Canada, the living hell you don't know about, "a monstrous prison we choose to live in"

 

Carney’s Empty Words in Davos as a Cover-Up for Western Barbarism

 

By Ray ​​Achison: The Canadian Prime Minister’s speech in Davos failed to mention the West’s contribution to the destruction of international law, human rights violations, and inequality

 

On January 20, 2026, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared the death of the so-called rules-based international order. In a speech praised by many, Carney urged countries to stop complying with hegemonic regimes, to stop hoping for a return to the past, and instead to build new coalitions to survive what lies ahead.

 

But the Prime Minister’s speech lacked an honest reflection on the contribution of Canada and other major powers (or “middle powers,” as they are now called) to the destruction of international law, human rights violations, and global inequality. These governments screwed up, and now they are realizing it. They emboldened the US to reach its current position, supporting and facilitating its rise for so long because it suited their interests. Many "middle powers" also colonized other countries, extracting wealth, resources, and labor from the Global South and overthrowing democratically elected leaders in those countries in favor of those willing to serve the imperial core.

 

Now, these same "middle powers" are discovering what it means to be on the other side of the equation. To be the ones threatened with economic assimilation being weaponized against them, with tariffs being imposed on them, with their governments being overthrown, and with their countries being invaded and occupied.

 

Recognizing their own crimes and privileges is essential if the governments of these countries want to build meaningful and lasting coalitions that truly protect people and the planet, and not just serve their own short-term interests. If the “middle powers” ​​do not want to suffer what they have done to others, these countries must take seriously the construction of alternatives, led by the Global South and the populations that have been harmed by their 

 past actions.

 

Recognizing reality as a “radical act”

 

The fundamental admission in Carney’s speech, which highlights the farce of the rules-based order, is a good starting point. “We knew that the story of the rules-based international order was partly false,” he stated. “That the strongest would get away with it when it suited them. That trade rules were applied asymmetrically. And we knew that international law was applied more or less rigorously depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”

 

He said that this fiction was useful (he omitted for whom, but it was useful for imperialist countries like Canada), but that it no longer works. Instead of pretending that the rules-based order works as advertised, Carney urged states to “call it what it is: a system that intensifies great power rivalry, in which the most powerful pursue their interests using economic assimilation as a weapon of coercion.”

 

Proclaiming that the world faces a breakdown, he noted that “great powers” ​​are using economic assimilation as a weapon and tool of subjugation. In banking parlance, he urged countries to “diversify” their alliances, make “collective investments in resilience,” and embrace “values-based realism.” He announced that Canada would seek “different coalitions on different issues based on shared values ​​and interests.” He specifically urged so-called middle-power countries to join, noting that “if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” Most importantly, he said, these states must act consistently, “applying the same standards to allies and rivals.”

 

However important this admission and the calls for coalition building may be, beneath the rhetoric lies a call for countries to redouble their efforts regarding capitalism, resource extraction, free trade, artificial intelligence, and militarism. It is a call to strengthen neoliberalism under the pretext of combating fascism, even though these are the very options that have led to the imperialist international order that Carney claims to oppose.

 

Integrated Militarism

 

Let's start with militarism. Carney stated in Davos that he will double Canada's military spending by the end of the decade. Last year, he announced a military budget of 81.8 billion Canadian dollars (about 50.6 billion euros) for the next five years. Although he advised countries in Davos not to "build fortresses," it appears his government is investing in precisely that. Doubling the military budget is not enough to deter a US invasion; the Canadian military recently simulated a response to a US attack on Canada, predicting that US forces would crush "strategic assets" at "lightning speed." The Canadian military stated that it would have to resort to unconventional warfare inspired by the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, as well as guerrilla warfare by armed civilians. It is assumed that the fighting would last for decades.

 

What Carney also failed to mention in Davos is the fact that the Canadian military and intelligence services are deeply intertwined with the US. US troops are stationed in Canada at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) bases. Canada is part of the Five Eyes alliance, an intelligence-sharing coalition comprised of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. Of course, there is also the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), toward which the Trump administration has been openly hostile, but which has historically complied with US directives regarding the bombing of other countries, hosting US nuclear weapons, participating in war games, escalating tensions with Russia, and spending ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer money on arms and war (all members except Spain recently agreed to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on militarism).

 

Like Canada, the rest of NATO has been thoroughly militarized by Washington. The US has troops stationed at at least 38 military bases across Europe. It has around 100 nuclear weapons stationed on five of its bases. This makes the European stance of not wanting to cede European territory to the US somewhat ironic, since large swathes of European land already belong to the US.

 

Canada and the European members of NATO also have significant investments in American arms companies. Canada hosts manufacturing plants for Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and others. The Canadian military buys billions of dollars' worth of weapons from the US and continues to do so. Canada is a key partner in the US F-35 fighter jet program, one of the weapons systems for which Canada has been supplying parts and components to Israel for its genocide of Palestinians. The same is true for many European NATO members and other "middle powers."

 

Canada's Complicity and Crimes

 

All this entanglement leads us to the importance of recognizing the role each has played in the current situation. If Carney is serious about forging new alliances based on trust and equality, he should acknowledge that Canada, under his leadership and that of previous administrations, was not a passive observer of the rules-based order. Canada did not simply “hang a sign in the window,” as he suggests in his speech. Canada actively participated in violating international law for economic gain, applying the rules asymmetrically to benefit itself and its allies.

 

For example, the Canadian government helped the US invade and occupy Afghanistan; pretended not to support the invasion of Iraq, even though it actually aided and abetted it; helped stage a coup in Haiti; provided money and weapons to the neo-fascist dictatorship in Ukraine; and has helped overthrow governments and destabilize societies in Latin America in places where its companies own mines.

 

The erosion of international law does not stem solely from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US invasion of Venezuela, or the threats against Greenland. Canada has been a full and active partner in violating the very norms it helped establish, particularly through its continued arms shipments to Israel. Canada has been a consistent partner of Israel in its genocide of the Palestinians, in violation of the Genocide Convention, the Geneva 

 

Conventions, the Arms Trade Treaty, and other international agreements.

 

The Canadian government has also violently suppressed any opposition to its complicity in the genocide. Police evicted student encampments at universities, arrested activists for criticizing the Israeli regime online, criminalized solidarity actions and marches, conducted unannounced nighttime raids on the homes of activists accused of damaging the property of complicit institutions, and predawn raids on others who allegedly organized blockades of weapons factories.

 

In Davos, Carney spoke grandly of Canada as “a pluralistic society that works,” where “the public square is loud, diverse, and free.” In reality, the public square is shrinking and becoming increasingly criminalized. It is not only anti-genocide activists who are threatened. The Canadian government has repeatedly deployed its most militarized police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), to unceded Indigenous lands to violently arrest First Nations organizers and activists for protecting land, water, and forests from fossil fuel extraction. The RCMP, whose precursor was formed to commit genocide in the early days of the expanding colonial state, is now deployed by the federal government to protect the interests of fossil fuel companies.

