I'm not gonna lie to you - I thought Israel would have started shit with Hezbollah by now which would have derailed whatever megathread theme I had planned, so I didn't bother planning one.
If you want a decent couple pieces going over what Hezbollah has done to Israel, then have a look at How 'Israel' Has Lost The North and Hezbollah's Quarterly Report. It's not exactly the most professional analysis, as you'll see if you read it, but it gets the point across and relies on evidence. In essence, Hezbollah has pushed the Israelis back tens of kilometers and decimated their border infrastructure, all while unveiling anti-aircraft missiles that have forced Israel to reconsider bombing runs. They still probably have the ability to turn various towns and cities in Lebanon to rubble, but Hezbollah can do massive damage back to Israel in turn. This has gone on so long with so little meaningful opposition by Israel that border settlements are going a little haywire and tentatively declaring independence from Israel and saying they don't want IDF troops there anymore. I don't take these terribly seriously from a military standpoint but it is indicative of the Zionist settler mindset crumbling over the last 9 months.
We're now at the point where Israel kinda has to go to war against Hezbollah or the entire Zionist ideology of military deterrence and expansion via illegal settlements simply no longer functions, but that war will also lead to massive destruction for military and civilian facilities (ports, power stations, war factories, etc) which is a massive problem for Israel's continued existence. Hamas continues to function inside Gaza despite the surface occupation of significant areas, including the Gaza-Egypt border, and attrition there is leading to big materiel and psychological losses for Israel too. And Yemen has, for all intents and purposes, prevailed against America's failed attempt to thwart their blockade - with some in the army claiming it's the most intense naval battle America has faced since WW2 - and missile strikes are tentatively beginning to hit or at least threaten ships in the Mediterranean Sea.
Nukes are still lurking quietly in the background, of course, but the Resistance is perfectly aware of that and still seems confident to go ahead with operations, so I can't really do anything but shrug and say that I trust them to do what's right.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country 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 country.
The Country of the Week is Lebanon! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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.
Okay, so we're all eyerollingly familiar with the "revolution betrayed, same as the old boss" trope in media and pop history, usually aimed at anything leftist to imply that nobody can ever escape recreating the nightmarish qualities of the status quo, because it turns out that the way things are is just The Way Things Are, for good reason, as nature and your wise betters ordained. It's the natural order, and naive radicals who think they can build something different are destined to be seduced by wealth and power into becoming the very despots they blah blah blah, we know how it goes.
As a cultural artifact of capitalist realism and a method of control, it's a well-examined phenomenon. But I want to examine it as an artifact of liberal guilt. Specifically, guilt for supplanting feudalism and then immediately overseeing the horrors of the industrial revolution both inside the core and without. Seeing the way liberals now are sealing their eyes and ears to any evidence of their ideology's culpability in what's going on in the world, and having observed their Quixotic "cannot fail, only be failed" attitude for some time, the Revolution Betrayed narrative now so obviously aligns with other liberal copes that I'm kind of embarrassed I didn't see it before. They believe that they are the best (only) "realistic" option, that if they can't do it then it can't be done. If their ideology and mode of production has failed to deliver a better world after four hundred years, then that means a better world simply is not possible, and anyone who says otherwise is either lying or stupid.
I think the fact that they think this is inevitable also goes a long way to explaining their semi-mystical view of power. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" Everyone bows sagely. I don't even necessarily disagree with the basic take here, but they just leave it at this vague truism that is inevitably leveled at those seeking the power to liberate themselves, but not at those from whom people need liberating. Because their power is ordained by law, by the natural order. It turns the phrase into a masochistic civility fetish (literally, like a totem) that whispers to you that it's okay not to fight, that it's "evil" to fight dirty even for your life, and that the most morally pure thing you can experience is defeat. Secular Calvinism and lack of education have done a number on us all here in the states and resulted in generations of
highly propagandized "too smart for politics" rubes who are narrow-minded about most things but shockingly credulous about state enemies, utterly sanctimonious but completely lacking knowledge of past and present,liberals, I realized I was just describing liberals, this post is getting away from me.Anyway, thoughts on "Revolution Betrayed narratives as Liberalism's Pyramid Head"?
The liberal narrative is usually 'Thank god we killed all those people before they killed anyone else.'
Word. I like that a lot. That's an interesting way to add to the "emperors & monarchs -> lord's & slave-owners -> capitalist class" pipeline that people like Dr. Wolff use, for example
Is a heckin' better world possible besite? Nope, we are just smol beans and have to participate in neoliberal capitalism bestie