New preamble:
Palestinian resistance groups have launched an operation in and around Gaza to fight the genocidal settler state oppressing them. Thousands of rockets have been launched towards the so-called state of Israel, overwhelming the Iron Dome. Settlers and the troops protecting them are being killed in the settlements surrounding Gaza, with many caught by surprise in the first few hours of the operation.
Palestinians are taking many Israeli settlers and soldiers hostage and bringing them back to Gaza. An Israeli general, Nimrod Aloni, has been confirmed captured. Palestinians are also taking military and civilian equipment back. Drones and MANPADS appear to be in use, and a number of Merkava tanks have been destroyed/disabled and their occupants removed and taken hostage. Palestinian forces appear to be heading in two main directions so far: southeast in the direction of Be'er Sheva, and along the coast in the direction of Ashkelon, but settlements all around Gaza have been assaulted and taken. It is obviously unknown how far they intend to go, or what their intermediate goals are.
Israel is bombing the Gaza Strip with aircraft, destroying buildings. It appears that their intelligence on the location of Palestinian forces outside of Gaza is very poor, and haven't been able to meaningfully strike them. Netanyahu has given a statement declaring that Israel is in a state of war. Iran has issued statements in support of the uprising, and Israel has responded with hostility to those comments. In all, the IDF appears to still be in a shockingly bad state hours after the assault began.
Old preamble on Antarctica:
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Much of the information for this news post, including both the images in the preamble, came from this article at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which has been circulating in the media lately.
Image has been taken from this article.
Antarctica has had a uniquely bad year.
While the sea ice extent in the last 50 years or so has been very gradually declining, it has done so very slowly on average - by 0.1% per decade. This began to change in 2016:
Even so, this year is different, showing a remarkable decrease in the maximum sea ice extent. It is unconfirmed (I think) but this year may be the first in which the maximum extent fails to reach 17 million square kilometers - and is more than one million square kilometers lower than the previous record low maximum in 1986.
The fall in sea ice has been linked by some researchers to warming in the uppermost ocean layer caused by lateral and upward mixing of warmer water. The ocean is a gigantic heat sink, and has been absorbing much of the excess heat that humanity has generated via the greenhouse effect. But put enough heat into a heat sink and it will eventually fill up.
These changes in sea ice extent is no mere abstract climate worry or scientific curiosity. It is having a direct, catastrophic impact on the Antarctic's ecosystem. Emperor penguin colonies have had trouble breeding, so much so that:
...there is high probability that no chicks had survived last year in four of the five known emperor penguin colonies in the central and eastern Bellingshausen Sea. This was because the sea ice had melted well before chicks would have developed waterproof feathers. ... Today's report says about one-third of the 62 known emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica were affected by partial or total sea ice loss between 2018 and 2022.
And, last year, scientists conducted a study on the two plants that are able to grow near Antarctica, looking at a single Antarctic island for simplicity, and found that the populations of these plants had exploded in the last decade - growing as much in the last decade as they had in the last 50 years - due to rising air temperatures. It was warm enough for the scientists to wear shorts and remove their shirts.
The Country of the Week is Syria! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
The weekly update is here!
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
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 ~ 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
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.
Last week's discussion post.
imagine creating a military force designed explicitly to stop this exact thing from ever happening, pouring billions upon billions of dollars into it, pouring the hard work of Western scientists into it for decades, training much of your civilian base in that military force, and it gets rolled over by people you've oppressed in a massive concentration camp for years on end with drones dropping mortar rounds on your heads
the IDF has gone from the "second strongest army in the world" to the second strongest army in Israel
they're reaching virgin cuck levels that are off the charts. we'll need an entirely new category just for them
Lots of handwringing in the other featured thread that oppressed natives actually shouldn’t fight back against their oppressors.
On my Hexbear? It’s more likely than you think.
The way I see it, white westerners oppose the Palestinian struggle because not only they're racist fucks, but also because deep down they're scared, they're scared at the sight of a cornered non-white nation taking up arms and leading a successful struggle against a key white western ally. They're scared because they know that if Palestine wins, the entire Global South can imitate their success, and nothing scares them more than their beloved colonial, imperialist and capitalist world order being crushed into pieces by the Global South.
Vietnam and Algeria showed that despite overwhelming odds, despite being against literal titans, you can beat the living fuck out of them and achieve emancipation. Cuba showed us that you can resist for decades in your revolutionary struggle against impossible odds. Palestine will show the world that even in the most desperate situation, against a genocidal ethnostate, a victory is possible. And their example will be followed by those who desire to be free.
Don't think for a second our most sacred struggle ended in 1991. There's a lot to fight for.
Here's a reminder: No emancipation process was done without the use of violence at some point. No emancipation process was exclusively peaceful and all parties agreed in everything and lived in peace ever since. Especially, when that emancipation process involves oppressed peoples (the palestinians) in one side and a ruthless ethnostate on the other (Israel) with clear genocidal intent.
My hatred of liberals and of western empire has been 100% re affirmed and re invigorated
A slave strikes their slave master with a fraction of a fraction of the violence the master has inflicted, and the liberal calls for complete destruction and unlimited violence against the slave
Finally time to post my Lebanon-Syria trip report:
- Flew to Beirut, Lebanon with my wife, where I spent 3 days with my family there, staying with my Putin stan communist uncle. Mostly just caught up with random cousins in random cafés serving the most incredible food of all time. Ate a half meter shawarma. I was coincidentally in Burj Hammoud, an Armenian neighborhood, the day the Azeri war started. Witnessed a fist fight between two older Armenian men who were fighting over whether Pashinyan is a cuck or a victim.
