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.
British Columbia, one of Canada’s most populous provinces, had a provincial election yesterday that is turning out to be a real nail biter.
Some background, BC spent the early oughts through 2017 run by the BC Liberals, the right wing provincial party. In 2017 the NDP, the left wing party, won a squeaker of a win and formed a minority government with the green party. 2020 saw a resounding NDP victory and they formed a majority government. In the last couple years the BC Liberals imploded and rebranded as the BC Conservatives. The rebranded BC Conservatives use a Canadian maga aesthetic and have done a stereotypically incoherent campaign against social welfare, indigenous, and LGBT people. The NDP portray themselves as social democrats but govern as neoliberals without some of the worst excesses of neoliberalism (but just some - they still supported the RCMP in their attacks on wetsuweten land defenders and protestors at fairy Creek). The BC Greens are similar to the NDP and so aren’t bloodthirsty as the German greens or as geopolitically aware as the US Greens.
This election in 2024 looks to be a repeat of 2017, with NDP on track to hold 46 seats, cons 45 and the greens 2, where 47 is needed for a majority. The final count will be done in a week.
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/british-columbia/2024/results/
Greens reputation as Tories on Bikes to be tested once again
In the context of BC, it has already been tested in 2017-2020. At any point the greens could have flipped on the NDP and done non confidence motions in favour of the the BC right, but they didn’t. Ideologically, the BC greens are very similar to the BC NDP. I sincerely doubt they will take a different approach this time as the Greens are perpetually poor (election campaigns are expensive) and they’re certain not to get a better electoral outcome than being a necessary part of a minority government.
In general the Canadian greens have for the most part gotten away from the Tories on bikes reputation insofar as the policies and positions they take. The federal greens proved themselves way too vulnerable to Zionist wrecking with the disaster that was annamie paul, but western liberal parties that pay lib service to Palestinian rights being influenced and wrecked by Zionist lobbies is hardly unique to the Canadian greens. More recently, Elizabeth may, the federal Green leader, has really eaten some shit over her attacks on netanyahu. She’s still solidly a lib, but in the context of the Canadian Parliament (
) she is not bad.
Again, I think important to note that the actual Tories, for which the Tories on Bikes stereotype was named, are extraordinarily, vocally pro genocide, with the federal Tories recently describing a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities as something that would be a “gift to humanity”.