Image is of the Preah Vihear Temple on the Cambodian border. Image sourced from the UNESCO World Heritage website.
Over the last few days, Thailand and Cambodia entered into a heightened stage of conflict due to a long-running border dispute. Like many problems on this planet, Europeans are ultimately to blame - specifically France. Certain sections of the border drawn up by France about a century ago were not fully agreed upon by both sides, with the ownership of some Khmer temples being the most visible points of disagreement.
Despite interventions in favor of Cambodia in the 1960s and later 2010s by the ICJ - one of the mainly mostly useless global institutions that liberals periodically disown - the border conflict has simmered at a generally low level. Of the two countries, Thailand is significantly more militarily and economically powerful.
Last Wednesday, a Thai soldier lost his leg by stepping on a landmine, prompting a rapid escalation between Cambodia and Thailand that has since resulted in dozens of deaths and tens of thousands displaced. Cambodia was willing to come to the negotiating table fairly quickly, but Thailand was more hesitant. International pressure on the two countries by Malaysia, China, and the United States eventually forced Thailand to the table, and they have recently agreed to an immediate ceasefire courtesy of ASEAN.
Notably, Trump refused to hold trade talks with either country until they agreed to peace, which suggests that he really wants a Nobel Peace Prize - which he seems a shoe-in for given that he’s met the two most important requirements that several Nobel Peace Prize recipients have needed to meet in the past, which are: 1) start at least one war, and 2) accelerate the genocide of millions of people as billions more people watch on. His policies vis-a-vis ICE creating a domestic terror regime only further increase his chances of winning the prize.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
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.
His public stance has long been to keep the current police budget, while increasing funding for social workers. He is carefully triangulating to avoid scaremongering from his opponents which could cost him the race.
Let the man cook.
Yeah love to defend selling out as “triangulating”
Am I in 1990?
Would you rather him lose the election to Cuomo or Adams? Because there’s literally zero chance of them doing socialism, and they will increase the police budget, guaranteed.
I’d rather he just stay principled and say that police will need to be purged and rebuilt, and actually do that
Also New York has a police force that’s bigger than many nation’s armies and goes and trains in Israel. Yes they need defunded, it’s an absurd position to say they don’t need to be. New York City needs to defund the police moreso than anywhere else on Earth. The New York PD is a massively powerful cartel that runs huge chunks of the city through corruption and graft and its various patronage systems. If Zohran isn’t serious about confronting and dismantling their cartel, then he’s going to get destroyed and dog walked
Let’s be frank. He will not embark on this political project for the very simple reason that he has no military behind him, not even some socialist paramilitary. Some genuine socialist being elected to mayor of the center of capital (pop quiz: what city is Wall Street located in) is always a pipe dream. The far more likely possibility is that he’s either an opportunist/sell-out/controlled op or he’ll do whatever the NYPD tells him to do after being threatened with his life. There’s basically zero political cost if the NYPD decides to simply kill him and dump his body in a shallow ditch.
So let’s be honest about this whole charade, it’s a joke
The 2020 George Floyd uprising showed everyone who was paying attention that most major cities are de facto controlled by the police. I remember there was one police force (NYPD?) who straight up kidnapped the mayor’s kid because the mayor wasn’t saying the police needed to crack skulls. There was another city (Chicago or LA?) where one councilmember wanted to investigate their police force, so the sheriff simply sicced his goons on them. The police used some court-ordered excuse to dump the councilmember’s shit all over the sidewalk and they kept on doing that over and over until the councilmember took the hint and resigned.
A socialist could become Mayor of one of the most powerful cities on earth and your complaining that he doesn’t talk like a reddit ultra, so its a “joke”
Let’s keep this simple, if Zohran is elected do you believe he’ll crack down on pro Palestinian protesters to the same extent as Adams or Cuomo?
If we’re being honest, that depends on how the Federal government wants to fuck with the city’s budget, which I remind you, like many major American cities today, isn’t in a very good shape.
Too many American leftists have bought into the right wing Democratic propaganda that “the government is too weak to do anything” and are suddenly shocked by the Trump administration doing anything it wants with very little repercussion against the government itself.
To be clear, the US Federal government can literally confiscate the assets of every single billionaire in America tomorrow and there is nothing they can do about it, with all the wealth they have amassed. This is how powerful the federal government is and you think it’s afraid of the Wall Street city?
