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.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/images/venezuelan-govt-backs-communes-to-boost-coffee-production-increase-exports/
Some positive news in the PSUV relationship with communes. They have turned over a coffee processing plant to commune control, serving 80 different coffee growing communes in controlling their means of production from seed to export.
Delcy spoke during the event and said, “Coffee is one of the most important items where the communal economy already has the entire production chain organized." This affirms that the overall plan of strengthening communes and diversifying the economy through communes is still a priority for the government, despite what ultras on the outside like to speculate about while parroting US imperialist narratives.
According to some users here, everyone involved with this should be dead if they were really communists, and since they are instead alive and continuing to strengthen their grassroots revolutionary movement even in the face of constant US aggression, they are really just slaves to the US with no sovereignty or autonomy.
I am glad these people are alive and continuing to strengthen their movement while under siege and have to trust that they will self correct based on their conditions and organizational capacity but I guess that’s not very communist of me.
It seems like wanting people to die is the communist position for many people here and that wanting people to be alive and in a position to prepare for future escalation from their enemies is seen as reactionary.
No one can explain to me how it makes sense but many people support it anyway, they also seem to think Iraq and Afghanistan “won” against the US though so maybe those people are actually not people at all but ghouls who only can spread US imperialist propaganda under the guise of "the left "
I’m Venezuelan. From listening to gusanos that I am related to, nobody is happy with Trump settling for Delcy Rodriguez. They all think she is still a crook. Which honestly has kept me from being more critical. These gusano outlets (I’ll ask my mom for some and break down the messaging) keep pumping regime change propaganda. If Donald Trump had succeeded they would have promptly changed their tune.
I am also surprised by leftists who can’t seem to make a proper material analysis of the situation, and think Venezuela should fight the imperial machinery to the last abuela.
This is really the part that has made me so consistently push against this here for the last few months. No one has provided an alternative aside from raining hellfire on abuelas and having essential national infrastructure destroyed, and even if that happened they can’t say how it ends up with Venezuela in a better position. It is really ghoulish suggestions, very online video game type behavior which sees human lives as zeros and ones.
I think it’s very telling that for all that has happened since, the domestic situation within Venezuela is remarkably the same as before Maduro’s kidnapping. The same people who supported Maduro supports Rodriguez, and the same people who opposed Maduro opposes Rodriguez. I literally cannot find anyone who has “defected” to the other side. I was able to find some protests against Rodriguez, but those protests were led by the PCV who already split from Maduro a while ago. They thought Maduro stuffed ballot boxes in order to get re-elected.
None of the communes, many of them armed by Maduro, has taken up arms against Rodriguez. Likewise, Rodriguez has made no moves to disarm the communes nor has she conducted Khrushchev-style purges where she replaced Chavistas within the government with compradors and traitors. I am not aware of a single person within the higher echelon of government who has resigned in protest over her “betrayal.”
The closest is Alex Saab, but she didn’t personally hand him over, it was a group decision by an administration handpicked and led by Maduro, so if one wants to play the betrayal game, then it would be Maduro’s administration as a collective who betrayed Saab. And if that’s true, how much would Maduro really impact things if he’s apparently surrounded by people, who he considers comrades, that wants Saab gone. On the flip side, Maduro would face some culpability as well since those officials were picked by him. If those officials are indeed traitors, then surely part of the blame should go to Maduro for not recognizing their traitorous nature.
Overall, I find the Rodriguez betrayal narrative to be sloppy thinking and a tad bit opportunist. The Maduro-and-so-by-extension-Rodriguez-betrayed-Chavismo narrative at least acknowledges the continuation between Maduro and Rodriguez and how Maduro probably wouldn’t have done a whole lot different even if the kidnapping failed.
I feel much the same way. Sometimes tactical retreats are necessary for strategic victories, the “winning play” for Venezuela is likely to wait out the US Empire’s dying hard power and hope for a new pink tide so they are not so isolated.
That does sound like a cohesive strategic view but have you considered that Venezuelans should be strapping explosives to shipping boats and sailing them 1,300 miles past 5 other nations to blow up a buoy outside Miami?
