Bulletins and News Discussion from November 20th to November 26th, 2023 - Let Sleeping Dogs Milei - COTW: Argentina
Bulletins and News Discussion from November 20th to November 26th, 2023 - Let Sleeping Dogs Milei - COTW: Argentina
Image: the last sight of many a commie.
Please pronounce his name wrong to make the title pun work better.
Anyway - Javier Milei, a caricature of a libertarian invented deep in the Hexbear Bit Factory, has won the Argentinian general election; and with a 12 point lead over Massa, it wasn't even particularly close. There are several analogies for this situation - Trump beating Hillary, Bolsonaro winning in 2018, or the alternate universe where Le Pen beat Macron. Massa is not a great guy. The last couple years have been difficult for Argentina, facing massive inflation and the same general economic downturns that are happening everywhere.
Milei is an... interesting person. To name just a couple things going on in his deeply bizarre life, he has a very special relationship with his sister, and an even more special relationship with his mastiff, Conan. When Conan died in 2017, he was so utterly distraught that he had him cloned into four new dogs, named Murray, Milton, Robert, and Lucas, for his economist idols. And he uses mediums to speak to his dead dog. This is probably the closest we're ever going to get to having a dog be president of a country.
Milei wants to essentially collapse the economy even harder. Playing off the general public sentiment of "dollar = good, peso = bad", he has vowed to make the national currency of Argentina the US dollar, thus eagerly giving a massive amount of control over the Argentinian economy directly to America. He wants to take a chainsaw to the status quo, cut off trade with communist countries like China, and demolish the Central Bank. Will Argentinian capitalists and the Senate let him do this? Probably not. What happens with their membership in BRICS+? Who knows. Where does Peronism go from here? Who can say.
But he still won, and will now be president. I suppose that every dog has its day.
Friendly reminder: when commenting about a news event, especially something that just happened, please provide a source of some kind. While ideally this would be on nitter or archived, any source is preferable to none at all given.
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
The Country of the Week is Argentina! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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
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.
Last week's discussion post.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
A Ukrainian immigrant in Munich pooped on Bandera's grave
Auschwitz Museum posting genocide apologia.
Most of the hidden replies are pretty good. They hid a quote from Norman Finkelstein. Also apparently Israel is supposedly killing kids faster than the Holocaust.
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The media still refuses to call this a "prisoner swap", it's just "Hamas liberates hostages" which clearly paints "Israel" as the winner. Cool, we're not calling it a Genocide, we're calling it a "war between Israel and Hamas", we're not reporting on the thousands of dead Palestinians, many of whom are children, we're not reporting on "Israel" continuously raiding the West Bank for random arrests and land grabs, we're not reporting on "Israel" taking fat Ls in Gaza, we're not reporting on Gaza being under complete blockade even after Oct. 7th, we're not reporting on the absolutely insane comments coming from "Israeli" officials like "Let's do a second Nakba".
This is the absolute state of the West, the Knights of Freedom and Democracy. May the West burn, may the West die. Freedom to Palestine, death to the colonial project of "Israel".
Destiny: Which part of Cuba did we came from?
Destiny's mom: My grandfather's sugar plantation
I always thought the "my grandfather slaves" thing was just a meme but no, it is not like at all. They were literally slave owners lol. Look, I gotta be fully honest here: I can't blame this piece of shit weak ass liberal man called "Destiny" for the sins of his long-dead family members, he has no control over it. However, he never truly embraced the way of liberation, he never chooses the side of the exploited and the oppressed. He, instead, became a rabid anti-communist, he is a weak man, like all liberals.
"You would've enjoyed it", that's so true though, he would have enjoyed being a slave owner.
https://nitter.1d4.us/Acid_Communist/status/1727182708663840785#m
I bet this decadent spineless man can't find Cuba on the map anyways, just like he couldn't find "Israel" (to be honest I can't either, because it's all Palestine) or thought Erdogan was the president of this so-called "Israel" thing.
ABSOLUTE MAD LADS DID IT AGAIN FOR THE THIRD TIME, EAT YOUR HEART OUT METAL GEAR!
Holy shit, Yemen uploaded video of its boatjacking op:
17 more hostages rescued from Hamas control
How TV news just described the hostages being exchanged by Hamas
This conflict has been a treasure trove for examples for people teaching media literacy.
The US right is facing a split between those who are antisemitic and hate Israel, and those who are antisemitic and love Israel
...
