Image is the famous photograph Raising a Flag Over the Reichstag, taken during the Battle of Berlin.
On Friday is May 9th, which is the 80th anniversary of Victory Day, which Russia, among other places, celebrates as the day when the Soviets defeated the Nazis. Naturally, one of the current hotspots of fascism in the world today, Ukraine, is essentially threatening that they might strike Russia or even Moscow itself during that timeframe. Any such strike would almost certainly be symbolic and not aimed at anything too important, as I doubt even Zelensky and his American handlers would actually want to kill a world leader, not least somebody like Xi Jinping. But I would not be surprised if they tried something nonetheless, if only to disrupt the event in some way and not actually kill anybody.
And, as we’re on this topic, @EllenKelly@hexbear.net has reminded me that Tuesday is the anniversary of the Nazis burning the Institut für Sexualwissenschaf in 1933, an early institute advocating for the rights of LGBT people, and which also provided early forms of gender-affirming surgeries, as well as hormone therapies. We are currently seeing a crackdown on LGBT rights throughout swathes of the imperial core (as well as countries in the periphery, to the extent that those rights existed there already), and this Nazi-inspired movement will be similarly defeated in the future.
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.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
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.
Lib Pope (not as good as Karaoke Pope, not as bad as the other guys).
The Good:
He helped local catholics in Peru to convince Pope Francis to dissolve a Far-Right Catholic Group that abused children.
Anti-Trump/JD
Pro-Immigrants
Cares about Climate Change
Is South American/Peruvian (Citizenship)
Against the Death Penalty
Said some Anti-Fujimori stuff (Peruvian Far-Right Dictator during the 1990s)
The Bad:
He has also said some homophobic things
There are accusations that he did nothing to stop pedophile priests from living near schools and places where children go
Is American
Pope Leo XIV has not said much publicly about Gaza, making it unclear if he will emulate his predecessor
Prevost does not support the ordination of women to the diaconate: it “doesn’t necessarily solve a problem”, and “it might make a new problem”.
On Twitter, Prevost has criticized abortion contraceptives.
Prevost opposed the inclusion of curriculum regarding “teachings on gender in schools” in Peru, stating that the “promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist”.
So the cons are pretty much what you would expect from a Catholic and not too far off from Francis. Aside from Palestine, but that’s not even actually a con yet, it’s an unknown.
Damn poor guy, he’s only had every day he’s been alive to have said anything about Palestine. Having said nothing is a statement unto itself.
7 pros and 7 cons I can see why he’s a centrist (jk). Is there anything regarding his views/attitude towards China, poverty, stuff like that or has he been silent on it?
The Vatican has been trying to get into the extortion business within China for years since there is a growing Christian population for some years now.
Hence why some representatives say some shit like “Chinese socialism represents core Catholic value such as welfare and punishing sinful behavior like drug consumption”
There’s an ongoing joke in China about how churches there don’t really proselytize because the government doesn’t like it, so they just stand on the street handing out eggs as a “bribe” for you to go to mass. So people will say things like “I will stop believing if they stop giving me eggs”.
Supply side Catholicism
I guess it is how you do convince people with your inferior religion in the face of a 5000 years culture that also have their catholic-like rituals
He named himself after a famous pro-worker (in the cronge socdem way) pope. I doubt he is fond of china due to the muh evul cpu state-enforced atheism.
Francis opened up a lot of dialogue with China. Relations between the Vatican and a lot of socialist countries have actually been cooling a lot in the 21st century. Go ahead and read Petro Parolin’s wikipedia article and check how many socialist countries he negotiated with. Honestly I was hoping that Parolin would be the compromise candidate and that if the Cardinals decided on a more moderate papabile WRT social issues they’d trigger the trap card and actually get us the first multipolarity bro Pope.
There is no info on this, but a conciliatory attitude towards China and the CPC can be expected if he follows Francis’ foreign policy.
Noted, thank you!