Image is of smoke rising after Iranian missiles impact a US military site in Bahrain.
My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
After a few weeks of both diplomatic and military manuevering - mostly over Iranian control of Hormuz - we have hit the hottest phase of military exchanges since at least the MoU period began. The US has generally focussed on striking southern Iran, although they have also sporadically hit transportation infrastructure elsewhere, which was repaired in less than 24 hours. Meanwhile, Iran has struck a wide range of targets, with an interesting focus on Jordan, but has, up to the time of me writing this, so far relented on striking the Zionist entity. The US and Iran have had little periods of mutual military strikes during the "ceasefire" before, and so it's hard to tell for sure whether this yet another temporary spat or if it represents a full return to the pre-ceasefire conflict.
A complicating factor in this conflict is that Ansarallah has become increasingly active, and seems eager to start to break the siege it has been put under by threatening to attack Saudi Arabia and Saudi-aligned forces. This has put Iran in a somewhat awkward spot. On the one hand, it has greatly helped Ansarallah resist foreign attackers and has even recently sent civilian airplanes into Sana'a to begin to break the siege. On the other hand, Iran has, with China's help, generally desired to improve its relationship with the Saudis over the years. While in this latest war there have been a major dispute between them over whether Iran is "allowed" to strike US military infrastructure located in Saudi Arabia, the Saudis strike me as considerably less anti-Iran as the UAE, let alone the Zionists, and did send a delegation to Khamenei's funeral. I guess we'll just have to see what happens next, but I strongly suspect that Iran is going to help Yemen over the Saudis.
And finally, Lindsay Graham has died of a sudden heart attack a suspiciously short time after visiting Ukraine. He was a true enemy of civilian populations all the way to the end of his life, and he seemed to particularly despise children. He advocated for using nukes against Gaza and the total annihilation of anybody and everybody who had even the meekest criticism of Zionism. If God (and, more pertinently in this case, Satan) does exist, I hope Graham is extended the exact same level of courtesy and respect in the afterlife that Graham extended to all Palestinians.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists' 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
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.
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Stephen Miller says NSPM-7 will lead to the debanking, defunding and disruption of left-wing "political terrorists that are operating in our country."
I hear that translated as a bank run.
pretty cool that "terrorism" is just anything they don't like
It's such a thought terminating cliche too, all you have to say is "oh so you support the terrorists!?!?!?" and there's no further analysis on why someone might do what they did or hold certain opinions.
Why did Hamas try and break out of gaza during October 7? They're terrorists doing terrorism
Why is Iran fighting back against Israel & America? They're a terror supporting state, they're doing terrorism
Why did someone post "death to the IDF" after watching Israeli troops shooting children in the head? Must be posting terrorism, take 'em away boys.
My fucking representative has done this shit, he sent out a mailer ages ago that said "do you support our troops or do you support the terrorists?", if that's the premise of your question then fuck I guess I'm with the "terrorists"
we support the terrorists
It’s always been a propaganda term for describing disparate groups. But never talk about the US and Wahhabism/CIA Al Qaeda connections going back to the brave freedom fighters of Afghanistan.
George Carlin: if firefighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?
So I'm guessing they're going to start wiping their ass with the first amendment even more soon. PSL will start needing a separate underground chapter to rob banks like Stalin did and run things from exile in Cuba or Venezuela or something, like most of the Democratic Socialists did. Faster adaptation will be even more necessary.
And the DSA will have to start reading Lenin. The conditions of the modern socialist movement in the US and Tsarist Russia will start getting closer and closer, which makes reading their struggle and strategies even more important.
Banks are actually garbage targets.
Ive been thinking a lot about the need for underground/illegal organisations after reading shlyapnikov's memoirs of 1914-1917.
He talks a bit about how in less than a decade of semi-legality, so much of the illegal/underground infrastructure and skills atrophied and fell to the wayside (but still existed!) It took a few years for the Party (and the movement more broadly) to shake off the rust and get back into the groove of illegal/underground work.
The left in the west has like a century of rust to shake off, it will be interesting (and nervewracking) to see how we do
I appreciate the revolutionary strategy of the IRGC.
