Well, Iran and their allies' response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren't talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don't really know where to look right now.
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.
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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.
americans are literally deeply evil, so many mfs who claimed to give a shit about the genocide in Palestine but since Harris got the nomination it's become abundantly clear they were just irritated over the lack of a "competent" leader for the empire. i feel really awful for comrades over there who are having to deal with living in the midst of that, it must be soul-crushing. the only difference between zionist supremacism and amerikkkan supremacism is that the zionists are closer to the collapse of their system and thus more obviously, outwardly bloodthirsty, less wholly complacent.
I hope I get to live long enough to watch the mental breakdowns of these smug little bourgeois radlib motherfuckers. Can't wait to see these treatfiends justify why international fascism is actually great for American minorities while the world gradually severs the imperialist relationships keeping their way of life intact.
I always want to ask them: how many people would Biden or Kamala have to murder before you would refuse to vote for them? 100 thousand? 1 million? 5 million? 100 million? How many dead children would prevent your contribution to that genocidal system? Trying to get your average western leftist, let alone the average American, to give a single solitary shit about the lives of non-white people is a monumental endeavour.
I've asked the Succ-Dem/ Anarcho-KHive types that very question, and their answer is "Mass murder is the official policy of both parties, but one of them wants to hurt us too (slightly more) and that's what really matters! We gave you fun uncle why can't you give up your unrealistic policy demands of no genocide!?"
Anyone who is able to support genocide because the people enabling it say they will give them better domestic policy might as well just make the 14 words their campaign slogan.
MORE👏LEBENSRAUM👏FOR👏WOMEN👏
Social Democracy is objectively etc etc.
That and some variation on "Trump would have killed all those people twice" or "His cruelty would have been pointier"
Love that hypothetical genocides count as counterbalance to real ongoing genocides.
New Democratic slogan: Better them than us!
"Better 200k of them than one of us," even.
Yeaup, it's bleak. Genuinely bleak.
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Imagine that Putin decided to retire for whatever reason and there was an election between let's say Lavrov and Medvedev.
Libs would make fun of the sham democracy of Russia right?
While they justify it in the USA
mind boggling
It makes you fucking crazy ngl. I thank God my partner radicalized too or I would be living in a cave mining minerals for sustenance by now
(Sorry for the digression, but the "living in a cave" bit set my brain off.)
I'm watching some videos by some "primitive survivalist" dude who allegedly just hikes out into the south-western U.S. desert hills and builds little huts to live in. The only thing I've been able to think about while watching them is that it must actually be some corporate-funded project done with U.S. government subsidies or at least permission, or done on the private property of some billionaire or something.
Like, I can believe some person could go out onto Bureau of Land Management land somewhere and hunt and gather and build semi-permanent shelter...but this guy is fucking televising it on YouTube with a couple million subscribers. There's no way in hell the U.S. government doesn't know exactly who he is, where he is, what he is doing, and what kind of cash he is raking in from his little endeavor. How are the feds not driving up in a dune buggy and hauling his ass off?
He's white and not saying anything particularly political, though. Is that enough for the state to just give up on the whole notion of making sure people must own property to do shit?
Either private land or not in the US is my guess. It's like that guy in Ireland who decided to live without money for 10 years or whatever, then he comes back and takes down several acres and puts up a pub on it to serve everything for free. Like yeah this is great in theory but in our capitalist hell world someone is financing that gig, probably the dudes parents
'let them eat memes' electoral strategy, throw out a couple 'To the window to the Walz' type things and we got them in the bag, who cares about policy right
I have been told from multiple people "Don't you want somebody who doesn't make us look so embarrassing?"
It baffles me. Their big gripe with Biden and Trump is that they are embarrassing.
They want a competent genocide and a stylish boot others' necks
I had a sneaking feeling about this ever since the campus protests in the US started. I guess I wanted to remain a and chose not to entertain the other thoughts.
Unfortunately I'm starting to realize that I was probably wrong.
Shit sucks
the ones who were radical enough to present an actual threat to the present order got their heads smashed by scumbag pigs and fascist mobs within a month; the ones whose demands could be accommodated while maintaining the overall structure got allowed to peacefully disband their camps and enter "negotiations" with bloodsoaked faculties. very similar to how the 2020 uprisings went, really. the positive to draw from this is that the radical wing was way better organised, theoretically much more advanced, and able to move more quickly and adapt more effectively than in 2020 - which featured nothing like the level of organisation or vision we saw last spring.
to compare directly - look at the difference between the hopeless CHAZ/CHOP occupation, which was really the zenith of productive radical action during 2020's uprisings, and the militant occupations of many buildings on campuses across the US - which went on for days, produced an outpouring of revolutionary theory and agitational material, and fended off all sorts of assaults before they had to send in police with damn near shotguns and accompanied by fascist mobs to dismantle them. that's the difference that four years of development of the underlying social base for revolutionary politics has made. no signs point to this development slowing down, in fact the conditions in our societies mean that it's likely to carry on accelerating. and the lessons learned from these uprisings will be learned and integrated just as the lessons learned from 2020 were in this last wave.
so keep your chin up and prepare for the next rupture, comrade, it's coming.
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It really wasn't. We have moved nowhere.
I'm not making fun of third-worldists anymore
I'm not trusting yt people or westoids after this one. Sorry, but how many more excuses do I have to make for the descendants of settlers? How long should anyone wait? How many Congolese, Palestinians, Sudanese, etc need to die before I or anyone else can choose to lose faith in the Western Left™?
It's a damn genocide that they're actively funding, and they don't care. It's not enough that they don't care, no, they need to call everyone else the bad guy for caring.
I'm done honestly.
political compass for usa
Far left>>>>>>>>>>Far Right
Decent human being who acts according to the undeniable truth that is usa is the great satan
crocodile tears about victims, behind the mask a white supremacists that screams "I love genocide far away from me"
white supremacists that screams "I love genocide far away from me"
white supremacists that screams "I love genocide wheter far or near"