After 15 months of genocide - and resistance to it - the Israeli regime realized that they could not win a military victory against Hamas, and were forced to sign a humiliating ceasefire in order to get their hostages returned.
With much of Syria under the control of Al-Qaeda, and an increasing level of covert infiltration into Lebanon, the crisis in the Middle East is not over, and we may still be in its beginning stages, as the center of hegemony continues its gradual shift away from the United States. Their navy, once considered the best in the world, is likely also not very happy about their ships and aircraft carriers being forced to retreat by Yemen, one of the poorest countries; and all eyes are on Iran, who has, over the last year and a half, demonstrated a newfound confidence and strength to directly strike Israel.
The recovery for Gaza will take, at a minimum, decades; it could indeed never fully recovery to even how it was before, considering it is not in Israel’s interests to see their concentration camps recover. But Hamas has proven to be steadfast and the tunnel network has proven its resilience, despite facing some of the most powerful conventional bombing in history. This shows that Palestine’s liberation is a when, not an if; and hopefully a much sooner “when” than expected before October 7th.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
for minorities, yes, in the short term. however, how much exactly is still up in the air. For instance, I remain skeptical they will actually do mass deportations, i still dont understand where the personnel to do that will come from, and even besides that it will actually collapse the american economy. Agriculture and construction will collapse overnight if something like what the republicans are posturing towards goes through. Will capital (especially capital that is already aligned with the republicans to begin with) really let them do this? I doubt it. how bad it gets for trans people will likely depend on how willing blue states are willing to push back against the federal government, but it was always going to get way worse for trans people in red states. etc etc. additionally, dems are swinging further and further to the right every year, like 10 fucking democratic senators swung to help pass one of the recent demonic border bills to ensure it was filibuster proof, the (national, at least) dems will probably start calling to hunt trans people for sport within the next couple of decades (/hj).
as for “leftists”, again we are not a real threat. any increased repression would pretty much be like, on social media, maybe a couple of public arrests to scare people. if i’m wrong and most US communists on this site get put in camps i guess you can tell the ghost of my account i told you so lol
CPUSA has tried this for like the last 70 years (and DSA for however long theyve been around, 40 or whatever?), and uh it really hasnt worked out very well for them. people dont see you as “making a strategic alliance” with the democrats, they (rightfully) see you as good little doggies doing your best to get people to vote for the democrats. honestly this is probably the worst thing ive ever seen you write on this site, this directly goes against the ideas of marx and lenin in how to participate in bourgeoisie democracy. im not even trying to be dogmatic, i think the past decades of CPUSA and other reformist/quasi reformist parties around the world failing to do jack shit proves that they had the right idea about refusing to tell your party members and any sympathizers to “strategically” vote for a bourgeoisie candidate. this even extends to countries with parliamentary democracy like in europe, where socialist parties think they can do a similar type of thing by forming a coalition, and when the libs make sure everything still fucking sucks you get drowned in their baggage and lose all the credibility with the working class that you spent so many years trying to cultivate, because the failures of those you entered into coalition with are directly seen as your failures.
the other glaring problem, even giving your idea more credit than i should, is that how are we supposed to “secretly” do this? despite my skepticism about a meaningful increase in state repression against “leftists”, the one thing more than anything i agree with is that the state maintains 100% attention to any and all anticapitalist groups within the US (and around the globe, if able), especially marxist groups. How can we actually “secretly” grow our power with the eye of sauron making sure it always has us in its field of view? I also see you acknowledge that the democrats are also fascists, and that the republicans are only “overt” fascists. why in the fucking world would any right minded communist anywhere in the world do anything to help fascists gain/keep power, even if they put on a nice mask and the other option does not? the CIA and FBI will tireless work to destroy us all the same, and all it stands to gain us is by associating us with the nicer fascists’ actions. hell, not to advocate for accelerationism*, but the maskless fascists will at least trick less of the most marginalized members of society who have some of the most revolutionary potential!!!
my argument is that the certainty in biden makes everyone ( i.e. american, european, chinese, other third world, etc. socialists) too complacent. i dont think it’s any coincidence that the liberal faction in the cpc has made at least a bit of resurgence during biden’s presidency. unfortunately this also seems like advocating for accelerationism, (and from a quick search isnt the actual quote but encapsulates what i am trying to say)" as mao supposedly (almost certainly did not say) said: “Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.” Not advocating for communists to do what they can to stir up the situation; instead, i am trying to say that we should not fear the chaos, and instead welcome and be excited for the chaos when it arises.
*expanding on my position on accelerationism
How I (and hopefully others?) separate myself from the accelerationists: the accerlerationists from my impression do the opposite of your strategy. they advocate for actively helping (or at least, something close to that) someone chaotic and more-likely-person-to-harm-the-empire like trump, in the hopes that he brings the conditions necessary for a revolution. I think the problem with this approach is two-fold: it in a way it demands the most marginalized people in society to sacrifice themselves to bring down the empire, which is both morally and strategically terrible! why should us (especially privileged) anticapitalists demand that the already most marginalized among society sacrifice themselves to ensure the downfall of the amerikkkan empire? what good would it do to communists to sacrifice some/all of the most revolutionary populations in the world, just to drag down the empire (to some unknown degree), while we wait an unknown number of years for this process to complete (surely a century of sacrificing minorities should be enough to bring communism, right!!! /j)
but then, why not go with your idea? ensure the worst of the fascists (i.e. in america, the republicans) cant win. The problem with it, in my view, is this is where we communists must do everything in our power to convince that any reprieve is temporary, in your idea. but, how convincing is this, really? “put these people into power. oh but actually they will totally betray you, 8 years from now”. do you actually expect that to be convincing? do you expect people to remember in 8 years? meaning, 8 years pass, the communists told people they need to support the dems (or insert less mean face of capital) but that they will eventually betray them. do you think it would be unreasonable to expect that the people that we communists supported just 8/x years ago will never give them the same concessions that they just tasted? should we expect people to sacrifice (relatively, based on our fucking word!!!) recent peace for the guarantee of extremely hard times that will result in the best outcome for them and their children?
the only option, as marx and lenin said, is to detach yourself from the bourgousie parties and prepare yourself to weather the storm. hopefully you have a decade or 2 to prepare yourself with the nicer fascists, but you should put no hope in that (and in fact, should prepare as if adolf hitler himeslf will take control of your country in the next election, whether that be 4 years from now or 1 month). we need to openly, brazenly, gather as much strength as we can, so that we can gather it as quickly as possible. in order to prepare for the worst bourgeoisie repression imaginable, while remaining principled to avoid any unnecessary bleed off of the most revolutionary members of the working class (racicalized, sexualized, etc.), and just generally keeping ourselves unattached from the nicer faces of fascism to keep ourselves from being attached to any form of fascism.
Thanks for the thoughtful answer. I will digest on them.
You are right that trump will be much worse for trans people though. There is a marked difference between apathy and hatw
Yeah I think people have gone all apathy now instead of realizing that they need to play both sides to come out on top.
I need to study more about European history but Chinese history is full of such cases! Good guys don’t always win, it’s the most astute opportunist who could sense where the wind is blowing that often came out prevailing in the end. After studying a lot of Chinese history recently, I can honestly see where the visionary leaders of the CPC learn their lessons from.