Russia is now militarily allied with North Korea, China, and soon Iran. Iran is now formalizing the Axis of Resistance (Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansarallah, etc) as a mutual-defense pact. Putin has explicitly connected the two axes, saying, if I may paraphrase, ‘if the Americans arm our enemies, we'll arm their enemies.’With Russia in Syria already, the two fronts could connect quite quickly. These are the battle lines of World War III. They're already drawn, and they've drawn blood already.

Iran, China, and Russia have conducted fivejoint naval exercises in the Indian Ocean already, most recently in March 2024, as observed by Oman, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and South Africa. Iran, Russia, and Oman are conducting joint naval exercises now (October 2024), observed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Thailand.

Joe Biden laughed about this sort of alliance in 1997, saying,

I had one interesting conversation [with the Russians], they talked about they don't want this NATO expansion, they know it's not in their security interest, and on and on and they said, ‘if you do that, we may have to look to China.’ And I couldn't help using the colloquial expression from my state, ‘lots of luck in your senior year.’ Good luck. And if that doesn't work, try Iran [laughter].

Biden told this as a joke, but who's laughing now? Russia now massively outproduces occupied Europe. Iran massively outproduces occupying 'Israel'. China massively outproduces everyone. Industrial war is a game of industrial production and America has deindustrialized rapidly. They've outsourced much of their war production across long supply lines they cannot secure and they would depend on Chinese resources to attack China. America would be stupid to start World War III given these material conditions, but unfortunately they are.

In this way, World War II never really stopped, it just stopped affecting white people so they called it 'Cold', like their hearts. America conquered Europe, much of the Pacific, and much of the Middle East in WWII, and this WWIII is them desperately trying to hold on. But America has, in fact, been in a long retreat since Vietnam (when they became unable to field a conscript army) and then Afghanistan (when they became unable to field an army at all). They have now lost naval supremacy to Yemen and air supremacy to both Russia and Iran. In many ways, World War III is finished before it started, America is furiously throwing proxies in front of itself, but its own army is too scared to even show up.

From deep within the imperial war machine, there is a sensation approaching sentience, or at least a dim sense of self-preservation, albeit too little, too late. As much as military censors pooh-pooh Iran's attacks on 'Israel', CENTCOM is shitting itself. As former CENTCOM commander Frank McKenzie has said, “There is no strategic depth,” and “The United States will not be able to maintain these bases."  What he proposes is a wholesale retreat from the Persian Gulf. What he doesn't understand is the historical nature of this defeat.

General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr, USMC 14th commander of U.S. Central Command

Retired General Frank “Spuds” McKenzie (aka General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr, USMC 14th commander of U.S. Central Command) specializes in running away. He retreated from Iraq, retreated from Afghanistan, and then retreated from serving America entirely. He now works for JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National inSecurity, which has “of America” tacked on as a fig leaf over naked foreign interference. I would care if “Israel” was a real country, but it's not. America, ‘Israel,’ rump Europe, it's all one White Empire and they all suck. As a representative of the imperial blob, Spuds has got the message from Iran, though of course, he still advocates assassinating the messenger (“strikes against Iranian national leadership could be considered.”)

In his new capacity as a think tank mercenary, Spuds at least has the sense to recommend withdrawing American forces from the Gulf. He said, “The United States will not be able to maintain these bases in a full-throated conflict, because they will be rendered unusable by sustained Iranian attack. It is the simple tyranny of geography.”  The problem he's talking about is that the White Empire has lost air supremacy over 'Israel', which has its best air defence. and the most strategic depth. 'Israel' is a good 1000 km away from Iran while American defence are within spitting distance. America's occupation of the Middle East was always morally indefensible, but now it's militarily indefensible also.

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), right, and Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, Israel Defense Forces Chief of General Staff, left, attend a briefing at U.S. Central Command headquarters, June 22, 2021. (Wiki)

As Spuds sour grapes it, “A secondary lesson of this successful (sic) operation was the importance of strategic depth—the Iranians had to go a long way to get to Israel, and there were many opportunities for early warning and interception. This is, of course, precisely the animating factor behind western basing. The corollary, of course, and not so positive, is that bases along the southern coast of the Arabian Gulf enjoy none of this geographic advantage.”

