21st Century Engels

+ California Post ) + New York Post) (+ Elections) (- Billionaire heiress who backed Mamdani now shoveling cash to House Dems in hopes of party takeover Geoff Earle <



Billionaire heiress Elizabeth Simons is pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Democratic Party's campaign to retake the House — even as she bankrolls the socialist causes and candidates that have Democrats' establishment leaders increasingly on edge.Simons, who previously cut a $250,000 check to a super PAC backing Mayor Zohran Mam-dani, has donated $354,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — the party's chief House campaign arm — and thousands more to individual House candidates this election cycle. The donations, ironically, put Simons behind the same Democratic leadership forces trying to prevent the party's increasingly powerful progressive wing from taking over. <


“I can see why a lot of the very woke left is lining up with Hakeem [Speaker Jeffries] because the goal is winning the House,” said one longtime Democratic fundraiser. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR MORNING REPORT NEWSLETTER The DCCC is headed by Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), a member of the party’s centrist New Democrat Coalition, which is the under guidance of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is positioned to take power if Dems snatch back the House. Republicans rule by a narrow 218-212 majority. Simons is hardly a conventional Democratic establishment donor — she has has poured millions into progressive education initiatives while backing candidates like Mamdani. E MILKEN INSTY MILKEN TITUTE MILKEN <



https://l.smartnews.com/p-8gpQ0OoF/Pug5L8

Burkina Faso Rebuilt a Dam After 28 Years - in Just 9 Months <



Aug7 2026 #IbrahimTraore #BurkinaFaso #AfricanSovereignty


Burkina Faso has rebuilt the Goulouré Dam after nearly 28 years of disuse - and completed the reconstruction in just nine months. The project expanded the reservoir's storage capacity from 80,000 cubic meters to 1.023 million cubic meters and was executed by Burkina Faso's National Office of Dams and Hydro-Agricultural Development (ONBAH) using state-budget financing.<



But the dam itself is only the visible part of the story. The deeper transformation is the rebuilding of the institutional capacity required to design, finance, construct and maintain water infrastructure inside Burkina Faso. ONBAH is now positioned behind a wider 2026–2030 pipeline involving new dams, rehabilitation projects and expanded irrigation capacity. <



This documentary examines what Goulouré reveals about Burkina Faso's push for water security, food sovereignty and domestic technical capacity - and why the ability to build infrastructure repeatedly may matter more than any single dam.<



The story also connects Goulouré to the wider economic and security pressures facing Burkina Faso, including agricultural dependence on reliable water, the mobilisation of domestic resources and the government's broader effort to strengthen state capacity.


At the center of the question is simple: if Burkina Faso can turn a 28-year infrastructure failure into a functioning reservoir in nine months, what happens when that capability becomes a repeatable national system? #BurkinaFaso #IbrahimTraore #AfricanSovereignty <



https://youtu.be/Bmo6gn0k7IY?si=hgBkQaha2n9KE9RF

<



https://youtube.com/shorts/7lPPOMKqJbc?si=ra1HdA4sV6hbZ8q-

Europe does not meet the geographic criteria to be a continent . It is Northwest Asia . < The so-called Middle East is Southwest Asia

Europe does not meet the geographic criteria to be a continent . It is Northwest Asia . <


The so-called Middle East is Southwest Asia

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+an+outline+of+Michael+Hudson%27s+book+The+Collapse+of+Classical+Antiquity&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#lfId=ChxjMe<


