dan maertens

• Neofascism claims to respect the basic rules of democracy instead of establishing a naked dictatorship as its predecessor did, even when it empties democracy of its content by eroding actual political freedoms to varying degrees, depending on the true level of popularity of each neofascist ruler (and thus his need or not to rig elections) and the balance of power between him and his opponents. There is today a wide range of degrees of neofascist tyranny, from near absolute in the case of Vladimir Putin to what still retains a space of political liberalism as in the cases of Donald Trump and Narendra Modi.

• Neofascism differs from traditional despotic or authoritarian regimes (such as the Chinese government or most Arab regimes) in that it is based, like last century’s fascism, on an aggressive, militant mobilization of its popular base on an ideological basis similar to that which characterized its predecessor. This base includes various components of far-right thinking: nationalist and ethnic fanaticism, xenophobia, explicit racism, assertive masculinity, and extreme hostility to Enlightenment and emancipatory values.

• As for the differences between old and new fascism, the most important of them are, first, that neofascism does not rely on the paramilitary forces that characterized the old version — not in the sense that it is devoid of them, but it keeps them in a reserve role behind the scenes, when they are present — and, second, that neo-fascism does not claim to be “socialist” like its predecessor. Its program does not lead to the expansion of the state apparatus and its economic role but rather draws inspiration from neoliberal thinking in its call to reduce the economic role of the state in favour of private capital. However, necessity may make it go in the opposite direction, as is the case with Putin’s regime under the pressure of the requirements of the war he launched against Ukraine.

• While twentieth-century fascism grew in the context of the severe economic crisis that followed World War I and reached its peak with the “Great Depression”, neofascism grew in the context of the worsening crisis of neoliberalism, especially after the “Great Recession” that resulted from the financial crisis of 2007-08. Whereas past century’s fascism endorsed the national and ethnic hostilities that prevailed in the heart of the European continent, against the backdrop of the heinous racist practices that were occurring in the colonized countries, neofascism flourished on the dung of racist, xenophobic resentment against the rising waves of immigration that accompanied neoliberal globalization or resulted from the wars that the latter fuelled, in parallel with the collapse of the rules of the international system. The United States played the key role in thwarting the development of a rules-based international system after the end of the Cold War, thus quickly plunging the world into a New Cold War.

• As for neofascism, its dominance over the world is increasing, driven by the return of Donald Trump to the US presidency in a guise that is much more in line with neofascism than during his first term. Thus, the world's greatest economic and military power is today the spearhead of neofascism, with which various governments in Russia, India, Israel, Argentina, Hungary and other countries converge, while the possibility of neofascist parties coming to power in the major European countries (in France and Germany, after Italy, and even in Britain) looms on the horizon, not to mention smaller countries in Central and Eastern Europe in particular.

• If it is true that the possibility of a new world war remains limited, our world faces something no less dangerous than the two world wars of the twentieth century, namely climate change, which threatens the future of the planet and of humanity. Neofascism is pushing the world towards the abyss with the blatant hostility of most of its factions to indispensable environmental measures, thus exacerbating the environmental peril, especially when neofascism has taken over the reins of power over the most polluting people in the world proportionally to its number, namely the people of the United States.

• There is no equivalent in today’s world to what the workers’ movement was like with its socialist and communist wings after World War I. Instead, the forces of the left are suffering from atrophy in most countries, after most of them merged into the crucible of neoliberalism to the point that they no longer constitute an alternative to the status quo in the eyes of society. Or else, they are unable to adapt to the requirements of our era, reproducing the flaws of the twentieth century’s left that led to its historical bankruptcy. All the above makes us uphold that the era of neofascism is more dangerous in some respects than the era of the old. The new generation remains the focus of our greatest hope, and significant sections of it have revealed their rejection of racism, such as that manifested in the Zionist genocidal war in Gaza, and their defence of equality of all sorts of rights, as well, of course, as their defence of the environment.

• In the face of the global rise of neofascism, there is a vital and urgent need to confront it by bringing together the broadest ad hoc alliances in defence of democracy, the environment, and gender and migrants rights, with the variety of forces that embrace these goals, while working to rebuild a global current opposing neoliberalism and defending the public interest in the face of the dominance of private interests.