- Took a cab to Damascus two weeks ago, which was pretty straightforward and I went in with my Lebanese passport so that no westerner knows I was there. Chilled in my mom's family house in the Damascus suburbs and just took in the vibes. Ate amazing food every single day. Did the usual Damascus tourism stuff around the Umayyed Mosque, Souq Al Hamidiya and the rest of the old town. Went to the Sayyida Zainab shrine with my wife because she's Shia and they like their shrines. She went back to Beirut after a few days, because her cousins from Iraq travelled to Beirut and she haven't seen them in years. Signs of war aren't really really there in Damascus, You can feel the insane poverty everywhere since the sanctions and disastrous financial policy has fucked the country, but Damascus is still a beautiful city with barely any destruction except in a few suburban residental areas.
- After chilling for a few days, I did a little heartbreaking tour with my cousin. We took his car from Damascus and just drove north on the main highway. We went through Homs, Hama and Aleppo. Most traumatic two days of my life with no competition. The Syrian countryside has just been destroyed, and it's even worse in the cities. Everyone should be blamed for these tragedies that are present in almost every street in especially Homs and Aleppo. Schools and apartment buildings are just completely destroyed, I can't even describe the sadness of walking into a bombed classroom with x/x/2011 still on the chalkboard and random books burnt on the ground. Families have been ruined by the war itself, but also from the unnecessarily vicious government oppression that let the war happen in the first place. Every American and Russian that has financed and supported this shit should be subjected to a bombing campaign.
- Went back to Damascus and stayed the last 2 days of the trip in a cousin's farm around an hour outside of Damascus. Ate some amazing fruit there and was met with amazing hospitality by the rural folks. Sadly also felt the effects of the insane poverty there in the villages. Met a random Chinese delegation that was responsible for some project in a village, they were some really serious dudes and kept measuring the ground at a bunch of locations with some cool tech that I haven't seen before. Smoked locally grown weed, which was weird and fun.
- Went back to Beirut with a cab again. Just chilled and let my thoughts about Syria play around a little in my head. My communist uncle took me to George Hawi's grave again and kept calling Zelensky lots of homophobic things during the ride. Ate more amazing food. Trip ended there and I flew back yesterday.
Getting real sick of all the winging liberal comments about “oh I dread what Israel will do to them after this.” The west has such a fetish for losing and inaction. They took a risk and thus far it’s been pretty successful, and ultimately we’re not making decisions for the Palestinians, ultimately our job is to support the Palestinians because ultimately they are right to attack Israel like this, and then condemn Israel when they inevitably do react. I mean what should they do instead? Sit around and get genocided as the US ensures they are increasingly isolated in the region and wait for the westerners to vote in the moderate wing of fascism who doesn’t even and has never supported Palestine?
Anyway, I’m gonna stay off Reddit for today. Even the pro-Palestine comments are insufferable
Zionists: "Shooting missiles at settler cities is an unspeakable terrorist war crime against innocent civilians! Nothing can justify this!"
Also Zionists: "Let's do revenge air strikes on random Palestinian housing blocks! It's the most humane airstrikes in the world because we do a small one before the big one"
Shoot and cry is such a disgusting propaganda tactic.
It is October 7th, 2023. I am watching an Indian man who uses the Twitter handle 'Adolf Hitler' declare their support for Israel.Seems likely to me that Palestine will eventually be pushed back into Gaza but will have killed and captured a shitload of settlers/troops, as well as various military equipment. Then we really enter the Cool Zone depending on what Israel does then; if they try and invade Gaza then they have to do urban warfare and Hezbollah and others may join (there's of course already been strikes by Hezbollah into Israel). Or perhaps a negotiation happens and the hostages are exchanged for thousands of imprisoned Palestinian fighters.
Holding territory is, for now, very difficult, and Palestine clearly knows this, so I expect they're taking notes from other guerilla movements and staying mobile, retreating and advancing strategically, etc. Insert various Mao quotes here.
I'm sympathetic to the people who are like "Yes, it's all very brave but let's face it: the IDF massively outguns Palestine. At the end of the day it's an equation that Palestine is on the bad side of," but there are more avenues to victory than the outcomes of conventional warfare. The future is vast and unknowable. Smaller, lively forces can take on larger, sclerotic ones if the international situation evolves in a certain way, or if there's internal dissent in the bigger country, or a million other possibilities.
God I fucking hate westoids so much. Living ccomfortably in their sheltered little lives, built over the backs of the global south, pontificating over how they are not anti-Palestine, just anti-violence.
As much as people like to mythologise resistance to the Nazi occupation in WW2, I am once again reminded that most of my fellow countrymen, almost especially the so-called progressives, would rather collaborate than offer resistance, as did their grandparents.
https://apnews.com/article/hawaii-army-base-lockdown-handgun-f947383ef2505197e16f5d18c7bf4187 Okay there was a "shooting" at the Schofield military base in hawaii, where the guy pistol whipped his lieutenant after getting caught trying to steal weapons and then ran around the military base. The base was locked down, everyone kept in their buildings. The guy almost caught once by MPs at the food court. Got Away. They were looking for him on the base for 3 hours before lifting the lockdown.
The thing the article tries to hide is this: The shooting is on the island where I live, Oahu. Everything is on the island of oahu, pearl harbor, honolulu, all of it. Multiple bases, airfields, police stations, state security offices etc.
He was found in Molokai
A whole other Island
The man pistol whipped his lieutenant, sent an entire US military base on a wild goose chase while it was locked down, escaped, then somehow (while still having a gun) got a plane ride to whole other fucking island.
The man wasn't fit either, but somehow outran a US military base and got a plane flight to a whole other island.
President Xi, please open up a third front in Taiwan. The US and its allies cannot supply Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan rebels simultaneously. The fascists cannot win a war on three fronts.
Palestinians should start wearing totenkopf patches and doing nazi salutes. Then they'll get billions of dollars in funding and weapons from the International Community™️.