In The Collapse of Antiquity: Greece and Rome as Civilization's Oligarchic Turning Point, political economist Michael Hudson argues that classical Greece and Rome broke away from the debt-forgiveness traditions of the Ancient Near East. This shift allowed creditor oligarchies to concentrate wealth, destroy internal markets, and collapse the Roman world into serfdom and feudalism. Amazon.com +3 Introduction & Foundations • The Near Eastern Precedent: Explains how Bronze Age and Near East societies used periodic "Clean Slate" royal debt cancellations as a safety valve to prevent bondage andIntroduction & Foundations • The Near Eastern Precedent: Explains how Bronze Age and Near East societies used periodic "Clean Slate" royal debt cancellations as a safety valve to prevent bondage and maintain economic stability. Amazon.com • Transmission of Debt: Traces how interest-bearing debt moved to the Aegean and Mediterranean in the 8th century BC without the institutional safety valve of debt forgiveness. Amazon.com Part I: Greece • Early Reformers and Tyrants: Discusses 7th- and 6th-century BC populist efforts to cancel agrarian debts and redistribute land. • Sparta and Athens: Examines Sparta's early oligarchic preservation, Solon's ban on debt slavery in Athens (594 BC), and the transition from democracy to the Thirty Tyrants. & • Classical Philosophy: Analyzes how Plato, Aristophanes, and Aristotle critiqued wealth-Classical Philosophy: Analyzes how Plato, Aristophanes, and Aristotle critiqued wealth-addiction (pleonexia) and money-lust in the 4th century BC. g Goodreads +1 • Late Spartan Reforms: Details 3rd-century BC attempts by Agis, Cleomenes, and Nabis to cancel Sparta's debts. • Part II: Rome • From Republic to Oligarchy: Follows Rome's early trajectory, the Secession of the Plebs, the Twelve Tables, and persistent class warfare over debt. Pus dokumen.pub • Imperial Expansion and Punic Wars: Shows how imperial conquests and the Punic Wars enriched a small financial class while grabbing land from citizens. PuB dokumen.pub • The Late Republic Crises: Details the social convulsions of the 1st century BC, including the Mithridatic Wars, Sulla, Catiline, and the moderate debt/land reforms attempted by Julius Caesar before his assassination. ® Ask anything Q what is an outline of Michael Hudson's book The C

Prof. Michael Hudson is a prominent American economist, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics, and prolific author. • Support Michael's work on Patreon: / michaelhudson • Site: https://michael-hudson... • Recent books: https://michael-hudson... • Substack: https://professormicha... <



53:02 Is America Following the Roman Empire's Path? 56:06 The Debt Trap That Destroyed Ancient Rome 58:02 Why Debt Always Grows Faster Than the Economy 1:00:44 The Hidden Flaw in Modern Economics 1:01:00 Will a New Global Monetary Order Replace the <



https://youtu.be/ncml9LSZcDQ?si=pvOmr9w4Y5MYCLrr



Is America Following the Roman Empire's Path? eventually overextend financially before they decline and that's precisely what happened for example with the Roman Empire. So, is the United States approaching that stage or are we still not sort of far ahead and there's still an an off-ramp to to salvage what's left and to maybe pivot toward a more sustainable and um internationally<


My book The Collapse of antiquity goes over this. The problem wasn't the military cost of Roman expansion. The problem was the domestic cost that it was that the creditors took over. Uh Rome and you could say all of classical Western antiquity lacked the central authority that bronze age Mesopotamia and Egypt and other West Asian /African countries had of preventing a domestic financial oligarchy from developing. They all had a central ruler whose task was mainly to keep restoring economic order by cancelling the personal debts that had developed Not business debts. They were all left in place to be settled among merchants among themselves, but most personal debts in an agrarian economy were owned by farmers self-sufficient on the land and uh uh all Egypt Babylonia Sumer all the West Asian /African countries regularly cancelled the debt so wouldn't develop <


well after 1200 BC the Bronze Age pretty came to an end as a result of drastic climactic change that caused a dark age for 400 years. <



And when trade began again with the west around the 8th century BC u the e western economies Greece, Italy, European economies didn't have any tradition of what was called divine rulership who followed the sun god of justice by restoring order and a justice for weak and poor by making sure it's the sun god of justice. would cancel the debts and make sure that families were not subject reduced to bondage and that rulers would free the debt debt bond servants. They'd cancel the debts and they'd return self-support land to the cultivators who would forfeit it for debt. <


Well, the Rome and and Greece didn't have any. There were social revolutions<


The Debt Trap That Destroyed Ancientfor six centuries trying to restore this to cancel the debts. That was why Caesar was killed because there had just been a re some minor civil war trying to cancel the debts. The Catalene conspiracy it's called . Caesar supported it. Everyone expected Caesar to cancel the debts to free the Roman population. So he was killed essentially the creditor class t oligarchy that had made itself into a hereditary aristocracy. That's class war between creditors and debtors. <


