this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
74 points (100.0% liked)

news

24576 readers
490 users here now

Welcome to c/news! We aim to foster a book-club type environment for discussion and critical analysis of the news. Our policy objectives are:

We ask community members to appreciate the uncertainty inherent in critical analysis of current events, the need to constantly learn, and take part in the community with humility. None of us are the One True Leftist, not even you, the reader.

Newcomm and Newsmega Rules:

The Hexbear Code of Conduct and Terms of Service apply here.

  1. Link titles: Please use informative link titles. Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.

  2. Content warnings: Posts on the newscomm and top-level replies on the newsmega should use content warnings appropriately. Please be thoughtful about wording and triggers when describing awful things in post titles.

  3. Fake news: No fake news posts ever, including April 1st. Deliberate fake news posting is a bannable offense. If you mistakenly post fake news the mod team may ask you to delete/modify the post or we may delete it ourselves.

  4. Link sources: All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include the Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance) or at least strip out identifier information from the twitter link. There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source.

  5. Archive sites: We highly encourage use of non-paywalled archive sites (i.e. archive.is, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org) so that links are widely accessible to the community and so that reactionary sources don’t derive data/ad revenue from Hexbear users. If you see a link without an archive link, please archive it yourself and add it to the thread, ask the OP to fix it, or report to mods. Including text of articles in threads is welcome.

  6. Low effort material: Avoid memes/jokes/shitposts in newscomm posts and top-level replies to the newsmega. This kind of content is OK in post replies and in newsmega sub-threads. We encourage the community to balance their contribution of low effort material with effort posts, links to real news/analysis, and meaningful engagement with material posted in the community.

  7. American politics: Discussion and effort posts on the (potential) material impacts of American electoral politics is welcome, but the never-ending circus of American Politics© Brought to You by Mountain Dew™ is not welcome. This refers to polling, pundit reactions, electoral horse races, rumors of who might run, etc.

  8. Electoralism: Please try to avoid struggle sessions about the value of voting/taking part in the electoral system in the West. c/electoralism is right over there.

  9. AI Slop: Don't post AI generated content. Posts about AI race/chip wars/data centers are fine.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is from this article.


Get it? "Revolting" is a double entendre! Anyway...

As the Trump administration continues to accelerate the flagrant disregard of "international law", we have seen various European leaders flock to China (alongside Canada), seeking deals. Some trips have been more successful than others - for example, Macron's was fairly dire despite his lavish reception by Xi Jinping, but Starmer's resulted in some actual deals and tariff reductions. The intent of this wave of diplomacy with China is clear: leverage.

Nobody should be fooled into thinking this revolt immediately benefits the developing world, of course. While a relative weakening of the US compared to Europe is progressive in a limited sense (insofar as the US is the locus of imperialism), every indication shows that, when it matters, the European consensus remains aligned in most respects with the US, such as with them and the Zionist entity against Iran, against national sovereignty in Africa (e.g. ECOWAS), as well as in Latin America (either in support or not sufficiently opposing American designs there against Cuba and Venezuela, to name but two countries). It is also unclear how long such a divide will last - perhaps Trump leaving office in 2028 and a slightly less bellicose leader in power will result in many cancelled deals with China.

Despite the very shaky initial steps over the past couple years, Europe still has many miles it must traverse to achieve sovereignty, let alone socialism. For now, it will cheer on the sanctions against millions of vulnerable people and incoming bombing of Iran and Hezbollah, though perhaps it will also share a degree of the economic/military retaliation.


Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.


you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] quarrk@hexbear.net 25 points 1 day ago (6 children)

This is over a month late: what do you make of the “sonic weapon” aka “discombobulator” reportedly used on Caracas on Jan 3?

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 14 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (2 children)

might exist, likely trivially to dodge and avoid if you expect it (ear protection/helmets/corners/soundproofing instead of naked concrete etc), the range is likely relatively small

(ffs, you can buy ultra sound device with a size of phone or if it's infrasound (which is more likely), it's still likely size of a bucket, it's trivial to make 140db noise, if you don't care about life span even with typical good loudspeaker)

[–] darkcalling@hexbear.net 9 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

might exist, likely trivially to dodge and avoid if you expect it

But you can't. That's the point. They come by surprise. There's a lot of things you can do if you expect it. If you expect it you can not have the president sleeping there. If you expect it you can have two brigades with machine gun nests in every hallway.

AFAIK it's not practical to wear high decibel ear protection all the time. For one thing it can be uncomfortable, for another it prevents you from hearing commands spoken or via radio as well as the sound of enemy soldiers, suspicious noises, the sound of the guy you're patrolling with being grabbed and knifed in the back, etc. Sure you can soundproof the building a bit but then one might say what if they fire a missile and blow open the wall with the soundproofing and direct the weapon in after that?

The solution is I think really hardening the entryways and the inner chambers, making it a longer approach, more hardened metal doors, multiple walls that are reinforced and hard to break through. Basically delay and ensure a panic room is right next to the occupants and that you can and do drill for retaking the area with hostiles present trying to break into the panic room with a particular emphasis on nearby response teams having manpads and air denial to make extraction harder or impossible. Ear protection should be available and at hand in light of this but you still need to buy time and deny them easy access I feel.

Beyond that though I'm not sure hearing protection helps with this. I'm not sure it's an attack on the ear-drums specifically so much as pressure waves. You may need to totally protect the sinus and similar facial cavities from the pressure changes it's causing which is difficult without hard helmets the cover the entire head and seal. Needless to say such things would be uncomfortable and result in problems with peripheral vision, hearing, smell of danger, etc.

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 2 points 14 hours ago

Well, yes, when they are fighting with light weapons instead of mines and launching ground air missiles, they kinda fucked up already on prep step, still, it’s in realm of plausibility of such device to exist, but seppo stormtroopers were nearby, so of course some countermeasure exists.

Pressure waves i find less believable, because i’ve been near 5kw concert stuff, it’s very uncomfortable but bearable from vibrations, you do feel weird breathing and stuff, and i believe without earplugs i would try to run away, but not disorienting as such, nor is onset rapid (as fancy tales talk about it), you feel weirdness increasing over couple of minutes, same as articles i’ve seen, not immediate, while full volume loudspeaker makes me mad in seconds, and that’s still relative safe volumes of 110-120db

load more comments (3 replies)