Image is of the Freedom Band performing at the end of the Second National Congress of the Socialist Movement of Ghana, sourced from this article. The same article contains most of the information used in the preamble below.
A little over a week ago, the Socialist Movement of Ghana concluded its second National Delegates Congress in Aburi, gathering 300 delegates from across the country. There, they deepened their commitment to the working class of Ghana and committed to intensifying political education and organization at the grassroots. The SMG itself decided to not electorally contest the 2024 elections in Ghana, but still presented a manifesto, and nonetheless managed to get two SMG members parliamentary seats in the National Democratic Congress.
Anyway, back to the National Delegates Congress: the delegates agreed that the Western imperialist system is now under a profound crisis, in which the likely future is a heightening of brutality, chaos, and resource plundering - a future which must be resisted and organized against.
To summarize their various statements and condemnations:
- Inside Ghana: a commitment to women's rights, youth empowerment, and environmental protection.
- A condemnation of the resource plundering of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by imperialist powers.
- A salute to the people of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, in their campaign against outside imperial control in the Sahel.
- A condemnation of Morocco's illegal occupation of the Western Sahara, and a call for the UN to identify the independence of the Sahwari people.
- A strong condemnation of Israel's genocidal atrocities and massive terrorist operations against nearby countries, and support for Palestinian independence.
- Support for the people of Haiti against outside imperial domination.
- A call for the end of the blockade on Cuba and their removal from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.
- Solidarity with Maduro and the people of Venezuela against the United States.
- A rejection of all imperialist aggression and sanctions against Iran.
- A condemnation of NATO's decades-long military expansion eastwards towards Russia, especially as it has now resulted in massive devastation and risks a third world war.
- And finally, a commitment to Pan Africanism and international solidarity with all oppressed peoples around the world.
A platform I think we all can agree to!
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The Zionist Entity'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.
Ironically this is exactly the same propaganda levelled at the sneaky chinese who are ontologically predisposed towards cheating, "cheating is chinese culture, they cheat at everything!"
The country has been isolationist forever and has made almost no effort to spread internationalism. This attitude is not actually that surprising amongst its population when its leadership have an international attitude of keeping to themselves. The population are only mirroring what the official chinese policy on international engagement is.
If the state's official line is zero solidarity with the international working class then the population holding zero solidarity with the international working class is to be expected.
Agree but I think it's the other way around, if the civil society don't care for proletarian internationalism, the state will reflect that, especially in China.
I agree. And think it's a very dangerous position to be in. What happens if this background national chauvinism evolves into supremacism?
I want to add a theoretical thought that this caused. That one of the bigger problems China has is that the over adherence to the mass line theory has caused it to fall into tailism rather than vanguardism. An issue that can not be corrected without a significant internal struggle and revision.
Not true though. China aided Korea and Vietnam and sacrificed heavily for that. Although you can claim it’s mostly self-preservation because of the proxy wars by the US, at least half a million of the People’s Volunteer Army died fighting against the Americans.
Ironically, it was after opening up under Deng that China had changed its internationalist position. China did invade Vietnam to appease the Americans though, but this is part of the process of being “integrated” into the global market and the neoliberal framework.
These are neighbours and also asian. I would think the reaction is probably not that different to a German and another european, which is mostly fine... Things get totally different when it's neither of those things though.
I feel like people need to study China-Pakistan relations more. China-US, China-Russia/SU, China-Vietnam, China-Korea, and China-India get all the attention while China-Pakistan is an underexplored topic among the left even though the two countries border each other, have a common enemy that also borders them, and have border disputes with each other (and the common enemy).
I don't have a good read of this relationship. My understanding is that China mostly left Pakistan to fend for itself in its various wars with India, but China is apparently the main reason how Pakistan even got nukes in the first place? Pakistan's political class is apparently pro-US, but the vast majority of their weapons are Chinese?
