Image is sourced from this article.
It takes very little effort to find an article from Western state propaganda decrying Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas as authoritarian and rife with human rights abuses. This is the natural reaction the US has to any successful liberation movement. This fairly long report from Jason Cohen, a socialist who travelled to Nicaragua one week ago, should quell any suspicions.
He describes a country with high political consciousness among the masses, who are working to construct critical infrastructure for the country and their communities. There is a virtual education system that is free across the entire nation, which serves the dual goal of democratizing education and ensuring that those in rural areas or without much free time for university can still achieve degrees and a quality education; and these classes cover technical skills in the production of infrastructure and agriculture, but also political and ideological education in order to counter the fascist propaganda produced by imperialist nations abroad.
While Nicaragua is deeply invested in its nationality and national figures who led to their socialist revolution, such as Sandino, they are also immensely proud of their indigneous history, recognizing it as also part of their anti-colonial history which continues to the present day. Additionally, they honour the struggles of other nations on the continent, such as the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, as well as Castro in Cuba and Allende in Chile. Countries around the world are also celebrated and admired, such as Burkina Faso; during the Reagan administration, Nicaragua and Burkina Faso were comrades in arms, and now Traore is continuing the legacy of Sankara's anti-imperialism in the present. Perhaps most relevant today is their dedication towards Palestine, involving the creation of the Parque Palestina (shown in the post image), in which the Palestinian flag flies alongside the flag of Nicaragua. In July, Leila Khaled of the PFLP gave a speech in Nicaragua, in which the solidarity of the two nations was highlighted.
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 Nicaragua! 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.
oh so it's ok for mods to make death threats and remain mods. And me complaining about that is "failing the vibe check" and "drama baiting". HOW ABOUT THEY APOLOGIZE AT MINIMUM?! How about any justice gets done at all and we don't leave unhinged people on as mods?
Nope, when I brought it up they doubled down and got all their mod friends to ban me from multiple comms.
do you want users on this site? do you think mods going around making death threats towards other communists is conducive to a good website? This shit is not defendable and they should have been instantly de-modded
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Please report/ link. Harassment can cause harm. If somebody is actively harassing, I want them gone. If this place has any value, most of the rest do as well. That sounds fucked up.
i will if pressed but i buried this hatchet a long time ago, it pisses me off yeah but i've moved on
i brought it up out of stupidity and honestly i just dont care anymore, im sorry for the bother
it's mods. they will just continue banning us and all methods of appeal or recourse have long been closed. They have investigated themselves, found they did nothing wrong, then banned the victims.
Unless you have jurisdiction to get mods removed from other comms, doesn't seem like there's anything that will be done. we just have to use this site knowing we can have death threats lobbed at us, then be banned and punished if we complain
So I looked into it, wasn’t the comment not even directed at you? It was about the Twitter guy. Please link if I’m wrong.
For what it’s worth, I think that closing the user union comm was a mistake. The way it was had to change, but pure removal wasn’t ideal.
There were two death threats. One towards me and one toward BadEmpanada. I’m referring to the one directed at me.
Said I should touch grass six feet under (telling me to commit suicide)
I reiterate the link request. Self harm bait is a serious matter.
https://hexbear.net/comment/5311481
apparently not serious enough to take any action against a mod though, because I "fail the vibe check" so I deserve to get harassed with death threats and banned I guess
Looking at the content: Nak explicitly said that content towards BE and you made it clear to support comrades BE would not.
Maybe it genuinely wasn’t directed at you?
No it was directed at me specifically. He was accusing me of being BadEmpanada, and I said I dislike BE as well and pointed out how my position differed from BE's.
Their response to this was "Please fucking touch grass. Actually touch dirt six feet beneath grass". This was directed at ME, SeekTheDeletion, the user. This is quite clear. He's giving direct commands, this isn't third person.
Later when I confronted this mod about this, they doubled down and said they did nothing wrong and stood by everything they said and were completely unapologetic - directly ignoring the comment removals and showing no change in behavior or remorse.
Also, can you explain mods of this comm agreeing with the mod and saying it's defensible to make death threats and suicide bait? Why is the removal reason "this is defensible"? Is it the official stance of the mods of this comm that death threats and suicide bait are acceptable behavior for mods to engage in? Banning the victims is defendable?
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The vibe check being typing stuff like that, at me, who's entirely uninvolved and has no power lol
I forgot being cringe is a worse offense than being an unhinged murderous lunatic. It's crazy how you jumped from apologetics of Hasan right to apologetics of murderous mods. Don't you have a bone of principles in your body that you can back away from your ego to admit this was bad and not acceptable?
The moment you started licking mod boot and justifying death threats, you became complicit
Removed by mod