Image is from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ recent article on Kashmir.
It looks like the spat between India and Pakistan could be dying down, due to a new ceasefire. As of the time of me writing this paragraph, it seems both sides want to maintain it (despite some reports of violations here and there).
Both sides have declared victory, which is completely expected given their mutual political parties and nationalist histories. It’s a little harder to say which side has actually won, as both sides seem to have managed to shoot down aircraft and hit military bases. India has, in my opinion, had the more embarrassing moments, but international conflicts aren’t cringe compilations. I feel no good-will towards Pakistan’s comprador government, but it is at least nice to see Modi knocked down a few pegs. Regardless of the final technical victor, it’s obvious that - if the ceasefire is maintained - who won are the hundreds of millions of people who won’t have to live in fear of dying in nuclear hellfire.
This conflict is a good example of what multipolarity will truly entail. Countries that have been previously limited in their nationalist ambitions by American pressure will now take opportunities to revolt, sometimes against America itself, and sometimes against other countries in their regional neighbourhood. It’s also why, as communists, our goals do not stop at multipolarity; it is merely the establishing act of a new era of agitation against peripheral and semi-peripheral capitalist countries that are forming powerful national bourgeoisie classes as the international American capitalists are forced away.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
The New York Times has released a detailed report on why Trump prematurely ended the bombing campaign on Yemen. The article states the following:
After 30 days of strikes, Trump wanted a status report on Yemen. The status report concluded that the U.S. had failed to achieve air superiority, that drones were being shot down at an unprecedented rate, and that the U.S. had spent over a Billion dollars in the first month alone.
Omani officials told Steve Witkoff that the U.S. would be offered a way out of the campaign, but only if Trump agreed to direct talks with Yemen that did not include Israel, to which the President agreed. Saudi Arabia provided the U.S. with a list of 12 Houthi officials to assassinate, in order to ‘cripple’ the Yemeni movement. None were killed.
Several F-16 and F-35 jets were almost shot down by Houthi air defenses, marking a significant threat to American lives and elevating worries about a possible future confrontation with Iran. The U.S. used many advanced precision ammunitions, including bunker busters, but it had very little effect on Houthi infrastructure.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth tried to convince Saudi Arabia and the UAE to sponsor a renewed ground offensive in Yemen, but they declined.
- Telegram
Martyrs and injured after a zionist airstrike on Nasser Medical Complex in central Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
One of the martyrs is journalist Hassan Islayeh who was receiving treatment for injuries sustained from a previous attack.
PKK are reportedly disarming and disbanding
https://apnews.com/article/turkey-kurdish-militants-disarm-9f4347a04cba48ceb509d2e82023a19e
Foolishness, the Turks are just gonna escalate now without opposition
Anti Kurd bashing is a major plank of right-wing Turkish parties, they’re not gonna give that up just because the PKK disarms “The terrorists are still armed in Iraq” is what’s coming next
What a shitshow
Many people are rightfully angry about Trump’s assault on public institutions, but I believe the endgame is far more sinister than “fascists are dumb and fell for the DEI bullshit so they sabotage their own country”.
One question I’ve seen some people raising is: why don’t the bourgeois elites do something about it? Why let Trump ravage cut off billions of university fundings and cleaving off many government agencies that serve actual purposes, to the detriment of even the bourgeois class itself?
Well, if you follow the trajectory to its endpoint, it all makes sense. The bourgeois class is poised to reap the ultimate benefits of Trump’s misbehavior.
Many people can see the goal of ultimately privatizing these government agencies, but this is not just a mindlessly forced privatization of public institutions. Instead, it is to foment a new narrative about the perils of nationalization.
As people are becoming increasingly critical about billionaires and private capital owning large chunks of the economy, left wing narrative on nationalization has gained traction in recent years, at least in reasserting control on critical sectors.
In my opinion, Trump has correctly demonstrated the true unfettered authority of the federal government. Yes, the executive branch can really do all that and get away with it, in spite of what the Democrats tell you about the complex rules and Republican obstructionism. The federal government is so powerful that it can literally tax away all the wealth of the billionaire class and get away with it. Not even Harvard backed by multi-billion private capital can possibly fight the authority with the power of the purse. The government can end homelessness and give free universal healthcare in a moment’s notice.
These would have infinitely improved the lives of the people and curbed the political and economic influence of the wealthy elites. But… there is a BUT:
What if the government use its authority for nefarious purposes, like Trump is doing right now?
“What, you want universities to be funded by the government? Have you seen what Trump has done? Do you want billions of funding to be abruptly cut off just because right wingers are scared of DEI? That’s why you need FREE MARKET! No matter your ideology, there will be someone willing to finance your institutions. Free market is DIVERSITY! Nationalization is authoritarianism where absolute power will absolutely corrupt!”
I think when Trump’s shenanigans finally end, a new wave of criticisms against the excess power of the federal government would emerge. This will lead to further decentralization of its authority, and pave the way towards mass privatization with consent manufactured.
I haven’t seen people from the left talking about this and I think that if the left is serious, they have to start conceiving of counter-narratives, or else they’ll just be caught off guard by this new phase of capitalism, once again. Remember when the American left completely failed to achieve any concession on healthcare during Covid because they were so afraid of being seen as touting right wing conspiracy theories? Same principles here.
I think one thing we all are missing is that thinking state is slave to the capital. State serves capital but at the end of the day, state is the only owner of legitimate violence. Capital donates to the parties so parties don’t fuck them over when they win because state stil has the power. Parties won’t destroy their own power
Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t think they needed consent manufacturing. Consent has been manufactured long time ago. They always had the rhetoric of “using your power to do stuff is dictatorship, less you use power, less of a dictator you are”. They could have destroyed the power after winning with this rhetoric. Besides, they could have done it even without manufactured consent
I’m not sure what exactly you’re flagging that you think “the left” is missing. The DNC are feckless controlled opposition, presumably that isn’t the left you mean. For anyone else, it’s pretty clear that Trump/modern republicanism is a continuation of starve the beast for everything but the security-carceral state, which ends in privatization of social services and exclusion of who those services are available and accessible to.
US Dollar appreciated a bit but not anywhere enough to offset much of the impact of the tariffs, still down around 6% from the Trump election pre-inaugration peak.
