A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of Iran's President, Pezeshkian, holding up an image mid-speech at the UN memorializing the girls and teachers killed by an American missile strike on the Minab school.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleThe two big international events of the last week have been the UN summit in New York, where Pezeshkian among many others gave various speeches, and the visit by Xi Jinping and various Chinese figures to the US. While it's important to never fully discount the wider diplomatic angle of the conflicts raging around the world, by this point it should be clear to most people that the fundamental disagreements are too acute to be solved or even ameliorated with words, and there are no countries in the "international community" to "convince" to come over to your side through expert oratory and rhetoric. There is now only the language of explosives, blockades, and sanctions. Pezeshkian in particular gave a reasonably good speech, but I still believe that personally flying to the country that has committed so many crimes against his own country and its allies was not the correct move, and should have been left to Araghchi. And the difference between the US's and China's material interests are separated by too wide a canyon to be bridged by words promising cooperation and partnership.

Over in Yemen, the Saudis have intensified airstrikes on Ansarallah, which continues to make slow but steady territorial gains, particularly around Taizz, and have also repelled Saudi assaults from the north. These Saudi airstrikes have hit some military infrastructure, but also a lot of civilian infrastructure, including explicitly humanitarian buildings like those supplying food. To me, this doesn't seem strategically or tactically effective, especially with so much of your own oil infrastructure in ballistic missile range, but I suppose there's not many options left for the Saudi regime. Meanwhile, the situation in Hormuz flared up on the weekend, with a record(?) number of missiles fired at ships trying to traverse the Omani route. In related news, there's been a recent tick up in sailor and marine casualties admitted by the US, indicating either that Iran scored a significant hit on a US naval vessel during its anti-ship ballistic missile strikes (and those ships have now retreated much further away, which is a data point in favour of that hypothesis, but otherwise we have no visual evidence), or that US military personnel are taking a major role in attempting to move oil through Iran's blockade by manning at least some of the tankers.

Claims that oil transits out of the Middle East have returned almost to normalcy can be trivially contradicted by third grade mathematics and the evidence of our senses: namely, increasing worldwide shortages and growing considerations for rationing diesel and other such oil products. Indeed, the potential for shortages has now risen to the extent that Trump briefly suggested an diesel export ban. However, I'll admit that the situation in Hormuz has become much harder to follow for everybody involved than it was in March and April. Nowadays, some vessels are moving through Iran's prearranged passage, there is undeniably quite a bit of oil getting out through ports that don't need to go through Hormuz like Fujairah, and meanwhile, there are theories and rumors of widely varying degrees of dubiousness of temporary arrangements of Iran not firing on vessels traversing the Omani route in exchange for such-and-such hypothetical benefits, perhaps even including Iranian oil getting mixed into some of the vessels. And on top of all of that, you have to take into account China's curious moves in the oil markets, which have substantially influenced supplies and prices since March.

In that environment, it's hard not to have at least an iota of sympathy for the tanker trackers of the world who are trying to get some concrete information while everybody makes unsupported claims. The aforementioned intensified Iranian strikes on the Omani route are a data point in favour of ships getting through when they shouldn't - otherwise, they'd have nothing to be striking, unless they're just providing enrichment and employment to any divers trying to disarm naval mines - and so we'll just have to see whether Iran will allow the current situation of a slightly leaky Hormuz to continue for reasons unknown to us, or now truly drop the hammer on illegal strait transits to put pressure on the US. The other big new item lately around Iran has been some of their airlines being sanctioned, which several countries in the region seem to be obeying, while others around the world, like China, aren't intimidated. This been of particular significance in regards to Iraq, where there have been major protests about reopening flights between Iran and Iraq, and we'll have to see where that goes next.

Perhaps little of major significance will occur in the war until the midterms are over. Nothing I've seen so far indicates to me that Democrats will put up a serious opposition to Trump's war efforts except in very particular and isolated cases, and so from a purely non-domestic, geopolitical perspective, I expect the midterm results to change nothing. Political "gridlock" and "lame duck periods" exist as illusory excuses for the general population to prevent positive things from occurring domestically; they are not hurdles that exist in reality when the American bourgeoisie all agree on a course of action, such as attempting (now in vain) to stop Iran, Russia, and China. Slightly more interesting will be the results of the Zionist elections, but only slightly. On the one hand, it would be satisfying to see the current party lose power, but on the other, it has been their sheer incompetence that has, over just a few years, led the occupation into the greatest crisis of their short history. Nothing about their domestic or foreign policy seems likely to change, as they have dug themselves too deep into the hole now. Also coming up is the Brazilian elections, where Lula is once again facing off against another Bolsonaro. I wish him the best, but I worry that the margin of victory for a non-comprador party outside the West now needs to be pretty damn high to overcome foreign voter suppression efforts and accusations of election fraud by pro-US organizations, and the current margins in the polls are not terribly encouraging by that measure.


Last week's thread is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist 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 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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[–] 83 points 3 days ago* (19 children)

Tennessee inmate still alive after being administered two lethal injections, her lawyer says

She seems to have been hospitalized after the second failed attempt:

An ambulance was seen arriving at the prison where Pike was to be executed and then leaving. Medical aid was being administered, according to online federal court records.

She has been on death row for over 30 years for a murder she committed at 18. Article says she has OCD and a history of being abused, the death sentence would almost certainly not have been given nowadays.

