujian dari lembaga independen.

Beberapa platform bahkan mempublikasikan Return to Player (RTP) sebagai bentuk transparansi. RTP memberi gambaran persentase kemenangan dalam jangka panjang. Walau tidak menjamin hasil instan, data ini membantu pemain membuat keputusan yang lebih rasional.

Regulasi dan Legalitas Jadi Pembeda

Keunggulan utama slot resmi terletak pada aspek legalitas. Platform yang beroperasi secara resmi biasanya memiliki lisensi dari otoritas tertentu. Lisensi ini menuntut mereka untuk mengikuti standar keamanan, audit rutin, dan perlindungan pengguna.

Regulasi juga memaksa operator menjaga integritas sistem. Mereka harus menyediakan enkripsi data, metode pembayaran aman, serta mekanisme penyelesaian sengketa. Hal ini menciptakan ekosistem yang lebih sehat dibandingkan layanan ilegal.

Kepercayaan Dibangun dari Konsistensi

Kepercayaan pengguna tidak muncul secara instan. Platform slot resmi harus menjaga konsistensi layanan, mulai dari kecepatan transaksi hingga kualitas dukungan pelanggan. Ketika pengguna merasa aman dan dihargai, loyalitas akan terbentuk secara alami.

Kesimpulan

Slot resmi telah berkembang menjadi bagian dari ekosistem hiburan digital yang lebih terstruktur dan profesional. Dengan dukungan teknologi, regulasi, serta fokus pada pengguna, platform ini menawarkan pengalaman yang lebih aman dan transparan.

As a Chicago Public School parent, I am proud and thrilled that the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has called for May 1 2026 to be a day of civic action. Teachers taking the lead in calling for action to defend public education against federal attacks and to stand up to demand that ICE get out of our cities is good for Chicago and good for my child. From this perspective, I find that the Chicago Tribune editorial board’s March 13 piece attacking the CTU presents a narrow and shortsighted view of what education is.

I do agree with the Tribune editorial that “education starts with the basics.” It is an obvious fact that core skills, like math and reading, are fundamental. However, describing education as being about only the basics is a rote and wooden depiction of what learning actually is. I send my kid to school to not just learn the A,B,Cs and the 1,2,3s but to learn the rich lessons beyond that: how to get along with others, make friends, navigate relationships, resolve conflicts, and discover who they are and what they want to be. We want our children to learn how the world works and how to participate in society.

We want our children to learn how the world works and how to participate in society.

Last May 1, I took my elementary-school-aged kid out of school to attend the large mass march that many of Chicago’s immigrant organizations and labor groups had called. I felt like it was an educational experience about the world. I emailed my child’s teacher to tell her, and she asked that I send pictures. I sent pictures, and she used them on the fly to have an impromptu lesson about protest and democracy with the rest of the class. They talked about how to raise your voice and act to make the school and the world better. They drew pictures of themselves with protest signs and practiced writing (the basics) what kind of things they would write on their sign or banner. Dropping off my child the next day I was struck by how electric my kid’s classmates were. In wanting to talk about my kid’s experience, many of them showed me their pictures, and it was clear that they learned a different lesson about their participation in the world–and also practiced writing as well. The teacher’s creativity is the reason she is beloved by my kid and the rest of the class. This is the kind of learning that is dynamic; it connects the basics with deeper lessons about critical thinking and the world.

There are crucial lessons to be learned by taking a day, along with people around the country, to engage in civic participation around issues that are completely intertwined in schools and education. These issues are not outside the classroom, but rather profoundly impact the classroom, our children, our teachers, and yes, the basics.

The Trump administration is carrying out a massive attack on public education. Per the Center for American Progress, he has withheld more than $4 billion from public education since the start of the 2025-2026 school year. These cuts especially threaten support for youth with disabilities. I know that many of the parents at our school who have kids with IEPs have been in a state of panic in anticipation of loss of critical support. This is paired with the administration’s assault on protections for LGBTQIA youth. I again know many parents and youth to whom this feels very very threatening and scary.

