Starring Vijay Prashad as Lenin with a podcast, Neville Roy Singham as the billionaire bankrolling the revolution, and a webinar full of people who think protesting is "counter-media" and nuance is for fascists.

There's something deeply unserious about revolutionaries who run think tanks.

And there's something aggressively suspicious about revolutionaries whose think tanks are funded by a tech billionaire who made his fortune selling enterprise software to corporations and the Pentagon.

But here we are, watching Vijay Prashad and his merry band of anti-imperialist cosplayers hold court at a Tricontinental Asia webinar, spouting absolutist rhetoric that would make a freshman Marxist blush, all while operating under the financial umbrella of Neville Roy Singham, a man whose wealth was built on the very capitalist infrastructure they claim to want to "smash."

You can't script irony this dense.

Meet Your Revolutionary Overlords

Today's cast of characters included Vijay Prashad, Director of Tricontinental and professional scolder of Western imperialism; Carlos Ron, former Venezuelan Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (yes, that Venezuela); Stephanie Weatherbee from the International Peoples' Assembly; and Tings Chak, Tricontinental researcher and graphic designer of agitprop.

Together, they delivered a masterclass in revolutionary theater: long on vibes, short on self-awareness, and absolutely dripping with the kind of moral certainty that only comes from never having been proven wrong because you operate in spaces where disagreement isn't allowed.

Let's break down the greatest hits.

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"Every Single Protest Is Counter Media"

Prashad opened with what can only be described as a galaxy-brain take on activism: "Every single protest you went to and every single protest you organized was part of the counter media to their media. Every single protest, no protest is too small."

Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. Literally.

Protests aren't political expressions anymore. They're media operations. Strategic content creation. You're not demonstrating, you're producing counter-narrative. Your body in the street isn't civil disobedience; it's engagement metrics for the revolution.

This is what happens when you spend too much time online and start thinking reality is just another platform to game.

Prashad has fundamentally reframed activism as branding. Resistance as marketing. Revolution as content strategy. Which, honestly, tracks perfectly for a movement funded by a guy who sold software to Fortune 500 companies.

No Room on the Wall, Comrades

But things got even more unhinged when Prashad dropped this absolute banger of authoritarian thought-policing: "There is no room, comrades, for us to stand on the wall right now. There's no room of like, 'well, I'm kind of not sure what I think about this.' You're either on one side or the other."

Ah yes. The rallying cry of every healthy, democratic movement: "Stop thinking critically and pick a team."

No nuance. No debate. No room for ambiguity or complexity or, God forbid, uncertainty. You're either with the revolutionary vanguard or you're a reactionary imperialist bootlicker.

This is cult logic dressed up in Marxist aesthetics. It's the intellectual equivalent of a loyalty oath. And it's exactly the kind of binary, apocalyptic framing that authoritarians love because it collapses all moral reasoning into "us versus them."

Notice what's missing? Any actual policy. Any concrete vision. Any explanation of what comes after you "smash hyper-imperialism." Just vibes. And rage. And the promise that if you shut up and fall in line, you'll be on the right side of history.

"We Have to Smash Hyper Imperialism"

Speaking of smashing things, here's Prashad going full Bolshevik: "If we want to create a world of sovereignty and dignity, we have to smash hyper imperialism. We have to smash hyper imperialism. There is no negotiation with a structure like that. It has to be totally dismantled."

He said it twice, just so you know he's really serious about the smashing.

But let's take a moment to appreciate what's being proposed here: total dismantlement of the global order. Not reform. Not restructuring. Not incremental change or diplomatic pressure or coalition-building. Smash it all.

And how, exactly, does one "smash" the global economic and political infrastructure that governs trade, security, and diplomacy for 8 billion people?

Prashad doesn't say. Because revolutionaries never do. The romance is in the destruction, not the rebuilding. It's easy to sound radical when you're not responsible for what comes next.

And here's the kicker: Prashad gets to preach revolution from the safety of think tank conferences and webinars funded by billionaire money, while the people who would actually live through the chaos of "dismantling hyper-imperialism" are the global poor he claims to represent.

