Image is a frame taken from this video of Iranian missiles raining down on Israel without interception due to a weak and depleted air defense system after a year of war and genocide.
Mao, 1956:
Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn't. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.
When we say U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, we are speaking in terms of strategy. Regarding it as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal. For instance, if it has ten fangs, knock off one the first time, and there will be nine left, knock off another, and there will be eight left. When all the fangs are gone, it will still have claws. If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end.
Strategically, we must utterly despise U.S. imperialism. Tactically, we must take it seriously. In struggling against it, we must take each battle, each encounter, seriously. At present, the United States is powerful, but when looked at in a broader perspective, as a whole and from a long-term viewpoint, it has no popular support, its policies are disliked by the people, because it oppresses and exploits them. For this reason, the tiger is doomed. Therefore, it is nothing to be afraid of and can be despised. But today the United States still has strength, turning out more than 100 million tons of steel a year and hitting out everywhere. That is why we must continue to wage struggles against it, fight it with all our might and wrest one position after another from it. And that takes time.
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 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.
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.
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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.
Not a chance of a revolution. Labor Aristocracy is too effective. Rome took 375 years to collapse after the term "Bread and circuses" was coined and in the end it was external pressures that destroyed it.
Disaffection by the working class is enough to hollow out the empire but without pressure from the outside the super structure can hold up to internal problems.
totally shameless hand-sitting opportunism, and ignores the multiple waves of mass radical and communist movements which were the reasons behind things like the multiple red scares and COINTELPRO etc. in the US. Rome and bread and circuses? This is silly copy paste idealism. half a millenia ago. these are fundamentally different worlds and different societies with fundamentally different economic and political structures and relations. different class relations (and very intermingled class relations compared to the slave empire of Rome), different information and media dispersal and connectivity between regions and capabilities of elevated consciousness, greater ability to bridge linguistic divides, all kinds of huge differences that make this nonsense to say. And also, is opportunism definitionally. And spits in the face of those who have been and are in the struggle every day, organizing workplaces, communities, prisons, students, etc. many who've given their lives and freedom for the struggle and continue to struggle.
Where did I say americans shouldn't be doing anything? Organizing in the imperial core is important but it is only going to weaken the empire. Empires die when the core is weakened and over extended and the façade gets cracked by a failed conquest, a rebellious vassal, or peer adversary.
Of course internal security apparatuses are required to keep subversive ideas down. You seem to be ignoring the fact that each of those measures worked and pushed back any hope of revolution for decades. Sorry for not pointing out every revolutionary group that didn't overthrow america.
You highlight a lot differences of the material conditions between Rome's collapse and now but you aren't explaining how those different conditions make revolution in the imperial core more likely. Even if you did come up with those explanations there would be a counter argument for each why that makes it harder to get americans to fight against fascism.
I'm not insulting anyone by being realistic in not expecting the masses of america to rise up. What is insulting is pretending like hypothetical organizers would say "we are ready to overthrow the usa on monday." I'm fairly certain anyone who has unionized their workplace will tell you that most workers are scared and that is legal and will materially benefit them. You are insulting real organizers by suggesting that its possible to convince americans to risk their safety and happiness for no material benefits to themselves.
Do something useful instead of getting mad that I can see what is plainly obvious, liberals are closer to fascists than comrades. Go bully some sucdems to give up on electoralism instead of getting getting pissy at me for recognizing that western working class people are still to treat stuffed to be bothered opposing fascism.