Image, sourced from this article, is of George Bush in 2002 meeting with María Corina Machado, who was even then being trained as a figure to oppose Venezuelan socialism, and very briefly succeeded with the Carmona Decree. Now the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, she has begged the Zionist entity to drop bombs on the Venezuelan people.
As of me writing these sentences, it appears that the ceasefire in Gaza is underway. Zionist ceasefires are, of course, an oxymoron - not only in the grand sense that their work to continue genocidal atrocities against others locally and regionally will not cease until the Zionist entity’s occupation of Palestine is overthrown and Palestinians can resume the governance of their territory - but also in the literal sense; that bombings and shootings are often only merely reduced, and rarely cease entirely (as was/is the case on their northern border with Lebanon). Nonetheless, hopefully the population can receive some aid, and the long process of rebuilding can begin.
On the other side of the world, it seems increasingly likely that a new war is set to begin. Because the US is eschewing the usual process of generating pro-war propaganda and casus bellis (aside from a laughably transparent Nobel Peace Prize award) and seems content to just skip straight to the “bomb and depose” step, it’s quite hard to predict what precisely they want to do. Anything seems to be on the table - from freely striking Venezuelan territory where “drug dealers” are to try and prompt a Venezuelan response, to assassinating Maduro and/or his generals and hoping a power vacuum can be filled with compradors, to attempting to outright invade Venezuela and establish direct American control over important government sites. All appear to be possibilities, though as of right now, the most drastic measures seem unlikely due to their difficulty.
We know that the US has almost totally abandoned diplomatic communication with Venezuela, and that the US has deployed warships, a nuclear submarine, F-35s, surveillance planes, and at least 4,000 military personnel to the Caribbean, with some sources putting the numbers higher. Some people have suggested that the point is to try and force Maduro into a situation where he must begin hostilities, or be seen as weak and perhaps overthrown from within. It is at least encouraging that Maduro is not like Allende in Chile, and is taking this situation extraordinarily seriously; the masses are being trained and mobilized in the event of an invasion, and military drills are ongoing. Venezuela has no real capacity to stop the US from attacking and bombing them, but it is much more possible to prevent a West-friendly puppet from gaining meaningful control of the country. A comprador might be able to make a brief statement or decree in a Venezuelan city saying that Chavismo is over, but actual power will hopefully prove very elusive.
2020, and particularly 2022, has clearly become a turning point for the Western imperial system, in which increasingly aggressive and reckless moves are required to keep the system functional (stability is, at this point, out of the question). Unfortunately, this has also resulted in the deaths of many long-lasting, inspiring figures, such as Nasrallah, and many more will certainly die before the empire collapses. If Maduro is assassinated - and I’m having trouble imagining how he won’t be doggedly pursued in the days. weeks, and months to come - I have hope that a successor will rise to continue to lead the Bolivarian Revolution.
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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.
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.
What do the demographics look like between the average communist voter and average chega voter? I’ve been wondering who that shithole party actually appeals to and why
Chega took votes from literally everyone unsatisfied with the 2 party system both rich and poor, including from the communist party and the major 2 parties as well. There’s a media myth about a straight transfer of votes from “extreme to the other extreme” that could explain explain the loss of power for the communist in the interior, but if you look at the numbers it’s really a mix of that AND moreso the decrease in votes from the 2 major parties that congregated in CH and edged us out a few years ago, also people who vote for the communist party getting older and passing away
The far-right here just has broad appeal for people who don’t care too deeply about politics, their rethoric is different, aggressive, anti-migrant and full of scapegoats, and they can argue that “they’ve had their shot, the country sucks, now give US the opportunity”, plus the media has major blame here, they love the far-right party leader and are constantly interviewing him, with big announcements for their upcoming interviews with him because on average their ratings have, like, a 20% increase during those interviews. So, like, if you’re unsatisfied in general (and obviously if you’re racist and are already prone to scapegoating migrants) they’re constantly putting this guy in front of you, broadcasting his message and portraying him as “against democracy” but also as an alternative to the past 50 years, of course people are gonna vote for him.
Whereas the communist party is pretty much erased in the media, and that’s been the case even when we were getting +10% of the vote.
The far right is quite trumpian in that their leader is completely venerated by their base and the show is built around him, in this local election he’s face was on every single party poster next to their mayor candidate, he is viewed as a “salvador da patria” (savior of the fatherland)
The communist party’s voter base is traditionally very old, they’re people who’ve always voted for us ever since the revolution and still value that period of the country’s history (and remember it, so they know what things USED to be like), it’s also, as expected more working class, the party totally dodged the “brahmin left” phenomenon, wealthy or middle class leftists are far more likely to vote for the greens or the PS now (and formally the demsocs). Though the youth wing is pretty dynamic and capable of bringing in new people to the party, I brought quite a few, but on average the number of people willing to join ANY party, much less a party like the PCP which understanding that it doesn’t have the media coverage of every other party has to depend a lot on party work and activism to grow, is very little.
And its strength was always pretty much correlated to organized labour in the country, which took major hits in the 90s, then in the troika period too, and now the government is set to try a finishing blow against the communist-aligned labour union confederation with its upcoming labour law. Organized labour also decreased here for the same reason as everywhere else, outsourcing, changes in political identity and in types of jobs people have etc.
Thank you for that answer. Pretty much what I had assumed, but I didn’t realize that Chega was so Trumpian in that way. Typical media to cover that so relentlessly and essentially feed it free legitimacy