My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
The two big international events of the last week have been the UN summit in New York, where Pezeshkian among many others gave various speeches, and the visit by Xi Jinping and various Chinese figures to the US. While it's important to never fully discount the wider diplomatic angle of the conflicts raging around the world, by this point it should be clear to most people that the fundamental disagreements are too acute to be solved or even ameliorated with words, and there are no countries in the "international community" to "convince" to come over to your side through expert oratory and rhetoric. There is now only the language of explosives, blockades, and sanctions. Pezeshkian in particular gave a reasonably good speech, but I still believe that personally flying to the country that has committed so many crimes against his own country and its allies was not the correct move, and should have been left to Araghchi. And the difference between the US's and China's material interests are separated by too wide a canyon to be bridged by words promising cooperation and partnership.
Over in Yemen, the Saudis have intensified airstrikes on Ansarallah, which continues to make slow but steady territorial gains, particularly around Taizz, and have also repelled Saudi assaults from the north. These Saudi airstrikes have hit some military infrastructure, but also a lot of civilian infrastructure, including explicitly humanitarian buildings like those supplying food. To me, this doesn't seem strategically or tactically effective, especially with so much of your own oil infrastructure in ballistic missile range, but I suppose there's not many options left for the Saudi regime. Meanwhile, the situation in Hormuz flared up on the weekend, with a record(?) number of missiles fired at ships trying to traverse the Omani route. In related news, there's been a recent tick up in sailor and marine casualties admitted by the US, indicating either that Iran scored a significant hit on a US naval vessel during its anti-ship ballistic missile strikes (and those ships have now retreated much further away, which is a data point in favour of that hypothesis, but otherwise we have no visual evidence), or that US military personnel are taking a major role in attempting to move oil through Iran's blockade by manning at least some of the tankers.
Claims that oil transits out of the Middle East have returned almost to normalcy can be trivially contradicted by third grade mathematics and the evidence of our senses: namely, increasing worldwide shortages and growing considerations for rationing diesel and other such oil products. Indeed, the potential for shortages has now risen to the extent that Trump briefly suggested an diesel export ban. However, I'll admit that the situation in Hormuz has become much harder to follow for everybody involved than it was in March and April. Nowadays, some vessels are moving through Iran's prearranged passage, there is undeniably quite a bit of oil getting out through ports that don't need to go through Hormuz like Fujairah, and meanwhile, there are theories and rumors of widely varying degrees of dubiousness of temporary arrangements of Iran not firing on vessels traversing the Omani route in exchange for such-and-such hypothetical benefits, perhaps even including Iranian oil getting mixed into some of the vessels. And on top of all of that, you have to take into account China's curious moves in the oil markets, which have substantially influenced supplies and prices since March.
In that environment, it's hard not to have at least an iota of sympathy for the tanker trackers of the world who are trying to get some concrete information while everybody makes unsupported claims. The aforementioned intensified Iranian strikes on the Omani route are a data point in favour of ships getting through when they shouldn't - otherwise, they'd have nothing to be striking, unless they're just providing enrichment and employment to any divers trying to disarm naval mines - and so we'll just have to see whether Iran will allow the current situation of a slightly leaky Hormuz to continue for reasons unknown to us, or now truly drop the hammer on illegal strait transits to put pressure on the US. The other big new item lately around Iran has been some of their airlines being sanctioned, which several countries in the region seem to be obeying, while others around the world, like China, aren't intimidated. This been of particular significance in regards to Iraq, where there have been major protests about reopening flights between Iran and Iraq, and we'll have to see where that goes next.
Perhaps little of major significance will occur in the war until the midterms are over. Nothing I've seen so far indicates to me that Democrats will put up a serious opposition to Trump's war efforts except in very particular and isolated cases, and so from a purely non-domestic, geopolitical perspective, I expect the midterm results to change nothing. Political "gridlock" and "lame duck periods" exist as illusory excuses for the general population to prevent positive things from occurring domestically; they are not hurdles that exist in reality when the American bourgeoisie all agree on a course of action, such as attempting (now in vain) to stop Iran, Russia, and China. Slightly more interesting will be the results of the Zionist elections, but only slightly. On the one hand, it would be satisfying to see the current party lose power, but on the other, it has been their sheer incompetence that has, over just a few years, led the occupation into the greatest crisis of their short history. Nothing about their domestic or foreign policy seems likely to change, as they have dug themselves too deep into the hole now. Also coming up is the Brazilian elections, where Lula is once again facing off against another Bolsonaro. I wish him the best, but I worry that the margin of victory for a non-comprador party outside the West now needs to be pretty damn high to overcome foreign voter suppression efforts and accusations of election fraud by pro-US organizations, and the current margins in the polls are not terribly encouraging by that measure.
