Bulletins and News Discussion from October 14th to October 20th, 2024 - Paper Tigers
Bulletins and News Discussion from October 14th to October 20th, 2024 - Paper Tigers
Image is a frame taken from this video of Iranian missiles raining down on Israel without interception due to a weak and depleted air defense system after a year of war and genocide.
Mao, 1956:
Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn't. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.
When we say U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, we are speaking in terms of strategy. Regarding it as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal. For instance, if it has ten fangs, knock off one the first time, and there will be nine left, knock off another, and there will be eight left. When all the fangs are gone, it will still have claws. If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end.
Strategically, we must utterly despise U.S. imperialism. Tactically, we must take it seriously. In struggling against it, we must take each battle, each encounter, seriously. At present, the United States is powerful, but when looked at in a broader perspective, as a whole and from a long-term viewpoint, it has no popular support, its policies are disliked by the people, because it oppresses and exploits them. For this reason, the tiger is doomed. Therefore, it is nothing to be afraid of and can be despised. But today the United States still has strength, turning out more than 100 million tons of steel a year and hitting out everywhere. That is why we must continue to wage struggles against it, fight it with all our might and wrest one position after another from it. And that takes time.
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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.
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I get the feeling that the "Freyer" discourse (word which basically means the person taken advantage of) is the beginning of the anti-Semitism which will definitely be terrible once this genocide is ended and the Zionists are forced to flee. And it's the fault of the Zionist settler-colony that this will happen.
Sorry if I'm changing the subject away from the Palestinians themselves (whose suffering immensely eclipses that of anti-jewish sentiments right now, of course), but seeing the comments on Twitter about this concept gave me an insight into the form that the anti-jewish sentiment will be (again) in the future.
in the absence of a materialist explanation of settler-colonialism, the mass of liberals will search for an idealist (racist) reason for zionist crimes
Permanently Deleted
I think that it is not any intentional 4D chess propaganda or so from any party, personally.
The first I heard of it was an Israeli describing it as just a cultural interest on TikTok, so like the fun "you know the Irish have 10 words for draft beer?" kind of thing. But then it's spread is likely because everyone seems to have a buy-in. For anti-Zionists, it's a clear description of a cultural phenomenon related to the hubris and destructiveness of Zionism. For anti-Semites, it's pretty clearly playing into the tropes they have long believed about Jews. For Zionists, it's a description of how wise and uncompromising Israel is in the face of worse "pallywood" and bullshit like that
All groups have an active role in the spreading, because it plays on all fronts perfectly. But it's a mistake for anti-Zionists because such a thing is immaterial as a cause, settler colonialism is the cause of both this cultural phenomenon and the genocide being committed.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
That Tiktok of the dude explaining the concept broke my brain because it really does sound like the dude is just going, "You know all those anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews being conniving and untrustworthy? They're all true and a foundational part of Israeli society lmao" It goes back to the repeated Zionist behavior of spreading anti-Semitism to push Jews into emigrating to the Zionist entity. Perhaps this is just the latest attempt.
I agree that it sounded exactly like a conscious attempt to spread anti-Semitism, but I think that both the cultural phenomenon and the inability to realize that it's a terrible thing that shouldn't be done arise from the same material pressures. Namely, they arise due to settler colonialism and the way that one must relate to indigenous people to do it.
But I'm open to Israel doing this consciously. Is there any leaked doc or admitted strategy of spreading anti-Semitism? Or is it just something that seems obvious based on actions (like this)? Because I think that the system of propaganda is just advanced, and nobody is intentionally making it function how it does. It just works because the media and culture conmect in this way which has material benefits to settler colonialism more broadly.
If/when Israel actually collapses, US and allies will be glad to 'paperclip' them up. It could be like the Ukrainian Nazis were treated in Canada, a preferred and reliable fascist to semi-fascist bloc that can be mobilized in the streets when needed. They'll build a "victims of terrorism" memorial, and if they've learned their lesson they'll be less specific about those victims.
So ideologically, I'd expect something that reflects those motivations: maybe a novel anti-semitism that's fused with and secondary to Islamophobia and a "stabbed in the back" anti-liberal narrative? Not sure of the specifics. And they usually deploy these ideologies in a semi-planned way, heavily reusing established ideas, so it might be cruder and more contradictory. But regardless, I'm confident that the worst elements of Israel will still be pampered and I expect they'll find a way to blame the Jewish dissenters as a 5th column. Maybe it will be as simple as anti-semitism for western Jews who didn't do their part for the ethno-state, while actual Israelis are "the good ones".
On the plus side, this would all be happening in the "good timeline" where Israel actually does collapse, and the whole imperial project is delt a serious blow. Hopefully China or someone holds some Nuremberg trials, which would make these plans a lot more difficult. The counter-force to everything above is the simple need to cut their losses and blame someone else, which would align more with conventional and undifferentiated anti-semitism.
Idfk, it's all fucked but at least it's collapsing.
It isn't anti-semitism to hate zionists. Hating nazis isn't "germanophobia."
I think after the fall of the entity anti-Jewish sentiment will be about the same as it has been for the last few decades. Jewish people outside of isisrael have been some of the biggest critics of the genocide and anyone who cares knows this.
Did I say anywhere that it's anti-Semitism to hate Zionists?
I think you're very wrong in the last paragraph. Jewish people are already seen by anti-Zionists without material analysis as less trustworthy due to being Jewish. Anti-Semitism against Jews will rise as the crimes done in their name (by an entity claiming to represent all Jews) are more clear and discussed. Maybe that will be limited in the western countries supporting due to the coming systemic pushback against making any critique of Israel broader (to avoid settler colonialism as a cause, so it'll be said that only Netanyahu was evil) but this is not universal. The people who care know the material facts and how to understand ethnicity, nationality, religion, etc. But they aren't the ones who we are worried about
People who hate Jewish people hate Muslim people more. They like what isisrael is doing. They won't be more mad at Jewish people because israelis killed a bunch of Palestinians.