Image is of one of the six salvos of the Oreshnik missile striking Ukraine.
The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range ballistic missile that appears to split into six groups of six submunitions as it strikes its target, giving it the appearance of a hazel flower. It can travel at ten times the speed of sound, and cannot be intercepted by any known Western air defense system, and thus Russia can strike and conventionally destroy any target anywhere in Europe within 20 minutes. Two weeks ago, Russia used the Oreshnik to strike the Yuzhmash factory in Ukraine, particularly its underground facilities, in which ballistic missiles are produced.
Despite the destruction caused by the missile, and its demonstration of Russian missile supremacy over the imperial core, various warmongering Western countries have advocated for further reprisals against Russia, with Ukraine authorized by the US to continue strikes. Additionally, the recent upsurge of the fighting in Syria is no doubt connected to trying to stretch Russia thin, as well as attempting to isolate Hezbollah and Palestine from Iran; how successful this will have ended up being will depend on the outcome of the Russia and Syrian counteroffensive. Looking at recent military history, it will take many months for the Russians and Syrians to retake a city that was lost in about 48 hours.
Even in the worst case scenario for Hezbollah, it's notable that Ansarallah has had major success despite being physically cut off from the rest of the Resistance and under a blockade, and it has defeated the US Navy in its attempts to open up the strait. Israel has confirmed now that their army cannot even make significant territorial gains versus a post-Nasrallah, post-pager terrorist attack Hezbollah holding back its missile strike capabilities. In 2006, it also could not defeat a much less well-armed Hezbollah and was forced to retreat from Lebanon.
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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.
Chinese economist Wen Tiejun briefly discussed MAGA Communism in his recent speech.
https://x.com/zhen_ming_/status/1864703285044892060
I’m curious as to how revolutionaries in what are now AES countries reconciled their loathing of the state and culture as they existed prior to revolution with that need for patriotism.
I mean, hell, American politics and ideals have pissed me off virtually as long as I’ve been alive. Were the revolution to come, would I be expected to just…let go? I couldn’t. I think about American patriotism, it’s just wal-mart flag t-shirts, focus on the family mags, chick tracts, and scorn. It's all the people who've hurt me my entire life. I’ll carry that grudge with me until the day I die.
I can’t imagine this place being redeemed - I want it all pulled down so something new might grow.
Simple, they don’t at least not in China
there is a massive difference between colonial and anti colonial nationalism
You don't have to "go way back", native americans still exist, and to wave away the colonial nature of the US displays a dangerous ignorance of the subject on which you speak.
They said the U.S. isn’t a colony, not that it isn’t a colonial force. As in the U.S. as an entity is not on the other end of the exploitation, which is what makes it different from countries where left wing nationalism actually can make sense.
I heard someone stated once that Mao is not really a marxist but a vulgar Engelist, i think there is some degree of truth to it
this makes me want to die
Yeah, maybe this is comparable to when "well meaning" communists in the west misunderstand social dynamics in China. He isn't looking at the class character of that sort of nationalism/patriotism in the US, and he also rightly identifies it as an online phenomenon... also gotta say I don't think Trump will deindustrialize the USA... and the best (likely to fail) shot the US has at holding onto empire is if they are able to exploit another country more than China and isolate China's growth in industries the US wants to dominate (they won't)... but I really doubt Trump is going to do anything other than symbolic/perfunctory things to change the state of industrial production in the US.... it might happen with one industry but the whole US government is set up to take initiatives like this and piss it into stock buybacks instead of meaningful change. just like the chips program... its just a corporate boondoggle that might only create a few thousand make-work jobs while most production continues abroad
Mao come back
Yeah let me just go and suddenly start loving the thing I got into leftist politics because I hated, and am permanently disillusioned with
Sure give him the benefit of doubt and ignore MAGA communism is essentially "what if we did the German national socialists bit but unironically?" It always comes back to this silly idea that there is a path to "reindustrialize" the US as if this is even possible(32s-48s). Once you reject this the entire analysis falls apart.
Time and time again it need to be understood America didn't deindustrialize out of pure greed or naivety, but as a necessary requirement out of the already dire economic situation in the 60s and 70s that lead to neoliberalism.
Factories moved abroad because they're not profitable. In order to be profitable it would require bringing the same levels of exploitation back to American soil, something that couldn't happen during the cold war and can't happen anymore today.
You can be the most naive detached "economist" you want. How do you expect MAGA communism to work at face value when the first priority is to kick the most exploited and vulnerable working population out of the country? Yes put millions of "undesirables" in a death camp at the border then turn around and pretend white chuds will line up to work 12h a day on a factory floor making cheap electronics or clothes?
Is "industry" just iPhones and TVs then? "Oh but America will have highly automated industry!" Yeah that is the point. If the workers can't be at the factories they'll have to be working some other useless shit that creates no value. Japan is a good example of how a high tech industry can't solve neoliberalism. Even without US interference the Japanese economy suffers inherent problems.
The imperial core got extremely low labor productivity growth. This is due to the also incredibly low profitability at home, no investment in manufacturing tech and research because its not profitable equals low productivity growth.
I'm not saying Japan = US at all, but rather the same general hurdle exists for every imperialist nation.
Finaly is not understand the limitations of Trump's own character, there is no plan other than short term political grifiting. He literaly scams his supporters. His merch is all made in China.
MAGA sees themselves as small business owners soon to be millionaires, the usual idiot driving a modern tank and a $800k mortgage even though he will probably not retire and can't afford a serious medical emergency.
Trump and MAGA communism is incapable of looking at these people pointing them to a factory floor and saying "this is where we need you!" because Trump sees himself as a smart money maker guy. A negotiator, investor, business owner. He spends his time golfing etc.
This is exactly why MAGA communism will remain as an online phenomenon. There are no MAGA chuds looking forward to hugging the flag while working on a factory floor.
This is what zero Marxism does to a mfer. You don't need discourse about nationalism and patriotism.
MR got a new post on the US
Also this good comment and mini review of the book Capitalism Unleashed
At this point "Financial capital" vs "industrial capital" may as well be Harry Potter for economists imo. Once more for the "economists" at the back, the US isn't going back to 1950, stop dreaming about it.
Can anyone elaborate on what this means?
I believe he was talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns_versus_butter_model and the inflation crisis soon after during the Vietnam war.
In general this https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/keynes-and-bretton-woods-70-years-later/
That was like a month ago. Wen is not really concerned with the more social aspect of economy, i doubt he is super informed about the social dynamic within western sphere. Also, i don’t expect him to be totally ““woke””because he is pretty old.
i dont expect people to be woke, i expect people to not support nazbol shit