Image is from this article, showing a march by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela Youth. The preamble’s information came from a few sources, such as here, here, and here.
Over the last few weeks, pressure on Venezuela from the US has mounted as their newest proxy, Gonzalez, lost the election to Maduro. The Trump administration now alleges that Maduro is the mastermind behind the “Cartel of Suns,” raised the bounty on Maduro’s head from $25 million to $50 million, and is working to deploy troops and naval assets to the region.
While I would not consider myself an expert, I believe an explicit boots-on-the-ground campaign by the US in Venezuela would be, at best, implausible, though the administration has not explicitly denied it (and even if it did deny it, denials by the US are merely confirmations that are being delayed). What seems much more likely is an intensification of a subversive campaign against Venezuela which seeks to further isolate it, with intelligence from the US given to whatever groups and individuals exist inside the country. There are certainly some parallels in regard to recent US belligerence towards Mexico, with both countries being implicitly or explicitly threatened with military force under the guise of “preventing drug trafficking” - and, of course, spreading drugs is one of America’s greatest specialities.
Will this work? I don’t know, though I am optimistic about Venezuela’s chances. The Venezuelan government does seem to be taking this threat with a refreshing degree of seriousness - with over 4 million militia members being activated across the country as of August 18th, as well as a call from Maduro to the armed forces to be on high alert. The socialist youth of Venezuela are being mobilized in defense of the revolution.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
Why? You assume India is operated on the basis of some broad self-interest or as a rational actor. That is not the case. It’s run by Hindu fascists and capitalists. If they’re given a chance to increase their profits/prestige while stabbing China in the side they’ll do it in a heartbeat as long as they don’t think it’ll put them too much under the thumb of the west in doing so and I don’t think they’re the best judges of that given who runs them and their inherently clouded vision of what is and isn’t a good-looking world to live in.
So if the west seems particularly strong and India thinks it has a chance for an in, some power, to weaken China and make India a great power over the region instead I think they’d absolutely do that because it is within the character of the type of dictatorship they are under.
As it is India is moving strongly away from being dependent or reliant on China so the idea they’ll get more intertwined I’m afraid goes against the currents, things like the “made in India” initiative, the fact India is gobbling up Chinese manufacturing like for iPhones for instance. India has aspirations to be a regional power. A super-power and with China right next door that kind of limits the kind of influence they can possibly exercise if China continues to rise in power. It is in India’s long-term interests that China be stemmed and contained if not outright humiliated and isolated. Right now they’re facing tariffs from Trump and resent being told not to buy cheap Russian oil because that brings about higher profits and independence so of course they respond to that by leaning closer to China. Trump also personally pissed off Modi and a lot of the leadership by saying he had anything to do with settling the India-Pakistan conflict earlier this year and in fact taking total credit for that. Those tariffs were put in place by arrogant, racist, deranged Americans who thought they could bully India into joining their side while also offering up tribute like Europe was and locking them into a vassal relationship. India didn’t want that and is showing it but the moment the Americans stop behaving like this or perhaps China gets too strong and strident they’ll re-evaluate again.
The US has suffered a short-term defeat at least for Trump’s administration length likely in turns of prying India from China. But China’s fortune is not India’s, they aren’t complimentary like the Russia-China relationship but competitors where both have huge populations striving to be powerful parts of the global production chain.
The US desires as one of its designs to lock China into being forever a low value, lower tech parts supplier and assembler that is behind the west technologically and has to license or buy its high technology from the west, the sales of which are conditioned on good behavior and submission to the west which will own the IP and the brands to pocket most of the profits. India would benefit from such a happening where China is stuck producing say rare earth magnets and circuits while India assembles the phones, tablets, computers, and has its own brands to sell in the west (something China is trying to do right now but is stifled by western sanctions and politicized accusations of spying) and the hope of doing that would go a long way if the west started to allow it a bit.
It may be the US is unable/unwilling to do even this basic carrot on a stick with a trap above it type deal for India and if so and they continue to drive India into China’s arms then the west is truly fucked. But India and China will never have the kind of peaceful basis for co-existence that Russia and China have I think. Their interests overlap too much, too much room for friction. Now if they were both socialist states they could definitely turn into a dynamo of great power but India isn’t unfortunately.