Image is of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Ansarallah.
The death of Zionism has just massively accelerated.
previous preamble
BRICS has expanded to include Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Argentina is currently experiencing technical difficulties due to the election of the ancap clown Milei - once he's out of office, maybe they can try again.
I don't really have much to say about this one way or another. BRICS has, so far, made only nervous and small steps towards challenging US hegemony. This isn't really that unexpected, as only China and Russia are the real "true believers" in ending US hegemony (and even then, China's government either believes, or is pretending to believe, that reconciliation is still possible). Brazil, India, and South Africa are less enthralled by the concept of dethroning the US, most especially India, who had to make a firm decision in 2023 whether they were going to be on the side of America, or on the side of the Global South, and chose the former, strengthening their military relationship. They're still best of friends with Russia, but they are very obviously the sussy imposter of the BRICS group.
The prospects of BRICS are only really loosely correlated with the prospects of multipolarism, though. It's not a process that hinges on BRICS's successes or failures. It is coming because the contender states (in Desai's terminology) are irreversibly rising, and the US is irreversibly falling. If it will not be BRICS that leads, it will be a different organization. A better world is not only possible, but inevitable - unfortunately for the US.
I'm taking a week off the updates because I've been swamped lately, and also feel the need to reconfigure (and find new) sources. Needless to say that I've grown tired of Financial Times headlines, even if they do represent the actual views of the bourgeoisie.
The Country of the Week is Ethiopia! 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.
It’s really funny seeing terminally online liberals trying to play Adults in the Room and pretending they’re not terminally online… while complaining about tankies influencing American elections.
tag yourself, I'm an open Stalin and Mao apologist
I'm frothing at the mouth, asking for breadlines.
I'm withholding. Look at me, getting off
withhold your votal essences
site tagline pls
I'm "want western democracies to collapse"
I’m destabilize things. Fuck the status quo
Me when Stalin comes up in conversation
STALIN...
was pretty good all things considered.
I could rant for hours (see picture) but basically I think he was a hard man but also a visionary and a poet. He saw violence as a tool for political and social change and when you look at what he achieved, he was right about that. There were excesses but not every conversation about the man needs to be a conversation about the excesses. Ultimately he spent his whole life fighting for the cause, he didn’t enrich himself or his family, he was a true believer who thought long and hard about what he was doing and responded vigorously, ruthlessly, and fearlessly to the challenges faced by the revolution and built a massively successful state.
Great man theory is the incorrect view of history over the timespan of a century but for a few decades at least he was a great man who changed the world, leaving it better than when he found it.
Not only that but he also admitted he fucked up multiple times, and genuinely changed to acknowledge his faults. I cant think of any western leader that did the same thing ever since he died.
the one critique that always gets me is the: "He didnt even save his OWN SON!!" like, they were asking for a field marshal for a lieutenant . Now imagine if he HAD done that "OH NEPOTISM NOT SUCH A COMMUNIST ARE YOU???" can't win no matter what you do
It’s funny, on the Hexbear spectrum I’m on the “anti” Stalin side and even I don’t really disagree much with what you say here.
they have me so nailed in there. I want free bread and a system to track who is a dick and who is a dude. I want western "democracies" to fall.
I'm not withholding my vote to save Gaza. I'm doing it to punish American liberals. If this country can't even pressure Genocide Joe on Gaza, then, collectively, we deserve Trump as punishment.
Trump is not "punishment" lol. Real punishment would be a Chinese nuke on NYC not
Don't forget some of Trump's politics, he massively benefits the wealthy middle class and above, the entire tax cut shit for example is literaly what they all want and dream for but only some of them are too embarrassed to say it out loud.
He's more of a punishment for them than 4 more years of Biden. I want Liberal Jan 6.
The new funniest day in US history.
I hadn't even considered the possibility.
Watch him die of old age and stimulant overdose one week into his second term
100%. If this is the hill liberals want to die on, then by god don't let me stop them.
There isn’t a single “adult in the room” that isn’t an immature, childish, tantrum-prone loser who is 10x dumber than the dumbest infant and reacts like an angry toddler whenever they encounter opposing viewpoints
'We can't withhold votes from the Democrats since they aren't going to change anyways.'
'Yes, I think we need to save democracy. How did you know?'
As a top Internet Physician (I got my degree at Stanford Internet School) I am qualified to diagnose a terminal case of Online. I'm afraid that knowing the word "tankie" is a strong indication that a person may have Stage 4 (terminal) Online and I would strongly recommend they seek immediate medical attention.
Like, I’m sorry, but I have no personal attachment to the west. That sort of blood and soil bullshit’s for the proud boys and wignats. Culture - especially ours - isn’t worth that much.
the first few bits are accurateish and then quietabandon starts his ignorant rant.