Image is of Brazilian chuds storming the National Congress building in opposition to Lula winning the election, on January 8th, 2023, in their remarkably even shittier version of the January 6th events in America.
Bolsonaro, who is in the tragic category of pro-US South American leaders who are so awful and uncharismatic that even they can't get the US to help them overthrow a democratically elected left-ish government, has recently been facing that most elusive of things in this current world order: consequences for his actions. Bolsonaro and his friends have been under investigation by the police, and his passport has now been seized, meaning he is unable to leave the country. Alongside the man himself, the leader of the Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, has been caught up in searches and investigations. Brazilian Army Colonel Bernardo Correa Neto, a former aide to Bolsonaro, was very recently arrested upon his return to Brazil from the US, as well as another colonel.
From the Hexbear South American correspondent (a position I just made up), @Redcuban1959@hexbear.net:
Lol, they are really fucked. Iirc, this is a municipal election year in Brazil, Bolsonaro can't campaign publicly, he can't promote his candidates. The leader of his party is currently in prison. And even if he is released from prison, they are forbidden to communicate with each other. The high-ranking members of the Liberal Party are pretty much fucked because they can't communicate with each other and getting support from Bolsonaro could be very bad, as left-wing candidates will exploit the fact that Bolsonaro will probably be imprisoned for planning a coup.
The FBI seems to have concluded its investigation into Bolsonaro's money laundering scheme in the US and handed over its findings to the Brazilian Federal Police, I don't think Bolsonaro can even go to the US anymore, or any other country. And it could get even funnier, there is a very small chance of the Liberal Party being banned and all its seats in congress and the senate being transferred to other politicians, many of whom, even if they are conservative, will be much more favorable to Lula's social and economic reforms, as it has been proven that Bolsonaro used the party to finance the coup.
The Country of the Week is Brazil! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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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 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.
Why do people call it Lunar New Year now? Was the word China too spooky for them? It just feels like English-speaking Westerners combining the Spring Festival, Seollal, Tet, etc. because they can't possibly understand that Asians aren't an ethnically homogenous group.
Its to de-sinicize the holiday, which has the unintended (maybe intended?) effect of also stripping the variations on the holiday that other Asian countries have. E.g. lumping in Chinese and Vietnamese new years into "Lunar new year" basically glosses over the fact that Vietnamese new year has some variations on the zodiac and traditions despite the common origins. To sinophobic westoids, this is just collateral damage.
The vast majority of non-Asian Americans don't even know that other Lunar holidays exist. The only Lunar New Year they've ever referred to has been Chinese New Year. They're not combining different holidays, they're stripping Chinese New Year of its namesake. You can tell by the fact that they refer to the Chinese zodiac.
Tbh in China we’ve say “new years” because it is implied which one we are referring to (same in majority of asian countries). The other name used is “spring festival”.
The “chinese” new year is a way to differentiate the Gregorian one. “lunar” is to be more inclusive (probably the asian diasporas are not that much segregated in specific countries after a generation or two post-immigration)
It is not a fight where it is productive to take sides in it imo.
as i said in the other thread, stripping culture down into generic form to make it 'inclusive' is a Liberal form of genocide and is the quintessence of the American Project. "The cultural melting pot" is a play put on by American industrialists in company towns where the workers wear their cultural and indigenous outfits, go into 'the crucible' where 'all ethnicity is melted away' and come out as identical workers in suits and the same hair cuts.
This type of homogenization done by white liberals for "inclusion" is to make them easier workers to manipulate and is part of the process of capitalism destroying culture. Don't defend this shit
Perhaps, but I'm neutral on how the white liberals agenda ''inclusion'' and its implication because ultimately I don't celebrate Chinese New Years with my corpo overlord or white people for the matter. With the people I actually celebrate, we have our own way to celebrate with my ingroups and I expect other ingroups to have their own way of interpreting the spirit of the CNY. If this is the crusade that the Asian diaspora wants to start, I don't want to be part of it.
As for the authentic CNY, its value and history, I don't have any attachment because my family is ultimately dysfunctional to the point that it is painful to be there to ''celebrate''
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Also you use ''their'' when you talk about Asian diaspora (as opposed to me being part of Asian Diaspora and have that conversation with my SEA friends) and your statement is very condescending. But thanks for 老外splaining to me, I'm still learning
Yes, blaming victims under attack and asking “why are you on a crusade” when they attempt to defend themselves is extremely problematic in both cases
Chinese face oppression and discrimination in the west, especially if they don’t signal their whiteness and China hatred on their sleeve
ok sure call me a white worshipper but don't associate me with transphobes
And I don't want to continue this conversation with you
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Dude, I think yer a bit off base here. You are lecturing a POC about their culture. Why would Chinese people say happy Chinese new year? thats fucking weird and you are getting really aggressive about it.
i'm POC and i'm “lecturing” them not about Chinese culture, but about the Liberal synthetic cultural construct of “Lunar New Years” which is part of a widespread effort to absorb diaspora Asians into whiteness and strip them of their specific cultural heritages. Shameful that anyone downplays this or pretend like this isn’t happening and isn’t part of widespread sinophobia.
