this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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Image is of one of Ireland's only manned navy ships, the Samuel Beckett. Image sourced from this BBC article.


Putler has been HUMILIATED by the Kursk offensive and this proves that Russia's army is in tatters and unable even to defend its own territory. However, it is simultaneously true that Russia poses an existential threat to countries thousands of miles away, as this recent Politico article demonstrates. Ireland - a country that immediately springs to mind as one surrounded by enemies - is being bullied due to its lack of military.

Despite bearing responsibility for 16 percent of the EU’s territorial waters, and the fact that 75 percent of transatlantic undersea cables pass through or near Irish waters, Ireland is totally defenseless. And I mean completely unable to protect critical infrastructure, or even pretend to secure its own borders. [...] Ireland’s “navy” of six patrol vessels is currently operating with one operational ship due to chronic staff shortages. [...] Ireland simply has no undersea capabilities. How could it, when it barely spends 0.2 percent of GDP on security and defense? And it has, in effect, abdicated responsibility for protecting the Europe’s northwestern borders.

For all we know, the dreaded sea-people from the Bronze Age Collapse could soon emerge from the North Atlantic.

Unfortunately, things are even worse up in the skies. Ireland has no combat jets, and it’s the only country in Europe that can’t monitor its own airspace due to the lack of primary radar systems. Instead, the country has outsourced its security to Britain in a technically secret agreement between Dublin and London, which effectively cedes control over Irish air space to the Royal Air Force. This must be the luck of the Irish — smile and get someone else to protect you for free.

While this is very silly, rearmament has long been a part of US imperial strategy on an economic level. Desai, discussing the US imperial strategy in the WW2 period:

By 1947 [...] the domestic postwar consumer boom was nearing its end. While financing exports became more urgent, the 1946 elections returned a Congress unlikely to approve further loans. Now the Truman Administration concocted the ‘red menace’ to ‘scare the hell out of the country’, enunciated the Truman Doctrine of US support for armed resistance to ‘subjugation’ which launched the cold war, and Congress granted $400 million to prevent left-wing triumphs in Greece and Turkey in 1947.

One reading of history states that the US was so intimidated by the USSR that this forced a policy of massive arms production even outside of official wartime. Why this arms production is not occurring today can be puzzling, and (very reasonably) explained by neoliberals exporting industrial production overseas. However, a different historical reading can explain both the first Cold War, and the ongoing situation in which American weaponry is being almost purposefully given in insufficient numbers to give Ukraine a chance of victory and thus only prolonging their suffering (while generating massive profit for the military-industrial complex):

In this sense the Cold War was not the cause of US imperial policy but its effect. It combined financing exports with fighting combined development by national capitalisms as well as communism. When such ‘totalitarian regimes’ threatened ‘free peoples’, ‘America’s world economic responsibilities’ included aid to countries battling them.

By selling massively expensive weapons to Europe, America could simultaneously guarantee export markets for its industries, trap Europe into reliance on American industries at the expense of their own, and divert European funds away from constructing factories which could compete with American ones. Providing a way to defend against Soviet communism (and now Russian "imperialism") is merely a happy side-effect, and so the lack of effectiveness of American weaponry is causing no great panic among the military-industrial complex, nor an urgent plan to quintuple artillery shell production or Patriot missile production - the deals for F-35s and such are still there, and they are what matter.


The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Ireland! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.

Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.

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.
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.


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[–] [email protected] 121 points 2 months ago (12 children)

Man, TikTok libs who were fully on board with Palestine a month ago have just fully switched over to being huge Kamala Harris stans and the hate for people who continue to care about the Palestinian genocide is pretty palapable.

This isn't really News but it's just a pretty crazy shift in vibes that has me, as an American, feeling like no American can be trusted with access to any power ever.

I feel like maybe a PRC appointed viceroy might be the way to go in the future or something.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 2 months ago (1 children)

i would say 90% of my irl liberal friends have not mentioned Palestine once since Biden dropped out after being pretty consistent about it for months now. Kamala Harris is the perfect blank slate candidate for vibes-based politics because you can just pretend she supports all the causes you pay lip service to as long as she delays taking a firm stance on anything (other than going to the right of republicans on immigration...)

