Or perhaps the end of the beginning, if you're a little more pessimistic.
Image is from this Bloomberg article, from which I also gathered some of the information used in the preamble.
While Trump was off in the Middle East in an incompetent attempt to solve a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis, China has been doing something much more productive.
Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, had a summit with CELAC (a community of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries). There, he promised investment, various declarations of friendship, and visa-free entry for 30 days for citizens of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. Lula signed over 30 agreements with China. Colombia is joining the New Development Bank and hopes to gain the money for a 120-kilometer railway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as an alternative route to the Panama Canal. Even Argentina, ruled by arch-libertarian and arch-dipshit (but I repeat myself) Milei, was uncharacteristically polite with China as he secured a currency swap renewal to shore up their international reserves.
It wouldn't really be correct to say that Latin America is "siding with China over the US" - leaders in the region will continue to make many deals with America for the foreseeable future, and even Trump's bizarre economic strongman routine won't make them break off economic and diplomatic relations. What's significant here is that despite increasing American pressure for those leaders to break off all ties with China, few appear to be listening - and given that China is perhaps the most important economy on the planet right now, that is a very predictable outcome.
As the current American empire takes actions to try and avoid their doom, those very actions only guarantee it. As Latin America grows ever more interconnected with China and continues to develop, America will grow ever more panicked and demanding, and this feedback loop will - eventually - result in the death of the Monroe Doctrine.
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.
translation from unsere zeit, the communist party newspaper in germany:
Five years since the murder of George Floyd - No turning point
article text
On May 25, 2020, the Minneapolis police killed George Floyd. Police officer Derek Chauvin suffocated him by pressing his knee on George Floyd's neck for around nine and a half minutes. The racist police killing sparked protests around the world.
On the evening of May 25, 2020, officers from the Minneapolis Police Department in Minnesota stopped George Floyd. The 46-year-old Floyd had been accused of paying for a pack of cigarettes with counterfeit money. Videos recorded by passers-by show three police officers restraining George Floyd on the ground. Other officers prevent passers-by from helping Floyd. "I can't breathe", Floyd keeps saying to Chauvin, who is kneeling on his neck. Chauvin only pulls his knee back when a paramedic asks him to let go of Floyd. George Floyd dies shortly afterwards in hospital.
Police killings are not uncommon in the USA. 1,160 people were killed by police officers there in 2020 alone, the year in which George Floyd also entered the casualty statistics. His murder sparked protest and resistance all over the world. In the USA, millions of people took to the streets under the slogan "Black lives matter". They demanded an end to institutionalized racism, racist police violence and the culture of impunity for perpetrators in uniform. The mobilization surpassed even that following the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968.
George Floyd's murderer Chauvin had to stand trial just under a year after the crime. In June 2021, he was sentenced to 22 years and 6 months in prison. It is the first time in Minnesota's history that a police officer has been convicted of the murder of a black man. It is the highest sentence ever imposed on a police officer in Minnesota. One of George Floyd's family's lawyers calls the sentence a "turning point" in US history. Several of Chauvin's colleagues received multi-year prison sentences for assisting in Floyd's arrest or for not assisting Floyd himself.
Five years after the police murder of George Floyd, we are further than ever from justice for him. National police reform is on hold. The US Department of Justice recently announced that it would stop investigating police officers accused of racist police violence. Voices from within the US government calling for Floyd's murderer to be pardoned are growing louder.
In 2024, police officers shot at least 1,260 people in the USA - a new record.
The police murder of George Floyd also triggered demonstrations in Germany. In 2024, police officers killed 22 people in Germany - another record. Here, too, no political countermeasures are being taken. On the contrary: during a question and answer session in the Bundestag on Wednesday, MPs from the CDU and AfD, among others, called for more powers for police officers, including "lower-threshold" use of firearms.
Mostly we demanded that the police be defunded (
), because it's the only way to move torward those things. Kind of shameful not to mention that, TBH. It was a very concrete, measurable, achievable goal, but the article makes it sound like the demands were incredibly vague and nebulous ("Just stop being racist, bro!").
It was also widely supported by even white americans then January 6 happened and they switched back to "defend democracy" mode
Yeah. Shit is absolutely fucking shameful. AOC (and several other "Squad members") abstaining on the Capitol Police funding bill and letting it pass by a single vote. Then her, in particular, shrugging and going, "My constituency didn't tell me hard enough how they wanted me to vote."
She literally could have abolished the police with her own hands and would have faced little public backlash.