Due to American cluster bombing campaigns advised by Kissinger during the Vietnam War to damage supply lines, over 2 million tonnes of ordinance were dropped on Laos over about a decade, averaging a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes. Laos is thus the most bombed country on the planet up to this point. 80 million bombs failed to explode - the cleanup operation is expected to take centuries, and 25,000 people have been killed and injured by bombs in the last 50 years. About 50 people are killed or injured every year to this day.
After the United States withdrew from Laos, the Pathet Lao took power and abolished the monarchy. Kaysone Phomvihane became a dominant figure in Laotian politics, keeping the course on Marxism-Leninism and implementing the first Five Year Plan in 1981. The second Five Year Plan in 1986 was modelled on Lenin's NEP, and this doubled rice production and significantly increased sugar production. After the fall of the USSR, Laos allowed a small capitalist class to exist, with similar control over them as in China. Laos maintains a 48-hour work week with paid sick leave, vacation time, and maternity leave, and workers are well-represented in trade unions. They faired relatively well during coronavirus from a social standpoint due to quick and efficient action to lock down the country, experiencing ~750 deaths out of a population of over 7 million.
There is hope even after utter destruction by genocidal oppressors.
The weekly update is here on the website.
Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Wednesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Friday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Laos! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
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. - 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.
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.
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.
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.
Right, but the argument for calling people ultras seems to be in accusing people of believing that Venezuela doesn't have a legitimate/rightful claim to the Esequibo. Which if you are going to do that, then you have to call Castro one, also. Otherwise, it's people talking about whether or not it's "worth it" for Venezuela to push the issue and in which ways they should do that, which is an entirely different discussion (and the basis on which Castro advised Chavez). I've been kinda busy lately, so I haven't been reading the news mega as much, but I really haven't seen many if any people saying Venezuela doesn't have a legitmage claim as much as they are worried that the consequences of a hot war could have serious blowback and maybe even take down the current order in Venezuela.
I mean they have a "legitimate claim" but we should not really care about legal international law wank and instead focus on the material reality. The only way war breaks out is if the US wants it too on that count I think they have already bitten off a bit too much with their commitments around the world. I am sure the government of Venezuela is aware of their position and potential response let us not forget this started because of Exxonmobil and Guyana attempting to start resource extraction in the disputed area and Exxonmobil is an arm of the US state. Venezuela is not looking for a military occupation instead they will grant citizenship start public works and perhaps collecting taxes and other administrative duties would be my guess based off what they are saying. All I am saying is they have safeguarded there revolution against the US and their allies in the country and Latin America to this day. I feel like a bit of optimism about the situation is not out of the question.
Right, but the internal material reality is also that there is also a non-trivial possibility that Venezuela receives a lot of blowback that it can't handle, and to ignore that is just as much ultra-leftist as to ignore the national liberation or anti-imperialist arguments for why Venezuela should press it's claim. That's how the whole concept of ultra-leftism even arose in the first place: ML critique of leftists calling for actions that were not realisitc based on tbe material conditions. It is both true that Venezuela has a right to the land and it's resources, that the US and Guyana are not following international law, and that attempting to assert it's territorial claims could lead Venezuela into doom. All of that needs to be considered.
War isn't solely in the hands of the US, Venezuela can start it, as well. And to that point, things like tax collection only works if you have the force of the state to back up your tax collectors. No one is going to pay taxes or duties if there are no consequences for not paying them. That fundamentally means there must be a Venezuelan police and/or military presence in the Esequibo.
My only real point/argument here is that an ultra-leftist position is this case is "Venezuela should stop worrying about the Esequibo and instead be focused on arming an international communist revolution" or "Venezuela should invade the Esequibo regardless of the potential consequences". Disagreements over the current material conditions and how Venezuela should act based on them are not ultra-leftist, they are natural debates that take place in any healthy Marxist group.
I agree with you that there is a possibility for blowback I am not dismissing it out of hand I am just of the belief that this was a calculated decision by Venezuela and officials who have much more intelligence and experience then us regarding the direction to take. However in this situation war is entirely in the hands of the US. Guyana hardly has a military to speak of they will never attack without the say so of the US and people of the region are not at all loyal to Georgetown since their interests and concerns are not represented by the government. The taxes thing I am just guessing at they have not said they are going to collect however the idea that only violence can compel one to pay taxes is not true as the benefits of Venezuelan citizenship might far out-way the reluctance to pay such taxes to Caracas instead. Benefits such as Social programs, infrastructure projects new job opportunities in resource extraction etc. This is all just guess work I cannot say with 100 percent certainty this is what is going to happen all I am saying is I believe that the situation will most likely resolve peacefully and with an agreement that favors Venezuela perhaps some kind of profit sharing agreement for the resources since that is all Exxon cares about. I appreciate that you are concerned with the situation and to be clear I am not accusing you of being an ultra I just think some people are being too quick to take the line that Venezuela is acting irrationally or is somehow now a imperialist power. If I am wrong I am more than willing to apologize but I truly hope I am not.