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.
Jeremy Corbyn is still doing electoralism. Bernie Sanders was a pariah of the US political media in two election cycles, too. They were calling Zohran an antisemite, too, so it must actually be fine to talk about him and election then, right?
he's a democrat
And Corbyn would still be in Labour if he could
And how did that entryism and reformism work out for him?
Poorly, partly because he has the political instincts of a moron. So why do all of the posters who cry about electoralism when anyone talks about US elections love to talk about elections anywhere else?
I personally wish you would shut the fuck up about elections in the empire and get to work on actual revolutionary programs
Elections outside the empire are relevant because socialism and anti-imperialism can actually happen via the ballot box. It cannot inside the core.
Please tell us more about how the Iranian people need to wise up and vote out Pezeshkian and the reformers.
Iran is not in the empire, it’s elections are real
Right so electoralism lol
There is not a single more "impactful" election than the US presidential election, purely due to the power the office holds as head of the global hegemon. If those elections don't mean anything , then no global elections mean anything.
Where did I say I am against all electoralism? Reread my comments. I’m against it inside the imperial core
Talking about elections isn't electoralism, that's what my comment you responded to is about.
Also, how did that line of thinking work out for Mossadegh?
Mossadegh didn't defend the gains, but if he has defended the gains against the west it would've been successful electoralism.
I'm not convinced of the distinction that Zposter is making, but it really feels like you're stuck in a universal ideal discussion (elections always bad or always aren't bad) when ZPoster is describing the material conditions that would change how electoralism functions
Maybe Mossadegh should have voted harder.
I didn't make a statement about electoralism, I made a statement about some of the posters here performatively complaining about "electoralism" only when US elections are brought up. Saying "Global South elections matter more" is a ridiculous statement, because the impact of US elections has far-reaching global impact due America's position as global hegemon.
You misunderstand here that the point ZPoster is making is that US elections have almost no impact on global politics (because both parties agree on the vast majority or topics on that stage and collaborate to maintain that), while global southern elections can put people into power who will fight against that hegemon. It's still limited and not the answer to anything in itself (like you mean with Mossadegh, it wasn't enough) but it's at least something with impact. Hamas was elected, and that has had very vast effects relative to the choice between Trump or Kamala.
I'm not entirely convinced that the politics of Hamas and Mossadegh didn't precede elections and make them unnecessary (haven't thought that part out yet). But this is at leats where you are talking past ZPoster
US elections definitely affect global politics. Kamala Harris would not have done all this tariff shit, for example, maybe just a few more to China or Iran but that's it.
Short term, sure. But long term it makes very little difference, as the exact same forces are attempting to fulfill the needs of the exact same class using slightly different methods. Kamala would've preferred to slowly force the world to kneel before the US and Trump wanted it quickly. Might make a difference in how quickly things happen (accelerationist argument) but Kamala would've just allowed the use of economic methods to do what trump tries through political/direct force means.
I'm not talking past ZPoster, you both are flattening actual differences between the politics of the American bourgeosie for the purposes of trying to defend the frankly rude, hypocritical, and uncomradely behavior of some posters here.
USAID would still be operating if Kamala won. Tarrifs wouldn't be happening. Everything going on with ICE wouldn't be happening. Brazil wouldn't be facing US sanctions. Cuba wouldn't be facing a restrengthened embargo. The US would still be part of and funding WHO. European NATO members wouldn't be cutting their social spending to increase military spending. I can go on. Just the cuts he has made to US government employment and spending coupled with tarrifs seems to be on the path to triggering an actual recession in the US, which will have global economic implications given America's status as the global buyer. That there are lots of things that the cowboys and yankees agree on does not mean they have the exact same politics. There are actual real, impactful differences between these camps and those differences have global implications.
But now you're making an argument that there is just any sort of difference at all, when ZPoster seems to be talking about its effectiveness for realizing changes we want (and I'm assuming, following ZPosters posting for a while) looking at a long term perspective. Of course the individual policies will be different to appease different groups of the Bourgeoisie and whatever you want to call the middle class labor aristocracy. But the argument against electoralism is clearly that the gains are indefensible against reaction. And so, in the global south (according to ZPoster) elections can go against the hegemonic forces of the west and then the forces for defense can also be coopted for that goal through that electoral process. In the west, that last step will never happen and the class politics prevent such a defense.
Nobody thinks that Kamala and Trump would be 100% the same. That's not what anybody is arguing. But looking at imperial strategy, little has changed. Only the tactics.
The only person having a discussion about the effectiveness of electoralism is you because, you are trying to make excuses for your poor and uncomradely behavior towards other users here. Are you going to take ownership of that rude and uncomradely behavior, or are you going to keep try to make excuses for why you get to harass other users here if they talk about elections in a country you don't want to talk about?
Me harassing? What are you talking about? If I harassed you, let me know where and I'll explain and applogize. Looking at my comments I can't see where I did?. I came into the discussion with really only the point of making clear how it seemed you were talking past each other. I many times said I'm not convinced on ZPosters position. Your arguments just aren't connecting with that position, which made it clear to me that you were talking past one another.
Was hoping at the beginning that I could help clear that up and let you discuss or argue in a way which helped others understand.
I'm talking about my original comment, in response to the person I responded to, that comments/discussions about US elections get out of hand in this community because a certain subset of users feel the need to harass and deride other for "doing electoralism" to performatively show how "leftist" they are, when that same subset of users regularly engages is discussions of electoralism, and how that behavior is not only rude but fundamentally hypocritical. The discussion has since been about why that subset of users should or should not actually be able to act that way towards other users discussing US elections, which is where you have since entered this in the side of "actually you should be able to be rude and hypocritical".
Or please, point out to me where you have corrected the other side of this debate and told them where they were also "talking past me".
I'm out after this, whatever, I'm not a part of whatever fight this is. I just noticed when you brought up Mossadegh that the discussion was off the wires and tried to help.
I pointed it out to you and you responded and he didn't. I've said "talking past each other" and also pointed out how you specifically talked past him, which is a requirement for you both to talk past each other. ZPoster didn't respond to me, so I didnt go further. I don't think I agree with either of you after having time to think on it.
I think you're upset generally at this discussion, not at me. So I'm gonna leave this discussion because I don't care near enough about it to have a heated discussion
Steps into the middle of a discussion to defend one side, "Actually I'm not a part of whatever this is". Yeah, of course he didn't respond to you. You never replied to any of his comments.