Image is from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ recent article on Kashmir.
It looks like the spat between India and Pakistan could be dying down, due to a new ceasefire. As of the time of me writing this paragraph, it seems both sides want to maintain it (despite some reports of violations here and there).
Both sides have declared victory, which is completely expected given their mutual political parties and nationalist histories. It’s a little harder to say which side has actually won, as both sides seem to have managed to shoot down aircraft and hit military bases. India has, in my opinion, had the more embarrassing moments, but international conflicts aren’t cringe compilations. I feel no good-will towards Pakistan’s comprador government, but it is at least nice to see Modi knocked down a few pegs. Regardless of the final technical victor, it’s obvious that - if the ceasefire is maintained - who won are the hundreds of millions of people who won’t have to live in fear of dying in nuclear hellfire.
This conflict is a good example of what multipolarity will truly entail. Countries that have been previously limited in their nationalist ambitions by American pressure will now take opportunities to revolt, sometimes against America itself, and sometimes against other countries in their regional neighbourhood. It’s also why, as communists, our goals do not stop at multipolarity; it is merely the establishing act of a new era of agitation against peripheral and semi-peripheral capitalist countries that are forming powerful national bourgeoisie classes as the international American capitalists are forced away.
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.
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.
article
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said on Sunday Russia planned to conduct a “training and combat” launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile to intimidate Ukraine and the West. The overnight launch was ordered to be implemented from Russia’s Sverdlovsk region, the GUR agency said in a statement on the Telegram app. It added the flight range for the missile was more than 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles).
"In order to demonstratively pressure and intimidate Ukraine, and also EU and NATO member states, the aggressor state of Russia intends to make a ‘training and combat’ launch of the RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile from the Yars complex," GUR said in the statement.
There was no immediate comment from Russia on the Ukrainian military intelligence statement.
Russia does not answer questions about its plans to test launch nuclear missiles, the details of which it classifies as a military secret, although it issues statements after such launches.
More than three years into the war against Russia, Ukraine is under enormous pressure as Russia seeks frontline gains in the Ukrainian east, and diplomatic efforts to end the war have so far yielded no results.
Unsure if this will happen, but most “missile experts” expect similar with Russia’s current line of strategic thought.
If current direction of Russian strategic thinking holds, Russia will not take this [European demand of unconditional 30 day ceasefire] and attempt to coerce NATO with kinetic displays.
The Ukranian military can’t retake and hold its lost territories.
Is there really a reason to burn an ICBM to try to intimidate an army that is effectively losing?
I’d guess it’s a reminder that their ability to strike reaches most capitols if any NATO goons think of escalating to try to save Ukraine
CNN: Biden diagnosed with ‘aggressive form’ of prostate cancer
Zionism gives you prostate cancer.
metastasis to the bone
He’s cooked
instead it turns out cancer will be curing Joe Biden
This picture is hilarious
metastasis to the bone
My uncle died bc of this cancer, horrible way to die. Can’t say I feel sorry for Biden, he had the chance to stop the genocide in Palestine, stop the war in Ukraine, and arrest Donald Trump, he didn’t do any of that and instead continued to arm Israel and Ukraine, and gave the republicans all they wanted to elect the Orange guy.
Wait, wait, wait. Hold the crabs. Fucker has the best healthcare the Empire can manage. I do NOT want to be disappointed on this one.
Living his remaining days in intense pain and discomfort, prolonged by medical treatments. Either he dies quick or he lives in pain. Seems like a win/win to me.
How did it get to that point without being detected? He has the best medical care in America, did he just refuse to get prostate exams?
You can have a doctor who’s willing to shoot you full of stimulants every time you have to go on TV, or you can have a doctor who will do routine medical examinations, but you’re not getting both.
Last
Hezbollah declares sweep in Baalbek municipal elections as alliance with Amal holds firm
Hezbollah secured a decisive victory in the third round of Lebanon’s municipal and mukhtar elections, with its “Development and Loyalty” lists winning all seats in Baalbek and across the Bekaa region.
