As is tradition, at around this time of year, we discuss the latest developments in the communist plan to destroy Christmas and everything festive and jolly - including that bastard kulak Santa Claus. Down with holly and myrrh, and up with historical materialism!
This year, I’m highlighting the economic trend of de-Decemberization, as the world struggles to break free from the seasonal hegemony imposed by the North Pole. Some regard it as a rather overhyped phenomenon, stating that the chains of Christmas are too frozen for any country to thaw and break in the current environment. Others are more optimistic, and assert that perhaps an alternative world holiday could be established to outright replace it, or maybe a series of smaller holiday traditions can bring it down like a pack of wolves bringing down a moose.
To return to seriousness, as this year draws to a close, I hope everybody here - yes, also you, the person reading this - has a 2026 that was better than 2025, and that the efforts of the United States and their proxies are foiled at every turn. One day, humans will live in a world free from empires, and it would be nice if as many of us as possible lived to see that world’s birth.
At the very least, I’d like to live to see an aircraft carrier sink beneath the waves.
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.
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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
how’s the blockade going, son? https://archive.ph/ngZUt
more
this whole thing feels like a joke, “limited resources”?! what’s the point of all these deployments if you still have “limited resources” in the end? like, sure, these fancy special-forces teams are indeed limited, but you’re telling me that the administration which has just been blatantly murdering civilians in random boats is now worried about doing things “the right way” with the proper teams who have legal authority as part of the Coast Guard instead of just, you know, sending in some Marines, who have boarding teams of their own? (but not necessarily the legal authority)
is this some kind of stalling tactic since they’re actually not willing to really seize the tanker? what’s going on here
The MIC and pentagon regularly feign incompetence or lack of strength to maximize wartime funding.
War is a racket to these people and they need to milk it for all its worth given that the real climate change wars will start very soon.
Manufacturing consent for sending Marines. Show they couldn’t do it the right way so they can do it with military units.
Do they care about manufacturing consent at this point though? Again, this is coming on the heels of them already doing blatantly illegal strikes on boats - if it wasn’t for that, I would have been more amenable to the manufacturing consent angle. Or did pushback on the strikes actually rattle them and now they’re starting to attempt a better job of consent-manufacturing?
Are they manufacturing the consent for the libs to allow the military option (which they have proven they will do anyway) or are they escalating in a controlled manner to avoid spooking the shipping insurance industry?
Insurance as a system is built on a LOT of risk, by definition, and the assumption that such risks won’t be claimed against. Seems like an area the US admin would be very careful in navigating, because if rates spike over some preventable gaffe they’re compounding it across their entire export-driven economic plan.
This is, of course, against the common knowledge that the empire is driven by short term bullshit and nepotism masquerading as intellect.
Hmm, interesting, I hadn’t considered that aspect of it
I guess Trump, as a real estate guy (even if not necessarily a particularly competent one) might be more sensitive to insurance and other financial fuckery like this, and there’s plenty of other business ghouls he’s brought into the admin.
I already see the libs getting mad because the incompetent Trump admin can’t hold the blockade and they will rush a $50 billion relief military funding bill to “get it done”.
With this tanker, it has no crude oil onboard, it’s sailing empty and the tanker is effectively a stateless vessel. This gives the US the unique opportunity to seize the tanker “legally”. But for it to be of any use, it must be captured undamaged. The way this was done so far is via helicopter raids, but this requires compliance from the tanker, to slow down enough to make it safe for helicopters to hover, and special forces to rappel down and commandeer the vessel. If the tanker keeps it’s speed up, even a very modest 10 knots, it makes helicopter led operations difficult. There are of course a bunch of things the US could do to slow down or stop the tanker, but that would either damage the vessel or lead to casualties amongst the crew and US forces (helicopter rappel gone wrong onto moving vessel), not things that the US wants for now.
Saying that the coast guard is doing the seizing of tankers is mainly a formality. In all the seizures so far, helicopters have been dispatched from the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, with special forces elements onboard, accompanied by some coast guard units. I don’t think that the Coast Guard operates aircraft carriers…
Well how else are they meant to guard (South) American coasts???
The fishing boats are Venezuelan. The tanker is Chinese.
Edit: Chinese -> Turkish
Not in this case, the tanker appears to be Turkish owned.
while I’m under the impression it didn’t matter to the US in this case, Turkey is much more likely to retaliate in a way that scares them compared to China. they already leverage their influence in Syria plus working relationship with Russia to extract concessions in a way that China would only do after launching nukes across the pacific.
Didn’t they already fuck with a Chinese tanker, to resounding silence?