It is true that only two of the seven nations in the PRC’s lunar base combine are formally socialist/communist – the PRC itself and Venezuela. The others, though, are all one-party autocracies/kleptocracies with Russia, Belarus and Azerbaijan having communist pasts and South Africa being run by a party, the ANC, that has long regarded itself as socialist/communist. Given that the PRC is avowedly socialist/communist and is also footing most of the bills and providing nearly all of the key technology, calling it’s lunar project a communist alliance is at least first and second order correct.

The project is, in any case, far more communist than the U.S. is an “Empire.” That you trot out this tired old leftist wheeze removes any doubt about your capability of making “qualified” – whatever that means – political statements and analyses. It is impossible to take seriously any “analysis” that starts with a readily demonstrable falsehood.

The U.S. is not only not an empire, the post-WW2 global order established by the U.S. is the first really novel non-imperial form of international organization ever seen. Under this order, all extant empires were dismantled except the one this global order was stood up to oppose in the first place, namely that of the former Soviet Union. For a straightforward explanation of this I recommend to you the written works of Peter Zeihan as well as any of the numerous long-form podcasts on which he has appeared as a guest and in which he summarizes this thesis. His Joe Rogan appearance is particularly amusing.

Michael McNeil: Thank you. Fixed.

Of course not – wokism, genderism and other things like racism and uncontrolled “immigration” are things the left nurtures and inflicts on others, as weapons to destroy their societies!

Interesting that you consider wokism and genderism to be communist or Marxist ideals in America but not elsewhere. Just as it is possible to happen in the U.S., it is shortsighted to think it cannot happen in communism, if the communist rulers choose to do it.

If you look at the political processes and the situation in your own country, the US Empire, it is much more likely to be called communist than Russia, the latter is very conservative. Such developments – which you report on almost every day – such as wokism and genderism would not be possible there.

Anent the Artemis Accords, Bulgaria’s accession brings the number of AA adherents – 32 – to exactly 10 more than the total adhering to the godawful Moon Treaty. Seven of the nations on the AA adherent list are also adherents of the Moon Treaty. One of these – Saudi Arabia, somewhat surprisingly – will be officially withdrawn from the Moon Treaty as of early January. One hopes that the remaining nations – Australia, France, India, Mexico, Netherlands and Romania – currently adhering to both will soon do likewise.

Matt in AZ: Russia did itself no good invading the Ukraine. It has made Kazakhstan far less interested in working with it as a partner.