The results were announced by Hussein Al-Nemr, Hezbollah’s official in the Bekaa region, who hailed the outcome as a reflection of strong grassroots support for the party’s local governance strategy.
Commenting on the results, MP Hussein Al-Hajj Hassan reaffirmed the strength of the alliance between Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, noting the consistency of their joint electoral performance.
Al-Hajj Hassan dismissed the intentions of the rival list in Baalbek, stating that its goal was not development but rather political change.
“The response came clearly through the ballot boxes,” he said, underscoring the electorate’s rejection of efforts to shift the city’s political direction.
Senior Ansarallah leader Nasr al-Din Amer:
In the coming hours, the Yemeni Armed Forces, relying on God, will carry out military operations targeting “Ben Gurion” Airport in Lod and other “israeli” airports. This is due to the recent “israeli” escalation against the Gaza Strip and the aggression against Yemen, and in continuation of the Yemeni leadership’s decision to impose a ban on this airport and other airports, in addition to the naval blockade and closure of the Umm al-Rashrash port until the aggression stops and the siege on Gaza is lifted.
Disclaimer: Airlines remaining at the airport must depart immediately, and all those present there, especially foreigners, must leave for their own safety.
(RNN)
Their missile capabilities have advanced significantly since October 7th 2023. From firing off long range SCUDs, to Hatem-2 (Kheibar Shekan-1), to Palestine-1 (Kheibar Shekan-2), to Palestine-2 (Fattah/Kheibar Shekan series hybrid variant), to Fattah-1 itself now. If a volley of Fattah-1 missiles are fired in a large enough number, the US/Israeli air defence net will struggle to deal with such an attack (as seen by Operation True Promise II), even with THAAD in the picture now. This is an opportune moment for such an attack, as the US Navy is busy rotating Carrier Strike Groups in the Red Sea (USS Harry Truman leaving, USS Gerald Ford arriving). With minimal to no US Navy warships in the Red Sea now, they cannot blunt a missile attack from Yemen with SM-3 interceptors for a late boost phase or early midcourse interception. The position of the USS Carl Vinson, off to the East in the Gulf of Aden, is also not in position to do this. US Navy warships near Israel can still launch SM-3 midcourse interceptors, but there’s quite a difference between ships in the Mediterranean launching SM-3s, and ships in the Red Sea launching SM-3s.
My question is if they can actually launch the advanced missiles in sufficient numbers to cause damage. Cluster warheads that release tiny munitions at high altitude on less advanced missiles are another option, but that would be very imprecise.
“And he who gives fair warning is absolved of blame”
When they do eventually strike the terminals of Lud airport, no one can say that they didn’t not give fair warning. The proud Yemeni revolutionaries are followers of the Islam of Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, rather than the Islam of the Ummayad butchers, and therefore they fight within the limits. What is coming is greater.
Pray for victory for the Resistance, protection for the people, peace for the martyrs, freedom for the prisoners, and punishment of the enemies.
Comrade, why don’t we emphasize their solidarity rather than their sect, just like they emphasize Islamic unity?
Glory to the resistance!
I think there is miscommunication. How are you interpreting what I have written?
followers of … the family of Muhammad, rather than the Islam of the Ummayad butchers
I interpreted this as a reference to their Shiism. I dont mean to misinterpret your words
No problem. I am glad you asked as it gives an opportunity for more people to learn important Islamic Revolutionary history.
The Umayyad caliphate was notoriously brutal, racist, corrupt, and heavily focused on the accumulation of wealth. It came after the death of the Prophet. The Umayyad system is of course the system and history that the gulf cartels try to emulate and promote. It has nothing to do with the Sunnah.
