Image is allegedly of the note Trump wrote while editing a speech while on the way back from the G20 summit.
The top Russian-Chinese agent, Donald Trump, has decided that the pace of dedollarization and the decline of American financial hegemony is going too slowly. He has therefore decided to put tariffs on everybody; from America's largest trading partners to uninhabited islands. In the process, he is trying to create an autarkic America. Jokes aside, interpretation and analysis of this has ranged across a wide spectrum. I think we can broadly agree that the most idiotic are the "true believers"; those that actually believe Trump's every word, and that this will somehow bring back American manufacturing and whatever other inane promises he has made.
However, there is a much more interesting debate. The first camp are those who believe Trump is acting as an inadvertent accelerationist due to his lack of understanding about how the world economy and dollar hegemony functions (and that this will subsequently ensure that countries flock to China instead). The second camp are those who believe that Trump does know what he's doing, at least to a certain extent, and that the effective result of this period of madness will be countries kowtowing to the United States; renegotiating trade deals to be even more in favor of the US in order to get tariffs reduced. There's even a yet more cynical camp who believes that in fact, this entire trade war is just theater for further national wealth redistributions from poor to rich; that all these monumental international trade wars are more of a sideshow. To quote the linked article: "[...] out of the mountain of tariffs that threaten to turn into a global trade war will emerge the mouse of further tax cuts."
I'm not embarrassed to admit that I have absolutely no idea which one of these is the closest model to reality. We're in new economic and political ground, and even if the tariffs are quickly renegotiated and/or dropped, the impacts will continue to reverberate around the world for years. I'm sure we'll debate this for months to come here, though!
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
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.
Apparently Avelo airlines has become the first/only commercial airline to publicly announce a contract with ICE for doing deportation. Usually it's little charter airlines that do it.
Can't resist those juicy PIC moneys for enhanced profit!
USA Today: Why are tens of thousands of people boycotting this little-known airline?
Original URL
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/04/11/avelo-airlines-boycotts-ice-deportation/83054584007/Excerpts
Don't worry, though. 30k people have signed a petition!!!!
And, sorry/not sorry: because I found this gem of an opinion piece by a genocidal liberal fuckwit apologizing for this "just doing business" nonsense, you have to read it too.
Avelo Airlines — neither woke nor broke (apparently—according to Startpage—originally titled "Anger at Avelo deportation flights is misplaced. Here's why."
Original URL
https://ctmirror.org/2025/04/13/avelo-deportation-flights-protest/Excerpts
The airline is only doing this because it allows you your cheap tourism, folks. We all know that flying commercial passengers is done out of the goodness of their hearts, and will continue despite not being profitable (enough), so long as they can get better money from ICE! Sorry, but the ethnic cleansing is necessary for you to have your treats! And, after all, you can't blame the furnace companies for supplying the Nazis or anything; they were just in the business of making furnaces!
I fly Avelo because its the only affordable way to get to my hometown. I could fly united for over twice the price.
No ethical consumption, and all that. Still, this is awfully high and close on the unethicalness scale.
BDS type shit is painful, and we all contribute what we reasonably can. I trust your "reasonable" to be far more radical than liberals', and to include less consumption, looking hard for alternatives, and seeking support from comrades.
Yeah, I'm pretty pissed about it. This news dropped right before our current trip and we probably won't be back for a while. By then I'm sure they will just be requisitioning any airline they want for these flights.
They are a scummy airline but for the small regional airports they cover its a lifesaver. Most of these are rural mountain areas that have no rail access. And it isn't like any airline is super ethical anyways, but jumping at the opportunity for these flights suck. Especially for the flight attendants who didn't sign up at all for this sort of thing. These flights are a nightmare for the flight attendants, the Gestapo agents don't listen and treat them like their little servants. Meanwhile, the flight attendants know they wouldn't be able to safely evacuate the shackled prisoners. And sometimes they have to fly children, but they aren't allowed to even offer the children water. Probably another reason they want to go with a small airline whose staff aren't unionized
"neither woke nor broke" well, today I learned that being against nazi shit is now woke.
Unironically, though. Liberals are only "against it" when the feelz dictate.
I mean, one thing that dipshit says which I agree with (though for different reasons, of course) is where he points out that nobody protested the same airline doing deportation flights under Biden. (Maybe it wasn't as broadly announced, of course, but I think we all know that if it had been, many people who disagree with it now—and maybe even who are protesting/boycotting it now—would've shrugged their shoulders. And, of course, big public announcements/documentation of it now, but not then, is part of the same problem....)
It's a valid criticism, the Biden comment, since I remember suddently there were no more kids in cages according to libs and the concentration camps were now "temporary migrant housing facilities" or some shit. Other than that I hope he eats shit.