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submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net

Image is of one of Ireland's only manned navy ships, the Samuel Beckett. Image sourced from this BBC article.


Putler has been HUMILIATED by the Kursk offensive and this proves that Russia's army is in tatters and unable even to defend its own territory. However, it is simultaneously true that Russia poses an existential threat to countries thousands of miles away, as this recent Politico article demonstrates. Ireland - a country that immediately springs to mind as one surrounded by enemies - is being bullied due to its lack of military.

Despite bearing responsibility for 16 percent of the EU’s territorial waters, and the fact that 75 percent of transatlantic undersea cables pass through or near Irish waters, Ireland is totally defenseless. And I mean completely unable to protect critical infrastructure, or even pretend to secure its own borders. [...] Ireland’s “navy” of six patrol vessels is currently operating with one operational ship due to chronic staff shortages. [...] Ireland simply has no undersea capabilities. How could it, when it barely spends 0.2 percent of GDP on security and defense? And it has, in effect, abdicated responsibility for protecting the Europe’s northwestern borders.

For all we know, the dreaded sea-people from the Bronze Age Collapse could soon emerge from the North Atlantic.

Unfortunately, things are even worse up in the skies. Ireland has no combat jets, and it’s the only country in Europe that can’t monitor its own airspace due to the lack of primary radar systems. Instead, the country has outsourced its security to Britain in a technically secret agreement between Dublin and London, which effectively cedes control over Irish air space to the Royal Air Force. This must be the luck of the Irish — smile and get someone else to protect you for free.

While this is very silly, rearmament has long been a part of US imperial strategy on an economic level. Desai, discussing the US imperial strategy in the WW2 period:

By 1947 [...] the domestic postwar consumer boom was nearing its end. While financing exports became more urgent, the 1946 elections returned a Congress unlikely to approve further loans. Now the Truman Administration concocted the ‘red menace’ to ‘scare the hell out of the country’, enunciated the Truman Doctrine of US support for armed resistance to ‘subjugation’ which launched the cold war, and Congress granted $400 million to prevent left-wing triumphs in Greece and Turkey in 1947.

One reading of history states that the US was so intimidated by the USSR that this forced a policy of massive arms production even outside of official wartime. Why this arms production is not occurring today can be puzzling, and (very reasonably) explained by neoliberals exporting industrial production overseas. However, a different historical reading can explain both the first Cold War, and the ongoing situation in which American weaponry is being almost purposefully given in insufficient numbers to give Ukraine a chance of victory and thus only prolonging their suffering (while generating massive profit for the military-industrial complex):

In this sense the Cold War was not the cause of US imperial policy but its effect. It combined financing exports with fighting combined development by national capitalisms as well as communism. When such ‘totalitarian regimes’ threatened ‘free peoples’, ‘America’s world economic responsibilities’ included aid to countries battling them.

By selling massively expensive weapons to Europe, America could simultaneously guarantee export markets for its industries, trap Europe into reliance on American industries at the expense of their own, and divert European funds away from constructing factories which could compete with American ones. Providing a way to defend against Soviet communism (and now Russian "imperialism") is merely a happy side-effect, and so the lack of effectiveness of American weaponry is causing no great panic among the military-industrial complex, nor an urgent plan to quintuple artillery shell production or Patriot missile production - the deals for F-35s and such are still there, and they are what matter.


The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Ireland! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.

Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.

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.
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.


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[-] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 121 points 4 weeks ago

Man, TikTok libs who were fully on board with Palestine a month ago have just fully switched over to being huge Kamala Harris stans and the hate for people who continue to care about the Palestinian genocide is pretty palapable.

This isn't really News but it's just a pretty crazy shift in vibes that has me, as an American, feeling like no American can be trusted with access to any power ever.

I feel like maybe a PRC appointed viceroy might be the way to go in the future or something.

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[-] Al_Sham@hexbear.net 119 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)
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[-] LargePenis@hexbear.net 118 points 4 weeks ago

News mega gang, listen up. Based on vibes, pit in my stomach, voice tone of family in Beirut, and the spirits of George Hawi and Kamal Jumblatt speaking to me:

Iran and Hezbollah will be attacking Israel before Sunday. If it doesn't happen, I'll show my face here again on Sunday and you're all allowed to call me a dumbass.