 

This makes Carney’s boasts about Canada’s critical energy and mineral resources especially troubling. Canada already extracts oil from Alberta’s tar sands—the dirtiest form of oil extraction in the world—for which Carney recently granted Alberta’s far-right premier permission to build a new pipeline in what activists have called the “sale of the century” and a “shocking betrayal of federal commitments on climate change and Indigenous rights.” Canada also extracts gas and coal from British Columbia, uranium from Saskatchewan, and much more. Carney’s celebration of environmentally devastating artificial intelligence and Canada’s status as an “energy superpower” and possessor of “vast reserves of critical minerals” is a stark warning about the future he envisions for Canadians and the planet. More extraction and mining, more energy use, more human rights abuses.

 

Canadian companies have a terrible human rights record in mining operations around the world. And Mining Watch Canada warns that “the way the metal-intensive energy transition is proceeding is fundamentally incompatible with respect for human rights globally.” It notes that “the rush for critical minerals is rapidly encroaching on sensitive environments, encroaching on Indigenous territories without their consent, further endangering the lives of human rights and environmental defenders, and violating the basic rights to health, clean air and water, and the safety and security of local communities.”

 

If Carney believes that increased mining activity will save the Canadian economy, it will inevitably lead to more human rights violations, including those related to freedom of expression. In addition to the violent crackdown on First Nations organizations, the Canadian government has also deported non-citizens for their climate activism. In this respect, Canada is in the midst of a crackdown on immigration. It has deported more than 400 people a week, mostly asylum seekers and refugees. The government states that it intends to deport even more people in 2026, despite the fact that doing so costs millions of dollars. This is what has become of Canada’s pluralistic society.

 

Building a New World Order

 

All of this means that the “solutions” Carney proposes against aggressive US imperialism will continue to harm people, continue to destroy the environment and exacerbate the climate crisis, continue to maintain a rigid hierarchy in international relations that privileges some at the expense of others, and continue to violate the human rights of activists, Indigenous peoples, migrants, and others. This is not standing up to a bully; it is becoming one.

 

Carney is right to say that the world needs global coalitions to prevent the Trump regime from crushing all those it decides it dislikes or wants to control. Carney is also right to say that countries need to “diversify” their allies. But we must go far beyond what his capitalist and extractive imagination allows.

 

On the one hand, Carney imagines that the US and other so-called great powers will act on their own. But that's not the plan, according to Trump's own National Security Strategy. His regime is interested in allying itself with other authoritarian states to control "spheres of influence" and jointly rule the world. His preferred partners are mafia capitalists and despotic megalomaniacs who fear women and queer people and think the world owes them something. These partners don't even have to be all white, which is especially unbelievable when you realize that part of the reason he's tearing apart his European allies is that their countries are no longer white enough for him. His new friends just have to have enough money and be repressive enough to play the game he wants to play.

 

These alliances of the worst of the worst are already forming, and anyone who wants to stand up to them needs to realize this. Because this also changes Carney's apparent calculation that "middle powers" simply need to stick together or form alliances with other economically powerful fascist states like China or India. In reality, "middle powers" must overcome their prejudices, acknowledge their contribution to the destruction of international norms, rules, and laws, and form coalitions with those they have harmed in the past. This is not about colonial relationships or condescending extractive agreements, but about genuine alliances.

 

There is no time for more Western domination. "Middle powers" must learn from countries that have suffered oppression under tyrannical states (most of them fostered and financed by these same powers). They must discover how to establish equitable and reciprocal economic and security relationships that are not based on extraction, imperialism, militarism, and violence. Relationships that prioritize the well-being of all people, not just those in the imperial core, and that guarantee the survival and health of the planet.

 

If Carney is willing to admit that the rules-based order was a sham, he shouldn't try to replicate it with other Western states, but rather build genuine solidarity with the rest of the world. He must decouple Canada from the US, not only economically, but also militarily. And he must defend international law, which, as he has acknowledged, the "middle powers" have only partially upheld.

 

Changing the Language

 

He must also stop calling countries "great powers" and "middle powers." We all must. These terms grant certain governments a status they don't deserve. The US, Saudi Arabia, and other countries with which the Trump regime wants to build an alliance of autocrats are not great powers. They are heavily militarized states seeking global dominance through violence. They are thugs.

 

Canada, European countries, and other colonial states that claim Western status regardless of their geography, such as Australia and New Zealand, are not middle powers. These are countries that plundered and exploited the Global South to build and maintain their economies at the expense of the vast majority of people and the planet. They are not in the middle; they are at the top, and only now are they experiencing the full weight of what it means to be subordinated to a hierarchy imposed by those more violent than themselves.

Equality means getting rid of the concepts of "big" and "middle" and the idea of ​​"power" in general, and calling things as they are. Power should not refer to economic or military force, but to what people can do together, in solidarity, to improve us all. May this rupture not be one that brings the world to its knees before the boot of violent thugs, but rather one that serves to build something that truly helps us all survive and thrive.

 

CounterPunch.org

 

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Canada, the living hell you don't know about, "a monstrous prison we choose to live in"

                           The Left Facing the Challenges of Quantum Super-Artificial Intelligence

By Ignacio Ramonet: We are living through a moment of great confusion, bewilderment, and multiple uncertainties. I'm not just talking about the brutal and repulsive geopolitical moment we are experiencing. No. I'm talking about what is happening to us in our daily lives as activists, academics, intellectuals, and left-wing individuals committed to the desire to build, each at their own level, a better, more egalitarian, more just, and more supportive world.

We are in a period of incredible unpredictability. Of hatred, indignity, and brutality, I repeat. We find it difficult to understand. Our conceptual tools are proving, in part, obsolete. We find it difficult to explain what is happening to us.

With caution, perhaps we could suggest that one of the causes of this current bewilderment is the new major technological disruption we are experiencing and which, once again, is disrupting the dominant communication model—that of social networks—to which we were already becoming accustomed, for better or for worse.

As I have often said: every major disruption in the field of communication inevitably leads to dysfunctions and breakdowns in the order of societies. And it puts a fundamental value in crisis: freedom.

Let's simply consider the decisive changes of all kinds that the invention of writing brought about; or the expansion of printing; or the emergence of the Internet...

My thesis is that we are experiencing one of these great disruptive shifts and that we must be ready to confront it. Because once again, what is at stake is fighting for our values ​​and our freedoms.

I. WHAT IS HAPPENING?

On October 7th of last year, the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three scientists—John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis—for having brought one of the strangest phenomena of the quantum world to a human scale: the tunnel effect.

Quantum tunneling occurs when a particle passes directly through a barrier that, according to classical physics, would be insurmountable. It's like throwing a ball against a wall and seeing it appear intact on the other side, without either the wall or the ball suffering the slightest damage. This phenomenon, which is fundamental to the operation of transistors—those tiny mechanisms that, integrated into microprocessors, make artificial intelligence algorithms possible—usually vanishes in larger systems. That's why we don't see people walking through walls in everyday life.

However, in a series of experiments conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, between 1984 and 1985, Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis demonstrated that the tunneling effect could manifest itself on larger scales. The three researchers designed electronic circuits based on superconductors, materials capable of conducting electric current without resistance.

By employing superconductivity—another of the most surprising properties of modern physics—these three scientists showed how, under certain conditions, nature can once again break the rules of common sense and give rise to emergent properties impossible to explain with a simple logic of linear cause and effect, but which can only be explained when the collective quantum effects of millions of atoms are taken into account.

