Category: Uncategorized

by ANDRE DAMON

US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance engaged in a publicly televised shouting match with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during his appearance at the White House Friday, exposing the crisis triggered by the failure of the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine and the growing confrontation between the United States and the European imperialist powers.

Following White House meetings this week with French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Zelensky arrived Friday in the White House for what was billed as a signing ceremony for an agreement that would hand over Ukraine’s mineral resources to the United States.

Instead, plans to sign the deal were scrapped, and Zelensky was ejected from the White House following an unprecedented confrontation.

During the 13-minute exchange, Trump and Vance gave a devastating picture of the current state of the US-NATO war against Russia. “Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems,” Vance said.

“You’re not in a very good position,” Trump added. “You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people, you’re gambling with World War III.” He added, “Your country is in big trouble. You’re not winning this.”

Trump continued, “We gave you, through this stupid president [Joe Biden], $350 billion in military equipment. You’re buried there. Your people are dying. You’re running low on soldiers.”

Even while excoriating the presidencies of Obama and Biden, Trump took pains to identify himself with the arming of Ukraine, declaring, “Obama gave you sheets, and I gave you Javelins,” referring to anti-tank missiles provided to Ukraine by the US during the first Trump administration.

In publicly berating Zelensky, Trump sought to appeal to domestic disillusionment with the Ukraine war, which enjoys no significant support outside of the affluent upper middle class base of the Democratic Party.

WSWS for more

by MUHAMMAD ALI SIDDIQI

RIVERS of blood are flowing in the Middle East, but the one organisation that has been conspicuous by its absence is the Arab League. Founded in Cairo in 1945 with only seven members, the League of Arab States, now referred to as Arab League, has 22 members, the increase in numbers being of no consequence.

The first decision it made was to oppose the UN’s Palestine partition plan, which itself smacked of prejudice. The Arabs constituted 55 per cent of Palestine’s population, but they were given 40pc of it, and Jerusalem was awarded the status of an ‘international enclave’. The Arab world’s rejection of the partition plan lacked statesmanship. If the Arab League had accepted the UN’s partition plan the history of Al Aqsa and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, would have been different.

The Zionist leadership knew the Arab world’s military weakness and had during the mandate turned the kibbutzim into virtual arsenals. However, after World War II, there were better opportunities for the Jewish leadership to get hold of the latest weapons gathering dust in Europe. There were Jewish soldiers in the Allied armies and they did what was obvious. They rushed the latest World War II weapons to the kibbutzim in Palestine by every available means — by boat, ship, and air. Thus, when Britain finally quit Palestine, the Jewish leadership was ready to take over that part of Palestine which had been allocated to the would-be Jewish state.

What was the military strength of the Arab world? Azzam Pasha, a top Arab Lea­gue official, put this question to Sir John Bagot Glubb (Glubb Pasha), Commander of Transjordan’s Arab Legion. He replied: “Some 4,500 officers and men.” Azzam Pasha said: “I thought you had more.” He then asked how many the Jews had. Glubb Pasha replied: “Perhaps 60,000.”

The Jewish soldiers in the Allied armies did what was obvious.

The total forces with the Arab League were: Egypt 10,000; Arab Legion 4,500, Syria 3,000 and Iraq 3,000: a total of 20,500. But the Syrian army took no part in the fighting, and Lebanon had no army.

King Abdullah of Transjordan had made up his mind to send troops to the areas allotted to the Arabs in the partition plan but not to those given to the Jewish state. The Arab Legion was also told to stay away from Jerusalem.

Dawn for more

by B. R. GOWANI

VIDEO/Deutsche Welle News/Youtube

Commando Zelenskyy

One thing that instantly struck me watching the White House press conference February 28, 2025 with US President Donald Trump, Vice President J. D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was that the grand welcome accorded to Zelenskyy by the previous US government of Joe Biden and some Western European governments had gone to Zelenskyy’s head. He expected that as he was like an idol to warmongers like Biden and to reporters itching to see Russia defeated, that he would be so to Trump, too.

(Watch Biden/Zelenskyy bonhomie at a press conference with reporters from the dominant/major/traditional/legacy media, the war media, to whom Russia is the “evil empire,” per President Ronald Reagan’s label.)

