Image is of protestors in Nigeria in 2024.
As I’m sure everybody is aware by now, Trump’s accusation that Nigerian armed groups are unfairly persecuting Christians in the country is a rather bizarre lie, seeking a justification to go in, to quote Trump, “guns-a-blazing”. Whether this is likely to actually occur or is merely a threat, who can really say nowadays? But Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province are targeting people in Nigeria fairly indiscriminately; insomuch that there is a target, it is farmers whose land is being raided and taken in resource conflicts, and their religious affiliation is not usually questioned by those groups before they are pillaged and/or murdered from what I can tell.
The President of Nigeria, Tinubu, has no small responsibility for this state of affairs - enacting IMF “reforms” which have exacerbated hunger, poverty, and unemployment in the service of Western financial institutions. Those who have protested against this state of affairs have faced repression by state security forces. Meanwhile, Tinubu allegedly has strong connections to the DEA, paying large amounts of money to avoid a trial for his actions; the DEA released this statement: “We oppose the full… release of the DEA’s Bola Tinubu heroin trafficking investigation records,” which is certainly not concerning at all - followed by “While Nigerians have a right to be informed about what their government is up to, they do not have a right to know what their president is up to.”
It must be a shame for him that such a loyal subject of empire is facing such scrutiny, and it likely has everything to do with Nigeria’s inexorably growing connections to China (just like pretty much every country on the planet), especially in relation to Nigeria’s massive mineral deposits. It could also perhaps be retribution for Nigeria’s failure to adequately oppose the growing independence of the Sahel.
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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.
Re- his analysis of Mamdani not getting much of the Black vote in the primary: is it not liberal to put the onus on voters to vote for the correct candidate, instead of the candidate to appeal to voters? As he pointed out, Mamdani didn’t get in with a lot of Black leaders. He also didn’t make a big deal out of how his policies would be especially helpful for Black New Yorkers, possibly a tactical move because Americans are so racist that knowing that any social program benefits Black people immediately makes them less likely to support it. Etc etc. So why would we expect any other outcome?
Moreso, it seems backwards to argue against the Black Panther Party’s line that Black people in the US, as one of the most exploited groups, had the most revolutionary potential and thus is the most valuable group to organize on the basis that Black New Yorkers didn’t vote for a Social Democrat as much as you wanted them to. If it had been a candidate with a more radical platform and a revolutionary organization tied at his hip then that is a conclusion that could have some more weight, but that’s just not the case here.
Nah, sorry, the onus is on the voters if they voted for Cuomo over Mamdani
I’m not sure “Black Americans are one of the most oppressed therefore they have the most revolutionary potential” by itself a good, complete analysis. The main counterpoint I would make is that Black Americans are also the most religious of any race in the US, and are therefore likely harder to radicalize, in part because on top of being religious, they predominately belong to churches that are more socially conservative than non-Black Democrats. Frankly, if the GOP ever managed to stop being fucking racist, you would likely see a significantly shift in Black voter alignment in the US. This is, of course, also not a complete list or analysis of why Mamdani didn’t get as much support, just an additional point I wanted to make.
White people are more religious in general. Black Churches are just massively politically empowered and most black communities are not as atomized.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/02/16/faith-among-black-americans/
Ive known black people who always vote democratic party line, but also participated in the Rodney Kindg rebellion. Your propensity to vote for SocDems doesn’t track with your revolutionary potential.
Many of the people the Black Panthers organized were ivy league college students or literal gangsters – mostly black. If the BPP hadn’t intervened these people would have been running rackets or canvassing for liberals.
Revolutionary potential has to be brought out by either crisis or by organizers. It doesn’t show its face in election years.
I agree, but also the BPP was a long time ago. Conditions have changed for Black Americans since then - not fundamentally, but they have materially changed. Partially because the era of the BPP made it clear that capitalists had to do something to integrate Black Americans into their system before the unrest became too much to manage.
Aye, it definitely could be the case that that line is now outdated. I’m only arguing that the Mamdani campaign’s results can’t be used as evidence to support any conclusion regarding revolutionary socialist organizing.
It could be argued that it indicates less class consciousness. I’m not sure I’d agree, because there are other reasons (as you point out), but I think the argument has some merit in the absence of better data. If there were a radical party to vote for instead it would be a completely meritless argument, of course.
What I’m saying is that the voters in question weren’t not voting for Mamdani because he was insufficiently radical and they were principled revolutionaries. So there’s at least some merit to the idea that they might have been less radical in some way than some of the voters who did. Personally I think (as I said) there are other reasons for it and I don’t think I agree with Finkelstein’s characterization/conclusion here.
Across all states black americans are massively underrepresented and have very low turnout. There is systematic suppression of black political power - most black power is held by the Black Protestant Church or Black Assimilationists like Obama or Kamala. Mamdanis campaign was very “trendy ex-buzzfeed white dude” centered, which obviously is not very appealing to black americans, not to mention the amble historic evidence of white socialist selling out black workers for welfare crumbs.
Settlers 2: The Myth of the Auntie Proletariat