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  • [–] 40 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    Recently, she [Victim's mother] said, she has refused to communicate with Pike directly. The only way she can get justice now is when she watches Pike be executed.

    “I will sit there with her picture in my hand,” Martinez said of her daughter, “and as she gets hooked up to a needle to go to sleep, she can look at the picture.”

    The American ""justice"" system has done well to cultivate such a bloodthirsty, cruel, and downright fascist mentality in the minds of victims to violent crime. It leeches into the media perception of crime, and in turn enters the wider "Western world" to the point we see people clamouring for similar gruelling capital punishments to return around the world!

    Admittedly, many of us communards also bare this ideology in our minds, though perhaps with more qualifiers attached*. But, the urge to beget violence on a systemic level as a response to crimes, even the repugnant ones ofremoved, murder, abuse, etc., is something that we must continue to dissect and critique.

    * and, to add a qualifier of my own, I should note that my argument is referring to criminal punishment as a system, rather than the violence inherent in a revolutionary context which should follow a different (albeit related) critique.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 days ago* (2 children)

    I’ve been reading a collection of speeches/essays/letters from Tomás Borge, one of the founding members of Nicaragua’s FSLN. At least in his writings, he’s very consistent and persistent in how the revolution needs to keep violence in check, and bases this explicitly in his Christian faith. Apparently when he met the man who had tortured and murdered his wife, he chose to forgive the man, rather than call for his execution or any sort of violent retribution. And he physically intervened to stop a group of peasants who were about to kill a bunch of Somoza’s men they had captured.

    It’s definitely challenging my perspective, but I have more reading to do. I don’t know how many of these spared soldiers and shock troops came back to cause issues for the revolution down the line.
    I think it mostly has me thinking about the “making a new person” aspect of the revolution and how to most effectively make that happen, and to what ends.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 days ago

    It’s definitely challenging my perspective, but I have more reading to do.

    Reading any abolitionist literature was so hard for me at first because even though I didn't want to admit it, I was so consumed with thinking revenge = justice that id just not actually read to understand and then obviously didn't understand.

    But that experience really reigned in my reactive tendencies because once I got over myself I felt so cringe

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  • [–] 8 points 2 days ago

    Interesting!

    As for my take on the revolutionary side of capital punishment, I'm also an advocate for a route towards mercy even if it may seem counterproductive.

    For any society to reproduce itself, it must produce the material conditions that resolve its internal contradictions. If you cannot do that, then you can imprison, or pardon, as many people as you like and still eventually meet the same fate. There are as many counter-revolutionaries who are motivated by food, warmth, and purpose as there are those who are motivated by ideology alone.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 days ago

    I know this is widespread but I also remember year after year growing up and seeing articles about victim's parents advocating for the murderers of their children to not be executed or treated harshly because they believed it to be morally wrong, didn't want more (usually young) people to die, etc. not everyone automatically gets infected with all the brain worms

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  • [–] 59 points 2 days ago

    this whole thing is just so american. on death row for thirty years, appeal after appeal, a last second (one-hour before) stay, technically 'until further notice', that then actually gets overturned by the supreme court on the same day. and then they can't even fucking do it right, they try twice and she's still alive. just so quintessentially american

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  • [–] 64 points 2 days ago (8 children)

    Hot take: The death penalty in peacetime is abhorrent but if you're absolutely going to do it then at least do it by firing squad. Yes it's messy, yes it's probably traumatising to the people present, but if you're such a big bad boy that you think you have the right to kill someone in cold blood then you're also big enough to deal with the gore that goes with it.

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  • [–] 59 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    Yep. The method isn't chosen to be humane to the executed, but so that people can watch without getting queasy. Tbh lethal injection could easily be done humanely — it's called euthanasia — but those watching want to know that the condemned is suffering, they just don't want to lose their lunch in the process.

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  • [–] 54 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    There's also the "problem" (feature?) of executions not being organized/carried out by a medical professional since they have that whole "do no harm" thing going on & killing someone definitely counts as harm so lethal injections are organized by people with "some medical training". Plus most companies don't want to be selling murder drugs (explicitly at least) so they end up having to source a bunch of sketchy shit. Lethal injection is absolutely for the comfort of those watching and has nothing to do with the condemned (plus any suffering from botched executions is seen as "deserved suffering" by pro-death penalty hard-on-crime chuds)

    If I was being executed & I had a choice in the matter I'd 100% go with firing squad too, it's by far the quickest & least likely to be botched

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  • [–] 37 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    Death penalty is nowadays a “guilt-free” way for certain moralist to enjoy the torture of humans deemed unhuman. Replacing the colosseum spectacles of old, which were more honest in presentation with their bloodsport.

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  • [–] 49 points 2 days ago

    Trump actually legalized it for federal executions not too long ago, and the woman requested essentially "anything but lethal injection" since they keep fucking it up. She was denied, of course. States don't usually do it since, like you mentioned, it's traumatizing for the executioners, and those are the only people being considered here.

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  • [–] 35 points 2 days ago*

    cw violenceIt's too easy too fuck up a hanging, lethal injections are basically torture, maybe guillotines would be fine assuming they keep the blade nice and sharp? Otherwise yeah a 10-man firing squad would probably be quickest

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  • [–] 56 points 3 days ago (2 children)

    What happened to failed executions being a sign to let them live?

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  • [–] 51 points 3 days ago*

    the details of what she went through are horrendous and excessive even for similar types of harm. The governor and multiple other state officials made them go through with it anyway

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