The Martyr Sayed Hussein al Houthi and the Leader of the Revolution Sayed Abdul-Malik al Houthi are clear that they want a return to the Quran and the Islam of Muhammad pbuh. The Quran mandates “not exceeding the limits” in all aspects. This is a phrase that occurs multiple times. It also mandates armed Jihad against the enemies who break treaties, steal land, and violate the Believers (Surah at-Tawbah). This has nothing to do with sectarianism surely. The Sayed is saving Islam from corruption and distortion.
Ansarallah is a tapestry of sects and political orientations, under the banner of what the Sayed calls a “Quranic project”, which is part of why it is such a powerful people’s movement.
I think he may have interpreted your mention of the Umayyads as referring to Sunnis in general. But it’s important to clarify that even from a Sunni perspective, the Umayyads are viewed critically in some respects. After all, Caliph Ali is considered one of the rightly guided caliphs by Sunnis as well, and it was the Umayyads who fought against him and ultimately contributed to his death. So in that sense, the Umayyads are seen as controversial, not only by Shia but also to some extent by Sunni Muslims.
You are entirely correct. However, the start of the Ummayad dynasty was the first Fitna, which is why Shia sources emphasize their brutality more, while Sunni may be ambivalent. Followers of the Ahl al Bayt is a clear reference to Shia Islam though
For as much as the Wahhabis scream about “bidah this bidah that”, the Nasibi (anti-Ali) ideology is pure innovation created by the Umayyads to suppress challenges to their rule.
Israeli military announces beginning of widescale ground offensive in Gaza
The operation involves forces from the military’s Southern Command, operating on the ground in both northern and southern Gaza, according to a statement.
The ground forces are supported by Israel’s air force.
As we’ve been reporting, Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed at least 135 people today.
https://aje.io/klape0?update=3718420
This is allegedly the beginning of “Gideon’s Chariot”.
Latest propaganda attack on China seems to be that they have “kill switches” in all solar panels
spoiler
US finds ‘kill switches’ on solar panels sold by China - sparking fears of energy grid attack
Engineers on American solar farms have discovered secret switches installed in Chinese-manufactured parts which could wreak havoc on Western power grids.
One source familiar with the matter told an outlet they are “built-in way to physically destroy the grid.”
The US government has not publicly acknowledged the discoveries, and the existence of the rogue devices had not previously been reported.
Asked for comment by Reuters, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said it continually assesses risk associated with emerging technologies and that there were significant challenges with manufacturers disclosing and documenting functionalities.
The source also told Reuters that more unexplained communication devices, including cellular radios, have been found in batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers over the past nine months.
Mike Rogers, a former director of the US National Security Agency, said: “We know that China believes there is value in placing at least some elements of our core infrastructure at risk of destruction or disruption.”
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington said: “We oppose the generalisation of the concept of national security, distorting and smearing China’s infrastructure achievements.”
Two former U.S. government officials have said that the U.S. and other countries are reassessing China’s role in strategic infrastructure due to escalating tensions between the U.S. and China.
Renewable energy systems across the Western world rely on Chinese-manufactured parts. It is not yet known if the “kill switches” are present in any power converters on UK solar farms.
Nonetheless, shadow energy minister Andrew Bowie yesterday asked Labour’s Secretary for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, to order an ‘immediate pause and review’ of its efforts to transition to green power.
Bowie told The Telegraph yesterday: “Ed Miliband’s Made in China transition – clean power at the expense of everything else – is a threat to our national security and makes a mockery of his claims on energy security.”
The discovery of the devices in American solar panels follows a pledge from British energy minister Michael Shanks earlier this week to put solar panels on “every possible rooftop right across the country.”
Government plans will also force house builders to fit solar panels on all new properties by 2027.
please, President xi, my people cry out for freedom
I remember when they talked about kill switches in Chinese phones so you should buy an overpriced Apple product instead! I remember them saying similar things about 5G being a “Chinese plot” to take over the west!I sure am glad this propaganda is so blatant and openly racist that anyone could immediately spot it for what it is and not fall for it, right?