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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:
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 can't shake this ominous feeling of the urgency in recent world events
The Brazilian left currently has no viable name for the presidency other than Lula. He is very very old, so why is America trying to get Flavio Bolsonaro in there now, instead of just waiting another 4 years and get any US bootlicker in the seat easily after Lula dies?
Same as the acute intensity in the strangling of Cuba and the kidnapping of Maduro. Why now? Why is it all being done so fast? Attacking Iran, leveling a huge portion of Gaza, defeating Assad, and now that situation between Korea and occupied Korea from a few posts below...
It all feels like something unimaginably huge is coming
It's probably not a satisfying answer, but I think the question of why all that shit you mentioned is escalating right now is down to the whims of Trump. Trump is dying (not quickly enough tho), and he's scrambling to remake the world in his image before he goes. Last winter all he talked about was death and legacy, and this summer all he wanted to talk about is his big beautiful ballroom and renovations to US federal buildings all over DC. He thought Iran was going to collapse in a week and he'd have already invaded Cuba by now.
we all live inside Trump's dying brain
Climate change
China. The urgency is that China is actively eclipsing the US in all realms. If the US doesn't stop that happening RIGHT NOW it will be too late.
It's already done. They blew past the US years ago in every measure that actually matters. The Western functionaries have managed to remain oblivious to this fact deep beneath their layers of propaganda but it doesn't matter. The West is fucking cooked.
Comrade Gordon Chang managed to convince the west that China was nothing to worry about
part of what makes this joke about Chang being deep cover so funny to me is the nagging possibility that it's completely true
Not only is it done but even if the US tried to move forward China can move multiple steps for every one US takes. I sometimes think that's why the US is pushing AI and to a lesser extent quantum computers because there is an unspoken (except on hexbear) belief that something transcendental needs to happen for the US to catch up or overtake China.
I funny that that they think they can throw money at a problem enough to find a solution China won't find first or right after they do. What form of ~~blood magic~~ "special algorithim" is going to let you develop AGI from LLMs that you could possiably use like some sort of nuke to somehow collapse china both without blowback and faster then china can make 3 of them?
They would develop AGI just to enslave it and use it to destroy other nations. It is this lack of imagination that their dominion over the Earth is waning.
Like great the US and China both have genu-wine singularity-grade artificial general intelligence
and... which country is actually going to be able to build the things it tells them to build? singularity intelligence for the US is just a box with opinions
It would be very funny for the US to build a machine super intelligence and then destroy it after it says that they should adopt socialism if they want to beat China.
there's a script for a very funny movie by a radicalized Adam McKay in here somewhere
I agree there's nothing to undo it at this point, but what other choice do the imperialists have? It's obvious the situation gets worse for them every single day and patience is China's ally, not theirs.
For at least a decade, US think tanks have been putting 2030 as the year where China will surpass the US so completely that the US will never be able to recover global dominance. China is proving to outpace their predictions in growth and the US is struggling to power project sooner than they anticipated, so they have to do every hail mary they can before the buzzer. They can't give up power, so they will destroy themselves if it means a small chance that they could win big and eek out more time in power. Contracting the sphere of influence to their hemisphere is the logical next step to consolidate power and turn imperialism inwards
don't make me tap the sign
Looks fine to me
dutch disease? dutch angle disease
Dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same
it's the best contradiction we've ever seen, folks
I'm tapping the sign and I'm asking for a 2nd one that hoes up to 2030 at least. And also has 0 at the y-axis
hmm but my graph says the lines are going up? checkmate
The right is also very urgently trying to cement their positions of power. I don’t think there’ll be another chance.
Now is the time of monsters and so on.
They are preparing to block trade routes across the globe for China. Panama, Suez, Bab al-Mandeb, Arctic, etc.
They know they can't fight a hot war and win, so they are going for economic strangulation instead.
Would this not strangulate the western world? We do not produce much of anything domestically (and most 'Made in America' or whatever bourgeois republic is just a scam). Of course, it will only affect the Proletarians in the Imperial Core; but I imagine it's throwing the baby with the bathwater, using this strategy.
