Image is of a protest in San Diego against ICE.
On January 7th, 37-year-old Renee Good was murdered by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. While a considerable amount of the discussion online has been about the direction her wheels were turning and things like that, truthfully, I think it's just fundamentally bad to shoot a person to death with a gun if you happen to be a state mercenary enforcing an incredibly racist federal policy, regardless of the circumstances.
The murder has since prompted a wave of vigils and protests, not only in Minneapolis, but also in virtually every major city in the country. The demands are justice for Good in particular, and the abolition of ICE in general, to avenge its many victims. The Trump administration has done all they can to inflame the situation, designating Good a "domestic terrorist" and saying that the agent who shot her will be immune from prosecution.
Protests and resistance to this administration's policies have, encouragingly, had an element of international solidarity - not only are flags from countries throughout Latin America (and also Palestine) present, but speakers in protests have even been actively condemning the recent imperialist actions against Venezuela. For it is, of course, one joint struggle. The imperial boomerang always returns - and in the modern day, it returns rapidly.
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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.
There's also the fact that all these gulf states don't actually have real effective militaries so there's no real point of them "joining the anti-Iran coalition". They have groups of ganjaweed jihadist light infantry that they move around from country to country, but this is not an actual military that could mount an invasion of Iran. These groups can't defeat Ansarallah, let alone Iran itself. Any time they are given helicopters or tanks they end up crashing them or getting them stolen.
They would let the US/Israel use their airspace to make attacks, shoot down retaliatory missiles and do recon. They will let the US/Israel use their airports and seaports for logistics and recon. Jordan and Qatar were doing this during the last altercation.
I do think the other points like Iran's domestic politics and the Israeli strategy are stronger.
Iran has a very tough economy, starting conflict won't go over well. Even being attacked, quite a number in Iran blame Iran.
And Iran needs to not help Israel bait the US into doing their dirty work.
The US was always going to join in on an existential war for Israel if Israel felt threatened. There's no way to not "bait" the US to joining, they will join no matter how you approach it.
Iran and the axis said for years their reason for existence is to destroy the entity. Then the moment comes where that might seem possible, and they balk for their own protection (which allows the US/Israel to then pick apart the axis piece-by-piece because they aren't coordinated and acting in solidarity, all looking out for their own self-preservation).
What was the point of all this if you weren't going to attempt to destroy Israel? Just become a libshit American vassal then to draw less of Sauron's ire if that's all they care about.
Just become a libshit American vassal then to draw less of The Great Satan's ire if that's all they care about.
That's not guaranteed to help. I mean look at Denmark's, we fought for you in Iraq. And now you are going to take from us the majority of our territory I'm the from of Greenland?
Iran has been trying to de-escalate for a long time. Israeli-backed US politicians prevent it - despite US oil lobbyists fighting the Israeli faction.
Dick Cheney had a lot of trouble during his election for the pro-Iran statements he made as a US oil executive - all due to Israeli influence.
Denmark ain't gonna get bombed, nor are their scientists routinely assassinated. It's all theater, nobody is gonna hurt Denmark at all. If US takes Greenland it will be 100% bloodless and done via a political process. US military already has bases in Greenland and its total population is like 50k, they basically already de facto control it. All it would require is for those troops to move a block and swap the flags out at the capital.
Yes and it doesn't work because America and Israel will never accept a sovereign government that they don't control.
Right, and so they haven't de-escalated.
They are stuck in the anti-hegemony space.
And their stated plans are for Israel to be gone by 2040. Which means that if we take them seriously, we have to wait another 16 years.
The last shred of political legitimacy of the government and all the sacrifices they've made so far would go out the window if they drop Palestine at any point. Including now.
All they have left is self-interest and self-preservation.
The Iran-Iraq war was a critical juncture for curbing both Saddam and Iran's anti-Israel ambitions.
Iran's strategy is to hold out for a time when the US won't step in for Israel if it becomes existential. That's why many years ago they set the clock until the end of Israel at 2040.
I agree, and it's starting to look like they missed their best window to liberate Palestine. Likely because of the reformist civil government and president meddling.
Their best window, the window they are planning for, is a US exit.
Which has yet to come. But we can all see the writing on the wall for the US global presence.