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[-] What_Religion_R_They@hexbear.net 106 points 3 weeks ago
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[-] Parzivus@hexbear.net 105 points 3 weeks ago

Pope Francis says the IDF is commiting terrorism
Under no circumstances do you have to hand it to the Catholics but this is cool at least

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[-] SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net 100 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Zak Cope, third-worldist marxist and author of Divided World Divided Class and mentioned fairly regularly on Hexbear, has gone completely off the deep end. October 7th was too much for him.

He's now stated his full support for free-market capitalism and colonialism, and is advocating for the rules-based international order as a way to protect from Russian and communist influence, is drawing equivalencies between Nazis and the Soviets, is saying that unequal exchange is not real, centralized planning is impossible, quoting Thatcher, etc.

For many western leftists, now that oppressed people are actually beginning to fight back in (necessarily imperfect) ways, rather than being pitiable victims marching into the sea as Gandhi wished, all left-wing values go out the window and they realize their class interests are aligned against these uprisings. I must admit that I thought a big exposure to the literature and even writing a significant book on the subject would inoculate a person against taking the complete opposite values less than a year after they held those values, but Zionism is a stubborn little tumor which can rapidly take over the body once it awakens.

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[-] Frank@hexbear.net 99 points 3 weeks ago

Visiting someone who has cable news on. First time i've seen cable news in a long time, and there's a lot of super carefully engineered psychic damage inducing electoral propaganda. And you know what? American electoralism isn't just largely pointless, it's actively evil. It's indoctrinating people in to a completely false reality disconnected from any either domestic or foreign political realities.

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[-] VILenin@hexbear.net 99 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Happening now: Israeli ambassador to the UN goes on hysterical genocidal screed at UNSC, stops himself every 2 seconds to emphasize that Arabs are terrorists, and again every 4 seconds to scream and moan pronounjak-rage about the UNSC falling for “terrorist lies”, ends Hitlerite speech with “WE ARE THE DEFENDERS OF CIVILIZATION” and storms out of the room

[-] SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net 82 points 4 weeks ago

this is fairly typical behaviour when you're winning a war

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[-] Flaps@hexbear.net 93 points 4 weeks ago

On holiday and a bunch of yanks and white south africans having an open conversation about how the idf can kill anyone in their sleep and how apartheid wasnt exactly nice but at least it was good for the economy. First time ive encountered the famed zionist lib. Awful people.

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[-] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 92 points 3 weeks ago

A representative from the Vatican City State delivered credentials to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, giving legitimacy to his government in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church.

Far-Right latino catholics and protestants really pissed rn lol.

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[-] carpoftruth@hexbear.net 92 points 3 weeks ago
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[-] LargePenis@hexbear.net 92 points 3 weeks ago

Come on do something Mr Khamenei, my hexbear reputation is on the line here. What if my son finds out that his dad became TinyPenis after being let down by the Axis of Resistance

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[-] Torenico@hexbear.net 90 points 4 weeks ago

Capitalism is when no food.

A million Argentine children skip meals each day due to poverty

Over half of families with children had to stop buying basic foods because they couldn’t afford them, a UNICEF report has found

In Argentina, over one million children are skipping meals each day because their families cannot afford food, according to a UNICEF report published Tuesday. The number of households who cannot make ends meet has risen significantly since 2022.

An April study of households with children found that 7% of children and teens, and 30% of adults, had to skip at least one meal a day because they couldn’t afford food. The report showed that seven in 10 children were poor in April. Poverty was defined as either economic poverty or deprivation of basic needs such as education, social protection, or adequate housing.

In a context of growing economic and social inequality, 52% of households with kids stopped buying essential foods because they could no longer afford them. This is 11 percentage points higher than in June 2023, and the highest since UNICEF started conducting these surveys in 2020. This number represents 3.3 million households, which are home to almost 7 million children.

According to UNICEF’s data, 90% of these homes stopped buying milk, meat and other similar products. “The intake of foods crucial for the nutrition of children and teenagers (meat, vegetables, fruit and dairy) has significantly dropped, while it has increased in the case of cheaper and less nutritious foods (pasta, flour and bread),” the report read. In 48% of the homes surveyed, the monthly income wasn’t sufficient to cover basic household expenses. This was seven points higher than last year, and 15 points higher than in June 2022.

The situation gets worse when the head of the household is unemployed, on welfare, or a single woman. Almost a quarter (23%) of families also stopped buying medicine, while 32% stopped going for medical or dental checkups. Many had to borrow money or spend their savings to cover basic expenses.

In the 12 months prior to the survey, a quarter of teenagers had jobs, UNICEF found. A further 12% were looking for work.