With these discoveries, physics began to tame the peculiarities of the quantum world (which celebrates its centenary this year) and transform them into technological tools. This laid the foundation for current advances in quantum computing. It is no coincidence that both Devoret and Martinis have worked on Google's quantum computers, whose quantum chips are based on the discoveries of these scientists.

In fact, most of the current developments in commercial quantum processors and computers manufactured by Google, IBM, Microsoft, and other electronics companies are based on superconducting electronic quantum circuits made from what Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis developed.

With their discoveries, the three new Nobel laureates laid the foundations of the so-called second quantum revolution, that is, the transition from understanding quantum laws to exploiting them to create radically new technologies. Quantum computers—still under development and in the experimental phase, but already in existence—are machines capable of solving very complex tasks in a very short time. For example, Professor Martinis's team published a major breakthrough in the journal Nature. Their quantum computer, with only about one hundred qubits, outperformed the world's most powerful conventional supercomputer. It solved a task in 200 seconds, whereas the conventional supercomputer would have needed 10,000 years.

Quantum computing, in particular, enables the execution of advanced machine learning models and large language models, which are essential for developing artificial superintelligence.  Thus, the combination of quantum computing and artificial intelligence optimizes learning processes and generates new algorithms.

The union of artificial intelligence and quantum computing is radically transforming information and communication technologies (ICT) by allowing gigantic volumes of data to be analyzed and processed more efficiently in minimal time.

Quantum Artificial Superintelligence – Quantum AI – is defined as an emerging field of technology that combines the superpower of quantum computing with the increasingly spectacular functions of artificial intelligence. Some analysts compare this challenge to the "Manhattan Project," secretly launched in 1942 in the United States during World War II to develop the atomic bomb.

It is worth remembering that last year, two scientists—the American John J. Hopfield and the British Geoffrey E. Hinton—won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for their foundational work on artificial neural networks, which are the basis of machine learning and modern artificial intelligence. Their discoveries and inventions have made it possible to create computer systems capable of memorizing and learning from data to improve and accelerate the development of generative artificial intelligence patterns.

II. IN COMPETITION WITH HUMAN INTELLIGENCE

Generative AI is the great technological and communication revolution of the moment. It is capable of producing texts, images, videos, or audio from a series of user instructions. It is based on deep learning. This is a strategy within the field of AI that has gained relevance in the last decade and consists of applying algorithms to gigantic databases so that they extract patterns (models) with which to make predictions or decisions. As we know, AI learns from data. Data has become the strategic raw material of our time.

Learning processes are built on the basis of artificial neural networks. Just as the human brain is built with 86 billion neurons that make trillions of connections between them, an artificial neural network is built from thousands of network nodes that connect to each other.

AI is in competition with human intelligence. And it has been breaking down barriers. Initially, it was thought that AI could never defeat a human mind in the game of chess, due to the complexity and creativity of the game. But on May 11, 1997, IBM's Deep Blue computer defeated world champion Garry Kasparov.

Then it was said that AI would never defeat human intelligence in the game of Go, due to its exceptional complexity. Until, on March 12, 2016, the AlphaGo program, from Google's DeepMind subsidiary, defeated the world Go champion, South Korean Lee Sedol.

And now it is believed that AI could even win a Nobel Prize in Physics in less than ten years... Because, in principle, there is no problem for a machine to design another machine, for one system to generate another system, and so on until the first human contribution is nothing more than a distant memory...

Quantum AI is greatly reducing the time required for automatic training, the so-called deep learning, to understand and generate human language naturally.

These models are capable of performing tasks such as answering questions, translating, summarizing, writing code, and even generating creative content based on the instructions they receive. The main difference with other models is their large size, which allows them to capture complex nuances of language. Until recently, it took months or weeks to obtain this training. Currently, it only takes minutes to create new AI assistants highly specialized in different complex, technical, or even experimental topics; and for these—now chatbots—to respond instantly.

One of the most anticipated developments is the creation of new algorithms that, supported by quantum computing, will redefine—I repeat—the current Artificial Intelligence models. Just as the introduction of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) led to the rise of modern AI, quantum computing will open the door to revolutionary and previously unimaginable designs. And it will cause a spectacular acceleration of robotics in many fields (communication, finance, medicine, mechanical engineering, military industries, arts, research, weather forecasting).

 As new quantum algorithms proliferate, current AI will change radically. They will not only be faster, but they will also leverage the inherent advantages of quantum hardware. And this is happening NOW. We are experiencing a new technological breakthrough similar to what the invention of the Web, the modern Internet, represented in 1989.

III. TECHNOLOGICAL EMPIRES AND STRATEGIC ALLIANCES

In this regard, on September 22, 2025, the high-tech companies NVIDIA and OpenAI announced the signing of a letter of intent to establish a historic strategic alliance to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of new NVIDIA microprocessor systems for OpenAI's next-generation AI infrastructure. This infrastructure is intended to train and operate OpenAI's next generation of models, as a step toward the implementation of artificial superintelligence. It's worth remembering that Nvidia's new Blackwell microprocessors (whose export to China is banned by President Donald Trump) already boast computational performance between one hundred and one thousand times greater than other latest-generation digital processors…

On another note, what does "10 gigawatts of AI systems" mean? A gigawatt (GW) is a unit of power equivalent to 1,000 megawatts, or one billion watts. A single gigawatt can power more than 700,000 homes. The gigawatt is commonly used as a unit of measurement for large-scale power plants or electrical grids. For example, the Three Gorges Dam in China, considered the world's largest hydroelectric power plant, has an installed capacity of 22.5 GW. The Nvidia-OpenAI agreement thus represents almost half of the energy produced by the Three Gorges Dam…

To support this implementation, which includes the data center and energy capacity, NVIDIA plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as the new NVIDIA systems are deployed. The first phase is planned for the second half of 2026.

Nvidia is the leader in AI chips. It is the world's largest company by market capitalization, reaching (as of October 2025) $4.2 trillion (or 4.2 million million dollars), a figure never before achieved by any other company.

OpenAI is the creator of the popular ChatGPT. This year, the artificial intelligence company OpenAI has secured commitments for approximately $1 billion to ensure the necessary computing power to operate its AI models.

AI is becoming key for tech companies, but it's also forcing them to make massive investments. Over the past summer, the "Big Seven"—Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Oracle, and Tesla—announced increased investment, potentially reaching $400 billion annually.

These deals have triggered spectacular reactions on Wall Street. Oracle's market value, for example, jumped to $244 billion after its deal with OpenAI was announced last month. AMD's stock rose nearly 24%, increasing its market capitalization by $63 billion. Nvidia's stock has surged 3,000% since 2020.

The sheer volume of money invested has fueled rampant financial speculation. And many analysts fear that an "AI bubble" is forming and that its bursting could cause a financial crisis similar to the dot-com bubble of 2000.

In any case, OpenAI and its partners are betting on continued exponential growth in AI usage. The company expects to multiply its current revenue by $12 billion in the coming years by launching new products and doubling the number of paid subscribers on ChatGPT.

Silicon Valley giants are investing billions of dollars in AI-powered equipment. Companies are learning to use this equipment at breakneck speed because they know their future and survival depend on it.

