Image is of military and civilian sites across Caracas which were bombed by the United States as of last weekend.
As everybody has already known for a couple days, the US has abducted Maduro and his wife in a massive operation (of which the exact details are not currently known, but involved hundreds of aircraft and at least some bombing of military and civilian targets), and has threatened Venezuela and the socialist party with further abductions and widespread murder if they do not hand over control of the country directly to the United States. In a statement that really says it all, Trump said that Machado is not being considered for the colonial viceroy position due to her sheer unpopularity. Various parties and countries around the world - and inside the US - have expressed their disapproval, which, as we all know, will not shift US foreign policy a single iota.
A few months ago, when the pressure campaign on Venezuela began, I speculated that Maduro was going to be killed or captured eventually. Flagrantly illegal and violent American military campaigns in Latin America are not new. The US has been invading land, looting banks, assassinating democratically elected leaders, and otherwise overthrowing countries in the region for their own economic benefit for the better part of two centuries, under both Democratic and Republican parties. Unfortunately, we all know that Russia and China are unlikely to do anything meaningful to contest the US in their attempt to more violently assert hegemony in Latin America. I doubt very much that the China of today will come out to bat for Venezuela and start meaningfully pressuring the US economically. For better and worse, we are far from the days of the USSR.
However, Latin America has, historically, met the US in its radicalism, committed to wars of anti-colonial nationalism, and carried out successful revolutions against the dictators placed in control from the US. As history continues ever onwards and conditions develop, I can only assume that we shall once again enter that radicalizing cycle. In that vein, the big question on my mind, and everybody else's, is: what comes next? Does the Venezuelan socialist party have the social and military cohesion to wage a years-long guerilla war against occupying troops? Can they quickly transition from a conventional to guerilla force as their military facilities are bombed, or will it take several years? Can they prevent the theft of their oil resources and make the attempt at foreign occupation more costly in both the manpower and economic costs than what that war will generate? Can Venezuela manufacture weapons for this guerilla war in a state of blockade? Will this military campaign begin immediately upon soldiers landing, or will it take a period of relatively unopposed occupation of months or even years? Will Cuba, Colombia, and even Mexico be in the same situation by the end of the year, with abducted leaders?
Yemen is the very recent proof that seemingly weak countries can force the American military to retreat in defeat. Can Venezuela follow? We shall see what Maduro has done to prepare the country for this war very soon. The only certain thing is that the murderous violence propagated by a trembling and dying empire shall be defeated eventually, whether it takes months, years, or decades, and the end result will be a socialist victory.
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
Obviously hyperbolic posturing from someone feeling helpless at this point in time (me) - but in spite of largely being a pacifist/anti-capital punishment - I see less and less wrong (not that I ever saw much wrong) with “purges” of the bourgeois/fash elements of society by historical leftist groups.
They’ve so much vileness to answer for and honestly deserve none of the patience required for prosecution. If they buy their blasphemy and believe they’re in the right - then let them explain that to st peter. There’s no redemption for murder. (And yes that includes veterans im related to)
Putting fascists on trial is not about what they "deserve", it's about the kind of society you want to build. It's about maintaining discipline and signaling to the broad masses of the people that you are building a society that is based on law and justice in which the state does not act arbitrarily. This wins the trust of the people.
The Soviet purges actually involved a lot of trials, and "purging" didn't necessarily mean imprisonment or execution, certainly not without trial. Yes, there were instances when things were not done as they should have been but that was generally the exception.
The most common punishments were actually demotion from positions of power and expulsion from the party. Though obviously unrepentant fascists and traitors would not get off as easily, but even then trial procedures were still followed.
Cuban revolutionaries made sure to hold trials for the criminals of the old regime, and they insisted on proper procedure and reasonable sentences even when the masses were clamoring for blood.
And the Chinese communists didn't summarily execute Japanese war criminals after the war, they put them on trial and even attempted to re-educate many of them.
This isn't because they were against capital punishment or even against summary executions on principle. It's because revolutionary justice is not about punishing moral transgression, it's about ensuring the safety and stability of the new society.
And yes, in times of war, instability and imminent danger to the revolution you may not always have the resources to try or even reliably detain dangerous fascists, and the risk of them getting free and causing immense harm to the revolution and the people is too great. In those cases revolutionary justice has no other choice but to permanently make sure the enemies of the revolution can no longer pose a threat.
But in general that is something you always want to avoid. You want to show the people that they have a functioning justice system in which if you are accused you will get your day in court and will be fairly tried according to the laws set in place by the revolution.
Dang - deeply appreciate you putting this amount of effort in responding to a shitty throwaway comment. Thanks for the education comrade
What some see as throwaway comments others may see as a learning opportunity.
Given that socialists states arise out of very cruel and unjust nations, it also signals to the working class, that the new state won't engage in arbitrary witch-hunts.
When I learnt that my great-grandfather was murdered by the red repression (context: Spanish civil war), my reaction was "damn, what a shame having fascist ancestors"
I also was very pacifist and anti capital punishment for fascists, but upon examining the history of my own country vs. that of the USSR, I can't help but wonder whether if we had had Bolsheviks instead of Anarchists and a coup + repression of fascists, whether we would have prevented a civil war and 40 years of fascism. Too much repression is bad, but no repression is even worse.
Imperialist and capitalists have been mass murdering, enslaving, robbing, stealing, lying, distorting, slandering and destroying billions of lives mentally, spiritually and physically since 1492. If we take the crimes against the environment into account, there is no amount of paper to write down all their crimes. The suffering they as a class have caused, it defies human comprehension.
If people understand that, then even the worst slander about what evils the communists supposedly have done, seems negligibly, miniscule in the sea of blood that flows through history.
Definitely - it’s hard to learn about even a fraction of that history let alone what’s required to comprehend the scale of imperial projects
Someone should make a black book of capitalism.
I am starting to become more like Charlie Kirk in that I also wouldn't mind certain public executions. My partner yesterday brought up that hanging is a decent method to use for certain indivudals...
I’d rather have reeducation camps than purges
At this point I don't care how we we do it, I just want the Doctor Sausage to get made already