Image is sourced from this Guardian article.
The Pope’s fucking dead.
He gave JD Vance three chocolate easter eggs, exchanged pleasantries for 17 minutes, and then keeled over and died.
What a way to go.
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.
With Catholicism suffering from the death of the Pope and undergoing the whole succession ritual now, let’s talk about a different religious group that will undergo the exact same process probably very soon. Shia Islam works remarkably similar to Catholicism, where the position of Grand Marja occupies a similar standing to the Pope within the faith. To summarise the position of the Grand Marja to anyone that haven’t heard about it, Shia Islam has a lot of small Popes that reach that status after at least 30-40 years of studying theology, the Grand Marja is the biggest Pope out of the them all. A Shia Muslim can follow the rulings of any of the small Popes, but there’s an implicit understanding that everyone respects the big Pope and his word is in the end the most important. The Grand Marja right now is a very old and sick Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who coincidentally is the first ever Shia Grand Marja to meet the Catholic Pope, after a historic meeting in Najaf, Iraq a few years ago.
The discussion within Catholic circles right now is about the conservatism of the next Pope, where Catholics discuss if the next Pope should be woke or not. The discussion around the next Grand Marja is a bit more multifaceted than that even within normie circles that aren’t really into theology. I like Catholicism even as a Muslim dude, but the truth is that Catholicism in Europe is basically dead as a relevant political force, while Shia Islam is alive and still very energetic as a political and societal force. The first point of discussion is “how political should the next Grand Marja be?”. Sistani is remarkable as the first modern Grand Marja with an active website and everything, but at the same time he’s also remarkably media shy and there’s still not even a recording of him actually talking. He’s also very apolitical, he stood silent during the American invasion of Iraq, he offers no political commentary when it comes to the internal politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and his only outwardly political position was taken during the ISIS campaign across Iraq in 2014, when he declared lawful jihad against ISIS and asked young Shias to join the fight against ISIS, which later led to the creation of the Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.
Now we come to the more woke second discussion point, “should the next Grand Marja be Arab or Persian?”. This is basically the eternal Shia idpol dilemma. Sistani is Iranian from the city of Sistan, but has basically lived his entire life in Iraq. The last important Marja before him, Ayatollah Abulqasim Al Khoei was also Iranian, and we have to go back to the 60s to Muhsin Al Hakim, to find a Grand Marja that is considered Arab. Al Hakim is coincidentally the most political Grand Marja in modern history, with his rulings against Arabism and Communism still being debated today and his sons Abdulaziz Al Hakim and Muhammed Baqir Al Hakim were instrumental in the founding of the current Iraqi state after the American invasion. Maybe the Marja shouldn’t be Arab if the result is such comprador sons, but that’s just my commentary.
We move on to the next discussion point, “should the next Grand Marja be sympathetic to the Sadrists or not?”. A short summary of the Sadrist movement coming now. Big family in Iraq and Lebanon, Musa Al Sadr in Lebanon is the spiritual father of all Shia Lebanese, Muhammed Baqir Al Sadr in Iraq basically creates Shia Islamism in Iraq, he also founds the Dawa Party (biggest Shia Islamic political movement in Iraq during the 80s and later), Muhammed Baqir gets executed by Saddam in the early 80s, Dawa Party moves to Iran, regular Shia proletariat in Iraq starts following his cousin Muhammed Sadiq, Muhammed Sadiq gains popularity as a pretty good preacher who says the anti-Saddam stuff without really saying it, he gets assassinated in the late 90s, the preaching stops after his death but his following moves to his surviving son Muqtada Al Sadr, these Muqtada followers later form the backbone of Iraqi resistance to the Americans, at the same time Sadrists slowly start resembling a cult around the image of the Muhammed Sadiq and Muqtada, big clash between the Iraqi government and Sadrists first in 2008, then it turns bloody again in 2022, but doesn’t escalate. There were already some rumblings that Sistani’s influential son was trying to move certain pieces in order to create an anti-Sadrist camp in 2022, with him reportedly saying that the Sadrists would be considered soon outside the realm of Shiaism. So question remains, does the next Grand Marja exclude Sadrists from the bigger Shia umbrella, or maybe tries to steer them away from the cult and back into normal religion?