Second, classrooms around the country are feeling the impact of the ICE raids that have been happening around the country, here in Chicago last fall and in Minnesota, the scene of the high-profile murders by federal agents of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. I have received numerous emails from my child’s teacher letting parents know about the “hard conversations” and fear that our elementary-school aged kids are bringing up in the classroom. Our school is 85 percent non-white and around 80 percent economically disadvantaged. Families are directly impacted by the ICE raids targeting those communities. And even if they are not directly targeted by phenomena that can seem distant and outside the classroom, it is us, or it is our friends, our classmates, and our neighbors who are living under the fear of masked armed agents stealing away our loved ones. How does one “stick to the basics” in that context?

What is to be done about these serious issues? On January 23, more than 75,000 Minnesotans came out into the streets in subzero temperatures in a general strike demanding ICE out. Hundreds of businesses were closed and one in four Minnesotans took part in the strike or knew someone who did. Regular people came together to raise their voices against the violence and murder being carried out by federal agents. This mass pressure was a large factor in Trump’s drawing down agents from Minneapolis, forcing Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino into retirement, and firing DHS head Kristi Noem.

Much more is needed to stop the ICE surges, raids, and arrests of thousands of people with no criminal records. Hundreds of children are being detained in concentration camps– writing letters wishing they could go back to school, and hoping–as nine-year-old Deiver Henao Jimenez told popular child educator Ms. Rachel–to leave in time to make it to his spelling bee. What about the educational “basics” for those children? The Tribune editorial board says, “Don’t worry about it, stay in school.” The Chicago Teachers Union–like the huge number of people around the country marching, participating in community ICE watches, raising money, and engaging in mutual aid to help our neighbors say we should stop business as usual and stand for justice for our schools, our neighbors, and our communities.

We should reject the notion that things like fighting for equitable and enriching public education, defending LGBTQIA folks, and trying to stop ICE from carrying out their bullying raids, kidnapping, and murder is something that is distant political work only to be carried out in governmental buildings.

By calling for May 1 to be a Day of Civic Action–that yes, would close schools for a day–Chicago teachers are providing the opportunity for learning important lessons about what it means to participate in a democratic society, what it means to play an active role in trying to make the world better, what it means to use your voice, and what it means to stand up together in community and solidarity. These lessons are impactful, educational, and, I would argue, vital. There is a call for similar actions taking place in cities around the country.

The Tribune editorial condescendingly argues otherwise, absurdly claiming that Chicago’s teachers are “one of the greatest threats to public education” because one day of missed traditional instruction would critically damage our kids’ education and that any advocacy around education should only be done in distant “legislatures” and government buildings. Given this mindset, I am glad that the Tribune editorial board is not teaching my child. The notion that Chicago’s kids are one day away from failure is profoundly pessimistic, and we should reject the notion that things like fighting for equitable and enriching public education, defending LGBTQIA folks, and trying to stop ICE from carrying out their bullying raids, kidnapping, and murder is something that is distant political work only to be carried out in governmental buildings.

On the contrary, we should seek to instill in our kids and in our communities the conviction that we all have a role to play and that we can make change and better the world collectively, together. Indeed, as we know from all the movements for justice in this country that the Tribune editorial board may have missed in history class, this indeed is what it always takes to change the world. At this current historical moment, with the nightmare of Trump’s actions and policies swirling around us, it is urgent that Chicago’s teachers are joining with others around the country to say now is the moment, and that we can all participate–indeed we should participate–in raising our voice and playing an active role in history.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Environmental Protection Agency; modified by Tempest.

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termasuk dalam sektor hiburan daring seperti SEXYGEMING. Dalam beberapa tahun terakhir, tren ini menunjukkan peningkatan signifikan, didorong oleh kemajuan teknologi serta perubahan perilaku pengguna yang semakin mengutamakan kecepatan dan keamanan dalam mengakses layanan.

Berdasarkan pengamatan di lapangan, para pemain kini tidak lagi hanya mencari hiburan semata. Mereka mulai selektif dalam memilih platform yang mampu memberikan pengalaman stabil, respons cepat, dan perlindungan data yang terjamin. Hal ini menjadi faktor penting yang mendorong kompetisi antar penyedia layanan semakin ketat.