Had someone tell me literally a couple weeks ago that China was installing backdoors into surveillance cameras, so they could sneakily surveil us in the West. This person has a PhD
so you should buy an overpriced Apple product instead!
Which is literally manufactured by the Chinese anyway so if they wanted they could do it to that too. They don’t, because it’s not good business sense, but they could!
I sure am glad this propaganda is so blatant and openly racist that anyone could immediately spot it for what it is and not fall for it, right?
Someone on a (non marxist) server I’m on brought it up when I mentioned China. Fortunately 100% of the other people online all saw through it immediately and I think they also started to see it as sus also. The issue is that people simply trust news outlets, they do not think they would print something untrue or something that is blatant propaganda. People are deeply naive and gullible, most generally good people think society is running sensibly and fairly. Being critical of new outlets is not normalised.
Fortunately at the current moment China is actually getting widespread popular support because of Trump. The current atmosphere is very good for us.
America so far has consistently accused their rivals of what they’ve been doing under shadows. I wonder what’s the implication here
I mean Trump already said the fighter jets they sell all have kill switches and are deliberately 10% worse than their own fighters.
Saw this in Spanish “news” too, only that the claim is that there are “rogue communication devices” inside power inverters, not in the panels themselves.
In case anybody is interested, this is extreme bullshit. I’m a photovoltaics nerd and I consistently watch videos of teardowns and reviews of Chinese photovoltaic power inverters (consumer-grade though, not industry stuff. If anyone’s interested, a good source in Spanish is “DIY Baterías LiFePo4”, a Murcia or Almería-based battery nerd carrying out reviews). The components are all easy to understand by a novice electronical engineer, and there’s no way to hide any communication protocol in these devices because, you know, antennas and radio modules have a physical size and need to be positioned in clearly visible places. It’s simply not a thing. The biggest claim one could reasonably make without evidence is “they’ve hidden a software backdoor in the Bluetooth part of the IoT-integrated inverters”, but that’s just made up at this point. Just the usual China hatemongering
This shit is so fake. Solar panels are simple as hell, you couldn’t hide this shit from a novice installer.
After speaking with a solar panel installer I know their take is that it’s not the panels it’s the inverters which is different, and also that all of these inverters have the functionality to turn them off via an app, it’s pretty standard. They’re posing this as something sinister secreted into the features when it’s not.
Yeah in that way it’s no different from any Internet-connected piece of electrical equipment. You can do a lot of diagnosing and mitigating entirely through a web portal. This is just sinophonic bullshit to justify further crackdown on renewables.
Yeah this could be the case for any internet connected device regardless of where it’s manufactured, they could all have “kill switches”. Signalling out China for this is weird for sure. If anything it’s a case against the internet of things (IoT and smart home devices/automation) more than anything else. Install say a software like pihole or adguard home for DNS on a raspberry Pi and you can see all the DNS calls/“rouge communication” from your average smart device, be it a TV or inverter. Phoning home all the time.
pushing the big red “destroy the us power grid” button
“destroy the us power grid” button
The button pressing in question:
I can find zero evidence to support this for the record and I’ve tried. At the moment it appears to just be claims by the US.
One Last Swing against the Invader.
I don’t understand why any of these countries shedding crocodile tears for Palestinians are even pretending to care. What would they even lose by fully and publicly committing themselves to Israel’s genocide?
Fucking hell all of Israel’s allies (like, 99% of the world) might as well drop all pretenses and self-annex themselves into Greater Israel.
Here’s an extremely black-pilled take:
spoiler
I’m gonna say this now. With all the continued support Israel’s been getting from nearly the whole fucking world, this isn’t just Palestinians vs. Israel, it’s Palestinians vs. (almost) the whole world. They all want Palestinians gone. Every country wants them gone just so they can shrug their shoulders and stop thinking about them, because they’re “inconvenient” for their relations with Israel. They want them gone so they can embrace Israel as the forever empire of the Middle East.