Consequence-free radicalism is the luxury of the tenured and the funded.

The International Peoples' Assembly: A "Political Platform"

In case you thought this was just academic posturing, Prashad helpfully clarified that Tricontinental isn't just a research institute, it's part of a coordinated global political operation: "Tricontinental is part of the International People's Assembly, which is a political platform that unites hundreds of mass movements and people's organizations worldwide."

So this isn't scholarship. It's organizing. It's not analysis. It's agitation.

And it's backed by Neville Roy Singham, a former tech CEO worth hundreds of millions, who has funneled money into a sprawling network of leftist media outlets, think tanks, and activist groups that all sing from the same hymn sheet: America bad, China good, Western imperialism evil, authoritarian regimes elsewhere just misunderstood victims of propaganda.

Singham's network includes Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research (Prashad's outfit), The People's Forum (a Manhattan-based activist hub), BreakThrough News (a media outlet), and NewsClick (an Indian news site raided for alleged Chinese propaganda ties).

It's a vertically integrated influence operation: research, media, activism, all working in concert. And it's all somehow aligned with Chinese and Russian geopolitical interests, which is definitely just a coincidence and not at all suspicious.

200 Cities Mobilized for Maduro

Oh, and about that "rapid-response global mobilization network" Prashad bragged about: "We've been able to document more than 200 cities mobilizing across the world after the completely illegal intervention into Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro and Celia Flores."

Let's pause on "kidnapping."

Nicolás Maduro, the authoritarian leader whose government has overseen economic collapse, mass emigration, and credible accusations of human rights abuses, was not kidnapped. He was indicted by the U.S. for narco-terrorism and remains a fugitive from justice.

But in Prashad's world, rule of law is "imperialism," and holding autocrats accountable is "intervention."

So when 200 cities "mobilize" in defense of Maduro, what we're really seeing is a coordinated propaganda campaign designed to reframe authoritarianism as resistance. And who's organizing it? The same network funded by a billionaire who definitely doesn't have an agenda.

Ending with "Tujaeng" Because Subtlety Is Dead

And just to put a bow on the whole thing, they ended the webinar with "Tujaeng," a rallying cry popularized by the North Korean regime.

That's right. The same North Korea that operates gulags, enforces hereditary dictatorship, and treats its population like state property.

But sure, let's co-opt their slogans. Nothing says "liberation" like borrowing aesthetics from one of the most repressive regimes on Earth.

The Grift

Here's the thing that makes this entire operation so perfectly absurd: Neville Roy Singham made his fortune selling enterprise software. His company, ThoughtWorks, worked with massive corporations and even had contracts with U.S. government agencies. He got rich off the capitalist system.

And now? He's bankrolling a revolutionary movement that wants to "smash" that very system.

This isn't solidarity. It's moral arbitrage. It's buying ideological influence with capitalist profits while maintaining plausible deniability through nonprofits and think tanks.

Singham gets to play revolutionary benefactor. Prashad gets funding and a platform. And a network of activists gets marching orders disguised as "research."

Everyone wins. Except for intellectual honesty.

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Final Scene: The Revolution Will Be Subsidized

So here we are. A billionaire tech CEO funds a think tank that cosplays as a revolutionary vanguard, preaching the overthrow of global capitalism while operating comfortably within its protections.

A director who tells activists that protests are "counter-media," that nuance is betrayal, and that the only path forward is total dismantlement of the existing order but offers no plan beyond destruction.

A network that mobilizes hundreds of cities to defend authoritarian regimes under the banner of "anti-imperialism," all while ending their webinars with slogans borrowed from North Korea.

This isn't a movement. It's geopolitical karaoke. It's playing revolutionary dress-up with someone else's money and someone else's consequences.

And the saddest part? The people who fall for it, earnest activists who genuinely want a better world, are being used as props in a billionaire's ideological vanity project.

You want to smash imperialism?

Start with the guy writing the checks.

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