UNICEF’s numbers are in line with recent studies on poverty in Argentina. An analysis of official data by the Argentine Catholic University’s Social Debt Observatory released last week showed that seven out of 10 children were poor in the first quarter of 2024. Poverty hit 55% and destitution rose to 20% in the first three months of the year, the observatory found.

The damage this is doing simply cannot be calculated. The very social fabric is being destroyed, slowly but surely. Of course, ancaps and their fascist and liberal allies will see this as "mere numbers", "poverty rates can go down actually" they'll say. Yes, sure, but the damage malnutrition does to a child marks them for life. A child that doesn't have access to quality food at that age develops problems that will follow them for the rest of their lives. This is absolutely degrading the material conditions in which we live, it's degrading people who never had a shot on their lifes. The effects will be truly felt in 20, 30 and 40 years.

Capitalism is a crime against humanity.

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[-] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 90 points 3 weeks ago

Hasan getting hit up by Obama and other Dems to do some shit at the DNC is pretty funny in that it shows how much of a lib he comes across as lmao

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[-] Parzivus@hexbear.net 90 points 3 weeks ago

The Lawyer in the Disney+ case is the grandson of Batista

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[-] coolusername@lemmy.ml 90 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

it's interesting that there has been zero coverage on Hezbollah successfully striking an Israeli base with many missiles with none of them being intercepted

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[-] mar_k@hexbear.net 89 points 3 weeks ago

kamala harris being considered "youthful" when she'll be 60 on election day just tells me the bar is on the ocean floor. lmao obama was 47, bush was 54, clinton was 46

she's not even gen x, she's just a (late) boomer and would be america's 5th boomer president lmfao. love how when biden said he's "passing the torch to the next generation" he just meant from his silent gen ass back to another boomer

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[-] Wertheimer@hexbear.net 89 points 4 weeks ago
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[-] HotAtForty@hexbear.net 89 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs

James Connolly, Socialism and Nationalism 1897

[-] Parsani@hexbear.net 88 points 4 weeks ago

UN envoy calls Canada’s use of migrant workers ‘breeding ground for slavery’

Throughout the country, he found workers were locked in debt bondage.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/13/canada-foreign-workers-un-report

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[-] Al_Sham@hexbear.net 88 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

!!!!

Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas political bureau in the Gaza Strip to Al Mayadeen: "We will no longer engage in futile negotiations." (Source)

!! It seems the remaining negotiations will be held on the battlefield !!

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[-] Parzivus@hexbear.net 88 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)
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[-] thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net 86 points 4 weeks ago
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[-] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 85 points 3 weeks ago

Donald Trump criticizes Kamala Harris and says that the Democrat, if elected, will implement a “communist system” in which “everyone has access to health care”.

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[-] wombat@hexbear.net 85 points 4 weeks ago

it is august 12 and stalin saved the world from fascism

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[-] Torenico@hexbear.net 85 points 4 weeks ago

A vote for the Democratic Party is a vote for genocide. A vote for the Republican Party is a vote for genocide.

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[-] wheresmysurplusvalue@hexbear.net 85 points 3 weeks ago

squidward-chill

Did the Resistance retaliate yet?

squidward-nochill

Nah still cookin

squidward-chill

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[-] SeekTheDeletion@hexbear.net 84 points 3 weeks ago

Anybody see that footage of Ukrainian Army funeral processions where there’s a loudspeaker saying you must kneel or be legally charged with offending the Armed Forces and all the people on the sidewalk start kneeling?

Fucking weirdos. Weird country where they tape naked people to lampposts with their bare butts sticking out. If democrats care so much about not appearing weird, they should distance themselves from this deeply diseased nation

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[-] LargePenis@hexbear.net 84 points 3 weeks ago

It's joever

Humiliate me hexbear, laugh in my face, call me a virgin cuck, and rename me TinyPenis, I deserve this for making dumbass predictions

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[-] Wertheimer@hexbear.net 83 points 4 weeks ago
[-] DengistDonnieDarko@hexbear.net 83 points 4 weeks ago
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[-] WeedReference420@hexbear.net 81 points 3 weeks ago
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[-] edge@hexbear.net 80 points 4 weeks ago

How was it not one of us who came up with “Holocaust Harris”? We’re slipping.

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[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 80 points 3 weeks ago

There is sabotage occurring openly in Ukraine now. They're playing it off as "kids are being paid" but I strongly question that explanation.