Currently in the US, any company suspected of not quickly adopting AI is attacked on the stock market, as was the case with Accenture—a multinational professional services firm that offers management and technology advice to companies worldwide—with approximately 780,000 employees in some 50 countries. Its stock has lost a third of its value since the beginning of the year.

IV. THE MOTHER OF ALL TECHNOLOGIES

Remember that ChatGPT was launched on November 30, 2022, just three years ago. And today, ChatGPT has reached 800 million weekly active users, positioning itself as one of the most widely used artificial intelligence products in the world. This exponential growth reflects the ever-increasing interest in conversational AI.

 Despite this mountain of hundreds of billions of dollars invested in AI technologies in the United States, it's worth remembering that in China, DeepSeek surprised the world in January 2025 with its R1 AI agent and chatbot, achieved with minimal investment from a small company. This was dubbed the "Sputnik moment" of Artificial Intelligence.

Only two countries in the world dominate artificial intelligence technologies: the United States and China. Russia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the European Union are not participating in this race. And there is an open technological rivalry between Washington and Beijing over who will ultimately dominate AI, the mother of all technologies.

As we mentioned, Donald Trump is prohibiting the export of next-generation semiconductors and chips to China. And Beijing is limiting the export of rare earth elements, essential for semiconductor manufacturing, to the United States.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses many problems for our societies: ecological problems, discrimination, transparency issues, and more. In addition to the enormous risks of disinformation and manipulation through technologies like deepfakes, generative AI can create highly convincing simulated content that can be used to spread fake news, influence elections, and damage reputations.

Other challenges include data privacy, cybersecurity, technological dependence, and ethical dilemmas surrounding autonomy, the "humanization" of machines, and the use of AI in areas such as lethal weapons.

The proliferation of data centers housing AI servers generates waste from electrical and electronic equipment. Furthermore, they rely on critical minerals and rare elements that are often mined unsustainably (such as coltan). And they consume massive amounts of electricity, which emits more greenhouse gases that warm the planet and accelerate climate change. Current AI requires a massive and constantly growing energy infrastructure to operate as large-scale AI models improve. A recent report (The Shift Project) showed that data center electricity needs could triple by 2030, which also implies a 9% annual increase in greenhouse gas emissions…

Furthermore, artificial intelligence (AI) is significantly impacting our lives at a time when we already suffer from excessive dependence on technology. And when we already have a serious problem with the general misuse of these technologies.

V. THE LEFT AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Regarding new technologies, we must admit that many of us on the left have a problem with emerging technologies.

There is an old and widespread tendency to confuse technology with the capitalist system and with the particular matrix of power relations in which it develops.

In this sense, AI is sometimes analyzed as a completely negative phenomenon within the context of capitalist social relations: a set of technologies deployed by the ruling class in its own interest to degrade and replace human labor.

For some on the left, AI simply becomes a substitute for oligarchs, platform capitalism, or the surveillance state—in other words, a pile of evil garbage that must be rejected.

Therefore, regarding Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), it is worth remembering that, throughout the revolutionary struggle, Fidel Castro in Cuba always gave them priority. From the very triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel's ability to stay abreast of the latest advances in information, communication, and telecommunications technologies was evident. Fidel clearly understood the need to make these advances available for Cuba's development.

Thus, in the mid-1960s, the training of personnel in the field of computing within Higher Education gained momentum. The teaching of computer science also constituted a national strategy from the first half of the 1970s. During a visit to the Digital Research Center (CID), affiliated with the University of Havana, in 1972, Fidel Castro stated: “Comrades, I have come here after seeing that computer—referring to the IRIS 50—to ask you to make many computers so that the people, the students, can have access to them, study them, and learn about computing. We are a country without natural resources; but we have a very important resource: the intelligence of the Cuban people, and we must develop it. Computing achieves that, and I am convinced that Cubans have a special intelligence for mastering computing.”

 Fidel Castro encouraged the Young Computer and Electronics Club program, which began on September 8, 1987. He commented that "a society that does not prepare itself for the use of computers is doomed."

In 1996, Fidel Castro secured internet access for Cuba despite the embargo. And within the framework of the numerous programs of the Battle of Ideas, he promoted the use of ICTs in Cuba. Internet access increased, and the University of Computer Sciences (UCI) was inaugurated in 2002.

It is also important to consider that Karl Marx argued that technology does not develop under capitalism to improve society or to "ease labor," but rather to produce surplus value or profits for capital. Therefore, Marx said, capital will not use technology unless it can perform tasks more cheaply than the cheapest available labor.

From this perspective, it should be clear that capital today has a strong interest in automating the high cost of technical and professional labor—that is, the forms of work seemingly most vulnerable to the current disruption caused by AI.

VI. A JOB APOCALYPSE

The most feared consequences that AI could have on our societies primarily concern the labor market. And this is setting off alarm bells. Some experts are already talking about a “job apocalypse.” Because many studies warn of the likelihood that AI and “intellectual robots” will replace tens of millions of jobs.

In many cases, AI will tend to replace the intellectual work of human beings. In advanced economies, around 60% of jobs may be affected by AI. All repetitive tasks will inexorably be replaced by AI.

According to some UN studies, 980 million jobs worldwide will be affected in some way by new AI technology within a year. That's 28% of the global workforce.

We are facing gigantic changes, on a scale similar to those that followed the 19th-century Industrial Revolution. This is an industrial revolution that is growing exponentially. "AI is going to literally replace half of all US executives," declared Jim Farley, president of Ford, for example. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, the world's number one customer relationship management (CRM) company, recently stated: "AI is allowing us to gain 30% more productivity in engineering. We're no longer going to hire programmers. That job is now done by AI. We are the last employers to manage only humans." From now on, we will have to manage both humans and AI creatures.

The prospect of widespread automation of "mental," "intellectual," or "cognitive" work could initiate a process of "proletarianization" of the "professional-managerial class," or at least a segment of it.

Even if these workers eventually move to new sectors, the transition will not always be easy and could be politically unstable (as we saw in the deindustrialized Rust Belt regions of the United States, plagued by high unemployment, which voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump).

AI could strike directly at the heart of one of the main sources of capitalist stability for over a century: the relatively stable middle-class workers, corporate and banking executives who enjoy decent wages and a degree of autonomy at work, and who (for the most part) consider their interests to be aligned with those of capital.

Other analysts describe OpenAI and other powerful players in new technologies as empires: during colonialism, empires seized territories and extracted resources, exploited subjugated labor, and projected racist and dehumanizing ideas of their own superiority and modernity to justify exploitation and the imposition of their world order. The metaphor is quite apt. However, they also maintain that, at this crucial moment, it is still possible to "regain control over the future of this technology."

AI could radically transform the relationship between labor and capital, and how we live, work, and think. This struggle could shape the landscape of capitalism for decades to come.

Thinkers, social theorists, and trade unionists will be needed just as much as economists, technological visionaries, or computer experts.

Without a left that seriously considers actively shaping the future of AI, we will be forced to merely react to a dark future created by the tech oligarchs.

VII. SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOW RIGHT-WING

The reality is that, as we've said, with this acceleration of AI, social media will be able to manipulate and spread misinformation more effectively.