   

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• The Assad regime carries responsibility for leaving the Syrian state in disarray. Weak and propped up by external forces, with no genuine internal support, the regime’s reliance on Russia and Iran to maintain Assad’s grip on power has left the situation ripe for fragmentation. This fragility has created fertile ground for competing actors to pursue their interests in Syria, both regional powers and global player. As well as Israel, Turkey, for example, is deeply invested in expanding its control while simultaneously suppressing Kurdish movements.

• What has China done in response to the genocide? What does this say about its role as a global political player?

  China’s response to the genocide in Gaza has been notably restrained, characterised by calls for ceasefires and humanitarian assistance but lacking in robust action. While it has voiced support for Palestinian self-determination at the United Nations, it has not taken a leading role in directly opposing Israel or providing substantial material support to the Palestinian cause. This restrained approach reflects China’s broader foreign policy, which prioritises non-intervention and maintaining relationships with a range of actors, including Israel, for economic and strategic reasons.

  China’s actions reveal its prioritisation of economic interests over ideological alignment with anti-imperialist movements. While it positions itself as an alternative to US hegemony, its approach often mirrors the pragmatic calculus of traditional powers. Its growing interdependencies with Gulf monarchies and broader East Asia-Middle East trade corridors suggest a focus on economic integration rather than a direct challenge to US influence in the region. This leaves China appearing to be non-committal in moments of acute crisis

• At the same time, we must remain attentive to the voices of South Africa’s vibrant social movements, which have long demanded the country sever ties with Israel. These movements have led the call for concrete actions, such as ending diplomatic relations and enforcing boycotts, divestments, and sanctions (BDS). While the ICJ case is symbolically powerful, it is grassroots pressure that ensures such symbolic gestures translate into meaningful change.

• For example, a critical development in Israel’s gas strategy has been the energy agreements with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), formalised following the Abraham Accords in 2020.2 These gas deals reflect the deepening of economic ties between Israel and Gulf states, with significant geopolitical implications In 2021, the UAE’s Mubadala Petroleum acquired a $1 billion stake in Israel’s Tamar gas field, signalling the UAE’s strategic interest in Israel’s natural gas reserves. These deals enable Israel to position itself as a regional energy hub, projecting power across the region while deepening its alliances with Western-backed Gulf states. At the same time, the extraction and export of gas – often from Palestinian waters – reinforce Israel’s colonial domination and resource theft, exacerbating Palestinian dispossession. Similar normalisation deals over gas have been signed with Jordan and Egypt. These partnerships strengthen Israel’s regional influence, as gas exports flow through pipelines and maritime routes that are heavily securitised and militarised.

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• President Donald Trump has always insisted that tariffs are paid by foreigners, that they put free money into the U.S. Treasury. Trump’s week-long tariff war confirmed that nobody else in the U.S. government or in American business believes him. The National Association of Home Builders published a letter to the president predicting that his tariffs would raise the cost of housing construction. Automobile stocks slumped because investors expected Trump’s tariffs to add thousands of dollars to the cost of each new vehicle. The senior Republican in the Senate publicly pleaded for potash to be exempted from tariffs so as not to increase fertilizer prices for his farm constituents, belying Trump’s claim that the higher prices would be paid by the exporters.

• From an examination of election results, exit polls, and  other public opinion polling, I draw three conclusions about this  paradox:

   

  The economy was the top issue. Trump focused on it and Harris did not.

   

  People of color were the swing vote. Trump did not expand his white base so much as Harris lost hers among people of color.

   

  The majority of Americans favor progressive policies,  which should encourage us to keep organizing during the second Trump  administration.

   

  Voters wanted change to address the economic concerns they  were feeling. Trump posed as the change agent—“Trump will fix it.”  Harris posed as the candidate of stability and the status quo—“We’re not  going back.”

