Image is of Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute a week or so ago.
I didn't really want to keep spotlighting American domestic events as I had assumed that shit would calm down pretty quickly, but it appears that the Trump administration, including Musk, are determined to bring down the empire from the inside.
One of the most important lessons of ruling a country - and especially an empire - is to never, ever believe your own propaganda; and yet now we have neo-Nazi failsons disrupting parts of the imperial apparatus and causing general government mayhem because they actually seem to believe in libertarianism; that the state and the capitalists are somehow in opposition, rather than working in lockstep to maximise profit and boost American hegemony around the world.
I'm not so optimistic as to believe that a national collapse is FOUR DAYS AWAY, like those weird anti-China cranks often speculate - the US has at least a decade or two left even under these conditions. But consider the damage being inflicted in these past couple weeks, and extrapolate that over the next four years. Does any living American political figure possess the competency to halt - or even meaningfully slow - the already ongoing decline? And could they achieve power (or even be allowed to do so) after Trump's term is done?
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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.
I have commented the other day that these are looking more and more like the early phase of Cultural Revolution, but with an American “twist” (someone suggested I should just call it “Cultural Revolution with American characteristics” lol): from the anti-intellectualism, to the appointment of young kids to smash up the establishment, the obsession with accusations of “DEI” and “Marxist” elements within academia and federal bureaucracies, Elon Musk acting more and more like Lin Biao, the establishment of DOGE (committee) that disrupts and intervenes with the functioning of governmental bodies, potential fracturing of MAGA factions into infighting etc.
If we follow the historical progression, we should see Elon leading his Bazinga Guards disrupting and smashing up the old system, the banishing of Federal Bureaucrats and “DEI” Academics into the “countryside”, then when the pandemonium reaches its height, Trump will lead the Movement to Criticize Elon Musk and start reining in the commotion, paving the way for the return of formerly exiled Bureaucrats to take charge of the reform process and completing the transition of the ruling party into a New Republican Party with Democratic characteristics that will go on to win in a landslide in the 2028 election.
Obviously the context is different so it won’t play out exactly like this (consider this a fictional imagining of the future), but from the perspective of an objective historical process, it is interesting to see the American political system instituting its own revolution to resolve the heightened contradictions (or to redirect the contradictions) that had led to the rise of the MAGA movement, and perhaps this is a necessary process for American capitalism to fully transition into the next stage of Fascism and for the rewiring of the role of the traditional two-party system.
Oh wow that's a really apt comparision I'm suprised I hadn't heard it before.
LMAO
At least the cultural revolution had good aims. Plus, I don't think the idea of a cultural revolution in general is a bad thing. Getting rid of reactionary traditions is a good thing for society.
I think the accepted narrative now is that Mao tried to speedrun the revolutions and ended up with a tragedy.
In any case, from a historical point of view, the Cultural Revolution led to the rise of liberal reformers and was a deeply traumatic event for many people including many of the post-Mao era leaders.
CW: self-harm
Deng Xiaoping’s eldest son, Deng Pufang, jumped out of a third floor window at Peking University when assaulted by the Red Guards, and ended up permanently disabled (he’s been in a wheelchair since - he’s 80 years old and still alive)Xi Jinping’s sister, Xi Heping, committed suicide after constant harassment by the Red Guards. The official narrative mentioned only that she “perished during the Cultural Revolution”.
That’s why it’s such a sensitive topic that nobody wants to discuss, and many of the Red Guards are still alive today.
I always heard the red guard threw him out the window
well yeah because the right wing won out, of course they'd say that. Although its true that it would have been better with the improvement of material conditions, and that many methods (highschoolers dont know fuck all don't make them part of a political movement) were incorrect. Generally it was a good thing, and is something that should be strived for. China now is a horrible mess of neo-confucian ideology that will only fan the flames of the burgeoning petite-bourgeoisie class. If they dont have a cultural revolution of their own its very likely a gorbachev like character can start wrecking it down sponsored by the right wing.
A lot of the issues can be attributed by being too decentralized and not effectively establishing a vanguard organization. The Red guards were various in ideologies and dogmatism, and couldn't be effectively controlled when they did over correct. Harassment of people into suicide is one of the famous ones by the more dogmatist cliques that were usually lead by actual teenagers with ultraleft ideologies.
Didn't it literally fight against those people though. The right only rose to power because they won, they beat out the revolts, purged the gang of four, basically sidelined mao.
They don't talk about it because it would be bad to actually recognize how far right they deviated in order to fight against the cultural revolution. Its dengists who won, of course they made sure it was killed off and no alternatives exist.
Elon Musk: part monkey, part tiger
Lol but yeah you raise a really interesting analogy, that makes a lot of sense. It does seem like we are entering a period of explosion that will be followed by a period of freak reconstruction into the new system. And then we’ll probably see that cycle unfold again and again as the time between each shortens and push and pull become more extreme, until the event horizon of war-collapse
i mean this is a fascist cultural revolution, what do you think the nazis did when they got into power? Kristallnacht
I thought the same thing too when I saw those six dudes. They really are like farcical version of the Gang of Four.
Is his plane going to crash in the middle of ~~Mongolia~~ Mexico?