Image is the famous photograph Raising a Flag Over the Reichstag, taken during the Battle of Berlin.
On Friday is May 9th, which is the 80th anniversary of Victory Day, which Russia, among other places, celebrates as the day when the Soviets defeated the Nazis. Naturally, one of the current hotspots of fascism in the world today, Ukraine, is essentially threatening that they might strike Russia or even Moscow itself during that timeframe. Any such strike would almost certainly be symbolic and not aimed at anything too important, as I doubt even Zelensky and his American handlers would actually want to kill a world leader, not least somebody like Xi Jinping. But I would not be surprised if they tried something nonetheless, if only to disrupt the event in some way and not actually kill anybody.
And, as we're on this topic, @EllenKelly@hexbear.net has reminded me that Tuesday is the anniversary of the Nazis burning the Institut für Sexualwissenschaf in 1933, an early institute advocating for the rights of LGBT people, and which also provided early forms of gender-affirming surgeries, as well as hormone therapies. We are currently seeing a crackdown on LGBT rights throughout swathes of the imperial core (as well as countries in the periphery, to the extent that those rights existed there already), and this Nazi-inspired movement will be similarly defeated in the future.
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
If you have evidence of Israeli 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 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.
How much is the India Pakistan shit a
moment?
spoiler
Accounting for nukes, ofcIt’s an opposite of that. China has the correct response, pushing for de-escalation and peace. India is in BRICS and Pakistan is a Chinese military ally and Belt and Road member. This war only further consolidates India as anti-BRICS and pro-west, where it previously straddled the line (they never sanctioned Russia, and helped them bypass sanctions). India would be taking the path of Ukraine, becoming a western proxy and in doing so dooming their own population. Pakistan is much smaller but it has nukes and it has allies.
India was never even partially anti-western though. Specifically the Russian oil sanctions issue was more them being extremely selfish and opportunistic. They just saw the opportunity to buy very cheap Russian oil which boosted their own economy and then they refined and re-exported to Europe.
There is definitive proof of this as India has steadily reduced their Russian oil imports as Russia raised prices again and yet the sanctions remained.
Don't take it from me, here.
An opportunistic, selfish, fascist piece of garbage government was not doing anti-western action just for price gauging Europeans in 2022 any more than I would call Exxon Mobil and Shell for doing the same.
I just think all those BRICS cheerleading analysis putting India as some undecided middle man was just terribly wrong in hindsight.
By the way, don't look, India wasn't the only one. There was never any sort of anti-western from these clowns.
This war has a potential to kill a lot of people, it's not a joking matter
I'm not really joking, this is about how this benefits geopolitical anti-imperialism shrug
In that case:
Both India and Pakistan are major global south countries who play by the imperialist rules to varying degrees (India, to my knowledge, has a higher degree of autonomy than Pakistan). Any conflict between them directly leads to the death of many members of the global proletariat and the weakening of the position of these two countries on the world stage, and the global south as a whole. They're is no benefit for global anti-imperialism to be found here.
Another point to consider: Kerala in India has a very promising communist project going on. It already eliminated extreme poverty and has widespread support. Showing successes, it can serve as an inspiration for other projects in the imperial periphery (so called third world).
But Modi is a reactionary who could use the tensions with Pakistan to crack down on internal dissent and do reactionary things to the people of Kerala. So even without an escalation the current situation could lead to worsening conditions for the proletariat.
India and Pakistan have still technically confronted eachother more violently in previous battles before now, and since both became nuclear powers.
It has the potential to be very bad, especially with Pakistan's nuclear doctrine, but these are still limited tot-for-tat strikes with no suggestion that either side will breach the LOC.