Image is of Rixi Moncada of the LIBRE Party voting in the election.
On November 30th, Hondurans voted to choose their next President, as well as deputies to the Congress, councillors, and other candidates. Like all elections in Latin America, the looming shadow of American intervention will be a major factor in deciding the winner. In this election, that intervention has been fairly naked, with Trump literally stating who he wishes to win (the far-right nationalist guy, Nasry Asfura). Asfura has said that if he does not win, American funding to the country will dry up - a clear threat - and Trump has additionally pardoned the former Honduran president and US ally Juan Orlando Hernández, imprisoned for smuggling cocaine into the US.
The other candidates in this election are Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, who is essentially running on the same platform as Asfura with some differences (such differences would inevitably vanish if he were to win); and Rixi Moncada of the progressive (self-described as democratic socialist) LIBRE Party. The narrative about this election is - try not to yawn - the neverending battle of democracy against communism. This narrative is obviously very important to uphold in the current environment of accelerated aggression against Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and others.
Who is going to win? As of me writing this sentence, the results have not yet been fully reported. However, there has been something of a scandal in regards to a plot - with recorded voices, though those guilty plead AI tampering - to show the best possible preliminary results for the right wing, so as to manipulate the narrative and morale of the population. The idea, is presumably, that if LIBRE were to win, the fascists could say "How did LIBRE go from 20% of the vote (which is what the preliminary results showed) to a victory?! It must be communist meddling!"
Of course, it's entirely possible that LIBRE won't win anyway, or get particularly close. We shall see how things turn out very shortly.
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
MoA on the recently released national security strategy document in the US. No social reactionary brainworms in the past, no guarantees about comments.
This aligns with a lot of the trends we've discussed in trump 2, tide going out on the EU, Taiwan, ukraine, and the eye of sauron focusing on the western hemisphere. I intend to read the underlying later and will post back.
I have to wonder what the play here is. Jack mentions what the US did under Nixon drawing down to gather its strength before springing back onto the world stage to overwhelm and destroy its opposition and reclaim its crown as hegemon and that definitely seems a possibility. I have to wonder about time-scale.
Is the US doing this specifically with the knowledge of climate change and how it plans to continue to accelerate the climate collapse which will hit China much harder than the US, will take India out of the picture, and will leave climate fortress US which has already drawn its cards/strength close to it in a great position to strike out and force bending of the knee from ailing other parts of the world? Russia is also going to be in a relatively strong position in terms of their situation under climate change compared to say western/southern/eastern Europe and nothing to say compared to west Asia/Middle East and India. Which might track with Trump's attempted rapprochement with them. Because I will never believe the US is going to just cede power peacefully to a new order. But retreating temporarily, gathering as much strength as they can, fortifying their own position, biding their time then planning to strike out some time in say the latter half of this century as climate change is really hitting home seems very much US style. Of course subversion would continue during that, attempts to undermine the CPC, attempts to fragment China, sew separatism, and yes even more exotic means like biological warfare attacks on crops and people that are just careful enough that they can't be definitively linked to the US. One can only hope this plan goes awry but under this idea of using climate change as a weapon there would be a necessity to still secure certain resources, minerals and such critical for high technology, to subjugate or ensnare African nations, some LatAm nations within their web of control to deny them to China.
Of course this could all be a big feint just to consolidate a few more key pieces of control and then in the 2030s (much sooner than waiting for climate change to really hit) they turn the screws on China economically using their control of waterways, key transit points, land trade, etc to force them to deal with the US gatekeeper to trade with the rest of the world.
hard to say, but @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net has posted a lot about the financial end of the american empire gaining access to/control over chinese constructed infrastructure. even with US hard power relatively waning, the dollar as reserve currency gives the fed and the US gov't a huge amount of power to shape affairs. the US is far more financially powerful relative to adversaries than they are militarily powerful.