Dari sisi, banyak pengguna mengaku lebih nyaman menggunakan platform yang memiliki tampilan sederhana namun responsif. Akses yang cepat tanpa hambatan teknis menjadi nilai tambah utama. Selain itu, fitur navigasi yang jelas membantu pemain menghemat waktu saat mencari permainan favorit mereka.

Dalam aspek, para pengembang platform SEXYGEMING terus berinovasi dengan menghadirkan sistem yang lebih canggih. Mereka memanfaatkan teknologi enkripsi serta optimalisasi server agar mampu menangani lonjakan pengguna tanpa mengorbankan performa. Keahlian ini terlihat dari kemampuan platform dalam menjaga kestabilan layanan, bahkan saat jam sibuk.

Sementara itu, juga semakin terlihat melalui kehadiran platform-platform yang telah dikenal luas oleh komunitas pemain. Reputasi yang baik biasanya dibangun dari konsistensi layanan, transparansi sistem, serta dukungan pelanggan yang responsif. Pemain cenderung memilih layanan yang sudah memiliki rekam jejak jelas dibandingkan yang belum terbukti.

Di sisi lain, faktor menjadi kunci utama dalam pertumbuhan industri ini. Pemain kini lebih waspada terhadap risiko keamanan digital. Oleh karena itu, mereka lebih memilih platform yang menyediakan sistem perlindungan data, metode transaksi aman, serta kebijakan privasi yang transparan. Kepercayaan ini tidak terbentuk secara instan, melainkan melalui pengalaman penggunaan yang positif secara berkelanjutan.

Menariknya, tren terbaru menunjukkan bahwa akses melalui perangkat mobile semakin mendominasi. Kemudahan bermain kapan saja dan di mana saja membuat pemain lebih aktif. Hal ini mendorong penyedia layanan untuk terus mengoptimalkan versi mobile agar tetap ringan, cepat, dan aman digunakan.

Dengan semua perkembangan ini, industri SEXYGEMING diprediksi akan terus tumbuh dalam beberapa tahun ke depan. Namun, pemain tetap perlu bijak dalam memilih platform. Akses cepat memang penting, tetapi keamanan dan kepercayaan harus tetap menjadi prioritas utama.

Sebagai penutup, perubahan perilaku pemain telah mendorong industri ini ke arah yang lebih profesional dan kompetitif. Platform yang mampu menjawab kebutuhan akan kecepatan dan keamanan akan bertahan, sementara yang tidak mampu beradaptasi perlahan akan ditinggalkan.

Deeper Grounds, Darker Shadows is the remarkable memoir of Eddie L. Quitoriano, a Filipino revolutionary who traveled across four different continents to find support for the struggle in his home-country. A book filled with stories of subterfuge and encounters with outlaws and dictators, it sheds new light on the history of the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the limitations of its revolutionary strategy.

Starting in 1986, for around eight years Quitoriano’s revolutionary work was essentially that of an international networker. After moving out of the Philippines, Quitoriano was based largely in a safe house in Belgrade, in former Yugoslavia. Attempting to find support for the CPP, he visited a large number of countries, including Nicaragua, Syria, North-Korea and Cuba.

Comrades from Japan

One of the surprising revelations made by Quitoriano concerns the extent of his cooperation with the Japanese Red Army (JRA), and its leader Fusako Shigenobu. The JRA is today best known for the 1972 Lod attack when three JRA members opened fire on people in the waiting area of what is now Ben Gurion International Airport. The attack was carried out in cooperation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and this cooperation of Japanese and Palestinian militants drew considerable attention. But since 2001, when Shigenobu announced the dissolving of the JRA from prison, the organisation had largely been forgotten.

One could wonder what the JRA had to offer the CPP. The JRA was an “urban guerilla group” with at most dozens of members. The CPP, when it was at its height in the 1980s, was a movement with tens of thousands of cadres and a mass base numbering in the millions. Its armed wing, the New People’s Army or NPA had thousands of full-time combatants and could mobilize many thousands more in its militia.

But the JRA could offer international contacts, and this is what the CPP was lacking. Founded in 1968, the CPP declared it was “very fortunate” to be close to China, the “iron bastion of socialism.” But after the CPP, in the early 1970s, botched attempts to ship weapons to the NPA from China, material support ceased and by the mid-1980s the Chinese government was referring to Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos as an “old friend.” Just when the CPP seemed to become a serious contender for power, it found itself isolated internationally.