A year ago criticism of the occupation and genocide was political blasphemy but the protests and activism has started trends in these states to lay the groundwork to “always have been against this”. These states aren’t real democracies; they are class dictatorships violently repressing , covertly and overtly, the dissent of their own citizenry.
The truth of the matter is that these states are losing the facade of human rights, democracy, and freedom to favor Israel. These are the expositions of the obsolescence of liberal democracy to respond to the demands of the people in an immediate sense; only delegates can act within the boundaries of the state and the people have no access to the levers of power except for voting for delegates - pre-compromised by their own interests and influences - who make decisions on behalf of their constituencies with nothing to compel them but a whim.
The state has expended its tools in suppressing these dissidents. The dissidents delegitimize the state through the persistence of protesting, activism, and engaging in direct action to express discontent and publicly decry the illegitimate action by the state.
The pretences keep the people satisfied. All over Europe there are daily protests and activists who engage in direct action. It’s been really difficult for the media to keep demonising these protesters and activists because more people are starting to look through the bs. Police forces are in crisis because suppressing the protests is really hard work. Also labour unions are slowly starting to get involved and demand an end to support of Israel.
Fully openly backing Israel would put fuel to the fire and accelerate these movements. Governments are walking tight rope between backing Israel and preventing mass riots and strikes at public sectors.
I think I answered one of your questions before, but let’s put it this way: what can the individual countries actually do?
Very few countries can survive US sanctions. Unless you’re prepared to go the way of North Korea and Venezuela and the likes, and have the full backing of your own people ready to go through hell with you, you’d better not attract any attention to yourself, and chances are you’d end up a failed state like Libya where everything descends to chaos and having millions and millions of people of your own end up impoverished, just to save two million Palestinian lives?
This is simply the outcome of the world letting US and China to run a huge trade imbalances over the past few decades. By concentrating all industrial capacity in China, the rest of the world are made vulnerable to Western imperialism. This was a very deliberate imperial strategy by the US, and not a mistake like many people are saying.
Europe was never going to take the Palestinian side, save a couple of countries, but even if they wanted to, they are now heavily reliant on US energy to survive, and is in austerity itself.
Russia is already having its hands full dealing with Ukraine, and could barely do any power projection itself. Just look at how it lost Syria. And Putin was literally begging for everyone to de-dollarize since 2022 (to a certain extent, Lula did too), and many countries in the Global South was looking for a dollar alternative during the summer of 2022, but unfortunately China chose not to take up the offer and instead doubled down on defending dollar hegemony. This was a huge opportunity that is now forever lost. Russia’s not going to lose the war or anything, but that economic transformation is not happening anytime soon.
And obviously China is way too comfortable to abandon the status quo. After all, both the US and China have been the greatest beneficiaries of the dollar hegemony.
It is apparent that Trump is allowed to have his nonsense tariffs precisely because they have already seen how the world (mostly China) reacted to Russia’s call for de-dollarization after the Ukraine war started, and are calculating on the fact that nothing will fundamentally change. Looks like they’re winning that bet too.
Even Trump’s crazy tariffs could not replicate the dangers the US dollar faced when it first raised interest rates in 2022. That really was an opportunity that only happens once every few decades.
To put it bluntly, Russia (February 24th 2022) and the Palestinians (October 7th 2023) rolled their dice, and they lost the ultimate bet. The world lost an opportunity for an alternative system to emerge.
There is no point sugar coating anymore. Remember that human agency is the one to change the world. The left has to be at the vanguard of the movement. But are we even prepared? Has the left studied and devised its theory, strategy and tactics to the point where they are prepared to take on the rise of fascism?
We can only wait for the next crisis of capitalism to erupt. But even if it does happen tomorrow, is anyone even prepared to take action?
We can only wait for the next crisis of capitalism to erupt. But even if it does happen tomorrow, is anyone even prepared to take action?
