The New Democratic Machine — And The Billionaires Behind ItThe scandal was minimal, a blip in a Democratic primary race in New York’s Hudson Valley. But the incident was an early sign of a powerful new political machine playing an unprecedented role in Democratic primaries. The problem emerged in February. Jackie Rosa, a political communications strategist, had been fielding press questions for Cait Conley, a combat veteran vying for New York’s 17th congressional district, as though she were a campaign spokesperson. But when controversy erupted after Rosa circulated a memo bashing Conley’s opponent as a “far left political operative,” the strategist claimed she’d mounted the attack on behalf of an outside group, not the campaign. However, Rosa’s email sign-off listed an affiliation with a different political group — and her email address was tied to yet another organization, a shadowy Delaware consultancy. Four separate entities, all tied to a single strategist, seemingly collaborated on messaging against a candidate, even though campaign finance law theoretically limits close coordination between campaigns and outside spending vehicles. What exactly was going on? All of the organizations, it turns out, belonged to a new dark-money-backed enterprise of unparalleled scale and complexity. The influence network brands itself as boosting Democrats’ electoral prospects ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. But the project’s true ambitions go much further.
https://www.levernews.com/the-new-democratic-machine-and-the-billionaires-behind-it/https://archive.ph/uAAva Ireland: fuel protests show the way “At this stage Micheál Martin is not in control. The people of Ireland are in control. They have every motorway blocked in Ireland. They have businesses shut down. […] This is a revolution.” These words by James Geoghegan – agricultural contractor and prominent spokesperson of the Dublin’s protest – broadcast across national radio waves at the height of the fuel protests, paint a vivid picture of the mood that reigned at the blockades that began on 7 April. Dublin city centre was at a standstill for almost a week as farmers and hauliers who had been stretched beyond breaking point blocked the streets with their heavy vehicles. Farmers joked that they had done their friends in the Green Party a favour, having at last pedestrianised Dublin City centre. Tractors and trucks bearing registration plates from all four provinces barred traffic from making its way down O’Connell Street. These tactics were repeated at ports and oil depots across the country, including Ireland’s only oil refinery, and by rolling blockades on major roads. By taking matters directly into their own hands protesters were able to wrestle €500 million in concessions from the government. The example has now been set. As the cost-of-living crisis threatens to escalate once again, workers and youth will remember how militant struggle was able to win a partial but notable victory.
https://marxist.com/ireland-fuel-protests-show-the-way.htmThe Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx Chapter II (Downfall of the Republicans) The period from December 20, 1848, until the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in May, 1849, comprises the history of the downfall of the bourgeois republicans. After having founded a republic for the bourgeoisie, driven the revolutionary proletariat out of the field, and reduced the democratic petty bourgeoisie to silence for the time being, they are themselves thrust aside by the mass of the bourgeoisie, which justly impounds this republic as its property. This bourgeois mass was, however, royalist. One section of it, the large landowners, had ruled during the Restoration and was accordingly Legitimist. The other, the aristocrats of finance and big industrialists, had ruled during the July Monarchy and was consequently Orleanist. The high dignitaries of the army, the university, the church, the bar, the academy, and the press were to be found on either side, though in various proportions. Here, in the bourgeois republic, which bore neither the name Bourbon nor the name Orleans, but the name capital, they had found the form of state in which they could rule conjointly. The June insurrection had already united them in the party of Order. Now it was necessary, in the first place, to remove the coterie of bourgeois republicans who still occupied the seats of the National Assembly. Just as brutal as these pure republicans had been in their misuse of physical force against the people, just as cowardly, mealy-mouthed, broken-spirited, and incapable of fighting were they now in their retreat, when it was a question of maintaining their republicanism and their legislative rights against the executive power and the royalists. I need not relate here the ignominious history of their dissolution. They did not succumb; they passed out of existence. Their history has come to an end forever, and, both inside and outside the Assembly, they figure in the following period only as memories, memories that seem to regain life whenever the mere name republic is once more the issue and as often as the revolutionary conflict threatens to sink down to the lowest level. I may remark in passing that the journal which gave its name to this party, the National, was converted to socialism in the following period. Before we finish with this period we must still cast a retrospective glance at the two powers, one of which annihilated the other on December 2, 1851, whereas from December 20, 1848, until the exit of the Constituent Assembly, they had lived in conjugal relations.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch02.htm