Image is of the Preah Vihear Temple on the Cambodian border. Image sourced from the UNESCO World Heritage website.
Over the last few days, Thailand and Cambodia entered into a heightened stage of conflict due to a long-running border dispute. Like many problems on this planet, Europeans are ultimately to blame - specifically France. Certain sections of the border drawn up by France about a century ago were not fully agreed upon by both sides, with the ownership of some Khmer temples being the most visible points of disagreement.
Despite interventions in favor of Cambodia in the 1960s and later 2010s by the ICJ - one of the mainly mostly useless global institutions that liberals periodically disown - the border conflict has simmered at a generally low level. Of the two countries, Thailand is significantly more militarily and economically powerful.
Last Wednesday, a Thai soldier lost his leg by stepping on a landmine, prompting a rapid escalation between Cambodia and Thailand that has since resulted in dozens of deaths and tens of thousands displaced. Cambodia was willing to come to the negotiating table fairly quickly, but Thailand was more hesitant. International pressure on the two countries by Malaysia, China, and the United States eventually forced Thailand to the table, and they have recently agreed to an immediate ceasefire courtesy of ASEAN.
Notably, Trump refused to hold trade talks with either country until they agreed to peace, which suggests that he really wants a Nobel Peace Prize - which he seems a shoe-in for given that he's met the two most important requirements that several Nobel Peace Prize recipients have needed to meet in the past, which are: 1) start at least one war, and 2) accelerate the genocide of millions of people as billions more people watch on. His policies vis-a-vis ICE creating a domestic terror regime only further increase his chances of winning the prize.
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.
It's simple, Zohran is the candidate they always claimed to want and he's winning, but that invalidates the anti-electoral ideology so many here use as a comfort blanket and it makes them ROYALLY PISSED
I mean, I don't think electoralism will achieve socialism so i'm with them on that one.
I do think demonstrating electoralism will not achieve socialism is a necessary prerequisite to revolution though.
If demonstrating the "failure" of electoralism is a prerequite for revolution, then that means electoralism is in fact a crucial tactic that will help achieve socialism
This isn't semantics, the failure of analysis from the doomer faction is assuming the "demonstration of failure" arises from losing elections, it doesn't, the demonstration effect is only possible after you win
Reformists IN POWER being undermined is not the same thing as reformists losing elections
Opposition in power polarizes and energizes the base, losing demoralizes and leads to demobilization
To demonstrate to the masses the anti-worker solidarity of the ruling class, socialists and their allies have to be in some position of power to manifest that anti-worker opposition in the first place
WE HAVE TO WIN ELECTIONS
I agree with this, but it's also fraught with danger. Chile being the fundamental example of what we do not want to replicate.
With that said, a socialist winning within the democrat party is not the same thing at all. We must win in socialist parties. Although I am not even sure if that is possible in the american system.
You know what happens when socialists take over a significant portion of the democratic party? Centrists will leave and form third parties and just like that we tricked the capitalists into creating a viable third party ecosystem within the US
But we have to win first, the democratic party is a husk and breaking it is the prerequisite for creating a socialist party and a good way to break it is to have socialists win elections, counterintuitive but you have to factor in the ideological rigidity of neolibs and use it to our advantage
That is not what happened over here in the UK.
I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't take anything that happens in Britain as a lesson of what not to do or to do, the country is a historical outlier
Corbyn had the advantage and let it slip from his fingers because he couldn't articulate a coherent brexit position and couldn't an obvious coup in his own party, that's incompetence
Not true at all. The same thing happened in Germany with the SPD and Die Linke. And I can assure its the same in other euro countries. In fact the UK should be very poignant to americans, culturally (and materially) its much closer than russia and china.
That's not what happened at all. Corbyn's Brexit position was hamstrung by party democracy. In his first election where he nearly beat May the policy was a simple "we will implement brexit but do it in the least damaging way to working people" and this was fine, almost won in fact. In his second election the policy of holding a second referendum was put forwards by none other than Keir Starmer, this policy is not something that Corbyn wanted but he was bound to implement it by the democracy within the party. His fence sitting surrounding what Labour would do became an issue of they didn't know what they would do because they didn't know what the result of second referendum would be and he did not know whether he himself would campaign for or against Brexit in a second referendum if they won the election (which they obviously didn't). This whole thing was designed to fuck the party, trigger a new leadership election where Starmer would try for leader.
Starmer had most of the party fooled. The extent of how much he lies and lies and lies only truly became visible after he was party leader. Yeah a lot of people didn't think he was a socialist but also didn't think he was worse than most tories.
I think the decline of the American empire will look very similar to the decline of the British empire, both in how it plays out and in what political landscape emerges. I argue frequently that we're still playing out the retraction of the British empire, many holdings are still to go independent or back to more obvious countries that should have them. I'm not really convinced that a coherent idea of what the country should be in the future can even occur until this historical retraction has played out in its entirety so that the people finally move on from the past identity as an "empire" and forwards into visions of what their future identity should be. I personally suspect that the retraction must fundamentally play out fully before this can occur.
