Image is of a Colombian campaign rally in support of Iván Cepeda of the left-wing Historic Pact.
As always, my weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
The unstable stare-down in the Middle East continues. Yet again, there's been little region-level change, but there have been some big escalations. Namely, the entity has decided to go further into Lebanon, with all the casualties and destruction that will bring them, while simultaneously abandoning bases elsewhere in the theater due to constant pressure by Hezbollah. Seeking to pressure Hezbollah away from their successful strategy of attrition on IOF forces that attempt to advance only to receive rapid onset symptoms of FPVdroneitis, they have also decided to resume airstrikes on Beirut, which is an obvious violation of the region-wide ceasefire that Iran may or may not militarily respond to, but they do seem very diplomatically displeased as of me writing this sentence. Meanwhile, Iran has responded to US drone incursions with strikes on Kuwait military bases. Trump has escalated his demands lately, so a return to war seems more likely than ever.
In Bolivia, Paz appears to be escalating in response to undiminished general strikes, with Congress allowing him to declare states of emergency at will, and therefore get the military more easily involved. In Colombia's runoff elections, far-right candidate Espriella won the first round of the runoff election with 43.7% of the vote ahead of left-winger Cepeda's 40.9%. Every poll had Cepeda beating Espriella by varying margins, so this appears to be a fairly standard case of the US putting their thumb on the scale; as the saying goes, they do not trust the population of Colombia to do democracy correctly and they couldn't risk them accidentally electing the wrong person.
Over in Sudan, the conflict appears like it is moving in a pro-SAF direction, with some significant military gains against the UAE-backed RSF, although the military situation is still fairly complicated. A potentially notable news item that I missed a couple weeks ago is that the US seems to have ended their strategic ambiguity over who they consider the true government in Sudan, as they now firmly recognize the SAF over the RSF. Why exactly this has occurred is a little beyond me. Could be because they see how the winds are blowing militarily; could be because they want to fuck over the UAE for some perceived slight (to be America's ally is fatal etc etc). The humanitarian situation appears no better though, with millions of people remaining in incredible hardship and near-starvation, and RSF-backed genocidal atrocities of the kind that Zionists would nod approvingly at.
Thankfully, China is looking at all these manifold crises and has dramatically escalated the speed at which they are writing strongly worded letters and are calling for a revitalized UN.
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
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.
There was never a buffer period to keeping on a known Zionist fascist. He should never have hired her
And trigger a mutiny by the NYPD in his first month? No, keeping her for the first 100 days was practical; keeping her after six months is just some bullshit and it signals a lack of confidence in confronting the NYPD
He said from the start he's playing the long game with the NYPD through funding attrition, but looks like the NYPD and its sponsors has other ideas
He couldn't do it then. He can't do it now. When can he?.
Your argument boils down to him having to pick a fight to not be complicit. Yeah, duh. That is what we do.
My argument is that he should do it, he can do it, but he lacks the political confidence to do it, that's on him and the broader left for not instilling that confidence
We're literally not even disagreeing
Perhaps he lacks having any plan at all to do it in the first place and it was just a nice-sounding line to adopt for a campaign and not really commit to in any meaningful way. Because he is a social democrat that will inevitably align with fascist and settler interests at the end of the day, not a figurehead for a cadre of a disciplined organization. He's just some guy, not really worth defending to other socialists.
What do you mean by 'not instilling that confidence'? What exactly are people supposed to be doing here, did they not vote for him, do we need to raise an armed militia to defend him? What does this actually, functionally, look like?
NYCDSA needs to stop dickriding every bad decision, pass a "build the red guard" resolution, and enter protracted peoples war with the NYPD. Obviously.
Anyone serious about police abolition would need, at minimum, a substantial and trusted private security detail. Cops will harass the shit out of political enemies, at minimum. I think this is a pretty realistic way to approach the topic, as cops will make themselves a barrier even if you didn't promise things vaguely in the direction of police abolition. Cops will want more budget for themselves and less for your programs. Cops will selectively enforce laws against you and your allies. Cops will work closely with the bourgeois interests diametrically opposed to your policies. Those who "discover" this once in office have this funny tendency of caving to cops.
I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to that, at least they would be putting their necks on the line for once.
That said, that's exactly my point, how much more "support" and "confidence" does Mamdani need to get rid of these supporters of literal war criminals in his ranks? They got him elected! That's what he asked them to do!?
That said, this all is moot as hell. It was clear what he was from the fact that as soon as he was elected, he decoupled his entire election staff from the DSA machine that got him elected, pulling all of his closest supporters with him, dude literally isn't even part of DSA at this point. He will pivot, pivot, pivot, and drill himself straight to hell on a road paved with good intentions (if he ever even had those, I have yet to see a single significant long-term action taken).
NYCDSA muzzled any of it's base's criticisms of him until he refused to endorse some of their electeds (everyone loves the progressive opportunist til he ratfucks your pet project). It's a careerist project that some activists and socialists are unfortunately along for the ride on imo.
Mamdani was never interested in being a tribunal socialist to heighten the struggle but wanted to recreate the failed and backwards sewer socialist movement of the 20th century.
Mamdani's failures though have empowered the electorally skeptical members of the DSA chapter near me though, but the type that makes up his diehard supporters tend to go for like, Indivisible, in my area from what I've seen.
I'm still of the mind DSA eventually heads towards a split. At least in my experience, half the people I know in it are just in DSA to catch people on the immediate search for alternative politics. Very few are diehard DSA "partyists," and DSA's right wing factions and their leftwing ones will eventually have someone "win" and I think the form of that win will be intolerable for the losing faction. The left-wing already screams into the void of private channels and discords about the current state of the org and the much of the right-wing of DSA wants to hitch closer to the democrats. If the left-wing can ever force a programme through, the right of DSA would be up in arms.
