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.
Still can’t get over the fact that people are supporting neoliberalism just because it’s China lol.
No theory, no material analysis, just black and white thinking. Typical Western leftists behavior that I should have gotten used to by now.
nowhere did I “support” neoliberalism. I explained how China’s raising of the retirement age is not the same as Denmark’s because of the specifics of the situations at hand. I never said it was good that China was raising the retirement age, only somewhat more understandable due to them not being imperialistic leeches and having to support an aging demographic bloc with extended life spans - which is not the case in Denmark which is a rich country rotting out
If I’m being uncharitable with your argument as you are with mine, you are making a pro-imperialist and pro-succ dem argument that Denmark is superior to China. I think you are a bit too inundated in the pro-West Liberalism of Academia and it’s made you a bit lib. You repeatedly have ignored my statements about Denmark only being a functioning economy because of it’s imperialist leeching, you have not responded to it, only doubled down on shitting on a communist nation that is not imperialist instead.
It really comes across like you are deeply anti-China. More anti-China than you are the imperialist fascist nations of Europe.
Is it anti-China to say you want free universal healthcare especially when you live in a country run by a communist party?
I have already said elsewhere in this thread, the trick to living a good life after retirement in China is to not get sick. I would have been far less critical if retired people are also being taken good care of by the state.
Like, are you seriously telling me that China cannot afford to do this is because it is not imperialist like Denmark?
If you are in favor of China allocating more of its labor and resources into sending cheap goods and exports to Westerners instead of prioritizing on domestic social policies, then you are supporting neoliberalism.
I’m pretty sure I have said that the benefits coming from European “social democracy” was due to its proximity to the USSR. Heck, even Russia today has more or less a free universal healthcare system even though it is underfunded.
Be careful trying to claim that free healthcare can only come from being imperialist, as if that absolves China as a socialist country from having to meet that standard and continue their neoliberal-brained policies that prioritize sending cheap goods to Westerners instead of taking care of its own citizens.
I’m not the one who brought up imperialist social Democrat nations to compare to China “favorably” in your little compare-and-contrast post. That was you. You are the one putting imperialist fascist states next to communist ones and then saying “would you like A or B” trying to get people to say they would prefer being finance parasites. You have nobody to blame for these comparisons but yourself, you started the discussion on these grounds.
Denmark, Sweden and Norway are the most imperialist nations on earth per capita. They have the highest per capita income from international corporations, ie stolen value. This isn’t the legacy of the USSR, it’s just a concentration of loot
The impression I get from your argument is that one should emulate social democracy, since you are singing it’s objective praises over China. I also get the impression you are continuously sidestepping the question of imperialism and not addressing it, which makes me think you don’t care about it as a top concern.