As frustrating as i find the arguments against Delcy and the situation Venezuela finds itself in, I don’t think it’s overly constructive to directly link to a comment made by another user. The only thing I see coming from it is another time wasting pile on of the nah-uhhs Vs. the ya-hahhs
If it was someone in a position of power, then sure, but if it’s one person being a whiney little wrecker, better to just let it go. It’s detracting from your point imo
well maybe anyway, maybe subtweeting them would result in the same thing anyway
tbh the only reason I did it is because they finally explained themselves after being asked what they would have done differently many times over the last couple weeks and it was wildly ignorant and I don’t think many people saw it because it was buried in a thread at the end of the week.
for weeks this person has been saying Venezuelans should have “struggled” more and that since they didn’t, they are fully vassalized by the US and run by a comprador government. and many people here were seeming to support that narrative.
so now that we finally have them explaining themselves fully and what their plan would have been after being asked so many times for so long, it seems like a shame to have it buried away where no one really sees the analysis behind their consistent vague anti-Venezuela posting.
I want to make sure it is very clear that the people who have these kind of purity politics positions, asserting that no one actually doing any work in the world is ever revolutionary enough, are really saying they want revolutionaries to senselessly die with no strategy for how it ever translates into victory. they think that victory is what Iraq and Afghanistan look like right now. If a socialist state isn’t putting itself into a position where it ends up looking like 2026 Afghanistan, they are reformists in the vein of Gorbachev. They think that because people in Iran have died and they continue to fight, Venezuelans should put themselves in the position to have more of their own people die. Not dying is a sign that you are working with your enemies. This is literally what this person is saying and it is not only tolerated but supported here, and I just think it should be said and that it is good to put it all out there and hopefully invite more discussion, especially from those people who seem to agree with the user I am linking to. I would love for the people who upvoted his posts there to explain why they agree with him that Afghanistan and Iraq “won” against the US, and what they have won, for example.
I appreciate you linking this for that reason, I had followed that thread but missed that specific sub-discussion within it (folks, we gotta stop having
that go on for like a day! honestly, this is kind of one thing I don’t like about the megathread format, long discussions like this can get lost way down in the list, I guess it depends on how you’re sorting the thread but I’m a
?sort=Newkinda guy)I find it really baffling for a person to go on about materialism this materialism that while ignoring literally one of the most rudimentary and fundamental material things, geography, like, the fucking ground we stand on? Distance is, in fact, real, and one’s distance from the empire has obvious impacts on how a war would turn out. “just build drones lmao” being presented as a materialist analysis with complete ignorance of what those drones would actually be hitting is just… let’s do some actual analysis and look at a fucking map for once:
Seriously, every example was “just do what Vietnam did to the US, just do what USSR did to Germany, just do what Iran is doing now, this is material analysis.”
There is so much to pick apart about why it makes no sense and is antithetical to material analysis but truly you don’t even need to if you just glance at a map
That’s because as much as they go on about materialism, they don’t actually engage with dialectical materialist analysis, which is extremely apparent from their analysis. They just watch financial flows and think “Money = materialism”.
I understand why you did it, but I think this sets a bad example on hexbear. Imagine if this behavior were more common, where users continue beefs for weeks and dig up old comments to publicly dunk on in megathreads? Imagine how miserable that would be. We would all be on edge, snapping at each other and expecting a fight any time someone disagreed with us.
This person gets into a fight with almost everyone they interact here with off the jump. Plenty of people have tried being more charitable with them, myself included, but they don’t seem interested in engaging that way and have forfeited any baseline of respect.
This is more or less a leftist shitposting site which allows for people of many perspectives, which means allowing for disagreement and debate. If you want a more serious experience lemmygrad has that and they probably would have banned him by now and it wouldn’t even be an issue. I am here because I like the shitposting and less serious nature of the website. I haven’t reported that person or suggested they be banned, and if they were some other person with the same politics would show up and fill the void. This is like the third ultra taking these stances since I joined and when one vanishes it isn’t long before another appears.
As far as the “what if” scenario you posited, the majority of people who regularly post here seem to be on a similar wavelength about this guy and politics in general, even the anarchists that post here, so I just don’t think the scenario you are concerned about is really on the table. If this person wants to deescalate the self crit thread is available and there are many cases they could self crit about that I’ve seen in the last few months, if they did that I’m sure most people here would be fine cutting them some slack. Until something like that occurs, I don’t feel responsible for being “the bigger person” on a shitposting website to a shitposter. It feels like a sort of tone policing to insist that people need to be nice and friendly to assholes or else they are somehow responsible for the asshole’s personality flaws.