Image of destruction in Mandalay, Myanmar, from Al Jazeera.
As if the ongoing civil war wasn't enough, Myanmar has now been struck by a very powerful earthquake, resulting in 2000 deaths and thousands more injured as of the time of writing. Estimates are that the death toll could reach 10,000. Infrastructure like roads and bridges are damaged, and the hospitals are overwhelmed. The earthquake struck during Eid prayers, resulting in even higher casualties as several mosques collapsed. 20 million people already required humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, and now the situation there will be even worse. International rescue teams have rushed into the country, and aid is being raised, though with USAID experiencing the... changes that it is, the United States will be of even more limited help than usual. So far, China has sent $14 million, while USAID has supplied $2 million. In Thailand, the death toll seems considerably lower, though there has still been significant damage; a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok.
Myanmar is located very close to the boundary between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. In particular, the country is divided in two by the north-south oriented Sagaing fault. This fault is typically strike-slip; that is, each side of the fault moves horizontally past each other. The earthquake's depth was 10 kilometers, which is pretty shallow, and its proximity to the surface amplified the felt force of the earthquake. Additionally, the soft soil in this region tends to further amplify seismic waves through a process called liquefaction. Combine all this with the lackluster building codes due to many years of impoverishment and civil wars, and this explains why the death toll, and the expense to the country in general to repair damage, will probably be extremely high.
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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.
can someone explain what's going on with the whole abundance thing the libs are trying to sell btw like what sort of theorists/schools of thought are they drawing on and what are they even advocating for
Treatlerite utopianism. They think we should strive for the world where our tv shows and burgers are less expensive
https://youtu.be/9w5rYhKL83E
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
They want a more high tech version of "1 billion Americans" book. Instead they still believe that government shouldn't play an active role in building all the infrastructure needed for that high tech amazon delivery drone flying society as they think that market and VC can do it better.
It's basically a Democrats project 2025 for their future election.
Also there is a lot of fun made on all the proposal for megaprojects for saudi arabia, but it is not so different from the pipe dream proposed from the book
There are some more concrete propositions that are now done by the republicans and a lot of aspirational stuff seems to be inspired by the Chinese model.
Wait, thats literally "just do neoliberalism again but call it something else"
~~third way~~ ~~stakeholder capitalism~~ ~~forward party~~ ~~populism~~ ~~green capitalism~~ ~~en marche~~ ~~technocracy~~ ~~common sense~~ ~~bazaar islamism~~ ~~islamic technocracy~~
damn if they can do it better why haven't they done so yet then?
because it's a sales pitch for VCs and silicone valley to finance the Democratic Party Consultant Job Guaranteed Program.
because of red tape and government bureaucracy of course!
This is literally one of the points in the book, we can't do innovation because the bureaucracy is full of degrowth people therefore we need to destroy red tape to allows green innovation (ironic because Doge is doing that and Musk is technically still a green capitalist, according to truanon some interviewer asked Klein about this point and he seems uncomfortable towards the question).
What is ironic is that the end goal of the society proposed by Klein is a society where the resources are allocated to have environmentally sustainable growth which is what degrowth is about.
In the book, their ideal America is one where drones deliver Ozempic manufactured in low earth orbit to stop Americans from getting too fat eating lab grown meat
I do think it's interesting that they've created a positive vision of the future after their project for decades being a slightly improved version of the status quo. I guess it's hard to sell people on that when things have been getting incrementally worse that whole time
I think Abundance has caught on because it offers a vision of some kind for the future, and not just a promise of the status quo with a few changes like libs have been pushing for decades
They want zoning reform, but are diametrically opposed to being part of an economically populist program which includes zoning reform.
If a Bernie sanders type politician started talking about zoning reform, they would pivot to something else.
Just like "popularism", "effective altruism", "YIMBY" etc, it's just a cudgel against the left to assuage voters' fears about oligarchy and redirect populist demands into something that's more acceptable to capital.
If you point any of this out, they accuse you of being a luddite degrowth fanatic who just doesn't want to "build stuff", if you question whether deregulation is the best way to "build stuff" they just stop talking.
A. Treatler et al.
as per usual then i fear.
Luxury YIMBY neoliberalism
my guess is that it is no larger project, and certainly no deeply felt cause, other than stage setting for the next rounds of dem primaries. abundance + the gavin newsom podcast are establishing the guardrails for what the consultant class see as manageable, acceptable brands to sell.
it's neoliberal yimbyism
Atlantic neoliberalism with a huge placebo dose of ordoliberalism
Focus is more on state/private collaboration for the sake of deregulation, instead of the usual American neolib formula of deregulation for the sake of private/state collaboration
They switched the policy order because of a confidence crisis due to Trump and general conditions, leading them to believe state intervention is needed to preserve neoliberal policy dominance