Apologies, this one is smaller than usual, as I'm gonna be very busy over the next few days. It's the same amount of headlines, just not as much quoted from them.
Links and Stuff
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Yesterday's discussion post.
Just letting you all know in advance that for the next two days there won't be an update, as things are super busy right now. I'll still be posting the daily megathreads for discussion and some articles here and there, though.
You deserve rest! I think working in regular days off is a good thing to do.
I never knew Hinduism was such a big thing in Ukraine, but all their soldiers have the Hindu peace sign everywhere 🤗
They are really into Indian culture, they keep going on about Aryans who were an Indian people.
A couple decades down the line, Russia should sabotage a rocket with him inside when he's doing some PR stunt and make it go straight into the sun, in Minecraft, using the Galacticraft mod, parody
What about this peace deal: Russia gets the Donbass and the Ukraine is disarmed and commits to neutrality but in return Putin has to promise to "take care of" Musk.
The Ukrainian Reddit brigades would rather fight in an insurgency for 20 years than lose their god-king :so-true:
Fascists aren't particularly creative, so their narratives don't get updated all that often. And since they tend to work, they don't really need to.
There's been a creepy trend on national subreddits to have Americans, Europeans, and Aussies go on them and post nothing but anti-China propaganda. Noticed it with my country and saw the same thing happening in Caribbean, African, Middle Eastern, and Oceanic subreddits. I then looked at the profile of the posters and none of them actually lived in the country and didn't seem to have any relation to it either. They just went to spread propaganda.
I feel like the Left is the only faction that seriously believes pogroms are a bad thing that should be actively avoided.
the Left is the only faction that seriously believes pogroms are a bad thing
:astronaut-2: :astronaut-1:
Pogroms generally tend to target people who are perceived as "the left" so that part at least makes sense.
I can attest that this has been happening since at least 2019. During the Hong Kong protests of the same year, the Hong Kong subreddit was flooded with a lot of new subscribers and political content that was largely promoting the protests, asking the US/ West to intervene, and painting China/ CPC in as negative a light as possible.
Anyone who tried injecting nuance into the discussion, like how the protests were triggered by a proposed law that was created to extradite a murderer who was trying to escape justice and had nothing to do with eroding civil rights of the autonomous city, or how asking Trump to "liberate Hong Kong" was hypocritical while he gave no shits about police brutality and was busy suppressing the BLM protests at the same time, were downvoted to the 8th circle of hell.
At the time I didn't think much of it because I was still a SocDem, but many of these Redditors barely knew anything about Hong Kong itself (beyond how it was a former colony and hadn't become "just another Chinese city" ruled by the evil CCP yet), and from memory some even admitted they never visited the place.
I think many of them are probably still the same Westerners years later still drunk on anti-China kool-aid fed to them by their governments and media and spread their propaganda across the entire website today. In hindsight, this could've easily been me as well had I not done a big self-reflection the same year and started questioning the Western narrative on world issues.
I mostly use it for anime and local news, but finding less and less of a reason for it
Haven't seen any posts on this, :reddit-logo: is giddy with excitement: Lithuania recognises war in Ukraine as genocide, Russia as terrorist state
The Russian Federation, whose military forces deliberately and systematically target civilian targets, is a state that supports and perpetrates terrorism
Just absolute projection: Lithuania has been totally happy to commit troops to the civilian-targeting NATO campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, but now can't abide by the Russians showing extreme restraint in not completely glassing the entire country. Obviously civilians have been caught in the crossfire and that is horrible, but citing Ukrainian propaganda as evidence of a "genocide" really makes my blood boil.
All of these insignificant NATO lackeys making grandiose statements about the war is the geopolitical equivalent of "let me speak to the manager".
Lithuania really going for that "most cringe Baltic country" award.
Lithuania has been a hot take factory for a while now. They also started shit with China over nothing.
And that was a huge L, but when the economy suffered they got pissed
There are Byelorussian Nazis fighting for the Kiev regime. Do they count?
It's really incredible how they cannot help themselves putting Nazis front and center in their own propaganda. Like I was suspicious that there were that many Nazis in Ukraine, but if Ukraine itself can't keep them out of it's official instragram, like... fuck, I guess they are infested with fash.
America is what you get when babies are luxury items for the wealthy elite.
As someone currently working within the Texas foster system, it bares endless repeating that we do not have a baby shortage. What we have is a bureaucratic trainwreck that no sane individual dares navigate. It took me three years of jumping through hoops and navigating minefields to get my first placement. I actually ended up getting licensed through two different agencies simply because of all the staffing issues they endured.
