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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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.
From what I've seen, it looks like Kamala/Democrats have lost a bunch of votes from their usual voters (socially progressive whites, minority voters, Arab Americans, some leftists) because they refuse to stop the genocide (which they could do) or at the very least don't support it with those arms shipments. They don't even pretend to care about the Palestinians anymore, back then at the start of Israel's invasion of Gaza, they used to say it was a war against Hamas and not against Palestine or the Palestinian Authority.
But it seems that instead of trying to appease these lost voters, they first decided to manipulate the LGBTQ+ and other minority voters (especially immigrants) by saying that if they didn't vote blue no matter who, they would be sent to concentration camps or kicked out of the US (as far as I know, even if they didn't win the presidency, I'm sure the Democrats could easily block any bill like this in congress or the senate, but that would require the Democrats to actually work). And the first chance the Democrats had to throw immigrants (I don't think I heard Kamala say or offer any thing positive to immigrants, except that she wants a hard border, just like Trump) and LGBTQ+ people under the bus, they did (What the fuck was that about saying Trump wasted money on granting free healthcare to Trans people in jail?).
Now it looks like they've given up on doing anything to actually attract those people and decided they want to get votes from Republicans who don't like Trump. Which is very strange, because most of those who hated Trump in 2016 are now supporting him because they see him as a better option than Kamala/Biden. And those who really don't like Trump prefer simply not to vote. I think only Dick Cheney is really happy with what Kamala is doing.
The Dems have already made it clear that they are LGB drop the T. Kamala said she was going to "follow the law" with regards to trans people. Based on her lack of performance on roe v Wade that means she won't stop the genocide against trans people either.
At this point, every few months the Democrats will throw another group of people under the figurative trolley.
But still vote blue no matter who because:
Trump (y) = [(x)n +1]
Where: x is Democrat & n is number of groups that are being genocided
This is an actual argument on
The frog voting for the pot to still be on the stove but they will turn the heat down a half notch
That's going to be the only argument you're going to hear for the foreseeable future. They have nothing else, once they drop the equation they'll just admit to being Republicans.
Many "why I left the left" articles and such cases when that inevitably happens.
Yeah they really don't seem to have anything at all. "Trump will do more genocide" is literally it. f
you’re underestimating the willingness of the conservative movement, whether Donald J Trump is at its helm or someone else, to simply rule by decree because they know the Dems are unwilling to stop them
Dems will whole-heartedly support the camps to punish the uppity undesirables for daring to question them
"Those gosh-darn baddies did the thing. Start the 7-year court proceedings IMMEDIATELY!"
She could've at least gotten Romney or some shit. LMAO.
The democrats would have to offer progressive policies if they wanted to get progressive voters to turn out. They don’t want to do that. It’s much easier to lean to republicans and middle of the road voters because you wouldn’t have to offer much
our politics run on money in the US, and this is where the money is: "Nothing Will Fundamentally Change."
I doubt that chief
Saw this earlier. Treat it as a rumor bc my brain is fried and I can't stand to go Fact Check
it but, like...