more like thucydideez nuts, gottem

A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like “in Minecraft”) and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of a satellite image from MizarVision, a Chinese firm that has recently shown pride in being sanctioned for showing uncensored images of the Middle East. The West is not allowing up-to-date satellite imagery of the region to hide destruction.


As always, my weekly summary/preamble is in spoilers below.

preamble

Military news remained relatively subdued last week, with the main front continuing to be the Lebanon border. With dozens of vehicles destroyed and many more Zionist casualties, they are now desperately searching for a solution to the FPV drone threat, with certain analysts characterizing the whole situation as the entity stumbling foot-first into a bear trap (hence the megathread title). Unfortunately for them, two better and more resourceful militaries have spent the last year or two also searching for a solution and have generally failed - with anti-drone strategies consisting mainly of 1) build your own cheap drones designed to physically intercept their cheap drones and 2) separate your forces up rather than conducting large frontal assaults WW2-style and accept that you’re gonna have to fight for many months to gain substantial ground. This also explains why they’re so eager to kickstart a civil war in Lebanon, although as I’ve stated before, I don’t personally know whether that would be a silver bullet given how the Lebanese army has been deliberately not allowed to become a threatening force due to Zionist fears, and indeed, I don’t know how many Lebanese citizens and soldiers would fight against the only force in their country fighting against an army trying to annex their territory and which murders hundreds of people at a time in aerial bombings on their cities.

Aside from the ever-worsening global economic catastrophe, the main event has been the US visiting China. Trump clearly intended to time the summit such that it took place after subjugating Iran and perhaps also Cuba. However, with the former goal not even remotely achieved, and the latter goal delayed - hopefully indefinitely, though the US still seems pretty intent on it - it all amounted to a big nothingburger. Marxist economist Michael Roberts has written up a great piece on the current state of the US-China economic conflict, stating among things that, despite the last decade of US sanctions and economic warfare, the Chinese economy has done extremely well, building up their own domestic industries to replace commodities lost from sanctions. China has, up to this point, refused to withdraw its aid from Iran, and seems to be looking to start moving its tankers through the Strait via Iran’s new tolling mechanism.

China obviously continues to maintain its position on Taiwan, and Trump has continued the US tradition of respecting this in words and disrespecting it in actions, but it’s becoming clear to everybody but the most delusional diehards that the US will not be fighting China in and around the Pacific for at least a couple decades, and likely never will. There is little choice. The Ramadan War has definitively proven that the US has been severely militarily and logistically weakened over the decades despite skyrocketing military budgets, and much of their equipment, strategies, and tactics are woefully outdated for the modern battlefield. The prospect of the US fighting a war against China and not immediately losing has gone from “almost implausible” to “hilariously absurd”. Unable to meaningfully impede China, the US will have to content itself to increasingly ineffective sanctions campaigns and bullying/overthrowing nations that do not currently have much of a capacity to resist. In that vein, one hopes that Iran and friends will share their expertise in drone technology and underground fortification around the world. The age of the tunnel is upon us.


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

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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 the Zionists’ 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.


  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netM
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    7 hours ago

    Flávio Bolsonaro’s popularity plummets after “Dark Horse,” and Lula da Silva leads by a wide margin in both the first and second rounds, according to an Atlas poll - DCM

    Article

    The new Atlas/Bloomberg poll released this Tuesday (19) shows President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party - Social Democrat and Democratic Socialism) leading in the 1st and 2nd round scenarios for the 2026 presidential election. The survey indicates a drop for Flávio Bolsonaro (Liberal Party - Far-Right) after the release of the audio involving Daniel Vorcaro, former owner of Banco Master, and the financing of the film “Dark Horse”, about Jair Bolsonaro.