The USSR had a politically neutral military, which led them to stand aside as communism was ripped apart.
The US also has a "politically neutral" military. Many here won't appreciate me using that term, because - yes - the actions of the military are not separate from politics. But the US has a political neutral military in the sense of political autonomy.
China has a political military (or so I've been told), to avoid the downfall we saw in the soviet union.
Iran has 2 militaries. The political military is Sepah (the IRGC - Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) which guards the revolution. The politically neutral military is the Artesh. In the event that the IRGC is defeated and a new style of governance is kept, the country could theoretically still stay together with the Artesh preserving the country's sovereignty.
This is why Iranian diaspora attack the IRGC but not the military (the Artesh). Because they recognize that there is in fact a politically neutral military.
Iran also has militia to help rally communities in defense of the country and the revolution (the Basij). The Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela also has this.
I recommend the Iranian way of doing things. Create a revolutionary entity - Marxist Revolutionary Vanguard Corps (MRVC). Prior to the revolution this forms the vanguard as well as a parallel government. After a revolution, create and preserve neutral government services and institutions. They can also form the Marxist-Lennist Basij (MLB) to build and coordinate with the community and to defend against colour-revolution. In the event of a successful counterrevolution, the MRVC receeds and restarts the process all over again using their existing parallel infrastructure, databases, and operatives.
So if the US kicks your ass (they likely will), you can retreat, recover, and do it all over again until you win.
We will never stop coming at them.
Nonpartisan is probably the better word.
The government of China technically has no military but the CPC has the PLA.
Ah that explains why I remembered the Chinese military as a political one.
debanking was inevitable, better start pulling my shit out as cash
I'm seeing the possibility of a new strain of leftism: goldbug socialists.
Pitched gun battle with sheriff's deputies when local pho restaurant refuses to accept krugerrands for the DSA mixer
Crypto-communists
Rubio also said that the US needs to destroy the "Communist terrorists" or something like that.
What's the point of this? Just sounds like what they always did. Just not in secret, which is a strange tactic. If anything, all they did seems to be just expanding the language of who to persecute.
Debanking is not used at any real scale right now in the US afaik. They'll just start sanctioning individuals and they'll be removed from the formal economy entirely.
It's something that's a real problem. It wasn't practical and they didn't have the person-power back in the day to constantly harass and surveil every single communist. They relied on group intimidation, the fear they MIGHT be watching or listening and targeting leadership. It also wasn't practical to remove someone from the economy during the first red scare through the 70s, people used cash for everything, there were no credit cards, no computerized banking with central connections, no KYC that identified everyone (you could just open accounts, buy plane tickets, live as someone with a false name).
These days it's an attractive turn-key solution. Everything is computerized and connected to central databases with reporting, KYC is everywhere, your bank knows who you really are and you can't get a new bank without them verifying your identity. You can't get or use credit cards without verifying your identity, your gas company has computers that know who you are, your ISP knows who you are. Your employer goes through government verification and background check systems before hiring you. Want to stay at a hotel? They background check you and require a credit card. Want to fly an airline? You're getting background checked. Want to go on a cruise ship? Background checked. Want to rent a new place? Background checked. You can't just move a hundred miles, shake hands after walking in and get a well paying job. You're basically forced into the cash-only economy of extreme below minimum wage exploitation and if your under the table employer finds out you're on a list like this they'll either part ways or start exploiting you even harder.
And of course their computerized, AI-assisted panopticon has come into its own. Flock cameras, social media profiling, ad-tech profiling combined with government databases for complete surveillance and analysis using AI of all that big data to sentiment analyze and categorize you and everyone you interact with in any way.
And the thing is sanctions can be made contagious and they have vast experience with this on the governmental and business level. The computerized systems can flag interactions so if someone helps you and the system finds out? They get slapped with secondary sanctions, investigation, all automated and it derails their life so it discourages people from interacting with anyone under such a regime, it creates a kind of leper class of "unclean" do not touch out of fear you become infected as well.
Yeah it's not good. Every day the panopticon has more resources and fewer blind spots. We're completely unequipped to "go underground", its not even clear what that means at this point. Hopefully we just build enough political strength that our quantity is a deterrent.