multitotal

(I still don't know how to cross-post, although it was explained once to me)

British counterterrorism police on Thursday raided the home and seized several electronic devices belonging to The Electronic Intifada’s associate editor Asa Winstanley.

Approximately 10 officers arrived at Winstanley’s North London home before 6 am and served the journalist with warrants and other papers authorizing them to search his house and vehicle for devices and documents.

A letter addressed to Winstanley from the “Counter Terrorism Command” of the Metropolitan Police Service indicates that the authorities are “aware of your profession” as a journalist but that “notwithstanding, police are investigating possible offenses” under sections 1 and 2 of the Terrorism Act (2006). These provisions set out the purported offense of “encouragement of terrorism.”

An officer conducting Thursday’s raid informed Winstanley that the investigation was connected with the journalist’s social media posts. Attempts to reach the Metropolitan Police Service for comment for this story have been unsuccessful.

Although his devices were seized, Winstanley was not arrested and has not been charged with any offense.

Russian troops have moved to within around 12 km of Pokrovsk, overwhelming Ukraine's stretched defences with vastly superior numbers and equipment. Thousands of residents have fled and key road and rail links to other cities risk being severed.

...

Oleksandr Kalenkov, head of Ukraine's steelmakers' association, said the loss of the Pokrovsk mine, the only domestic source of coking coal, could cause steel production to slump. "We could make up to 7.5 million metric tons of steel by the end of the year and, for next year, we saw an increase in production to over 10 million," Kalenkov told Reuters.

Yikes!

Since they fret now, I wonder if they will be spinning or humiliated once Pokrovsk is liberated.

This may be unpopular, but I am getting tired of all the questions to enter a space or create an account, not just in the lemmygrad-sphere, but basically every leftist space on the internet.

I wanted to create an account on ProleWiki, but to do so I need to pass an exam.

FIRST SET (please answer all 8 questions)
SECOND SET (choose 5 questions to answer)

I have already answered pretty much the same questions to get on lemmygrad and matrix. If I knew I'd be asked the same things over and over, I would have saved them from the first (or second) time I typed them all out. Mind you, lemmygrad isn't the first place I visited/joined, so I have answered a similar set of questions probably 6-7 times in the past few years.

The biggest problem with the questions is that they don't work. As in, they're not going to filter out any bad actors, because people intent on joining for destructive purposes aren't going to be deterred by a few questions they can answer with a quick google search. Bad actors will also know what answers you expect to see and write those. It's a bit like when the US border control gives you the green form with the question "Are you a terrorist?" But the questions will turn away people like me who are simply tired of writing an exam just to create an account on a webpage.

I have always had problems with tests/exams as in I have a problem they exist and I literally have traumas from them lmao. The pressure, the uncertainty, the doubt... I mean there's a reason people still have anxiety dreams about missing a test or not studying long after they have left school.

By all means, have questions in the signup forms, but:

Fewer questions

Two to three questions max. You don't need theory questions, they can be googled. You don't need LGBTQ questions, that should just be a statement "Here we respect LGBTQ people and their right to exist, use pronouns people ask, don't discriminate, etc. violation of this rule will result in a ban, possibly permanent." Done.

Right kinds of questions

If you want a theory/reading question ask something like: What was the book/article/work that got you into Marxism/communism and why? or What's the most recent work of communist literature (book, article, novel, pamphlet, zine, etc.) that had an impact on you and why?

People will tell you more about themselves by actually talking about themselves rather than answering questions about theory. Not to mention it's harder to fake being a communist when you have to give your own personal understanding of something that's not a big issue. Asking about Palestine, DEI, culture war topics doesn't make sense because again they can look up what you want to hear. But if someone says the most recent work they read is the Capital or Manifesto and they think everyone should be equal then that should raise a red flag (not for being wrong, but for not being genuine).

No wrong kinds of questions

There are some questions you simply shouldn't ask as a matter of principle.

