UNFTR Weekly Roundup

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Thank you to all of our members and a hearty welcome to our newest members:

• Graham L.
• Susan
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• Clever Name
• Mitsos
• EJ Evans
• aisokh
• Michaelhatesfascism
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• Jason

ICYMI

This week we teased out our strategy-in-development to help guide leftists and progressives as we exit the neoliberal era and fully embrace the corporate colonialism phase of our empire. Make sure to check out the video and stay tuned as we release more information and our curriculum.

One of the calls to action is to assemble a small group of people, either in person or virtually—who are interested in getting involved in the progressive movement. That’s the first step. A small group, no less than three and no more than eight, committed to meeting weekly and studying the history of left movements, discussing policy, creating action plans and more. The only thing we ask is that you tell us once you have your group together (we’re calling them hives) that you give your hive a name and share it with us. Other than that, we want you to go underground. More to come, comrades and compadres.

Max Notes

“On Friday, February 7, 2025, at 11:59 pm (EST) all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs. Essential personnel expected to continue working will be informed by Agency leadership by Thursday, February 6, at 3:00pm (EST).”

That’s the message one receives when logging onto the USAID.gov site. The global workforce, composed of direct employees and contractors, is being reduced from 10,000 to 300 effective immediately, if the order stands. It’s unclear to me if this is completely within the purview of the Executive, though it appears it may. 

Workers abroad have the option to return to the United States over the next 30 days, paid for by the government but after that all bets are off. 

Last year, USAID disbursed upwards of $40 billion in aid. These funds are spread among a variety of interests from childhood poverty and pandemic prevention to supporting foreign governments. While the Left has been critical of USAID-funded interventions into government programs, the right has increasingly taken aim at the relief efforts. So let’s be clear about what this is. They’re dismantling this massive apparatus under the guise of fighting the “radical left agenda” but this is really about making a hard break from all foreign support so they can rebuild it with evangelical Christian missions. 

Mark my words, that’s what this is and how this will play out. 

They’ll hand out Trump bibles and money in return for laws that criminalize LGBTQ+ persons. They’ll move funds that support women’s health, AIDS prevention and vaccines in remote poverty-stricken villages across the world. They’ll point to corrupt local leaders who take bribes for such access and they’ll be right. There’s a cost to doing this type of humanitarian business. Deals are made with the devil to save a few angels, of this there’s no doubt. 

Of course the dollars that fall into the wrong hands are crumbs compared to the real budget gaps that DOGE could be investigating. Such as this 2023 audit finding:

“The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating the Department of Defense’s (DOD) failure to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse. In November 2022, DOD failed its fifth consecutive audit, unable to account for sixty-one percent of its $3.5 trillion in assets.”

The DOD failed the audit again this year. The 7th in a row with some suggesting the untrackable assets are closer now to $4 trillion. The Pentagon was given a charge by Congress to clean up its act by 2028 and officials said they finally made some strides in 2024. I imagine the DOD beancounters are breathing a sigh of relief at the moment. 

$4 trillion in lost and untraceable defense funds. 

Versus

$40 billion in USAID disbursements. 

That’s the story. That’s the whole story here. 

Other things I’m obsessing over…

• So much for the “free” market. Bwahahahaha…🤣
  
  
• Watching reaction videos to James Blunt’s Monsters. 
  
  
• Welcome home Polar Pete.

-Max

Chart of the Week

Source: Congressional Research Service

Get it while it’s still available! Government website pages are disappearing at an alarming rate. You’ll have to dig for credible information going forward and do your best to put the puzzle pieces together. Thankfully Congress will still be able to do some studies and are leaving benchmark data for us to see. So here’s an overview, as of January 2025, of USAID-managed funds by sector and region so you can see the scope of its impact.

Again, I have no problem digging into the “Governance” tab, the largest of the sector allocations. That’s what we should be looking at because historically we’ve propped up some pretty gnarly figures in the world. But this obscures the meaningful poverty alleviation, disease prevention, and climate resilience work being done throughout the world.

Headlines

Exiled Media Left Hanging Across the World

Yet another example of what happens when you indiscriminately gut an agency that has far reaching tentacles. Exiled media that report on regimes under the most dangerous of circumstances suddenly found themselves without a patron when USAID abruptly shut off funding. If democracy dies in darkness when happens to authoritarian regimes?

From the article:

“All over the world, media outlets and organizations have had to halt some of their activities overnight. ‘We have articles scheduled until the end of January, but after that, if we haven’t found solutions, we won’t be able to publish anymore,’ explains a journalist from a Belarusian exiled media outlet who wished to remain anonymous. In Cameroon, the funding freeze forced DataCameroon, a public interest media outlet based in the economic capital Douala, to put several projects on hold, including one focused on journalist safety and another covering the upcoming presidential election. An exiled Iranian media outlet that preferred to remain anonymous was forced to suspend collaboration with its staff for three months and slash salaries to a bare minimum to survive.”