The only thing that could change the equation and make the federal government think twice is an organized mass movement that is prepared to fight it to the end - one that is prepared to exert mutual destruction where the damage will be too costly for the other side. Is the American left prepared to go through this?
I didn’t ask about the Federal government, I asked do you believe Zohran will crack down on protesters?
All 235 of us are armed and ready.
You can’t be serious, he’s literally cutting the budget by keeping it static and letting inflation do the work
Meanwhile the yearly budget increase that would’ve gone to the cops will go instead to social services
I’m sorry but that is a brilliant strategy, FUCK PRINCIPLES sneak that socialism right thru the backdoor and make the capitalists pay for it, psy-op their asses and give them a taste of their own technocratic medicine
He’s cutting the budget without “cutting” the budget and if the media tries to hit him with law and order rhetoric they’ll sound delusional to the average Joe
Do you want to win or do you want to be an ultra?
Is it “winning” when your “guy” is going to sell you out, bit by bit transforming into Nancy Pelosi? Is it winning when he drags a good chunk of leftists along with him back to DNC entryism and DSA idealism?
Yeah that’s a sad story and all, but I’ll be a little busy reflecting on the fact he won on the back of pro-Palestine sentiment and socialist policies, but by all means keep playing with that crystal ball
Yes, these four things are definitely interchangeable and carry the same political baggage, lmao by this logic Trump 2016 and Zohran are the same politician
this is identical to wanting him to lose.
Wanting to reduce the size of the New York Army means you just want to lose - radlibs in 2025
Just go be a democrat if you are this unprincipled and easily cowed
stop being disingenuous
Yes that is what needs to be done in any serious NYC political project. Everything else is just window dressing. The cop cartel runs the show. Fight it or play nice is the only question.
no shit, but you can’t say that and win an election. holding him to that standard is the same as losing. if you’d rather lose an ultra then whatever i hope you’re getting your close air support ready for when you storm the seats of power.
Hey don’t forget the old classic of: simply shoot at cops from alleyways at night.
This is, unironically, the traditional method of expressing principled hatred of cops in NYC.
We can and should criticise any leftist presenting candidate. That doesn’t mean that we want them to lose.
Has a democratic socialist anywhere in the world ever run on defunding the police?
It’s not a tenable electoral position at all. It’s a strong slogan for activism because you know that the compromise is going to be somewhere in-between. Much like “fuck cars” or “antiwork” are fun extreme slogans for pulling people to left with entertaining extremism but everyone understands they’re not tenable positions, the compromise would always be something in-between. Without a revolution of course.
What he should be careful of is using language like “grown”. It implies the former movement was childish when it was not. It undoes some of the work it did. He should simply say that’s not what he’s running on and not what he would seek to carry out, something like “those movements had a useful purpose in using strong language at that time but they’re not what the current moment calls for nor what I would implement”. It’s possible to say that’s not what he wants without unintentionally putting down what was absolutely a good movement.
It’s starting to grate a little bit whenever he says some DemSoc shit and everyone farther left is going “SEE?? what did you expect??” And it’s like yeah, this is pretty much exactly what I expected as someone farther to Zohran’s left, but like you’re saying he could do a bit more fine tuning on the language.
Of course it would be foolish to consider him revolutionary (as a mayoral candidate, his personal feelings and thinking are almost certainly to the left of his platform, but we’ll see). It’s a good thing that nobody actually thought that though.
Ah yes, he’s hiding his power level
I don’t understand why anyone is arguing about this. Nobody argues that Mick Lynch or Corbyn weren’t hiding their power levels. Lynch specifically said it’s ridiculous that the media were calling him a communist when he absolutely 110% is lmao
I don’t see what is different here. Zohran is definitely personally left of what his electoral policies and media presentation are going to be.
Do you know him yourself?
Do I know Zohran? Or Lynch and Corbyn?
It’s simple, Zohran is the candidate they always claimed to want and he’s winning, but that invalidates the anti-electoral ideology so many here use as a comfort blanket and it makes them ROYALLY PISSED
I mean, I don’t think electoralism will achieve socialism so i’m with them on that one.
I do think demonstrating electoralism will not achieve socialism is a necessary prerequisite to revolution though.
