Image is from the Britannica article on CECOT, known as the Terrorism Confinement Center in English.
This megathread's topic is inspired by our lovely news regular, @Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net, who talks often about the conditions inside El Salvador and gives nuanced and informative takes.
As the Trump administration continues to make foreign policy blunders that would make even the staunchest anti-imperialist accelerationist blush - and we are barely three months in! - it's interesting to compare and contrast his policies of incompetent imperialist and domestic management to the dictators in other countries.
Bukele is somewhat unique among fascists, in that he seems to not hide - and seems to even admit to - his evil, self-describing as the world's "coolest dictator". El Salvador has no particular shortage of prominent fascists in their history, but one major example is Maximiliano Martínez, who led the country over much of the 1930s and the early 1940s. He was responsible the deaths of many thousands of communists and indigneous people, and yet joined World War 2 on the side of the Allies and against the Nazis.
The comparisons between Martínez and Bukele - and, indeed, between Bukele and Trump - in terms of their impact on minority groups are slowly growing as world attention is being drawn to the country. The recent meeting between Bukele and Trump has shifted a spotlight onto El Salvador's crime policy; the internal conditions of El Salvador's prisons are genuinely monstrous. One gets a similar feeling as when reading descriptions of the conditions of Holocaust victims in German concentration camps. Trump has made statements to the effect that he want a similar crime crackdown inside the United States, and I certainly believe that he wants this (ICE is already just kidnapping people off the streets into vans), but his administration has been so chaotic and mismanaged that it's difficult to determine whether this will be an interest he rapidly drops in favor of some other hair-brained scheme.
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
Power outage in all of Portugal, something to do with "tension issues" in power distrolibutors (idk Im not an electrician)
I'm already hearing bazinga brains talking about PUTIN PUTIN PUTIN, wish I could line these people up in minecraft and.....tell them they're not that important
~~There was a fire at a high voltage transmission line near the Franco-Spanish border apparently~~. EDIT: reason is still unknown
We'll start seeing this more with Mediterranean countries importing more energy to survive warming climates.
Franco?
Another word for French
i was making a bad joke about Francisco Franco/Frenchie French ... of Spain
Yeah, tbh, def unserious nsme
This has been confirmed fake news as of now, the reasons are so far unknown
thanks, updated my comment
It is already being declared "a cyberattack" with the ominous pictures of computer touchers to boot.
When Chile had its huge blackout they blamed a terror attack on a generators but later they find out it was just caused by a malfuntion in the system
So it could easily be the same case in spain
Apparently parts of Netherlands and Belgium are affected too now, which might lend credibility to the cyberattack theory? Or it could be just because of the heat and poorly maintained equipment? It's way too early to tell now though.
Why would anyone launch a cyber attack without following it up with boots on the ground? If this was a cyber attack, all it did was help Spain/France/Portugal by showing them the faults in their systems. I also don't think anyone would just casually launch a cyber attack against members of a military alliance that commits genocide for fun.
I doubt it's only the heat per se. Temps in most of Spain today were hovering the 20-25°C (fucking nice), in summer we routinely get 40°C in many areas and no issues even with ACs drawing hard on the electricity supply.
No official information as to what happened yet.
Words of a mere provincial castilian, pay it no mind
How’s the situation now? Power mostly back now or still fucked
Still no power. Guess I wont be working today but also can't ise my puter.
Also it's 2:30 pm rn and it will only get dark at 8 pm, so plenty of time till we're plunged into
wishing the best of luck when it gets dark, jesus
Since it was a country wide blackout it could last a day or more
yikes
Reminds me of this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003
In my region of Spain the electricity is back. I gotta say though, it's been rather the opposite of fucked. Biggest issues have been the people who got trapped in elevators, and some traffic chaos due to traffic lights not working, no big accidents AFAIK.
People, for the most part, went outside to touch grass. March was rainy and cold, and finally the temperatures are up and we had a splendid and sunny day. Most people just went to take walks and to slam a few beers at the local bar. Honestly, gotta love that about Spanish culture. I took a walk on the evening and the streets and parks were buzzing with people.