My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
The last week has had a lot of Trump admin dipshittery that isn’t important enough to be worth remarking on, so I’m just going to skip right past all that. The sanctions campaign against Iran appears to have stalled before it even left the starting line, with China saying that, nope, they aren’t going to cut off their ally for the sake of their enemy. From what I’ve gathered from Naked Capitalism’s (albeit limited) reporting on the state of Iran’s economy, the impression I get is that while inflation is running kinda wild, everything else, including state revenues, are doing sufficiently well that there isn’t going to be an economic collapse this year nor probably next year if we assume a continued no-deal situation over Hormuz.
The underlying geopolitical situation has had some interesting little developments. Iran and Oman appears to have worked out their plan for joint control over Hormuz. Ansarallah is continuing their explosive campaign against the Saudis, who are now begging the US for help. Additionally, the ever-barking never-biting Türkiye is showing some signs that they might soon, finally, after three years of witnessing outright genocide, do 1 (one) (the first numerical digit) action that isn’t to the Zionist’s direct benefit, by putting up a modicum of resistance in defence of their puppet in Syria; but, quite frankly, I’m not holding my breath on anything truly substantial happening while Erdogan’s in charge.
The state of oil flows in and around Hormuz are very hotly debated right now. Many of the oil flow numbers can be dismissed out of hand because they aren’t reflective of the reality of Iranian control and vision of the strait. Due to the narrowness of the strait, full visual coverage of the ships travelling through the channel can be achieved with technology no more advanced than a dozen people with binoculars and a not-especially-tall mountain. However, figures that are around 3-5 million barrels per day (compared to the pre-war 20 million per day) seems plausible when including Iran allowing some allied vessels out (notably Iraqi and Chinese vessels, among others). This, plus China’s rather odd actions in the oil market over the last six months, have resulted in the US’s SPR now draining at “only” 4-6 million barrels per week, compared to 8-9 earlier in the war. However, the war’s impact on fertilizer and diesel stockpiles and prices are now unignorable even to those with their heads in the sand, with anxiety steadily building in the mainstream media about food crises next year.
Meanwhile, Trump has decided to pick fights with Canada due to their strange unwillingness to graciously hand over their sovereignty to the US, with the two countries now in a tariff war. That being said, oil seems to be one product that neither side wants to fight over: the US needs a producer, and Canada needs a customer. The only other country in the vicinity with major oil reserves is Venezuela, who has been in the news a lot lately for precisely this reason, but they simply don’t have the production to do much of anything to alleviate the US’s stockpile issues and likely still won’t by the time Trump has left office, and so they can be safely dismissed as a significant player in this ongoing global energy conflict.
On the subject of naval trade routes, a fascinating development is that Russia has finally unveiled the Northern Sea Route as a regular maritime passage, with a small fleet of eight Chinese vessels taking the route as a test run in mid-August. From Shanghai to Hamburg, the route is a little over 7000 nautical miles and goes through no chokepoints (though I suppose the Bering Strait could hypothetically become one), compared to the Suez route which is nearly 11,000 nautical miles and goes through three chokepoints (Malacca, Bab el-Mandab, Suez). Russia has the world’s only nuclear icebreaker fleet, and the increased power from those reactors is necessary to provide the sheer force to break up the ice along the route, making them even more uniquely situated to benefit from the route. Many countries, China foremost among them, have identified the advantage of not being subject to chokepoints and hostile waters as the US navy continues its rapid transition to outright piracy, so it’ll be interesting to see to what extent the route is adopted in the coming years.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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 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:
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.
you never see stuff like this in the US, only Europe
huge police state + lots of treats + vast sense of societal despair so all political action is perceived as meaningless
these are the three obstacles to any political work in this country, whether it’s knocking doors or blowing up arms factories
cultural despair and anomie in every regard alongside a willingness to do class and imperial collaborationism. deadly combination for all in the long run.
Its also very difficult to figure out who to trust with this sort of thing sometimes. Learned this the hard way. But also I’m to disabled for this type of thing. Which sucks ass honestly. Being able to run is kind of useful sometimes.
Yep. I’m literally just trying to keep the cops from wrecking people on my street on a daily basis, and mustering all the comrades I can to help. We’re so far from being able to affect change even a city away, it’s ridiculous.
Since I wrote this comment I realized I should’ve included the total atomization of the working class/total lack of working class organizations of any sort (labor, political, community, social, athletic, etc) as a fourth factor.
Yep. Trying to remedy that too, locally. But it’s difficult, and lonely, and there is soooooooooooo much pessimism and indifference to overcome…
europe’s police get guns too. so what does the public of a country with guns behind every blade of grass do? nothing, they might get hurt and it is illegal.
euopes police have guns, but US police have small town police departments with tanks and sniper rifles and swat teams. Cities spend the vast majority of their budget on police and some cities and states spend more on police than large countries do on their military. The US also incarcerates people at a higher level, and more people generally, than nearly any other country on earth for decades. Many small, rural towns entire economy revolves around prison-based employment where all factory and retail jobs have been replaced by outsized prison complexes.