But once I was on the list, I was getting calls regularly. I've had two infants placed with me in the last year, with at least one other we had to turn down at the time. I've had placement requests for kids ranging from 2 years to 8 years old, as well. Every child placed in my house has been an adorable sweetheart from day one. Which isn't to say they didn't act like children and require parenting. But the idea that there's some kind of "viable adoptable child" problem in our country is pure fiction.
Nobody - rich, poor, or otherwise - wants to deal with Texas CPS. That's the real bottle neck in the system. And while I have no doubt that "Designer Babies" will be a thing conservatives and liberals alike angle for in a post-Roe nation, this still really just feels like a spiteful reactionary move against young people. IVF and surrogate motherhood and full-time nannies were already a thing for wealthy elites. What we're going to get post-Roe is just a generation of kids with Downs Syndrome and other screen-able genetic disorders whose lives will most likely be nasty, brutish, and short.
Ah that's sweet, but those aren't babies sweetheart, those are worker larvae.
I've seen this take more than a few times. But it really doesn't sync up with the message the actual anti-abortion folks are sending out, either privately or publicly. This isn't about "workers" nearly so much as it is about Great Replacement Theory. Much like what's driving the Quiverfull movement and the anti-immigration paranoia, conservatives genuinely believe that the reason they're losing ideological market share is that they're literally being out-bred by Evil Brown People.
In the spirit of all Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires, they don't see this cohort as worker bees. They see them as the next generation's Master Race. The anti-abortion movement is kind-of a reverse-eugenics.
It's worth remembering that back in the 1970s Evangelicals, for the most part, did not :vote:. They had some end times bullshit going where they thought that Jesus was coming back and the secular government was sinful or something. But the Civil Rights Bill and de-segregation were really recent things, and Evangelicals are nothing if not racist, so their leaders and other right-wing leaders saw Evangelicals as a potential huge voting block that could reverse trends and re-install absolute white power. They just needed a way to get the Evangelicals to vote en masse as a block. So they set up a massive propaganda effort to convince Evangelicals that aborted fetus' were babies, which no one thought at the time. And it worked, they got a massive voting block that's been spreading through the government like cancer for fifty years.
And now they're on the verge of total victory. And they're going to get rid of abortion, but they're also going to bring back hard-core Jim Crow segregation, poll taxes, sundown laws, and god knows what other horrors.
I had no idea that's how it went down, but it really fits with mine and my dad's observation over the years. I remember him telling me that when he was younger (in the 60's and 70s) evangelicals were just some weird fringe that most people didn't pay any attention to. But by the 80's it was like they suddenly had started to become this massive political force. Do you happen to have any links or resources on hand where I could read up more on this? Specifically on how they were intentionally cultivated as a political tool.
I don't have anything on hand, but the key words to search would be "religious right", "silent majority", Jerry Falwell, Reagan and Evangelicalism, and anything about the political history of abortion rights.
@Frank is very much correct but the evangelical movement has even deeper political roots starting from the 1930s in response to the New Deal. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America would be a good place to start if you wanted to explore this even older, reactionary history.
And now they’re on the verge of total victory.
They're not on the verge of victory as they're not really in control. The real power still remains vested in the police, the money men, and their capitalist administrators. Churches can't actually enforce this shit. They can't control who buys and sells contraceptives or abortion drugs. They can't dictate what goes on in hospitals - who gets registered as a miscarriage and who gets flagged as an abortion - or which individuals get to legally cross state lines.
They're actively working to concentrate power into an increasingly aggressive centralized government system. But their grip on that power still runs through the offices of those executives. So much of the original power of churches - their ability to engage and mobilize large groups of people into direct action - has decayed. Church attendance is down. Churches that don't command a high-roller audience are going bankrupt. And those that do are barely more than country clubs.
The insular Jesus-themed cults and privileged niches that still wear the trappings of a national religious movement can still operate as a network for powerful families. But the Mega-Church glory days are all behind us. 4chan and Facebook and Twitter are more effective at whipping up crowds of vocal adherents than any Protestant denomination. Yoga studios command larger crowds than your typical Baptist Church. This isn't victory for Evangelicals, its an Apotheosis. They're no longer a popular movement. They're just The Federalist Society with a cross hanging in the window.
they’re also going to bring back hard-core Jim Crow segregation, poll taxes, sundown laws, and god knows what other horrors.
