Image is of Colombian President Gustavo Petro giving a speech at the UN in 2022.
Trump has arrived in office with the force of an avalanche; ending slowing a genocide on the one hand, while simultaneously promising a total nightmare for minorities and the poor throughout and outside the United States on the other hand. [edited for clarity; I do not actually think Trump has ended the Palestinian genocide obviously, I was making a joke - but the ceasefire is a genuine improvement in conditions for millions of people right now who are on the edge of death, so it cannot be dismissed]
It’s still far too early to truly compare and contrast his imperial strategy with Biden’s, but initial signs show that there does appear to be somewhat of a reorientation. Biden was famous for being two-faced; ostensibly offering aid and stability, while also blowing up your pipeline to ensure you did not actually have an alternative to his idea. Trump, meanwhile, seems only really capable of aggression, threatening several “allied” nations with what may as well be sanctions because of the economic harm they’d do. I suspect we’ll be debating for a long time how much of this can be attributed to the specific characteristics of Trump, or whether he merely embodies the zeitgeist of imperial decline - a wounded empire lashing out with extreme violence to try and convince everybody, including themselves, that they can still be the world imperialist hegemon.
I’ll admit it: I did not believe that Trump would actually try and go ahead with putting tariffs on basically anybody who annoys him. And while the threat could still be empty in regards to countries like China and Canada, Colombia is the first indication of the potential of his strategy. Despite some fiery words from President Petro, after Trump’s administration revealed the punishment if Colombia did not agree, it appears that Colombia will in fact be accepting deported migrants after all. It’s funny how that works.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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.
more than a decade of the US trying to “pivot to Asia” to contain China , and it all ends with the US disembowling itself while China watches and wonders why the fuck they did that.
CIA agents in hell watching trump thinking USAID is purely government handouts.
Trump To Tariff Chips Made In Taiwan, Targeting TSMC
trust the plan
That’s according to a report by the Federal Aviation Administration that was obtained by The Associated Press.
The report says one air traffic controller was working two positions at the time of the crash.
“The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the report says.
We already knew it, but now it’s confirmed.
We finally found out what Trump’s demand is in exchange for removing tariffs on Canada. The demand is… Annexation LMAO.
We pay hundreds of Billions of Dollars to SUBSIDIZE Canada. Why? There is no reason. We don’t need anything they have. We have unlimited Energy, should make our own Cars, and have more Lumber than we can ever use. Without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country. Harsh but true! Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada — AND NO TARIFFS!
Donald Trump Truth Social Post 08:26 AM EST 02/02/25
With Trump threatening to tariff TSMC chips (if he actually ends up doing that), pausing federal grants and loans, fucking with a fellow NATO member, etc, it honestly seems like he’s just really leaning into the mad man negotiating tactic, which only works if you show you’re genuinely willing and able to take things into new territory. It’s all so outlandishly against the interests of stabilizing US hegemony that it’s the only angle I can think of that he’s working here. Building up MadMan Capital™️ to spend later on his coming hallmark ground war with China
That guy in Sweden who was known for burning qurans has apparantly been shot dead
https://x.com/Sturgeons_Law/status/1884294162180362559
One of the criticism I see of Assads from pro-HTS clowns was that he “sold” Golan Heights to Israel. What is this then? Not even bothering with fighting for your territory.
One Republic became the first ever American band to perform on the CCTV New Year’s Gala (春晚), live from the Wuhan stage
Why? Because during Covid lockdown, frontman Ryan Tedder came out in support of Wuhan amidst waves of anti-China sentiment, livestreaming himself enjoying the Wuhan hot dry noodle, and promised that one day he would visit the city of Wuhan!
Wuhan hot dry noodle as imagined by Tedder using spaghetti noodles:
Wuhan (武汉) hot dry noodle tattoo:
He finally got his wish to perform in front of the entire nation today, straight from Wuhan itself!
Yes, this is news.
The citrus harvest in California’s Central Valley is “virtually unviable”. The information was reported by NBC Los Angeles, with data from the California Farm Bureau. The measure is due to a lack of workers for the harvest, which is mainly carried out by immigrants, often undocumented. As a result, the price of citrus fruits in much of the country could rise, since California is one of the largest suppliers of fruit in the country.
me when egg prices go up (I don’t buy eggs)
me when orange prices go up
No eggs, no orange juice. Brunch liberals in shambles rn.
All we needed was no coffee for the trifecta. But alas, Colombia couldn’t hold out for that.
Orangeman bad bc no oranges?
Slave state realizing the state doesn’t work because there are no slaves
Easy to find libs defending the slave labor conditions on other sites too.
:steinbeck-haunting-california-
It’s why a mass deportation policy isn’t just horrifically racist and destructive to millions of people, but actively counterproductive to US profitability. it’s why I assume that at some point somebody will step in and say to Trump “we, uh, can’t actually deport all these people, because we need them to slave away for extremely low wages or many businesses will outright collapse.” like, it takes a genocidal white supremacist to lock tens of millions of minorities into systems of exploitation for the purpose of making profit for white people in the wealthy parts of the imperial core; it takes a true idiot to then get rid of all those minorities slaving away for you for mere populist reasons (and then wonder why basic products now cost more money).
although I also assumed that Trump wouldn’t actually try and do the tariffs because of how idiotic that is for US imperial strategy and yet here we are
Leave it to Trump to not get the “joke” that deportations are supposed to be a whip in the slave driver’s hand, not an actual slaughter. Dumbass can’t even do the fascist labor camps “right”. He’s gonna get got if he continues like he is. And not by some hero of a lefitst.
PFLP leader Mohammed Ghali feed from prison, welcomed home by Gazans
Average senate confirmation hearing:
Democrat: “You’ve been on this person’s show 8 times, he has ties with neo-Nazis.”
Sen. Norm Respectable (R-MT): “He already had my vote, you didn’t need to convince me more.”
Today I’m also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000 person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay. Most people don’t even know about it."
https://xcancel.com/cspan/status/1884690347474727404
Jesus christ
There has to be some kind of irony to such a terrible crash happening at Reagan National Airport, right? The guy who fired all the air traffic controllers?