If someone goes “as a black man I think racism is actually not that big of a deal. Why are you going on a crusade about this” you would immediately recognize it for the BS it is, but for some reason people fall for it against asians
dude i just call it lunar new year since it’s easier than saying “yeah i’m celebrating CNY with my family. what are you doing for tet/what are you doing for seollal?” to my other asian friends. it’s not that deep.
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To be fair, some Chinese (I’ve definitely heard from the older folks) call the Chinese calendar 阴历 (Yin calendar, or lunar calendar) and the Gregorian calendar 阳历 (Yang calendar, or solar calendar) to distinguish the dates between the two. This is not exactly accurate because the Chinese calendar (农历, or agricultural calendar to be precise) is a combined form of lunisolar calendar. However I can imagine some Chinese immigrants continue to call it the “new year that falls on the lunar calendar”, so it becomes the Lunar New Year? I guess?
阴历 is also how, for example the Vietnamese, calls it, but yes it is Solar Lunar Calendars just like Korean's and Mongolian's. The big differences between them are the Zodiac signs and the starting years (year 0). The latter has something to do with how to dissociate with Imperial China (because they were at some point a Vassal State).
For example: Têt is the Vietnamese counterpart and I would argue that although it is inspired by the Chinese calendar, Vietnamese culture has diverged from the Chinese Such as how the last Vietnamese dynasty ressembles more the Chinese Ming dynasty than the Qing dynasty regarding their imperial cultures (I can’t comment on Korean, Tibetan, Mongolian new years but i’m sure they also have some degree of divergence too.) Also, the origin of the calendar by extension cultures also triggers a lot of chauvinistic sentiments that is not really productive for building understanding. I see a lot of Chinese Chauvinists disregard Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese culture saying that we “gave them” our characters, religions, etc. When there are geopolitical tensions within the area. It is also very ironic that Chinese Chan buddhism, Neo confucianism can be argue in this case that they are introduced by India which is something those same chauvinists would just ignore.
So I guess it's for inclusiveness towards other Solar Lunar Calendars within the Asian Diasporas. I have Sino-Japanese Relatives saying ''happy Spring festival'' or ''happy new year (because we know implicitly which one)'', my SEA friends would say happy Lunar New Year but my friends/relative from the Philippines would say ''Happy new year''.
The spirit of the holiday is to give and be generous, I’m not going to be go full political on people who have good intention or make an honest mistake.
sometimes i wonder if it's just an ingroup loyalty test for asian members of the blob
It’s just another brick in the wall of white homogenization of Asian diaspora and creating a divide between diaspora Asians and those remaining in their home countries.
“What’s the big deal it’s just a small thing”
Yeah that’s how destruction and eradication of culture works. Thousands of small cuts and lots of instances of flattening of culture to homogenize into whiteness.
Several cultures (not just ones based in/out of Asia, BTW) celebrate new years based on the lunar cycle, or a combination of the lunar and solar cycles, and many of them define it similarly so the times at least very roughly coincide. I don't think it's any more Sinophobic (generally) to refer to "Lunar New Year" instead of "Chinese New Year" than saying "happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" is generally meant to exclude Christians.
At that point you might as well say "Happy New Year" to better capture the spirit of the holiday. Calling it the Lunar New Year just serves to tamp down on what is the new year to many cultures.
For what it's worth, that's what I say - happy new year with no modifier.
Sure. Agreed. I often start saying "happy new year" at the Winter Solstice, and keep going from there.
I just don't think (most) people who use the term "Lunar New Year" are intentionally trying to be exclusionary or Sinophobic. Any more than people saying "happy holidays" are trying to be anti-Christian (even though being anti-Christian is actually pretty cool and good).
Honestly I think they call it Lunar new year because other wise
brains would be confused because "NeW yEaRs Is In JaNuArY!?!?!"
LOL. That's probably...ah, "fair". Most of the ignorant dipshits don't even know that 99% of their traditions (religious and secular alike) and rituals are derived from very non-Christian religions and non-white cultures, simply for the sake of church-and-empire-based religious oppression.