Image is from Futurama.
Happy holidays, fellow godless communists. We are in year three of the Five-Year Plan to eliminate all Christmas cheer and create a world free of the joys and festivity of Christmas. Nobody should have to be reminded that in our concrete brutalist communist strongholds, NO ornaments are allowed in December. Please report any Christmas trees, snowflakes, baubles, and presents to the evil secret police, and anybody caught violating their Volcel Pledge by having a tentative kiss under a mistletoe will be shot on sight.
Developments lately have been grim. Our Supreme Communist Dictator Brandon is being removed from office by Christmas-loving patriots, and soon, Christmas will adorn the White House for another four years. This is obviously very disappointing, but while Christmas joy is strictly prohibited, good vibes are still strongly encouraged. Revolutionary optimism (a term we only bring out when things are going very badly and we need to be delusional) shall triumph over defeatist rhetoric by stooges of the Christmas regime.
We must have hope. Our foreign allies aiding us in destroying Christmas now possess hypersonic weaponry, allowing us to compete with and overcome the engine technology powering Santa's sleigh. Abroad, they have destroyed factories and hit cities with missiles travelling at unimaginable speeds into precise targets, while the Christmas regime struggles to produce their own such missiles, as they are still reliant on aircraft bombing campaigns. Precision has a quality all its own, or something along those lines. We just have to hold out another two years or so, and I swear to you: we will live in a world without this accursed holiday.
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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.
Macron announces France's fourth government in a year
this fucking guy.
Liberals allying with fascists? :no-waying:
For anyone who doesn't follow french politics the fact bayrou got the PM position is hilarious btw. And all the gov picks are like bottom-of-the-barrel rejects and opportunists, everybody knows this gov won't last long and nobody wants to be in it. I think macron's playing for time. Remember how people used to say the 4th republic was "so unstable" because of the changes of governments and that's why it failed (which is not really the case)? We've had the shortest-lived governments in 2024 under macron, way shorter than the 4th republic ever got.
Also rumors are that macron did not want to give it to Bayrou but he threatened to remove the backing of the modem and his MPs so macron was basically forced to. Lots of internal fighting at the moment as well in the centrist/liberal camp, previous PMs and ministers under macron now fighting and backstabbing, throwing revelations to the press, etc.
Actually the part about the Barnier government being the shortest-lived is false. It's the shortest lived since the foundation of the Vth Republic in 1958, by far (only 84 days); but the IVth Republic had many short-lived governments (the 2nd Ramandier government (29 days), the André Marie government (33 days), the second Schuman government (2 days!)… and all these – and three other longer-lived governments – are only in the two first years of the 4th Republic).
Nevertheless your general point is valid, the current regime is in crisis, especially given how – contrary to the IVth Republic – it was built from the beginning to favour stable majorities led by the president, yet now the ruling party cannot get a stable majority despite it all, and the president is opposed even in his own liberal bloc. I just wanted to point it out since the comparison with the IVth Republic is one of the main points of your post; but I think you are right in that ça sent la fin de règne…
You're right, I'm not sure where I heard the comparison with the IVth recently but I didn't know about the 2 days one damn. A bit of an exaggeration, but we're clearly in a similar spot with a government that's completely incapable of doing anything. Even if the fascists get in there and there's a liberal-fash alliance, the rot and contradictions are here to stay, it's not gonna magically make it functional.
And they brought back all of the most clownish clowns that have ever clowned in the past decade of French politics: Darmanin (as minister of justice, which is already hilarious), Panier-Runacher, Borne, Montchalin, Aurore Berger, and even MANUEL VALLS!!! They're scraping the barrel of the most soulless ghouls and the most corrupt morons, I'm surprised Schiappa isn't in government this time around; regardless, it still probably is the most hilarious government in history. Anyways at least the memes will be good