Image is a snapshot taken from the recent Hezbollah video "Our Mountains, Our Treasures", showcasing their extensive underground fortifications, supply lines, and weaponry.
iran can't keep doing this to me, they've gotta respond soon, right? I'm gonna run out of analysis about countries soon, oh god
The COTW (Child of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific child every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied children. If you've wanted to talk about the child 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 child.
The Child of the Week is Hassan LargePenis! He is chad-and-cuck rater and general commenter @LargePenis@hexbear.net's son, born over a month ago. @Greenleaf@hexbear.net recommended I have him as the COTW for a week and I finally got around to it.
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.
Protesting is most effective as something more akin to a military parade of labor. It's what you do when you have done all of the other organizing and power building to be an actual threat and you want to show everyone else that you are to be taken seriously. They should be used to threaten an action, not be the action in and of itself.
EDIT: Roderic Day actually had a good tweet thread today based off the follow thread I will condense below:
summary
yeah there was a twitter thread where someone made the point that a lot of time in other countries it's not a "protest" but a "demonstration", as in they're demonstrating their will and resolve to strike or even take up arms
I actually just added that into my comment lol. I have talked here before about how protests should be like military parades, but I thought the point the account added about how it should be threatening action instead of being the action was very poignant.
Something I have been thinking about today is organizing UAW members in Michigan to put pressure Shawn Fain for endorsing Kamala and speaking at the DNC without saying a single fucking word about Palestine.
ah yeah the roderic day thread is how I got alerted to all the infighting, I went looking around the other communist accounts I follow when I saw that and that's when I found out everyone was fighting each other about these protests lol. I try not to mention roderic day after the couple of huge hate threads here on hexbear lol (also some freak accused me of being a roderic day sockpuppet which was annoying)
I post his work a bunch because I think it's good and I don't seem to get any crap for it... don't let a couple stray shots get you too jumpy
I've definitely had it said to me multiple times, even in private messages. He's definitely controversial in some circles here for some reason.
What’s the rub people seem to have? I know nothing about him
My assumption: He's super irreverent when he disagrees. He states his position as fact and challenges others to present critiques to his works at that level. It's arrogant to do when your work is worthless, and people have little idea of what to do when someone's work is valuable AND they take the position associated with that arrogance. It seems to me that he is just taking himself and his positions with the sincerity and seriousness needed if we ever want to apply this to truly make a worthwhile communist party and movement. We're just so used to everyone accepting differences of opinion without trying to work towards better positions through critique. He places his work in front of people who have a different position with a claim like "I think your position is wrong and wrote about it here," and tries to get people to engage by reading the article and then responding. People hate to be told to read an article instead of a short tweet
What was literally said in DMs: He decides his position and finds a way to rationalize it afterwards instead of the other way. Also he starts beef with leftists unnecessarily.
As a response to that I asked for an example because I hadn't noticed this trend of rationalization. I was called a fanboy and puppet and debatebro for it. To be fair, I also started out saying that their critique seemed to fail on its own merits because they also baselessly (with no example or reference to his work) argued that he lacked any basis for his positions and that I won't take their critique seriously without seeing a reference to a case. That wasn't the nicest way to start the convo. Still think I was right though, based on the avoidance that came afterwards. That person just never read a single article on redsails.
i mean i just posted the masses rebels and elites essay at someone the other day, it's more so if I have to mention his name like saying im linking to a twitter thread by him or something. but yeah i should just block anyone who's annoying about him ur right
I think technically I saw it because Q. Anthony Ali retweeted it, but I've more or less held these views about protest for a while. I do support the protests at the DNC and the fact that they didn't let a Palestinian American speak is proof enough that there's no point in polite protest. I don't think we should be yelling at anyone there for anything that happens at the protest, but I think the left as a whole needs to take a step back and see that this isn't working the way it should, and it because we aren't doing it the way we should.
i mean i do think these people who are yelling at the dnc protestors are trying to do that. I'm sympathetic that maybe being so aggressive to them is harmful to actually convincing anyone but I'll say I really have come to agree with Day more and more that we need to stop giving people passes for being "beautiful souls" who have their hearts in the right place but ultimately damage the movement with their actions
Instead of worrying about who to give passes to, we should take a bias towards action and start working on organizing. I agree that these protests aren't nearly as effective as they could be. Hopping on to Twitter to spend all day calling them stupid is just a derivative of the same action being critiqued, though.
i disagree. I still think our theoretical understanding among the american "left" is still extremely poor and we need to rectify that before we put the bias towards action. the bias towards action has been what we've been trying since at least the iraq war protests, no?
You aren't rectifying anything. You set a new path by doing, not posting.
i think the disconnect here is that I think "posting" is "doing" in the modern age. I mean, lenin was fucking exiled just writing to a newspaper (which would have been their equivalent of "posting" in early 20th century) for how long before the revolution? Not to say any of us are the modern day lenin, but I'm not sure what kind of criticism you can lay against "posting" that you couldn't have laid against lenin back then.
Jesus,posting isn't praxis
Just because people can get radicalized through the internet,that doesn't mean posting by itself is some revolutionary act
At most,it's another medium through which to spread the ideology,but is no where near anything actually impactful in the real world if it's not accompanied by boots on the ground stuff
once again, this is shit you could have said about newspapers back in the day (if not even more so, the internet consumes more of our lives than anyone ever read newspapers). Ultimately, yes, you do need boots on the ground action eventually, but my point is more that we've tried going all in on "fuck theory, we have to act NOW!!!" since the iraq war at least and it has gotten us literally no where, and so maybe we should try pulling back on that mindset and try to hone theory for like a decade?
