Image is of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Ansarallah.
The death of Zionism has just massively accelerated.
previous preamble
BRICS has expanded to include Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Argentina is currently experiencing technical difficulties due to the election of the ancap clown Milei - once he's out of office, maybe they can try again.
I don't really have much to say about this one way or another. BRICS has, so far, made only nervous and small steps towards challenging US hegemony. This isn't really that unexpected, as only China and Russia are the real "true believers" in ending US hegemony (and even then, China's government either believes, or is pretending to believe, that reconciliation is still possible). Brazil, India, and South Africa are less enthralled by the concept of dethroning the US, most especially India, who had to make a firm decision in 2023 whether they were going to be on the side of America, or on the side of the Global South, and chose the former, strengthening their military relationship. They're still best of friends with Russia, but they are very obviously the sussy imposter of the BRICS group.
The prospects of BRICS are only really loosely correlated with the prospects of multipolarism, though. It's not a process that hinges on BRICS's successes or failures. It is coming because the contender states (in Desai's terminology) are irreversibly rising, and the US is irreversibly falling. If it will not be BRICS that leads, it will be a different organization. A better world is not only possible, but inevitable - unfortunately for the US.
I'm taking a week off the updates because I've been swamped lately, and also feel the need to reconfigure (and find new) sources. Needless to say that I've grown tired of Financial Times headlines, even if they do represent the actual views of the bourgeoisie.
The Country of the Week is Ethiopia! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
White House Throws Support Behind Using Frozen Russian Funds to Spend on Ukraine
The rules based international order everyone
havent people been saying this will absolutely destroy other countries’ trust in the dollar?
(reposting with HB account cuz comments from my LG account arent federating for some reason)
The trust in dollar has already been broken, but because there is simply no alternative to it (literally nothing else in the world has the sheer liquidity, market depth and stability of the dollar, like nothing even comes close to that), everyone will continue to use the dollar. (I have made the case that the only way out is through de-dollarization i.e. massive global debt cancellation but nobody is keen on doing it, so it’s not happening anytime soon).
The euro, however, is fucked. Most of the seized Russian assets are in euros. Now, because the euro is not a viable alternative to the dollar, most people can live without euro (but the economy will absolutely stop functioning if they stop using dollar), the plunge in its trust means investors pulling away from the euro, followed by the weakening of the currency, hampering Europe’s ability to import commodities and consumer goods, which can only mean further inflation (adding that to the already inflated energy cost from the loss of Russian gas supplies) and poor economic prospect.
In other words, America has completely fucked Europe over, to put it mildly.
It would not destroy trust in western finance absolutely but it would make a significant dent in it. Westoids and their compradors will continue to have faith in it but any country that sees itself as a potential target for the the evil empire's aggression would think twice about putting their money there and be more open to considering alternatives.
Another similar effect would be to chip away at liberal ideology. One of the most important features of the ideological superstructure is the sacrosanctity of property rights. This is going to suffer as a consequence of stealing Russia's assets. If people are told you can take Russia's stuff because they're evil, the idea of taking other evil rich people's stuff becomes more palatable and harder to dismiss categorically by invoking a dogmatic reverence for property rights.
Yes, and this would also destroy trust in the euro (to a greater extent than the dollar because these assets are mostly in euro). Of course, people have also been saying that directly attacking yemen would be a stupid thing to do
Dedollarization is a slow process. Maybe this is the kick in the pants needed, but even if so it would take years.
Surely this can't backfire either
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/01/russian-asset-seizure-scheming-eu-and-euro-as-us-war-proxies-would-take-most-risk-usd-assets-only-4-6-billion.html
Most of those assets are in euros, so the european vassals will bear the brunt of the damage
Lmao the gardeners are truly getting the most pathetic governance. Vassalised in the fight against Russia, will be sacrificed in the fight against China. Europe could have tried to amend for its past of colonialism, started multipolar alliances with Moscow and Beijing, but no, in true arrogant fashion they had no project of their own in play and just let the USA do what they wanted to.
the europeans themselves are now governed by a comprador ruling class bending over backwards to please an external power
it's like poetry it rhymes
Reminds me of the middle ages, feudal lords and kings swearing allegiance to the pope in Rome except now they swear allegiance to
and Genocide Joe
They can't evn pretend to serve god anymore so they openly prostrate themselves to the great satan, it really does ryme doesn't it
I mean, it’s not like they didn’t try. At least with Merkel, there was a clear shift towards gaining independence from the Americans.