Zelenskyy was told to put on a suit when visiting the White House. He showed up wearing a commando like stylish black sweatshirt with the logo of Ukrainian tryzub or trident and black pants, both from Ukrainian fashion designer Elvira Gasanova’s menswear label Damirli.

One should have the freedom to wear whatever one wants, however, Zelenskyy has not always worn such casual clothes. He used to wear suits till Russia attacked <1> Ukraine, since then his attire has been military/commando style clothes which he says he’ll wear till the war ends. Zelenskyy is not always on the war front but his clothing creates an impression that he is just coming from the war front, this in turn deludes him into believing that he is kind of a commando. This commando mentality proved almost fatal for the United States-Ukraine relations when he acted as one during the meeting. On March 3rd, Trump ordered a pause to all military aid to Ukraine — the first wise step to stop the war. Intelligence sharing is also on pause. Zelenskyy needs to come out of this commando mentality.

If Zelenskyy was more powerful than Trump, he could do, wear, say, whatever he wanted to. But he is not. He met Trump for Ukraine, not for himself. If the meeting was a personal one, no one will give a damn even if he blew it up. No. This interaction was for Ukraine and he should have remembered that. As the saying goes: Beggars can’t be choosers. Or as Trump put it:

“You don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards. Without us, you don’t have any cards.”

Zelenskyy badly needs a class in 101 diplomacy. You don’t cut off the branch you’re sitting on; Zelenskyy almost cut off the branch (of the US aid tree) on which Ukraine depends. During the meeting, he constantly argued rather than try and take the conversation towards a more agreeable path.

Despite the fact that US Senator Lindsey Graham, a strong Trump supporter, had warned Zelenskyy beforehand:

“Don’t take the bait. Don’t let the media or anyone else get you into an argument with President Trump.”

Zelenskyy’s arguments wouldn’t have mattered if he was arguing with the Biden team, because it was the Biden regime’s war.

Another thing one can deduce from Zelenskyy’s behavior is that he’s not smart like Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu or India’s Narendra Modi (both have big egos and cruel mentality, and wouldn’t hesitate to unleash violence to achieve the desired goals). But neither argue or show any displeasure when they meet Trump because they know they are weak partners vis-a-vis the US which is very strong — I would say too strong for our world, not a very good thing. Israeli leaders are famous for insulting, bypassing, or ordering US leaders but they can’t do that with Trump — of course, instead, they get things done with flattery.

Invited for lunch, but humiliated and shown the door without lunch from the White House, Zelenskyy flew into London in the warm and comforting embrace (albeit, a momentary one) of Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the UK. (Britain, once the greatest empire in the world, now has not much power except, every now and then, it makes some noise to draw attention.)

A conference of 18 leaders: Europeans and Canada’s Justin Trudeau, were called to support Ukraine which Starmer called “coalition of the willing.” The unwilling ones will be crushed or maligned. But the leaders were aware that without the US not much can be accomplished.

Donald Tusk of Poland:

“Dear [Zelenskyy], dear Ukrainian friends, you are not standing alone.”

Tusk should have added: We are all together but still alone unless the Globo Cop US joins in. 

It seems like Zelenskyy came his senses. On March 4th, he said:

“None of us wants an endless war. Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians.” “My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.”

Zelenskyy must be feeling very humiliated: first for being dressed down by Trump, and, then for accepting “Trump’s strong leadership.”

Advice for Zelenskyy, if he’s allowed to stay in power, or any other leader who takes over: Try to stay neutral, avoid joining NATO, be friendly, as much as possible, with your neighbors, including Russia, and prevent being a proxy in the hands of US/European warmongers. The devastating result in the form of death and destruction for both Ukraine and Russia is in front of you, due to your prolongation of the war.

Ukrainians must watch the following video of a speech given by Jeffrey Sachs to the European Parliament.

Business-being Trump

The effective rate for many anti-bacterial, disinfectant, and other products is advertised as 99.99% effective. In other words, it’s not absolutely effective and not totally potent.

The same analogy can also be applied to Trump. One could say Trump is 99.99% nasty, greedy, cruel, or whatever. That, however, leaves room for some uprightness in Trump.

