Image is of a destroyed American AWACS plane in Saudi Arabia, of which there is a very limited supply and each of which is enormously expensive both monetarily and in terms of components. Iran hit this with a precision drone strike that likely cost ~$20,000.
I don't have much to add from the last megathread description. This isn't to say that nothing has happened or has changed since then - decades are still happening in weeks - but the general flow of the war is remaining the same. Trump sometimes threatens to open the Strait with troops and flatten Iran to rubble, and other times threatens that he's gonna back off and let other countries handle it if they really want little trifles like "fuel" and "energy" so much. Iran continues to strike across the Middle East. The West continues to bomb civilian infrastructure due to their relative inability to affect the missile cities. In all: things are generally getting worse for America and the Zionists.
April is the month where the last ships that left Hormuz before it was closed will arrive around the world, so the last month of economic turmoil has been a mere prelude to what's going to occur in the near-future. The silver lining is that Iran appears to be formalizing the new state of affairs in Hormuz, creating a rial-based toll to allow passage between a pair of Iranian-controlled islands where they can be monitored, meaning that, as long as the US doesn't do something exceptionally stupid, the global energy crisis may "only" last a couple years instead of simply being the new reality from now on. Some countries have already agreed to this arrangement, and others will inevitably follow despite their consternation as their economies increasingly suffer.
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 the Zionists' 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.
Pope Leo https://x.com/Pontifex/status/2039667158087877085
21st century religion is getting interesting
https://t.me/stayfreeworld/63101
Tbh that’s not really strange. Jesus is a big deal in Islam too. It’s just a different role than in Christianity.
The weirdest thing in that picture was writing down a hashtag lol.
I know the role of Jesus in Islam, I still think writing religious messages on drones and the Pope saying imperialism is a fun portent of the weeks/decades to come
Syncretic Shia-Catholic-Orthodox faith is coming. It will be the dialectical opponent to "Judeo-Christianity" of the Zionist alliance between Protestants and Jews (and Sunni muslims, but it's more convenient for everyone involved if this goes unstated).
I am a Buddhist and I support the holy war against the antichrist
Yeah, I can see that. Chechnya will be the bridge connecting the pan-Eurasian faith, imo
I guess Herbert was wrong, it's not gonna be Zensunni Catholicism but Zenshia Orthodoxy
Did Herbert base it on Sunni? I assumed all the savior stuff was Shia in origin (never read dune, only watched the first movie)
The in-universe religion itself is called Zensunni, but I would agree that Shia fits better, they even use the term Mahdi. Although now that I'm going through the wiki, it turns out there is actually https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Zenshia, but this comes from the sequel books by his son which are of dubious quality (allegedly based on Frank's notes, but that's probably marketing bullshit, so probably not something Frank came up with himself - and I feel like it kind of undermines the concept of "future syncretic religion which unites all previous systems" if you've still got the Sunni/Shia split in it millennia later)
Oh lmao I didn’t know it was literally called that
The actual Theology is a little weirder but that's broadly correct.
The official religion of the Corrino Empire (the setting of the first book) isn't Zensunni. Zensunni is one of the (many) religious philosophies represented in the Orange Catholic Bible; which was a kind of universal religious text that everyone used; and that document is what binds all religions into a syncretic it's the official religious text of the empire. when they make reference to Zensunni monks they are discrete sects that believe different things from other component religions/philosophies contained in the Orange Catholic Bible like Islam, Navachristianity, Buddislam, Mahayana Christianity, Zensunni Catholicism and the Maometh Saari religion.
The son's work is not worth considering, but still fits in this framework.
It's funny, if you read the comments on the now 6-years old video the Iranian song Ya Heydar Karrar that was actually mentioned on Chapo a few weeks ago, my back of the napkin math is that, of the commenters people identifying themselves as Christian, 70% are Roman Catholic, 25% are Orthodox, and maybe 5% are Protestant.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
#PromisedMahdi
Slightly cryptic in an entertaining way but I know what he's saying. 5/10
rating
Was the Ayatollah the Rejected Messiah? Many are saying it.
I thought the chud pope was gonna be a big ass bust especially after all the tradcath whining over Francis but it could have been worse.
chicago pope is ok in my opinion
He's secretly peruvian, and as we know, Peru is key.
10 popes in 10 years, all Peruvian