I have two or three more points to bring up but my attention span is failing me, so I’ll bring them soon in a different comment inshallah 🙏. No proofreading of course, please notify me if something is completely incomprehensible. If you’ve made this far, congrats!
the system regarding the marjas seems to have more similarities with the orthodox patriarchs and the economical patriarch as the primus inter pares, than with the roman church imho.
Very informative post, than you comrade! Whatever comes next for the Pope or Grand Marja I can only hope will be the less detrimental position for the people.
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Is this just for Twelvers? Or do the other branches of Shia Islam also follow the Grand Marja?
Ty for the post!
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I was halfway through reading this when my brain went “I’ll bet LargePenis wrote this” and I had to stop and scroll up. Great work as usual!
Thank you for this!
I know very little about the actual theology of Islam, especially Shia Islam.
Even if brief, this sorta posting helps figure out blind spots for important cultural knowledge.
My favorite posts are ones like this.
I know we don’t agree with the pope on everything, but NOBODY deserves one of their last moments to be with JD Vance.
If I had to meet JD Vance and not send him to hell myself I’d die immediatly after too.
types def do deserve to be with 
before getting 
I am hearing that on his deathbed Pope Francis received the light of Islam and unhesitatingly recited the Shahāda. Even now he looks down on the Ummah from the gardens of Jannah. Truly there is no god but God, and Mohammed is his prophet!
Looking into it
Many people are saying it!
300k brave volunteers fighting for freedom
LET’S GOOOOOO
Yes I support the troops
anyone know why they didn’t recognise these troops earlier?
BREAKING: The Education Department will begin collection on student loans that are in default next month, including garnishing wages for up to 5.3 million borrowers.
Damn. Another curse of the Biden bankruptcy bill, without it student loans would also be discharged in bankruptcy.
Can they garnish wages if you don’t have a wage?
they can garnish your ass
sorry assets
I’ll garnish my own ass so it’s all pretty when they kiss it
If you don’t have income the IRS knows about then I’m pretty sure no. Though I’m not sure if they can do things like try and take a car whose title is listed in your name or get a lien against that or a house or other big things you own. They might be able to garnish things like state benefits though, like money for the disabled, they can definitely garnish social security including disability. They can garnish things like unemployment I THINK and they can sue you and try and get a list of your assets and seize them to sell them off to try and pay for part of it.
Lol I’m so fucked I have no idea how I’m going to make payments and if they garnish my wage I will fuckin go postal.
Pushed to take huge loans to get a useless fucking degree and now I’m incredibly fucked lol
i’m wondering once again, why americans don’t skip town to other countries
(i’m not specifically talking poorer people, but just in general). just let them have fun defauting your non-existent accounts, i don’t think it’s criminal matter to be extradited over. i haven’t heard of such cases at least, even taking cash credit and disappearing is such legal headache i don’t think people pursue it over small sums. maybe inheritance is fucked tho, if statute of limitations doesn’t apply 
. maybe we have someone more lawyer brained?With credit cards you can just not pay them. They’re unsecured so there is no asset that a lender can take from you. My SIL did this with 10k of debt. Never declared bankruptcy either. Just defaults. Debt collectors call periodically but if you don’t answer or give them anything then they can’t actually come after you. Really weird debt system we’ve got here
You’d probably have to have a savings of at least 50k. Then what book a vacation on Expedia and just stay longer - with no income? Sounds only feasible for pretty wealthy people to me.
i mean you apply for a job in american company say in europe, work for 3 years as non-resident, get whatever that resident thingy called, and work for european company. At what point student loans catch up to you? *and how
i dont think faking your death and starting a new life is very straightforward these days
why faking death, just ignoring your citizenship. again, interpol wont start searching for you for fucking student loans, so how exactly would you be obligated to pay them, if you renounce citizenship? what mechanism is there? they would sue for damages inside usa and then (…) debt collectors would arrive to australia?
i just haven’t heard of such a thing, which means either it doesn’t happen, it resolved quietly in some way (???) or the amount of people abusing it is so small, cause americans are deeply religious people about their debts
you cant renounce citizenship without having a second citizenship. You dont even have to leave the country, you just have to disappear sufficiently. But that’s the problem, and also reappearing as someone new in order to work and rent housing and live a normalish life.