Trump’s figure for US support of $350 billion dollars to Ukraine was, as usual, exaggerated, the actual amount is about $183 billion — huge sum of money for the war, for which major support comes only from the Democratic Party’s “affluent upper-middle class base.” However, the total amount Ukraine received from the US, European Union institutes, several countries, and groups amounts to $380 billion.

For Trump, Zelenskyy is not a hero. Trump is a different entity with a diverse agenda; he has been talking about ending the Russia/Ukraine war for a long time and so it was counterproductive to argue and throw tantrums rather than listening to Trump and then requesting a favor here and a favor there. Of course, Trump has his own interest in facilitating a ceasefire, he is eyeing Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.

After all, Trump is business-being and like most businesspersons, his motive is always a financial one.

Trump is right when he points out the danger of the Russian Ukraine war:

“You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War Three <2>.”

Trump attacked

The war news media and many European leaders instead of thanking Trump for his efforts in working for a ceasefire, which would not only prevent loss of life and destruction in Ukraine and Russia but would also save US and European taxpayers’ money, lambasted him for being a “bully” and termed discussion with Zelenskyy an “ambush.”

Financial Times’ Europe editor Ben Hall said Trump and Vance “were spoiling for a fight” with Zelenskyy. Marc Polymeropoulus, MSNBC’s National Security & Intelligence Analyst noted that Trump and Vance “have humiliated the United States” when they shouted at Zelenskyy.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier:

“The scene in the White House yesterday took my breath away. I would never have believed that we would one day have to protect Ukraine from the U.S.A.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused Trump and Vance of “doing Putin’s dirty work.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) described Trump’s berating of Zelenskyy “utter embarrassment” for the US.

Trump is wrong on a huge number of issues but not on this one. All those criticizing him are foes of Ukrainian people; it’s they who are paying the price for this meaningless war.

NOTES:

<1> The former USSR’s (now Russia) request for NATO membership in mid 1950s was rejected. Why? two logical reasons: one, if Russia is in NATO then you have no enemy to fight with. That is a no, no. Also, there wouldn’t be a war lobby and no arms-related corruption; not a good thing for lobbyists, Congresspersons, weapons producers who always get their cuts, profit, and so on. The other reason was a united Europe wouldn’t be as vulnerable to US dictates as it is now.

<2> The World War I and the World War II started by Europeans and the world was dragged in because most countries were under European colonial rule. (The name World War is a misnomer — actually it should be called European World War.) How wise are these idiot European leaders whose insanity could drive Europe towards the European World War III.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will introduce 27 European Union members with her “ReArm Europe” costing $840 billion.

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

by NICKY REID

Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream, and it sounded pretty fucking sweet on the radio. Even a bitter post-everything anarchist like me gets a little choked up listening to the good doctor’s Sermon on the Mount at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. Martin had a dream about America living up to its word and redeeming itself after centuries of barbarism by opening its doors and letting everybody in. A dream in which his own children wouldn’t be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character and all Americans would work together, play together, struggle together, go to jail together. A dream about inclusion that invited everyone to take part in the American Dream.

You could actually argue that America has kind of achieved this goal at least on the surface. In fact, America seems to have made Martin Luther King a major part of their whole sales pitch and the entire month of February is pretty much devoted to making this argument in the form of Black History Month. For 28 days a year, we are all reminded by a host of corporate sponsors that after just three civil rights acts and a few dead heroes America has become a place with Black celebrities, Black billionaires, Black CEOs, senators, generals and Supreme Court judges. We’ve even had a Black president. In what other indispensable empire could such things be possible?

If this all sounds a little too good to be true, then join the club and get ready to sit through a very short month of appalled guilt trips delivered by straight white dudes in dashikis. To be perfectly clear, I myself am what you might call a honky. In fact, I’m what many would likely refer to as a redneck. But I’m also a neurodivergent transwoman in the thick of Trump Country and I know when I’m being sold a bill of goods. The harsh reality that only a handful of politically incorrect people of color seem to even be willing to touch is that Martin’s dream, at least the version sold at Walmart for 9.95, is tragically skin deep and quite nightmarish just beneath the surface.

In 1968, LBJ ordered a study to be done on racial disparity in America after Dr. King’s assassination nearly triggered a nationwide revolution across the country’s ghettos. The result was the Kerner Commission and what this commission found was a nation wracked by generations of institutional apartheid and a Black community in particular struggling to survive under third world conditions in the wealthiest nation on earth. The most tragic fact made clear by the Kerner Commission however didn’t actually surface until half a century after it was published.