I think the thing you’re missing is that there are three paths, and you’re describing only two: building proper theory before doing praxis, and pushing praxis without building the proper theory first. Sounds like you’re saying we’ve been spending too much time with the latter and should concentrate on the former so as to maximize the latter come time. The thing is, neither of those are right, because they must proceed in tandem, and according to a mass line of simultaneously achieving goals of the masses and your own localized proletariat. And importantly, through solving the mass line needs of your local proletariat, honing your understanding of the praxis needed, and any theory shortcomings, that would serve the broader population. Once many groups in different places are doing that, there becomes revolutionary coalescence
I guess more simply put, you will learn “what must be done” by engaging with your local communities on their specific needs, and helping them to interpret those needs along a class analysis
I don't really disagree but we amerikkkans are so anti-intellectual I almost feel like purposefully shooting for concentrating on theory will make us land in the balanced middle 😭
I think most regular people will think it’s elitist
I think the idea here is to try and gather up the "advanced" section of the working class who are already educated enough about these debates to not be turned off by this. Still, I get the concern, I think our anti-intellectualism problem is quite big but I'm really not sure how to actually solve it because focusing on theory doesn't really seem like it would solve it to me either ¯\(ツ)/¯
I understand where you're coming from,but random internet posters pontificating online is nothing like the discussions going on between radical revolutionaries in the previous century, especially considering that the America of today and the Europe of then are two radically different settings, with a giant chasm separating the material conditions and the degree of radicalization from then to the material conditions and radicalization of now
I mean,don't get me wrong,it's getting there,but to want to put a pause on direct action so we can navel gaze and comb over every imperfection isn't exactly a winning strategy
once again wouldn't have lenin basically been a nobody until the revolution? like, can you name the head of the PSL and FRSO right now without looking it up (hell, I'm not actually sure if FRSO even advertises who their head is). I'm not saying a complete pause but if I had to guess I would say PSL and FRSO are putting a lot more effort into direct action than they are into advancing the theoretical line wouldn't you?
Not American,so no,but I get your point
Honestly,I don't see what those organizations would do that would advance theory without direct action
Debates?Intra organization discussions?I mean,don't they do those already?
from what i can tell: no they really don't debate much
You aren't Lenin.
you don't say
It needed to be reinforced.
i'm young and have been a marxist for like 2 years you dont need to reinforce shit with me
I'm going to try and give you some grace, but you are testing my patience at this point.
It has been correctly identified that this sort of protest is not getting results.
It has been correctly identified that it's not getting results because there is no organizational power behind these protests that can meaningfully threaten any existing power structures.
The next step is to then determine how to build that organizational power and then set about building it. Dwelling on #1 or #2 stops being productive and becomes an egotistical exercise in spiking the football on comrades who are upset about a genocide.
disengage
my point was more that I dont see myself anywhere near lenin, not that my opinions hold no merit???
No,they do,but I'm in the same boat as you are and I disagree with the premise
I certainly sympathize with this way of viewing things,but it seems a bit undeveloped on account of you being so young
Still,maybe you're right and this way of viewing things will be more effective in the future,but even I,as a fellow young'un myself,I find it to be a erroneous way of viewing things
my opinion comes from looking at the history of the american communist movement. there's pretty much 2 explanations for why the american communist movement was and still is so weak no? lack of material conditons and weakness of the theory and practice of our communists. Our material conditions aren't great for recruiting communists for much of the population (labor aristocracy etc.) but also our communists groups really seem like they've fucking sucked ever since the black panther party got crushed
I think this is an erroneous way of looking at things
I am not American,but in my opinion the first factor has more to do with active state suppression of radical leftist figures rather than just simple rot within the party structures of these organizations
The second I can agree with
I actually think this is something else you can critcize our orgs for. why is that we all still seem completely cowed and terrified by the state? there must be a path through this that we havent found yet. This is something I havent done much reading on, but for instance why arent our party leaders just hiding out in antiwestern countries? once again that's what lenin did, why don't we copy that better? maybe there are better reasons for not doing it, but I certainly am unaware of any good theory debates over it
I will preface this by saying I am equally not well versed in theory, but i don't think you can just copy what Lenin did back then and have it work in the here and now
Also,this is the CIA we're talking about,I'm not saying that maybe something more couldn't have been done,but it was kind of a done deal, especially by the end of the cold war
copy? of course not, if I thought we should copy him i would be a (shudders) trot, but we should look to see if we can find inspiration from older revolutionaries in any ways we can
of course the state repression is always something to keep an eye on, but i dont think it can be the ultimate excuse either. there must have been ways to deal with that we didn't figure out (and hell still need to figure out better than FRSO's "let's make it really weird and hard to figure out who our highest leaders are")
Well,I have a limited knowledge on the state of socialist organizations in America,so I'll leave that discussion to be had by the American commrades
fair enough, if I remember correctly you're from romania right? if so I don't envy your task either, good luck on convincing your fellow countrymen
Where do correct ideas come from? Do they fall from the sky?
I think mao said they fell down from a coconut tree or something