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.
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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.
Average senate confirmation hearing:
Democrat: “You’ve been on this person’s show 8 times, he has ties with neo-Nazis.”
Sen. Norm Respectable (R-MT): “He already had my vote, you didn’t need to convince me more.”
Im seeing a lot of people not getting their SNAP benefits after this government freeze
Each new interview Putin gives to Pavel Zarubin (he’s been giving them a lot) becomes longer and less clear.
Imagine the Soviet command in 1945, to whom the Wehrmacht command says: “We won’t sign anything with a gun to our temple, pull the army away from Berlin.” And Stalin is like: zer gut, bitte schön, I’m leaving-leaving-leaving. Can you imagine?
And now imagine Stalin saying: I won’t sign anything with Keitel and Jodl, they are illegitimate, they didn’t go through democratic elections, they haven’t had elections there since 1933, they can refuse to sign at any time, and then what, go to war again or something. Can you imagine?
Am I the only one who thinks I’m in a madhouse?..
This is the state of Russian diplomacy right now lol.
Putin will fold to Trump, once again deceived for the nth time.
Trump is already blaming DEI and mental illness for the crash in the press conference
The US Secretary of the Interior, Kristi Noem, has announced that the agency has revoked the extension of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans who have fled Nicolas Maduro’s regime. As a result, Venezuelans can be deported.
If it is not possible to apply for another visa, Venezuelans, now without protection status, could be deported, according to Donald Trump’s new migration policy. The TPS had been renewed on January 17 by Joe Biden, but now that it has been revoked, it will not be extended.
Gustavo Petro fires his foreign minister and swears in a new one following the curfuffle with the U.S. (preceded by a curfuffle with Venezuela). Two weeks ago, a Venezuelan official penned an article saying Luis Murillo answers to the State Department and Juan Manuel Santos.
Laura Camila Sarabia Torres (born March 20, 1994) is a Colombian political scientist. During the 2022 presidential campaign, Benedetti offered his work team to collaborate in Gustavo Petro’s campaign. There Sarabia and Petro met and worked together. Petro noticed Sarabia’s work capacity, so once he was sworn in as president he offered him the position of Chief of Staff, a position that was later reformed and officially became known as Chief of the Presidential Office.
A host at a German public broadcaster allegedly had visceral reaction of disgust, when a guest, an Israeli-German cyber-security professor, said her name was “from Israel”. First of all, there is no such thing as being “from Israel”, and what’s an Israeli name anyway?
Only a Zionist would answer this way, I thought, and yeah, she has written an article about how “Israel must also defend itself on the Internet”.
The host is probably going to get fired, she’s Turkish-German so they’ll count that against her.
That guy in Sweden who was known for burning qurans has apparantly been shot dead
@SoyViking@hexbear.net The news coming out of the US these last few days - News of mass raids, tariffs, cutbacks and funding freezes, as well as the announcement the UAW is possibly organising a national strike for 2028, has made me think about unions and worker action. Especially I’ve been thinking about the Nordic Model.
I’ve been wanting to hear some thoughts on the Nordic model, but most Danes/scandis in my life are libs or about as informed as I am, so not really great wells of insight. You, being a resident newsposter and our “man on the inside” in the reclusive monarchy “Denmark” (field of the Danes in their own tongue) leads me to believe you could give valuable insights. It might not be fitting for the newsmega, but what’s your take on the Nordic Model? Is it a viable method of unions getting stuff done or is it just a pacifier that slowly traps them in a state-controlled “no fun allowed” box?
Tl;dr me recently learn of Nordic model for unions. Me want hear from smart person what smart person think of model. Me would appreciate much.
A lot of blah blah blah in this, predictable differences between gender and these are the only parts I think that matter
Controversial influencers Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson were among those to command similar trust by 42 per cent of men.
I really don’t like this line.
#brag
Plane and helicopter collide in the air in Washington D.C. The aircraft exploded and crashed into the Potomac River, which runs through the US capital.
The American Airlines aircraft was bound for Kansas. The helicopter, according to sources, was a Black Hawk. Reagan Airport is closed and flights have been suspended.
Botched operation to assassinate Eric Swalwell lol