In April 1986, Quitoriano met Shigenobu in an apartment in Manila where she offered to help in establishing international contacts. It was the JRA who initiated the relationship with the CPP, through a member of a Japanese solidarity group. It was largely because of the support of the JRA and Fusako Shigenobu that Quitoriano could play the role of international emissary for the CPP. Shigenobu supplied Quitoriano with forged documents, cash, practical advice and contacts. The way that Quitoriano tells the story, the JRA had decided to shift from undertaking armed attacks to focus on facilitating international links between armed groups in the service of “world revolution.”

Only months before this meeting, in February 1986, Ferdinand Marcos had been overthrown in a popular uprising. This followed years of a deepening crisis of the regime after the 1983 assignation of Benigno Aquino, a leader of the bourgeois opposition. This crisis of the Marcos regime opened up new possibilities for growth of the CPP.

The myth of people’s war

To understand Quitoriano’s international travels one needs to consider the CPP’s strategy of “protracted people’s war.” The PPW was supposed to be structured in three stages. It would start with small armed propaganda squads in the countryside and limited hit-and-run attacks. Gradually and systematically the NPA would organize support and recruit fighters to “accumulate the strength to win bigger battles and campaigns to be able to move up to a higher stage of the war.” In this second stage, “the strategic stalemate”, the NPA would incorporate elements of regular warfare and its “strength shall be more or less on an equal footing with the enemy’s.” The third stage would be “the strategic offensive, when the enemy shall have been profoundly weakened.”

The PPW strategy posited that revolution in the Philippines would be an essentially military struggle. The populist rhetoric about “serving the people” did not change the fact that the CPP’s vision of revolution was never a process of self-emancipation but rather a substitutionist seizure of power by the party on behalf of “the people.” For the CPP, this strategy was the immediate consequence of its analysis of the Philippine social formation. The Philippines was assumed to be a country in which imperialism had locked social-economic development in a ‘semi-feudal’ stage, and the masses of landless peasants, born of that economic stagnation, were to be the base of the people’s army.

As the regime went into crisis and the movement grew, the limitations of this strategy became clear. On Mindanao, the large island in the south of the Philippine archipelago, there were more recruits than weapons. And to move from the first to the second stage, the fighters needed the kind of weapons that would allow them to engage government forces in longer battles. Quitoriano shows the NPA’s dilemma in a chapter describing an attack by the NPA. After combining several units, the NPA ambushed an army transport. Well executed, the attack was initially successful and the guerrillas pinned down the government forces. But as soon as the government troops received reinforcements, the guerrillas were forced to retreat. Armed with nothing more than rifles, the NPA fighters were no match for a single armored vehicle.

Without shoes

At the time of this attack, Quitoriano had been a party member for several years. He grew up in Misamis Oriental in northeastern Mindanao and was born in a farmer’s family of small land-owners. Although considered better off because they owned their land, life was difficult. But Quitoriano was able to attend school and for college he entered a seminary. It is through Church circles that Quitoriano became politicized in the seventies. Initially, he was associated with the Khi Rho, a group of Catholic social-democrats. But the radical ideas propounded by the CPP and its satellite organizations became influential in progressive Catholic circles and Quitoriano ended up joining the armed struggle. There was no dramatic moment of radicalization or of opting for Maoism. For someone of his social background, this process of radicalization and the importance of progressive Catholicism was not atypical.

In the first part of Deeper Grounds, Darker Shadows Quitoriano narrates his years as a party member in the Philippines, describing his joining the armed struggle as well as his arrest, imprisonment and torture. Quitoriano also introduces a recurring theme in the book; his ‘selfishness’ in wanting children while dedicating his life to the party, leaving his partner Agnes with the responsibility of caring for them. The CPP did not support families of those who worked full-time for the revolution. Such activists were expected to be able to organize the necessary support themselves. In practice this meant that many fell back on traditional patterns and women ended up carrying most of the burden of the care work that made the full time political engagement of men possible.