NAFO car burned: https://xcancel.com/frontlinekit/status/1824559984425783470

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[-] Ideology@hexbear.net 80 points 4 weeks ago

Cuba warns against sustained US-UK aggression on Yemen

The US and the UK have been launching airstrikes on Yemen to protect the interests of the Israeli occupation.

[-] Torenico@hexbear.net 80 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

i really love when there are big brawls in parliaments, like people punching each other in the face and shit. It gives politics a very realistic outlook, it makes it feel very alive and real. I want MY representatives to break some noses and kick opposition members while they're on the floor. I want my representatives to have fucking blood in their veins, none of that "yes uhm sir mr hitler sir let us uhm debate why we shouldn't exterminate non whites sir" liberal bullshit. NO MAN, go and punch that motherfucker in the nose RIGHT NOW.

(I'm talking about this in the context of a brawl which just happened in the Turkish Parliament)

I remember the puppet Korea used to have lots of brawls in their Parliament, aye, I can respect that. If people are punching, kicking and spittin' blood over politics, well, at least these people feel something. They're not truly dead inside. Plus it's fun to watch on video.

I loved that moment I think it was in Taiwan, where a member of parliament stole the bill from the opposition and ran away with it LMAO. That is so good. I want people like that.

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[-] Al_Sham@hexbear.net 80 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Too funny not to share. Iron Dome is a princess she doesn't work 👸. Context

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[-] edge@hexbear.net 79 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Nord Stream sabotage: Germany issues arrest warrant

In an investigation published Wednesday, the outlets reported that the suspect is a Ukrainian diving instructor, named only as Volodymyr Z. for privacy reasons.

Holy shit Zelenskyy personally blew up the pipelines.

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[-] Al_Sham@hexbear.net 79 points 3 weeks ago

Resistance to military conscription deepens in Ukraine as leaders talk of role as a mercenary power by Dmitri Kovalevich

Every day, across the country, police are reporting arson attacks against Ukrainian military vehicles. Military personnel in the rear are increasingly wary of leaving their vehicles on the streets overnight, instead parking them near police stations. But even this does not always help.

Those detained by police for these attacks have mostly been teenagers between 12 and 18 years of age, according to governor Oleh Sinegubov of Kharkiv Oblast (province), writing in early August.

As a result of such attacks increasing in number, Oleh Romanov, commander of an anti-tank unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), has declared he has given permission to shoot on sight those who set fire to military vehicles in the rear. "In coordination with higher command, using military immunity, I give verbal permission to my fighters to shoot those things on the spot. Such traitors must be eliminated on the spot, considering wartime conditions." His unit is the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, formerly a unit of the neo-Nazi 'Azov Battalion' now fully integrated as an autonomous unit of the regular army.

So the commander of what is today a regular Ukraine military unit is openly claiming that he has issued orders to shoot without trial civilian youths should they be caught in the act of damaging military equipment… or be only accused of doing so. Ukrainian authorities are not denying that many of the attacks against military equipment are carried out by teenagers, nor do they deny that orders to shoot perpetrators are being issued and are bypassing the formal, decision-making of the country's government and armed forces general staff.

...

the large Western governments continue to demand intensified conscription by the Ukraine government, which means more capture and kidnapping by military conscription officers without the slightest heed or attention to human rights. Ukrainian MP Fyodor Venislavskyy wrote on Telegram on August 6 that Ukraine's Western 'partners' are also raising periodically the proposal that Ukraine lower its official age of military service (conscription). He writes, "They believe that the age range of 18-25 is the most optimal and effective age of military service for citizens when physical and psychological qualities needed to be able to fight are at their prime."

Currently, the age of military registration in Ukraine is 18, while the youngest age for military service is 26.

...

On July 31, the Kyiv Post reported that Ukrainian forces made a strike on Russian and Syrian forces at the Kuweires Air Force base in Syria. As well, in the spring of 2024, there were published reports of Ukraine's involvement in the fighting in Sudan. As reported by the Wall St. Journal in March, Ukraine has participated in combat in Sudan because "the West has been reluctant to get directly involved".

Thus does the Kiev regime try to sell itself to the West as resembling an effective, private military company that will fight against anti-imperialist movements around the world whenever and wherever the Western governments do not dare to introduce their own troops. Rubicon Telegram channel reports on August 6, "We can only state this curious precedent in international relations when an entire state begins to position itself as a large, highly specialized, private military company (PMC)."

Simply put, Ukrainians are to become expendable human material spending their entire lives fighting wars and working to pay off international loans, all for the sake of preserving the hegemony of Western imperialism.

