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.
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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 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.
The Screwworm has officially returned to the United States.
It was a nice 60 years without a horrific flesh eating parasite loose in the country. The economic damage these things will cause in a single year will outweigh a century of payments to keep them eradicated, and yet this was allowed to happen regardless.
Republicans are so fucking miserably incompetent it's honestly enough to make me crazy.
No joke, like Donald Trump might be an eco terrorist; but he is also destroying the meat industry. The plastics and energy industry. And just about everything else.
Legitimately I feel horrible for the wild animals that are going to be suffering from this soon.
Would no be surprised if the rumor about them being a weird religious death cult that wants to force the rapture by doing war, famine, pestilence and death end up being true somehow
burger become more expensive
Pets and wildlife will suffer tremendously as well. It’s a disaster on a lot of levels, but I wouldn’t expect republicans to care about wild animals suffering.
Might piss off the deer hunters if all the deer they want to hunt are full of parasites.
chronic wasting disease hasn't stopped them
I really wish my sibling would stop buying so much meat.
I did harass them a bit whilst out grocery stopping. They relented and put a pack of ground meat back. Progress I guess?
I'm having a hard time convincing my relatives to drink one glass of water per day.
I mean I enjoy my store brand sodas but I still drink tap water.
I also drink some soda & energy drinks, but I always drink at least 1-2L of water per day.
I can't understand people who don't drink water. I grew up with water or milk for standard drink choices, anything sweet (pop, juice, hot chocolate, etc) was a once in a while rarity as a treat or for special occasions so drinking water is pretty well ingrained.
I've met people who "don't drink water" and I can't help but view that as childish and coddled in a way. I know we're all victims of circumstance and how you're raised dictates a large chunk of who you are and sugar is highly addictive especially when someone has been consuming large amounts as the default but goddamn do I have a hard time not judging people who won't drink regular water. It literally tastes like life itself
Edit: this is in context of having access to clean tap water, no shade to people who live without access to clean water and have to rely on sugary processed drinks or bottled water
I've been thinking about this a bit lately, and I wonder if the sort of people who "don't like the taste of water" just have poor dental hygiene and don't like the taste of their own mouth? Entirely anecdotal idea though, the people in my life who don't drink water also are the sort of people who never floss and barely brush their teeth, so I'm wondering if there is a connection there?
Yeah it confuses me. How are they not seriously ill?
Also non-water drinks just don't quench thrist. At least not for me.
What do they drink??
I have an extended family member who wakes up and cracks open a Mountain Dew first thing every morning like it's coffee, and then sweet ice tea maybe, I've seen them drink wine and maybe a beer, I can't recall ever seeing water.
Appalachia?
😂 is that where I get it from? I have some family up in them hills. None I'd like to claim, mind you. I do drink water, but it's something I have to make myself do because I will reach for literally anything else first.
In the south I grew up on soda. It's crazy looking back that everyone just let me drink that fucking much of it as a kid. I still have an addiction to it but it isn't nearly as bad as if was up to my 20s. Lots of soda, tea saturated with sugar, and fruit juice. I had to really make an effort to drink water and make it a habit. The little flavor packs helped at first and then i weaned myself off of em. I also replaced a lot of my soda cravings with black coffee. So now I drink a lot less sugar but have a caffeine problem
Now when I go back and visit and drink water I get weird stares like I'm an alien or something lol. Nobody drinks water
Yeah I have family up north but I grew up in Florida. My parents each had a like half gallon drinking container with a lid and a straw. Mom's was sweet tea and dad's was Coke. I grew up heavy because the only thing that slowed down my soda consumption was we were also poor. But I'd still go through 12 packs a day sometimes.
The dialectic of dentists having a potential to make a fortune fixing everyone's fucked up teeth and dentists being destitute because no one can afford to go to the dentist
Yep, we were poor and also consumed a bunch of sugar. I'm still poor. I don't have a single intact tooth. Many have rotted away completely. I've mostly suspended the process by taking better care and watching what I eat a little better, but it's fucked. I need every single remaining tooth removed, posts put in, dentures made, etc. My friend had similar teeth and her grandfather paid for it. ~$30k if I recall correctly. I'm turning 35 in two months and a real quick tongue survey says I have around 15 teeth with enough tooth to them to be useful. It fucking sucks.
Primarily soft drinks with lots of sugar, some beer and soda.
You could start describing symptoms of gout. Maybe they'll start noticing some (even if they're not there) and chill.
I don't drink water because I don't like peeing
Only losers pee its true
They attacked hambugers…hamburgers.
So do we call is the Musk Meat Shortage or the Trump Treat Catastrophe?
How did this come back? Spread through natural vectors or did it come with imported animals?
The firewall built back in the 60s was allowed to fail due to budget cuts and staff shortages, and the flies eventually broke into Central America and later Mexico.
Funding remained at the 'block the tiny wall connecting North and South America' level since that happened and not increased to match the emergency, meaning the flies have infested all of Mexico and headed north over the last couple years.
And before the firewall aspect, we shouldn't forget that full elimination south of it was stalled and abandoned. "Exotic" diseases tend to be a proxy for proximity to the imperial core. For example, the imperial core can destroy disease-carrying pests for itself, then impose restrictions that prevent it elsewhere, and have this kind of "firewall" for themselves. Whereas even just more equitable development could likely eliminate several of these diseases entirely.
Great point, thank you for bringing that up.
While it would have undoubtedly been a tougher process to wipe out the fly from rainforests, the amount of money wasted on war and imperialism still would make that cost look pitifully small.
Yes no doubt. And many of the diseases considered exotic or tropical were once much farther North, or West, etc etc but were eliminated through campaigns that stopped at (or nearly at) borders, not because it just wasn't feasible. The diseases that volunteer doctors treat are frequently preventable, curable, or could be eliminated with certain environmental or agricultural practices. For example, many diseases are caused by flukes, many of which include other animals (like snails) as part of their life cycle. Exposure happens through things like flooding fields for rice cultivation and not wearing proper footwear and the rates are very low to nil in countries that implement more industrialized processes and wear PPE.