Image is the famous photograph Raising a Flag Over the Reichstag, taken during the Battle of Berlin.
On Friday is May 9th, which is the 80th anniversary of Victory Day, which Russia, among other places, celebrates as the day when the Soviets defeated the Nazis. Naturally, one of the current hotspots of fascism in the world today, Ukraine, is essentially threatening that they might strike Russia or even Moscow itself during that timeframe. Any such strike would almost certainly be symbolic and not aimed at anything too important, as I doubt even Zelensky and his American handlers would actually want to kill a world leader, not least somebody like Xi Jinping. But I would not be surprised if they tried something nonetheless, if only to disrupt the event in some way and not actually kill anybody.
And, as we're on this topic, @EllenKelly@hexbear.net has reminded me that Tuesday is the anniversary of the Nazis burning the Institut für Sexualwissenschaf in 1933, an early institute advocating for the rights of LGBT people, and which also provided early forms of gender-affirming surgeries, as well as hormone therapies. We are currently seeing a crackdown on LGBT rights throughout swathes of the imperial core (as well as countries in the periphery, to the extent that those rights existed there already), and this Nazi-inspired movement will be similarly defeated in the future.
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
Pakistan has low yield nuclear artillery rockets called Nasr/Hatef-9, with a range of only 70km/40 miles with sub-kiloton yields, so it might have to be just the 0.5 kiloton megathread initially.
can't wait for that meme someone made of mercouris smiling in the thumbnail of a vid that says "only 3 nukes detonated today" to become reality...
(also i just looked at his channel for the first time in a very long time and he hasnt had a smiling/laughing thumbnail in like 3 months lol)
I think those guys really put their eggs in the Trump being a based anti-imperialist basket and are now eating sour grapes because he’s a basic neocon
lmao i'd believe it, honestly i feel a little bit bad for alexander mercouris, yeah he's kind of a chud but he also afaik has spoken really positively about the soviet union way before (and not even in the cringe pat soc "they oppressed gay people so they're fucking based!!!", he was actually praising their economy and what not), the other guy on the duran whatever his name is seemed like the uber chud who always egged on mercouris' worst chud traits, in a just world mercouris would be the woke left's strongest warrior making the exact same kind of videos lol
Mercouris has stated he used to be on the left before it was dismantled and betrayed in Britain. I think the death of the USSR and victory of neoliberalism broke his brain. He now conflates the left with “globalist” neoliberalism. He’s not wrong if you are talking about Labour narrowly, which I think what he's doing is conflating what happened during his time active in Labour politics with the entire rest of the world's political spectrum.
Christopherou or whatever is definitely more chud adjacent but he’s still infinitely better than 99% of the right. He doesn’t really go on anti-woke tangents or anything too often but yeah you can tell it’s there underneath but he doesn’t touch it
What I have seen is both of them have a very strong fixation on decorum and propriety. Like they get legitimately mad at Zelenskyy not wearing a suit and fucking up diplomatic protocols. They are definitely an old school type of conservative that doesn’t exist in the US much anymore.
yeah exactly, bro doesnt have that true evil inside of him that's required to be a true chud, and can u really blame him for losing faith throughout the 90s and 2000s? of course, he's refused to adapts to the post 2008 world but still my point stands, if we didnt live in the worst timeline merouris never would have gone on his chud arc
ive never seen him go on any truly chud rants, but from the few duran videos i watched whenever they would start slobbering on trump's balls and what not it would almost always start with him. plus ive never heard him say anything pro ussr like mercouris so im way less inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
honestly a decent description of the duran lol, other than missing the part where it does seem like it might be directly funded by the kremlin at times lol
It's very Russian chuddery. Proper, illiberal, monarchist but also socialist but also nationalist - everything but liberal. I think the vibe you're picking up from the bearded Alex is that he's a lot more polemical and aggressive and direct in his speech. Mercouris talks in a very reserved, hedged and roundabout way. That is not how his co-host talks at all
They're from Britain and Cypress, I think it's a more European islander type brainworms. They really don't make em like this in the USA. Here's they're all Corporate psychos or squealing meth addled piggies.
know 0 russian so ill take your word for it, what i wouldnt give for amerikkkan chuds to be like what u described lol