For example, you have this is number 3 of the mandatory questions for ProleWiki: "3. Have you read our principles? Comment your agreements or objections to their points."

Since a person filling this out is only requesting an account, asking for comments on the principles may come across as you simply rejecting anyone who doesn't agree or will want changes. This shouldn't be a question, but a statement: "These are our principles, joining means you agree to them." I don't know how ProleWiki is run if there are meetings where principles are modified/added/removed or if they are set in stone. If set in stone, then it definitely makes no sense to ask.

Questions that are questions, not several questions hidden as one

Asking things is easy, but whoever wrote the questions has no respect for people's time. This is just way too much work, people have things to do. The time spent answering questions could be spent writing an article for the wiki. There's an idea! Instead of answering all those questions, just have a list of topics people can write a wiki article on. That wiki article is the entry form. Simple, elegant, dare I say... beautiful?

What's there now though:

Where did you find ProleWiki from?(1) How familiar are you with it?(2) Comment what made you want to join ProleWiki(3) and what areas you are interested in contributing to.(4)

That is 4 questions.

What current of Marxist thought do you uphold? Describe as thoroughly as needed your path towards your current political perspective.

That is 2 questions, one of them an "essay question".

Have you read our principles? Comment your agreements or objections to their points.

There are ten subheadings in the principles, with more sub-subheadings. That's a question and an essay question. Q: 6 E: 2

What is your understanding of gender? Should Marxists support the LGBT community?

2 questions.

What is your position on Joseph Stalin(1) and Mao Zedong?(2) How would you describe their historical role?(3,4) Share any comments or critiques you have regarding them.(5)

5 questions.

What are your thoughts on China,(1) Vietnam,(2) Cuba,(3) DPRK(4) and Laos?(5) Do you believe any of these countries is socialist?(6) Why or why not?(7)

7 questions.

What is settler-colonialism,(1) are there any countries that still fit that description(2) and what should be done regarding them?(3) Further, what is to be done about the decolonization and liberation of indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, and immigrant groups in your country?(4)

4 questions.

What is your analysis of the situation in Palestine?(1) What do you think of the 2023 October 7 events(2) and the groups involved from both sides of the conflict?(3)

3 questions.

I count 23 regular questions and 2 essay questions. And that's only the "8" mandatory questions.

TL;DR too many questions to get an account (like ProleWiki, lemmygrad, matrix, but other leftist spaces too). ask fewer (2-3) but more poignant questions. rules about LGBTQ and other rules that aren't up for discussion shouldn't be a question but a statement to be accepted or not. answering so many questions is mentally taxing/exhausting.

Looks like the mod of it hasn't logged in for a year. I'm not asking you to remove them, just make me a mod also.

To make things more neat, you can remove the BSD-ML (/c/bsd) and Space News communities that I moderate.

Please and thank you. :)

Apparently libs think saying what's happening is "startling by anyone’s standards".

“There will always be a radical segment of Ukrainian society that will call any negotiation capitulation,” he said. “The far right in Ukraine is growing. The right wing is a danger to democracy.”

And then...

Another brigade commander, Maksym Zhorin, accused Marezhko of having no idea what he was talking about, saying in no uncertain terms that yes, in fact, negotiations on Russia’s conditions would always be seen as capitulation.

It's hard to find media coverage of it, but I'm pretty sure every Ukrainian city (including Kiev) are policed by neo-nazis. When the war started there was chaos, because the Ukrainian government decided to give an AK to anyone who asked. In the cities neo-nazi groups started keeping "law and order", now they have uniforms. AZOV started as a "special task police force" in 2014. Nazis policing is not a new concept for Ukraine.

The TCC is almost 100% all nazis. People wonder "who could do that to people, shove them in vans and kidnap them for the front?" Nazis, that's who. Those are the people with a vested interest in the war continuing and they need cannon fodder. It's sickening.

Who controls the streets, controls the country. I have heard from several Ukrainian refugees that they left because they got sick of the open nazism in their city.