The first part of the book gives an insider view of the movement in the Philippines. In only six pages, the chapter ‘Way sapatos’, meaning ‘without shoes’, gives a fascinating picture of the early development of the NPA. The title refers to how upon joining the guerrilla, Quitoriano was told to get rid of ‘petty-bourgeois’ possessions like shoes and tooth-brush. Adopting a lifestyle that was poorer than many of the peasants they wanted to organize was propagandistically useful as it showed the revolutionaries’ selflessness and dedication. But local realities do not match the crude categories of Maoist “class analysis”, as was for example shown by a conversation with a leader of a indigenous community. After explaining to him the evils of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, Quitoriano and his comrade were politely asked, “who this Marcos was.” The community was so isolated that roaming wild boars were a more pressing issue.

“Way sapatos” also mentions a darker side to the NPA’s functioning. To gain the support of local people, the NPA needed to make itself useful. Like other NPA members, Quitoriano “assumed various roles”; “health worker, legal advisor, marriage counselor, soldier and political broker.” The NPA also “got rid” of “thieves, rapists, usurers and cattle rustlers.” In the absence of a prison system, “the accused would face capital punishment and burial in unmarked graves.” The cavalier way in which the NPA assumed the role of executioner would come back to haunt the movement in the “purges”that wrecked it in the eighties.

World traveler for the revolution

When Shigenobu offered to facilitate international travel for Quitoriano, his commander, Romulo “Rolly” Kinatanar did not hesitate for a second. After the 1977 arrest of the CPP’s first chairman and ideologue Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, a new leadership led the party to greater heights. Kintanar, who would be killed in 2003 by his former comrades, became the overall commander of the NPA and built an overall command structure. It was Kintanar who asked Quitoriano to join this “general command” and gave him the blessing to travel abroad.

Whether Quitoriano visited the North-Korean Workers Party, Muammar Gaddafi, the Nicaraguan Sandinistas or Palestinian organizations sheltered by Syria, his pitch was the same: the NPA was fighting a U.S.-backed government, so any support they could give would weaken a common enemy. As a representative of the NPA’s “general command”, Quitoriano was not in a position to discuss political links. Quitoriano portrays himself as a loyal soldier, carrying out his assignment. But when describing the Byzantine worship of the Kim dynasty in North-Korea or Gaddafi’s insistence that it is necessary to target the children of the enemy, it is clear what Quitoriano’s feelings are.

The concrete results of Quitoriano’s travels were modest, or even useless, like the Libyans training NPA-members to drive tanks they did not have. Already in the late Cold War years, it was difficult to find a power that was willing and able to provide decisive support to the NPA.

On paper, the CPP was a monolithic organization. Reality was more complicated. The archipelagic character of the country and the poor infrastructure made it difficult to concentrate forces but also provided the NPA with opportunities to evade government troops. The CPP adopted what it called “centralized leadership and decentralized operations.” Cadre were responsible for specific regions and had to implement a “general line” decided upon by the top leadership but to a large degree they were left to their own devices. They could go for months or sometimes even years without contact with the central leadership. Command structures often had an improvised character. The NPA was supposed to be led by a military commission but this commission was never convened. Kintanar instead formed the “general command” from people he picked.

When, after his release from prison in 1986, Sison again became party chairperson, he attempted to assert his authority over the NPA. But by this time, Sison was in exile in the Dutch city of Utrecht. According to Quitoriano, Kintanar “worked hard to enable Sison to return home with his safety and security assured.” But Sison was “unwilling, preferring Utrecht’s safe distance from the Philippine military.” The result was deepening resentment between the two and conflicts over authority.

Kintanar was first of all a soldier trying to address the question of how to move from one phase of “people’s war” to another, a move that required specific skills and resources. The party’s ideology was of little help here. It assumed that the growth of popular support and NPA military strength would correspond to each other in a process of linear development. The inspiration for this was a mythologized view of the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions, one that did not, among other factors, recognize the role of insurrections, foreign support, as well as international solidarity, and diplomacy.

