Thank you to @carpoftruth@hexbear.net for covering my position as Supreme Dictator of the Goddamn News while I was moving and getting set up in my new home in a top secret Kremlin-funded bunker five hundred feet below the ground. Our regularly scheduled programming returns this week.
On October 9th, Daniel Chapo won the Mozambique general election with about 70% of the vote. Chapo is the head of FRELIMO, the Marxist-Leninist party of Mozambique's liberation, which fought an internal anti-communist resistance called RENAMO which was backed by Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa; Frelimo won in 1975. However, as the USSR fell, Frelimo began to allow elections inside Mozambique, and has ruled the country with significant majorities in each election ever since.
The main opposition party inside Mozambique is Podemos, which is led by Venancio Mondlane, a former member of Renamo and trained inside the USA. He alleges that his polling figures predicted a majority win for him, not Frelimo, and has accused Chapo of electoral fraud. There have been the usual slogans about how they yearn for freedom. The EU, of course, "witnessed irregularities." As @WilsonWilson@hexbear.net has pointed out, Mozambique has massive undeveloped gas fields and is outsourcing the development process to France, Norway, the UK, and the USA, while mysterious Islamist groups have popped up to cause chaos in the exact regions which have the gas, slowing the process of actually developing those gas fields. Overall, it appears to be a cookie-cutter colour revolution attempt by the imperial core designed to install a comprador for cheaper resources. Its proximity to BRICS+ member South Africa may also be significant, noting the colour revolution in Bangladesh earlier this year exerting influence near India and China.
Protestors have been battling against the police and government since late October, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries as well as massive disruption, as the government has intermittently blocked access to the internet and social media. As of today, calm appears to be returning, with border crossings beginning to reopen.
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Last week's thread is here.
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.
Two unrelated thoughts:
Trump's batshit crazy cabinet actually proves that voting Trump was the correct accelerationist position. If you wanted to accelerate the downfall of American hegemony and the weakening of American institutions by appointing the biggest dumbasses on the planet, then you got your wish with this 2nd Trump admin. I sympathize with Americans comrades, but chickens come home to roost like the great martyr Malcolm X said.
Russians actually entered deep into Kupiansk, I can't believe my eyes. Actually insane development, I didn't expect this at all so quickly honestly. It says a lot about the state of Ukrainian defences at this point. The story of Kupiansk is very interesting and serves as a good blueprint of the future of how Ukrainian territories will be integrated into Russia. Russia took over Kupiansk without a fight in February 2022, because the mayor was an intelligent man who spared the city from unnecessary bloodshed by calling the Russian command and telling them that they're free to enter the city without needlessly destroying infrastructure and civilian life. Civilians stayed, got their wages from Moscow, repairs were done quickly, civilians didn't leave, schools switched to Russian which the population already spoke perfectly, and that angered western media so much. When the Ukrainians took back the city in September 2022, mass arrests took place and sob stories were planted in media. The city was turned into a military hellhole by the AFU and most civilians had to flee. Russia kinda stabbed those people in the back during that disastrous period, but that's another discussion.
This tweet grows ever more powerful with each cabinet pick.
Better and more coherent theology than most Americans
Antichrist
There will be many AntiChrists, but God willing we're reaching the last of them
Trump's appointments are all over the place. He's trying to set up his typical court, playing all the minions against each other to give himself the maximum number of opportunities to control things. Some rightwing neocon freak could come out of nowhere to dominate the administration's policy by playing this court better than Trump himself can, and Trump is busy marginalizing anyone he thinks is competent enough to challenge his power. They're absolutely speedrunning imperial decadence..
I more or less agree, but Rubio in the Secretary of State position is bad because he’s gonna want to pivot hard against Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, et al. But it’s not like he’s particularly competent so I don’t know…
He's not a good politician, but I have no reason to doubt he's relatively intelligent and ambitious. He'll bring the most brain-dead careerist Bush administration-era State Department officers to the fore. They'll turn the place into even more of an ideological concentration camp, where realist thought is severely punished, and cynical careerist backstabbing is the only driving force. It's going to be a wild ride. They'll probably start several wars in the next four years, and we're going to be stuck in conflict like Russia or Israel for the next decade based on the petty politics of these fools. It'll be the end of the empire though, and if they make things bad enough soon enough, we'll never be able to dream of starting a war with China.
I’m honestly not so sure about the first one.
At the risk of repeating the same thing for the n-th time on this site, the liberal bourgeoisie want to discipline the people who did not support the Democrats by giving them a “taste” of how it feels to be under Trump once more. You want to play with us? We’ll give you the worst government you can imagine and see how y’all like it.
With a recession on the horizon, depending on how fast the rate cuts (that Biden set off in September) and DOGE’s deficit cuts are to be enacted, once the deficits dry up, the US economy is going into a recession (which is what the bourgeoisie have been begging for the past two years because “inflation”).
And who’s going to be the one to handle the disaster? Trump’s new administration. If everything goes to plan, we’ll see a massive blue wave by 2026 midterms with a good number of people regretting sitting out of the 2024 election. If that’s the case, the Democrat simply have to be patient and wait two years.