Spuds is referring to 'Israel' spending billions of dollars not stopping Iran's Operation True Promise I and II. Westerners laugh that Iran didn't kill anyone (only three, as actual accidents), not understanding that this takes considerably more fire discipline and control. Spuds is trying to make fine wine out of sour grapes by calling the 'Israeli' defense 'successful.' If 'Israel's' defense—which included all imperial assets in the area—was so successful, why the fuck are you retreating?

If you look at the map, retreat is precisely what Spuds proposes. He calls it “Potential Contingency Basing Structure,” which is just another word for retreat. He said, “based on warning and indications of war, land-based air defenses would relocate to the western bases from their locations along the Arabian Gulf.”   This is just running away with imagination. Like Shakespeare said, ‘that which we call retreat, by any other name would smell as sweet.’

A Historical Hinge

The forest that losers like Spuds miss for the trees is history. He spent his whole life retreating but doesn't connect the dots. He gets the details right—that America's bases and machinery are built for old wars—but doesn't get what this makes them. History. Warfare is in a constant state of co-evolution (sword and shield, fortress and missile) and you cannot rest on your laurels. History is full of examples of hubris put down.

The Chinese thought they had the best defenses in the world, but then they got overrun by Mongols that could shoot and ride for days. Western Europe thought they drew a line around Germany, but then the Nazis blitzkrieged right through [and around] it. You can have the best military in the world, but then the world changes, and suddenly your assets become liabilities. That's what's happening to America right now.

America's military is based on bases, bombers, and missile defenses (and/or “strike aircraft, tankers, and air and missile defense” as Spuds puts it). These former assets, however, are now liabilities. As Spuds says, “the thousands of short-range missiles that Iran possesses are a factor here. There is no strategic depth. An F-35 is very hard to hit in the air. On the ground it is nothing more than a very expensive and vulnerable chunk of metal sitting in the sun.”   As Spuds also acknowledges, “If the attacker is able to take out air defense radars with swarms of drones, then it will be very hard to conduct a successful ballistic missile defense.”  He doesn't discuss aircraft carriers, but Yemen chased those rust-buckets out of the Red Sea already, they have no hope in the Gulf. It's not that Iran has developed a peer military to America. It's that they have leapfrogged them. The US military can only lash out at civilians and assassinate leaders, which has little military value. Militarily, they're lost. They're dinosaurs, and October 7th was the asteroid that exposed them.

Aircraft were once the default way of delivering bombs and now the bombs deliver themselves. Satellites and spy planes were the way of gathering intelligence, but now you can get drones off the shelf. Finally, missile defenses offered impunity, but now even the Iron Dome gets overwhelmed. We have now seen that missile defenses do not work against masses of missiles, counter-insurgency does not work against miles of tunnels, and nothing works against a djillion drones. It's a fascinating story of military evolution built, as it is, on a throne of a million bones. Sword and shield always evolve together, and only occasionally does one slip ahead. This is one of those moments.

This is a sea change in history, as you can witness by looking at the seas around Araby. The US Navy has lost the Red Sea to a country without a Navy (brave Yemen), and the US Everybody has lost the air to a country without an Air Force (brilliant Iran). America has vast superiority in manned weapons (planes, ships) but they're vastly inferior when it comes to unmanned missiles and drones. They've been left behind in the next generation of military technology. Even within the bilious blob, there's a growing awareness of how fucked they are. Western technology is still plenty good at slaughtering civilians, assassinating leaders, and bombing hospitals, but they cannot prosecute a serious war anymore. To be honest, they couldn't (and didn't) since World War II. This is why Spuds' entire career has been retreat, including this current recommendation. The old dog only knows one trick, which is cut and run.

The Long Retreat

I call this period of history America's Long Retreat, because it is. America conquered a lot of land in WWII, and they've been steadily losing it ever since. America has been unable to raise a large army since Vietnam. They have been unable to field and army since Afghanistan. They're just furiously sacrificing pawns to cover up their own cutting and running. The fact is that depreciation and deindustrialization have defeated the US military before they even take the field. Their guns are simply too rusty and they can't make enough bullets anymore.

