Image is of Colombian President Gustavo Petro giving a speech at the UN in 2022.
Trump has arrived in office with the force of an avalanche; ~~ending~~ slowing a genocide on the one hand, while simultaneously promising a total nightmare for minorities and the poor throughout and outside the United States on the other hand. [edited for clarity; I do not actually think Trump has ended the Palestinian genocide obviously, I was making a joke - but the ceasefire is a genuine improvement in conditions for millions of people right now who are on the edge of death, so it cannot be dismissed]
It's still far too early to truly compare and contrast his imperial strategy with Biden's, but initial signs show that there does appear to be somewhat of a reorientation. Biden was famous for being two-faced; ostensibly offering aid and stability, while also blowing up your pipeline to ensure you did not actually have an alternative to his idea. Trump, meanwhile, seems only really capable of aggression, threatening several "allied" nations with what may as well be sanctions because of the economic harm they'd do. I suspect we'll be debating for a long time how much of this can be attributed to the specific characteristics of Trump, or whether he merely embodies the zeitgeist of imperial decline - a wounded empire lashing out with extreme violence to try and convince everybody, including themselves, that they can still be the world imperialist hegemon.
I'll admit it: I did not believe that Trump would actually try and go ahead with putting tariffs on basically anybody who annoys him. And while the threat could still be empty in regards to countries like China and Canada, Colombia is the first indication of the potential of his strategy. Despite some fiery words from President Petro, after Trump's administration revealed the punishment if Colombia did not agree, it appears that Colombia will in fact be accepting deported migrants after all. It's funny how that works.
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.
Trump To Tariff Chips Made In Taiwan, Targeting TSMC
trust the plan
lol imagine you literally print paper out of nothing (issue treasury bill debt) and people hand you any physical object you want and yet you want to fuck up that system to score cheap political points at home
So many rich and managerial class Americans have no idea what it’s like to actually work and provide value to the economy and they’re about to FAFO.
What a lovely day. First the Derpseek AI grift wipeout, and now Trump bullying the crap out of key vassal.
Here in Switzerland people are already squealing about US AI sanctions about to hit. „But we were such good dogs!“
The Empire is somehow accelerating its downfall and I am all here for it.
i dont wanna jinx anything but i feel this is gonna be a good week (in terms of america fucking itself over)
The amount of damage America has inflicted on itself 7 days into the Trump presidency is hilarious. I'm hoping by this time next month it's full blown riots
I can't imagine this happens with what I'm sure will be every single capitalist in tech banging down his door over it? 100% tariff on TSMC just seems like way too much of a threat for finance captial to tolerate, like "call the CIA and arrange for Trump to visit Dallas in a motorcade" intolerable.
Edit: Actually, after seeing his canceling of all federal grants, fuck it. I guess there's just no handlers this time around and he truly is just going to do whatever he wants unless the other oligarchs can cobble together a coup.
this fuckin guy announces a $100bn package to build datacenters for ai and turns around 3 days later to slap a 100% tariff on the only company in the world that can supply those chips. They must have stuck elon in the basement and trump forgot about the tech industry or something.
It would take minimum 20 years of consistent, focused investment and industrial, education, and training policy to create an at-scale domestic supply of high-performance microchips. It's simply not something that can be bought with money. The workforce isn't there, the supply chain isn't there, and the optimization of all of the above isn't there. That stuff takes decades. Taiwan started building their semiconductor industry as soon as there was such a thing as a semiconductor industry and have stayed on top of it for decades. There's no recreating that overnight or even in a few years. Progress can be made, but it;s going to take a degree of foresight that I doubt anyone in the US is capable of mustering.
https://www.aztechcouncil.org/tsmc-may-make-ai-chips-for-nvidia-in-arizona/
It's not as prominently reported on, but there's sporadic, buried mentions in other articles mentioning a shortage of labor and increased costs in staffing even just this Arizona fab, which is the furthest ahead AFAIK.
Maybe. I suppose it depends on if Intel is able to get their shit together because they bought all of ASML's high NA EUV machines manufactured in 2024.
lmao what the fuck is going on
Bro what? I don't even know how this one makes sense
Ok, like realistically, is manufacturing really ever gonna come back to America?
I think that's a no for general manufacturing and a not a chance in hell for high-end chip manufacturing. I forget where I read it, but one of the problems is something like domestic manufacturing is so hallowed out that we don't even have all the necesaary educational institutions/programs to produce the kind of specialists you'd need for a high-end chip fab.
So even if the US could somehow overcome corruption of companies just pocketing government funding (also not happening) there simply isn't a workforce to run things.
And we're getting to the point where we won't have any educational programs for anything lmao. I guess everyone is expected to be rentiers or hard labor workers
Fyi China doesn't want Taiwan. Their claim is purely because of historical face.
it would require breaking wall street's primacy (finance capital) over industrial capital (fixed resource capital)
Yea. Part of why I think Trump doesn't actually understand capitalism
Yo Trump doesn't even understand what a fucking tariff is let alone capitalism lol
If America, within the next 50 years, is capable of producing even 25% of the microchips that Taiwan produces (and entirely inside America, no "let's do the easy part here and the hard part somewhere else"), I will post an image of my dick and balls on Hexbear (or whatever we're using by then). I am being 100% serious.
can't wait to see SeventyTwoTrillion's seventy-two-year-old dick
Not until socialism
No, it's functionally impossible.
Such an insane quote, given that TSMC is the only foundry capable of doing what it does. The next one along is what, Samsung? They're in SK, and they haven't been doing so great with yields. Anyone with half a brain (and enough money) would go to TSMC
But isn't Taiwan one of their most sacred ~~allies~~ vassals along with God Bless Ukraine and pissrael? Why would the Empire be hostile to one of their own?!?!?
Not at all. Taiwan pays the US protection money. It gets threatened by both the US and China.
bahahahahahahah
US corporations and consumers will be paying 100% of the tax
It is arguably more reasonable than broad tarrifs but still, American capitalists aren't investing shit.
What I say to taiwan: get ready to learn chinese, buddy
川建国 strikes again!