Image is of Rixi Moncada of the LIBRE Party voting in the election.
On November 30th, Hondurans voted to choose their next President, as well as deputies to the Congress, councillors, and other candidates. Like all elections in Latin America, the looming shadow of American intervention will be a major factor in deciding the winner. In this election, that intervention has been fairly naked, with Trump literally stating who he wishes to win (the far-right nationalist guy, Nasry Asfura). Asfura has said that if he does not win, American funding to the country will dry up - a clear threat - and Trump has additionally pardoned the former Honduran president and US ally Juan Orlando Hernández, imprisoned for smuggling cocaine into the US.
The other candidates in this election are Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, who is essentially running on the same platform as Asfura with some differences (such differences would inevitably vanish if he were to win); and Rixi Moncada of the progressive (self-described as democratic socialist) LIBRE Party. The narrative about this election is - try not to yawn - the neverending battle of democracy against communism. This narrative is obviously very important to uphold in the current environment of accelerated aggression against Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and others.
Who is going to win? As of me writing this sentence, the results have not yet been fully reported. However, there has been something of a scandal in regards to a plot - with recorded voices, though those guilty plead AI tampering - to show the best possible preliminary results for the right wing, so as to manipulate the narrative and morale of the population. The idea, is presumably, that if LIBRE were to win, the fascists could say "How did LIBRE go from 20% of the vote (which is what the preliminary results showed) to a victory?! It must be communist meddling!"
Of course, it's entirely possible that LIBRE won't win anyway, or get particularly close. We shall see how things turn out very shortly.
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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
The Telegram accounts that I consider fed accounts are all claiming that last night a full simulated strike operation was carried out against Venezuela off the coast.
If that's the case then the US has now completely finished all preparations and run the dress rehearsal.
The US has been running simulated strikes for weeks, but with transponders on and publicly calling them simulated strikes. If they did one with transponders off and no public acknowledgement, that would be worrying.
Some German ex military chud did a simulation on Command Modern Operations of what a strike could look like, warning for the video lots of chud nonsense, but an overview.
Video
No worries about chud noise. You have to get into the swamp with this stuff. Will take a look soon.
I timestamped it to try skip the chud noise and go straight to the details.
Yeah I finished it now. This is pretty much what I expected. This doesn't really mean the end of Maduro or the government though, not without a special forces operation to kill ground targets or a pre-planned traitor in the Venezuelan military carrying something out. Even if they get Maduro I can't see them gaining full control of the country either, in the absolute best-case scenario for the US they get a coup followed by a 20 year insurgency that eventually wins.
Yeah, the conditions that caused the fall of Bolivia are really not present in Venezuela today.
I think the US attacking Venezuela would surely cause huge damage and death. They might even kill Maduro. But causing a collapse of the Bolivarian Revolution is unlikely IMO. It doesn't discard the fact that Latinoamérica is bound for some years of hell if this intervention goes through.
Death to Amerikkka of course.
Also america is covertly attacking venezuela, bolivia was less "obvious" to normies.
That is a win for them though and I'm not sure the insurgency would necessarily have to win depending on how it goes down.
While they'd prefer full control and a stable American comprador regime that lasts forever, simply removing Venezuela as an enemy state by plunging it into strife is a victory in their minds. They either seize the oil or take it off the market and make the oil of their comprador gulf monarchies and their own drilling more valuable while threatening China's supply of friendly countries who can be assured won't cut off oil after a stern US demand and reducing China to Iran and whatever Russia can produce as sources in a future conflict.
Looks like more chessboard setting up to me, as after this they merely need to cut off land routes to Iran to strangle China in a conflict and they've set things up nicely to disrupt China's B&R between it and Iran. US military runs heavily on oil as do most so their thinking and it's not wrong is if they can choke off enough of China's oil they can prevent them from having any real reach to fight the US anywhere but on their shores as well as inflict economic pain as oil is necessary for a lot of things in civilian industry.
And also as we've seen with Syria, simply subjecting the people to a decade or more of brutal war, terrorism, CIA terror operations, etc can sap the will of the population enough that they might be amenable at the end of that to accepting or not resisting a compromise government that defers to Washington and slowly rots away at the remaining revolutionary elements with revisionism but isn't run by outright raving fascists and appears or claims to be nominally left but is deeply corrupt/compromised, etc. It also creates opportunities for coups, moving pawns into position, etc. So the US likes this and it paid off well in Syria as we've seen as people will follow their stomachs and wallets and after enough deprivation more people on the fence will turn turn-coat for the promise of "stability and bread".
At the very least it gives the US a decade of time to move against China without Venezuela being able to supply them with oil if they're stuck in war for that long.
It mostly depends on local compradors being numerous enough and able to be organized and armed into some kind of force though as I don't think the US has an appetite for a long occupation and fight against an insurgency so much as installing pawns, beating down the visible opposition, weakening the most visible elements of the military and maybe providing a green zone for them by taking and holding the capital to offer them legitimacy as the legitimate government that the US and NATO recognize and give assets and money to.
Several issues with your comment
Venezuela has not been a large oil exporter for a long time due to sanctions. That is exactly why the Venezuelan economy was in shambles in the 2010's. Venezuela's economy has been strengthened lately in spite of the sanctions and due to larger self reliance in food sovereignty.
Venezuela hasn't been a large economic partner to China, my guess is due to physical distance and because China can supply themselves with nearby partners like Iran, and also China is accelerating becoming fossil fuel free for energy sovereignty.
You say that putting Venezuela in chaos will give America a decade to shift to China. Venezuela has never been any kind of military threat to the US for them to have the need to suppress them for a switch.
In fact, the US pivoting to Venezuela will actually help China in the fact that China can keep doing nothing and winning. I think this pivot to Latinoamérica is more about the US conceding the fight in Asia and consolidating US influence in the western hemisphere. Multipolarity at the expense of the billion people here.
If they think that cutting China from oil will help they're drastically underestimating the speed at which China can get itself off oil. If threatened China's oil use will half in the next 5 years and it will be totally domestic within 10. The west will need to launch a war with China in under 5 years yet I do not see the capability to do that.
If you're right and this is chess board stuff, China is already ahead of them and already getting itself off oil. In the meantime they are stockpiling giant reserves.
Yeah, going green isn't just about combating climate change. It has massive geopolitical implications.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Any idea what they're saying it will actually entail?
The buzz that I'm getting is some sort of combined aerial bombing + special forces operation. I assume they'll aim to cut open an air corridor, wipe out Venezuelan airforce, bomb out communications and possibly power, then decapitate the government.
After that they'll probably have the opposition run a "transition" coup government then hold elections with only the people they want as options, making it "legitimate".
Remember the Bolivia Morales coup? Like that but with the US involved to make sure that Maduro doesn't survive to regroup. They will want to scatter the left by killing leadership and key people/structures so they can put their people in charge without a well organised opposition. The main reason the Bolivia coup failed was the failure to kill Morales. All of this looks like the same plan but with more direct involvement of the US this time to ensure that doesn't happen again.
Inshallah many American specops demons die and this is an abject failure