If your posts are any indication, the answer to that is no. Precisely why I’ve been losing my will to live.
And if everything has gone according to the U.S. plan, if the U.S. is and always has been 100 steps ahead of everyone else, what’s the point of caring anymore? It’d be more feasible to just disappear and let everything burn.
It’s incredibly disheartening to say, but the fact of the matter is that no state of the world is permanent. Every moment of history has its massacre, and there are people with morality and clear eyes capable of calling it out. Vastly more will try and write their memoirs as tragically sympathetic but incapable. Still more will pretend it didn’t happen. Much like how communist parties were able to bring about the last famines of Russia and China, we hope to see the last of these massacres.
The rest of the world/ “West” doesn’t necessarily hate Palestinians specifically (though they clearly don’t view them as human). Rather, climate change means we will see one billion people dead by 2035 (i am not a scientist, but this is my prediction). Climate change will induce natural disasters and reductions in agricultural land. This will directly kill a relatively small number of people. Far more will become climate refugees, and many of them will flee towards the “West”.
The “West” wants Palestine to be the blueprint for concrete slum-hells, full of constant surveillance, starvation, and bombardment. They can then construct them along the southern edge of their area of influence to funnel climate refugees into. They also want a blueprint for unpersoning millions of people in the eyes of Joe Public. This will let them wash their hands of confronting any of the moral and practical crimes of unfettered capitalism and imperialism.
The “optimistic” take is that the above paragraph will objectively never come to pass. There is a point where people will snap back, and there is such a thing as too many people for high tech surveillance, and there is such a thing as too few concentration camp guards. Even if we have to watch as demons in human skin kill one billion of our comrades and siblings, the world will not end. There will be moments of joy and bird song and good food. There will also be roughly seven billion people left on Earth, and one billion people to avenge.
Our goal as socialists and communists, and i would say as humans, is to try and stop all that shit. If we can’t stop all of it, or even any of it, our goal is to prevent it happening again. Imperialism is self-defeating, capitalism will ultimately lead itself into crisis after crisis until it is destroyed, and there will need to be cockroach communists to try and provide mutual aid in the ashes. The fate of Cassandra was to have knowledge of future events while being unable to impact them. Cassandra did not have 150 years of theory and praxis from people trying to predict the future and change it.
Sorry if this is too long, but i agree with your outrage and i’ve been thinking about how to respond for a few days.
Billions dead by 2035 is a bit overkill. Serious wet-bulb conditions are expected to start around 2040ish in the Indian subcontinent, Arizona and the persian gulf.
i said ONE billion, and i also said that relatively few deaths would be directly caused by disasters like wet-bulb events. As of AR6, the IPCC says that 3.3-3.6 billion people live in contexts highly vulnerable to climate change. They also say that given the projected global emissions for 2030, it is “likely that warming will exceed 1.5 degrees C during the 21st century”. This is because political factors force the IPCC to consider scenarios where the world cuts all emissions right now. In reality, 2023 saw a peak in demand for coal.
Even if we don’t hit any tipping points in the next ten years, and if we can predict ocean behavior and the weather, 2023 was 1.35 degrees warmer than the pre-industrial average. According to a report about climate change and insurance risk, more than 2 degrees of warming by 2050 is baked in by current policy, and that there is a roughly 90% chance of catastrophic warming between now and 2050. To be clear, they classify ‘catastrophic’ as 25% GDP loss and around 2 billion people dead. If global warming is limited to 2 degrees by 2050 then 800 million will die, and if it is limited to 1.5 with some overshoot 400 million will die.
There is a degree to which all reports are questionable, and unfortunately money for climate research, at least in USAmerica, is being cut right as our models start to diverge from baseline data. The actuaries who wrote the insurance paper aren’t more qualified than climate scientists. That said, it’s not like there’s any version of climate change extreme enough to make corporations and bourgeois governments change their spots. Is the AMOC going to turn off tomorrow? Are we going to see 8 degrees of a warming? i would say no. Everyone has to find their own signal to noise ratio with this sort of research, and i stand by my prediction.
