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.
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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.
Zelensky is already having phonecalls with Trump apparantly.
Its so joever
Gonna rule when Trump continues to support Ukraine despite all the """anti-intervention""" rhetoric.
Ukraine Guantanamo bay port treaty except it's that little spot of land in the southwest.
Props to Zelensky for being smart enough to read the room.
Low bar. Even lobotomized dogs (EU officials apparently trying to "trump-proof" NATO, whatever that means) can feel which way the wind is blowing
Trump-proofing NATO = Liberal theatrics in the front, houndish subservience and increased tributes payments to the US MIC in the back.
Wonder how much of that call was just “money money me money now give money now me need money money more money now money money money”
Trump's anti-war rhetoric has been bullshit from the beginning and he will continue the Ukraine war. The only possible sliver of hope is that since Trump is a new guy, it will not be as big a loss of face to him to cut the losses and end the war his predecessor started as it would be to Genocide Joe, had he been reappointed.
Not quite. The anti-war rhetoric was always along the lines of 'I'd have prosecuted this war better', 'This war wouldn't have happened under me because they'd be scared', and, of course, 'Some wars are dumber than others (namely Iraq)'.
It's the same with American '''Isolationism'''. It amounts to 'We should isolate ourselves within our world-spanning ten trillion military bases, the hemisphere we consider our backyard, and the continents we have reduced to client states'.
So it's not even bullshit. It's exactly what it is. The bullshit is calling it anti-war when there isn't a single anti-war bone in the american electorate.
yeah, "isolationism" has always been a mere platitude in America and had zero presence in reality. back during the World Wars, such "isolation" was only militarily initially; they were very involved in sucking up the spoils of centuries of colonialism from Europe's wallets, which is certainly not isolationism. they only got involved militarily to ensure Europe could repay their debts. and even before the wars, the US was very much involved in trying to expand the markets for its exports overseas to exploited nations, and fucking invaded the Philippines. it was a imperialist nation just like the European ones, it just arrived on the scene a little too late to steal as much as the rest of them overseas because it was busy murdering and pillaging its way across its own continent.
there has never really been a time in their history when the Americans have "kept to themselves", and I don't really know why that brainworm - of retvrning to a past where we weren't so involved with the world and just sat back and developed ourselves - has persisted. is it baby's first anti-establishment rhetoric, to seem like rebels against the government while in reality forming zero opposition? is it a purposeful denial of the fact that the US even has an empire, so that "pulling back" is seen as something that could be easily done without the closure of hundreds of bases in dozens of countries involving tens of thousands of troops? is it just mere racism, not wanting to get involved with those they deem inferior?
I think it's not just that he's "the new guy", but that he's bad at shit and doesn't have the mental fortitude. He's a narcissist. He fires people when they piss him off slightly. How's that going to go with some foreign head of state who keeps demanding things of him? When it's completely obvious that Ukraine is still losing?
Trump is obviously not anti-war. But I don't think he is committed to anything but himself enough to be terribly pro-war (at least for any length of time).