Image is of a protest in San Diego against ICE.
On January 7th, 37-year-old Renee Good was murdered by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. While a considerable amount of the discussion online has been about the direction her wheels were turning and things like that, truthfully, I think it's just fundamentally bad to shoot a person to death with a gun if you happen to be a state mercenary enforcing an incredibly racist federal policy, regardless of the circumstances.
The murder has since prompted a wave of vigils and protests, not only in Minneapolis, but also in virtually every major city in the country. The demands are justice for Good in particular, and the abolition of ICE in general, to avenge its many victims. The Trump administration has done all they can to inflame the situation, designating Good a "domestic terrorist" and saying that the agent who shot her will be immune from prosecution.
Protests and resistance to this administration's policies have, encouragingly, had an element of international solidarity - not only are flags from countries throughout Latin America (and also Palestine) present, but speakers in protests have even been actively condemning the recent imperialist actions against Venezuela. For it is, of course, one joint struggle. The imperial boomerang always returns - and in the modern day, it returns rapidly.
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.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
China is not going to help Iran this time.
According to Chinese media (article here, use machine translation), when Trump withdrew from JCPOA in 2018, China’s Dalian port provided shelter for the 3.4 million ton Iranian oil under sanction (worth $2 billion). Over six years, the storage has racked up over $450 million in port fee. When Iran’s foreign minister visited China in January 2025, apparently they demanded that China return the sanctioned oil but refused to pay the port fee.
Chinese nationalist propaganda says that the Chinese leadership is pissed at Iran and did not like to be made a fool of, and China’s apparently decided to go its own way. If Iran doesn’t want to play ball, then China will simply not rely on Iran at all. Apparently China’s leadership is also pissed at the Iranians making a deal with India, but I cannot verify this.
On the other side, it is also worth noting that in 2021, China and Iran signed a 25-year cooperation program that was supposed to have China investing $400 billion in Iran over 25 years. Yet after nearly 5 years, only a tiny fraction of that investment money ever made it to Iran, apparently because of Iran’s solidarity with Palestine made many Chinese investors wary of a war in the region that could cause them to lose their investment altogether.
You can imagine what Iran feels about China’s commitment to the deal as well. My impression is that both countries never really took each other seriously, and were only “pushed together” by US geopolitical actions. So it should not surprise you that they’re no longer seeing eye to eye after a few years.
Meanwhile, according to the “Chinese business circle intelligence network” (lol) that has been floating on the social media in the last few days, many Chinese businessmen in Iran are sounding pessimistic about the situation. Although the protests never reached the scale of the 2023 Amini protest and very likely involved foreign agents, what they’re saying is that unlike the Amini protest, which was mostly ignited by religious/social affairs in nature, this time the protest is very much driven by the cost of living, hence why the protests erupted mostly in the peripheral regions that have been enduring the largest burden of the economic pain.
Since the 12 day war with Israel last June, rial has significant depreciated (by ~44%) and inflation is now through the roof. Although the IRGC and the Iranian government may well survive this round of protest, the foundation is being shaken to the core because the ruling class can no longer keep the people placated with the spiraling inflation. The problem with the protest movement is that they are not organized or led by a credible leader, so it’s bound to be hijacked by foreign agents.
Many Chinese businessmen are now frantically looking for exit, while just a year ago they were still fairly optimistic about the situation in Iran. Things really took a drastic turn after the 12-day war and Trump’s bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities.
Just a few observations from what I’ve seen on the Chinese side of the conflict.
With China distancing itself from Venezuela as well, how do you see this strategy of backing off of whatever America claims via violence? Isn't this creating a moral hazard, where anywhere they invest into will become targeted by the US, and then China will back off? Thus rewarding the US and encouraging the cycle? Is Chinese leadership short sighted enough to not see this? Doesn't this completely defeat their entire strategy of win-win cooperation?
See my comment from last week’s megathread on this topic. Disclaimer that I don’t pretend to understand what the Chinese government is thinking, so take with a huge grain of salt.
I think a lot of people are overestimating how much China is dependent on countries like Iran and Venezuela for its energy supply. China must have run its calculations and figured that they are self-sufficient enough to not have to be dragged down in providing continuous support for these countries. After all, who’s not going to sell resources to China when their economy is so much more dependent on China?
Many people are also underestimating how much China can leverage its cards to stop the US from decoupling from itself.