Image is a snapshot taken from the recent Hezbollah video "Our Mountains, Our Treasures", showcasing their extensive underground fortifications, supply lines, and weaponry.
iran can't keep doing this to me, they've gotta respond soon, right? I'm gonna run out of analysis about countries soon, oh god
The COTW (Child of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific child every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied children. If you've wanted to talk about the child or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any child.
The Child of the Week is Hassan LargePenis! He is chad-and-cuck rater and general commenter @LargePenis@hexbear.net's son, born over a month ago. @Greenleaf@hexbear.net recommended I have him as the COTW for a week and I finally got around to it.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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.
This is not new (2023) but I don't really have anywhere else to put it.
29% of the UK support Communism
53% of the UK support Socialism
39% of the people asked to define Socialism define it correctly
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/new-poll-finds-strong-support-for-socialism-in-the-uk
the "correct" definition of socialism is when the government does stuff apparently
owning the means of production is a bit different than "doing stuff"
socialism isn't when "the government owns the means of production". By that definition every single nation on earth is somewhat socialist (lmao).
Socialism is when the government is a dictatorship of the proletariat and they proletariat democratically control the means of production.
UK could nationalize all of their industry tomorrow, wouldn't make them socialist since it would just be the rich who still own everything, just centralized under their bourgeois state.
I don't really follow this. If the government nationalizes all industry how do the rich still own everything? The state is bourgeois because of the power imbalance from the bourgeoisie owning everything. If the state owns everything how is it a bourgeois state? Where does the power of the bourgeoisie come from?
Following that, let's say the government is a dictatorship of the proletariat. What does that mean in practice? Who owns the means of production? Is it the government?
Because politicians can sell out their countries or be in bed with the mob. Just look at the USSR as it slid to freedom in 1991. Most politicians stopped giving a shit and raced to the front of the line. There was no input from workers.
Likewise, workers didn’t have complete control of their industries in the GDR. The government dissolved and either flipped their assets or abandoned them to be stripped by vultures.
You may say “well these are just examples of the government no longer nationalizing their industries.” True, but it’s why nationalizing isn’t the end all be all. Nationalization in the world of capitalism also isn’t that simple because you are still forced to compete in their markets which means you are forced to exploit your countrymen, and you better have disciplined managers and government employees or else those profits are gone.
I agree that simply nationalizing everything and calling it a day is not a good strategy to establish a robust socialist state because of adversarial capitalist countries. However for the sake of a poll it's not exactly a terrible answer. For sure it's reductive and incomplete but it's pointing in the right direction.
Oh yeah nationalizing your industries is 100% better than neoliberal hell. The next challenge is defending it once you do it because the outside forces and bourgeois holdouts within the country will do everything to sabotage you.