In 2025, some 57 years after LBJ passed this nation’s last civil rights act while the ghettoes were still burning, study after study shows that racial inequality in this country is virtually unchanged from the one in the yellowed pages of the Kerner Commission and in some places, it has actually gotten worse. The earnings gap remains the same, the wealth gap remains the same, the disparity between Black and white homeownership remains the same, and four generations after desegregation, America’s cities are more segregated than ever before.

“But how could this be…?” a frantic white woman cries out in the distance, “We killed Jim Crow!” Perhaps, but the War on Drugs brought him back by turning America’s prison system into the most effective tool for white supremacy that the world has ever seen. In 1968, the American prison population was 188,000. Today, it stands at just over two million with another three million people living under some form of judicial supervision which renders convicted felons bereft of nearly every right guaranteed them by the civil rights acts of the 1960s, including the right to vote.

This population is made up overwhelmingly of people of color convicted of non-violent drug offenses and this isn’t just some cruel coincidence. It was a deliberate conspiracy conjured up by failed segregationists like Senator Strom Thurmond who used the manufactured panic over America’s poverty driven drug habits to turn the federal government they once opposed in the name of state’s rights into the kind of white power behemoth that would make the Klan downright irrelevant.

But it wasn’t cross-burning goons in white hoods who drove the final nail in this coffin, it was LBJ’s Democrats. Men like former President Joe Biden, who Thurmond carefully groomed to take his place as hangman of the Senate Judiciary Committe, and former President Bill Clinton who together passed the largest crime bill in American history in 1994. A legal monstrosity that more than doubled the prison population within a decade with 60 new death penalties, 90 enhanced penalties, 100,000 new cops, and 125,000 new state prison cells. As late as 2007, then Senator Joe Biden described this bill as his proudest achievement. A year later he would serve as Vice President to America’s first Black Commander in Chief.

Yes, a handful of the Black bourgeoisie like President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris have reached the pinnacle of American power, but they have only done so by taking part in the violence as token members of a police state still defined by white supremacy. 

Exile in Happy Valley for more

by MAHA NASSAR

President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. should “take over” Gaza, displace its current population and turn the enclave into “the Riviera of the Middle East” is unsettling – in both a literal and, to Palestinians, a very personal sense.

The remarks, which followed earlier comments in which the president expressed a desire to “clean out” Gaza, have been taken by some Middle East experts as a call to “ethnically cleanse” the strip of its 2.2 million Palestinian inhabitants. They worry that such talk will bolster the hopes of Israel’s far-right settlers and their supporters in government, who want to remove Palestinians from Gaza and build Jewish-only settlements on the enclave’s beachfront property.

Following Trump’s remarks, Riyad Mansour, Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, stated: “Our homeland is our homeland.” He added, “I think that leaders and people should respect the wishes of the Palestinian people.”

As a scholar of modern Palestinian history, I know that calls to remove the Palestinians from Gaza are not new – but neither is Palestinians’ determination to remain in their homeland. For almost 80 years, Palestinians in Gaza have resisted various proposals to displace them from the enclave. In fact, those plans have often spurred resistance to occupation and removal.

A people already uprooted

Most people in Gaza are the product of displacement in the first place.

In 1948, over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes when the state of Israel was established and a war between the new country and its Arab neighbors erupted.

These Palestinians became nationless refugees, placed under the care of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency. In the Gaza Strip, the agency set up eight refugee camps to care for over 200,000 Palestinians who had been forced out of over 190 towns and villages.

In December 1948, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 194 stipulating that “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.”

The Conversation for more

by KATHLEEN TEREPOSKY

Palm oil, the world’s most versatile vegetable oil, is a key ingredient in countless products, from processed foods to cosmetics and even biodiesel (Tullis, 2019). Its multipurpose qualities have led to a high worldwide demand. While good for the economy, its widespread cultivation has led to terrible circumstances for some children in Indonesia who are pressured to work in the industry. 

