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.
No current struggle session discussion here in the news megathread please, you will be banned from the comm and your comment will be removed.
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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.
If he was going to do it, he would have done it by now. Frank values having a Catholic president more, plus I think he's worried about what will happen in the US church, since the USCCB is basically run by wannabe Protestants, anyways.
Yeah he needs to start purging every non-Jesuit priest in the US.
They have actually done a couple purges, especially of the ones trying to challenge his authority or people who are obsessed with going back to Latin mass.
Clearly not enough.
They are basically running out of priests lol. All the priests at the church my parents go to are from Africa now.
my (former) catholic church growing up went through a period of Kenyan priests who were all extremely cool people, but that came to an end when the archdiocese decided to punish that church for being too "woke" (aka not willing to ostracize LGBT people) by making it share a priest with 3 other churches so that they would have to cut masses and sending the coolest Kenyan priest to a white suburban republican parish
I'm not sure if that's a punishment or just general trend. The church my family initially went to my whole life is still on its own because it's the oldest in the area and kinda bigger/more wealthy, but all the other ones around (including the one they go to now) have had to merge and split priests. The churches in general just aren't bringing in as much money, especially if they aren't in an area that has a lot of Latin American immigrants or haven't adapted and adapt Spanish or Portuguese services.
It definitely would've happened within a few years either way, but it specifically happened after the priest refused the archbishop's request to let signature gatherers for a ballot initiative to overturn same-sex marriage in WA post up after masses so it at least looked like a punishment.
Damn maybe they should hold to their good, popular principles instead of allowing the reactionary ones to fester and rot and alienate normal people (and allow priests to marry)
I don't want to sit here and write a whole dissertation about why the Catholic church in the US has declined, in my opinion, but in terms of recruiting priests, the vows of celibacy are definitely issue #1. The church basically stopped fulfilling its role as a social organization decades ago, something that the evangelical churches understand a lot better. It has also suffered from being driven far too much by old people stuck in their ways, and from how American suburbs were designed versus the urban areas that most of the were originally created in. Then of course there is all the molesting kids and trying to protect the pedo priests instead of getting rid of them, which is something I think is tied to he vows of celibacy thing.
Dissertation! Dissertation! Dissertation!
Please write the dissertation
I'd be interested in an overview, though
I mean it can kinda sorta be something about not influencing political decisions (thus after 20th january), as church historically got a lot of shit over popes excommunicating monarchs (
on my part)
He could bar him from receiving communion, but I doubt he will even do that, frankly.
Isn't that literally what excommunication is?
No. Communion is the little wafer (eucharist) that is supposed to be the body of Christ. It's the main sacrament of the Catholic church and what Catholic mass is centered around. If the church is aware that you have committed a grave sin/as still committing one and haven't repented and stopped doing that (like actively participating in a genocide) you can be denied communion, because you aren't supposed to receive the eucharist while in a state of mortal sin. You can still receive other sacraments, primarily confession and annointing of the sick/last rites. It's like the bartender cutting you off but not kicking you out of the club.
Excommunication is getting kicked out of the club and told not to come back. You don't get communion, you don't get confession, you aren't supposed to go to mass, and you don't get to have a Catholic funeral when you die.
Thanks for the explanation!