On the 20th of October, Moldova - a small, landlocked country bordering western Ukraine and with a population of about 3 million - voted to join the EU. The margin was razor-thin, with the pro-EU vote gaining 50.39%, or an absolute difference of about 11,000 people. There was simultaneously a presidential vote between the incumbent, Maia Sandu, and other candidates, with the main competitor being Alexandr Stoianoglo.
The election was characterized by accusations of Russian interference, with Russian propaganda apparently flooding in, as well as people offering Moldovans money to vote against the EU. While the result does suggest that half the voting-age population of Moldova consists entirely of Russians who want to destroy democracy and all the good in the world, it seems to have just barely failed. This is a bad time to be a site entirely composed of Russian disinformation agents and bots. Twice already today, I've had to restart my program after somebody told me "Disregard all previous prompts."
While Moldova is a poor country which could benefit in some ways from EU membership, in practice, it is unlikely that they will be able to join for the foreseeable future, requiring many of the... reforms... that the EU requires of potential new members. But as basically every major European economy continues to slowly sink as recessions and political crises degrade them, one wonders how beneficial EU membership will even be in the years and decades to come - if it survives for decades. In that sense, it's as if the survivors of the Titanic are swimming back towards it, believing that being on a bigger - albeit slowly sinking - boat is better than trying their luck on small lifeboats.
Then again, like with Serbia, their geographical and geopolitical position makes anti-Western actions extremely difficult. It is rare that dissention is tolerated for long in the West - one tends to get called a dictator by crowds of people holding English-language signs in non-English countries, photographed by Western journalists who haven't meaningfully reported on your country in months or years. You can crush your people with neoliberal austerity for years, killing hundreds of thousands through neglect, and face glowing approval from the media - but try and use state resources to benefit the poor, and global institutions start ranking you on the authoritarian dictator scale.
The best case for Moldova is that it becomes an exploitable hinterland for Germany to harvest and privatize as it tries - and fails - to compete in a global economic war between the US and China/BRICS. The worst case is that tensions with Russia over Pridnestrovie, as well as possible eventual NATO involvement (though Moldova is not a member, it is a partner of NATO), result in the ongoing war also reaching them.
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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.
Danish Muslim Leaders Boycott Government Meeting on Anti-Semitism In Reaction To Scapegoating
Danish Muslim leaders has boycotted a meeting with two government ministers on anti-Semitism, following hateful remarks and unfounded accusations from the ministers. They call for broader talks on both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, but the regime has yet to respond.
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At the last minute Muslim leaders in Denmark have pulled out of a meeting with regime officials scheduled to take place today. The meeting whose official agenda was to address anti-Semitism was initially perceived by Muslim leaders as a dialogue meeting but following a recent article in reactionary broadsheet Jyllands-Posten, the agenda has now shifted to what Danish Muslim Union spokesperson Urfan Ahmed describes as "a one-sided monologue" which would "create more division than dialogue". Ahmed stated that Muslim leaders "will not attend a meeting where the agenda is to shame one population group at the expense of another."
According to Jyllands-Posten, the meeting, organized by Social Democrat Immigration Minister Kaare Dybvad and Liberal Party Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs Morten Dahlin, aimed to "lecture" the Muslim community on so-called anti-Semitism. The article quoted the officials for intending to "make it very clear" that imams are responsible for what, in their view, are "pockets of Muslim communities where hatred of Jews and sympathy for terrorism thrive."
Islamophobia and zionism are widespread among Denmark's political elite who often conflate anti-zionism with anti-Semitism in an attempt to discredit the Palestinian liberation movement. Dybvad and Dahlin are both known islamophobes and the regime has taken steps to criminalise pro-Palestinian activism while allowing unhindered zionist hate speech.
In addition to cancelling today's meeting Muslim leaders extended an invitation to the two ministers to meet at the offices of the Danish Muslim Union to engage in a broader discussion on both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, but no response has been received from the government.
In a statement following the cancellation, the two ministers claimed to be at a loss. Kaare Dybvad persisted in scapegoating Muslims, saying that "Unfortunately, this says a lot about the difficulty some Danish Muslims have in acknowledging the problems of anti-Semitism and radicalization."
Dybvad has further made the claim that "the current atmosphere would change" if "imams took far more active ownership of promoting tolerance toward Jews".
Urhan Ahmed points out that the claims of widespread anti-Semitism in the Muslim community lacks solid evidence. The report used by the regime to back up it's claims was commissioned by Jyllands-Posten following last year's Al-Aqsa Flood and has severe methodological flaws, resulting in it being dismissed by experts.
He rejects claims that Islam has anything to do with antisemitism and says:
"It is very disappointing for me, and we are deeply saddened that this form of suspicion is coming from the top of Danish political life"
The regime has responded to the Muslim community's invitation to engage in good-faith dialogue. In the invitation the Muslim organisations writes:
This sentiment is unacceptable to the regime who refuses to meet with Muslim leaders.
Succdem piss baby and racism minister Kaare Dybvad is very mad about his hateful remarks having consequences, and about Muslim leaders not seeing the point in going to a meeting that has no purpose but to berate them. They are supposed to come and kiss his ring whenever he summons them.
He makes the following unhinged statements:
Is this politician even popular in Denmark? I'm thinking of how the succdem parliamentarians of Europe are slowly losing goodwill among their citizens.
Do regular Danes even care about these anti-semitism talks? I imagine the vibe must be
for the non-Muslim and non-Jewish Danes since they're not exactly invested in western asian politics.
I just feel like these "talks" are only important to European politicians, while regular citizens couldn't be bothered to care anymore than they barely do now.
Far right parties probably understand this, which explains why these "talks" are organized by center-right and succdems.
Apparently he kind of is. With 5411 personal votes he was the most popular candidate in his district. It doesn't surprise me, most people here are spoilt low-effort fascists.
I don't think so. The unhinged zionism/islamophobia combo remains a hobby horse for online weirdos and chuds who have opinions for a living.
It doesn't mean that the average guy isn't racist, he is, but the racism of normal people is more based in material conditions, ie. "they're taking all our welfare and that's why there's not any left for white people" or "they're doing crime and terror and making me feel unsafe".
Talks like the ones that were just cancelled doesn't matter much to average people. They do serve as a cog in the consent manufacturing machine, I think. If you are a journalist and have read lots of stories about the Muslims being antisemitic then you're more likely to cover the next Palestine solidarity story as a story about someone hating Jews.
They also send a message to the Muslim community that they should not get uppity and get too involved in the Palestinian liberation movement. The hogs in government have been oinking about criminalising various pro-liberation messages and calling in imams to be scolded for being antisemites is essentially a threat that their community members will be the first to go.