Image is of Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute a week or so ago.
I didn’t really want to keep spotlighting American domestic events as I had assumed that shit would calm down pretty quickly, but it appears that the Trump administration, including Musk, are determined to bring down the empire from the inside.
One of the most important lessons of ruling a country - and especially an empire - is to never, ever believe your own propaganda; and yet now we have neo-Nazi failsons disrupting parts of the imperial apparatus and causing general government mayhem because they actually seem to believe in libertarianism; that the state and the capitalists are somehow in opposition, rather than working in lockstep to maximise profit and boost American hegemony around the world.
I’m not so optimistic as to believe that a national collapse is FOUR DAYS AWAY, like those weird anti-China cranks often speculate - the US has at least a decade or two left even under these conditions. But consider the damage being inflicted in these past couple weeks, and extrapolate that over the next four years. Does any living American political figure possess the competency to halt - or even meaningfully slow - the already ongoing decline? And could they achieve power (or even be allowed to do so) after Trump’s term is done?
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Trump was always going to be the better hope for Palestinians for that reason. Biden/Harris would have continued the status quo. Trump might destroy it out of incompetence.
He’s also much more likely to change course on it if it becomes unpopular enough. He’s a Zionist insofar as he publicly supports Israel, but he genuinely does not care about what happens over there other than how it reflects on him. His ego would never allow him to get publicly dogwalked by Netanyahu like Biden did.
I’d be quick not to side with that of accelerationism, just because they might actually succeed and make shit worse. We are socialists, not campists.
Trump and Rubio are saying out loud what America is, dismantling the soft power quicker at the same time it is removing parts from the hard power having faith it’ll work better. True, adding new parts as well, but we knew that was already happening.
If it doesn’t matter, then it doesn’t matter. If it scares MBS into quick reaction, and disgusts the likes of Baerbock into publicly opposing it, then it would seem like it matters a little. Either way, the US and the rest are not going to stop slaughtering, starving, and enslaving scores and scores of humans anytime soon, and certainly not willingly - any remotely humane opposition will keep being neutered, and the people will keep being tricked by exceptionalism brainworms.
I’m not siding with anyone, just pointing out that incoherent and incompetent US foreign policy is preferable for Palestinian liberation than coherent and competent US foreign policy, because US foreign policy supports Palestinian genocide.
not necessarily true, its mad and radical yes, but its quite coherent and competent. They want to destroy Gaza, they will try to do so if no one stops them. Oppose all action by America, even if its a stupid one, because no matter how stupid they have the power to accomplish it.
This isn’t about supporting or opposing anything, I’m stating the current conditions. US foreign policy is the same now as it was before Trump’s inauguration. The difference is that Trump is bad at his job, and that’s good for opponents of US imperialism. I’m confident that a Harris administration would be much more competent at achieving the goal of Palestinian genocide, and less likely to experience problems of internal cohesion.
Trump’s actions should be opposed, but that’s a given. A Harris administration would also require similar opposition, because the policy is the same.
So far all Trump has done is force Israel into an embarrassing ceasefire and made extremely genocidal remarks that the entire world is balking at. Once he actually begins active genocidal actions we will all of course oppose these actions however we can.
Again, just expect that he will instead of saying “he’s better” to own the libs when hes literally not. It could have been possible that the dems would do a fake ceasefire too, as Israel was losing hard and needed time to get back on its feet, but it doesn’t mean their ultimate goal isn’t genocide. Framing things in a sort of “have to own the democrats by showing how republicans did better” just funnels people towards republicans. Again, I know everyone here is fundamentally opposed to American warmongering, but i feel like rhetoric should remain nominally consistent in this manner.
Nobody here is going to be funneled to the republicans lmao, we are just describing and remarking on events as they occur.
It sounds insecure to constantly demand fealty of people, you need to have some trust in your comrades here that we don’t think Trump is based
Yes, in a way that kinda gives the republicans too much of a pass when they’re basically democrats, but appeal to the other side of american fascist politics. He was never going to be anti-war due to incompetence. You don’t need to be competent to start a war, or cause millions to die. Even if he unites the world against him it will be in a massive war that will kill untold amounts of human beings. It is coherent, it is competent, because they are trying to accomplish a goal within their means that aligns with their interests. Democrats tried the underhanded way of leaving it all to Israel, now republicans will try directly and completely intervening.
Im not demanding fealty, i am simply making an observation and giving my assessment. The jokes about trump being actually the anti-war candidate were to own the libs but will ultimately make us look like fools for saying it, even if we aren’t serious. Even if it is a joke its rhetoric i see too much in other spaces and is quite detached. These are human lives we are talking about. Too many people actually debated if trump would be anti-zionist just because he had some personal issues with Bibi, but what did he do? He rolled out the red carpet and pulled out his chair for him. I know at least on hexbear people are far more ideologically aware of this, especially on the news com, but again I just observed something I felt I needed to comment on.
Side? How is observing what is occurring “siding” with anyone? It’s descriptive
“trump was always going to be the better hope of palestinians” Is quite a poorly phrased observation. Palestinian orgs see no difference between trump and biden, and burn effigies of both. They do not hope for either, they hope to destroy the terrorist state of Israel. Trump, although insane, has the considerable power of US empire at his behest like any president. Hitler was also a madman, and instituted crazed policies, and through the logical madness of fascism burned tens of millions in the Nazi’s rampage. It was madness and never going to succeed, as these actions by trump wont, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t just a murderous thug in a long line of murderous thugs.