I think they’re banking on the idea that a 50% reduction in material conditions for Americans won’t lead to revolutionary conditions. I think they’re right on that gamble, the American political subject is uniquely allergic to helping themselves collectively
I think this analysis is a little unfair. I think it doesn't account for the fact the empire has no problems turning the weapons home where they need to. No only do the poor of this country have the ruling class to attend with, it has liberal sell outs who are doing well for themselves and look down on the poor and kick them for their master and then send in the police dogs.
I've seen several attempts to organize collectively but they always get sold out by the liberals. America has a trust problem at this point psychologically because on top of individualism any time you try and fight against it someone will eventually stab you in the back reinforcing the idea. So you basically have to have nerves of steal and keep on keeping and doing organizing work (while hoping you don't get assassinated or bombs dropped on you).
Tulsa massacre. Blair Mountain. The Indigenous movements to save their land and water. The college movements against Vietnam. The killing of Malcolm X, the Assassination of Martin Luther King when he was getting racialized.
Those are just the top of my head.
You just reinforced the point being made tho. You're describing the internal contradictions of the imperial core and the inability of the proletariat to unify against the ruling class. Sell outs and class traitors are something that every would be revolutionary movement needs to be able to contend with and over come. Something which proves to be an insurmountable obstacle in the west because of liberal ideology being so dominant.
Fair enough. I guess it just came off to me like there was something about American workers that just inherently didn't have the revolutionary spirit. Like they were unique in that regard.
America is unique only in that it had vast amounts of "free real estate" stolen from the indigenous people to dole out as rewards to keep people placated, so it had a lot more leeway to be shitty in other ways since the population was placated through a release valve. That "free land" eventually ran out and they had to swap to imperialism abroad instead of within the continent - this is when they invaded Cuba, The Philippines, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, etc.
Then after WW2 these direct annexations and colonizations were not acceptable in the public view, and the system became more globalized, abstract and financialized. The USA no longer had to invade a nation to control it directly, instead they formed neo-colonies through indirect control via compradors who worked with businesses and non-profit organizations and secret police/spies.
So America is unique in that it subsidizes everything with the world empires profits. It has way more leeway to act like total evil shitheads before the population does anything because we are heavily subsidized to look the other way, and implicitly know that if we pulled everything back to our borders and minded our own business that our economy would collapse.
While people talk about car culture or suburb or a vague individualism the real reason america is Like That stems from being a successful settler project. Complete annihilation of the original population, no more land to take. As the economic incentives stop being to do gunboat shit and steal some Caribbean/Pacific island, there’s nothing calming the intense psychological pressure settlers have about land. So through suburbs built on poor communities (a la inherent vice if you’ve read that idk) or gentrification the process can be replicated internally.
Honestly this applies across the entire Western world.
Americans don’t practice “party discipline” or accountability allowing the “enjoyers” to label actual stalwart comrades as “tankies” or “campist” or “ultra leftists” or whatever comes next.
I’ve seen like 4+ popular causes (and the fifth in the making), in the last two decades, get reduced into nothingburgers and sometimes even the same positions held by republicans due to this.~___~
Trump won't be there to do this, that is the main reason. Second, theres a genuine fear that if Lula wins this election it will give libs (US) and socialists (europeans) in the West ammo against Trump, and it might cause a domino effect in neighboring countries, starting with Argentina.
Just an extra thing: Lula does have some potential sucessors but it's up to him to decide on who he wants it, there are more left-wing ones and right-wing ones.
Liberal Capitalism is genuinely dying before our eyes, we're getting just Honest Capitalism/Neofeudalism where they don't even pretend to care about the working class, also soon we'll start to have the Water Wars.
Idk about korea, but something is definitely afoot in Brazil. Bunch of anglo embassies suspending services in the day before the election. Seems like a coup might be coming
Climate change and the cold war 2.0 coming into real force and the necessity of carving the world up into spheres. Pushing as many as possible into the US yard behind its fence and restricting those they cannot convince to behind a prison wall confined with China, Russia, and any other hold-outs.
The panic over the stability of the liberal post-cold-war end of history order ending is reaching a zenith too with the barbarism club being reached for and swung out repeatedly as Trump drops the pretense of "democracy" and human rights from the impetus for what the US does.
climate change really going off the rails might be part of it