In a war with Iran, the central calculus will be the measurement of how long the Iranians could sustain a drone and missile bombardment of neighboring countries, in the face of our efforts to strike their launching systems and command and control facilities. It’s important to be very clear that there is only one air force in the world that is capable of a sustained campaign against Iranian missile and drone forces—the U.S. Air Force (along with the U.S. Navy). To operate over Iran and to seek and find their missiles and drone launchers means having the ability to gather intelligence, to suppress air defenses, to deploy low-visibility loitering platforms, and the ability to command and control the operation in real time. Israel possesses some of the capabilities, but not the capacity for extended operations. This is an important distinction, because these operations could last for weeks. No Arab state has these capabilities.

He's right that American proxies can't do anything, but he's wrong that America can do much more. The full force of the US Navy and all its vassals has been deployed to defend 'Israel's' airspace, and they can't do it. The US Navy and Air Force have lost the Red Sea and been laughed out of town. Messing with Iran would be 1000x worse. Spuds is right about the need to retreat from indefensible bases, he just doesn't understand how far.

USN carrier USS Ronald Reagan: Intimidation and punishment platforms. They look formidable, but they are painfully obsolete. Pathetically vulnerable to far cheaper modern drones and missiles.

Spuds proposes moving to a “Western Basing Network,” ie to bases in Saudi Arabia and 'Israel'. But A) those countries (even 'Israel') don't really want them B) that's not far enough and C) how? Spuds wants to retreat from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, which they've already lost. America's at the end of a long retreat and they get it but they don't get it. They don't need to retreat from one side of Arabia to another. They need to go wee wee wee all the way home.

I've been reading Frantz Fanon and I feel both seen and condemned. Fanon describes a type of colonized intellectual, which was me once upon a time. He also describes a trajectory for their awakening, which I seem to be following. It's a bit annoying cause I could have just read this instead of making a fool of myself in public for decades.

The Colonized Intellectual

When I was 21, I returned to sender. I finished my education in Canada/America and moved 'back' to Sri Lanka. I put 'back' in quotes because I hadn't lived there since I was four. As a young man, I thought I knew it all, but I had no idea. I had an education but I didn't realize how much I had to unlearn, and how much sources I trusted were actively lying to me. It's only now, as an adult, finally reading Fanon at my wife's insistence, that I understand who I was. I was a certain sort of colonized man, and quite unconsciously. As Fanon said,

During decolonization, certain colonized intellectuals have established a dialogue with the bourgeoisie of the colonizing country. During this period the indigenous population is seen as a blurred mass. The few “native” personalities whom the colonialist bourgeois have chanced to encounter have had insufficient impact to alter their current perception and nuance their thinking. During the period of liberation, however, the colonialist bourgeoisie frantically seeks contact with the colonized “elite.” It is with this elite that the famous dialogue on values is established.

This is the position I found myself in, in ‘dialogue’ with western embassies and foreign correspondents, going to cocktails and dinner parties, because I spoke the language of English and the dialect of human rights, democracy, and free markets fluently. I thought myself highly original, despite repeating paper-thin insights from The Economist from the same hymn book as everyone else. As Fanon said, “The colonized intellectual accepted the cogency of these ideas and there in the back of his mind stood a sentinel on duty guarding the Greco-Roman pedestal.”

But I hadn't even read the classics, I just got those 'values' photocopied 10,000 times through the mass media, until they were a meaningless paste. This is what Fanon called “the famous dialogue on values.” It was really a monologue repeated between people at cocktail parties. I wish I'd read more widely back then, because I would have read my own story and perhaps skipped a few chapters. Back then, I was just a certain type of colonized man, the embarrassing one.

Fanon said, “When the colonialist bourgeoisie realizes it is impossible to maintain its domination over the colonies it decides to wage a rearguard campaign in the fields of culture, values, and technology, etc,” and I have seen all this in action. Those were precisely the points that I interfaced with the west. The US Embassy's cultural attaché invited me to do a photo exhibition (I declined because I couldn't afford printing anything), I did journalism training through the German Embassy, and I met people from Facebook, even after they'd killed people in my own country. This makes me cringe today, but at the time I was oblivious. I thought these were the good guys, because I still believed what they said and not what they did. Thus, I feel both seen and condemned by Fanon when he says,

In its narcissistic monologue the colonialist bourgeoisie, by way of its academics, had implanted in the minds of the colonized that the essential values—meaning Western values —remain eternal despite all errors attributable to man.

