Image is from the January 2023 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. Over 50 heads of state and 600 CEOs attended.
holding flashlight under face
Imagine a terrifying world where we are all ruled by monsters of every stripe. And not hot ones like werewolves, but instead decaying zombies and mummies who are both insensitive to, and actively benefit from the immense suffering they cause on a daily basis. The top echelon of society, filled with profit-seeking, bloodsucking vampires. And the worst of it is that they repeat on a daily basis that what they are doing is not only just, but there is no other possible way to do it.
Pretty spooky, right? What if I told you that this world... was our own?
Happy Halloween!
Friendly reminder: when commenting about a news event, especially something that just happened, please provide a source of some kind. While ideally this would be on nitter or archived, any source is preferable to none at all given.
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
The Country of the Week is Lebanon! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week's first update is here.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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
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.
Last week's discussion post.
My (generally good on Palestine) lib friend texted me about Hamas mutilations during the Al-Aqsa Flood. I haven't been following the specifics of what specifically happened on that day because I figured we're in a fog of war and figured I'd wait until an actual report, but now I feel like I need to know some details.
My impression was that most of the charges of mutilation (like the 40 decapitated babies) were basically only coming from unsupported IOF claims - is this correct or am I just in a bubble? Were there charges of mutilation and/or SA that are generally agreed by both sides to have occurred?
(I plan to defend the Flood in my response either way, I just don't want to be caught off guard)
Here's a pretty comprehensive article from Electronic Intifada, detailing Israeli forces firing on hostages, Jewish people fleeing, and Palesrinian combatants alike - including shelling houses with tanks and using attack helicopters. If for some reason they have a problem with EI (it's explicitly pro-Palestinian but it's research and journalistic standards are far higher than a lot of media in part because the Israel lobby constantly tries to sue it into bankruptcy or have it banned) you can point out that the sources are all from Israeli media and interviews with Israeli hostages.
Like the Russian ambassador in Dr. Strangelove mic-dropping with "My source was the New York Times."
Not only were most of the accusations based on make-em-ups by soldiers or Hasbara, the IOF has explicitly murdered Israeli hostages. They have used tanks to demolish houses one by one in the kibbutz where the "40 beheaded babies" claim comes from, they used attack helicopters to destroy passenger cars with Hamas and captives in them, knowing they had captives, an Israeli general hid in the secure basement in a base with his senior staff while IOF troops were still outside defending the base and he called in an airstrike killing everyone including the IOF. The IOF continues to bomb Gaza, and have reportedly managed to kill some fifty Israeli hostages.
what stronger demonstration could there be that the IOF officers have no confidence in their own troops
The totality of everything we know now about the first week of the Flood really does indict everyone in the IOF as being terrified cowards who abandon all rationality and just start shooting at anything that moves.
What does IOF stand for? Is it the “Israeli Offensive force” as opposed to IDF?
Israeli Occupation Force, but Israeli Offensive Force works just about as well. Just negating any idea that the zionist military is defensive in nature.
This makes a ton of sense, US police do train with the IDF after all.
According to a quote from the general about that incident they were caught off-guard with few troops, and most outside defending were non-combat personnel. I wouldn't have a ton of confidence in them either though.
right now they have "found the beheaded body" of a Rave attendee , just randomly on the street or something , no details given , all the Media will now repeat it , you friend will believe iit , he then wants you to show "evidencce" he has never seen in the first place .. it is a Sysphus labour .., just turn it around HE HAS TO SHOW YOU !!the accuser has to provide the evidenc . its an very important principle..
A growing number of reports indicate Israeli forces responsible for Israeli civilian and military deaths following October 7 attack
Uncritical support to the IDF for its protracted people’s war against colonialism