Image is from this Black Agenda Report article by the Communist Party of Kenya.
In June, large anti-government protests shook Kenya. President Ruto and his parliament were attempting to pass the new Finance Bill 2024, which, among other things, would have hiked taxes on the population, with a 16% sales tax on bread and a 25% duty on cooking oil, as well as new taxes on financial transanctions and vehicle ownership. There would also have been levies on women's sanitary products and digital goods such as phones, among other measures affecting hospitals.
Hundreds of protestors stormed the parliament building and began to tear the place apart. Shortly afterwards, on June 26th, Ruto announced that he was withdrawing the bill, calling the tens of deaths and hundreds of injuries "unfortunate". A couple weeks later, Ruto then fired his entire cabinet (aside from his foreign minister) and communicated his wish to the nation to form a "broad-based government". Funnily enough, in July, it was announced that the majority of positions were to be filled by members of the old cabinet, while other positions were taken by members of the opposition. This has prompted scepticism among the population, including calls to resign, but there haven't (yet) been any major anti-government events to pressure this outcome. The Communist Party of Kenya has been working to get some of their comrades back after they were abducted by the police during the protest period, and have otherwise supported the protests against Ruto.
The measures in the bill were strongly encouraged by the IMF. Kenya's debt is currently around $80 billion, of which about 10% is owed to China for infrastructure projects (such as a railway linking the capital, Nairobi, to the port city of Mombasa, as well as 11,000 kilometers of road throughout the country). The rest is owed to a combination of the US, IMF, World Bank, and Saudi Arabia. More than half of government revenue is going towards repaying the debt - but despite these massive payments, it has only grown. The most recent round of IMF plundering (and the impetus for current events) began in 2021, when they offered a 38-month programme to "help" Kenya, which would involve the usual warfare on the poor and the dismemberment of any useful societal institutions.
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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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
All the Americans on the news mega must read these articles investigating the co-optation of pro Palestine movement happening right now.
The Uncommitted Movement is uncommitted to resistance, committed to the establishment!
Uncommitted to Resistance, Committed to Donors, Part II
bbbbbbut the democrats will solve everything! what about trump?! smh you don't understand the NUANCE of being PRO GENOCIDE
The articles were unequivocally correct, the "uncommitted" movement was way the fuck too little
The movement should be NEVER VOTE DEM AGAIN
I thiught the content about the cesspool of ngos was wild.
Been saying this since Oct 7 (and before, but emphasizing different reasons). And it only becomes more true each day. IDK if KKKopmala stopped the genocide tomorrow. She's already done 10 months of fucking genocide. WAAAAAAAAAAAY too fucking late.
So do we need to use the fucking Ludovico Technique to make these people read theory
What's Ludovico technique
reference to a fictional method of aversion therapy where someone is forced to view something while experiencing unpleasant stimuli, from the novel A Clockwork Orange as well as the film
(cw: NATOpedia) Ludovico Technique
Right. Everything has to be in tiktok form these days for people to consume. It's sad.
Thanks for explaining.I read more of that wiki page than I probably should have. British art is quite horrifying 😳
A Clockwork Orange torture scene where the guy's eyelids are forced open
I'm not sure I agree, it doesn't look like this will shake out that way. No one should be under the illusion that the 'uncommitted' represented anything outside of the democratic party but the categorical refusal to even let them speak some weak-ass Harris-supporting horseshit at the convention doesn't look like a coherent or successful plan to retain the 'pro-palestine' votes. Harris could've just lied, played nice, and gotten an endorsement from them. but she didn't, and doubled down yesterday/today in an interview. I don't expect 'uncommitted' to come out anti-Harris officially or anything, but I very much expect an effort to turn whatevers left of it to Harris won't bear much fruit.
I think we read different articles
...
Good post 🫡
The left part of this astroturf diagram is like the electoralism equivalent of horseshoe theory. How deluded do they need to be to place Trump voters as being one logical step from voting for the Greens? They're blinded by their own propaganda which can only see third party votes as spoilers, because they can only think in terms of a binary voting system. I hope their ignorance continues because ignorance means shit theories unable to predict behavior
I don't disagree with the overall thesis that Uncommitted is uncommitted to Palestinian resistance and will likely funnel voters back into the Democrats, a number of key quotes are unsourced and the attack on JVP for being "Soros funded" is extremely whack:
JVP has been a genuine, serious member of the movement in the US. IfNotNow is a pretty lib org that JVP should not be lumped in with.
It's a little off on DSA too, IMO. It characterizes it as a whole organization, but DSA's politics varies widely. The local chapter I participated in for a while decided not to engage in electoralism at all, for example, except to re-engage a bit after Bernie's absolute capitulation and be one of the strong voices in support of DSA not endorsing another Democrat (ever, in our case, though a lot of other chapters at least decided it should be true for that particular election). National sucks, and chapters can be either liberal bullshit or radical leftist spaces depending on the location and structure of the chapter.
EDIT: To clarify, we didn't even agree to endorse Bernie, but we especially agreed afterward to (also) not endorse other Democrats.
Your smuggling in of an anti-genocide flag to the floor of the DNC. My...burning down of...some, ah, stuff....in Minecraft. 🤷