Nothing you wrote contradicts anything I said above, and frankly half of it is excuse making for Corbyn's terrible leadership and dogshit political instincts, if someone is fooled by Keir Stramer of all people then they're a dumbass and Corbyn was a naive dumbass
Corbyn's brexit plan should've been simple "I don't like it but I'll implement it and we'll tax the rich to pay for any damage" and then he should've booted out any party hack who opposed that plan as "anti-democratic" and let the opposition and media argue for why democracy is bad, but no he stood there with his mouth wide open and let it become a weapon against him
Do you think Gaza can wait for this retraction process?
Yeah I don't think anyone is going to argue with you over Corbyn being too nice and not hard enough. This is not something that was being said during his tenure though, nobody was calling for purges, the complaints that Corbyn didn't purge the right began after the right engaged in their purge. A lesson the entire British left had to learn the hard way I suppose. Everyone here has been entirely too naive, honestly nobody expected the liberals in the big tent alliance to be as ruthless as they have been.
This lesson led to the left making its own party. So in a sense electoralism has led us to a new party, and the successes and failures of this new party should lead to something else. What that is remains to be seen. Even if a socialist party wins in Britain... It's not possible for this party to change much with the monarchy and the house of lords in the way, the army is also never going to side with the people.
Of course not. But whether it can or can not wait does not change the material conditions as they are. Put it this way, is socialism likely in either the US or Britain in the next 10 years? No. Gaza may be unable to wait 10 years, we can't change that though. Of course I still try and do what I can though.
what is this entryist nonsense? you cant take over a bourgeois party. that will never happen. have you seen what happened to UK labour with Corbyn?
Chasing out centrists from a party or splitting their party is not an entryist position, working with them and compromising your socialist POLICIES are the factors that define entryism
What I'm describing is a fuckin coup from the grassroots, if you want to be obtuse and call that entryism then go ahead, at that point even creating an independent workers party would classify as entryism since you're participating in the system and accepting election results
As I’ve said, the democrats are a bourgeois party. They will always prioritize bourgeois interests. Why would you want to spend any energy organizing a coup when you can just build a separate party? Why would the democratic establishment allow a grassroots movement to take power? There is no mechanism in the party that would allow anything even close to that happen.
The only value for any minimally principled socialist to run as a Democrat is to get ballot access. Trying to take over the bourgeois party that doesn't have to play by any internal rules is and always has been foolish and unserious.
START A THIRD PARTY, who's saying you shouldn't? That doesn't mean you shouldn't ALSO primary dems every chance you get, cause look what happens when you do, you take over New York City
Zohran won, did the dem establishment want that?
There is a mechanism, it's called primarying dems and winning elections, it's called a tactic
Yeah that worked very well with Bernie Sanders
Bernie is a liberal zionist, Zohran is not
So how does that make Zohrans chances better at "taking over the democrats"
We don't need him to "take over the democrats" we need him to create a safe haven in New York City, after that then we can talk about the utility of taking over the dems or not
what do you mean by a safe haven exactly
Oh I don't know take a wild guess, how about a static and soon to be shrinking police budget and an expanded social service corp, sounds like a good start doesn't it
Is there a historical precedent to base this claim on?
Yeah it's called the Goldwater effect, his loss (Bernie) ironically transformed the Republican party by opening it up to its radical fascist wing which allowed them to capture the base and take over the party
The left has taken over the democratic base, now we need a Ronald Reagan-like avatar to leverage that capture and weather the centrist backlash, is it Zohran, maybe, it certainly isn't AOC or Bernie
There are no examples of anticapitalists gaining power from this.
The difference between Barry Goldwater and leftists, is that Goldwater's politics were not a threat to capital.
Same goes for Gary Hart and the New Democrats
I'm only getting 'Goldwater rule' stuff from psychology/psychiatry when trying to look this up. Not sure what events you are referring to.
Are you saying that the Republican party had a more openly ghoulish faction take over the leadership of the party, which followed by the party splitting? What events are you referring to in this case?
Despite Goldwater's loss his campaign opened the door for radical elements of the far-right to take over the Republican Party and initiate the Reagan Revolution, the loss stimulated feelings of betrayal among the right and energized them against old party elites
A similar dynamic has taken place between Berniecrats and the democratic party, this dynamic was almost extinguished thanks to Covid and the unexpected victory of Biden which solidified neolib control of the party, but that dynamic has returned with a vengeance and now we have another shot, despite the capitulationist politics of figures like AOC and Bernie
Unfortunately some online leftists who've been too busy possessing 2020 trauma haven't detected the shift in conditions and are pretending Zohran didn't just win the primary for the greatest metropolitan polity in the United States
It took ten years for the first Goldwater effect to bare fruit, a similar delay has taken place with the Sanders effect and now we're seeing the emergence of a fully matured socialist politics that has potential to upturn the country and leave socdems like AOC and Bernie in the dust
Who?