 On September 4th, Donald Trump met at the White House with some thirty leading oligarchs from the major US tech giants (excluding Elon Musk): the Big Tech companies. They discussed the need to "Americanize" TikTok. And, in fact, TikTok has now shifted to the right. The world's fastest-growing social network, and the most popular among young people, will finally operate in the US as a separate company from its Chinese parent, but with a board of directors controlled by the White House. TikTok is a platform particularly popular among those under 30, and serves as a conduit for ideas and messages to a segment of the population largely untouched by other media. In Spain, for example, Vox has around 750,000 followers on TikTok, more than double the combined following of the PSOE (150,000), Sumar (85,000), and PP (70,000).

TikTok is the latest major social network to take this conservative turn. Facebook and Instagram already did this when, shortly after Trump won the election in November 2014, their owner, Mark Zuckerberg, became a supporter of the MAGA movement. Two years earlier, Elon Musk transformed Twitter into X, a platform whose algorithm gives special visibility to racist, misleading, or far-right candidate-supporting posts from around the world.

Now all the major social media platforms in the United States are controlled by the right. Large digital platforms have ceased to be merely technology companies: they are political actors with a clear bias, an extension of state power. The fact that they are now largely controlled by ultraconservatives means that these sectors have understood that social media and its formidable capacity to redefine global communication and conversation have been, and continue to be, indispensable tools in their conquest of power.

VIII. ISRAEL AND HASBARA

At the beginning of last October, in New York, during a debate about the need to "Americanize" TikTok, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of influencers that social media is the "most important weapon" and that controlling TikTok was "crucial." At that meeting, Netanyahu added: “The most decisive purchase currently underway is that of TikTok… I hope it goes through because it could be pivotal… Weapons change over time, and today the most important ones are social media.”

Netanyahu knows what he’s talking about. Because his propaganda services have massively used social media to defend their pro-Israel stance on the world stage. Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza is a stark example of the strategic mobilization of the information space in support of military operations.

Israel has integrated the information dimension into its strategy to try to convince international public opinion of the legitimacy of its actions.

The information battle, the struggle for meaning, cognitive warfare, and the imposition of a dominant narrative have become fundamental strategic elements in contemporary military operations. The efforts made at the political level to justify Israel’s war crimes and its position regarding Palestine are part of what Israelis call hasbara. Hasbara is situated at the midpoint. A path between public diplomacy and propaganda.

In recent years, hasbara (public relations) has been the responsibility of different administrations in Israel. It was even given its own ministry, tasked with strategic coordination and media relations.

In 2025, the Foreign Ministry requested a budget of $150 million for propaganda; it also convened dozens of NGOs involved in hasbara for a conference with the mission of defining the objectives of the "pro-Israeli information war."

The Ministry of Defense also participates in these discussions. The Israeli army enjoys considerable autonomy in this regard, due to the role played by the Army Spokesperson's Unit. With a 24-hour newsroom and a staff of over a thousand, it handles operational communications and responds to inquiries from domestic and foreign journalists.

The NGO StandWithUs, for example, has been involved in Israeli public diplomacy since 2001. Funded by the state, it is one of the most prominent Zionist organizations. Influential, with more than 18 offices worldwide and an annual budget exceeding $25 million.

Among the Israeli civil society initiatives supporting regime propaganda, the NGO Israeli Spirit was one of the first to emerge after October 7, 2023.

 It has approximately 25,000 volunteers to carry out defensive information operations, particularly against Hamas. It was also the first to create databases on Google Drive with narratives for mass dissemination on social media. This organization was quickly structured and found support from the Israeli government.

The Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF) brings together more than 20,000 reserve officers and commanders, as well as veterans of the Israeli army. Through the B&K agency, specializing in strategic communication at the European Union level, it has contacted hundreds of researchers from European think tanks and research institutes to present them with Israeli narratives.

To this end, the Forum has produced weekly reports and provided the identified researchers with informational videos and documentary material.

IX. HOW DOES DISINFORMATION WORK TODAY?

Artificial intelligence algorithms promote what captures the most attention from social media content consumers because it generates more revenue through advertising sales. In this regard, all studies show that far-right messages provoke far more interactions and controversy, both for and against, which leads algorithms to reinforce and promote this right-wing content. It is estimated that 62% of the information circulating on social media is false. Even worse, 70% of those who receive this false information share it without verifying it.

By promoting hatred against women, immigrants, and the LGBTQ+ community, by appealing to the most visceral passions of the public—violence and insults—the business model of major social media platforms is directly linked to the ability of Donald Trump and the far right worldwide to mobilize their voters.

Discourses that were once marginal are becoming normalized, polarization is amplified, and a sense of distrust toward the press, democracy, politics, institutions, and science is fueled. This creates a media landscape where disinformation and conspiracy theories circulate more freely. It is a trend that transforms social media into ideological battlegrounds and weakens the common space for dialogue that democratic societies need.

The TikTok case shows us that Donald Trump will continue to invoke National Security to interfere with and control citizens' public lives, laying the groundwork for a shift toward authoritarianism and political surveillance of the content of free media, which eliminates any semblance of a free internet.

With this situation, the risk to the still-free media is greater than ever.

This is no exaggeration: for the past few weeks, Google has introduced automated summaries (AI overviews) in its search results. These show an extract of content from multiple sources directly on the results page, without requiring the user to click to read the full article.

According to several studies, these summaries are causing significant drops in click-through rates to the original articles on news websites.

This isn't just happening with digital media: forums, social networks, and sites like Wikipedia are also experiencing the decline. Studies indicate that only 1% of users of AI summaries end up reaching the original source.

Just when we had changed our way of working to adapt to Google, they're changing the rules of the game again.

In mid-October, Google went even further, activating AI Mode in its search engine for Europe. Since the rise of AI, Google searches have fallen for the first time. Wikipedia is in freefall. Now OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, announces it will launch its own AI-powered web browser. Google Chrome's reign is beginning to decline…

In short, readers, finding what they're looking for directly in the AI-generated summary, no longer feel the need to visit the original page. And for media outlets, this poses a double problem: on the one hand, a loss of advertising or subscription revenue, because without traffic generated from search engines, monetization is reduced. On the other hand, there is concern about brand visibility: if users consume content without seeing the original article, the media outlet's recognition weakens.

The degradation of informational (and democratic) quality began the day the media relinquished control of the information superhighway and a process of progressive degeneration of the online ecosystem began. Today, social media is rife with disinformation, manipulation, fake news, post-truth, alternative truths, conspiracy theories, and hate speech.

X. PRODUCING THEORY

 Every day it becomes more difficult to stay informed. Confusion, distrust, and lies reign. This, along with the irresistible rise of Artificial Intelligence, presents a new and crucial challenge for the left. While they are undoubtedly on the right side of history, they continue to struggle to impose their narrative.

Hence the imperative need to rethink communication, to refine narratives, to relaunch the battle of ideas, to win the cognitive war. And, more urgently than ever, to start—on these issues—producing theory, producing theory, and producing theory.

Documents consulted:

“Job Losses Due to AI Are a Serious Threat,” by H. Buck and M. Huber, Jacobin, New York, July 2025.
The AI ​​Empire. Sam Altman and His Race to Dominate the World, by Karen Hao, Península Editions, Barcelona, ​​2025.

