Image is of Colombian President Gustavo Petro giving a speech at the UN in 2022.

Trump has arrived in office with the force of an avalanche; ending slowing a genocide on the one hand, while simultaneously promising a total nightmare for minorities and the poor throughout and outside the United States on the other hand. [edited for clarity; I do not actually think Trump has ended the Palestinian genocide obviously, I was making a joke - but the ceasefire is a genuine improvement in conditions for millions of people right now who are on the edge of death, so it cannot be dismissed]

It’s still far too early to truly compare and contrast his imperial strategy with Biden’s, but initial signs show that there does appear to be somewhat of a reorientation. Biden was famous for being two-faced; ostensibly offering aid and stability, while also blowing up your pipeline to ensure you did not actually have an alternative to his idea. Trump, meanwhile, seems only really capable of aggression, threatening several “allied” nations with what may as well be sanctions because of the economic harm they’d do. I suspect we’ll be debating for a long time how much of this can be attributed to the specific characteristics of Trump, or whether he merely embodies the zeitgeist of imperial decline - a wounded empire lashing out with extreme violence to try and convince everybody, including themselves, that they can still be the world imperialist hegemon.

I’ll admit it: I did not believe that Trump would actually try and go ahead with putting tariffs on basically anybody who annoys him. And while the threat could still be empty in regards to countries like China and Canada, Colombia is the first indication of the potential of his strategy. Despite some fiery words from President Petro, after Trump’s administration revealed the punishment if Colombia did not agree, it appears that Colombia will in fact be accepting deported migrants after all. It’s funny how that works.

Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

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 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.

    • Evilphd666 [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      21·
      5 hours ago

      When you let ethnofascist Zionazis control the media and make more fascist billionaires and take in fascists from other nations to run your electoral systems…gee I wonder when you flood fasxist bullshit everywhere it makes more fascists

    • REgon [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      42·
      10 hours ago

      dead-dove-1 More than half of GenZ wants the uk to become a dictatorsship"
      dead-dove-2
      “More than half agree the UK would be a better place with a strong leader in charge” dead-dove-3

      thinking-about-it
      dead-dove-1 “They think that the entire way our society is organized must be radically changed through revolution”
      dead-dove-2 “They want a leader who doesn’t have to deal with parliament and elections”
      huey-wut
      That’s not the same.

      “Dealing with elections” in the average persons mind means “dealing with politics” which means “posting dumb shit on twitter and caring about meaningless stuff instead of fixing the country”. I’m sure some want anti-dei Stalin or climate Stalin or boomer Stalin, but I really doubt that’s more than a few cranks. If you’d asked “do you want a dictator?” then the responses would be much different. And the parliament? The British Parliament seems absolutely cursed, not to mention its not a democratic institution what with the house of lords (and also the absolute fucked way they do FPTP voting). Tying them together gives “working towards a specific response”.

      Edit: Incidentally why is a “strong leader” inherently a bad thing? Wouldn’t you want your political representative to be able to wield the apparatus of the state efficiently? Seems like we’ve just linked “strong leader” with “authoritarian” but it doesn’t have to be, right? Authoritarian isn’t “when you make laws” it’s more complex than that. Authoritarianism as a concept has done so much harm to political discourse.

      • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        40·
        9 hours ago

        I agree. It’s actually pretty obvious what is happening.

        Shit is getting worse (living standards). Shit is not getting better no matter who is in charge so people reason the problem is that it’s all a bureaucratic mess preventing someone from just doing the common sense changes that are necessary. This leads to “we need someone that can just do it”. This mindset definitely settled in during the brexit battles.

        Also the young hormonal boys looking to get sex fall on these MANLYNESS grifters who then tell them the problem is caused by women and woke and the decline of western christian patriarchal society blah blah blah. These boys are uniquely vulnerable to grooming into the cult in that age range because they’re all looking to get laid for the first time and basically nothing exists as a counter balance to that. I see no other reason for boys becoming reactionary other than that it is online social grooming that takes advantage of their early male sexual insecurities.

        • sexywheat [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          29·
          8 hours ago

          I see no other reason for boys becoming reactionary other than that it is online social grooming that takes advantage of their early male sexual insecurities.

          yea