I don't think we can do that shit again, nor do we particularly want to. The next generation of this shit is going to be driven by the Tech Sector and The Algorithm. We're already seeing the edges of it on Social Media, but I suspect we're going to be increasingly targeted based on our consumption habits rather than our race or gender.
The courts will open the door to a new kind of color-blind bigotry. Something more akin to Black Mirror's "Nosedive" or Community's "Meow Meow Beans", where everyone's in an endless popularity contest and access to amenities is dictated by associating more and more exclusively with "Five Star" people.
They’re not on the verge of victory as they’re not really in control.
The rubes at the bottom aren't, but the leadership cadre has seized extremely resilient control over the government of many states, they own the police, the money men have no problem working for them, and the high capitalists don't care as long as the money flows. Their faction controls the SCOTUS, permanently after this election. They control all the red states at all levels of state and local government. With the SCOTUS and Congress in hand they can strip all human and civil rights off the books with no resistance. No more unions, no more financial independence for women, just pick something and they can get rid of it.
People have been talking about a demographic shift moving power to the center and left for years, and the GOP know that, and they're trying to finalize their coup to ensure that it doesn't matter.
They're going to finalize the coup just in time to be lowered into their graves.
The next generation has a different sent of priorities, even in the upper crust. Just look at the new Saudi Crown Prince. Or the Green Party takeover of Germany.
Even the Mormons are struggling to maintain membership. Churches can't command as niche cults. They need people power to function.
Very true, but that is an ideological narrative that capitalists at the top are just using to enforce the reproduction of labor. Capitalists see labor as nothing more than Oxen. These are the stories they tell to the cattle.
Capitalists generally aren't opposed to abortion. No shortage of pro-life Republicans back in the 70s and 80s, back when getting women into the workforce was considered Business Smart.
Democrats were the original pro-life guys - and continue to host lots of pro-life diehards - back before Clinton and Bush Jr put a bow on White Flight. Republicans inherited it when they got all-in on Midwestern Evangelicalism. The belief isn't really compatible with the AnCap Libertarianism that dominated the Goldwater Era.
What about Peter Thiel? He's out there picking primary winners for the republicans, airdropping tens of millions of dollars on candidates. Where do his candidates fall on the abortion question?
Where do his candidates fall on the abortion question?
Thiel's strategy for a candidate appears to be
- Buy Donald Trump's endorsement
- Spend $10M telling primary voters about the endorsement
- Watch Dems put up the largest turd in the state as the opposition and just kinda laugh softly
- Run an ad that's just Tim Ryan and Hillary Clinton getting into the back of a stretch limo together, with a collapsed washing machine factory green screened into the background
If I had to guess, I'd say that Silicon Valley vampire couldn't give two shits one way or another. But I also suspect he's got a White Nationalist streak wide enough for him to be sympathetic to the "Not enough white blonde teenage hotties in my area code!" plea from his incel fan base. So he's not against overturning Roe if it means more war-orphans from Ukraine getting pregnant.
the narrative conveyed by media is how they cajole/dupe the working class (into allowing the event or actively supporting it). The ulterior motive has to be inferred by material analysis.
Bourgeoisie rule necessitates deception because it's a minority class subjugating the majority class.
it makes sense for Ukraine to do this, it would also make sense for them to sue for peace but :yea:
Does it though? Ukraine basically is doing an act of war on its allies
How does it make sense for the Ukraine to cut the gas supply to the people bankrolling them?
it's a catch-22, cut off Russia, good, but Europe still needs that gas, not good
Imo this whole new development is Ukraine's ploy to blackmail the EU, and Germany especially, into sending more weapons. But it's a murky story for now, still developing, so I'm not too sure.
Europe has been thrown under the bus by the US long before all of this. For example when Germany was forbidden to certify Nord Stream 2. And it's become painfully clear in the past three months that the EU does not have an independent foreign policy, it's just the US foreign policy, regular EU people be damned. "Fuck the EU" as Nuland said back in 2014. EU won't resist, there's no one left to resist. It's just Orban now and no one else. There was Kurz in Austria but he was removed. Unless there is significant pressure from below, as in really serious, violent, mass protests, EU will keep doing Washington's bidding. At least as far as I see it now, the EU will react by deindustrializing, which is already happening. No gas-hungry industries no need for so much gas, problem solved. They're also talking to Qatar but it's not going great.