• It's also worth noting that other AI providers are following Perplexity's lead: Microsoft is bringing DeepSeek R1 to Windows as part of Copilot, and it's also now been introduced to the You.com AI platform, available alongside other models from the likes of Anthropic, Meta, Grok, and OpenAI.

• I tested out the Perplexity version of DeepSeek with a few questions that might throw up different answers if they were asked in China, compared to the rest of the world—questions about Taiwan, for example—and there was a free and full flow of information in return. Posing the same prompts on DeepSeek proper returned the following message: "Sorry, that's beyond my current scope. Let’s talk about something else."

   

   

• As for DeepSeek R1's reasoning, it seems fairly robust based on the time I've spent with it—it certainly makes AI responses more trustworthy if you can see how they've been arrived at, and the web sources that have been consulted along the way. You can look all of this up after the answers have been presented, as well as while they're being generated.

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• Maar een nieuwe Maddens-doctrine komt in zwang. Althans bij Vlaams Belang. De partij probeert N-VA pijn te doen op haar communautaire flank met recente uitspraken van Maddens in De Standaard. Hij is van oordeel dat “De Wever een systeem probeert te redden waarvan hij zelf zegt dat het niet kan werken”. Volgens Barbara Pas heeft de politicoloog overschot van gelijk.

• In het Vlaams Parlement heeft Jan Jambon het de afgelopen vier jaar voortdurend aan de stok gehad met PVDA-kopman Jos D’Haese. Herinner u de oneliner ‘da gade gij nie bepale’ op zijn eerste werkdag als Vlaams minister-president – een klassieker intussen. (Al was die uitspraak eigenlijk aan het adres van Meyrem Almaci (Groen) bedoeld.)
• Kim De Witte – de pensioenexpert van PVDA – haalt woensdag uit naar de ‘pensioenmalus’ die de nieuwe regering invoert

• Volgens De Witte zullen vooral vrouwen het kind van de rekening worden. En dat laat hij met de nodige passie weten. Minister van Volksgezondheid Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit) zit voor hem en legt even zijn handen op zijn oren.
• Eén ding is zeker: Jambon versus PVDA, dat wordt ook de komende jaren nog vaak een bits duel in het parlement.

• Hoe zit het met de uitwerking van de meerwaardebelasting? Telkens weer rolt die vraag van de oppositiebanken. Na een reeks vergaderingen op dinsdag heeft de regering echter ‘beslist om niet te beslissen’. Voorlopig blijft de tekst in het regeerakkoord van de regering-De Wever ongewijzigd. Later dit jaar zal Jambon de maatregel uitwerken.

• Met name voor oud-vicepremier Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open Vld) volstaat die uitleg niet. Hij verwijst naar uitspraken van premier De Wever vorig weekend over een vrijstelling van de meerwaardebelasting voor wie tien jaar zijn aandelen aanhoudt. Iets wat niet in de tekst van het regeerakkoord staat. “Dus de premier heeft gelogen!”

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• Elke confederale zweem verdampte nog voor hij kon opkomen.

• Peersman ziet bijvoorbeeld meer in meer doelgerichte lastenverlagingen. "Nu is die belastingverlaging heel duur: dat gaat over 4,5 miljard euro, terwijl simulaties van het Planbureau aangeven dat je daarmee maar 25.000 à 30.000 jobs creëert. Dan kost elke gecreëerde job meer dan 100.000 euro. Als je belastingen doelgericht verlaagt, op de lage inkomens, ga je vooral daar veel jobs creëren en zal de kostprijs lager zijn."

    

       

         

      

   

• En tot slot is Peersman van mening dat de regio's mee in bad moeten worden getrokken. "De grootste mogelijkheid om te besparen op het overheidsapparaat en op subsidies ligt daar. Nu gaan er veel centen, via opcentiemen, naar de regio's. Je zou hen kunnen responsabiliseren door bijvoorbeeld die opcentiemen te verlagen. Dan gaat de begroting er federaal op vooruit en krijgen de regio's meer prikkels om zelf te besparen."