Idk about any of the DSA internal stuff, I just know that PSL is the only org around here actually doing anything, and even they are an internal mess, so I can't imagine an electoralist driven DSA is doing any better. I just know what I hear.
Internal DSA stuff is an abyss lmao.
If anyone does wanna see the abyss stare back, here is a "fun" post by a DSA member investigating the Atlanta chapter after 30+ members were all found to have committed expulsion worthy grievances at once around the time of internal elections (Some still argue it wasn't a purge!):
https://cosmonautmag.com/2026/01/dredging-the-southern-earth-4-years-later
Damn I'm behind on my DSA drama thanks for the entertaining link.
You could spend literally all of your time just discussing a local medium-sized DSA's ongoing drama. They have all these little factions and spend, I swear to God, 80% of their time talking shit about each other. A DSA Trot once told me that critics of Bernie are ultras, lol.
No one dislikes DSA more than DSA members lmao
Be the change you wish to see in the world!
I agree and a split in DSA is probably one of the easier political projects for a US socialist. Not that it's easy in and of itself. It's primarily an attritional battle, just pure numbers, gotta alienate the other side more than they alienate you.
Do you even read the thread you are in?
Mamdani defended it and supports hiring more cops. He doesn't plan to reduce headcount. He lied to you, and you believed it like every soft succ lie.
You see a moralistic narrative about betrayal; I see backroom negotiations that keep the NYPD off his back for the time being while his policies that build social and political capital among New Yorkers mature to the point where he would have the power to do cool things
Unless you want to offer a competing materialist analysis where Mamdani is godking of New York City and its political economy and he can just order around the NYPD "unions," Wall Street, and the real estate barons without friction or cost?
No i see a materialist narrative of him being a representative of the capitalist class, and thus will always be our class enemy. I see how the forces of capitalism are arrayed, while you see nothing and keep doing the same bernard entryist dead-endism over and over. It is you who has the idealist, simplified and useless worldview that has consistently been proved wrong.
I cannot be 'betrayed' by succs because I don't believe in them or support them. I can't be betrayed by my enemies. I'm using the 'betrayed' framing to hopefully move your idealist dumbass from repeatedly making the same mistakes and maybe opening your eyes and reading your namesake, maybe learning who is actually on your side and who isn't instead of just going off vibes and what is sold to you by your podcast sphere.
Yeah that's the obvious read on this imo. I'm concerned that this will continue. Not that "immediately fight the NYPD head on" is a good plan either, but he should have seen this coming and had something better prepared.
My larger concern is that by winning office, he's now administering a hostile system, but without the social power to actually transform it. Despite some "sewer socialism" at the margins, the main function of local gov is policing and repression, that's why it always dominates the local budgets.
Withholding all judgment, whatever you think of him or his intentions or his larger plan, we now have a socialist who is (nominally) in charge of the very system of repression that's the biggest and most immediate threat to his constituents. That's the contradiction he put himself in.
An actual confrontation would require an unprecedented social mobilization (well beyond the scale of BLM) so I'm concerned he'll continue to take the realistic option of non-confrontation until his entire project withers.
No, I think you hit the nail on the head, without an organized labor army, he on his lonesome can only do so much, and tackling an actual capitalist army like the NYPD requires a massive grassroots game plan, plus downtown power to legitimize it
He barely has downtown power and he certainly doesn't have a big enough ground force that can be called a labor army
As a result he's buying time with minuscule compromises with New York capital, which is just gonna hurt his credibility in the longrun
Yep.
Hopefully I'm wrong and the NYPD is defeated somehow and then this sparks off some new municipal pink tide. I'm nowhere near there & can't really do anything about it (other than write/post) so I guess I'll wait and see
Lmao yes cope more about how she’s ruining his perfect plan to neither fund nor defund the police. Who could have imagined she would get in the way of his agenda
Look he would have defunded the police, but he's playing 4d chess and has to wait for a buffer period. Oh the buffer period is over, but he has to increase police headcount or he will pick a war against the NYC capitalists. It's better to just go along to get along and not cause any problems. Look, he has to crack down on the anti-Israel protesters, they were being anti-semites.
Why is this guy the one getting banned when he is right? The mayor's wife was in isis. It was clear from the start he was a pice of shit.
I would like some clarification or elaboration on this please
Mayor's mother ex husband was in Israel intelligence. Mayor's wife did propaganda for isis. When he was elected mayor, mes did a series of posts on both issues. Unfortunately I did not save them.
It was only later when this site was defending this guy that I uploaded the following post. https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/88b78d4a-ae71-404f-b462-ae261e78ba69.jpeg?format=webp
because he is unable to respond to people he disagrees without constantly insulting them breaking rule 5 and 8 of the code of conduct, did you not read the rest of his comments?
Both posters have a point but I do think lunchfiend is maybe more correct, but they were probably banned for the personal insults and general incivility, they just seem a bit more heated, hopefully it's a short temp ban.
keeping Tisch should have been in exchange for getting to do something else to the pigs, let's not pretend there's a "good" cop to have in charge of the other cops.
unless he's hiring saboteurs there's no way this is anything other than an L. at least the hocul stuff he seems to have gotten some cooperation from albany.
There are better cops than the Tisch heiress. But yes, if this was some masterstroke, we would have seen some compromise on her end and instead she gets to keep running her fiefdom