Not to mention, a large minority of people i. yhe US- often the ones with most of the guns- identify with the police more than the oppressed. There was a political movement in the US launched for allowing police to execute Black people without repercussions- even though hardly a single politician in office ever called for defunding police.
edit: to add, there is a long history of vigilantism and non-state violence in the US- but the vast majority of it has been racist terror and reactionary racist mob violence. often with police backing. having guns in the context just creates an even more precarious situation for human rights organizers, who, maybe a few months or years before they were radicalized, were probably trying to get guns off the streets and out of the hands of workers because they were told that the controlled opposition was the only legitimate opposition to reactionary politics
In addition, there’s been such a pervasive surveillance state for the better part of a century that anyone serious will rationally wonder whether even their close associates are feds. It’s a real impediment to even moderate political organizing when you discover that even the Glora Steinems of the world are literal CIA assets.
real
yanks are cowards
i sometimes wonder, the person profile is largely same (young, students, usually not terribly poor) across europe and usa, but usa solidarity after nicaragua people brigades have just died, wtf are they putting into water there, because anarchy actions in europe are much more direct, and it’s not enforcement, europe police is more competent in general with catching people
Its the civil rights era propaganda in a large part IMO. There are other factors but its amazing how difficult, it is to talk to people about direct action cause they think the height of protest is to stand around with signs.
However, I will say there has been direct action, but most of it has been from minority groups that got the the worst treatment. Then there are actions like Stop Cop City where they did stuff against the machines and what not but a lot of that wasnt covered.
I think the worst of it, if you are thinking “fuck it I’ll do it” you kind of have this realization the Democrats of the area will totally throw your ass under the bus to try and appease their Republican over lords. I mean “reaching across the isle”. They never do shit, but they become the fastest creatures alive when its time to condemn any type of violence. They will pour money into it and confuse a lot of people.
That’s what makes things like that United Healthcare CEO killing so freaky for those people because despite everything people were generally okay with it.
All of this to say, its a fucking shit show, but the things will right themselves when reality catches up with the grifters lies.
boycotts are both easier to do than stand around with signs and more effective, one wonders, why some chains in europe will drop entity produce over people’s campaign, while there is nothing in america, almost like all influencers are money farming instead of influencing
Oh yeah I will say boycotts are practically worthless in the US. Its very difficult to get enough people to do it long term but on top of that it becomes a huge effort because how do you figure out what to boycott when so many companies have their hands in each other pockets.
But you have things like fucking Starbucks. Its not a necessity, and a horrible track record for anything, yet people will throw a toddler fucking tantrum over it. So it’s obviously not just the issues I’ve mentioned. You can’t even get gays to stop going to bigot chicken (chick-fil-a)
they aren’t tho, or at least depending, if say 20% of all usa population (allegedly, 60% of dems which are 30% of “people” believe entity commits genocide) changed their consumer habits according to bds demands, impact will be seen
from spacein participating firms quarterly reports, dell or hp or mcdonald’s would care more about losing 60 million customers inside usa than 10 million total addressable market in entitySorry I meant more they are worthless in the sense they don’t have the organization and staying power they need. Your information is correct, but its very difficult to maintain with Americas hyper individualism.
For example, if people stuck with BDS it would be very effective, however its very difficult to get people to learn about it in the first place, and then on top of that people inevitability start adding more and more to the boycott list. (See the No Thanks app). McDonalds was suffering for a bit but its very hard to know if its still bring effective. The lack of news is also part of the disorganization because it can be easy to forget about it as months turn to years unless you are putting yourself into the thick of the news and the majority of Americans are not doing that. Hell most of them get their news from a friend of a friend who got it from MSN. As someone who has been keeping with BDS if anything for my own peace of mind, it can be very frustrating and disheartening. I’ve had to deal with a LOT of temper tantrums from just mentioning the boycotts. -_-.
This could be fixed though. But it requires some understanding of what a boycott actually is. And sadly there are a lot of well meaning people who are having to relearn things the hard way (including myself). We honestly need some good reorganizing efforts and class analysis teaching, and some of us are doing our parts. But the empire is probably going to have to weaken a bit more before people will actually listen sadly. Don’t even get me started on the doomer pilled folks. I can rant about that for hours.
my frustration mainly is with influencers, how hard is it to close out your shows with list of 10 companies on bds list, if your audience is in 10000s people, constantly drill into their skull the bad companies names, because their memory is reset every week. but nobody does this, they will elect politicians who allegedly support bds, who won’t name a single company on the bds company list in the public speeches, like what the fuck is this.
it’s not hard to boycott bk or mcdonalds in amerikkka, they have 5000s burger joints, just as it isn’t hard boycotting hp or dell or intel. it’s hard to drop google or microsoft, and requires non-treatlerite particles inside, but simple replaceable consumer goods?
❤️