If demonstrating the “failure” of electoralism is a prerequite for revolution, then that means electoralism is in fact a crucial tactic that will help achieve socialism
This isn’t semantics, the failure of analysis from the doomer faction is assuming the “demonstration of failure” arises from losing elections, it doesn’t, the demonstration effect is only possible after you win
Reformists IN POWER being undermined is not the same thing as reformists losing elections
Opposition in power polarizes and energizes the base, losing demoralizes and leads to demobilization
To demonstrate to the masses the anti-worker solidarity of the ruling class, socialists and their allies have to be in some position of power to manifest that anti-worker opposition in the first place
WE HAVE TO WIN ELECTIONS
I agree with this, but it’s also fraught with danger. Chile being the fundamental example of what we do not want to replicate.
With that said, a socialist winning within the democrat party is not the same thing at all. We must win in socialist parties. Although I am not even sure if that is possible in the american system.
I just don’t understand why you want democrats to win elections. Why you identify with democratic party in the first place. They are not the opposition
I want to have hope sooo bad… and I understand you’ve helped with his campaign and say he’s the real deal. But I thought the “reform or revolution” question was already answered. Are we wrong about that?
Like, I don’t see how this ends well unless it’s all part of a much larger plan to get a revolution going. Is there a larger plan? You don’t have to say what it is, if it’s like op sec or whatever.
I could see it if it’s like, a plan to radicalize more people:
Mayor tries to do objectively good shit and gets ratfucked --> people get angrier and say fuck the system (but they could just end up getting more fascist)
Mayor gets some good things done --> hey socialism is cool, maybe we should join! (join what exactly tho? no vanguard party?)
???
Fuck hope, we’re past hope, wrestle despair into rage and fear into defiance, wouldn’t matter if Zohran was a CIA clone, if he wins under a mantle of socialism and pro-palestine sentiment WE STILL WIN
Most online leftists never understood the debate to begin with, the question was not about “reform or revolution” it was about whether reform will kill revolution or will reform trigger revolution and historically the question has been answered in favor of the latter
Lenin overthrew the reformists not the Czar, reforms genuine reforms gives us the space and time we need to pull it off
Zohran winning under Trump is the best possible combination for us, the heat of the fascist furnace with a forward socialist base in New York, we’ll explode in numbers
This is an interesting perspective on it, as a DemSoc invariably has to go back on their principles in favour of the status quo, it does leave the door open for genuine socialist movements to speak to the masses and encourage a movement where the people actually do get what they want.
I would be a bit worried though, based on what I understand about the US, that such a thing is more likely to just leave people jaded and switch off to the idea that things could ever get better, and not trust a socialist promising better things, because electoralist demsocs have let them down too many times. (For examples, just look at some of your other replies!)
You have no idea what you are talking about
Thanks for answerin
I don’t think he’s going to expose it if he is. As an official he is and will be a DemSoc and should be treated accordingly.
Read the details of his policy proposals and you’ll see he is
None of you anti Zohran wreckers even realized his police policy would in fact cut their budget despite his “pro cop” rhetoric and we’re supposed to take you all seriously when it comes to evaluating his power levels?
Just because hiding your power level hasn’t happened much historically doesn’t make it impossible.
You know what has happened historically repeatedly, over and over? Credulous leftists being fooled by Soc dem social fascism because they delude themselves into believing there’s “5D chess” or “hiding power levels” going on
The western left has learned zero lessons from AOCIA
Did anyone that calls themselves a communist actually ever believe AOC was further left than socdem liberal? I don’t feel like anyone ever did.
Yes this forum was full of AOC supporters, as was the subreddit that spawned it. Just like the Iraq War, they all admit it’s a mistake years later in retrospect but won’t admit they supported her with the exact same enthusiasm, logic and rhetoric as they do Mamdani. It was the “DSA” and it was “harm reduction” and it was “a foot in the door” and it was “expanding the Overton window” et al.
I don’t remember AOC or Bernie ever threatening to arrest Bibi
You can’t draw comparisons between two politicians unless they promise the exact same thing
AOC didn’t threaten to arrest Bibi because the average American didn’t give a shit about Gaza 7 years ago. She also wasn’t running for Mayor of New York.