Countries don’t just let random people in unless they can demonstrate that their stay is going to be a good business proposition. If you’re not independently wealthy or possessing skills in high demand then you’re going to find a hard time finding somewhere nice that will let you in.
And then there’s all the expenses with moving to another country as well as the fact that most people don’t want to leave their friends and family.
I wholly expect America to go up in flame in the next 6 months. I’m sorry but you cannot garnish the wages of 5.3 million people, while also enacting painful tariff-caused price increases, and failing to do anything about wage depreciation. If I was an accelerationist, I’d be dancing a little jig. We truly are all accelerationists now.
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They dismiss every material explanation for the war in Ukraine as Putin Apologia. And if there is no material cause there can be no material solution. So the Euro libs call for war and call everybody against this ‘idealist.’ I AM LOSING MY FUCKING MIND.
shot:
chaser:
BREAKING: Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan arrested by the FBI for obstructing ICE arrest
2 days after Brazil’s Supreme Court filed charges against Jair Bolsonaro he was hospitalized with a bowel obstruction. 9 days later he started doing live interviews from his hospital bed. Today, the Supreme Court announced if he’s healthy enough for that, he’s ready for trial.
Bolsonaro’s legal team has 5 days to prepare its defense.
The Islamic Resistance Movement in Lebanon, Hezbollah:
'Hezbollah extends its sincere condolences to the Vatican, the followers of the Catholic Church around the world, and all Christians, especially our Christian brothers in Lebanon and the Papal Mission, on the passing of the Pope of the Catholic Church, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis.
Pope Francis believed in peace, called for the rejection of wars, and worked with deep faith to instill the values of love and tolerance, and he worked hard to build bridges between religions, civilizations, and peoples in order to establish dialogue, understanding, and justice.
Through his inspiring stances, Pope Francis embodied the spirit of interfaith dialogue. His prominent meetings with Islamic authorities in Najaf (Iraq) and Al-Azhar (Egypt) were milestones that ignited the flame of love and the message of human fraternity.
His frank positions calling for an end to the Israeli aggression on Gaza until the last moments of his life, his condemnation of the massacres of our people in Palestine, his demand for the provision of humanitarian aid, his official recognition of the State of Palestine, and his support for the Palestinian cause, in addition to his constant support for Lebanon at all stages and his condemnation of the Israeli aggression against us, embody the sincerity of his call and his commitment to human values that reject injustice anywhere.
The Lebanese, regardless of their religious sects and ethnic backgrounds, are called upon to recall the words of Pope Francis, who described Lebanon as the following: ‘A message of great meaning that expresses a model of coexistence and national unity’.
And we call upon everyone to draw from his spirit the wisdom and strength to face challenges, and to counter attempts to sow discord and division in our beloved country, Lebanon.
Pope Francis survived pneumonia, report reveals likely cause of death. It wasn’t pneumonia that Pope Francis battled for months that might be the cause of his death. Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting sources, that the likely cause of his demise was a stroke, and not respiratory illness. An official confirmation will only come from the Vatican.
I would also have a stroke if I had to talk with JD Vance
VLADIMIR STOP
Bye bye ceasefire
Russian general killed in Moscow car blast on day of Trump envoy visit
Link
Former Nestle CEO appointed Chairman of the World Economic Forum
Former Nestle CEO, Vice Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe; was, during an extraordinary meeting of the Board of Trustees, appointed WEF Chairman ad interim. This comes after the 87 year old Klaus Schwab resigned from the position.
In 2017, the businessman infamously stated that, and I quote:
Humans have no right to access free water.
Nestle has been embroiled in numerous controversies in recent years; namely, their usage of child slavery.