That really was the monologue implanted in my head. I remember having the shower thought, ‘well, America doesn't live up to its values, but it has them as a sort of map for the future.’ Like lying was important because it was at least aspirational. But I was being too clever by half. They were just lying, and I was lying to myself about it. I'd blame myself if I wasn't so utterly predictable.

The Color Revolutionary

Fanon said, “The intellectual who, for his part, has adopted the abstract, universal values of the colonizer is prepared to fight so that colonist and colonized can live in peace in a new world.” And, indeed, I unwittingly underwent training to be a color revolutionary.

[The Gene Sharp Trap]

One day, I was idly looking through some noticeboard for opportunities because journalists don't have many. I saw a free training trip to Spain, to study non-violent resistance. This was just after the Arab Spring and it was all very exciting. I applied, got in, and they paid my flight and hotel to Madrid, Spain. I could have never afforded this on my own and I felt quite lucky. In hindsight, I was just a mark.

That event was totally CIA, in hindsight. It was run by a guy from the US military and government, who was funded by some dodgy financier. As a journalist, did I look any of this up at the time? Uh, no, I was more interested in going to the Prado (which was excellent). At that training I met some cool people from Egypt and Yemen and Mexico (shout-out George Clooney), but in hindsight, holy shit! They were training sleeper cells for regime change, and they trained me! Writing all of this stuff is honestly quite implicating and embarrassing and my only excuse is that I wasn't thinking. All I really thought was a free trip to Madrid.

The carrot of flattery and the stick of blackmail, that's what the US calls this public diplomacy. Colonization has always been a resource light enterprise. They want the colonized to do the colonizing.

The Colonial History

In 20/20 hindsight that's how it always was. We always colonized ourselves. As Ian Barrow says in his history of the East India Company, “It is one of the great ironies of the Company’s history that its Indian empire was effectively won by its Indian troops.”The corporate army's officers were all British and the grunts were Indian. We've been cucking ourselves since day one. India's population was nearly 200 million but it was oppressed by less than 45,000 Britishers. As Barrow said, “In 1830, for example, the Company garrisoned 36,409 British soldiers but employed only 3,500 civil servants and permitted just 2,149 businessmen and other Europeans to live in India.”

The colonizers of the Raj played political Jenga, corrupting local elites with imported goods, education for their children, and filthy lucre from the enslavement of their own people. Splinter colonization is still the policy of the day, divide and conquer the masses using local elites. It goes back to the great grand pappy of White Empire. As Cornell and Matthews write about the Romans, “The political organization of the developing provinces was achieved through the existing upper classes.”It is, as my historical thesis goes, same shit, different day.

The British called this divide and conquer, and the Americans do the same thing with better marketing. They call the process democratizing, encouraging free speech, human rights, but it's really just divide and conquer. And colonized individuals like me were used to divide. I feel sick to be part of that history, but that was me.

Decolonization

But Fanon wrote about an arc for the colonized man, as the world decolonized around him. Fanon describes my own intellectual evolution when he says,

All the Mediterranean values, the triumph of the individual, of enlightenment and Beauty turn into pale, lifeless trinkets. All those discourses appear a jumble of dead words. Those values which seemed to ennoble the soul prove worthless because they have nothing in common with the real-life struggle in which the people are engaged.

As times get hard and money gets tight, western liberals are literally committing genocide. They piously look down on Trump as the 'greater evil', while not looking in a mirror while they commit genocide. What are you going to tell me about lesser evil while I see kids with their heads and eyes blown off every day? When Democrats just continue Republican policies with more pious banalities? Just a jumble of words atop a mountain of dead bodies.

Fanon said, “The colonized intellectual accepted the cogency of these ideas and there in the back of his mind stood a sentinel on duty guarding the Greco-Roman pedestal. But during the struggle for liberation, when the colonized intellectual touches base again with his people, this artificial sentinel is smashed to smithereens.” I have truly felt this smashing in my mind. We have arrived at a point where the conmen of history no longer even pretend to believe in any values, but the colonized men actually do.