Nord Stream was an important energy infrastructure that came online soon after the 2009 crash, and allowed Europe to recover its industrial sector rapidly and regain its competitiveness in the wake of a global recession. 2 years later, the Maidan coup happened and caused a lot of trouble for their ongoing relationship.
Nord Stream 2 was completed in 2021, and the certification process was continuously delayed until Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, which practically killed the project.
I should note that Europe is also not a victim here, they have never viewed Russia as an equal partner and, clouded by their own chauvinism, believed that they could easily screw Russia out of the deal given Russia’s tiny economy (smaller than Italy). So a lot of their actions are plain chauvinism by people who have bought into their own propaganda about how easily Russia will collapse when faced against the sheer economic power of the giants (US and EU combined).
The US is not blind to all this. Trump had been trying to get the Europeans to spend more of their national budget on NATO, and he forced Merkel to build a huge LNG terminal to buy American gas instead of the Russians. He wasn’t taken seriously by the Europeans at all, and when both Trump and Merkel stepped down from their offices, the LNG terminal project was all but forgotten.
Then, Biden came to office in 2021, and I cannot stress this enough, through sheer ruthlessness hammered the Europeans into submission. There is simply nothing Europe could do against the US if the latter chooses to actually flex its power, which is exactly what Biden is doing. Unlike his predecessors, Biden doesn’t care if Europe is a close ally. He doesn’t hold back when it’s time for him to step up.
The story with Europe is not finished yet.
In the coming years, fascist parties will sweep Europe and the social and political unrests that ensued will continue to destabilize the European life. Many people, especially skilled workers and highly educated professionals, will be looking for ways out. Most of them are probably going to end up in America, with H-1B visas, and they will play an important part in dragging down domestic wages (much like what American capitalists are doing with importing cheap Indian professionals, except this time it’s white Europeans). Europe will suffer from brain drain and without prospects, while American capitalists will reap the benefits from a de-industrialized and de-stabilized Europe until it is completely ruined.
Biden has been an absolutely brutal leader. I have a big chunk of grudging respect for him. He's cemented the US' leadership of the West, even at the cost of losing the West's leadership of the world. This sets up the US extremely well in the emerging multipolar world.
Except this entire farce is going to further de-legitimize the dollar and in the long term hurt America the most as it's their financial system of domination they are blowing up to own the ruskies. The Euro isn't nearly as central to western hegemonic interests as the sacred dollar is
again, the contentions here don't make much sense-- why would it be bad to be the one holding the russian assets? if you're going to defectors/thieves, you might as well get the most you can out of it.
IMO is a significant difference in how freezing/seizing assets and actually using/spending seized assets are perceived. Both damage the reputation of the usd/euro but the latter will cause much more alarm than the former
Could be. Certainly will make the cost of warming relations/restitution much higher, but that's just a function of all the treasure the Euros are sitting on.
But more than that, I'm not sure the reputational risk for Europe is really so high, or, rather, I think the Europeans can credibly claim that Russia crossed a clear enough line by invading and breaching (pseudo?) European sovereignty, and can assure other powers that that was the only reason for the rug pull. Brasil and India and whoever else just really won't ever be invading presumably, and wont be in such situations. I think it's the Americans who have really put the spot light on themselves: capricious, vicious. I'm worried about how far they will go to save face in all this.
(But I do think would be silly for the Euros to take all that money and then just hand it over to the American war machine. Theyll owe Russia, they won't be able to make any investments, they'll continue a ghastly world conflict for US benefit.)
That would require Europe to convince everyone that a country that's not in the EU, not in the Eurozone, and not in the Schengen is somehow European. That's absurd.
I have thought since this started that the idea that Ukraine was "European" was bizarre and silly. Slavs being treated as white was also deeply strange.
Is it? A literal border case, that had been playing footsie with the Europeans for how long? There's a reason that the Euros flipped their lids over the invasion, it was seen as existential threat to boundaries of the garden.
Other developing nations are not abutting the garden, and wont need to fear of spooking them. Nations and capital holders are motivated to trade and commerce, they aren't looking for reasons to punish Europe.
Honestly from a communist viewpoint win-win for us, discredits the US empire and pisses off Russian oligarchs, go at it
To spend it on infrastructure reconstruction right?
Right?
I'm going to be honest, I thought they had already done this
havent people been saying this will absolutely destroy other countries' trust in the dollar?