Image, sourced from this article, is of George Bush in 2002 meeting with María Corina Machado, who was even then being trained as a figure to oppose Venezuelan socialism, and very briefly succeeded with the Carmona Decree. Now the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, she has begged the Zionist entity to drop bombs on the Venezuelan people.
As of me writing these sentences, it appears that the ceasefire in Gaza is underway. Zionist ceasefires are, of course, an oxymoron - not only in the grand sense that their work to continue genocidal atrocities against others locally and regionally will not cease until the Zionist entity’s occupation of Palestine is overthrown and Palestinians can resume the governance of their territory - but also in the literal sense; that bombings and shootings are often only merely reduced, and rarely cease entirely (as was/is the case on their northern border with Lebanon). Nonetheless, hopefully the population can receive some aid, and the long process of rebuilding can begin.
On the other side of the world, it seems increasingly likely that a new war is set to begin. Because the US is eschewing the usual process of generating pro-war propaganda and casus bellis (aside from a laughably transparent Nobel Peace Prize award) and seems content to just skip straight to the “bomb and depose” step, it’s quite hard to predict what precisely they want to do. Anything seems to be on the table - from freely striking Venezuelan territory where “drug dealers” are to try and prompt a Venezuelan response, to assassinating Maduro and/or his generals and hoping a power vacuum can be filled with compradors, to attempting to outright invade Venezuela and establish direct American control over important government sites. All appear to be possibilities, though as of right now, the most drastic measures seem unlikely due to their difficulty.
We know that the US has almost totally abandoned diplomatic communication with Venezuela, and that the US has deployed warships, a nuclear submarine, F-35s, surveillance planes, and at least 4,000 military personnel to the Caribbean, with some sources putting the numbers higher. Some people have suggested that the point is to try and force Maduro into a situation where he must begin hostilities, or be seen as weak and perhaps overthrown from within. It is at least encouraging that Maduro is not like Allende in Chile, and is taking this situation extraordinarily seriously; the masses are being trained and mobilized in the event of an invasion, and military drills are ongoing. Venezuela has no real capacity to stop the US from attacking and bombing them, but it is much more possible to prevent a West-friendly puppet from gaining meaningful control of the country. A comprador might be able to make a brief statement or decree in a Venezuelan city saying that Chavismo is over, but actual power will hopefully prove very elusive.
2020, and particularly 2022, has clearly become a turning point for the Western imperial system, in which increasingly aggressive and reckless moves are required to keep the system functional (stability is, at this point, out of the question). Unfortunately, this has also resulted in the deaths of many long-lasting, inspiring figures, such as Nasrallah, and many more will certainly die before the empire collapses. If Maduro is assassinated - and I’m having trouble imagining how he won’t be doggedly pursued in the days. weeks, and months to come - I have hope that a successor will rise to continue to lead the Bolivarian Revolution.
Last week’s thread is here.
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The Zionist Entity'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.
They all quote the same example too, the New Popular Front in France, they don’t seem to be aware of the fact that that coalition has been pretty much in crisis ever since the election, and that the center-left threatens to leave it all the time because it doesn’t have hegemony over it, and IDK if it was posted here but last week Melenchon called a meeting to decide if the LFI would even stay in it (or something like that, idk how that went). I was always skeptical of that arrangement in france since 2 negative effects from it were offering A TON of MPs to the formally discredited socialist party and, in agreeing to step down from certain races in order to bet Le Pen’s candidate, basically let the macronists hold on to power.
But imagine if there had been, and that it was YOUR party (not corbyn’s thing, just the party of whoever is reading), that did have enough minority support for enough people to risk Trump winning just in order to show symbolic support for YOUR organization. And then there’s the fallout from that, and everything that Trump does is blamed on your feet, and you got, like, Hasan ragging on you, and other leftist personalities you might respect but that are not a part of the organization.
How would that make you feel? And how would you deal with the possible political consequences (for example people who normally support you now backing away because they fear the right that much)?
I never read up on what the people in the “partyist” factions of any american left organizations (DSA/PSL/whatever) would do in that scenario or what they’d intend to do if they’re initially successful and start spoiling democrats electoral victories.
I agree with XHS about focusing on a base of support and non-electoral organizing.
I’m going to switch over to an electoral perspective though (for fun?).
If MY party had a decent base and 5-10% support, or enough to possible spoil a liberal candidate against a fascist, I think there are cases where you negotiate policy concessions with the liberals in exchange for an endorsement.
In the realm of electoralism, I think it’s about being practical and expecting to have around 10% influence if we have 10% electoral support. We can’t force the liberals to press the communism button, but “we’ll endorse you if you do these two policies on our behalf or stop this or that policy” could play just fine if the party can communicate it (tough with the nature of bourgeois owned media). Keep it concrete, if they don’t follow through on their promises, then there will be no endorsement/coalition and the party will be very clear about why that is (“the agreement was to implement x policy by 2026, it didn’t happen, no endorsement this year”).