Asides

Today, as James Baldwin says, “All the Western nations are caught in a lie, the lie of their pretended humanism: this means that their history has no moral justification, and that the West has no moral authority.” It cheers me to see such clarity but depresses me that Baldwin said this decades ago. How much time have we lost, how many lives, to see what was already seen?

Decolonization is not merely a political process, it's psychological. I don't even know if I'm better yet, the mind virus runs deep. When I read Fanon I feel both abominable and absolved. Abominable because I was a colonized intellectual for so long, and absolved because I can feel decolonization also coursing through me. I like to think I arrived at my own conclusions, but I increasingly think conclusions arrived at me.

Sri Lanka is finally having a Presidential election, after overthrowing our President and getting some unelected rogue to rob us for two years now. The stability the purchased with more loans has so impoverished the people that, for the first time in history, the 'commies' have a chance at electoral victory. I dunno if I'd put my money on it, but that's where I'll put my vote. My only worry is that they're not communist enough. This is an FAQ as to why I'm voting for the National People's Power alliance, led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the JVP.

Who is the NPP?

The NPP is a coalition of leftist parties in Sri Lanka, led by the JVP. Their Presidential candidate is Anura Kumara Dissanayake (commonly called AKD).

Hasn't the JVP killed a lot of people?

The JVP started as a revolutionary party which tried to seize power by force. They have killed a lot of people. However, the JVP has actually killed less people than the other parties, by a factor of 10 at least.

Both parties in the old two-party system united around killing commies and Tamil nationalists and they killed much, much more. The UNP and SLFP killed tens of thousands in both the south and north, both Sinhalese and Tamils. The JVP's anti-state violence pales in comparison to the state violence unleashed by the ruling class in response. It's a morbid metric, but if you're voting based on who's killed the least people, that's actually the JVP.

Isn't communism bad?

The JVP is no longer communist enough for me, but let's address the communism in the room. Communism is, historically, the fastest way to develop and delivers the best health, education, and other vital outcomes for the most people.

China is a communist country and they're the richest nation in the world now (PPP FTW). As Uncle Deng said in 1987, “Poverty is not socialism. We must support socialism, but we must move ahead in building a socialism which is truly superior to capitalism.” They've actually done it, ahead of schedule. Just look at any Chinese metro/car/train compared to the absolutely crumbling and stagnant western models. Capitalism tries to take credit for China's rise, but I invite you to read anything.

As Michael Hudson says, the main difference between communism and capitalism is that in communism the state controls capital and in capitalism capital controls the state. In China the Communist Party is quite in control and while they're not dictatorial, they do dictate. They call their model ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics,’ and Sri Lanka's official name is the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. We shouldn't shy from declaring economic independence ourselves.

Historically, communism actually enabled countries to seize control of their resources and labor and to industrialize within one generation. Communism was a way to economic independence, not the illusion of political independence while still being debt slaves to the same people that colonized us. Communism has delivered better health, education, and housing to its people and many of the ills ascribed to communism are because of capitalists attacking and sanctioning them. Communism is not a bad word, it's just bad-mouthed by the worst people. The IMF, for example, is always headed by a European and has not actually developed anyone, they're just colonialism administrators under a new name. Communism of one sort or another is the surest way to decolonize your economy, and that's a step Sri Lanka has yet to take.

Is the JVP communist?

The JVP (the main part of the NPP), unfortunately, is not a very communist party. The JVP started as a revolutionary party which tried to violently overthrow the government, but they were killed pretty comprehensively and reformed as a regular political party. I'd describe them as more center-left than anything. The hardcore Marxists left for the FSP long ago, unfortunately. I guess you could call the JVP commies, I don't consider it an insult, but not enough for my taste.

What would the NPP do?

The NPP has said “Developing a production-based economy is our singular aim and guiding principle.” This addresses what plagues Sri Lanka, not debt per se but lack of productivity. As the NPP says, “due to the misappropriation of borrowed funds and the failure to invest them in economically productive projects, the economy did not grow in corresponding to the increase in debt.” Successive governments have taken out loans to fund bad infrastructure ideas (Mahinda Rajapaksa) or just new debt to pay off old debt (Ranil Wickremesinghe) without developing the productive capacity of the country at all. It was this unproductive regime that collapsed the country in 2022, and only the NPP identifies production as the core problem.