The threat about taking down the government is not an idle threat. They have done it once before, in 2014. Neo-nazis are in control of Ukraine and they will be a problem for Europe down the line. Especially when the threat is ignored and downplayed: "Ukraine’s far-right fringe remains a sensitive topic in the war-torn country".

Liberals: Nazi-enablers since 1933.

Whether the goal is outright victory or bringing Russia to the table, western allies need to strengthen Ukraine’s hand. The Kremlin can only be pushed into talks on a deal that might be satisfactory for Kyiv, and the west, if it feels the costs of fighting on are too high. And any resolution to the war that enables all or part of Ukraine to survive and prosper will need guarantees of its security.

Now "bringing Russia to talks" is a victory in itself for them. How quickly they forgot that it was Russia who wanted to negotiate from the beginning and after being snubbed for two years they said fuck it we'll just take it. Two years ago Zelenskyy signed a decree making talks with Putin impossible but possible with Russia. They really throught regime change could happen, by they I mean the US, Zelenskyy just did what he was told.

The media celebrated every time Russia wasn't invited to one of the "peace summits" but now all of a sudden "Kremlin needs to be pushed to the negotiating table".

I wonder if they will succeed. If they will make the pro-UA crowd accept ending the war as a victory. If Ukraine declares victory after negotiations and people believe it genuinely might go insane.

"If, as I believe, the United States is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free." - Emmanuel Todd in an interview with Corriere di Bologna

I don't think NATO will disintegrate if Russia wins, although it will be weakened and has already shown itself to be weak/ineffective, a paper tiger. EU has already made plans for an EU army with little interest at its inception, although now I think more countries will be for it.

Emmanuel Todd thinks Russia has maximalist goals in Ukraine, I disagree with him there too, although eventual liberation of Odessa might be in the cards. If they cut off Ukraine from the Black Sea completely, that will just be grounds for another war once Ukraine recovers.

We can conclude that during the Al-Aqsa Flood offensive:

• Israel expanded the use of its murderous “Hannibal Directive” – designed to prevent soldiers from being taken alive as prisoners of war – by killing many of its own civilians.
• The use of such “Hannibal” strikes are confirmed in a UN report published in June.
• Fire from Israeli helicopters, drones, tanks and even ground troops was deliberately undertaken in order to prevent Palestinian fighters from taking live Israeli captives who could be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
• At the initiative of the local Gaza Division, “Hannibal” was carried out right away: less than an hour after the Palestinian offensive began.
• By midday, an unambiguous order was given from the high command of the Israeli military (the so-called “Pit” headquarters, deep under Israel’s Hakirya building in downtown Tel Aviv) to invoke the Hannibal Directive throughout the entire region, “even if this means the endangerment or harming of the lives of civilians in the region, including the captives themselves.”
• This bombing of Israeli captives by Israel continues in Gaza even today.
• Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted in a December meeting with released captives and families of captives that they had been “under our bombardments” in Gaza.
• Hundreds of Israelis were likely killed by Israel itself in “Hannibal” targeting incidents as well as unintentional crossfire.
• Israel has been engaged in an aggressive cover-up of its crimes against its own people.

"It’s far from clear if the Ukrainian strategy will succeed."

Just like with Bakhmut, the pro-UA wikipedia editors couldn't bring themselves to write Russian victory. There were a lot of proposals to close off the article "Battle of Vuhledar" as a Ukrainian victory, and then write a new article "Vuhledar Offensive" where Russia won. The cope is unreal, but it looks like there are veteran Wikipedia editors who are sticklers for correctness and completeness and are not taking any shit.

If you don't know, it took several months after Bakhmut fell for Wikipedia to reflect that. The cope was that no reputable sources said "Ukraine lost Bakhmut" and therefore it didn't happen, despite Russians moving past Bakhmut and assaulting villages to the West of it. Talk page Lots of threads are missing, there were at least a dozen discussing the issue of "Russian victory" back and forth. Is there an archive?