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

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
    ·
    1 year ago

    This article about Julianna Margulies reads like a sarcastic Onion article. It even ends with a punchline. I edited it. I decided to not do what I usually do and use [...] because it got to be a bit annoying to read. Instead - I moved sentences around at will.

    archive.today • Julianna Margulies Apologizes After Remarks on Black Support of Jews - The New York Times

    The actress had said on a podcast that some Black people not standing with Jews after the Hamas attacks had been “brainwashed to hate Jews.” On the Nov. 20 episode of “The Back Room With Andy Ostroy,” [she] accused Black and L.G.B.T.Q. people of showing insufficient support for Israel and Jews in the United States since the deadly Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas.

    Margulies, who is Jewish, contrasted Jews’ vocal support for Black civil rights in the 1960s with the present: “Now the Black community isn’t embracing us and saying, ‘We stand with you the way you stood with us?’” She added, “The fact that the entire Black community isn’t standing with us, to me, says either they just don’t know or they’ve been brainwashed to hate Jews.”

    She also said on the podcast that progressive protesters on college campuses, whom she accused of “spewing this antisemitic hate,” include gender nonbinary people who, she said, “will be the first people beheaded and their heads played like a soccer ball on the field” in places run by militant Islamist groups like Hamas.

    Margulies also [said] “There was a film being shown by this Black lesbian club on the Columbia campus, and they put signs up that said, ‘No Jews allowed.’” The president of LionLez, a group for queer women and nonbinary people of color at the university, had emailed, “Zionists aren’t invited,” The Columbia Spectator reported.

    Margulies said that to Hamas and its ilk, members of that student club would be “even lower than the Jews — A. you’re Black, and B. you’re gay. And you’re turning your back against the people who support you?” [She] added that she was offended as someone “who plays a lesbian journalist on ‘The Morning Show.’ I am more offended by it as a lesbian than I am as a Jew, to be honest with you.”

    In her statement on Friday, Margulies said that she usually seeks to “forge a united front against discrimination.”

    • GinAndJucheM
      ·
      1 year ago

      as someone who plays a lesbian

      as a lesbian

      Actors and the inability to discern between reality and playing pretend, name a more iconic combo.

    • carpoftruth [any, any]M
      ·
      1 year ago

      contrasted Jews’ vocal support for Black civil rights in the 1960s with the present:

      I remember how MLK dropped bunker busters on white suburbs so yeah it really is hypocrisy

      • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        contrasted Jews’ vocal support for Black civil rights in the 1960s with the present:

        Some Jewish people stood up for black civil rights... because it was the right morally correct thing to do. Its fucking disgusting watching these libs sully their forbears memory by turning their morality into transactional opportunist support. Like their ancestors only helped African Americans so they would be indebted for future struggles. They are literally painting their own ancestors as the caricature of the "Scheming untrustworthy Jew" who controls the world through backroom deals and debt.

    • star_wraith [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      She never actually apologized, btw. She just did the “I’m sorry if anyone was offended thing”. Not once did she actually retract what she said.