Image is sourced from this article.
Those who were around in the early days of the news megathread may remember Pedro Castillo, the left-leaning leader of Peru who was deposed in December 2022. He was replaced by Dina Boluarte, the first woman to be President of Peru, who described herself as a progressive but afterwards routinely sided with Peruvian conservatives and American interests. To say she was unpopular is an understatement of titanic proportions - she descended to such lows that she was, at one point, the single most unpopular leader on the planet. As with most deeply unpopular leaders that side with the West, she kept power for a bafflingly long time.
However, on October 10th, after a period of protests against the government, she was impeached and removed by Peru's Congress in a unanimous vote. José Jerí was sworn in as the new President, who was previously the President of the Congress and is a member of a centrist Peruvian party. The government is trying the classic strategy: keep doing the same thing as before, and sacrifice an unpopular figure - here, Boluarte - in the hopes that this appeases the crowd.
Is this strategy working? It doesn't really seem to be - protests are not only continuing, but strengthening, as it is clear that neoliberalism will not reformed and the brutality by police will not stop (there was very recently a high-profile case in which a musician, Mauricio Ruiz, was murdered). Controversies surrounding Jerí, including allegations of SA, are already being reported. If Jerí is deposed, the next person in line to try their hand at ruling will be the former army general Roberto Chiabra, who would be the ninth President in less than a decade.
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.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
White house east wing destroyed to make Trump ballroom awesome
source
Hit the gas a little harder, Volvo driver. You know you want to!
Govt shut down, people not getting paid healthcare prices gonna skyrocket, and a white house section ballroom is being made in tribute to a pedo. Not even veep could make this more ridiculous
It's still shutdown wtf?
I'm gonna tell my grandkids this was a photo of the residence of the last Fuhrer of the American Reich being demolished to make way for the John Brown National Memorial.
I'm genuinely astonished that this isn't breaking multiple laws. This is a historic building isn't it? Why isn't it protected? Is any building protected by law? Does the US not have a "listed" status for buildings like we have in the UK where the listed buildings have an absurd amount of protection from changes due to historical significance?
Sidenote: He's not making these changes to the building and then leaving it. He considers this his house now.
America has made it quite clear that the President can do whatever he wants
an ever expanding Great White House set to take over central Washington D.C. in the near future. everywhere you look; White House
Just trying to imagine a prime minister attempting to get part of 10 Downing Street demolished to do a huge new extension and the drama this would cause would result in an election 100%, you do NOT fuck with historically significant listed buildings.
We frankly don't give much of a shit about our history, unless he wants to tear the entire WH down it wouldn't be much of a stir.
There's a Yes, Prime Minister episode on these lines.
Laws only protect the bourgeoisie. They aren't subject to it.
They very much are subject to laws that protect history and culture over here because that history and culture is viewed as directly tied to the longevity of the country thus far. Protecting harm to history and culture is protecting the bourgeoisie, even from other bourgeoisie that don't realise this. They don't get just destroy historic buildings here, if they attempted to they would be forced to reconstruct it, with exactly the same materials and construction methods as originally existed in order to make it exactly as it was. No one gets to fuck around with this.
you don't have the "but nobody will stop me" clause?
Naw. It's also deeply cultural, you can't do this to buildings here, half the population would be pissed about it. I'm not just talking mildly upset they would be out for blood. It's deeply deeply offensive to harm historic architectural landmarks, they are part of what makes the identity of the population here. Half the country is filled with ruins whether it's stones dating back to druids or castles from the medieval period. Almost everyone would find it deeply disrespectful. There's a real culture of historical and cultural preservation. Even people that would usually be right wing reactionaries would not be ok with it, nobody would be.
I mean, the UK actually has a history, as sordid as it can be, while the US is some shitty settler colony with a criminal record. This is a boomerang effect of sorts where the settler contempt and disregard for Indigenous history leads to a particular tacky settler also not giving a shit about settler myth-building either.
Plus, the east wing was only build in 1902 with major renovations by FDR in 1942, so it's only around 123 years old.
I really hope construction stalls enough that the next president either cancels or completely changes Trump's original plan so it's just some partially constructed clusterfuck.
lol
lmao LAWS? what are you talking about, "laws"
Laws? what are those? what the strongman says must be
I once did some work at Wadham College at Oxford. I was told it’s one of the “newer” colleges there (and I was in awe of how beautiful it was) and it still is older than the oldest university in the US IIRC. American buildings are just on a different time scale than other places.
(Also I don’t think the east wing is part of the original White House)
A lot of American laws on historical sites only limit how public funds are used. The ball room is being privately funded.
KKKracKKKer house down!
Somebody should do a psyop and convince the demolisher to take down the rest of it while they're at it
There's a dang cheeto bulldozing the white house