A major, common error in thinking is the presumption that socialist politics is crossing your fingers that one figure ends up not being a piece of shit or incompetent. This is actually a bourgeois way of engaging with politics, where a common person’s role is basically to be a fan or support a candidate, and the candidate has inordinate sway over what that actually ends up entailing, both strategically and in terms of what their political statements and programs are.
This is a fundamental hurdle that any growing socialist must overcome in order to become competent. If your org depends on just one person, it is not a successful or sustainable project, let alone a socialist one. The org must focus on populating itself with competent people and to collectively decide on strategy and actions and for those implementing them to be subordinate to the competent body at large.
This lesson seemingly needs to be painfully learned over and over again. This is a big part of why vanguardism and demcent were emphasized by Bolsheviks. They recognized that the chaos of undisciplined organization made them weak to bourgeois tendencies, including listening too much to just one guy, and they were constantly losing their "just one guy"s to execution and imprisonment and exile. In modern imperial core bourgeois electoralism, the (much less serious) electoral socialists lose their "just one guy"s predominately to self-interested climber (petty bourgeois) tendencies and naivete like suddenly learning that you will be killed without 24/7 security so you better get friendly with the bourgeois state.
If you were in Mamdani’s shoes what would you do differently?
Personally, I would hide my power level to get elected and then start improving people’s lives and building a socialist movement.
why is getting elected a prerequisite to building a socialist movement
It’s not, but it’s a hell of a lot easier if you wield institutional power.
I agree. It’s better messaging to focus on reforming rather than defunding. It is a bit disappointing that he hasn’t said much about reform, though maybe that would scare the piggies too much (we are talking about NYPD, after all).
Side note: he could technically keep his promise to maintain the police budget while also letting it succumb to inflation.
Electorally yes.
During the uprisings? “Defund the police” was the correct message for the uprising to take. An extreme starting point from which the electoral candidates were supposed to compromise. “I don’t want to defund the police but they can clearly use some reform”.
The uprising and the message exist to provide the pressure that the electoral candidates then use to make the argument for concession in the way of reform, and they get to sound like reasonable people compared to the unreasonable extremists performing the uprisings.
That didn’t work at the time because america is irredeemable but the logic of it is sound. The existence of extreme shit occurring creates the political energy for the electoral candidates to call for concessionary changes.
what sort of revisionism is this? the extreme starting point was Abolish, Defund was the beginning of the way libs coopted that street energy into get out the vote shit.
I would say that the original slogan was not even “abolish the police,” but “fuck the police.” The very original chant, the ones people who burned down that precinct were chanting and tagging, were “fuck the police” and “fuck 12.” “Abolish the police” is itself a more polite and sanitized version of “fuck the police.” Nobody was spraying “abolish the police” but there were plenty of F12 and FtP tags.
hmm good point. I personally didn’t see abolition as more polite or sanitized though, it tied the anger of the streets back to the historical and material roots. but I can see where someone would see it the way you put it.
when I showed up to my solidarity black bloc at the end of May I certainly wasn’t chanting ‘abolish’, but it felt right by the end of the weekend in a way that ‘defund’ felt like some gross lib shit
abolitionists have never been welcome polite society, except insofar as “attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them” etc.
Defund, abolish. Whichever. I wasn’t really drawing much of a difference tbh. I just used the language the comment before me already used. I don’t recall discussion here ever really having much problem with defund at the time either. I can see your point though.
in June 2020 defund was very much a deliberate choice by sympathetic liberals to not ‘alienate’ people with ‘extreme’ rhetoric like abolish. then they got shackled to it lmao and they’ve been ashamed ever since
in light of your previous comment that distinction felt especially relevant. appreciate you acknowledging it
Come on now
Notice also how he wants to “keep headcount,” this does not rule out pushing back on the amount of overtime officers do.
At least he will stop the surveillance of palestine demonstrations, and if he doesn’t then we know his mayorship is a dud.
Why should we strive to “maintain headcount” on the most bloated oversized and overfunded police department in human history?
The nypd also has foreign bases in 16 different countries. Its a tool of imperialism inside and outside the us.
but calling to defund this is just admitting defeat!!!
Defund was already the sanitized version of ACAB and now that is even too radical.
I agree, this is just their political calculation. Not sure if its the right call or not. I’m trying to look on the bright side that he can still reduce overall policing hours while maintaining head count. Doing anything to policing puts him against the police union though so also, things may just continue to be bad.