Image is of a Colombian campaign rally in support of Iván Cepeda of the left-wing Historic Pact.
As always, my weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
The unstable stare-down in the Middle East continues. Yet again, there's been little region-level change, but there have been some big escalations. Namely, the entity has decided to go further into Lebanon, with all the casualties and destruction that will bring them, while simultaneously abandoning bases elsewhere in the theater due to constant pressure by Hezbollah. Seeking to pressure Hezbollah away from their successful strategy of attrition on IOF forces that attempt to advance only to receive rapid onset symptoms of FPVdroneitis, they have also decided to resume airstrikes on Beirut, which is an obvious violation of the region-wide ceasefire that Iran may or may not militarily respond to, but they do seem very diplomatically displeased as of me writing this sentence. Meanwhile, Iran has responded to US drone incursions with strikes on Kuwait military bases. Trump has escalated his demands lately, so a return to war seems more likely than ever.
In Bolivia, Paz appears to be escalating in response to undiminished general strikes, with Congress allowing him to declare states of emergency at will, and therefore get the military more easily involved. In Colombia's runoff elections, far-right candidate Espriella won the first round of the runoff election with 43.7% of the vote ahead of left-winger Cepeda's 40.9%. Every poll had Cepeda beating Espriella by varying margins, so this appears to be a fairly standard case of the US putting their thumb on the scale; as the saying goes, they do not trust the population of Colombia to do democracy correctly and they couldn't risk them accidentally electing the wrong person.
Over in Sudan, the conflict appears like it is moving in a pro-SAF direction, with some significant military gains against the UAE-backed RSF, although the military situation is still fairly complicated. A potentially notable news item that I missed a couple weeks ago is that the US seems to have ended their strategic ambiguity over who they consider the true government in Sudan, as they now firmly recognize the SAF over the RSF. Why exactly this has occurred is a little beyond me. Could be because they see how the winds are blowing militarily; could be because they want to fuck over the UAE for some perceived slight (to be America's ally is fatal etc etc). The humanitarian situation appears no better though, with millions of people remaining in incredible hardship and near-starvation, and RSF-backed genocidal atrocities of the kind that Zionists would nod approvingly at.
Thankfully, China is looking at all these manifold crises and has dramatically escalated the speed at which they are writing strongly worded letters and are calling for a revitalized UN.
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.
It's "coping" to point out she's a semi-independent agent with sponsors on Wall Street and New York real estate?
Oh I'm sorry, what's actually happening is Mamdani was inducted into the Knights Templar and now eats children with the elites. Is that more your lane?
Mamdani is a socdem, part of the liberal electoral faction of the DSA. The same one that, for example, fought tooth and nail (even using underhanded tricks) to prevent discussing and then adopting an antizionist platform several years ago. The one that sends liberals to Cuba to whine.
One should expect him to be like Bernie with a few tweaks. Fundamentally imperialist, constantly caving to and justifying adhering to nakedly bourgeois policy, and calling everything he does socialist.
Not a particularly defensible political figure overall for a socialist. Oly useful in that many liberals will like him and maybe will be confused when you suggest they attend your own actually socialist events. Exactly like Bernie. And really it's rupture that brings such folks to you. The failures. So one has to hold a consistent line and have an accurate idea of what is strategic to try and own or associate with (usually err on the side of not doing that).
I agree, this is partly the reason I don't take third-partyism seriously. But none of that has anything to do with the realized and still potential utility of figures like Mamdani. The DSA ate shit over anti-Zionism for several years ago; this year the New York mayor publicly snubbed the annual fascist zionist parade. That kind of normalization is worth all the annoying liberal nonsense that comes with electoralism, and I'm sorry none of you on Hexbear have ever made a convincing argument for why we should throw away that normalization of our politics
The about-face on Zionism is largely opportunist, it's following a sea change. The big Mamdani NY stans (these are the same people who defended Zionism in DSA) didn't have a change of heart, generally speaking, they just no longer thought of antizionism as a threat to their electoralism commitments and general liberalism. Forwarding and organizing around an accurate consciousness!? Perish the thought! Always triangulate, they think. One needs mass appeal to grow the "electeds".