In the early 1980s the development of the revolutionary movement threw up questions that could not be addressed by the stereotyped notions of the Protracted Peoples’ War. Urban protests and the mass movement outpaced predictions. And especially after the so-called “green revolution”, the capitalist character of social relations in the country-side became more pronounced. The growth of a rural proletariat accelerated. Some activists, such as the head of the party’s Mindanao commission, Edgar Jopson, tried to develop alternative strategic notions. Rather than seeing the rural guerrilla as, per PPW definition, “the highest form of struggle” the role of mass struggles, legal work and urban insurrections was re-evaluated.

The principle of “centralized leadership and decentralized operations” allowed a considerable degree of pluralism in practice but experiences that contradicted the PPW-strategy did not lead to a change in the party’s orientation. The leadership rather tried to force the analysis of developments in the PPW framework. The PPW orthodoxy was not working out, but neither was an alternative strategy elaborated for the party.

Things fall apart

In January 2003, two gunmen killed Kintanar inside a restaurant. The CPP claimed responsibility, declaring a “people’s court” had sentenced Kinatanar to the “maximum penalty” a decade earlier. Arrested in 1991, Kintanar had not rejoined the movement after his 1992 release. According to the CPP, Kintanar had been working for the government. The assination of Kintanar was part of a series of killings by the CPP of former members and other leftists.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a debate about strategy began to take place but this was cut short when Sison and his faction, supporters of Maoist orthodoxy and PPW, began expelling those they disagreed with. In 1992, Sison sent a statement to Philippine newspapers accusing Kintanar and others of being enemy agents.

Quitoriano portrays Jose Maria Sison as arrogant and out of his depth in international exchanges, a judgment that corresponds with that of others. On the other hand, Quitoriano admires Kintanar, stressing his bravery and integrity. But some of Kintanar’s decisions show questionable political instincts. According to Quitoriano, the NPA’s 1987 announcement of a coming “general offensive” was a ruse, an attempt to distract the government army during an ultimately failed attempt by the NPA at bringing in weapons from North Korea. But what were the costs in terms of morale and credibility of announcing an offensive that never came? The single-minded pursuit of material resources also motivated what Quitoriano describes as “diving deep in the pernicious shadow economy”; to “encourage more daring” efforts by militants, they were given “incentives”; “they could use part of their loot – cars, houses, guns and entertainment – as long as these things were justified as part of their operations.” Such practices damaged the revolutionaries’ credibility.

In the end, it was the search for financial resources that would be the end of Quitoriano’s revolutionary engagement. One of the concrete results of Quitoriano’s travels was a gift of one million dollars from Gaddafi. Quitoriano describes how this money became mixed up with forged dollars supplied through the JRA. When a Dutch contact tried to deposit the sum in Swiss bank accounts, the forged bills were detected. The Dutch intermediary was arrested, the party lost access to over a million dollars. In the Netherlands, the affair triggered a scandal over the use of development aid to funnel money to armed revolutionaries. Quitoriano, whose association with Kintanar already made him suspect in Sison’s eyes, was held responsible for the debacle.

The book closes with an epilogue looking back at the purges mentioned before. Although Quitoriano was not involved directly, he does well not to ignore this horrible episode. At several points during the 1980s, CPP leaders became convinced that setbacks of the movement could be explained only as the result of sabotage from within. This led to hunts for so-called “deep penetration agents.” Not only were suspects assumed to be guilty, torture was frequently used to make them “confess” the names of co-conspirators. Predictably, this led to snowballing accusations as terrified victims said whatever they assumed their tormentors wanted to hear. Such “confessions” were sufficient reason to murder people. Especially in Mindanao, the movement “mutilated itself.” Well over 1000 people were murdered by their own comrades.

Deeper Grounds, Darker Shadows could be read as a morality tale. What started out as a heroic endeavor by shoeless guerrillas who as a kind of militant mendicant monks wanted to serve the people, ended up in criminal affairs and fratricidal murder. But such an interpretation would leave out other aspects, equally essential to the history Quitoriano describes. For example, how armed struggle, with all its demands, was essential to maintain resistance against the Marcos regime, even if the specific strategy of the People’s War turned out to be a dead end. The CPP rose to be a mass movement, driven forward by ordinary people fighting for a better life for the poor and oppressed. Its successes, its failure and also its crimes are part of the development of the Philippine Left and need to be kept in mind by those working for a socialist alternative.

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