One year on. Hundreds of thousands are dying or dead, millions are displaced, the Middle East is undergoing its greatest changes in a generation, Iran has directly attacked Israel twice in one year, and Yemen has proven that the US Navy ain’t worth shit. We are the closest we have been to nuclear war (discounting accidents) in decades, but also the fall of Israel.
Because one day, the prisoners of a concentration camp paraglided over a wall.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
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.
Oil companies are very angry at this bill now headed for a vote in the California assembly. There are anti-ABX2-1 advertisements all over, which seems unusual for something that isn’t a proposition being put to voters, and the Chevron gas station nearest to me has big signs at every pump saying that California lawmakers are conspiring to raise prices at the pump - scan the QR code to fight back! (Or, you know, drivers could go to the gas station one block away, the one that isn’t Chevron and is always at least 30 cents cheaper per gallon.)
What does the bill do? Apparently it requires oil refineries to keep a minimum inventory level and wants the Independent Consumer Fuels Advisory Committee to include one member who “represent[s] a labor organization with experience in refinery operations.”
The pressure campaign appears to be working, at least somewhat, as multiple Democratic assemblyschmucks have withdrawn support and several abstained in the State Senate committee vote that passed today. Since it’s “Newom’s bill” he might not veto it. Or will he? Certainly sounds like something he’d do. Stay tuned?
Chevron has been developing a methodology for pushing back on attempts to regulate it. In 2022, they (and Aera, another oil company) spent $8 million to defeat a county measure. Ventura County has roughly 500,000 registered voters (for roughly 850,000 residents). That is, generously assuming that all those people voted, oil companies spent $16 per voter and achieved the desired result. Compare that to the cost of having to rip out and replace on shore and off shore oil rigs in order to comply with environmental regulations.
Their main innovation in methods for dealing with voters is relentless test messaging. They did not use the mass texts and form letters ‘from’ the candidate or the party, as we see even the current presidential candidate do. Instead, they made up five characters, hypothetical locals who would have their jobs and bills impacted negatively. i think most residents ended up getting messages ‘from’ two or three of them. To someone used to political texts or following events, not much of a change. But to someone used to skimming over or ignoring a form letter that’s way too long for a text message, there was a tighter emotional core. Go marketing! They also tried a nonsense television campaign about foreign oil leading to higher electricity prices (that’s not how California makes power).
i don’t know what Chevron might do differently for influencing assembly people, but the last time they tried to influence the law they got exactly what they wanted and didn’t get punished. Probably comes down to whether Caesar Newsom wants it or not. God help us all
In the Bay Area, they started their own “newspaper” to push back against grassroots organizing victories in Richmond, CA. The “newspaper” still exists but Chevron recently announced that they were moving their headquarters to Texas. The book Refinery Town goes into those campaigns from the early 2010s, but I don’t know what all has been going on since then or if the movements are still active. I suspect Chevron has a hand in the region’s Cop City being built next door to Richmond, too.
I’d like to learn more (and about fossil fuel influence in California in general) if anyone knows some good sources - Early’s book was rather lib and the book’s story only goes up to 2016.
I looked at the wording for the Ventura County Measures A and B, and I wonder how much of their victory came from making sure it was worded like this:
If it had said “Should we keep the law that sez oil and gas drillers can’t avoid modern environmental review using antiquated permits with no expiration date?” casual voters would have known what they were getting into. Instead they probably just saw a bunch of “No on A&B” texts and couldn’t remember a reason to think otherwise.