Or perhaps the end of the beginning, if you’re a little more pessimistic.
Image is from this Bloomberg article, from which I also gathered some of the information used in the preamble.
While Trump was off in the Middle East in an incompetent attempt to solve a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis, China has been doing something much more productive.
Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, had a summit with CELAC (a community of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries). There, he promised investment, various declarations of friendship, and visa-free entry for 30 days for citizens of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. Lula signed over 30 agreements with China. Colombia is joining the New Development Bank and hopes to gain the money for a 120-kilometer railway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as an alternative route to the Panama Canal. Even Argentina, ruled by arch-libertarian and arch-dipshit (but I repeat myself) Milei, was uncharacteristically polite with China as he secured a currency swap renewal to shore up their international reserves.
It wouldn’t really be correct to say that Latin America is “siding with China over the US” - leaders in the region will continue to make many deals with America for the foreseeable future, and even Trump’s bizarre economic strongman routine won’t make them break off economic and diplomatic relations. What’s significant here is that despite increasing American pressure for those leaders to break off all ties with China, few appear to be listening - and given that China is perhaps the most important economy on the planet right now, that is a very predictable outcome.
As the current American empire takes actions to try and avoid their doom, those very actions only guarantee it. As Latin America grows ever more interconnected with China and continues to develop, America will grow ever more panicked and demanding, and this feedback loop will - eventually - result in the death of the Monroe Doctrine.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
That is essentially a call for 9/11 style actions
The question that needs to be answered before considering that is whether or not doing such a thing will harden global support for Israel destroying Palestine completely, or whether it will scare global supporters into wanting it over so such attacks do not happen. It could go either way.
With that said though… Does hardening of their support even matter? They already support it completely.
Did you read the article?
Couldn’t it just as well be a call for military operations against genocide-related infrastructure outside of Palestine, such as arms manufacturers or zionist “diplomatic missions”?
Yes part of it is but naming global imperialism screams “finance” at me which just brings WTC and wall street to mind.
Yeah… They’re not exactly wrong about that. I do share your concerns about the tactical utility in attacking Wall Street though.
This is frustrating to read (the PFLP statement) because the idea that regional partners of Israel (the GCC, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan) needed to start paying a price for their support of Israel, explicit or implicit, seemed obvious 12-18 months ago. The Biden admin was very clear that they didn’t want this to escalate into a regional conflict, and the Resistance met them on those terms instead of forcing the US/EU into the exact situation they didn’t want. Arab/Muslim countries that had signed the Abraham Accords and were housing US bases should have been made to pay cost, and they were let off the hook instead.
MBS can give lip service to a Palestinian state all he pleases, but when he allows US naval vessels that attack the Resistance to sit off his coast and resupply from his ports, that makes him an ally of Israel. When that British manlet who rules Jordan shoots down Iranian missiles fired at Israel, that makes him an ally of Israel. When the UAE acts as a makeshift land bridge for Israeli logistics and houses US military bases, that makes them an ally of Israel. When Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan supply Israel with oil and Turkey acts as Israel’s gas station, that makes them allies of Israel.
The Western elite only understand money. If you want to make them hurt, you hurt their bank accounts. Europe is pretty much incapable of fight any war right now, and any expansion of the conflict in the Middle East would have stretched the US very thin supporting both Israel and a GCC that can barely fight as it is. The only reason any of these people are saying anything now is because the images of starvation lay bare how full of shit they are in a way that actually might give them political ossues. And I frankly can’t shake the feeling that liberals only give a shit now because Palestine seems like a hopeless cause, similar to the argument laid out in that Red Sails essay about the influence of Christianity on Western Marxism.
Maybe it’s still worth making someone pay a price, especially after they all just spent turns sucking Donald Trump off on public television and he just fucked over Palestine in return for it, but it’s frustrating to even think about it now.
Ya, seems a little late now that Syria has fallen into a pro-Israel war zone.