2 . see above
1 . not likely. even if just because the gas capacity that's being cut off is not that huge. and also, at least based on Gazprom's statements, this is entirely Ukraine's doing, so sending troops won't solve anything. because at the end of the day what, ate they gonna send troops to Russia? because that's where the gas is and it can be shut off whenever, which has not happened on that side
3 . more blackmail, or whatever the US has done to make EU politicians so incredibly pliable and willing to go against the interests of their own people. they are either just all bought and sold in there already, or there must be some very potent kompromat on them because this is insane what they're doingThere's always more weapons to send. And Germany and France make a lot of their own. The problem is training. ex-Warsaw pact countries have been sending their Soviet-era military equipment in exchange for US/NATO equipment. It's good WW2-style business for the US. That's running out yeah, the Soviet stuff. But the UK, the US and who knows who else, are training Ukrainian forces to use NATO equipment now. Imo this is not going to be effective at all because even if you are an ace at using whatever howitzer you got, without a proper supply chain of spare parts and maintenance that stuff will become useless very fast. But, again, it's good business.
It would be hilarious if the US starts sanctioning Germany for keeping the lights running.
Seems like the US is treating Europe like the middle east.
If their doctrine is the same as the middle east then the entire continent is in danger. Their plan will be to destabilise all of it.
The western media is nothing if it isn't obsessed with the acts of the individual, and treating each individual day as separate from the last, rather than considering the entire war and the realities of the front.
Kinda unrelated, but I've noticed that a very common media trope is to start the story with the story of a single person. I'm not sure if that's considered "good" or "bad" journalism or not but it's increasingly grating on me. It's feels like a miniature version of when cooking recipe sites begin with an entire autobiography. My cynical side is telling me it's to try and instill some sense of empathy out of your average westerner where there may otherwise be little to none, as they're also conditioned to think in terms of individuals.
Say the Ghost of Kiev really did shoot down 6 Russian planes on one day.
Say on that same day a volley of Russian cruise missiles wiped out a dozen Ukrainian planes on the tarmac.
Anyone who watched Western media would firmly believe that day was a triumph for Ukraine, and only Russian and Ukrainian MoDs would know otherwise.
a very common media trope is to start the story with the story of a single person.
A yes, the seeds of the bogus trend story.
It is quite hard to report on war in terms of interdiction strike frequency on rail lines carrying key truck transmission parts, admittedly. Even though those sorts of things are what determines all but the quickest wars.
Thought I could be friends with my new coworker. It's not even been 2 weeks and he's already said 3 explicitly anti communist/China things unprompted. I don't really care if somebody has those views, but if they're bringing that shit into a new job that soon and nonchalantly then :yea:
They brought it up so you are therefore entitled to confront them on those things.
IDK if it's a situation where you can do that safely but that's my first thought.
So I've been at my new job for a few months, and we literally had a seminar about "China bad", which is why we shouldn't reply to any inquiries we get from them. Considering this was before the war began in Ukraine, and we explicitly had Russia, China and Iran on the list of bad countries we shouldnt engage with, I felt really fucking tempted to push back, but I'd rather not risk anything at the moment, since I can't cure brainworms that fast. Also we had a huge email-chain about the whole 100 talents program, and whether it was a threat to us. I did manage to push back somewhat against some of this, just with my immediate coworker. I don't know if he believes me or not, but at least he shut up about the subject.
if they say that shit they presume you agree. a little push back even to get them to shut up is good
Really starting to feel like the libs doth protest too much methinks, due all the posts and articles and such calling Putin incompetent and insane and an idiot (or stronger language). As if they're trying to will it into reality, as well as the defeat that they all insist is coming and yet does not arrive
Very persistent rumours are claiming that Putin is sick, possibly with terminal cancer, and, in some versions of the rumour, drugged out of his mind on heavy medication.
The people telling these rumours are basing them on such hard evidence as "he looked bloated on TV"
He's like 70 lmao, of course he isn't gonna look great at all times. I've also heard the cancer rumours, not sure if there's any basis at all but it's not like, inconceivable I guess.
Putin is not only 70, but he has also had plastic surgery for about 15 years at this point. At some point all that plastic in your forehead is gonna make you look weird, just ask Berlusconi.
This is why I only talk to my family about shit like vegetable gardening
https://mobile.twitter.com/wyattreed13/status/1523772143061807109
Sky News host asks Russian Deputy UN Rep Dmitry Polyanskiy about the British Defense Secretary comparing Russian troops to nazis
Ukraine had a parade of captured and destroyed Russian tanks for victory day. I'm seeing it reported all over but I'm having trouble finding video or decent photos. Anybody else had some luck? I'm curious as to how many they were able to round up and to identify what they've got.
I’m seeing it reported all over but I’m having trouble finding video or decent photos.
:thinkin-lenin:
