Image is of Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute a week or so ago.
I didn’t really want to keep spotlighting American domestic events as I had assumed that shit would calm down pretty quickly, but it appears that the Trump administration, including Musk, are determined to bring down the empire from the inside.
One of the most important lessons of ruling a country - and especially an empire - is to never, ever believe your own propaganda; and yet now we have neo-Nazi failsons disrupting parts of the imperial apparatus and causing general government mayhem because they actually seem to believe in libertarianism; that the state and the capitalists are somehow in opposition, rather than working in lockstep to maximise profit and boost American hegemony around the world.
I’m not so optimistic as to believe that a national collapse is FOUR DAYS AWAY, like those weird anti-China cranks often speculate - the US has at least a decade or two left even under these conditions. But consider the damage being inflicted in these past couple weeks, and extrapolate that over the next four years. Does any living American political figure possess the competency to halt - or even meaningfully slow - the already ongoing decline? And could they achieve power (or even be allowed to do so) after Trump’s term is done?
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.
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.
There had been more US military activity around México. A United States Air Force RC-135V “Rivet Joint” Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) aircraft flew right up the Gulf of California/Sea of Cortez, likely spying on communications inside México by the military and cartels and even civilians if they want to. While US military aircraft have flown on the west side of the Baja California coastline before, this is the first time in recent years, to my knowledge, that a US military aircraft has flown within the Gulf of California itself.
Now did this US military aircraft enter Mexican airspace? There are many misinformed accounts on social media that will say yes, but the truth is, technically and legally, no, this US military aircraft did not enter Mexican airspace. A state’s territorial sea extends up to 12 nmi (22 km; 14 mi) from it’s baseline. This sea, including the airspace above it, is the sovereign territory of that nation. Anything outside of that is technically international waters (and airspace). I’ll post an image here showing the territorial airspace and seas of Mexico.
Many misinformed social media accounts have confused the concepts of Flight Information Regions (FIR) and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) with a nation’s territorial/sovereign waters and airspace. I think the source of this misinformation is because AI LLMs like Google AI, Gork, and ChatGPT also confuse this concept, so OSINT social media accounts using these LLMs to do research just blindly believed their output. Please do not believe everything AI models say, they are often incorrect.
The RC-135V aircraft made sure to stay clear of this 12 nautical mile border/demarcation, and U-turned before entering Mexican sovereign territory under international law. But the USA has now exercised freedom of navigation rights with a military aircraft in the Gulf of California, in the context of recent events.
Wow damn that’s an insane provocation regardless if the SIGINT aircraft entered Mexico’s airspace or not. They clearly have bellicose intentions, it matters little if they’re flying over international waters or just outright neutral territory.
Risky shit, they must be cooking something or maybe they’re doing this to put pressure on Mexico. Dangerous times indeed.
Yeah it’s still quite a provocation, and the US must feel confident after whatever deal they got with Mexico today (maybe stuff like this was part of it?) In general the ramping up of US military activity on the border is extremely concerning. The P-8A Poseidon aircraft is also conducting patrols now. With the current rate of escalation, I’m wondering if we’ll see US special forces cross the border and start raiding the cartels.
Tbh if they’re running SIGINT flights like this, I don’t think it’s an “if” question, there’s probably already US spec ops in the country
Reminder that Taiwan (and the US on its behalf) gets pissy whenever China flies a military aircraft over a zone that has more mainland Chinese land than all Taiwanese land.
That has to do with their Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) and the median line, which is not sovereign /territorial Taiwanese airspace. ADIZs are not recognised by any international treaties or bodies. Here’s a graphic that shows the difference. The dotted line around Taiwan is their territorial airspace. China does not violate this territorial airspace or waters, they enter the ADIZ to continually exercise their freedom of navigation right recognised by international law, in the same way that countries like the USA and Russia do. The US has gone to war over freedom of navigation before, just research all the incidents with Libya around the Gulf of Sidra.
I hope the one plane in eastern ADIZ was just doing a fun loop of the whole island 🏝
At least the pilot can brag amongst their squadron. “I’m the only one to have been to the east! They make you do hundreds of flights to the west, but only I go to the east, I’m special.”