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[-] Aru@lemmygrad.ml 79 points 4 weeks ago

New Al Quds brigades/Al Qassam video https://x.com/Hanzpal2/status/1823386645476814892

the two people arguing in the middle part of the video are saying "Habibi let me blow it up 🥺 ; no I'll do it; habibi, by Allah let me do it I have sinned a lot in my life let me do it 🥺 ; okay let's do it together"

In the end they thank Allah

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[-] Tervell@hexbear.net 78 points 4 weeks ago

a little bit of analysis about Kursk

The only thing I'd want to add to Mikael's excellent analysis here is that the Russians are actually fighting a much more conventional area defense than we've seen in the very static fighting in the Donbass. They're not trying to stop Ukrainian drives at the screen line like we saw in the Hundred Days, they're instead diverting them into engagement areas between their front line of screening troops and the main defensive line 5-10km to the rear and destroying them there. Ergo why we've seen Ukrainian units just go on these long runs in the last couple days - way past where the front line should be - and then get wiped out in what look like complex ambushes. That's... actually just how you do a very normal area defense.

Why have the Russians changed tactics? Two reasons. First, in Kursk they - paradoxically - have space to fight. The Donbass is a cramped theater where real estate is at an absolute premium. They're either backing up into the sea, key lines of communication, or critical urban areas there. There's actual operational space in rural Kursk. Second and relatedly, the "forward" defense we're used to seeing in the Donbass will not inflict crippling casualties on an attacker quickly for the simple reason that attacks often fail in the "cone of fire" in no man's land or even behind the attacker's front line, allowing defeated units to easily withdraw. In a conventional defense the attacker is defeated in a kill zone behind the screen line and it is far easier to annihilate an attacking force. Ergo why we're now seeing huge AFU equipment losses, with entire Ukrainian companies burning out behind the ostensible Russian "front."

Having found themselves in battle with the AFU's strategic reserves, the Russians now very much intend to use the Battle of Sudzha-Korenevo to destroy as much of those reserves as possible. Even if that means scaring some war mappers on the internet.

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[-] SoyViking@hexbear.net 77 points 4 weeks ago

Under the reign of King Brandon the Feeble-minded, the people languished in despair, but with Kamala the Awkward enthroned upon the Throne of Skulls, it seemed as though the very heavens smiled anew upon the realm. Priests and sages divined hopeful prophecies of triumph over the Orange Troll King, reading them in the entrails of their sacrifices. They proclaimed Kamala the Awkward as pure and unsullied by sin. The might of the Orange Troll King appeared to wane, and he grew weak and weary. The scandalous revelations of the unnatural proclivities of his lieutenant, known as the Vance, bewildered and demoralized the trollish hordes.

So diminished was the power of the Orange Troll King that he found himself compelled to ride up to Lord Elon the Divorced, to abase himself and kiss his ring, indulging in the latter's disgraceful vanity, all in the desperate hope of forging an alliance with him and his repulsive subterranean minions.

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[-] mkultrawide@hexbear.net 77 points 3 weeks ago

It's almost funny how quickly the libs pulled out the Nuremberg defense for Kkkamala in regards to her active participation in the Gaza genocide and her complete unwillingness to actually take a stand separate from Biden's.

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[-] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 77 points 3 weeks ago

Canada's foreign worker program a 'breeding ground for contemporary slavery,' says UN report

Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program serves as a "breeding ground for contemporary slavery," according to a scathing UN report examining Canada's efforts to limit unfair labour.

The program allows employers to hire foreign workers to fill temporary jobs when they can't find qualified Canadians. The number of workers employed through the program has grown considerably in recent years. According to the UN report, there were just over 84,000 permit holders in 2018. In 2022, there were nearly 136,000. Most of them worked in agriculture and related labour sectors.

The report, written by UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery Tomoya Obokata, says the program puts workers in an unfair power imbalance with their employers.

For example, if a worker is fired, they may be deported. Some workers are deliberately not informed of their rights or too fearful to report exploitative working conditions, wrote Obokata. Many of them are also ensnared in debt bondage while participating in the programs, according to the report.

Because workers lack access to justice, they are at risk of a variety of other abuses, Obokata wrote.

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[-] Ideology@hexbear.net 77 points 4 weeks ago

NASA Investigation Finds Boeing Hindering Americans’ Return to Moon

A report from the space agency’s office of the inspector general pins the blame on the aerospace giant’s mismanagement and inexperienced workforce.

