Humane Foreign Policy - Kat for Illinois
As with regard to Taiwan, the United States must continue to support Taiwan in the face of increasing Chinese aggression and attempts to undermine Taiwan’s internationally recognized status as a state of its own.
Kat Abughazaleh, Democratic candidate for Illinois 9th Congressional District - Chicago Sun-Times
I want to codify passive support to sell Taiwan weapons, and prevent the president from overruling it unilaterally. If China invades Taiwan, we need to step in militarily to defend Taiwan. We have to use all our assets in the region, to defend the island from illegal aggression. I envision a two-part credible deterrence plan that turns Taiwan into a “porcupine” too costly for the PRC to invade, by providing them with weapons to defend themselves and committing to actually defending the island if they do invade.
Drop Site (@DropSiteNews): "⭕️ LEAKED Email | XCancel
“interventionist,” foreign policy adviser says Kat Abughazaleh, a socialist Democratic candidate in Illinois’ 9th District and one of the only Palestinian-Americans seeking office in 2026, was described by her national security adviser as “firmly an interventionist” who “won’t stop until Russia is made to pay for its crimes,” in written responses detailing her foreign policy vision, obtained by Drop Site.
Ben Mermel wrote in an email to a Washington-based progressive foreign policy activist that Abughazaleh believes “the world is better off when America takes a leading role” and that the U.S. has “an obligation to support pro-democracy movements around the world, from Iran to Venezuela.” He added that “Kat wholly supports the National Endowment for Democracy, as well as its affiliated organizations (NDI, IRI, and the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center),” and said Congress should expand tools “from sanctions to NGO support” to advance those efforts without always resorting to “kinetic force.”
The DC-based activist had written to Mermel saying he had noticed unusually hawkish language on the campaign website related to Ukraine and Taiwan and was looking for clarification.
In his response, Mermel said that on Taiwan she would amend the Taiwan Relations Act by “dropping our strategic ambiguity” and make clear the U.S. would counter Chinese aggression “with force,” arguing the region now requires “a firmer hand.”
On Ukraine, Mermel wrote she would “hold the line,” support “funding the Ukrainian war effort to the hilt,” back long-range strikes on Russian strategic targets, deploy additional U.S. “air, naval, and ground assets” to NATO’s front line, and that “She supports the seizure and redistribution of Russian assets in Europe and the United States, for the purpose of financing the war effort.”
Abughazaleh did not respond to a request for comment, but a source close to the campaign told Drop Site that the adviser’s email did not accurately represent her views, saying, “Kat is committed to taking on authoritarianism but is vehemently against the military industrial complex and the continuation of failed US intervention approaches.” Abughazaleh has consistently argued against U.S. support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and, at a recent forum, said she opposes U.S. strikes on Iran.
Mermel in 2024 attended a pro-Israel protest held to counter the encampment at George Washington University. He has been Abughazaleh’s National Security Adviser since July 2025, according to Legistorm.
Just for the record, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a CIA organization:
National Endowment for Democracy - Wikipedia
In a 1991 interview with the Washington Post, NED founder Allen Weinstein said: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."[24]
The People’s Forum is WHOLLY funded, staffed, and controlled by PSL, whose office is in the same building upstairs. (more below and in linked tweet)
The CPC doesn't promote AI art from what I'm aware of. Probably because they recognize that capitalism is already destroying human culture as is and doesn't need any help.
There's nothing "reactionary" about the backlash to AI art; it's the literal fucking brainchild of fascists. This is unironic Red-Brown Alliance shit. AI is not proletarianizing art, it is gentrifying it.
Emphasis mine. Your lack of effort in research but all the effort in strawmanning is not my responsibility. If you cannot separate the criticism against capitalism from that against the technology and still call yourself marxist, then again that's not on me. To ringfence art from AI and framing it as not reactionary all reeks of gatekeeping; it echoes every other reaction against technology to preserve small scale production.
No one is stopping you from making art without AI. So what's the beef? You want to rest of us to hold on to your metaphysical conception of creativity? If not then what is the novel argument you are making?
Multiple considerations:
Art is subjective
Also to consider:
All Nietzsche.
I would recommend Losurdo's book - Nietzsche: The Aristocratic Rebel.
You need to look up strawmanning because I haven't done that. That Red Sails article you linked did, however, when it baselessly claimed artists opposed AI art because they think they're superior to non-artists or want to gatekeep art from other people. Peak fucking hypocrisy on display here, comrade. Please do better.
I'm not criticizing the technology, I'm criticizing how it is being used in capitalism by capitalists for the benefit of capital. Mass production of machine-made art created entirely for mass consumption is not something divorced from capitalism and it's completely disingenuous to argue otherwise. Your confusing my critiicism of the private automobile for the criticism of automobiles as a whole.
Except I'm not arguing to preserve small scale production, that's just the strawman you and every other tech fetishist have come up with to justify your absurd position.
I would very much like art to be more widely available to the public. AI doesn't do this; the machine is the one making the art, not the person making an input prompt. It's not a tool, it is a replacement for workers - in this case, artists. Reducing automation to the status of "tool" is reductionist to the point of absurdity. A tool is something you use for a task. AI performs it own tasks; it is automated. Automation exists in an entirely separate category from tools. It is very much a modern invention whose only parallel in human history is human laborers themselves.
Socialism already works to proletarianize art by its design. More free time, less burnout, more money to spend, etc. all combine to create an environment that allows people to pursue artistic hobbies in a much more fulfilling way. Communism in turn will make this even easier and this isn't even considering how revolutionary automated production as a whole will eventually liberate humans from the workplace entirely. At that point everyone will theoretically have the time to learn how to make art, but what would the point be if a machine can just shit out something soulless and devoid of meaning in 2 seconds? It is the labor that goes into producing art that makes it valuable. AI does not labor and its art thus has no value. The communist future should be one of absolute artistic freedom for everyone, not stale decor in an idle society that doesn't know what it wants to do with itself.
Art is not subjective. Appreciation of art is subjective. Art can be good, art can be bad, and yet art is still art regardless of its quality. What is subjective is how much we enjoy that art.
Cool. I never said any of that, nor do I agree with it. It's pure reactionary idealism. But keep strawmanning by all means. At least you're consistent.
I don't know what asshole read this book and decided all critiques of AI art is just the spiritual successor to Nietzschean elitism but I hope their plumbing breaks for making such an obviously bad faith connection.
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