The palm oil industry in Indonesia

As the world’s biggest palm oil producer, Indonesia supplies 57% of the global demand for palm oil (ILO, 2023).  The palm oil industry is the largest employer in Indonesia. It currently employs about 8 million people and contributes between 9-17% of the country’s GDP (Benazir, 2024).

While this has raised the incomes of locals, especially those living in rural areas, the use of child labour has subsequently increased. The high demand for palm oil has led to supply chain pressure to minimize labour costs thereby resulting in the exploitation of child labour to keep costs low and profits high.

Child labour in Indonesia 

Child labour has been an ongoing issue in Indonesia. While the Indonesian government requires all industries to conform to child labour laws, it is reported that around 1.01 million children participated in child labour in 2023 (Siahaan, 2024). While this number decreased by around 3.5% since 2021, the child labour rate remains higher than the pre-pandemic level.

Poverty and limited access to education are key factors driving child labour, especially in rural and impoverished regions, where a significant number of children balance work and school. Insufficient enforcement of child labour laws further exacerbates the problem. Child labour is prevalent in informal sectors like agriculture, which is difficult to monitor and regulate. Inspectors often lack the authority to inspect private palm oil farms, where many child labour violations occur. 

Effects of child labour in the palm oil industry on children

Child labour severely impacts children’s physical, emotional, and intellectual development. Many child labourers face exploitation, including forced labour and abuse, with lifelong health and economic consequences. The palm oil industry has used children as young as 8 years old to harvest and collect loose palm fruits (Amnesty International, 2016). 

Children are involved in many other activities within palm oil plantations, including applying fertilizers and pesticides, often without proper protective equipment, carrying heavy loads and operating heavy machinery (Benazir, 2024). These dangerous activities can result in physical injuries and other serious health problems such as stunted growth, respiratory issues, skin conditions, and long-term health problems. In addition to physical impacts, child labour demands cause children to miss school, thereby, hindering their educational level and perpetuating cycles of poverty.

International law should protect children from child labour

Several international legal instruments protect children from labour exploitation.The International Labour Organization (“ILO”) Convention No. 138 (Minimum Age Convention, 1973) establishes the minimum age for employment, generally set at 15 years, with stricter rules for hazardous work, which is typically set at 18 years.The ILO Convention No. 182 (Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999) focuses on eliminating the worst forms of child labour, such as slavery, trafficking, forced labour, and hazardous work that endangers the wellbeing of children.

Humanium for more

by AMY KURZWEIL & DANIEL STORY

We can now create compelling experiences of talking with our dead. Is this ghoulish, therapeutic or something else again?

In 1970, a 57-year-old man died of heart disease at his home in Queens, New York. Fredric Kurzweil, a gifted pianist and conductor, was born Jewish in Vienna in 1912. When the Nazis entered Austria in 1938, an American benefactor sponsored Fred’s immigration to the United States and saved his life. He eventually became a music professor and conductor for choirs and orchestras around the US. Fred took almost nothing with him when he fled Europe – but, in the US, he saved everything. He saved official documents about his life, lectures, notes, programmes, newspaper clippings related to his work, letters he wrote and letters he received, and personal journals.

For 50 years after Fred died, his son, Ray, kept these records in a storage unit. In 2018, Ray worked with his daughter, Amy, to digitise all the original writing from his father. He fed that digitised writing to an algorithm and built a chatbot that simulated what it was like to have a conversation with the father he missed and lost too soon. This chatbot was selective, meaning that it responded to questions with sentences that Fred actually wrote at some point in his life. Through this chatbot, Ray was able to converse with a representation of his father, in a way that felt, Ray said: ‘like talking to him.’And Amy, who co-wrote this essay and was born after Fred died, was able to stage a conversation with an ancestor she had never met.

‘Fredbot’ is one example of a technology known as chatbots of the dead, chatbots designed to speak in the voice of specific deceased people. Other examples are plentiful: in 2016, Eugenia Kuyda built a chatbot from the text messages of her friend Roman Mazurenko, who was killed in a traffic accident. The first Roman Bot, like Fredbot, was selective, but later versions were generative, meaning they generated novel responses that reflected Mazurenko’s voice. In 2020, the musician and artist Laurie Anderson used a corpus of writing and lyrics from her late husband, Velvet Underground’s co-founder Lou Reed, to create a generative program she interacted with as a creative collaborator. And in 2021, the journalist James Vlahos launched HereAfter AI, an app anyone can use to create interactive chatbots, called ‘life story avatars’, that are based on loved ones’ memories. Today, enterprises in the business of ‘reinventing remembrance’ abound: Life Story AI, Project Infinite Life, Project December – the list goes on.