The motion to antizionism, the credit, lies with the Palestinian resistance. Their work, their documentation, and unfortunately, the widespread violence visited upon them by Zionists, unpalatable to younger generations. Hence why TikTok was put in fascist control.
What on earth are you even talking about.
I don't really care if they're opportunistic about it; what matters is the extent to which they normalize it and advance our cause, all that matters is that they DO bend the knee on anti-zionism
If the anti-electoralists on this site had gotten their way, there wouldn't be even a hint of anti-Zionism in the mainstream, because only arch-Zionists would be elected; instead, anti-Zionism and socialism are normalized and popular with legitimized government backing, in one the largest cities in America and politicians, genuine or otherwise, have realized anti-zionism is a winning campaign strategy
Not opportunistic. Opportunist. This means their role is not actually about expanding or educating or pushing this forward, but in adopting what they think is already popular enough to suit their needs. You have their role exactly reversed. Same way as liberals do by giving, say, Obama credit for gay rights.
Do you believe that is what they are doing?
Anti-zionism was already mainstream before Mamdani was elected. You give far too much credit to bourgeois politicians and their roles. And I already reminded you who deserves credit.
Dead wrong. You're confusing the same words being used for different things for being the same things expanding. Bernie calls socdem welfare programs socialism and now socialism isn't a taboo word. Did socialism itself simply become mainstream because the word was used? Or did it grow when believers in socdems ate shit and this promoted them to join orgs and become more educated? I already described the utility of socdems like this and how they misuse the words and that this is the most you could hope for from them.
And they deserve no credit for the popularity of antizionism. I already described that as well.
This is a sweeping and unearned generalization but would also mean basically nothing because, again, we are looking at opportunism.
Finally, somebody talking actual fucking sense. Christ.
Why are you focused on "credit"? Nobody in this rat country deserves "credit" for baseline anti-zionism, it's a responsibility and obligation. What matters is if that obligation is being fulfilled and the normalization of anti-zionism is taking place, that's the only utility we should be concerned about.
The Palestinian people have already been failed, so there's no conception of "credit" to go around and trivializing the extent and severity of zionist support in this country is not meeting that responsibility
A politician on TV being anti-zionist, opposing Zionist politicians, and voicing pro-Palestinian sentiments IS A BIG DEAL IN AMERICA. Pretending otherwise because a part of you're brain is telling you "don't hand it to the socdems" when you never had to hand it to them to begin with, is displaying some real unserious priorities
Americans are fucking apathetic cattle; they require a permission structure to accept a belief as legitimate, and legitimizing anti-Zionism and pro-Palestinian sentiment are the prerequisites for ensuring zionists with mass murder on their minds don't get elected in the first place
Palestinians and Palestinian resistance don't have any direct power over that process; Americans do and so advancing socdems who bend the knee to anti-zionism becomes our responsibility, only to the extent they normalize anti-zionism
You've assigned credit several times. I am pointing out that you've got it wrong giving DSA socdem politicians credit for it - like the idea that they made antizionism mainstream. That idea is absurd and borderline disrespectful of those who actually did that work and engaged in struggle.
This has become passive voice...
Who did I say deserves credit? Tell me.
And it is a following, not leading trend. People said the same things about gay marriage when Democrats slowly adopted stances theoretically in favor of it. They later sought credit. But we know that the struggle was before themz that they opposed it until they no longer found it strategic, and that many continued to oppose it in reality (and still do!). We should appreciate it as the a sign of a separate struggle that bourgeois politicians try to co-opt it.
This is not replying to anything I have said.
Okay and Mamdani is at the tail end of that, more an exploiter of that trend than someone who has pushed it forward, as I have pointed out 3 times to 0 response.
They had and have more than Mamdani or any NYC DSA liberal. Materially and obviously, engaging in the struggle for decades, documenting it, sharing information... I've said these things already 3 times, again to no response.
I'll ask again: do you actually think "bending the knee" (a Game of Thrones reference in this allegedly serious discussion?) is what is happening?
Nope. He was always this way, you’ve just been imagining someone different