Interview with Karen Hao: “The Artificial Intelligence Industry Is a Colonialist Empire,” Wired, June 21, 2025.

“Israel vs. Hamas: An Investigation into the Strategies of an Endless Information War,” by Amélie Ferey, Le Grand Continent, Paris, October 8, 2025.

Author: Ignacio Ramonet

Freedom of the Press Is Guaranteed Only to Those Who Own One...

 

Canada, the living hell you don't know about, "a monstrous prison we choose to live in"

 "To be, or not to be: that is the question." ...

 

You are not free, you are an experiment

 

By Txema García: You, who are reading this. You, who are beginning to feel that something isn't right. That the world has become hostile, that no one listens to you, that everything is designed for you to lose. You, who believe the far right has answers. That it points fingers, that it shouts what you keep quiet, that it promises "order" in the midst of chaos. Let me tell you something: they are using you. They are turning you into cannon fodder. Into a laboratory rat to perfect the most sophisticated regime of exploitation that history has ever known: the savage and rampant capitalism that rules the planet.

 

Every day you receive your share of alienation. In the job that doesn't fulfill you, in the salary that doesn't suffice, in the screen that distracts you. You have been taught to distrust the poor, the migrant, anyone who is different. They have convinced you that the enemy is below, when it has always been above. In the boards of directors, in the investment funds, in the transnational corporations that plunder resources and lives. In the algorithms that shape your thinking without you even noticing.

 

The far right doesn't want to free you. It wants to channel your rage to protect the true masters of the system. It offers you a false identity, a community based on hate, an epic that only serves to divide. While you scream against the "other," they continue to accumulate power. While you share confrontational memes, they design new forms of control. While you think you're waking up, they perfect your cage.

 

Your day begins before dawn. The alarm clock rings like an order. You don't get up: you unfold. You check your phone before opening your eyes. Notifications, headlines, offers, alarms. You're already in. The algorithm bids you good morning. It tells you what to think, what to fear, what to desire. You shower quickly, eat just the right amount of breakfast, and step out onto the street like someone entering an invisible factory.

 

Public transportation is a procession of dull faces. No one speaks. Everyone stares at screens. The real world has become staged. What's important happens elsewhere: in the feed, in the scroll, in the click. You arrive at work. It doesn't matter if it's an office, a warehouse, a classroom, a hospital. The pattern is the same: productivity, obedience, pretense. They ask you to smile, to perform, not to overthink. Not to question. Not to feel.

At lunchtime, you eat quickly, alone or with others who are also alone. You talk about soccer, TV shows, sales. Never about the system. Never about pain. Never about fear. Because that's not talked about. Because that doesn't sell. Because that's uncomfortable. You go back to work. You feel tired, but you don't know why. You haven't run, you haven't fought, you haven't created. You've only obeyed. You've only been useful.

 

When you leave, the algorithm awaits you. It offers you distraction, indignation, consumption. It tells you that the enemy is the migrant, the poor, the feminist, the queer. It pushes you to share hateful memes, to sign petitions that change nothing, to feel like you're participating without leaving your couch. Meanwhile, the true masters of the system—the investment funds, the military-industrial complexes, the extractive transnationals—continue to plunder the world. And you, unwittingly, do their dirty work.

 

You have dinner in a hurry. You watch something on a platform that decides for you. You go to bed with your phone in your hand. The last thing you see isn't the face of someone you love, but a screen that watches you. And when you sleep, your dreams are no longer your own. They are nightmares of success, of competition, of fear. You dream that you're late. That you don't perform. That you don't fit in. That you're not enough. The algorithm also schedules your rest.

 

And so, day after day, you become what they need: a docile body, a distracted mind, a manipulable emotion. You are not free. You are an experiment. A piece of data. A cog. And if you don't see it, you'll continue to be part of the problem.

 

But there is a way out. Not in hatred, not in nostalgia, not in "every man for himself." The way out lies in awareness. In cooperation. In disobedience. In the pedagogy that teaches you to think for yourself. In the left that doesn't sell out, that doesn't manage, that doesn't make deals with the algorithm. In the flotillas of freedom that are built from below, with bodies, with affections, with community.

 

Don't get caught. Don't become what they need. Don't confuse noise with truth. Don't confuse order with justice. Don't confuse belonging with submission.

 

The true revolution doesn't shout: it listens. It doesn't point: it embraces. It doesn't promise: it builds. And it starts with you. With me. For all of us. What are we waiting for to rebel?

 

 Txema García, journalist and writer

 

 This Song Around The World features Keith Richards in collaboration with Roberto Luti, Titi Tsira and a number of worldwide musicians on a rendition of his reggae song, "Words of Wonder," off 1992's Main Offender. This video also leads into a cover of Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up," featuring Keb' Mo', Mermans Mosengo, Aztec Indians, Natalie Pa'apa'a of Blue King Brown, and Jamaican singer Sherita Lewis.

Canada, the living hell you don't know about, "a monstrous prison we choose to live in"

The two enemies of the people are criminals and the government, so let's bind the latter with the chains of the Constitution so they don't become the legalized version of the former. - Neither known.

 

Argentina: From Lawfare to Fascist Neocolony

 

By Claudia Rocca: Jurist Claudia Rocca analyzes the strategy of imperialism in Our America, which undermines the democratic foundations of the affected states by compromising their capacity for self-determination and promoting subordination to external agendas.

 

In recent months, the judiciary has played a leading role in our region: from the lawfare orchestrated against the former president of Argentina to the historic convictions against former presidents of the regional far-right, such as Álvaro Uribe Vélez in Colombia and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. However, it is worth clarifying that, quite contrary to what the mainstream press attempts to portray as similarities between lawfare cases and those brought before justice for proven crimes, the two respond to very different natures. To better understand lawfare as an imperialist strategy in Our America, we asked Claudia Rocca of the American Association of Jurists for her contribution to this debate:

"Lawfare is a political war through the judicial and media channels, responding to economic, political, and geopolitical interests. It involves judges, prosecutors, media corporations, journalists and opinion leaders, police, embassy officials, and intelligence agents, both local and foreign.

 

It is characterized by the abuse of pretrial detention, plea bargains, and verdicts fabricated without respect for due process, through harassment and demoralization through the media. It includes raids on political offices and militant homes, persecution and threats against family members, forcing them into exile and political refuge, and manipulating and spreading fear among those involved in certain political processes.

 

In recent years, these tactics have been used against dozens of political leaders and/or former government officials in Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, and El Salvador, linked to governments, programs, or projects that challenge neoliberal orthodoxy to a greater or lesser extent.

 

This war operates "from above," through a judicial apparatus that places itself above the legislative and executive branches, expanding the scope of maneuver and power for judges, who become involved in political operations, triggering a loss of balance between branches, allowing for a growing "juristocracy," and, in many cases, normalizing the double standard of the law. This historical process of repositioning the judiciary above all others is characteristic of neo-constitutionalism, the predominant legal order in much of Europe and Latin America in recent decades.

