Image is of the Freedom Band performing at the end of the Second National Congress of the Socialist Movement of Ghana, sourced from this article. The same article contains most of the information used in the preamble below.
A little over a week ago, the Socialist Movement of Ghana concluded its second National Delegates Congress in Aburi, gathering 300 delegates from across the country. There, they deepened their commitment to the working class of Ghana and committed to intensifying political education and organization at the grassroots. The SMG itself decided to not electorally contest the 2024 elections in Ghana, but still presented a manifesto, and nonetheless managed to get two SMG members parliamentary seats in the National Democratic Congress.
Anyway, back to the National Delegates Congress: the delegates agreed that the Western imperialist system is now under a profound crisis, in which the likely future is a heightening of brutality, chaos, and resource plundering - a future which must be resisted and organized against.
To summarize their various statements and condemnations:
- Inside Ghana: a commitment to women’s rights, youth empowerment, and environmental protection.
- A condemnation of the resource plundering of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by imperialist powers.
- A salute to the people of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, in their campaign against outside imperial control in the Sahel.
- A condemnation of Morocco’s illegal occupation of the Western Sahara, and a call for the UN to identify the independence of the Sahwari people.
- A strong condemnation of Israel’s genocidal atrocities and massive terrorist operations against nearby countries, and support for Palestinian independence.
- Support for the people of Haiti against outside imperial domination.
- A call for the end of the blockade on Cuba and their removal from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.
- Solidarity with Maduro and the people of Venezuela against the United States.
- A rejection of all imperialist aggression and sanctions against Iran.
- A condemnation of NATO’s decades-long military expansion eastwards towards Russia, especially as it has now resulted in massive devastation and risks a third world war.
- And finally, a commitment to Pan Africanism and international solidarity with all oppressed peoples around the world.
A platform I think we all can agree to!
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
Bummer news: The communist party of bohemia and moravia’s coalition “Stacilo” didn’t make it to the 5% treshold in the czech parliament elections, they got 4.3% so they won’t get any seats. No leftist party beside a green pirate party (which I assume is cringe and terrible) got in, the former PM Babis described as a populist and the “czech trump” got first place. His party was previously in europe’s liberal parliamentary group and now it’s in one of the 2 far-right ones, IIRC he’s skeptical on the ukraine war whereas the czech president is literally a nato guy.
Really sad the communists didn’t make it in this time, it would’ve been a good rebuff to the country’s elites recent efforts at pushing anti-communist legislation
If they were off by .7 I am going to assume some technicality got them and they will probably pick up more momentum eaily so that’s good
The same parties together got 8% last time around, and none of them made it in so they joined together this time, and got less, it’s a bummer.
I’ll be a little bit of an ass here and say that as long as Communists, particularly those who talk of revolutionary struggle, try to participate in bourgeois elections as a strategy for advancing that struggle, they are DOA.
The state will not hand you the rope to strange itself so easily! To interface with the state through a reformist mindset is to ignore that in doing so these parties reproduce the social relations that oppose them!
Perhaps the “reform or revolution” debate is one we’ll have endlessly in circles, in which case we can agree to disagree, but in these cases it feels as though the real work of revolution will never come from asserting ourselves through institutions that are designed to suppress us.
A lot of European communist parties will participate in elections not because that’s their strategy for change, but because it’s a great way to get media attention and thus grow as a party. It’s just PR.
It matters a lot whether they waste their time and energy on soliciting votes instead of actually making people communists.
Unfortunately the electoral path and its politics in these countries are not yet exausthed so not participating will just paint you as an unserious weirdo, probably correctly, and more importantly does nothing to exaust them and provide legitimacy for a revolution because you’re not even showing the “democratic” system’s limits. So yeah I do think that’s a bit of an ass take but I think it’s normal to think so in countries where communists never get elected for anything and no one actually likes them.
Read left communism by lenin
i do have a massive backlog but I’ll make a note to do so. Thanks!
I’m not super familiar with the Czech context frankly, but maybe part of the problem is that they did have a Communist government before, and it had institutionalized itself as such. It’s probably a bit weird to have to go back to the well in revolutionary terms, so to speak. This seems like a big limitation both for electoralists and for communists who seek a revolutionary strategy.