Image is sourced from this article.
It takes very little effort to find an article from Western state propaganda decrying Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas as authoritarian and rife with human rights abuses. This is the natural reaction the US has to any successful liberation movement. This fairly long report from Jason Cohen, a socialist who travelled to Nicaragua one week ago, should quell any suspicions.
He describes a country with high political consciousness among the masses, who are working to construct critical infrastructure for the country and their communities. There is a virtual education system that is free across the entire nation, which serves the dual goal of democratizing education and ensuring that those in rural areas or without much free time for university can still achieve degrees and a quality education; and these classes cover technical skills in the production of infrastructure and agriculture, but also political and ideological education in order to counter the fascist propaganda produced by imperialist nations abroad.
While Nicaragua is deeply invested in its nationality and national figures who led to their socialist revolution, such as Sandino, they are also immensely proud of their indigneous history, recognizing it as also part of their anti-colonial history which continues to the present day. Additionally, they honour the struggles of other nations on the continent, such as the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, as well as Castro in Cuba and Allende in Chile. Countries around the world are also celebrated and admired, such as Burkina Faso; during the Reagan administration, Nicaragua and Burkina Faso were comrades in arms, and now Traore is continuing the legacy of Sankara's anti-imperialism in the present. Perhaps most relevant today is their dedication towards Palestine, involving the creation of the Parque Palestina (shown in the post image), in which the Palestinian flag flies alongside the flag of Nicaragua. In July, Leila Khaled of the PFLP gave a speech in Nicaragua, in which the solidarity of the two nations was highlighted.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Nicaragua! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
They are really trying to try and divide the vote with Stein by pointing out she is Pro Assad. While I know a sizable chunk of the Arab diaspora here doesn't like Assad (at least in my experience), I don't think it will work because its purely a protest vote against the genocide in Gaza.
Amazing that American Muslims can see through the Zionist bullshit propaganda regarding Palestine, but when the target is a couple miles north they just swallow up that good state department slop.
They are aware that Assad is part of the axis of resistance and allied to Hezbollah, Ansarallah and Iran right?
The ISIS aligned Syrian Rebels have even come out and condemned Hamas since October 7th and never condemn Israel…
Like what’s going on here? Are these American Muslims just squishy two-staters who don’t support the axis of resistance? Seems so.
It's not just American Muslims though, plenty of Palestinians and Palestinian diaspora do not like Assad. I remember seeing a poll stating that he was one of the most hated political leaders amongst Palestinians. I think it's to do with historical grievances, but I am obviously not Palestinian or from the Middle East, so I don't know the true answer.
there was a whole propaganda campaign on Assad in Arab countries, like there's a book called "في بيت خالتي" about supposed crimes by the Syrian arab army, one of the stories is a guy who got thrown in a bodies pit and forced to eat a corpse or be killed. obviously no sources. somewhat similar strat to the DPRK stuff.
I'm pretty sure a Palestinian refugee camp was bombed by the government forces in the civil war or something like that.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/syria-rebels-and-regime-share-blame-yarmouk-catastrophe Maybe this played a factor?
Might be seeing Arab gusanos whose parents got here from selling out to the Empire / fleeing accountability. Bad strong man would let my parents exploit the people and I would live like a king despite the family owning 10 gas stations here now if it wasn't for bad strong man cummunism yadda yadda.
With protest voters all this can possibly achieve is they don't vote for Stein.
They still won't vote for Kamala, they'll just not vote if you take their protest option away.
That's still a preferable option to the democrat faction of the state party. If voters actively pick a moderate pro-democracy party, there is a record of them rejecting the democrat faction. If they stay home it is easier to spin as voters being lazy or the democrat faction not having "engaged them" and not "told their story" enough. A pro-democracy voter is a political problem, a non-voter is a PR problem.
Sure but that's all after the election is lost optics. Still means they lose. It's a total waste of campaign energy if your goal is winning.
What was the tweet even? https://www.jillstein2024.com/syria
Still confused, pretty sure it was about oil?
https://www.newarab.com/opinion/syria-jill-stein-resorts-odd-conspiracy-theories
De La Cruz 2024
What is this sniveling shit? Looks like Stein is just as cucked to the DNC as Sanders
I've seen people say she owns Raytheon stocks. She is a protest vote.
I have always been planing on writing in the PSL ticket as they are actually doing something to try and build the movement.
I was never going to vote green over PSL but oof
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jill-steins-ideology-says-one-thingher-investment-portfolio-says-another
The libs probably got it right in that she is a grifter. If only they could do something to prevent votes being taken by a grifter.
As for the greens, I liked Howie Hawkins better honestly.
He's probably the best of the Greens, also a longtime Teamster/TDU militant.
Ho-hum Howie? Charisma of a wet sock. But
for him because I'm voting for policies.
It’s easier to host a harmless lib crank than actual socialists
She (and many of the alt media if we're being honest) is controlled opposition.
While I agree this reads like a liberal hit piece, I don’t accept “ooh clean energy etfs invest in fracking and biofuels so it’s basically like all the others” as an excuse. Investments are not iPhones and divestment is not unreasonable to ask. If someone claims to stand for Palestinians but their money is in Raytheon and Boeing, I will question their credentials. Same w the environment and anything else
She's a clown. Nobody should take her seriously.