These apps and algorithms are part of a growing class of technologies that marry artificial intelligence (AI) with the data that people leave behind.

Aeon for more

by PEGGY MOHAN

An excerpt from ‘Father Tongue, Motherland: The Birth of Languages in South Asia’

There were probably many languages and dialects in the Indus Valley region, with one standard variety located at the centre of the civilisation. But it would make sense for many of the little languages and dialects of the region to have belonged to a larger family, though there would probably have been some unrelated languages also looking on from the sidelines. In such great cities there would definitely have been local minority groups, as well as diplomats and traders from neighbouring lands who left behind communities to keep the relationship going.

Much of the early search for a lost Indus Valley language centred on the seals that were found when the old cities were excavated by archaeologists. These were small reliefs, many of which depict animals or people interacting with animals, besides more abstract markings that would appear to be “writing” or some form of notation. What could these seals be? Could they be people’s names? Perhaps the names of important merchants who needed to put a stamp on their transactions? Edicts? They were too short to be full sentences. And if they were words, what did they sound like? Were these markings meant to represent sounds? Or were they just symbols for concepts, like numbers?

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by CEDRIC DURAND

In Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities (1930), set in Vienna on the eve of the First World War, the army general Stumm von Bordwehr asks, ‘How can those directly involved in what’s happening know beforehand whether it will turn out to be a great event?’ His answer is that ‘all they can do is pretend to themselves that it is! If I may indulge in a paradox, I’d say that the history of the world is written before it happens; it always starts off as a kind of gossip.’ Last week, with Donald Trump’s return to power, gossip swirled as the giants of the tech industry gathered at his inauguration. Front-row seats were reserved for Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Tesla’s Elon Musk, with Apple’s Tim Cook, Open AI’s Sam Altman and Tik Tok’s Shou Zi Chew sitting further back. Only a few years ago, the vast majority of these billionaires were outspoken supporters of Biden and the Democrats. ‘They were all with him’, Trump recalled, ‘every one of them, and now they’re all with me’. The crucial question concerns the nature of this realignment: is it a simple opportunistic turnaround, within the same systemic parameters? Or is this a moment of rupture worthy of being called a great event in history? Let us risk this second hypothesis.

Trump, as we know, is fond of lavish tributes. When courtiers flock to his Mar a Lago mansion, doesn’t it seem like a miniature Versailles? But the president is no aspiring Louis XIV. His project is not to centralize authority in the state, but rather to empower private interests at the expense of public institutions. He is already seeking to reverse the Biden administration’s fledgling attempts at interventionism by repealing its green subsidies, anti-trust policies and taxation measures, so as to widen the scope of action for corporate monopolies at home and abroad.

Two of his executive orders, signed on the day of the inauguration, underscore this trend. The first revoked a Biden-era mandate which required ‘developers of AI systems that pose risks to US national security, economy, health, or public safety to share the results of safety tests with the US government’. While public authorities previously had some say in developments at the AI frontier, this minimal oversight has now been removed. The second order announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Musk. Based on a reorganization of the US Digital Services, established under Obama to integrate information systems between different branches of the state, DOGE will have unlimited access to unclassified data from all government agencies. Its first mission is ‘reforming the federal hiring process and restoring merit to the civil service’, ensuring that state employees have a ‘commitment to American ideals, values and interests’ and will ‘loyally serve the Executive Branch’. DOGE will also ‘integrate modern technologies’ into this process, meaning Musk and his machines will be given responsibility for the political supervision of federal civil servants.

In the first hours of Trump’s second term, then, tech entrepreneurs managed to shield their most profitable ventures from public scrutiny while gaining significant influence over the state bureaucracy. The new administration is not interested in using the federal state to unify the dominant classes as part of a hegemonic strategy. On the contrary, it is trying to emancipate the most bullish fraction of capital from any serious federal constraints, while forcing the administrative apparatus to submit to Musk’s algorithmic control.

New Left Review for more