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago

And also it was generally a pretty easy thing for the bourgeoise to navigate. Didn’t take that much time or effort to coup Biden. I think these two things perfectly illustrate the reality that there is no actionable political solution to US capitalism/imperialism from within the imperial core. I’m more convinced than ever that only an extreme change to material conditions for the majority of Americans could provide the beginning of a new direction. And even with that, I’m overwhelmingly confident that the result of such a thing, regardless of organizing, would result in a state of overt fascism until the status quo could be re-established. Through the horrifying growing pains of that process though, there may hope that enough people could shake off their liberalism if the truly cratered material conditions still don’t improve for enough people. Never, ever a majority though, for as long as the US exists. As a place, as an idea

[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It's because a lot of libs are so into identity politics that they literally believe that black women in power can do no wrong. They did the same thing with Obama. I'm not kidding, ask them. Obviously I'm not against BAME representation in politics, it's just that if you have a genocidal and imperialist capitalist regime, it doesn't matter if it's old white male Donald Trump or younger black female Kamala Harris in charge; the result is still going to be genocide.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Lmao so true. These are the type of people who fetishize poc so heavily that they act like they can do no wrong

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Yes, that's what it is, fetishization.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

a lot of libs are so into identity politics that they literally believe that black women in power can do no wrong

Also apparently Gaddafi.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Are they praising Gaddafi now? TikTok leftists are hexbear tangents come to life

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So Palestine got the BLM treatment too? Not surprising but still disappointing

[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 months ago

I think not exactly, I feel like they just "forgot" or became apathetic about BLM, now they've got a narrative that if anyone opposes Kamala Harris (or worse, points out that she's, with Biden, presiding over a genocide right now and shows no sign of stopping, and voting for her is voting for that to continue) they are a straight cis white male leftist acting entirely out of privilege.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 months ago (1 children)

We need an American Dessalines. That’s all I’ll say. Someone has to do some house cleaning

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago

Koupe Tét, Boule Kay

[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Man, TikTok libs who were fully on board with Palestine a month ago have just fully switched over to being huge Kamala Harris stans and the hate for people who continue to care about the Palestinian genocide is pretty palapable.

Given how TikTok is so algorithm-dependent and how it's probably CIA-infested, I'd imagine there's a degree of consent manufacturing going on here. But the general pattern of complaining quieting down after Biden announced he would not stand for re-election has been pretty obvious. American liberals, even relatively progressive ones as far as rights for (American) minorities are concerned, are perfectly fine with the gears of social democracy (if what the Democrats do can even be called that) being greased with the blood of children. Even better if it's the blood of children far away, but even a million American deaths during the coronavirus pandemic was insufficient to sate their bloodlust. This bloodlust will continue so long as imperialism continues to trickle its benefits down to them. They are bourgeois proletarian treatfiends and are the enemy of humanity.

The Masses, Elites, and Rebels essay might as well be mandatory reading for the news megathread at this point given how often we see these kinds of people.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 months ago

I feel like maybe a PRC appointed viceroy might be the way to go in the future or something.

The Son of Heaven approves the establishment of the Protectorate to Pacify the West.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The United States needs to be governed by a Troika of PRC appointed viceroy, Amerindian tribal council, and a body of 100 people from countries the United States has fucked over (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, Ryukyu Islands, Hawaii, etc) selected by sortition on a yearly basis. No self professed "USAmerican" should even hold the reigns of power.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Break Amerikkka into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the winds. Make the Holy Roman Empire look unified in comparison.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

tfw you live in the Burgraviate of Beowawe and are invaded by the Archbishopric of the Timpanogos Mountains (LDS) and need to signal to your allies in the Landgraviate Palatine of Twin Falls for help

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago

The good ending

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago

Nah, they need a cultural revolution

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago

The contemporary American subject is so enamored to identifying with their consumption choices that we internalize the worst affects of our politicians they're having solidarity blackouts from xanny for Kamala. It's the same back to normal campaign Biden did while steering us straight into the iceberg. One thing is for sure the honeymoon period won't last long same as for Biden. It's a win win for democrats either Kamala wins and her failure is inevitably pinned on the Left or Trump wins and it's back to the old plan as when Biden as gonna loose.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

I actually heard friends say this recently. "I just want her to win so I can stop paying attention"