Image is from this article, of a Chilean copper quarry.
Title is a reference to Trump's social media post about copper, which was, as usual, mostly deranged.
Trying to follow Trump's administration is pretty difficult, but as of right now, he is threatening 30% tariffs on Mexico and the EU starting on August 1st, as well as new tariff announcements on a bunch of other countries (including, bizarrely, a 50% tariff on Brazil), and also apparently a 50% tariff on copper, which the US imports half its supply of and is, of course, a very important metal in many applications.
I'm not sure what the plan is to bring back domestic copper production beyond hoping that it just sorta works out, but prominent copper producers, such as Chile and Canada, seem both concerned and confused. Reuters had a line that made me chuckle:
Boric said he was awaiting official communication from the U.S. government, including whether the tariffs would include copper cathodes, and questioned "whether this will actually be implemented or not."
Big mood, Boric.
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
If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.
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.
Alright so one thing I'll feel compelled to bring up is that since I've been doing stuff in the real world for a few months is that since I've been gone I noticed that the news mega has gone really down in quality where it seems that as long as you hit a certain amount of words your analysis is deemed 'materialist' or 'marxist' or whatever feelgood word that complete doomer nonsense is not challenged like someone writing a ton of words to explain why Russia will capitulated in 2026 because Trump said they'll send some new wunderwaffen to Ukraine something that would be mocked as liberal nonsense like a year ago is just quietly accepted.
Like it feels that there's just the constant doomer faction that has completely taken over and now it's this competition to be the most doomer with the most words and churning out the shittiest takes similar to AI slop.
And the reason I'm being kind of aggressive in my calling out here is that while yes some things suck now some people just read more like some western third world maoists that have had their brains cooked and are now unable to do anything because the empire is doing 120d chess moves that mean that whatever we do we've already lost and the western population will never do anything and yadda yadda.
I get why their brain has been pickled by being in this brine of doom juice but it really feels like some people just gotta expel those 'bad humors' by doing some good old honest praxis, to feel fucking solidarity and camaraderie in this world instead of whatever this feels like.
I agree to an extent and it's why even I don't spend as much time here any more as I used to. I think there's a decreasing sense of curiosity and an increasing sense of people fitting data-points into their personal theories along the lines of "Here's why China doing X actually confirms my theory about why it's going to collapse soon" or "Here's why Putin is doing Y, this clearly shows he's abandoned Iran and China, just as I thought."
But at the end of the day, it's not as if those who oppose those people are totally blameless either. To challenge an opposing viewpoint, you can't merely go "This person is wrong and sucks" because that only creates a void of uncertainty which will inevitably just get filled up again; you have to forcefully assert an equally-if-not-more persuasive theory of reality, with the expertise that requires.
Do you think MarmiteLover is wrong about Iranian and Israeli military capabilities? You have to become knowledgeable in and post about those things - not just in an argumentative reply-guy sense, but actual top-level comments and analysis about it.
Do you think xiaohongshu is wrong in regards to multipolarity and dedollarization? You have to assert an alternative economic model of reality that fits the facts better and uses materialist analysis, as well as just generally having a decent degree of knowledge of macroeconomics.
and so on.
There's been quite a few people who have been annoyed by users here and expressed that, but there's been much less in terms of concerted efforts to be like "No, you're wrong, and here's why: insert eight paragraphs here" It can't merely be looking at somebody saying "Here's all the reasons China is bad and sucks" and going "Okay, here's all the reasons China is good!", you have to also engage with the reasons why China sucks and give satisfying materialist explanations for those things.
What? No! NGL this reads as someone who isn't even interested in Marxism economic side so why even beat yourself up for not discussing economics? Either you have the interest or you don't. I say this because absolutely nothing of what that user writes is ever complex or barely "correct" from a socialist viewpoint. The very basic principles of Marxist theory often disproves it, like with due respect, if you think you need a econ degree to contest them then idk... That said if you say "but it requires time investment and reading" then yes, I agree 100%. You need to spend some time reading and reading fairly regularly(one a month) to keep up.
Here even on reddit you can find this topic, what are some other Marxist sources. Monthly review is also a solid source though more varied.
Of course I mention Michael R. blog often because he also does excellent reviews of the broad situation e.g he does writeups on the econ confereces including the ones he visits(latest). BTW for an example talking point, you'll find Marxist economics has been trying to deal with China's "sub-imperialism" or "BRICS wont save us" for years now.
You do not need an econ degree to contest NakedCapitalism level takes, I'm sorry but no.
It is worrysome how all these people(cockshott, Roberts, Harvey, Hudson etc...) are all so old now I'm not sure who will replace their content but that is another discussion lol.
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