Image is of Joseph Robinette Biden, who has stepped down and will not run against Trump in the 2024 election.
In the aftermath of Trump surviving an assassination attempt, many professional opinion-havers are now talking about the scourge of "political violence" that has overtaken, or will soon overtake America, and how we must not let chaos rule. This is, of course, patently absurd. The American government and its allies have been the greatest force of political violence on the planet since the beginning of colonialism, and the foundations of the country are made of corpses. Today, America commits political violence by forcing Ukrainians into the maw of Russian artillery instead of trying to reach a peaceful settlement, which Russia has repeatedly expressed interest in and offered Ukraine relatively favourable terms. They supply Israel with endless weaponry to destroy entire cities and populations, while Biden supporters insist that somehow things could be worse than daily massacres and mass starvation.
In May 1945, French police fired on protestors, causing retaliatory attacks on French settlers, killing about a hundred. In response, the French murdered 45,000 Algerians in a little under two months, in a frenzy of political violence called the Sétif and Guelma massacre. As the massacre was being completed, the International Court of Justice was established. It goes without saying that Algeria never benefited from the ICJ, and the War of Independence from 1954 to 1962 was made inevitable. Over a million Algerians were killed before France could bear the fighting no longer and gave up, and Algeria won itself a state. Comparisons to the ongoing war of independence and genocide in Palestine are obvious.
While the means of colonial violence have evolved over the centuries, the basic structure of it has not. As in Algeria, Vietnam, and Cuba, resistance groups in and around Palestine are fighting for a world with less political violence. The American government would drown every city in the developing world in blood to prevent peace.
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 Algeria! 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 it looks like old Joe is dropping out and saving whatever honor he has left. The DNC is surely smarter than just nominating a charisma vacuum like Kamala? Who are other semi-realistic candidates if Kamala declines or gets told to fuck off? Michelle Obama? Old Bernard "Cuck" Sanders? Newsom?
Bernie is never running for president again. Also he's been excluded from every poll I've seen about alternatives. They aren't even collecting data on their most popular cuck. Newsom, whitmer, or pritzker are my thoughts
If they switch, I bet they go kamala. Whoever might step in is doing so as a sacrificial lamb. Other people that have actually gotten elected like newsom, whitmer have something to lose, why would they sign up for this shit show when they could go again with what is surely going to be a more favourable situation in 2028. Plus, if they switch the ticket entirely then donations to Biden-Harris PACs are at legal risk. I would expect big donors to try and claw things back if the DNC goes for a different ticket, if only because it would be throwing good money after bad rather than any ideological concern.
All that said, I think that the DNC is unorganized and ineffective, and Biden is a crotchety, stubborn old fuck. The clock could easily run out before they come up with a coherent plan to replace Biden.
Hmm, that’s arguably a good reason to go with Michelle Obama (on top of being generally well liked). If she wins great, if she loses oh well she didn’t actually have a political career to lose in the first place. Unless Barack is worried it will tarnish his legacy or some shit, even though his legacy is already just Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
That’s his actual legacy, but his perceived legacy by liberals is that he ended racism before Trump came out of nowhere and hypnotized the country into bringing it back
As far as the popularity contest goes, Michelle Obama might actually be a good choice, but I’m guessing she very much does not want to do it and ofc she has no real political experience. Basically a third term for Barack, which I’m sure many libs will be excited about.
Also the Constitution isn’t entirely clear on whether a former two term president can be VP. Barack as VP would really drive the hogs wild. But that would probably get struck down by the Supreme Court.
deleted by creator
It’s the interaction with the 12th amendment that matters. You can’t be VP if you don’t qualify to be president. The potential catch is the 22nd doesn’t actually say you don’t qualify, it says you can’t be elected. That’s definitely up to interpretation so either answer can be right depending on how literal you want to be with the text.
Also, if it does allow a term limited president to become Vice President, there’s nothing stopping them from succeeding to the presidency. So technically you can still have an unlimited number of terms, you just have to go through a convoluted process every term. Libs could really have that third Obama term they desperately want.
Kissingers corpse is their next candidate. Or Hillary, whichever is less likely to win
If its not kamala they need a strong fundraiser
I'm not sure that the Dems do need someone who isn't a charisma suck (perhaps they just need someone who isn't biden), that Harris is that bad, or that doing a mini-primary or something isn't counter productive, but Ettingermentum was salivating over Whitmer on KnowYourEnemy (thinks she has good winning chances and likes her from a policy perspective as a "good" left-lib ).
deleted by creator
I think for reasons of previous donations, if they want to use the money for the campaign it kind of has to be Harris? I'm sure I read some dem operative making this argument recently
That doesn’t matter much if neither of them can win.
Neither can win but it matters to the people making the decisions
deleted by creator