The only doubt to this is how long the Palestinian people can hold out.
Yeah don't think that's happening anytime soon. America will die to defend Israel. It will never give it up
Look at US' opinions on Israel by demographics. Never?
My guess is 2 or fewer election cycles.
If no more elections are held, then the US will descend into civil war. In such a case, they may as well be out of the picture.
US opinion is irrelevant and is proven to have 0 influence on actual policy. 99% of Americans could want to destroy Israel and it doesn't matter if they aren't willing to riot over it.
Given that Israeli funding is seen as a litness test for corruption and treason, we will see people engaging in violence against those in government who continue it - from both the left and the anti-semetic right.
And the next generation of corrupt bourgeoisie are likely to have similar views on this. They won't view it as being in their pragmatic interests to sacrifice more for Israel.
Greater Israel is the Manifest Destiny of the 21st century. The bourgeoise will go all in on it as they constantly need a frontier to expand into to handle their contradictions. If there’s no greater Israel project then America will just eat itself instead. American bourgeoisie know this
Greendland is looking like a much easier frontier.
Maybe next they'll go for Antarctica. Global warming will make it warmer there too.
Or Penguin Island.
Or the Moon and Mars. They keep talking about the space frontier, and the bourgeoisie are already dumping money there.
Right now they have AI.
Don't worry, they'll find ingenious ways of wasting capital without Israel.
Greenland isn't a frontier, it's already conquered and exploited to the maximum that it's useful. It's conquest doesn't actually change anything.
You can't do imperialism against empty planets and land. There's no money for the MIC if there aren't people to bomb.
Imperialist frontier requires bodies. Humans to kill and exploit and enslave and steal from. Houses and infrastructure to steal, fixed assets to destroy. It's not about land it's about the people on the land, their labor and their purchasing power and their assets. Greenland doesn't have enough warm bodies to make it useful in that way
Good point; I think foreign occupation leading to native resistance is a core part of Imperialism (and how it ends). The suffering of the resisting population powers the system.
They have to destroy fixed assets to reduce the rate of profit falling worldwide. Open new markets where you destroy all of their fixed capital, then you export your own capital there to extract rents.
If there's no market to open up, no assets to destroy, then it's pointless.
Reminds me of the British empire selling textile products to India. Where can I read more on this, in Marx "Capital" or from Lenin?
Lenin does talk about this in Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism. For more contemporary work, I would recommend the book The Imperialist Question in Middle East and North Africa by Salvatore Capasso and Ali Kadri as well
There was a book that was recommended on Hexbear that I'm forgetting that touched on these EXACT subject, the purposeful destruction of fixed assets in the Middle East. Maybe another Hexbear can remember it and name it
Why would they need more human workers with their wunderwaffe AI systems that make all people redundant?
The proposition of replacing all human labour - both physical and intellectual, changes the dialectic.
You actually believe this AI-propaganda? Automation and tenfold increases in efficiency via the industrial revolution didn't cause the entire world to become unemployed. There will always be demand for cheap, disposable labor and human slaves. There's also the issue of controlling markets, which is one of the primary functions of imperialism. Greenland already is a vassal of America and the EU, it doesn't need to be forcibly opened up and looted in the way that non-vassalized countries do
I don't believe they AI propaganda, but I think they do.
So that changes everything.
It doesn't change a thing. They're huffing their own farts and playing pretend with this AI shit.
Idk the MIC is heavily involved in aerospace. They can still make their money.
Not gonna happen, is this your first time experiencing American imperialism? If they could just pivot to AI and space travel they would do that, you been huffing too much Musk-esque techno messiah mumbo jumbo. There's no replacement for hard power and air dominance. Imperialism isn't about only the expenditure of capital, but also the destruction of fixed capital to mitigate the rate of profit falling. No fixed infrastructure being destroyed, no mitigation of the rate of profit falling.
I agree with you completely actually.
But as per Marx, without a way of destroying capital, capitalism will turn on itself and disrupt its own processes.
I thought that's what you were getting at earlier.
And that's what I mean about space colonization. It is a frontier to blow money on and stabilize the system.
It's not about "blowing money" it's about destroying fixed assets. They need to constantly destroy things that cost money to maintain demand for their capital export.