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.
This person gets into a fight with almost everyone they interact here with off the jump. Plenty of people have tried being more charitable with them, myself included, but they don't seem interested in engaging that way and have forfeited any baseline of respect.
This is more or less a leftist shitposting site which allows for people of many perspectives, which means allowing for disagreement and debate. If you want a more serious experience lemmygrad has that and they probably would have banned him by now and it wouldn't even be an issue. I am here because I like the shitposting and less serious nature of the website. I haven't reported that person or suggested they be banned, and if they were some other person with the same politics would show up and fill the void. This is like the third ultra taking these stances since I joined and when one vanishes it isn't long before another appears.
As far as the "what if" scenario you posited, the majority of people who regularly post here seem to be on a similar wavelength about this guy and politics in general, even the anarchists that post here, so I just don't think the scenario you are concerned about is really on the table. If this person wants to deescalate the self crit thread is available and there are many cases they could self crit about that I've seen in the last few months, if they did that I'm sure most people here would be fine cutting them some slack. Until something like that occurs, I don't feel responsible for being "the bigger person" on a shitposting website to a shitposter. It feels like a sort of tone policing to insist that people need to be nice and friendly to assholes or else they are somehow responsible for the asshole's personality flaws.
::: spoiler I've been awake for three days (minor but annoying medical thing) so this comment might not be worded that well.
First, in case it doesn't come across, you're somebody I respect and tend to agree with, including on this topic. And I realize this user fights often, and I should probably prioritize talking to him (to be honest, I'm still working up the energy). Ultimately it's the site culture itself that I want to nudge, not any one person, but that can only change slowly, no single effortpost is gonna fix it.
This guy does get upvotes, which means the site has not reached consensus -- which means dialogue still needs to happen. If that dialogue is hostile, it may only harden the battle lines rather than persuade the other group, and then the same old song plays out: the disagreement simmers unresolved until one of these threads explodes into another massive hexbear struggle session, which leaves more scar tissue and drives away users who can't take the drama. I know there are better ways to reach consensus.
I'm just another dirtbag on this website, you don't have to listen to me. But I'm a dirtbag who's been around since /r/cth and seen most of the struggle sessions and major crash-out in the past seven-ish years, unfortunately.
You're right, it's questionable, when the topic is the potential deaths and misery of people outside the imperial core, and I'm someone in the imperial core. I apologize for that -- especially if you have ties to the region. I also have a problem with the other user's seemingly cavalier attitude about a potential war in Venezuela. If I were making those arguments -- and I'm not, because I agree with you that strategic patience makes sense -- but if I were, I wouldn't feel comfortable phrasing things how he did.
On the other hand, this kind of topic -- the defense of socialist states -- is what we talk about on hexbear, so we do need to figure out how to have these conversations. The headlines are only going to get worse moving forward.
Respect and seriousness are two different things. "Being respectful" just means treating someone, at least outwardly, like they are worth talking to. That's all it is. We can shitpost respectfully, that's not a contradiction. Hexbear aims for a close-knit "communist dive bar" atmosphere, I don't think the goal should be thunderdome. We're frankly not large enough. The user you're fighting isn't some random person on twitter, you see this guy every week.
Maybe you think this user deserves it, but the problem is that hostility spreads, it's not just between you and this person. We all collectively set the tone of this website, and when that tone starts to be hostile, it tends to become a feedback loop: it starts to put people on edge, which makes them defensive, which makes them fight more... which makes the tone more hostile. That's a common death for a small-to-midsize forum with low user turnover. Shit takes on a life of its own.
I think some users may need an attitude adjustment, but the core disagreement is a concrete question: "what are the consequences of capitulation, and what is tactically and operationally possible for Venezuelan resistance." That is something we can discuss in hard factual terms. You guys even started to -- I saw that geography and armament were mentioned, and there were historical comparisons. But the discussion got heated before it could go anywhere.
And that's the thing. Hostility pressures people to respond fast. There's no time to research or think deeply, which makes it hard to talk about a materially and morally complex topic like the defense of Venezuela -- not many people are prepared to rattle off a convincing answer that fast. We're all here to learn, and debate is a great way to do that, but only if there is time to actually think and read and process.
Anyway, I'm not sure how to end this comment, I'm tired. You're not wrong to be upset at that person, but we're all just little gas molecules in this forum. Each of us can add heat or remove heat from the system, but no one person controls the temperature, and if it gets too hot it can explode.
I appreciate you taking the time to write this, it is sweet
I don't respect that person, they are leading budding leftists astray here and I think "combat liberalism" was more or less literal prescription on what our task as communists is when people like that come around.
I don't experience that or share a concern that it may happen. I will continue to combat liberalism and I've gotten better at not breaking the rules about it. I have been temp banned and told to back off by mods in the past and I always do, that's my attempt at a baseline respect for the website at large. Otherwise, I really don't owe anything to someone spreading Pentagon narratives and would tell them off more if it wasn't against the rules
You may be right. But I would argue that, even from a purely tactical angle, patience and respect are effective. One of the few users on this site with a good track record persuading libs is Cowbee, for example, and that is how he does it. But then it kinda depends on the attitude of your audience, many people can be reached that way but not everyone.
I think of it as, "What do people see happening." If they see hostility happen to someone else, then the perception is, "That's the kind of thing that happens here, I need to be ready to fight back." Then, on the forum, it's a question of whether heat builds up faster than it dissipates, which, on a news site like this, depends partly on the kinds of headlines we're reading. Hexbear tends to get heated when the headlines are potentially demoralizing. Or at least that's how it has seemed to me sometimes.
I think my brain is too fried now to continue, it takes too long to think. I appreciate the dialogue and your comments in general.