The unelected President (Ranil) currently running the place wants credit for stabilizing the country, but what has he done? He's stabilized the rich on the backs of the poor, while serving foreign moneylenders above all. Ranil took out most of the ruinous debt in the first place (rolling over the Rajapaksa loans) and he has not changed any real aspect of the economy at all. All he's done is rob 200x more than he did the first time, without even concrete to show for it.

Describing this sham stability, the NPP said, “it was mainly an outcome of unpaid interest, debt instalments in arrears, import restrictions, remittances from overseas Sri Lankans, and receipt of IMF extended fund facility, rather than a result of proactive and sustainable measures of the government.” And they continue, “Despite continued rhetoric about controlling inflation, the reality is that the prices of goods and services have risen to unaffordable levels. The ultimate result is that people’s real income has gone down so low that basic human needs cannot be fulfilled. As a result of destructive politics, about 26% of the population has been dragged below the poverty line.”

I find little to disagree with here. There is no productive economy without children that eat enough and most of our children are going hungry under this regime. There's no forward planning here, just more procrastinating. In order for things to change you have to actually change things. The state has to get involved with industry, that's the only way industrialization has ever happened! Not just in communist countries, but in the capitalist countries as well. Only the NPP even has a basic idea of this. Everyone else just says leave it up to the economists, as if there's some magic monetary settings we can change. But nothing works like that. To do something, you have to actually do some things.

This is the vital difference between political democracy and economic democracy. Countries can have political independence without economic independence, and right now, our economic policy is literally run by foreign bureaucrats from the IMF, with a comprador elite focused on their own corruption. They talk about state-owned enterprise or state planning being corrupt, but who's doing the corrupting! They're breaking the system and then saying the system needs to be sold off for parts because it's not working. This is why people protested for system change, which only the NPP comes close to delivering.

As their manifesto says, “The NPP’s economic policy framework focuses on economic democracy.” I know it takes a lot to deprogram neoliberal propaganda that people are too stupid to run economies and must leave everything to the capitalists, but just look at the capitalists countries today. America is desperately (and badly) trying state-led industrial policy themselves (in semiconductors, energy, and manufacturing), complete with tariffs and heavy subsidies. They tell us not to print money while printing the most money in their history! We have to, after decades of foolishly believing our former colonizers had changed, declare economic independence. We have to get the state deeply involved in the economy, that's the meaning of economic democracy. Taking control of the state, and using it to control our own destiny.

Especially with climate collapse and the need to marshal scarce resources towards what matters (health and education). To execute any big change of course you need a planned economy. Otherwise you're just planning to fail. I don't think the JVP goes far enough in this regard, but they at least have a concept of the general direction.

What else would the NPP do?

The country has many more issues, but you can read the manifesto yourself on those. I'll just highlight a few points that resonated with me. The bullet points are all theirs:

• NPP regards education, health, and transportation as essential public services and plans to increase resource allocation in all these fields.
• Strengthening the state share in public transport and creating an efficient public transport system in the country.

These points are important because, far from being costs to a government as foreign capitalists would have you believe, health and education are investments. If you don't invest in your people you have nothing, you're just selling off your country for parts and waiting to die. You have to invest your way out of a crisis, something western economists have known since the Great Depression, but they keep prescribing austerity to us colonies. It doesn't work. You have to invest your way out of crisis, and the base of all productivity is the health and education of your people.

If the NPP may continue,

• We will move away from anthropocentric thinking that places man as the sole owner of the earth.

I have never heard this anywhere in mainstream Sri Lankan politics and it's vitally important, that it's not just about people. We are not the owners of this island but mere custodians.

• For the first time in Sri Lanka’s post-independence history, governance will shift from the control of a few corrupt elite families to a people’s government. From the presidency to every representative body and operational mechanism in the country, all positions will be free from elite family connections and will be filled by the children of ordinary citizens produced through free education.
• Renegotiate with the IMF on the content of a more palatable and strengthened programme and how it is implemented for salvaging the poor and deprived people from that painful condition.
• State support for the local production of all possible food items within the country.

