Image is from @Parsani@hexbear.net, who got it from @RNAi@hexbear.net, who got it from Discord.
Thread update: Prigozhin's fucking dead.
The BRICS summit will begin on Tuesday and end on Thursday, with various world leaders, politicians, and representatives meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa.
America's anxiety about the summit has been obvious. They have been complicating the event by pushing for the arrest warrant for Putin to be upheld if he steps foot in the country. While this is a remarkably dangerous and unhinged thing to do - even by America's standards - to the leader of a nuclear superpower who could end the world within an hour, it does betray their desperation. Unfortunately, for those of us who wanted to see Putin surrounded by an army of security guards fending off people holding handcuffs, he has sent his Foreign Minister, Lavrov, in his place. Additionally, America has likely been spreading rumors about the lack of interest in gaining new members in the organization.
With apparently 20 countries formally seeking membership and another 20 informally doing so, the bloc has been elevated, whether they like it or not, to the position of the international vanguard of the non-western world. It is extremely important to say that this is not the same as it becoming an anti-American bloc, and many of them (including original members Brazil and India) wish to keep a friendly relationship with the United States. Nonetheless, with the United States' policy of "if you are not with us, you are against us," and as the US seeks to weaken China, in coming years many of them might find themselves under hostile pressure.
BRICS has to try and solve many problems if they are going to chip away at America's stranglehold of the world economy. These problems - like mitigating the dollar's status as a global reserve currency, and America's dominant role in the world economy - are extremely complicated, and will takes years, even decades, to be overcome. Therefore, one should temper their expectations and excitement for this summit. It took tens of millions of deaths in cataclysmic wars, and then several more decades, for America to reach its current position. I see no reason to believe why its downfall will be any less bloody and elongated.
To end on a less depressing note, I've been searching for appropriate anagrams given the list of countries that seek to join BRICS. Obviously not all of them will make it in, but even so. The best I've come up with is HIBISCUS EMANCIPATES BBBBKKRVV.
(also, "bulletins and news discussion" can be rearranged to "libidinous newsstands uncles".)
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week's first update is here in the comments.
This week's second update is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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
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.
Last week's discussion post.
My friend went to an Anarchist Bookstore and asked about books on Lenin. She has a way to go
This is a good bit
I'm kinda half convinced she's in it for the bit, but she was posting some left wing podcasts on her insta, so who knows. She also was looking for Left Wing Communism specifically at the store.
lmao bless her
We all gotta start somewhere
The very act of actually reading puts her ahead of most.
I don't get it but I'm guessing it's stereotypical for Anarchists to dislike Lenin?
When I was an anarchist, I still had respect for Lenin. Eventhough I was not fond of the Soviet model, Lenin and the USSR were very important for the Socialist movement worldwide.
Its not that surprising.
I've skimmed it and I'm a little confused by the repeated assertions that the Soviet experiment was a failure considering it created one of, if not the, most rapid and incredible advances in a country in human history, from poverty-ridden feudal backwater in 1917 to global superpower in 1945, so just 28 years, and for a few years it was heavily occupied by fascist forces
I guess there's a "but what if instead it was a libertarian socialist project" aspect but could that really have kept the Nazis and then the United States at bay?
edit: it actually reminds me a little of the people who write about how like, China's economy is in full collapse mode and only neoliberalism can save it now, while it's doing... fine. Not great, not bad, it's doing better than the West still though. And the "Here's how the failed Russian army might still salvage this disastrous war." while they're doing... fine, and beating Ukraine.
I'm not sure what it is with people who love to describe, in endless paragraphs, the failure of a project that just objectively didn't fail (at least in the time window that they're talking about, and in this piece it's fairly clear they're talking about the Lenin and Stalin period of the USSR). Genuinely confuses me. We can and should discuss stuff like the purges, the NEP, successes and missteps in policy, what the USSR should have done after the failure of the German revolution, etc, but this piece is just strange to me.
"These dumbasses only think that Marxism-Leninism works because it worked."
As far as i know the state was never abolished in the USSR, so, from an anarchist standpoint, it's a failure.
I mean given it fell into revisionism and collapsed I would call the USSR a failure. It's a failure which at certain times and in certain ways showed promise and can be learnt from no doubt, but a failure nonetheless
That's where i am at too but i feel like anarchist and ml definitions of a success are in general too divorced from each other that usually any conversation about this devolves into a sectarian dick measuring contest.
Fwiw Lenin was influenced by the substantial anarchist movements in Russia at the time. He was not an anarchist, but I think any left anarchist would enjoy the State and Revolution.
A friend who considers themself an anarchist (they are a liberal) recently told me they were thinking of borrowing my copy of State and Revolution - after all, if voting doesn't work, we can always have a non-violent revolution to make things better, emphasis on the non-violence.
I chuckled and told them that revolution will always be violent because the bourgeoisie will always fight back. That they aren't interested in talking it out. They lost interest in the book and immediately changed subjects.
I don't think I'm very good at convincing people to Read Theory.
I think if you can broach the topic with your friend again (they're probably open to it if you can let them cool down), phrase it in questions. "How would the non violent revolution work?" "Okay, how would that movement defend itself if the bourgeoisie use police violence and fascist paramilitaries to attack them into submission?" "How would you respond to reactionary elements trying to start a counter revolution?"
Frame it in a non hostile way and you can get more mileage.
This. The key is letting people think that they have arrived at these conclusions themselves, as then they become receptive to expanding their knowledge on those ideas. That may sound kind of arrogant, or like you're tricking them, but it's not a trick, as they really are coming to conclusions themselves, you're just paving the path ahead of them to make it easy. In this case, if through your (Babs') gentle line of questioning they come to view it accurately as genuine self defense, then the framing of "violent revolution" starts taking on a different, more acceptable shape in their mind. At least that's the case from my experience.