Image is from the January 2023 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. Over 50 heads of state and 600 CEOs attended.
holding flashlight under face
Imagine a terrifying world where we are all ruled by monsters of every stripe. And not hot ones like werewolves, but instead decaying zombies and mummies who are both insensitive to, and actively benefit from the immense suffering they cause on a daily basis. The top echelon of society, filled with profit-seeking, bloodsucking vampires. And the worst of it is that they repeat on a daily basis that what they are doing is not only just, but there is no other possible way to do it.
Pretty spooky, right? What if I told you that this world... was our own?
Happy Halloween!
Friendly reminder: when commenting about a news event, especially something that just happened, please provide a source of some kind. While ideally this would be on nitter or archived, any source is preferable to none at all given.
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
The Country of the Week is Lebanon! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week's first update is here.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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
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.
Last week's discussion post.
Absolute mad lads
Weakest Palestinian "I literally run up to tanks and explode 'em with a charge straight out of an action movie"
Strongest IOF soldier "I shoot kids in the back who throw rocks at me"
Whenever I see Hamas or Hezbollah fighters, I can’t help but compare them to all the American asshole chuds who think they’re tough as shit because they own a gun and some tacticool gear. Even the guys who are like, former Marine vets or something. They honestly seem so pathetic next to our boys in Hamas and Hezbollah
One is fighting for a dodge charger and college loans, the other is fighting for freedom.
Master chief boarding and mashing X
Holy shit what a video. And afterwards he's somehow able to steady himself and hit another one
Might be the same one, just a double tap. Hard to tell
Possibly first strike to disable the anti rocket TROPHY systems these tanks have before hitting it with the rocket.
Though In all the videos of tanks getting got I’ve not seen that system go off once. Another undefeatable western system defeated
their fancy gadgets can't even stop a dude from just walking up and setting a bomb on the tank...
no infantry support... The IDF seems extremely incompetent
$3.5 million merkava tank vs. one ballsy boi
don't you normally have infantry around to protect tanks from this exact thing? are the IDF conscripts too afraid to come out of their metal cans?
Soon they’ll be just as afraid in their metal cans
They don't want to send infantry because they might get captured and become hostages. It's better for Israel's government for their soldiers to die than to be captured.
but sending in tanks without infantry support causes you to take tank losses, which also looks bad
Oh yes, it is entirely necessary to protect armor with infantry due to their vulnerability to infantry ambushes using AT weapons. Even with cameras with IR sensors and the like, someone isn't always watching, and there is no effective way of getting an enemy trooper off the tank quickly enough to hinder them from damaging it. Those tanks could have been easily been not destroyed if the IOF sent a few troops on foot or in lighter vehicles covering them.
Of course I don't actually know this, I have just blundered and lost one too many T-34 in Men of War: Assault Squad 2, that would have been prevented if I made sure a trench was completely empty, that is to say, filled it with Strekly.
Men of War, that is a game series I played a lot. I find it sad that a bunch of incompetent developers are behind it. They ruined it with their latest overhaul update.
Dang it, it always feels like something I want to play, but it never clicks
One of the points of tanks having machine guns is that they can hose down friendly tanks with minimal risk of damage. Of course, infantry support can also do this, and is more numerous and spread out.
I think Israeli ground forces are very poorly motivated atm, and if your tanks are getting rocked, your infantry probably don't even want to go
this is fucking nuts
boop!
Sounds like he's praying on his way up to the tank? Or is that Arabic for "oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit"
Dude is literally a mage, casting invisibility spells straight from the Quran.
Also You are a super valuable poster and I am so glad you are here.
UwU
This isn't even action movie shit. This is straight up videogame shit.
If this was a scene from a video game I'd be like "Come on, this is a bit ridiculous, no?"
There is a mission in CoD WW2 where you literally do this to a tank lol
:red-fist:
Lmao I love the dramatic pausing and zooming in these videos. Reminds me of those shitty like crime footage TV shows where a dramatic narrator comes in and is like "Watch as the perpetrator walks straight past the officer."
What is the device he placed? Just an explosive charge or some sort of homing device for his rocket?
I believe it's an explosive to deplete the reactive armor so the RPG would destroy the tank
Looks like some sort of shaped charge, something similar to this, and it looks like he pointed the business end of it right towards the turret ring.
Decent chance that that thing took out the tank on its own, actually, if it was pointed the right direction and was the right distance (not too close, not too far) from something vital.
Historically the flat end of anti-tank grenades like that were magnetic so they could be stuck to the tank with the right stand-off from the armor, but maybe that doesn’t work as well today? Or more likely nobody expects to place a demo charge on a tank anymore.