The JVP, as a party, is from the poor. Their candidate, Anura Kumara Dissanayake grew up poor whereas the other political leaders are from old feudal families and/or are literally the children/nephews of former Presidents. Only the JVP has any concept of how poor people live and suffer, and it is these masses that actually have to be mobilized to have a productive economy at all. One thing I must note is that the time for industrialization has probably passed, we are headed into a future where food and water will be the important resources, and the NPP at least has a sense that we need to, at a minimum, be able to feed ourselves. As they continue,

• We consider Sri Lanka must enhance local production and transition to an export-driven economy to navigate the current economic crisis successfully. This requires a comprehensive short and long-term industrial development plan.
• A rapid national program will be launched to add 2,000 MW of solar PV capacity within the next five (5) years, as a strategic measure to avert the impending energy crisis in the near future.
• Customers, including low income households and small and medium enterprises, whose electricity supply remains disconnected due to non-payment of exorbitant bills unjustly imposed over 2022-2024 will be reconnected, with remaining dues charged on a fair instalment plan.
• The contribution of the railway service has dropped to 5% in the transport sector. The portion of the SLTB in bus passenger service has dropped to 14%. Around 55% of the citizens opt to use private vehicles to fulfil their transport needs due to the decline in public transport, and they have to spend a large amount of their income on transport as a result. Hence the goal is to provide 70% of the public’s transport needs through public transportation within 5 years.

Sri Lanka's 2022 collapse meant, primarily, that we lost access to imported (dollar-denominated) energy. The current government has done nothing about the source of that problem, which is that we don't produce enough of our own energy and waste much of what we import on inefficient things cars. To avoid further crashes we can't just do financial jiggery-pokery like declaring meaningless accounting surpluses. We have to actually change the structure of the economy—specifically energy and transport—which the NPP is proposing.

In terms of rights and wrongs, the NPP says,

• The inefficiency of public service and the associated bribery, corruption, fraud, and misappropriation of public property are the inevitable results of the ruling class and the system. They are not tragedies brought by public servants on their own accord.
• Promptly completing investigations into political killings and abductions of journalists, sportspersons and others that have not been solved for a long time and implementing the law against the criminals
• Ensuring the quality of the food given to prisoners
• Investigating and serving justice to the political assassinations, disappearances and assaults that happened in the past in all areas including the North and East.
• Releasing all political prisoners and ensure their free socialisation.
• Abolition of all oppressive acts including the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and ensuring civil rights of people in all parts of the country

For decades Sri Lanka has been ruled by a rapacious class which has now handed power off to their children and grandchildren. All the ruling parties have stolen and killed and then blamed it on the inefficient government sector which they themselves have corrupted. This ruling class has become so greedy that they have even destroyed their own political parties and are running as independents. Now all the old rats are running between different ships while the country sinks. They can't even hold their own parties together and have no greater ideas for the country than more of the same. Why would you trust someone to hold a country together that can't even hold their own party? Which gets me to my next point.

Isn't the JVP too inexperienced?

The JVP is actually the oldest political party running in this election! The UNP, the feudal founding party, has splintered, and the SLFP doesn't exist anymore. The JVP are actually the most established political party, and they have the strongest grassroots network, the most active women's wing, and are by far the most organized around something other than personality and corruption.

How would they do it? Aren't we broke?

China developed from their lowest point. They started out poorer than us. The UK developed its (now decayed) social programs after World War II, when it was the most broke. Development is fundamentally a matter of will, and you absolutely can and should print your own currency to employ your own people. This does not have to cause inflation if you invest it in productive assets. People say government programs caused Sri Lanka's collapse but they did not, it was foreign borrowing from the same old colonizers. Economic independence is the way out, not how we got in at all. Remember that our crisis was denominated in dollars, not rupees. Internationally, we can hitch onto rising Asia instead of going down with the falling west. What the Sri Lanka lacks most urgently is leadership, which is why we need to fundamentally change leadership this election.

Will they take my second house/business/money?

Unfortunately, no. The JVP has become thoroughly domesticated and is no longer a revolutionary party at all. If they were a revolutionary party they would have takenpower during the protests, not waited over two years for elections.