Article
Colombian President Gustavo Petro vows to resubmit his labor reform referendum to the Senate after denouncing fraud in the recent vote, calling on popular mobilization to defend workers’ rights and democratic participation.
President Gustavo Petro has announced his intention to resubmit the labor reform referendum to the Colombian Senate following what he and his allies describe as a fraudulent vote that blocked the popular consultation. The referendum, aimed at improving workers’ rights through 12 key questions, was narrowly rejected by the Senate with 49 votes against and 47 in favor.
Petro condemned the actions of conservative Senator Efraín Cepeda, accusing him of prematurely closing the vote to prevent the referendum’s approval and calling for the people to take a decisive role in the democratic process.
The rejection of the referendum was marked by intense controversy, with Interior Minister Armando Benedetti accusing Senate President Cepeda of manipulating the voting process. Benedetti claimed that Cepeda closed the voting registry while government-aligned senators were still trying to register their votes, effectively rigging the outcome against the labor reform initiative.
This maneuver followed an earlier attempt by conservative factions to revive a labor reform bill previously sunk in the Senate’s Seventh Committee, which Petro’s government had sought to bypass through the referendum.
In response to what he termed “fraud,” President Petro has called on unions, peasant organizations, indigenous groups, and youth committees to organize community councils and determine the next steps in defending workers’ rights and democratic participation. He emphasized that public forces should avoid repression, limiting their role to protecting institutional buildings and maintaining peace.
Efraín Cepeda has committed a possible crime, and the Supreme Court must investigate. The evidence suggests fraud, and the court will decide. I will once again exercise my constitutional and legal right to submit the referendum to the Senate, ensuring a fair vote. This time the people, the principal, will decide how to act before the Senate of the Republic, the mandated.
Petro’s call signals a strategic shift towards grassroots mobilization as a counterweight to legislative obstruction, reinforcing his government’s commitment to social justice and labor empowerment.
This latest setback highlights the ongoing struggle between Colombia’s progressive government and entrenched conservative interests resistant to Petro’s transformative agenda. The labor reform referendum was designed to restore and enhance protections for workers, addressing decades of neoliberal policies that have eroded labor rights.
Despite the Senate’s rejection, Petro’s administration remains determined to pursue reforms through popular participation and legislative channels, framing the fight as part of a broader movement for social and economic justice in Colombia.
President Petro’s resolve to resubmit the referendum and mobilize popular support underscores the critical moment facing Colombia’s leftist government as it confronts institutional barriers and conservative opposition intent on maintaining the status quo. The coming weeks will be decisive in shaping the future of labor rights and democratic engagement in the country.
Chat, what is your take on this guy? Does anyone know about the DEFUSE DARPA program and the bat pathology stuff that he is talking about in this?
Jeffrey Sachs: COVID was 99% Likely From the US
He was a ghoul who was directly involved with cannibalizing the USSR after the illegal dissolution, seems like he has been on some kind of anti-american redemption arc in the last 10 years and has been a pretty consistent voice against imperialism and US hegemony but I feel like his angle is more like “the US used to be good but now we have gone off the deep end”
Wow. The rehabilitation of “ex-nazis” in alt-media “multipolarity” space is deeply disturbing…
I don’t think he’s a Nazi or ex Nazi in a literal sense, more like a neoliberal economist who was doing what he believed in as a trained neoliberal economist, which happens to perpetuate the fascist US empire that at the time no one was really acknowledging as fascist. Some of the former military people in the alt media space are much closer to actual nazis than Sachs. Still, you are totally right about this trend of people who are on the right outflanking the left on these issues. Which makes sense because the alt-media platforms are also run by the right and the majority of English speakers are also on the right
I think people should not underestimate the usefulness of people like Sachs. He is definitely not a comrade, but he is a voice coming from people who used to be very close to power that does express criticism of American empire and some positive attitude towards “multipolarity” and China. He is also very well connected, in the sense that he does have personal relations with people currently close to power or in power so he might have insights and inside knowledge that he is willing to “leak” to the public.
