Image is from this article, showing a march by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela Youth. The preamble's information came from a few sources, such as here, here, and here.
Over the last few weeks, pressure on Venezuela from the US has mounted as their newest proxy, Gonzalez, lost the election to Maduro. The Trump administration now alleges that Maduro is the mastermind behind the "Cartel of Suns," raised the bounty on Maduro's head from $25 million to $50 million, and is working to deploy troops and naval assets to the region.
While I would not consider myself an expert, I believe an explicit boots-on-the-ground campaign by the US in Venezuela would be, at best, implausible, though the administration has not explicitly denied it (and even if it did deny it, denials by the US are merely confirmations that are being delayed). What seems much more likely is an intensification of a subversive campaign against Venezuela which seeks to further isolate it, with intelligence from the US given to whatever groups and individuals exist inside the country. There are certainly some parallels in regard to recent US belligerence towards Mexico, with both countries being implicitly or explicitly threatened with military force under the guise of "preventing drug trafficking" - and, of course, spreading drugs is one of America's greatest specialities.
Will this work? I don't know, though I am optimistic about Venezuela's chances. The Venezuelan government does seem to be taking this threat with a refreshing degree of seriousness - with over 4 million militia members being activated across the country as of August 18th, as well as a call from Maduro to the armed forces to be on high alert. The socialist youth of Venezuela are being mobilized in defense of the revolution.
Last week's thread is here.
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Israel's Genocide of Palestine
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 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.
While I do think India working with China is good, it doesn't solve its problem. It's reliant on the US for demand. Will China be willing to accept Indian goods at a scale that it more or less cancels out decline in exports to the US? Unlikely, given China's love for exports and low internal purchasing power.
The second option is internal demand. However, the Indian Government has made it clear that it'll be fiscally prudent. To be "fiscally prudent" and increase internal demand at the same time requires taxing the rich, which won't happen. So, demand, output and employment goes down.
China’s import has cratered (-10% yoy from India!) while export has gone up, so lots of goods are being dumped outside of the US right now.
We’re seeing that a few Latin American countries are already moving to impose VAT on international parcels because Temu and Shein are destroying the local businesses. Mexico is going to start imposing tariffs on Chinese goods with the 2026 budget this month to protect its domestic industries.
Meanwhile, domestic consumption remains depressed in China, with home prices continuing to fall. The government still thinks it’s all about “market confidence” and hoping that the bullish stock market will stimulate consumption (mostly from stock-owning middle class) but it is the vast majority of the working class that has run out of money to spend. How else is China going to have the purchasing power to import from other countries?
The pendulum swing back to relying on the export sector, now that the infrastructure building era is entering its terminal phase, is obviously concerning.
Probably have to wait for official readouts from both the Chinese and Indian governments to assess the situation better. And most importantly, what the 15th Five Year Plan to be announced next month will have in store for us?
Do not be misled by simple headlines. In the case of Brazil this is a complete farce.
Lula introduced a new import tax on Chinese cheap imports but only targetting regular people, not businesses.
In actuality the local capitalists do not care where they get their cheap products from, the only thing they care is that they are the ones with the monopoly on retail.
Large scale retail chains never gave a shit about cheap imports, in fact they love it. However with the internet of direct shipping from China people everywhere are just crossing out the middle man, the local retailers, and importing directly through these sites.
There is even a large issue to blame here on Amazon too which is now dominant in even these countries, Amazon which notoriously also ships white label from China.
Of course small capitalists can't fight Amazon, so they'll fight Alibaba and Shein, but not even, they'll fight their own people to stop them from buying while these physical stores can keep their remaining share of the retail market.
https://rupeindia.wordpress.com/2025/08/28/this-diwali-gift-wont-relieve-the-economic-slump/
damn it's that time already