Personally, I think they JVP should be much more ruthless than they are, but they're not. I think that foreign forces will try to destabilize/overthrow any leftist government and you can't trust elections. But the JVP simply isn't that party anymore, and haven't been for decades now. They will, unfortunately, govern like a center-left party within our existing constitution and laws. They're not going to tax or seize anyone's wealth away or smash the landed classes, though I wish they would. Sri Lanka's rich are deeply corrupt, blow away most of the country's foreign exchange, and I think they (we) deserve a slap. The NPP, unfortunately, won't deliver it.

Why are you voting NPP, in conclusion?

To me, the election breaks clearly along class lines. The rich (like me) will vote for Ranil or Sajith and the poor will vote for AKD. Both of the rich candidates will follow the same basic neoliberal policies of the past 40 years that caused the collapse in the first place. Borrowing, neglecting our own productive capacity, and kicking the can down the road. But this is the end of the road. It may be too late to turn, we may not turn hard enough, but the NPP are the only people that will even try a different direction. The reason they're even a possibility now is because so many more people have been made poor. The poor don't need to read this or anything else. They hear the truth from their children's rumbling tummies clear enough.

The stability that Ranil has given is on the backs of the poor. The poverty rate has doubled, most children do not eat enough, and many parents have not eaten an egg in years (any protein is given to the youngest child). Meanwhile, rich people like me are partying and consuming foreign exchange more than ever, and it makes me sick. I'm a class traitor and I'm with the poor. That's the big reason I'm voting NPP. They're from the poor, they're for the poor, and we're a poor country. We can't keep using the credit card so a few people can pretend to be rich on the backs of our children, we actually have to change leadership, change our economy, and change direction to achieve common prosperity for all. Call it communism if you want, the communists are rich now.

I don't want to be rich while Sri Lankan children are passing out in school cause they don't eat enough. That's no way to build a future, and the children, as James Baldwin said, belong to all of us. The NPP has a hard road ahead of them, but at least they have a compass. That's why I'm voting X . If you don't feel it in your own stomach, then check your heart.

The lost cat poster we never posted, because we'd get too many cats. Poster by Luna and her friends at school we have a new cat called Sita I asked to write the part about the poster and everything after .pippi is the best.

I don't mean to write all bummers all the time, I actually live in permanent summer. For the past week, however, I have been really bummed, because my cat took a runner.

Pippi is a street cat who walked in off the street as a kitten. One night, almost exactly a year later, I left the window open and he walked out, unbidden. We looked for him all week but gave up because people kept bringing us other cats of a similar jathiya. Then one day Pippi just walked back into our lives, meowing for his dinner like nothing happened. I'm told that this is normal for cats, who are not really domesticated, but I felt painful abnormal. Now the cat is under house arrest, complete with a tracking collar.

It's strange, what pains. I can write about all the death and destruction in the world and feel one level of bad, but what really hurt was losing something so small and personal, which wasn't really lost at all. I write about the wide world but my world is actually very small. I rarely leave my house, let alone my spot on the couch. The only thing I'd move my laptop for was that cat, and I missed him terribly when he was gone. I was walking around like my cat had died (which he could've) and was unable to enjoy anything. It's only now that he's come back that I feel anything close to normal.

Someone asked where the cat went and our uncle said WILL CHECK AND REVERT. We, of course, have no idea and never will. The cat wasn't even having a bad time, he was probably out chasing tail, but his absence still consumed my waking moments and I felt miserable. It's the rainy season and whenever it monsooned I felt the worst, thinking that Pippi was out there wet and alone. He probably wasn't, he came back well-fed and only a little flea-infested. But not knowing means imagining the worst. There's no particular insight here, it's just my view. For me, a good day is looking out the window and petting the cat. That's all I do. When he was gone, for me, everything was ruined.

Cat back under house arrest with new kitten

But now, in one bit of good news, everything is all right with my world. We actually have two cats now, because we had another kitten arrive in the interim (pre-planned, coincidental, and even more guilt inducing). I couldn't really enjoy this new kitten without my old cat, but now that he's back I can, though I can't say they enjoy each other.

I won't say that all is right with the world, because my writing is certainly not about that, but all is right with my world. The cat came back. Mashallah.