In The Collapse of Antiquity: Greece and Rome as Civilization's Oligarchic Turning Point, political economist Michael Hudson argues that classical Greece and Rome broke away from the debt-forgiveness traditions of the Ancient Near East. This shift allowed creditor oligarchies to concentrate wealth, destroy internal markets, and collapse the Roman world into serfdom and feudalism. Amazon.com +3 Introduction & Foundations • The Near Eastern Precedent: Explains how Bronze Age and Near East societies used periodic "Clean Slate" royal debt cancellations as a safety valve to prevent bondage and A ;the creditors won and the result was the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. It polarized and uh at the end of all the wealth monetary wealth and the land that was taken was all drawn into the hands of the creditor class ; the result was the economy was turned into feudalism ; that's the result. <



So that's the natural tendency of any financialized economy. <


We have the textbooks that were were taught to the Babylonians tribal students. They all calculated how fast does a debt double at a given rate of interest any rate of interest has a doubling time. In Babylonia at 20% rates for commercial debts the doubling time is five years . <


Why Debt Always Grows Faster Than the Economy > We also have plans and how creditors lending debtors the money to pay their debts, making an even more debt leveraged economy ; and the debt is an overhead that hasn't been productive debt. <



So the uh the modern economics doesn't recognize the fact that economies don't naturally settle in equilibrium. The natural tendency of all economies is to move further and further out of equilibrium to become more and more unbalanced as the debts grow faster <


bronze age knowledge of debt is lacking in modern business cycle theory . The whole idea that Business cycle analysts are taught is that a cycle just keeps moving along and moving along uh continually at the same rate. But as uh every business cycle since World War Il has started from a larger and larger and larger debt overhead because the debts mount up and mount up and every recovery of the United States and other Western economies since World War Il has been weaker. Uh and the recoveryy's only been uh pulled out by uh creditors lending debtors the money to distribution. Uh so the re that's the the the modern economic theory doesn't address the debt uh problem or the dynamics of debt. It's it's as if the whole economy operated on barter and that's called the barter theory of international trade which is silly because international trade is how uh families first obtained the money to become international bankers. there's a a false view of history and a false view of how economies work that refuses to acknowledge the debt problem because the business schools and the media are owned and controlled by the financial interests ; obviously the last thing if you're a financial creditor is to popularize the idea that your credit is bankrupting the economy, reducing it all to debt pinage and destroying it if the economy doesn't protect itself by cancelelling the debts that it owes to you. That's the political tension of our time. Absolutely. This is so fascinating and The Hidden Flaw in Modern Economics <



https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+an+outline+of+Michael+Hudson%27s+book+The+Collapse+of+Classical+Antiquity&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#lfId=ChxjMe <



Introduction & Foundations • The Near Eastern Precedent: Explains how Bronze Age and Near East societies used periodic "Clean Slate" royal debt cancellations as a safety valve to prevent bondage and maintain economic stability. Amazon.com


• Transmission of Debt: Traces how interest-bearing debt moved to the Aegean and Mediterranean in the 8th century BC without the institutional safety valve of debt forgiveness. Amazon.com


Part I: Greece


• Early Reformers and Tyrants: Discusses 7th- and 6th-century BC populist efforts to cancel agrarian debts and redistribute land.


• Sparta and Athens: Examines Sparta's early oligarchic preservation, Solon's ban on debt slavery in Athens (594 BC), and the transition from democracy to the Thirty Tyrants. &


• Classical Philosophy: Analyzes how Plato, Aristophanes, and Aristotle critiqued wealth-Classical Philosophy: Analyzes how Plato, Aristophanes, and Aristotle critiqued wealth-addiction (pleonexia) and money-lust in the 4th century BC. g Goodreads +1


• Late Spartan Reforms: Details 3rd-century BC attempts by Agis, Cleomenes, and Nabis to cancel Sparta's debts. •


Part II: Rome • From Republic to Oligarchy: Follows Rome's early trajectory, the Secession of the Plebs, the Twelve Tables, and persistent class warfare over debt. Pus dokumen.pub


• Imperial Expansion and Punic Wars: Shows how imperial conquests and the Punic Wars enriched a small financial class while grabbing land from citizens. PuB dokumen.pub


• The Late Republic Crises: Details the social convulsions of the 1st century BC, including the Mithridatic Wars, Sulla, Catiline, and the moderate debt/land reforms attempted by Julius Caesar before his assassination. ®


Ask anything Q what is an outline of Michael Hudson's book The C


Fiscal Collapse: Describes the severe money shortages and economic squeezes of the early Roman Empire.