If China didn't help Pakistan jumpstart its nuclear program, which is the official line of China and Pakistan, then the case for Chinese isolationism is clear: China largely kept to itself while Pakistan and India were at war because its default foreign policy is isolationism. China did not intervene because the CPC felt that Pakistan could put up a fight (although they lost East Pakistan/Bangladesh in one of the wars) while China intervened in Korea because Korea was about to be completely overrun by the US. China not militarily helping Pakistan would then lead to Pakistan nuking up because Pakistan needed a trump card against India and could not militarily rely on China.
This is, of course, assuming that China didn't help Pakistan with its nuclear program. If China actually did, which is the official line of the West and India, then China simultaneously not militarily helping Pakistan in its wars but helping Pakistan nuke up is far more perplexing.
China-Pakistan relationship was mostly developed out of anti-Soviet stance.
At the time, India was armed by the USSR, so Pakistan joined forces with China and the US who were already allies and both had an interest in curbing and defeating the USSR.
The JF-17 was initially a joint US-China project between Grumman and Chengdu Aircraft. However, as the USSR was fading away (the US had lesser geopolitical interest in Pakistan now) and with the US imposing sanctions against China following the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, Grumman withdrew from the project while China and Pakistan carried on.
Funny you would say this because the Indian Twitter account I follow makes it sound like it's the opposite: China, Pakistan, and the US teamed up against India in 1971, which then led the SU to team up with India, which forms the foundation of India-Russia relations that lasts to this day.
I don’t think there is contradiction here, Pakistan was the bridge for US rapprochement with China to form the anti-Soviet pact.
By the late 60s, Mao had already decided that the USSR needs to be taken out, and this culminated with the meeting with Nixon in 1972. The US, on the other hand, was also facing certain diplomatic isolation by the international community following the Bangladesh Liberation War, so the two countries formed a marriage of convenience.
Deng’s stance on USSR was completely in line with Mao’s. This much is clear.
What a fucking idiot tbqph
There were genuine concerns about being encircled by “Soviet imperialism”.
In the 70s, this notion was further reinforced by the increasing ties between the USSR and Vietnam (who just fought against the US), that the USSR was attempting to encircle China through Vietnam, eventually leading to the Mao-Nixon thawing of relations to build an anti-Soviet pact.
I struggle to understand this mindset. Were they genuinely afraid of Soviet invasion? What were they basing that on?
I agree with and understand their concerns about Soviet chauvinism relative to other socialist countries but the Chinese response seemed like a massive overreaction.
Also to be clear I'm not saying Mao was an idiot generally. This was just one of his big fuck ups.
The Sino Soviet split remains the greatest tragedy in the history of socialism, etc etc
Also I don't know if you bother playing in counterfactuals, but do you think if the USSR has weathered the crisis and survived that they would have gotten back on friendly terms with the PRC?
The Sino-Soviet split officially ended when Gorbachev visited China, which incidentally was when the color revolution of 1989 commenced. The timing is not coincidental.
What do you mean by this? Are you saying that the protests were orchestrated by the USSR? Or the USA trying to threaten China into remaining compliant?
To be honest, and this is my personal opinion, if Khrushchev didn't completely disregard Stalin's legacy with his secret speech the Sino-Soviet Split probably wouldn't have happened.
Another likely factor was the pre-existing fear of China being invaded and occupied yet again by the great powers, because you have to remember that China just came out of the 'Century of Humiliation' a little over a decade ago, and they also just repelled a potential American invasion in the Korean War even more recently.
Also, as another user said earlier, PRC-USSR ties did start improving again during the Gorbachev era, but ofc we never got to see how that would have progressed.
Pakistan (in modern times) uses it's nuclear power status to essentially "blackmail" the USA and China into providing military support to ensure that the "nukes don't fall into the wrong hands", given the unstable civil and political environment. That's how they can operate both F-16s and J-10s, and talk about getting more Chinese weapons while also being very friendly with the United States. It's also why the military has so much power as an institution. Right now they're looking at more Chinese weapons, in the next decade they'll probably talk about getting more American stuff once they've felt that they've got everything they can from China.