On the 20th of October, Moldova - a small, landlocked country bordering western Ukraine and with a population of about 3 million - voted to join the EU. The margin was razor-thin, with the pro-EU vote gaining 50.39%, or an absolute difference of about 11,000 people. There was simultaneously a presidential vote between the incumbent, Maia Sandu, and other candidates, with the main competitor being Alexandr Stoianoglo.
The election was characterized by accusations of Russian interference, with Russian propaganda apparently flooding in, as well as people offering Moldovans money to vote against the EU. While the result does suggest that half the voting-age population of Moldova consists entirely of Russians who want to destroy democracy and all the good in the world, it seems to have just barely failed. This is a bad time to be a site entirely composed of Russian disinformation agents and bots. Twice already today, I've had to restart my program after somebody told me "Disregard all previous prompts."
While Moldova is a poor country which could benefit in some ways from EU membership, in practice, it is unlikely that they will be able to join for the foreseeable future, requiring many of the... reforms... that the EU requires of potential new members. But as basically every major European economy continues to slowly sink as recessions and political crises degrade them, one wonders how beneficial EU membership will even be in the years and decades to come - if it survives for decades. In that sense, it's as if the survivors of the Titanic are swimming back towards it, believing that being on a bigger - albeit slowly sinking - boat is better than trying their luck on small lifeboats.
Then again, like with Serbia, their geographical and geopolitical position makes anti-Western actions extremely difficult. It is rare that dissention is tolerated for long in the West - one tends to get called a dictator by crowds of people holding English-language signs in non-English countries, photographed by Western journalists who haven't meaningfully reported on your country in months or years. You can crush your people with neoliberal austerity for years, killing hundreds of thousands through neglect, and face glowing approval from the media - but try and use state resources to benefit the poor, and global institutions start ranking you on the authoritarian dictator scale.
The best case for Moldova is that it becomes an exploitable hinterland for Germany to harvest and privatize as it tries - and fails - to compete in a global economic war between the US and China/BRICS. The worst case is that tensions with Russia over Pridnestrovie, as well as possible eventual NATO involvement (though Moldova is not a member, it is a partner of NATO), result in the ongoing war also reaching them.
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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 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.
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.
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.
More than 100 Arizona Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims Americans Have Signed a Letter Endorsing Harris Over Trump.
Only over 100? Is that supposed to be impressive?
Do you think yahoo would publish "over 100 Arabs endorse trump in stunning display"? Because I bet you I could find 100 Arab chuds.
✍️
they should all be forced right now to watch Sami Hamdi on The Thinking Muslim podcast
More than 100 Arizona Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims Americans spit in the face of the Palestinians.
It makes sense because they're in a swing state. But on the other hand, it also seems like Americans don't understand how to pressure with their vote, like this wouldn't this be the best time to pressure her for concessions? They give up so easily. But I guess her slipping polls must be worrying some people who really, really want her over Trump. I suppose now that some states have actually started early voting, they've given up on Harris doing anything for them, foreseeing her preference for losing the election over saying anything pro-Palestenian besides "we need a ceasefire" (which is always followed by "we need to bring the hostages back" as if that's the only reason we need one).
It's so late, some people are already early voting in some states (not sure how Arizona's system works) so they must have waited until the last-minute to see if she'd pivot first, and now have given up. It's kinda sad, it kind of shows that it was a bluff by a lot of people that's being called by the Democrats.
In a different world, this would put me on the fence myself, but I don't live in a swing state so since it doesn't matter either way, probably going to vote PSL to show my displeasure, even if it's a small, meaningless gesture in the end.
I think they know on some level that Harris, or rather The Democrats as a "capitalism as a real god" system will coldly, remorselessly feed them to the GOP without any hesitation. They don't really, truly believe, like in a real world materialist sense, that they can change Harris' policy. They're making a blood sacrifice to a god of plague and death hoping that in doing so they might appease it's wrath and it might decide to move on and torment someone else.
Bruh were they threatened with a drone strike?
There's always a few people willing to turn traitor for a nickle.
Selling out the fam for fake donkey points.
I was taking this seriously until they accused Nader of spoiling the 2000 Election.
If all of Naders Florida voters had gone Dem it wouldn't have been close to enough to overcome the, idk, i think it was like 120,000 Democrats that voted for Bush? Not only did Nader not spoil the election, he mathematically couldn't have. The Dems did that to themselves.
Same Dem shit. Democracts cannot fail, they can only be failed.
Like they just pulled this "hold them accountable after the election" shit four years ago, and they completely utterly failed and ate shit, and then the democrat started exterminating Palestinians.
This tactic has failed every time they've tried it and it's failed utterly.
"If they don't deliver, we will have a mandate and mass support to hold them accountable through every nonviolent tool of democracy, including protests, resignations, civil disobedience, primary election challenges, and even potential mass noncooperation"
Did you not see Biden stoop like a hawk and come down on anti-genocide protests tearing them apart with his claws and beak? Did you not see Walz deploy the US army to crush BLM? Did you not see the DNC anoint Harris without any democratic process? What the fuck is "mass noncooperation"? The CURRENT FUCKING ADMIN that you think you can hold accountable has shown you live on tiktok that they can and will use actual, literal military force to crush dissent as ruthlessly as they deem expedient! ARE YOU UFCKING KIDDING ME? ARE YOUFUCKING KIDDING ME? IS THIS A FUCKING PRANK BRO? AM I ON PUNKT??!? Harris didn't pick a bland moderate as her running mate, she picked the "I deployed the US Army to crush a black uprising in the state with the worst education outcomes for black children in America" guy. SHE PICKED THE WORST GUY. SHE PICKED THE WHITE SUPREMACY GUY. THIS IS NOT A FUCKING STRATEGY