Image is a frame taken from this video of Iranian missiles raining down on Israel without interception due to a weak and depleted air defense system after a year of war and genocide.
Mao, 1956:
Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn’t. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.
When we say U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, we are speaking in terms of strategy. Regarding it as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal. For instance, if it has ten fangs, knock off one the first time, and there will be nine left, knock off another, and there will be eight left. When all the fangs are gone, it will still have claws. If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end.
Strategically, we must utterly despise U.S. imperialism. Tactically, we must take it seriously. In struggling against it, we must take each battle, each encounter, seriously. At present, the United States is powerful, but when looked at in a broader perspective, as a whole and from a long-term viewpoint, it has no popular support, its policies are disliked by the people, because it oppresses and exploits them. For this reason, the tiger is doomed. Therefore, it is nothing to be afraid of and can be despised. But today the United States still has strength, turning out more than 100 million tons of steel a year and hitting out everywhere. That is why we must continue to wage struggles against it, fight it with all our might and wrest one position after another from it. And that takes time.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA 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.
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.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
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.
A third front 'bout to open up in Korea?
Nah, I’m going to go against the grain this time and say that for once, this is not part of the US strategic plan.
One, this is likely posturing driven by President Yoon’s plunging approval rating amidst the First Lady scandal, which has recently caused the death (allegedly suicide) of a senior anti-corruption investigator probing the case. The President is deeply unpopular with a disapproval rating of 80% at the moment and needed the spotlight to be diverted elsewhere. This conveniently coincided with the recently revived October 1st military parade during which South Korea showed off its monster ballistic missiles for the first time
Two, China has (partially) folded under America’s tariffs. The Chinese libs have managed to convince the central leadership that an influx of foreign capital is good for the economy. We will likely see a truce in the Asia Pacific theater for a brief period as the US focuses on the Middle East.
Three, the US is currently preoccupied with the Israel-Palestine conflict and wants to use the opportunity to finish off Iran and reshape the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East, so it would prefer not to pick a fight with China (a certainty if the Koreas start fighting) at this point. The US simply cannot afford to fight at so many fronts at the same time.
However, it is hard to predict the outcome of the DPRK reaction to South Korea’s posturing. The US might inadvertently get dragged into an unanticipated conflict that screws up their longer term plan in the region.
Kim Jong Un: I’m about to end this man’s whole career.
If things really do heat up there it’s a clear tell Taiwan is about to pop off imo. Light too many fires for the empire to put out and there’s no way they’ll be able to square up with the world’s dominant industrial power.
That said, I don’t think Korea is going to heat up too much. There have been much more siginificant flare-ups in the past.
I think it’s the opposite. If a front opens in Korea then Taiwan is off the cards. China joined in the first Korean War to make sure an US puppet didn’t border them in Manchuria. A second Korean War would involve that, but also would involve China making sure a nuclear armed North Korea doesn’t implode. China doesn’t entirely trust North Korea and also doesn’t want the inevitable fallout with a massive displaced population either.
For Taiwan to become a battleground you’d need such a massive Korean War that it becomes an a war over the future of all East Asia.
best place for us to escalate is europe. logistics are easiest, most number of stooges to send to get killed, most politically captured, decent amount of capital to redirect.
second by a wide margin is israel, logistics are bad, iran’s too far away and has already been sanctioned to death, israel is tiny and the opponents that are actually targetable are a bunch of non state actors engaging in protracted people’s war with islamic characteristics.
third is asia. bunch of opportunistic islands all well within range of chinese strategic deterrence. us lost the korean war when it was at its most dominant, unlikely that it and its proxies will win round two.
this is a message intended to deter the dprk from intervening as much as it might in eastern europe when the nato/russia conflict eventually kicks off and the russia/dprk mutual defense treaty is invoked.
Let a hundred fronts bloom