So, are you saying that a lot of Republicans split into a different party (or parties) during those events? When was this, and what were the parties?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater
The Bernie Sanders of the right, from the sixties, he ate shit but inspired alot of 1st gen Republican neolibs like John McCain
The split occurred when Ross Perot almost upended the two party system in the 90s, the neolib faction gained control of the Republican Party long before that under Reagan, and since centrists aren't all that hostile toward radical right-wingers, it took 15 years for the split to finally manifest with Perot
If a similar dynamic occurs with the democratic party, it wouldn't take 15 years for a split to manifest like with the Republicans
I just don’t understand why you want democrats to win elections. Why you identify with democratic party in the first place. They are not the opposition
The only reason to consider running as a Democrat is for ballot access. If you try to run third party, the Dems eventually come for you by changing ballot access rules for third parties. This is a good example of how electoralism is an energy suck and not effective for mass organization: the bourgeois electoralists will change "the rules" on you constantly and make you spend all of your energy on elections, leaving no room for actually organizing the masses.
DSA electoralists have reversed the power equation, thinking that electoralism is primary for growing a movement. They are wrong, and so every "win" they gain is easily subverted and reversed because they absolutely, 100%, do not build a mass movement from their electoralism. The movement needs to be built more directly with known effective organizing methods, particularly org membership, education, and actions.
I don't care about the democratic party, if a socialist wins and forces the party neolibs to bend the knee then so be it, our objectives are achieved regardless
The party is an empty husk and using its reach and penatration to win elections is no skin off our back, all that's required is the candidate is an actaul socialist willing to fight
our (communists) goal should not be to elect good democrats, it should be to build a workers party. democrats winning does not do anything to build a workers party
I do think things like the hostile Democratic Party reaction to socialist candidates can help turn people away from the Democratic Party, though. It gives a big platform to get out socialist policies, gets people used to the word and forces traditional Dems to fight against it, which can get people to look for alternatives to the Democratic Party. Then, you can get those candidates to run as a separate party once their name is out there thanks to the fact that people only pay attention to the two big parties (like what Corbyn is doing).
i dont disagree. i just think its much more important to build up an independent platform + not rely on individual candidate popularity to build a movement
I want to have hope sooo bad... and I understand you've helped with his campaign and say he's the real deal. But I thought the "reform or revolution" question was already answered. Are we wrong about that?
Like, I don't see how this ends well unless it's all part of a much larger plan to get a revolution going. Is there a larger plan? You don't have to say what it is, if it's like op sec or whatever.
I could see it if it's like, a plan to radicalize more people:
Mayor tries to do objectively good shit and gets ratfucked --> people get angrier and say fuck the system (but they could just end up getting more fascist)
Mayor gets some good things done --> hey socialism is cool, maybe we should join! (join what exactly tho? no vanguard party?)
???
Fuck hope, we're past hope, wrestle despair into rage and fear into defiance, wouldn't matter if Zohran was a CIA clone, if he wins under a mantle of socialism and pro-palestine sentiment WE STILL WIN
Most online leftists never understood the debate to begin with, the question was not about "reform or revolution" it was about whether reform will kill revolution or will reform trigger revolution and historically the question has been answered in favor of the latter
Lenin overthrew the reformists not the Czar, reforms genuine reforms gives us the space and time we need to pull it off
Zohran winning under Trump is the best possible combination for us, the heat of the fascist furnace with a forward socialist base in New York, we'll explode in numbers
This is an interesting perspective on it, as a DemSoc invariably has to go back on their principles in favour of the status quo, it does leave the door open for genuine socialist movements to speak to the masses and encourage a movement where the people actually do get what they want.
I would be a bit worried though, based on what I understand about the US, that such a thing is more likely to just leave people jaded and switch off to the idea that things could ever get better, and not trust a socialist promising better things, because electoralist demsocs have let them down too many times. (For examples, just look at some of your other replies!)
I think the trick is that he will have to use his bully pulpit as the mayor of America's biggest city to constantly point the blame not just at Republicans, but also the systems in place that will make his reforms impossible, and that will have to include capitalism and the Dems themselves. At the very least, even if he can't get all his good things passed, if he can get more people to give up on the Democratic Party to instead prime them for some future workers party, that would still be a good and worthy contribution to the revolution. Getting normies to accept a third party in the US has been like pulling teeth, it's felt nearly impossible, but that's what needs to be done.
You have no idea what you are talking about
Fantastic argument from the DDD brigade, you really got me there
What is the DDD brigade
Devil Dumper Doris brigade
None of you have played Devil Dumper Doris and it sickens me.
Very cool
Thanks for answerin