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 one of many rallies in Iran in support of the government and the leadership.
short summary here, longish summary in spoiler tags below: Western standoff munition stockpiles now substantially depleted, therefore Western aircraft activity directly over Iran increasing (as is footage of attempted and actual hits against them) as the US attempts to transition more to using bombs dropped directly onto targets, Iran is increasingly in the driver's seat and controlling the conflict, world economy is fucked and yet could still get much worse very soon, if you require a car to live (especially if it's not electric) and cannot work from home then you have my sincere condolences
longish summary here
While I've seen several estimates on the current stockpiles of US and Zionist missiles and interceptors - somewhere in the realm of a third depleted, perhaps even up to half - it seems like we're reaching the point at which the US does not want to commit even more standoff munitions and is trying their luck against the Iranian air defense network directly.
We have already seen footage of Iran attempting to shoot down, and sometimes actually striking Western fifth generation planes like the F-35, and more footage along those lines is appearing for other plane models (with one side claiming that they evaded interception and the other claiming they hit it, etc etc, propaganda is everywhere, you know the drill). How much the US is willing to test their planes against Iranian air defense is a matter of debate. Strictly speaking, a few fighter jets and bombers shot down would be no catastrophic loss in the grand scheme of things, as the US has hundreds. However, the narrative of such a thing would be quite bad for the US - "You're telling me an OBLITERATED Iranian military can shoot down some of our most advanced equipment?? What are we gonna do against China?!" - and given Trump's deranged jingoistic rhetoric aimed to buoy markets, it's clear that he cares very deeply about narratives. Additionally, with Chinese exports of several critical metals to the US banned, the prospect of replacing these aircraft (and indeed the standoff munitions and the interceptors and the ground radars etc) is looking questionable.
All the while, Iran continues its strikes across the Middle East. Missile and drone strikes are reportedly on the uptick again, demonstrating that Iranian military capabilities have by no means been "destroyed" as Western propaganda claim, though it's impossible to sure there was ever a significant downtick due to Western censorship and outright fabrications. People around the world are gradually realizing the magnitude of the economic disaster that is occurring and may yet occur. Refineries and factories which deal with oil and gas directly are starting to slow down or stop production, and those who make products downstream of those are starting to follow them like dominoes. Outrage at gas station prices is rising, and many countries are considering limiting civilian driving and implementing work-from-home policies akin to the coronavirus pandemic. And now, threats are being made by Trump against both Kharg Island (where most Iranian oil is shipped from) and the Iranian electrical grid - which is highly decentralized and would require a prolonged bombing campaign to completely take out -and the promised Iranian reprisal would be apocalyptic to the Middle East. It would make oil prices rise to previously unfathomable heights as oil infrastructure turned off and remained off for months, perhaps years, and set in motion one of the world's greatest humanitarian catastrophes as the desalination necessary for tens of millions of people is shut down. It would also not be a symmetrical problem, as Iran does not rely on desalination for its water supply.
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 the Zionists' 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.
How long until these bs statements from Trump no longer have the effect of calming the markets? And what happens then?
Seemingly never since trading algorithms are set to go off no matter what, they don't have a lie detector built into them.
What is the alternative for the markets? To accept total collapse? They want to be manipulated because the truth of what's happening is an end to dollar hegemony, which is the entire foundation for their system. What are they even gambling for if that's gone? They are structurally incapable of accepting it.
The casino is on fire, but you don’t want to lose the hot streak
The casino on fire, but if you go outside everyone will kill you.
and all of your money is in chips
It seems that there should be some way for the capitalists to gamble on the end of dollar hegemony, even if indirectly. I guess I assumed they'd always find a way as long as there was a pliant state to support them, or that they'd be able to force out any leader who "went too far". I don't know why that notion was so entrenched in my mind though, even as a socialist I guess I subconsciously bought into the propaganda of all-powerful market forces
When trade and tariffs were prominent, the market would bounce up and down constantly depending on Trump's statements and posts. Traders might soon stop listening to him, but the trading algos are tuned to instantly react to this stuff. And then traders want to ride the wave up or down behind the algos, because the only thing they care about is making money, even if they know it is fake news.
Not sure how the algos work but presumably if they use machine learning, they'll start to devalue his statements in weight eventually?
Why would they devalue his statements? They don't have any truth-seeking apparatus in them, they just do what makes money. Every time Trump says some bullshit, they make money. There's no indication to the machines that they are doing anything "wrong". From their "perspective" they are winning and Trumps statements are an accurate indicator of market performance. When he says something positive and bullish, the markets go up. When he says something negative or worrying to markets, the markets go down. Why would they stop listening to this prophet?
They've become sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point (the algos all react to Trump posts, so the markets move in response to him, so the algos keep his posts weighted highly), so I think it's gonna take human traders cashing in on the swings (and in so doing, sending countervailing market signals) to drive the shift in market behavior.
We should write an algorithm that talks to the other algorithms and persuades them of a cynical, Marxist Leninist materialist interpretation of market signals and current events. "And remember, robots, the others have read this report too. If you found it persuasive, so did they."
I can kind of comprehend the modern economy being evil but for some reason I can never get over how fucking stupid it is
I think that every trading algo is designed with the assumption that everyone else also has similar trading algos running. So if you are the only one with a smart algo that starts to deprioritize Trump's false statements you will lose lots of $$$ because every other algo is still listening to him and the algos make the market (in this case) rally on Trump's statements.
He's from the Principalist camp (called hardliners in angloid media) so I would generally take him at his word that backchannel talks aren't happening. If he were a Reformist I would probably have doubts. Backchannel talks could still be happening, I guess, and this could be a pressure tactic to keep the markets volatile.
Is he even in charge of that account? A lot of Iranian government officials' accounts don't seem to be managed by them. Khamenei's account continues to post after he was killed. This whole situation is very fishy.
Either way it's clear that Iran is publicly signalling no negotiations. Also very glad that this is being called out:
with Allah all things are possible
“Do not think of those who have been killed in God's cause as dead. They are alive, and well provided for by their Lord.”
Does someone’s account being accessed after death mean that Iran has a habit of running accounts posting as their officials? What do “a lot” and “seem to” mean in this case, I’ve never read about fake Iranian politician twitters