Image is of a harbor in Tasiilak, Greenland.
NATO infighting? You love to see it, folks.
The latest incident of America's satrapies becoming increasingly unhappy about their mandated kowtowing involves, of all places, Greenland. As I'm sure most people here are aware, Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark with a degree of geopolitical and economic importance - the former due to its proximity to Russia, and the latter due to the proven and potential reserves of minerals that could be mined there. It's also been an odd fascination of Trump during his reign, now culminating in outright demands.
Trump has called for negotiations with Denmark to purchase Greenland, justifying this by stating that it would be safer from Russia and China under America's protection. Apparently, Norway's decision to not give him the Nobel Peace Prize further inflamed him (not that the Norweigan government decides who receives the prizes). He has also said that countries that do not allow him to make the decision - which not only includes Denmark, but also other European countries - will suffer increased tariffs by June, and that he has not ruled out a military solution.
This threat has led to much internal bickering inside the West, with European leaders stating they will not give in to Trump's demands, and even sending small numbers of troops to Greenland. The most bizarre part of this whole affair is that the US already basically has total military access and control over Greenland anyway, and has since the 1950s, when they signed an agreement with Denmark. There are already several US military facilities on Greenland, and B-52 bombers have famously flown in the vicinity of the island (and crashed into it with nuclear bombs in tow, in fact). Therefore, this whole event - in line with his all-performance, little-results presidency so far - seems to be largely about the theatrics of forcing the Europeans to continue to submit to his whims. I would not be surprised if they ultimately do sign a very imbalanced deal, though - the current European leadership is bound too tightly to the US to put up even half-hearted resistance.
This is all simultaneously occurring alongside the Canadian Prime Minister's visit to China in which longstanding sore spots in their bilateral relationship are being addressed, with China reducing tariffs on Canadian canola oilseeds, and Canada reducing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, as well as currency swaps between their central banks, among many other things. It seems no accident that Canada's reconsideration of their relationship with China is occurring as Trump has made remarks about turning Canada into the next US state, as well as the demand for the renegotiation of the USMCA.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
I'm here watching another person getting executed by the Gestapo while having to hear a friend lecture me how I should not say the US is fascist but actually bonapartist/authoritarian because unions are still legal and he had some union guys 1 or 2 times behind him during his campaign.
Like what do you mean??
God I love it when the trotskyists show up with language that hasn't been politically relevant since the 1930's.
It’s why they’re obsessed with newspapers. They believe in a Marxist canon that produced a “recipe” and we simply need to follow that recipe to achieve Communism no further analysis required.
andrew yang and those clowns are essentially bonapartists.
yeah ok nevermind
I was not even aware this is a trotskyist specific term, that was the first time I heard it. They are a trot though.
It's definitely not only Trots. Losurdo has a whole book about Bonapartism. I must admit to not having read it yet, so I will not say what it exactly claims. But I can almost guarantee that it didn't say that the US isn't fascist because of Bonapartism lol
I am unsure as to the nature of how it is used within Losurdo.
In my experience though, it suffers the exact same problem as when liberals use the word 'authoritarian'. It supposedly is a a strict phenomena, wherein one party has a kind of dictatorial authority over everything regardless of class, but in practice, it is applied so generally and so vaguely as to be meaningless, wherein basic functions of any modern state become 'Bonapartist'. In any event, because the Democrats (the political party) themselves are not being subjected to the Gestapo, I would say that the America isn't even truly Bonapartist, it has all the hallmarks of the classical bourgeois dictatorship, as described by Lenin, while rapidly lurching towards fascism, which to be frank, the Fascists based themselves off of our model of governance as much as we based ourselves off of them for the creation of neo-liberalism. It's a dialectic.
Regardless, we are at least two to three major political developments down the line from Bonapartist being a useful description of modern events. We haven't even had a true revolution to be betrayed by a savvy military leader yet.
Well, I'm pretty sure we actually have majorly different reads about agreed upon concrete facts. Because definitionally, I think of fascism as the expropriation through the periphery which is always present in capitalism. And sometimes a periphery is defined internally and other times externally. Bonapartism is only a description of the mask of undemocratic forces working within a political system. I think these are almost entirely tangential (though their interaction is interesting and creates unique situations, of course). I agree that people use the term shittily, but my reading from only reading specific sections of Losurdo is that his definitions are much more grounded and well defined. He's pretty good about that.
This is all to say, I doubt we have any disagreement on strategy or anything based of your comment. I think we are just working with the terms differently.
I've always considered expropriation through the periphery to be imperialism ala Lenin. Fascism is taking those imperial techniques and applying them internally, when you are no longer able to compete on the periphery (no more lands to conquer etc.). I suppose it is just 'redefining' the periphery though. Again, my understanding of Bonapartism comes from readings of Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Robert Dees, and random discussions with trotskyists who seem to have read something other than actual Trotsky because they seem to have a completely different definition entirely.
If Losurdo is actually able to create a concrete definition applied well, I should read it and applaud him.
I agree though we are entirely disagreeing on semantics, not the overall picture here.
It's comical, where I'm at they show up looking like they could use a shower, greasy hair, maybe some combo of fatigues, leather jacket, work boots, communist symbolism, and all in a dorky way that doesn't at least look cool or fashionable. They often bring a hammer and sickle flag to protests even though there's like 4 of em. Optically already off-putting to 90% of people and then you combine that with trying to hand out newspapers in 2026. It's sad they don't realize they're blowing it before they even get a word out.
These people should be publicly humiliated this kind of mentality is actively getting people killed
Even if it's true that this isn't "fascism" by some definition, who cares? Is now the time to split hairs and quibble over definitions? It's the time to act against our enemies, whatever their name
Yeah exactly who cares fascism is a process and the us is clearly moving in the direction of a by the book fascist state. Thankfully I'm not living there, but I know europe is headed in exactly the same direction.
I think fetishizing the term "fascism" serves an ideological purpose of neatly separating bourgeois "democracy" from bourgeois dictatorship. It emphasizes the difference, and sets the standard for "real fascism" at such an extreme form that nothing other than Nazism qualifies. So everything else must not be that bad according to those categories.
But the fact that there is no clear definition, and no consensus on which regimes do or don't qualify, is an indication that the concept is flawed. The unfortunate truth is that there is no clear dividing line, bourgeois "democracy" and "rights" are only maintained as long as it's beneficial, and when needed any bourgeois state would drop the pretense and embrace open fascism.
The US (and the entire Western order) is in such a deep crisis that the usual facade is becoming difficult to maintain, and the ruling class is starting to give up on their usual pretense and turn to a fascist form of rule. But the final justification their ideologues will maintain is "no, this isn't actually fascism, because technically ..."
No one on the left should assist them in that justification.
Well said! I think you summarized how I feel about it.
The real movement
you can call them whatever you want but only as long as you help put them in the hole
Hitler and Mussolini famously didn't have the support of bourgeois unions