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.
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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.
Is there a single person you know in real life who has even a basic (if succ-dem) understanding about how the world works?
Not the OP but several of my acquaintances/colleagues (in the US) have a pretty good understanding and support US/Western hegemony. One is (was) a Warren lib (now Kamala). Another is wealthy (“upper-middle”). Another is a 2nd gen immigrant professional (conservative liberal). And another is a Reagan Republican fond of the line, “Capitalism is the worst economic system except for all the others.” They are very bright, well-read, plugged-in people with horrible politics. These are people who think that really horrible things are a sad necessity. (A genocide to prevent a genocide type stuff.)
These people are the exceptions in terms of knowing about the world and history. Most people I know have no clue how the world works and don’t want to hear it because it’s a bummer. They’ve chosen a team: lib v anti-lib. The libs might be sad about the “complicated Palestine situation” as they pull they lever for Kamala.
Holy shit American political conscious is bleak
I have polite society friends who range from maga conservatives to MSNBC libs.
But then I have my friend friends and we're not voting.
I don't know how it is in swing states, but in non-swing states, people who openly support a presidential candidate are either older high school/younger college students or complete freaks. I've seen more joke candidate bumper stickers like Solar Flare 2024 or Vader 2024 than stickers for either candidate. Hell, I probably have seen more Bernie stickers, which are super ratty and faded at this point. I don't think I've seen a single Harris/Walz sticker and have seen maybe two Trump/Vance stickers. During election season, the signs are all for local candidates since everyone knows who's going to get the state on election day. This is why it kills me to see people argue about which candidate is worse because unless you live in Michigan, none of this shit remotely matters.
I'm in a fairly rural area. The best I can get here is "Yeah, it's awful. But I don't want to think about it. Do you want trump to win?!"
Kind of surprising a rural area isn’t all in for Trump
Far more Trump/Vance yard signs than Harris/Walz, that's for sure.
With 2 republicans in the general, they're spoiled for choice