Image is sourced from this People’s Dispatch article, depicting communists attending the 2023 funeral of Communist Party President Guillermo Teillier, who was tortured for years under Pinochet’s regime and helped rebuild the Communist Party while under a fascist dictatorship.
We had the Six Day War in 1967, we had the Nineteen Day War (Yom Kippur) in 1973, and now we’ve had the Twelve Day War. I wonder how many more very short wars will plague the region until Palestine is freed?
However, moving on from Western Asia from a little while, we have some interesting news from Chile - the former labor minister and communist, Jeannette Jara, has won the primary election for the left-wing bloc in a landslide (~60% of the vote), as the current President, Gabriel Boric, is term-limited. Her achievements include a minimum wage increase and a reduction of the work week to 40 hours.
In November, Jara will face down the contenders from other parties, including José Antonio Kast, who is analogous to Brazil’s Bolsonaro. Unfortunately, Jara is now the lead figure of a party that has been taking quite a few Ls under Boric’s leadership. Ostensibly a Democratic Socialist, he ruled as - you guessed it - a neoliberal, bending the knee to the US and EU. He not only failed to overthrow the Pinochet-era constitution, he actually allowed the right-wing to turn the proposed new constitution into something worse, and had to settle for campaigning against the new one and keeping the old one. And he had very little solidarity with other left-leaning leaders on the continent, like Maduro, Lula, Petro, or Castillo.
With this in mind, I cannot help but look at Argentina’s very recent history and feel a little dread - but if anybody can save Chile at this point, it can only be a communist.
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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.
NetPol, a policing watchdog network that provides legal support to protesters, has received reports that even clothing with “Free Palestine” is being interpreted by some cops as a “potential breach of the proscription order”.
This isnt surprising to anyone here, but it goes without saying that the cops were never going to treat this order the same way they would fascists. It would be like telling someone with a union jack tshirt that they may be showing support for Nation Front!
These cops are obviously lying or misinformed of the law. Anything they do will absolutely not hold up to decent scrutiny by a judge - it is intimidation or stupidity. Even in the hellworld of TERF island.
I think the “official” guidance (even from cool orgs like NetPol) will essentially amount to hiding slogans, following police orders, and avoiding arrest where possible. I personally disagree, and believe we need to challenge cops on this when and where possible.
If you dont use your limited civil liberties to question the authority of the police to intimidate/repress anyone outside the strictest definition of “support for Palestine Action and its cause” we will essentially be obeying in advance for the ultimate goal of total illegalisation of Palestinian existence.
https://bsky.app/profile/netpol.org/post/3lt7t3z7fzc23
The UK justice system is fucked, but PA enjoyed almost universally lenient treatment in front of the courts. In fact, the latest high court defeat is the first time I can remember a court not rule somewhat in their favour.
The only time we’ve seen actionists face disproportionate jail time for their activism is cases like the Filton 18, wherein the Israeli state and Suella Braverman intervened to detain the actionists without trial. Otherwise, the worst that has been handed out before were a few 12-ish months or suspended sentences.
I suppose I cannot say that the courts will continue this trend of leniency under a totally different circumstances, that’s fair. However, I do think the lower courts are still much more lenient and aren’t willing to lock thousands of people up based on a tangential link to PA. Most of the people arrested at protests even with more overt support for PA will likely have charges dropped or face a judge that will gove them a slap on the wrist.
The risk (and purpose of the proscription) is that leaders, organisers etc. are rounded up and detained without trial for indefinite periods. These terrorism laws are designed to circumvent the due process and human rights that were previously afforded to defendants. Of course, it allows for the police to crack down on Palestine marches and other lighter activism that may help maintain an underground/alternative direct action network.