December 5th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
December 6th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
December 7th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
December 9th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
December 10th's update is here on the site and here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
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. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.
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. Beware of chuddery.
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 fairly brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. The Duran, of which he co-hosts, is where the chuddery really begins to spill out.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.
https://t.me/asbmil ~ Now rebranded as Battlefield Insights, they do infrequent posts on the conflict.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it's a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of the really big pro-Russian (except when they're being pessismistic, which is often) telegram channels focussing on the war. Russian language.
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
Any Western media outlet that is even vaguely liberal (and quite a few conservative ones too).
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.
Last week's discussion post.
After many months of struggling and giving historical lessons, my father is finally (seemingly) coming around to having some class consciousness and critical consumption of media. I wouldn’t say he’s a baby leftist yet, but he has admitted to me that “China cares for their working class leagues more than we do” and that “a war with China is something nobody wants”.
It is easy to get discouraged, with how much negativity and social alienation you might receive, to ‘give up’ on radicalizing and educating people in your lives. I’ve lost friends to it - it’s difficult, stressful, draining. We must not forget, however, that sharing our knowledge to others is nothing but positive. It may be difficult trying to educate the nth person in your life, but when the agitation and information works, it really feels like you are saving someone, not to sound too self aggrandizing.
I think I can speak for others who would similarly not be as radicalized today if they did not someone at some point in their life screaming at them to open their eyes, to be critical, and to read some theory. If it worked for you, it can work for others. So, in the most respectful way possible, march on.
Barbarism might prevail in the short term, but as long as there is passion, as long as we care enough to agitate, there is the inevitability of a better future.
How did you convince him that china cares more for the proles than we do?
Covid seriousness could be a good route with libs, historical trends (poverty, hunger, intl development) could work with a nerd conservative
Part of it was showing how they treated Covid, their progress from 1949 to today, punishment of billionaires, etc. etc.
It also worked for me to point out how aggressively western powers posture in the Pacific, yet you don’t see Chinese carriers harassing our coasts
Good luck in your continuing journey. It makes me happy to hear of positive progression in individual cases. I know most of us have lost someone to right wing nuttery at some point so its nice to hear about a win for our side.