 

The rise of the judicial apparatus and selectivity in judicial cases are articulated with a leading role of the media, which operates to criminalize political sectors or leaders. Added to this are the voices of "experts," many of them from U.S. "think tanks," who are attributed with a supposed "force of truth" in the mainstream media and social networks.

 

The role played by U.S. government agencies such as USAID and others, as well as U.S. private sector interests, is striking: both are involved in both the judicial processes and the outcomes and events following them, demonstrating the instrumentalization of the judicial-media apparatus in favor of foreign economic, political, and geopolitical objectives, which share interests and business dealings with local privileged minorities.

 

But this mechanism does not end within the domestic sphere. For those nations where the new Western economic power has failed to undermine national and sovereign political processes, the same prescriptions are applied using the international system of currency flows, tariffs and trade routes, money laundering prevention systems, immigration control systems, sanctions and unilateral coercive measures, and charges and accusations based solely on decisions made by administrative bodies and, therefore, merely political decisions of the US administration.

 

Several military publications consider lawfare to be one of the components of new "unconventional" wars, such as hybrid warfare. This war can be waged by state or non-state actors, acting with all forms of the spectrum of this type of warfare, including conventional military capabilities, unconventional combat tactics and units, or other terrorist actions, chaos planning through acts of violence, cyberwarfare, financial warfare, or media warfare.

It will be enough to invoke the "illegal" nature of other states' laws/norms, which do not adhere to the Western canon, for them to be classified as violent ("unusual and extraordinary threat"), thus attempting to legitimize attacks that today take on multiple dimensions.

While, as we have said, lawfare constitutes a tool used by the state, the government, or privileged minorities at the local level, it is also a tool at the transnational level, implemented from the global north.

 

For nations that submit, this is the core of the colonial and dependency relations exacerbated by the expansion of capitalism. Within the framework of this unequal relationship, the US and its allies reorganize the landscape in favor of the interests of a transnational network of power, creating a kind of "legitimate legal order" and defining the scope of their jurisdiction, ignoring the sovereignty of weaker states that lack the capacity to impose their law by force or to resist.

 

Jurisdiction is not simply a rule; it determines which rules will be applied, where, how, and by whom. Therein lies the subjugating power of the Western power center over our Latin American countries, channeled through lawfare.

 

The establishment of this "juristocracy" has resulted in the judicialization of big politics and democracy, since by delegitimizing and neutralizing political leaders who are inconvenient for certain economic and geopolitical interests, it not only affected the individuals directly involved but also undermined the democratic foundations of the affected states, compromising their capacity for self-determination and promoting subordination to external agendas.

 

The Argentine Case

 

The judicial persecution of political and social leaders in Argentina has been developing since the end of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's last term in office. At that time, figures parading in the media began to gain prominence, denouncing the alleged corruption of Kirchnerist officials without supporting evidence, but with great attention and impact provided by the mass media. The attacks were particularly focused on the figure of the president, and even led to the idea that she was the mastermind behind the death of prosecutor Nisman, despite the fact that all the evidence gathered in the investigation indicated that it was a suicide.

 

The federal criminal court, along with other high-ranking officials in the judiciary, became the main opposition party. This process was decisive in the victory of Mauricio Macri, whose administration plunged the country into a process of deindustrialization, concentration of wealth through financial speculation, surrender of strategic resources, and weakening of state capacity, while the criminalization of Kirchnerism in particular, and of grassroots social leaders in general, multiplied. Milagro Sala is the most paradigmatic example. In the latter part of his term, Macri incurred formidable debt in record time. The nearly $50 billion granted by the IMF in a completely irregular manner is part of the amount that subsequently fled the country.

 

As a result of the evident unviability of this government program and the social and economic deterioration it caused, Peronism won the presidential elections in 2019. But it clearly did not gain power. The lawfare regime did not budge one iota.

 

One of the most emblematic cases is undoubtedly the so-called "Vialidad" case, in which Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was sentenced to six years in prison for the crime of fraudulent administration. Within the framework of this process, the guarantees of defense in court, as provided for in Article 380 of the National Code of Criminal Procedure, based on Article 18 of the National Constitution and reinforced by the treaties comprising International Human Rights Law, have been violated; the set of rules on judicial conduct known as the Bangalore Principles (adopted by the United Nations Economic and Social Council in its Resolution E/CN.4/2003/65/Annex of November 2002, formally approved on January 10, 2003), have been violated, given the public and notorious lack of impartiality of the sentencing judge and his evident ties to the prosecutor's office. The judicial arbitrariness manifested in the proceedings against the vice president reflects the same patterns of persecution as in the political proscriptions of other Latin American leaders. This is clearly evident in a ruling that bears no relation to the evidence produced in the case file, which has not incorporated any elements that substantiate the conduct attributed to the former president.

 

After confirmation by the Court of Cassation—which failed to address any of the aforementioned arguments—in just two months, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation upheld the conviction—while other cases wait for years or even decades. With the now-customary prior and precise media announcement, the unconstitutional ruling achieved its stated purpose from the outset: Cristina's banishment.

 

We can affirm that lawfare was a central factor in the rise to power of Javier Milei, a figure with sinister characteristics, driven and sustained by three centers of economic power: speculative finance and investment in strategic resources (such as JP Morgan, BlackRock, and others), the groups known as "techno-feudal lords"—masters of the networks—and the media.

 

From the moment he took office, Milei carried out a process of dismantling the State; The hollowing out of public policies for development, human rights, inclusion, gender, and diversity, within the framework of a process of economic devastation; the deployment of repressive measures with the expansion of security forces and agencies, aimed at silencing social protest in the face of the hollowing out of a state system for the effective protection of economic, social, and cultural rights; and the brutal impoverishment of the population.

Massive layoffs occurred, while companies, strategic resources, and other public assets were privatized. The attempt to suppress labor rights, combined with the persecution of unions, social organizations, and the popular economy—criminal charges, the withdrawal of food and other benefits guaranteed by social programs that were abruptly discontinued—reveal a political project of accumulation in favor of concentrated sectors of the economy and financial speculation. Within the framework of an inflationary process, due to the deregulation of essential economic factors such as services, benefits, and prices in general, there was an abrupt loss of wage purchasing power and an increase in unemployment and poverty.

 

In 2024, small and medium-sized businesses recorded a loss of more than 217,000 jobs and the closure of 9,923 companies, according to Industriales Pymes Argentinos (IPA). The most affected sectors were construction and manufacturing, with 69,738 and 25,186 fewer jobs, respectively. In the public sector, more than 180,000 jobs were eliminated between November 2023 and May 2025. There was an increase in informal employment and semi-slavery working conditions.

 

The loss of income purchasing power, a result of the change in economic policy implemented by the current government, represented the largest monthly decline in the last 30 years (8.4 percent year-over-year in purchasing power).

 

There was a larger contraction in consumption, both in supermarket and self-service stores, as well as in retail stores across various sectors. In 2025, inflation is easing, the result of an unprecedented economic recession and deterioration across all factors. The human consequences are now evident and alarming.

 

This accelerated process of devastation was accompanied by fascist rhetoric and practices, reflecting contempt for the human condition, a supremacist, patriarchal outlook, and the most servile and undignified subservience to the interests of the United States and the genocidal Zionist government of Israel, as vociferated by the Argentine president.

