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.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
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.
This is from last month but I somehow missed it. Still very much worth noting:
IMF Shanghai center begins operation; new hub signifies China’s growing role in regional, global economy: expert Global Times
…
I take back everything I said about China having any slight chance of abandoning neoliberalism.
This is further integration of IMF with the PBOC. What’s the worst that can happen, you ask? Look at Russia’s central bank. I already raised my suspicion a couple years ago that the libs already made a comeback after the 20th CPC Congress and it’s looking more and more likely that my instinct was right back then.
Do not be surprised if you see a new type of “internationalized offshore RMB” that some will say is “China’s de-dollarization”, when the currency is probably designed and guided by the IMF itself.
Cope lathe: China is going to do to the IMF what they did to global manufacturing. Invite in the enemy, serve them some tea, and before they know it the Chinese are going to subsume the entire operation and be the ones calling all the shots as the imperialists eat themselves alive.
By 2040 the IMF is going to be another arm of China's BRI
Eyyy comon wea copin' ova 'ere!
China’s secret plan to turn RMB into the global reserve currency
there's serious stuff going on in the silver markets. silver is priced higher in China than in the US allowing for a free money arbitrage opportunity. historically, metals have been suppressed by TPTB in the US because it signals weakness in the dollar when they go up too much.
We can call it the Belt and Money Fund (BMF)
Optimistic Spin: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
Pessimistic Spin:
So is this investment-focused ? Or about forming policy FOR these "emerging market and middle-income countries" ?
If the US doesn't collapse soon, Iran is screwed.
oof
One thing that throws me is doesn't this presume no radical shift in the U.S. I know about the anti-decoupling measure but considering domestic consumption if the U.S economy goes the way of 2008, or something more drastic happens
in the U.S, what's the game plan for weathering that without the ability to build out to kickstart things again.
FFS
What stopped Gorbachev from taking this route with the USSR? Or was this what he was aiming for?
Gorby was more aiming for nordic social democracy ala Sweden. The reasons why he failed are manifold. One of the main ones being that US was okay cooperating with China, but not with USSR. Another major issue was giving away media control to the proto liberal opposition (Yeltsin faction).
Major L omfg