Image is from the January 2023 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. Over 50 heads of state and 600 CEOs attended.

holding flashlight under face

Imagine a terrifying world where we are all ruled by monsters of every stripe. And not hot ones like werewolves, but instead decaying zombies and mummies who are both insensitive to, and actively benefit from the immense suffering they cause on a daily basis. The top echelon of society, filled with profit-seeking, bloodsucking vampires. And the worst of it is that they repeat on a daily basis that what they are doing is not only just, but there is no other possible way to do it.

Pretty spooky, right? What if I told you that this world... was our own?

Happy Halloween!

Friendly reminder: when commenting about a news event, especially something that just happened, please provide a source of some kind. While ideally this would be on nitter or archived, any source is preferable to none at all given.

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.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.

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.

The Country of the Week is Lebanon! 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.

This week's first 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.

  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    A thread with some interesting points on the latest Israeli claim of a hostage being retaken:

    "The girl was not a prisoner in the first place. Her name - Ori Megidish - was not on the official list of hostages. Her name was added to it later, but the site was archived prior, without the girl's name being visible anywhere on it"

    The full POW list via the BBC also does not show her name

    The #Israeli prisoner whom the occupation claimed to have liberated through a complex operation published a post on Facebook on 10/12, 5 days after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation.

    edit: this facebook account does not seem to be her but the other points hold up so far. this may or may not have been a thing where they slapped an Israeli soldier inside Gaza, did a photo op, then took her out and acted as if she was a hostage - I think the most plausible version of events currently is that she was separated from her unit during a ground incursion, perhaps taken prisoner or perhaps just got lost and hunkered down and called for aid via radio or something, and then rescued one way or another - this isn't somebody who was taken hostage in the October 7th attack, at least that's what the current evidence suggests.

    • emizeko [they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      after the fake family member incident, I really shouldn't be surprised that they tried to manufacture a hostage rescue. presumably this is to placate the hostage families

      EDIT: hmm I suppose she could be a soldier captured in the last couple days of IOF operations in Gaza

    • the_kid
      ·
      1 year ago

      Hamas responds to Israeli soldier release claim, call Israeli presence in Gaza City ‘photo op’

      spoiler

      A Hamas official has pushed back against Israel’s claim that it has freed a soldier who had been held captive by the group in Gaza, saying that it was an attempt to take attention away from a video the group had released earlier showing three captives calling for the Israeli government to do more for their release.

      Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said that “no one believed” the Israeli government’s narrative, not even Israelis themselves.

      For his part, Hamas spokesperson Abdul Latif al-Qanou said that the presence of Israeli tanks on the outskirts of Gaza City earlier on Monday was a “photo opportunity to restore the prestige of their army”.

      Al-Qanou said that only a limited number of Israeli tanks had entered Gaza, under the cover of aircraft and tank fire.

      Hamas is also saying that they're lying, for what it's worth. literally nothing the IOF says can be trusted.