Or perhaps the end of the beginning, if you're a little more pessimistic.
Image is from this Bloomberg article, from which I also gathered some of the information used in the preamble.
While Trump was off in the Middle East in an incompetent attempt to solve a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis, China has been doing something much more productive.
Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, had a summit with CELAC (a community of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries). There, he promised investment, various declarations of friendship, and visa-free entry for 30 days for citizens of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. Lula signed over 30 agreements with China. Colombia is joining the New Development Bank and hopes to gain the money for a 120-kilometer railway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as an alternative route to the Panama Canal. Even Argentina, ruled by arch-libertarian and arch-dipshit (but I repeat myself) Milei, was uncharacteristically polite with China as he secured a currency swap renewal to shore up their international reserves.
It wouldn't really be correct to say that Latin America is "siding with China over the US" - leaders in the region will continue to make many deals with America for the foreseeable future, and even Trump's bizarre economic strongman routine won't make them break off economic and diplomatic relations. What's significant here is that despite increasing American pressure for those leaders to break off all ties with China, few appear to be listening - and given that China is perhaps the most important economy on the planet right now, that is a very predictable outcome.
As the current American empire takes actions to try and avoid their doom, those very actions only guarantee it. As Latin America grows ever more interconnected with China and continues to develop, America will grow ever more panicked and demanding, and this feedback loop will - eventually - result in the death of the Monroe Doctrine.
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.
Almost like Kurdish separatist movements are functioning as US proxies. Almost.
i mean if you ignore a large part of the evidence, like the long and continuing history of pro-Kurdish organisations in the west being treated as terrorists, including the British Metropolitan Police raiding a Kurdish community centre a few months ago, then yes, it's possible to reduce the entire Kurdish nationalist movement, constituting millions of people spread across multiple continents, to "US proxies"
alternatively you could just take a dialectically materialist view and acknowledge that nationalist movements, as with every single political movement in history, are internally contradictory, and of course contains collaborationist elements alongside liberationist elements. Because we're not reactionaries, and we don't want to paint entire ethnic/national groups with negative labels as though there's some collaborationist bone in their brain, right?
i mean like is the point of this to imply that the PKK is a US proxy?
ISIS and Al Qaeda are also US proxies that are treated as terrorist organizations. That’s how being a proxy works, the one pulling the puppet strings disavows and distances themselves from the work they need done via proxie
If the PKK wasn’t a proxy then why would they help destroy Syria and then collapse immediately after that task is completed? They are trained Turkish dogs at this point
I think you're completely right and you made a great case why it's silly to view the kurdish struggle as a controlled us proxy but that's not what LoveYourself necesserily implied.
LoveYourself mentioned kurdish separatists almost "functioning as a proxy" and I think that checks out, sadly. Obviously not all kurdish groups do it on purpose, I feel for their cause in general and I do think they're anti-imperialist (just not anti-hegemonic) but their interests often line up against america's enemies in the region so effectively while furthering their own goals they can at the same time be furthering america's. But from your second paragraph I'm sure you know that already.
So I think it's fair to be a bit iffy when this type of stuff happens
If we call any group whose actions inadvertently benefit an outside force in some way a proxy then we're diluting what the term actually means. The Ukraine war is a proxy conflict for the US, as the US directly funds the Ukrainian state and military, and sends mercenaries to fight on their behalf. If, as communists, we're going to label a left-wing nationalist organisation which originated as part of a Marxist-Leninist organisation as a "proxy for the US" because they're fighting against a right-wing Islamist government that occasionally fires a missile at israel (but sits idly by while the entity continues to starve millions of people, and did effectively nothing to help Hezbollah when it mattered the most), then what are we even doing anymore?
i hate to use the word "campist" given its history but
That "right-wing Islamist government" did more than almost every other country and group, including the Kurdish nationalists you're defending. At the end of the day, Kurdish nationalists have a curious tendency of aligning themselves with Western imperialism that stretches back decades. Killing Hope by William Blum outlines the repeated pattern of Kurdish nationalists aligning themselves with Western interests only to be thrown under the bus only to continue aligning themselves with Western interests only to be thrown under the bus again. At this point, they are either US proxies or demonstrate such sheer incompetence in understanding what the primary contradiction is that it slides towards malevolence. Whether through malice or idiocy, they should be treated as an obstacle by actual competent anti-imperialist forces. You don't get points just because your intentions are true.
I don’t think you hate to use the word campist
You forgot the word "functioning"
In other words, there was no claim that they directly are proxies, but their function is the same. In practice, if you were to ignore the goals and statements entirely, because of the actions taken it would be indistinguishable from how a proxy would act. We know, because we're careful and knowledgeable, that the Kurdish national struggle is much more complex, but a function is determined by its effects, not it's intentions
SDF: working with America to occupy eastern Syria and loot its resources for years.
PKK: lays down arms mere months after NATO successfully overthrows Syrian Baathist government following 14 years of imperialist aggression, despite fascist Turkiye still doing fascist Turkiye things.
PJAK: only attacks Islamic Republic of Iran despite US occupation forces still present within spitting distance. Participates in color revolution attempts against the IRI.
🤷♀️
If it walks like a duck. . .
PKK and the Imperialism
Compromise, surrender, and ultimately dissolution: the failure of Kurdish nationalism
A US tool against Iran: Kurdish militancy on the Iran-Iraq border
That's great, but I can find plenty of counter-examples of direct US collusion over the past decade with Iraqi groups that are supposed to be part of the "Axis of Resistance", but whose resistance amounted to a couple of drones flown at the occupied Golan and then stopping when the US threatened them with the same kind of punishment their allies have already been receiving for months. Let alone some of the other factions in the PMF. Would you call them American proxies too?
Please share
It's crickets.