As is tradition, at around this time of year, we discuss the latest developments in the communist plan to destroy Christmas and everything festive and jolly - including that bastard kulak Santa Claus. Down with holly and myrrh, and up with historical materialism!
This year, I'm highlighting the economic trend of de-Decemberization, as the world struggles to break free from the seasonal hegemony imposed by the North Pole. Some regard it as a rather overhyped phenomenon, stating that the chains of Christmas are too frozen for any country to thaw and break in the current environment. Others are more optimistic, and assert that perhaps an alternative world holiday could be established to outright replace it, or maybe a series of smaller holiday traditions can bring it down like a pack of wolves bringing down a moose.
To return to seriousness, as this year draws to a close, I hope everybody here - yes, also you, the person reading this - has a 2026 that was better than 2025, and that the efforts of the United States and their proxies are foiled at every turn. One day, humans will live in a world free from empires, and it would be nice if as many of us as possible lived to see that world's birth.
At the very least, I'd like to live to see an aircraft carrier sink beneath the waves.
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
I wonder if you could make a rapid deployable device that is basically a tent pole and netting over a 5-10meter radius in a dome shape. Something one member of a squad could carry but would effectively allow a whole squad to have a rapidly deployable shield against suicide drones. None of these drones can deal with a net, if you put a 5meter distance between the drone and the infantry they would survive.
As with all these drones, it's just rock paper scissors. Russian drones seem to be using a lot of RPG-7 warheads, like OG-7V's, TBG-7's, PG-7V2's. All of those would have (some) lethal effects through a 5 meter radius dome. If the net becomes a prison, you'd see a return to the earlier grenade-drop types trying to hit troops that can't escape their net. If the net is open enough to allow people to escape, the optical suicide drones would find a way in the moment someone lets their guard down. Many of these drones seem to be using PG-7V2 type shells, in which case they're basically firing a 5 meter long hot copper lance into the target. We've gone from drones that cause mass casualties and high injury rates to drones that just absolutely dead-dead you with virtually no chance of survival.
In many situations you'd probably be better going out with everyone carrying a couple of rolls of netting and nailing it into trees/walls to create (relatively) safe harbours in the forest. You could probably get the right shapes by bringing some fishing line to tie things together, and maybe some lead fishing weights. And even then, this video had people being hit inside netting fortifications by drones finding ingress points.
Well my thinking with a net is that the squad would still fire out of it, there would just be considerably more safety than panicking and then burying their face in the ground.
Only 100% enclosed spaces are safe. Any gaps and the drones find their way in, they're quite nimble and able to navigate through spaces as small as a car window.
I just want a lightweight rapid deployable, something that goes up in 10seconds at the push of a button. One squad member simply holds the device and hits the switch and then the pole extends upwards and all the netting fires from the top in a dome shape. Boom, instant safe(r)zone. One of the big problems this video shows is panic causing people to run and not fight back against the incoming drone, or resignation to the fact they're about it be hit. They need something that helps eliminate these impulses.
Don't forget about artillery. A squad huddling in a big immobile dome is going to get mega blown up by a 155mm shell.
I think anywhere that artillery can hit it's more efficient to use the artillery than to use the drones anyway. Unlikely to see them mixed no? Tbh if you're in artillery fire you're screwed either way.
Seems like something both feasible and cheap to manufacture.
I wonder if it would end up obsolete pretty quickly once (anti-personnel) drones are modified to use a proximity or manually-triggered fuze. You could even have some kind of dead man's switch that's activated on final approach to trigger the explosives once the propellers stop spinning, which was the working principle for WW2-era torpedoes and bombs for some time.
They would have to switch to using two different types of drones, anti-personnel and anti-vehicle. You could defeat netting with frag explosives instead of these drones which are designed primarily to hit vehicles.
This increases logistics and production needs though. I also don't think troops in the field would like it because when you launch your drone you don't really have a plan for what you're attacking as you don't know what you'll find, they want multi-purpose drones not specialised ones. I think it would work for at least a year.