    

       

         

   

   

• The fabled $6 million was just a portion of the total training cost.
• However, industry analyst firm SemiAnalysis reports that the company behind DeepSeek incurred $1.6 billion in hardware costs and has a fleet of 50,000 Nvidia Hopper GPUs, a finding that undermines the idea that DeepSeek reinvented AI training and inference with dramatically lower investments than the leaders of the AI industry

• DeepSeek operates an extensive computing infrastructure with approximately 50,000 Hopper GPUs, the report claims. This includes 10,000 H800s and 10,000 H100s, with additional purchases of H20 units, according to SemiAnalysis. These resources are distributed across multiple locations and serve purposes such as AI training, research, and financial modeling. The company's total capital investment in servers is around $1.6 billion, with an estimated $944 million spent on operating costs, according to SemiAnalysis.
• However, the reputable market intelligence company SemiAnalysis revealed its findings that indicate the company has some $1.6 billion worth of hardware investments

• DeepSeek originates from High-Flyer, a Chinese hedge fund that adopted AI early and heavily invested in GPUs. In 2023, High-Flyer launched DeepSeek as a separate venture solely focused on AI. Unlike many competitors, DeepSeek remains self-funded, giving it flexibility and speed in decision-making. Despite claims that it is a minor offshoot, the company has invested over $500 million into its technology, according to SemiAnalysis.

• A major differentiator for DeepSeek is its ability to run its own data centers, unlike most other AI startups that rely on external cloud providers. This independence allows for full control over experiments and AI model optimizations. In addition, it enables rapid iteration without external bottlenecks, making DeepSeek highly efficient compared to traditional players in the industry.

• Then there is something that one would not expect from a Chinese company: talent acquisition from mainland China, with no poaching from Taiwan or the U.S. DeepSeek exclusively hires from within China, focusing on skills and problem-solving abilities rather than formal credentials, according to SemiAnalysis. Recruitment efforts target institutions like Peking University and Zhejiang University, offering highly competitive salaries. According to the research, some AI researchers at DeepSeek earn over $1.3 million, exceeding compensation at other leading Chinese AI firms such as Moonshot.

• A recent claim that DeepSeek trained its latest model for just $6 million has fueled much of the hype. However, this figure refers only to a portion of the total training cost— specifically, the GPU time required for pre-training. It does not account for research, model refinement, data processing, or overall infrastructure expenses. In reality, DeepSeek has spent well over $500 million on AI development since its inception. Unlike larger firms burdened by bureaucracy, DeepSeek’s lean structure enables it to push forward aggressively in AI innovation, SemiAnalysis believes.

• DeepSeek's rise underscores how a well-funded, independent AI company can challenge industry leaders. However, the public discourse might have been driven by hype. Reality is more complex: SemiAnalysis contends that DeepSeek’s success is built on strategic investments of billions of dollars, technical breakthroughs, and a competitive workforce. What it means is that there are no wonders. As Elon Musk noted a year or so ago, if you want to be competitive in AI, you have to spend billions per year, which is reportedly in the range of what was spent.

   

   

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• As time goes on it is certainly obvious that those here who were arguing that the Gaza Ceasefire represented some sort of a "victory" for Gazans-Palestinians were over-optimistic (to say the very least). 

   
• But also as time goes on, the more does all the Trumpian extravaganza show, being to settle into an older pattern. Does it not? There is a reversion back to an "old-fashioned" imperialism here - without the more 'modernistic gloss' it acquired in the last 30-70 years. There seems to have been little comment on this aspect. What am i missing? 

   

   

   

  The architecture emerging appears to be:

   

  1) Protectionism. vs de-industrialisation while raking in tariff-money;

   

  and continuing to beef up USA digital domination.

   

  2) Restructure government bureaucracy; shed any small vestiges of both 'regulation' and 'welfare stateism' - and instilling complete obeisance at all levels.  

   

  3) Re-take up naked imperialist ambition - now undisguised - for 'lebensaum' and denial of entry space for China - Panama/Greenland/Gaza (don't know whether to attempt to place Canada in that list or not)

   

  It all seems clearly geared at sabre-rattling towards a new war. I know Marxists are prone to saying this. But there is definitely method in his madness. What can it be targeted at?