I take no position on his opinion on COVID, I have 0 expertise, and I think he also has very little expertise when it comes to this topic.
He is a loser of the campism inside the current imperial echelon.
What is the current situation in Lebanon? Where does Hezbollah stand militarily?
The problem is that we have no idea, and that anybody making claims one way or the other is merely guessing based on vibes.
My own purely vibes-based analysis is that Hezbollah was significantly (but certainly not terminally) damaged by the Israeli offensive (just as Israel was significantly damaged by attempting it, plus the War Against The Towers) and has been taking time to regroup, re-organize, re-strategize, and re-arm, because the situation they were in prior to Nasrallah’s death is substantially different from their current one, with a now-hostile Syria bordering them and civil mayhem in Lebanon.
I wouldn’t be pessimistic; the mere existence of Israel will always provide the impetus for resistance groups to arise in order to fight back against them. A strategy of constant mass murder to instil terror doesn’t actually get you anywhere in the long-run, as European colonial history shows, and if anything, has the opposite effect of further promoting resistance. The Resistance will not be defeated because it literally can not; even if Hezbollah disbanded tomorrow, a new guerilla group would coalesce around the shared experience of living under Israeli oppression. Such is the history of colonial subjects for centuries.
Israel came fucking second in Eurovision, they gamed the televote again.
A victory for good, but my inner accelerationist kind of wanted them to win for the massive amount if drama it would have caused, even coming second again is insane.
edit: Austria won btw
Article
The United States launches a financial offensive to block international funding for Chinese projects in Latin America, responding to growing cooperation between countries like Colombia and China under the Belt and Road Initiative.
The U.S. administration, led by Donald Trump, has issued a direct threat to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and other international financial institutions, urging them not to grant subsidies to projects developed by Chinese companies in Latin America. This move comes immediately after Colombia and China signed a strategic plan to strengthen the Belt and Road Initiative, a program aimed at boosting integration and economic development in the region.
Washington’s warning is not limited to Colombia but extends across Latin America and the Caribbean, where the Belt and Road Initiative has projects underway. The U.S. Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs declared that American taxpayers’ funds must not be used to subsidize Chinese companies, arguing that these projects “endanger regional security.”
This stance reflects an attempt to curb China’s growing economic and strategic influence in the hemisphere, at a time when Latin American countries seek to diversify their alliances and sources of investment.
Latin America’s Response and Challenge to U.S. Hegemony
Progressive governments such as Gustavo Petro’s in Colombia and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s in Brazil have committed to strengthening ties with China, securing multi-billion-dollar agreements for infrastructure and trade that challenge the historic economic and political domination of the United States in the region.
For example, Colombia secured $5.2 billion for its metro system, and Brazil finalized $94 billion in key sector agreements. However, these advances face threats of sanctions, audits, and U.S. commercial pressures aimed at preserving its hegemony and preventing the formation of an autonomous, multipolar Latin American bloc.
The U.S. offensive fits within a containment strategy that revives the Monroe Doctrine in a modern key, using financial and commercial tools to limit the sovereign development of Latin American countries. Latin America’s dependence on U.S. markets and technologies, alongside fears of “debt traps” and covert militarization of Chinese infrastructure, are elements Washington uses to justify its intervention.
However, this policy disregards the legitimate aspirations of Latin American peoples for independent and solidarity-based development rooted in South-South cooperation and regional integration.
This context highlights the geopolitical struggle Latin America faces between maintaining sovereignty and development autonomy in the face of U.S. pressure aimed at blocking strategic Chinese projects that could transform the continent’s economic and political landscape.