Gee, it's almost like it wouldn't be mismanaged and inexperienced if they didn't sell out the space industry when the USSR fell.

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[-] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 77 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Hezbollah has just released never before seen footage of their massive underground missile launch facility called Al-Imad 4:
https://xcancel.com/AMoqawem313/status/1824359248135925778

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[-] Blursty@lemmygrad.ml 77 points 4 weeks ago

372 years ago, on this day in 1652, the Act for the Settlement of Ireland was passed by the English Parliament, preceding the greatest exercise in ethnic cleansing in early modern Europe.

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[-] Postletarian@hexbear.net 76 points 3 weeks ago

I have started noticing, in the last year or so, a reversal in West^TM^ in regard to green energy rhetoric (EV and solar in particular) and is becoming worse and worse as time goes by.

This is not the usual global warming denial. In fact you rarely see outright denialist any more (what are they gonna argue about any more anyway, since it is plainly obvious what is happening in the world...).

What you do see from MSM, to YT channels, to everything, is an effort to downplay or even dismiss the potential positive impact EV and solar technology could have and already has in regard to global warming and our way of life in general.

It's quite obvious that this is a result of what is happening in China.

I believe Burgeristan and their puppets thought (10+ years ago) that they would become world leaders in EV, solar and other green technologies.

They thought they could monopolize the industry and sell it to the rest of the world as the only possible solution.

If you didn't subscribe to their, ridiculously overpriced, Greenflix service you would be deemed a barbarian third world nation that leads humanity to catastrophy (which of course we, the West, had nothing to do with...) and you would have many sanctions imposed on you.

So for a time almost everyone went along with green technology in West^TM^*.

Green roofs, green roads, green new deals, you name it.=

There was only one problem.

Burgeristan is run by complete idiots.

They thought that we are in the 30s and 40s where US still had semi-competent captains of industry that could compete with the rest of the world or that they had a political elite that was actually capable of multi-year planning and wasn't completely subservient to the economic elite.

Instead what they got was the Cybertruck and Solar Freaking Roadways.

So what now?

I believe the rhetoric against EVs and Solar is gonna get much worse for starters. The "China is spying on you don't buy from them" is not gonna fly for long.

What we are gonna see more and more is a focus on the technologies themselves. "These technologies are not viable/profitable" is what you are gonna hear.

The next step will probably be Burgerland developing their own version of "green technology". Maybe focus on hydrogen, "clean coal", maybe something else who knows**. They will probably give it some asinine name like "Green Freedom" or something...

Then they will try to create a new Edison vs. Tesla, Direct vs Alternative Current situation and will use their military/economic influence to force countries to adopt their inferior technology.

They will fail of course because again they are run by complete idiots (and I'm not even taking politicians into account, they have no say in this anyway...) but what else are they gonna do at this point. They can no longer compete with China. This is their only play.

So when that finally fails (because you know at the end of the day even puppet nation have a survival instinct) all that they will have left will be an empty anti-China rhetoric.

Their barbarian germanic protestant syphilitic brains could not imagine a "non-white" nation surpassing them. But here we are. So instead of taking all the ill gained surplus value they extracted from the rest of the world for 300 years and actually invest it in something sustainable, they just want to go and kill their neighbor's mule.

Judging by what is happening in the last year or so, I would say we might see a complete reversal in 2-4 years with people that previously where telling you to vote insert status-quo party otherwise "X guy comes and it's the end of the world (due to global warming)" now they will call you a China puppet for wanting the most affordable green high-tech in the world made by China.

Sorry for the long thread. I was thinking about making a post about it but I'm not sure people outside the news mega give a damn about these things anyway.

*Fossil fuel industry at that point was playing both sides. They knew that the world moving from fossil fuels was inevitable, but they wanted that transition to happen on their own terms. It had to be gradual so that they kept making superprofits and they had to create and control the new "green" monopoly.

**I wouldn't be surprised at all if lets say someone like Elon Musk does 180 in regard to EVs. Maybe he will pivot to another technology or maybe even he finds an excuse to outright sell Tesla (somehow...) and pivot to another grift altogether. That's if he manages not to go bust until then...

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[-] What_Religion_R_They@hexbear.net 76 points 4 weeks ago

Some communist from the West Bank posted on TheDeprogram saying they overheard that PFLP members are being arrested by the occupation forces in Nablus, Jenin, etc. even the 80+ year olds who can no longer walk.

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this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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