Part III: Epilogue & Ideology

• The Transformation of Christianity: Explains how the early revolutionary calls for economic debt relief in Christianity were reframed. The meaning of "sin" and the Lord's Prayer shifted from financial cancellation to personal/spiritual morality as the Church became Rome's state religion.


• Modern Historical Bias:


Concludes by showing how modern Eurocentric ideology sanitizes Roman oligarchic history to justify today's pro-creditor economic frameworks. If you'd like, let me know if you want to explore: • The differences between Near Eastern and Greco-Roman debt laws • The parallels Hudson draws to modern finance capitalism Ask anything Q what is an outline of Michael Hudson's book ThePrayer shifted from financial cancellation to personal/spiritual morality as the Church became Rome's state religion. • Modern Historical Bias: Concludes by showing how modern Eurocentric ideology sanitizes Roman oligarchic history to justify today's pro-creditor economic frameworks. If you'd like, let me know if you want to explore: • The differences between Near Eastern and Greco-Roman debt laws • The parallels Hudson draws to modern finance capitalism GE Geopolitical Economy Report: Origins of debt: Michael Hudso... OW SOCIETY BECA OMINATED BY D May 24, 2023 - Origins of debt:... Amazon.com

"The Destruction of Conscience in Viet Nam" is a seminal anti-war essay by cultural anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, published in the January-February 1966 issue of Dissent magazine. D Dissent Magazine +1 The piece was born out of Sahlins' firsthand, week-long trip to Vietnam in August 1965, where he toured military facilities and used his ethnographic training to critique the ground realities of the conflict. ® New Left Review +2<



Core Arguments of the Essay


• The Eradication of Moral Responsibility: Sahlins argued that for the United States to continue waging the Vietnam War, it had to systematically destroy its own domestic and institutional conscience. Facing the human devastation caused by American actions was too psychologically and morally heavy for the nation to bear otherwise. R° ResearchGate +1


Cultural Misunderstanding: Utilizing his background as an anthropologist, Sahlins detalled how U.S. strategy completely ignored the social fabric, kinship structures, and village life of the Vietnamese people, viewing the population through a cold, technocratic lens. D


Dissent Magazine +1


Context and Legacy


• The Teach-In Movement: Sahlins was not just an intellectual critic; he was a deeply active organizer. Alongside fellow academic Eric Wolf, he conceived and organized the very first anti-war "teach-in" at the University of Michigan in March 1965, a protest format that rapidly spread to universities across the United States. <


Teach-in took its name from the SIT-IN's of the Contemporary NEGRO CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT where Negro student youth sat in Jim Crow restaurants breaking the segreagtion laws ® Encyclopedia Brita... +3


• Activist Journalism: The essay is widely considered a masterclass in activist journalism. It marked a major turning point in how American academics engaged with and publicly opposed Cold War foreign policy.


• Permanent Relevance: Sahlins' concept of the "destruction of conscience" remains a foundational text in peace and conflict studies, frequently cited by modern social scientists to analyze how states manufacture consent and ethical numbness during prolonged military interventions. R° Researc... +2



If you are analyzing this essay for a project or class, let me know if you would like me to: • Provide historical context on the 1965-1966 escalation of the Vietnam War.


• Connect this essay to Sahlins' broader anthropological theories on culture and Western capitalism


Ask anythingyou are analyzing this essay for a project or class, let me know if you would like me to: • Provide historical context on the 1965-1966 escalation of the Vietnam War. • Connect this essay to Sahlins' broader anthropological theories on culture and Western capitalism. • Draft a summary or outline focusing on a specific theme, such as his observations of Vietnamese village life. The Destruction of Conscience in Viet Nam - ... The Destruction of Conscience in Viet Nam. The Destruction of Conscienc... Dissent Magazine Marshall Sahlin Transformation In August, Sahlins vis himself to tour milita www.berose.fr < Q The Destruction of Conscienc <



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