While I think the first Trump presidency truly shocked the ruling class, I simply don’t think they don’t have a contingency mechanism to keep him under leash this time. Trump is going to be a sacrificial lamb, and ironically, Biden - who was forced out by Harris - may be the one who will have the last laugh (if his mind is still conscious). Harris ended up eating a humiliating defeat for the Democrats instead of Biden.
Behind all this facade, I want everyone here to think for a minute that tens of TRILLIONS of dollars are being moved globally every single day that a small segment of the bourgeoisie are profiting from - do you seriously think that the ruling class will let Trump single handedly ruin it all?
Of course, Trump himself is a wildcard, so anything can happen. And when that happens, you will be right in saying that Trump is the accelerationist that speedruns the collapse of the US empire.
But first, we’ll have to wait and see what transpires over the next two years.
The problem is that Trump is nowhere as good in leveraging US financial might. You have admitted to this multiple times comparing Trump with Biden. Trump might be there to discipline the domestic population, but he doesn't really understand the driving force behind US imperialism. 4 years is a long time for the Democrats to come back to the White House, presumably with Gruesome Newsome.
It is true that Trump is an idiot and doesn’t know what he’s doing especially when it comes to US imperialism.
That’s why they simply need to set up checkpoints to make sure that Trump’s new administration cannot cross certain lines. Elsewhere Trump is free to do whatever he likes, especially when they align with the Democrats’ goal of disciplining the voters. Meanwhile, the Democrats will spend the next 4 years completing its transition and rebranding into the new Republican Party.
Regarding international geopolitics, what else can Trump do? Biden already did the tariffs on China. The strategic goal to deindustrialize Europe through the Ukraine war is almost at the end of its course. Trump is not going to go easy on Gaza and the Middle East. If Trump can get Israel and Iran to destroy one another, that’s even better because the Democrats get to wipe their hands clean (and sneer at the Arab/Muslim population for getting Trump elected).
Everything has already been set in motion under Biden and there is nothing Trump can do to stop them. All they need to make sure is to have checkpoints and safeguards properly implemented so Trump cannot do anything too crazy with them. Of course, we’ll simply have to wait and see if they really can restrain Trump, especially with this stupid DOGE thing with Elon Musk. If DOGE turns out to be a nothingburger, we know Trump’s not going to be able to do anything substantive.
What Trump is instead going to face is an economic recession that will further tarnish Trump and the GOP’s reputation. Many of Trump supporters, incidentally, are also gold and bitcoin supporters. When the recession comes (~9-12 months away depending on the factors I’ve mentioned), the price of gold and bitcoin will plunge (gold is already trending down at this moment, before the recession even begins!), and his supporters will cry about Trump’s betrayal and inability to do anything to keep their wealth. These people are all being taken for a ride, and most of them will lose their money invested in these speculative assets.
Meanwhile, the big money in Wall Street will seek refuge in China while the American economy crash and burn, and will come back and reap the harvest once the Democrats regain full control of the political apparatus.
Again, it’s too early to tell what will happen yet, but I would not be surprised to see the Democrats win big in 2026.
The problem with a 2026 "blue wave" is the Senate there are only 2 seats they might flip and that puts them only at 49. America
Yes, I've seen some people say that the Democrats purposely threw the election because they want the recession to happen under Trump where they can then stroll into the White House with Gruesome Newsome in 2028. They even claim that the Democrats purposely nudged Biden into that debate with Trump knowing that Biden would eat shit. You focus on different aspects, but it's honestly not that different from what they have said.
The Democratic Party is the oldest surviving bourgeois party. It has weathered the storm for two centuries. People need to stop underestimating them.
I don’t think the Democrats purposely threw the election. I think this is just the System calibrating and self-correcting for aberrations. If the Democrats had won, the bourgeoisie will continue to profit, the recession will still happen, and the working class will suffer for it, but since the voters didn’t turn out, Trump will be the disciplinary mechanism. The point is that the ratchet effect is kept in place as designed, and no matter how you “vote”, you can only hope that the less worse choice wins.
There has been so little talk about Ukraine in recent months, but every time when I see some news it is about Russia rapidly (compared to previous years) gaining ground. Is there some news or social media channel where I can get a general overview of the situation?
Boris Rozhin is usually up to date.
Syriak Maps is good
And military summary channel
RF is really blitzkrieging now. I can't believe they are already in Kupyansk. I just caught up on the northern war front two days ago and they were at the Zherebets river along the Luhansk border.
While appointing buffoons and neocons is compatible with saying, "look at the blatant incompetence and cruelty, this will degrade the state faster", I think there is something to be said for the accelerationism of the Biden administration's approach of career ghouls that know how to pull the levers of power and keep their constituencies docile.
While Dems and the GOP should be understood as two factions in the same team, I think the most accelerationist policies are to stay the course on neoliberalism and to foment a split between the imperialist bloc and one led by China etc. Trump offers incoherence on the former while Biden offers pure commitment to neoliberalism. Trump offers ham-fisted attempts for the latter, which strengthens any anti-US bloc and makes them more comfortable earlier while Biden seeks to implement the plans of State Department ghouls, trying to build the split along a material basis, e.g. using Ukraine to peel off Europe, hightening actual mechanisms for war and direct confrontation.