 

In conclusion, we could attempt at this point to define fascism in the 21st century as a social practice manifested through political movements, driven by the new economic power prevailing in the West, which use hatred and polarization as strategies to undermine liberal democracy, shatter the social order, and the rule of law. They thus establish authoritarian regimes and nepotism, with economic programs that foster accelerated processes of wealth concentration, benefiting the transnational groups to which they respond and fostering financial speculation. Their consequences are the destruction of social organizations, the exclusion of large majorities, economic devastation, and repression as a method of social control.

 

The Argentine example—like so many others—shows us that submission to the current Western economic power represented by the United States only brings consequences infinitely more tragic than the cost of resisting it. Not only is there no benefit or mercy: it leaves us without a horizon and without a future. Therefore, yielding or submitting is not an option for a sovereign people.

 

Claudia Rocca is president of the Argentine branch and second continental vice president of the American Association of Jurists, lawyer, university professor specializing in Public Law and Economic Law.

Canada, the living hell you don't know about, "a monstrous prison we choose to live in"

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                                      The Big Joke Against Venezuela: 

Geopolitics Disguised as Drug Warfare By Pino Arlacchi: During my tenure as head of UNODC, the UN agency against drugs and crime, I was in Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil, but I never visited Venezuela. It simply wasn't necessary. 

 The Venezuelan government's cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking was one of the best in South America, comparable only to Cuba's impeccable record. This fact, in Trump's delusional narrative of "Venezuela as a narco-state," sounds like a geopolitically motivated slander. 

 But the data—the real data—emerging from the 2025 World Drug Report, the organization I had the honor of leading, tells a story opposite to that spread by the Trump administration. A story that dismantles piece by piece the geopolitical fabrication built around the "Cartel of the Suns," an entity as legendary as the Loch Ness Monster, yet apt to justify sanctions, embargoes, and threats of military intervention against a country that, coincidentally, sits on one of the largest oil reserves on the planet. 

 Venezuela according to the UNODC: A marginal country on the drug trafficking map 

The UNODC 2025 report is crystal clear, which should shame those who have constructed the rhetoric that demonizes Venezuela. The report barely mentions Venezuela, stating that a marginal fraction of Colombian drug production passes through the country on its way to the United States and Europe. Venezuela, according to the UN, has established itself as a territory free from the cultivation of coca leaves, marijuana, and similar products, as well as from the presence of international criminal cartels. (https://www.unodc.org/unodc/data-and-analysis/world-drug-report-2025.html) 

The document simply confirms the 30 previous annual reports, which omit Venezuelan drug trafficking because it doesn't exist. Only 5% of Colombian drugs transit through Venezuela. To put this figure in perspective: in 2018, while 210 tons of cocaine transited through Venezuela, Colombia produced or sold 2,370 tons (ten times more) and Guatemala, 1,400 tons (the US has seven military bases in Colombia, surrounded by coca growers...). 

 Yes, you read that right: Guatemala is a drug corridor seven times more important than the supposedly fearsome Bolivarian narco-state. But no one talks about it because Guatemala has historically had shortages—it produces 0.01% of the world's total—of the only non-natural drug that interests Trump: oil. 

 The Fantastic Cartel of the Sun: Hollywood Fiction 

 The "Cartel of the Sun" is a product of Trump's imagination. It is supposedly led by the president of Venezuela, but it is not mentioned in the report of the world's leading anti-drug agency, nor in the documents of any European agency, nor in almost any other anti-crime agency in the world. Not even a footnote. A deafening silence that should make anyone with a modicum of critical thinking reflect. How can a criminal organization so powerful as to merit a $50 million bounty be completely ignored by those working in the anti-drug field?

  Ecuador: The Real Center That No One Wants to See 

While Washington raises the Venezuelan specter, the true centers of drug trafficking thrive almost uninterruptedly. Ecuador, for example, accounts for 57% of the banana containers that leave Guayaquil and arrive in Antwerp loaded with cocaine. European authorities seized 13 tons of cocaine from a single Spanish ship, originating precisely from Ecuadorian ports controlled by companies protected by Ecuadorian government officials. 

 The European Union produced a detailed report on the ports of Guayaquil, documenting how "Colombian, Mexican, and Albanian mafias operate extensively in Ecuador." Ecuador's homicide rate soared from 7.8 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020 to 45.7 in 2023. Yet Ecuador is rarely mentioned. Perhaps because Ecuador produces only 0.5% of the world's oil and because its government has not grown accustomed to challenging US dominance in Latin America? 

The Real Drug Routes: Geography vs. Propaganda

 During my years at UNODC, one of the most important lessons I learned is that geography doesn't lie. Drug routes follow a precise logic: proximity to production centers, ease of transport, corruption of local authorities, presence of established criminal networks. Venezuela meets almost none of these criteria. 

 Colombia produces more than 70% of the world's cocaine. Peru and Bolivia account for most of the remaining 30%. The logical routes to reach the US and European markets are the Pacific to Asia, the Eastern Caribbean to Europe, and, by land, Central America to the United States. 

 Venezuela, bordering the South Atlantic, is at a geographical disadvantage for the three main routes. Criminal logistics make Venezuela a marginal player in the vast international drug trafficking landscape. 

Cuba: The Example That Shames Them 

Geography doesn't lie, but politics can overcome it. Cuba continues to represent the gold standard for anti-drug cooperation in the Caribbean. An island not far from the coast of Florida, a theoretically perfect base for transit to the United States, but in practice, it remains beyond the reach of drug trafficking. I have repeatedly observed the admiration of DEA and FBI agents for the rigorous anti-drug policies of the Cuban communists. 

 Chavista Venezuela has consistently followed the Cuban model in the fight against drugs, inaugurated by Fidel Castro himself: international cooperation, territorial control, and repression of criminal activity. Neither Venezuela nor Cuba has ever had large tracts of land cultivated with cocaine and controlled by major criminals. 

The European Union has no particular oil interests in Venezuela, but it does have a specific interest in combating the drug trafficking that plagues its cities. The Union has prepared its European Drug Report 2025. The document, based on real data and not geopolitical illusions, does not mention Venezuela as a corridor for international drug trafficking. 

 This is the difference between an honest analysis and a false and insulting narrative. Europe needs reliable data to protect its citizens from drugs, so it produces accurate reports. The United States needs justification for its oil policies, so it produces propaganda disguised as intelligence. 

According to the European report, cocaine is the second most consumed drug in the 27 EU countries, but the main sources are clearly identified: Colombia for production, Central America for distribution, and various routes through West Africa for distribution. Venezuela and Cuba simply do not figure in this picture. 

But Venezuela is systematically demonized, contrary to any principle of truth. Former FBI Director James Comey offered the explanation in his post-resignation memoirs, where he analyzed the ulterior motives behind US policies toward Venezuela: Trump had told him that the Maduro government was "a government sitting on a mountain of oil that we have to buy." This isn't about drugs, crime, or national security. This is about oil that would be better off not paying for. 

 It is therefore Donald Trump who deserves an international reward for a very specific crime: "systematic slander against a sovereign state for the purpose of seizing its oil resources." 

 * Pino Arlacchi was Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNODC, the UN's anti-drug and anti-crime program.