It isnt much (because it’s bourgeois electoralism), but it’s worth getting the liberals to actually play ball with you. Combined with non-electoral efforts, your support might increase to the point where my party has the upper hand.
This is very complicated in practice, in this case, the things that you are more likely to ask for concessions on, to a degree where it’s even worth asking for, as well as the things you are likely to ask to NOT be implemented by the liberals in government, are for them usually non-starters. That was the case back in the “contraption” when the communists where supporting a socialist government by negotiations during government budget approvals days and it was also the case in this lisbon election. It worked when things were going well, but when you can predict that things are likely to get worse for working people and therefore you demand more (before you get unpopular for supporting the government), the government shuts the whole thing down and then runs on you being irresponsible at a time when things were going well.
Yep you nailed it, it completely depends on how people get their punditry, and if they get it from bourgeois media, as the overwhelming amount of people do in portugal you quickly lose control of the narrative
Great points comrade, and I agree. I just want to think beyond “spoil the election with our own candidate, or don’t” when it comes to electoral strategy. As we know, it’s a tough place for the left to pull off a win in the best of times.
I think US left electoral strategies would be different if this were the case, PSL just dips their toes into electoralism and the DSA runs in the Dem’s shadow, so a big reealignment has happened that hopefully would make these organizations deeper rooted and not as vulnerable to vote scolding from libs.
Yes that’s what they’re doing now, but I know that in the DSA and outside it (christ cutrone’s group) there are efforts to have a real party, and presumably run in elections, and if successful initially hand a lot of races to republicans by taking votes from democrats, best case scenario would be if they take from both parties. And presumably they’d have to get support from people who are ok with that yeah
Vote scolding is a great term lol
Is cutrone’s party intended to be a real thing, or is it just a hypothetical that he invented for rhetorical purposes?
It’s an interesting question. Obviously I don’t know enough about your country, but my take is that left wing movement should always be built on an actual grassroots base of support.
Too many internet leftists think it’s about getting people to join your party to win elections, to win/fight back against the media propaganda war, to win internet arguments (lol), but the real question is - do you have an actual base of support?
You can participate in elections, fight propaganda wars, organize protests etc, that’s all fine. But at the end of the day, but do you have an organized network to deliver mutual aid to the disenfranchised communities, do you have the capacity to help workers organize to win concessions against their employers, can you provide legal aid to help people who are being discriminated by the system?
If you do not have that capacity, then you don’t have a foundation for the movement to stand on. Why should a working class family trust that your party can deliver on its promises? Just because they also hate the capitalist system doesn’t mean they will trust any self-proclaimed socialist movement to actually be beneficial to them.
You need to win the hearts and minds through real actions in the first place, cultivate the trust of the working people in your organization, show that how far you are willing to stand and fight with them, and even die fighting for their rights if it comes to that. You want the people to say “I’m not like a commie or anything and I don’t really like their ideology, but I trust them because I know they’ll always have my back.”
This is the nuts and bolts of all successful labor movements. You can resist against smears from mainstream media propaganda all you want, but at the end of the day, that is nowhere near as important if your movement has a solid foundation of working class support to stand on.
Based.
Great answer. The focus on elections and their minutiae is confusing a single tactic for an entire strategy. Elections are useful insofar as they build your base of support and enable you to gather and consolidate your revolutionary potential. Otherwise they are a misuse of your energy.
A major fault of the american left (and its imitators in the EU-reddit belt) is that they tail after the most fickle and disloyal segments of the available revolutionary population pool.
100% agreed
What you do is hold to your principled line, refuse to play their game of playing defense as if you share the same goals as liberals, and continue to build from a sustainable base of support - not just elections. Groups that fail on the first two are opportunists and inevitably either implode from their own infighting and incoherence and/or just become a liberal party.
Thing is, often times, you do share some of the same goals, a varying percentage depending on how the liberals are, and the people who support you share those goals and want them fulfilled and they mostly support you as a means to those goals even if they can also get them from the liberals, so when they see that you opted to NOT pursue those goals by not allying entirely with the liberals they might get second thoughts about whether you’re really the best bet to fulfill those goals. Or they might not
the scenario you describe is sort of what happened in germany in 1930s, no? a lot of socdems still blame KPD for being uncooperative in making a coalition against the nazis.
Yes but only in a very abstract way, I don’t think a historical analogy is appropriate here, things are way different now
just pointing out that communists have been blamed for the center lefts electoral losses since the dawn of time. not saying that the situation is exactly the same
Yes. Even modern DSA members do. Apparently the KPD was at lone guilty for letting nazi rise to power and its still used to browbeat leftists in modern germany.