Reporters without Borders: USA: Trump’s foreign aid freeze throws journalism around the world into chaos

No Check for You!

What could possibly go wrong giving Elon Musk a back door into the Treasury? Um, a lot. Most of us thought the challenge for our institutions was withstanding the onslaught from Trump because he was elected to power and has a lot of it. This is beyond anything we’ve had to account for in our lifetimes, however. An unelected billionaire with the keys to the entire government…Not entirely unprecedented, but perhaps the most egregious case. This might surpass Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission and J.P. Morgan’s wartime loans. If there are any armchair historians out there that can point to something comparable I’d love to hear it.

From the article:

“Concerns have been raised that Musk’s IT aides are creating a ‘back door’ into the Treasury system, allowing Trump to bypass Congress in the next fiscal crisis, expected when federal spending hits the legal debt ceiling in mid-March. This would give the White House unilateral control over federal payments. This would allow Trump to proceed as he wanted to during shutdowns in his first term, but could not—ensuring obligations to bondholders, weapons manufacturers, and the military-intelligence apparatus are met while defaulting on essential programs like education funding, Medicaid reimbursements and even Social Security checks.”

WSWS: Trump grants Musk access to every American’s data to spearhead social spending cuts

How the World Plans To Test Trump’s “Anti-War” Image

I’ve pretty much abandoned The Intercept since the only emails I get from them these days look like DNC fundraising emails. “Emergency! We’re under attack!” “Free speech is on the line.” Thankfully, the beating heart(s) of this once valuable publication left to form DropSite. I recommend a subscription because they have remarkable access to troubled parts of the world and will be in the know when shit hits the fan. Like this potential bomb…

From the article:

“The military now wants a deal to bring the standoff to a close, consolidating domestic support in advance of its planned escalation in Afghanistan, which sources who spoke to Drop Site said would likely include both major ground operations and airstrikes. For the PTI, the prospect of making a deal would help relieve pressure on the party and allow it to normalize its status in the country, but at the cost of acquiescing to the military’s domination of Pakistani politics and likely sacrificing Khan. Khan remains the primary draw for the party, which raises the question of what the PTI even is without him.”

DropSite: Pakistan’s Military Hopes to Drag Trump Back into War in Afghanistan

This Week on the Pod

Medicare For All.

Non-Negotiable #3.

America’s healthcare system isn’t broken—it’s working exactly as designed. The problem is that it was designed to generate profits, not health outcomes. We spend roughly 20% of our GDP on healthcare, about double what other developed nations spend per capita, yet we have shorter life expectancy, higher infant mortality rates, and leave tens of millions uninsured or underinsured. Medicare for All is the obvious and attainable solution but it has fallen out of mainstream conversation since Biden bested Bernie for the 2020 nomination. Rekindling this spark is vital and should be one of the primary non-negotiables of the Left movement. 

Here’s a snippet from the pod:

Max: “Medicare for All is the one policy change that signals a shift in consciousness, in how we view the role of the government and the nature of fundamental rights. Even though we have a notion of general welfare as set forth in the Constitution, the idea of welfare is either expansive in the classical liberal sense or something to be contained under the conservative vision. And because there was no explicit understanding or “enumerated” right to health care when the founders conceived of the theory of welfare, it has been left open to interpretation.”

Resources

Pod Love

“The Bolshevik party was the only party in history which was able to lead the working class in a successful socialist revolution. In this episode, leading RCP member Rob Sewell explains how Lenin built this force, and the lessons to guide us in the struggle for revolution today.”

Marxist Voice: How Lenin built the Bolshevik party

Book Love

“In this timely book, leading global expert on political extremism Cas Mudde provides a concise overview of the fourth wave of postwar far-right politics, exploring its history, ideology, organization, causes, and consequences, as well as the responses available to civil society, party, and state actors to challenge its ideas and influence. What defines this current far-right renaissance, Mudde argues, is its mainstreaming and normalization within the contemporary political landscape.”

Cas Mudde: The Far Right Today

Unf*cker Comment of the Week

From @Puzekat2

“You need to reach out to other people on YouTube and create a coalition because you do not have enough subscribers and some of them don’t either but some of them do.”

(“On it.” -Max) 

Progressive Corner

Progressive Spotlight: Earl Blumenauer.

Longtime Portland Congressman Earl Blumenauer’s impending retirement caps a remarkable political career advocating for progressive causes, from lowering the voting age to environmental protection and drug policy reform.

Progressive Organization of the Week: Point of Pride.

‍“Our mission is to help the most vulnerable members of our community feel seen and supported through access to life-saving health and wellness services.”

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