    In the main first-round scenario, Lula appears with 47% of voting intentions, stable compared to the previous survey. Flávio Bolsonaro totals 33%, a drop of 5.4 percentage points. Following them are Renan Santos (Missão - Far-Right Incel), with 6.9%; Romeu Zema (Novo - Far-Right Mileism), with 5.2%; and Ronaldo Caiado (Social Democrat Party - Right-Wing Opportunism), with 2.7%.

    Flávio’s downfall comes after a crisis triggered by the revelation of an audio recording in which the senator confronts Daniel Vorcaro about payments related to the film “Dark Horse”.

    According to Reuters, allies of the senator tried to downplay the relationship with the banker, but acknowledged the political fallout after the case was made public. The agency also reported that the Bolsonaro family supported the production of the film about the political career of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

    With Flávio’s decline, even Datafolha became the target of irony from analyst Dawisson Belém Lopes. “Now I understand why Datafolha reopened the search for the ‘anti-Lula’ position,” he wrote on X. According to the analysis, the institute has been seeking to strengthen alternatives to the senator.

    However, the AtlasIntel poll also tested a scenario without Flávio Bolsonaro, and the results do not encourage the far-right. In this case, Lula maintains around 47% of voting intentions. Romeu Zema appears with 17%, Ronaldo Caiado reaches almost 14%, and Renan Santos registers 8%. The result shows the president isolated in the lead even when the senator’s name is removed from the race.

    In another scenario, with Jair’s Wife, Michelle Bolsonaro (Liberal Party), replacing Flávio, Lula again appears with 47%. Michelle registers 23.4%, followed by Romeu Zema, with 10%; Renan Santos, with 7.8%; and Ronaldo Caiado, with 6%. The performance indicates that the change of names in the Bolsonaro camp does not alter the president’s lead in the first round.

    In second-round scenarios, Lula also appears ahead of all tested opponents. According to the survey, the president widened his lead against Flávio Bolsonaro, Romeu Zema, Ronaldo Caiado, and Renan Santos. Against Flávio, Lula reaches almost 49%, while the senator falls from 47.8% to 41.8%. The group of undecided, blank, and null voters grew by 4.6 percentage points.

    In an election without Lula’s participation, both Fernando Haddad (Workers’ Party, Minister of Economy) and Geraldo Alckmin (Brazilian Socialist Party - Former Neolib turned Social Democrat) would move ahead of Flávio after the audio with Vorcaro. Haddad would lead by 3.7 percentage points, while Alckmin would have a 4.1 percentage point advantage over Flávio.

    Rejection of Flávio Bolsonaro also increased by 2 percentage points. He becomes the pre-candidate with the highest number of voters who say they would not vote for him under any circumstances.

    The fear of Flávio Bolsonaro’s election surpasses that of Lula’s reelection. The apprehension about Flávio’s victory has increased by 2 percentage points since April, while the fear of the president’s reelection has fallen by almost 7 percentage points in a month, following the release of the audio recording of Flávio with Vorcaro.

    The survey interviewed 5,032 people between May 13 and 18; the margin of error is ±1 pp.

    • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netM
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      7 hours ago

      In just 3 days, Flavio Bolsonaro went down 6 - 10% in the polls, and the Far-Right wants to replace him with Jair Bolsonaro current wife, who has a total of 20% against Lula’s 55%. I also remember that when the Military guys who were behind the failed 2023 coup group chat logs were leaked, they were saying stuff like “I would rather vote for Lula than for Michelle, I’m not voting for a woman”.

      • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        and the Far-Right wants to replace him with Jair Bolsonaro current wife

        Don’t they have any reliable loyalists there, they have to go with Bolsonaro’s literal family?

        • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netM
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          Their loyalists are Zema, Caiado, Renan etc… Their plan was to all go on the debate and help Flavio by attacking just Lula da Silva. Initially they wanted the governor of Sao Paolo, Tarcisio, to run, but they feared he might betray them, so they just got one of Bolsonaro’s son to run. I think they fear they might get betrayed and lose relevancy if they don’t run.