Image is of a colectivo: an armed group, usually operating in impoverished areas, which act to support and defend the socialist government of Venezuela. They are often derided as vigilante terrorist groups which prop up the government, because cops are only bad when they are socialist and not murdering minorities, I suppose.


Maduro's party, the PSUV, has won the election after a staggering amount of propaganda by the opposition, who said their polls suggested they were going to win and that Maduro's loss was inevitable. The reaction across Latin America is what one would expect. Left-leaning leaders are generally respecting the results and congratulating Maduro, while those on the right and/or are US puppets (such as in semirecently-couped Peru) are calling for recounts, or even that the election was illegitimate. The US itself is also unhappy about the results. We shall soon see if their unhappiness boils over into yet another coup attempt.

Personally, I think they should have ran Guaido again.

guaido-despair guaido

Thank you to @Redcuban1959@hexbear.net for the election coverage here, and everything else they do in the news megathread.


The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Venezuela! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.

Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.

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.
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.


    • Kieselguhr [none/use name]
      ·
      2 months ago

      He was more of a classical liberal in the 90s, kind of a Thatcherite.

      After the utter failure of neoliberalism in the 90s and 00s, and after the nominally "socialist" but fiscally neoliberal party fell out of the voters favor, he campaigned as a nationalist populist. Orban's post-2010 regime is a kind of local oligarchic feudalism embedded in the neoliberal ocean of the EU. His main project is creating a local loyal bourgeoisie, and he uses insanely corrupt methods to achieve this, for example:

      • His childhood friend, a complete nobody, suddenly became the richest man in Hungary out of nowhere by getting government projects and being at the right place at the right time when assets get privatized.
      • They use state money to seemingly nationalize multinational companies, but then they sell them cheap to local private equity, so in the end it is just reprivatization using public funds

      And so on.
      His economic policy is a bastardized version of the Asian Tiger economic strategy. Kinda. At least that's what they like to think, but there is no true dirigisme, because that would need a Keynesian fiscal policy with superpower allies willing to play along. They aren't building up local industry for the benefit of the locals - they are trying to attract global capitalists with the promise of cheap labor while still being inside the EU. Some of his staunchest allies are German car companies, but he's also inviting South Korean capital.

      Sometimes they enact non-neoliberal policies (like price fixing during COVID), and then the stupid liberals usually say "see, he's just a commie!" just because he's not doing literally everything out of Milton Friedman's wet dreams.

      But his whole voter base is built upon the people's disillusionment with the Western neoliberal order, and he uses the usual right-wing rhetoric, similar to Le Pen, Farage, et al. This not only talk though - they are right wingers with many-many right wing policies.

      Since he is anti-liberal West in rhetoric at least, he sometimes accidentally arrives at the correct opinion, simply because shitlibs are wrong about almost everything.

      “Behind every fascism there is a failed revolution.”

      • TechnoAnomie [he/him, any]
        ·
        2 months ago

        So, doing the same thing the EU dictates, except promoting local oligarchs instead of selling the country off. It's not nothing... economically.

    • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      From what I understand he's just in charge of a political clique made up of a national bourgeoisie. Said oligarchs make money from their closness to the state and it's ability to bring in investment and broker a middleman status between the core of the EU and Russia. The hungarian economy is beholden to Germany's industry and Russia's resources and energy, which means that Orbán and the hungarian political system is bound to the EU's self preservation in a way no atlanticist government ever will be. Their money, income, and assets are bound to Europe while western european elites are just invested in the US stock market and LNG importers instead.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Fascist fuck. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, nothing more.