I'm speechless. Biden folks feared that a pause in the fighting would enable more journalists to get into Gaza and cover the carnage... "And there was some concern in the administration about an unintended consequence of the pause: that it would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel."
Then quotes an article
I can't get this tweet out of my head.
It seems inevitable that Elon Musk and the ADL will come to an understanding in which Twitter users CAN engage in virulent anti-semitism but CANNOT criticize the Israeli government, thus giving both sides what they care about most
This whole Hamas hostages situation reminds me of when Juan Manuel Fangio, Argentinian F1 Legend, was kidnapped in Cuba in 1958 before the Grand Prix that he was to participate in. He was taken hostage by two members of the 26th of July Movement while he was in an Habana hotel, Batista saw this as massive embarrassment and sent the police after the three men, while at the same time ordered the race to begin without Fangio. The race lasted for a few laps as a big accident claimed the lives of 6 people and wounded about 40. In captivity, Fangio was allowed to listen to the race through radio and was also told by his captors in one of the hideouts that the purpose of his kidnapping was "to let the world know about our struggle" and that they never meant to cause any harm to him. After 28 hours or so in captivity, he was released unharmed. He then declared on the press that "I was treated very well" and also "felt among friends", saying "if their actions are for a good cause, then I support them". He returned to Cuba in 1981 after he accepted an invitation by Fidel and even got to speak with his former captors in a friendly manner, claiming that he holds no hostility towards them.
I guess when you seek freedom and decolonization, you don't go around murdering hostages...
Happy Thanksgiving
Irony so thick you can beat someone to death with it
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It's amazing to me that the Yemenis can just yoink ships in the Red Sea. Djibouti is right there. The American fleet is right there. Are the Americans just doing nothing, or are the Yemenis just running circles around them? Aren't the Israelis screaming at the Americans for not securing the sea routes? Those articles about American paralysis in the middle east - with attack after attack against American bases in Iraq and elsewhere - come to mind. But it's just so hard to fit that into my head. It's like the Hegemon just bricked all of a sudden and Ansarallah helped turn Gaza into a Suez Moment.
Common Cuba W.
I love the 
flag in the crowd.3 Palestinian students shot in Genocide Bernie’s home state
Tell me more though about how some fragile Zionist cracker is shaking and crying because they saw a poster saying genocide bad.
This just in, 64% of men are losers
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/25/survey-64percent-of-men-say-this-is-a-dating-red-flag-.html
According to a recent survey by Change Research, the biggest dating red flag for men is when someone identifies as a communist. A whopping 64% said this political leaning would be a turnoff.
Also this should be a red flag for 100% of people
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🇻🇳The communist party of great britain-ml is supporting the anti-migrant dublin riots while the communist party of ireland retweets posts denouncing the racists protests.
Common
L
In my experience, “teaching media literacy” in schools is almost always a poster explaining that you can only trust the New York Times and the Economist because reasons.
It would be good to have an actual media literacy course instead of whatever half-baked unexamined-ideology bomb “reliable sources” class that’s going to actually be implemented.
One thousand boats will reportedly gather in Turkey on Wednesday and head toward Gaza in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade and disrupt maritime trade coming into Israel.
According to the Turkish news website Haber7, the boats will carry 4,500 people from 40 countries, “including anti-Zionist Jews.” Three hundred and thirteen of the boats will be filled with Russian activists, and 104 will be filled with Spanish activists. Only 12 Turkish vessels will join the flotilla.
Volkan Okçu, one of the organizers of the protest, says that the flotilla is scheduled to leave Turkish coasts on Thursday and vowed it will “strictly follow international rules” and will not carry any weapons, so as not to give Israel any “excuse” to intervene. It is set to make a first stop in Cyprus before continuing toward the Israeli port of Ashdod. Some participants in the flotilla will also reportedly take their spouses and children with them.
Mucho basado. Blockade the fucks, close their ports.
Replaying my argument with my friend who watches D*stiny from a week ago over in my head and it’s really embarrassing how much psychotic shit I allowed to fly by me because I’m bad at rhetoric.
Bro really said “I bet you all of these people unironically cite that UN resolution that you can violently resist your oppressor” like my brother that is international law you are talking about, this is your rules-based order, do you hear yourself
“No one actually cares about the numbers, it’s just rhetorically useful” ???????????????? I did counter this one with the massive outpouring of citizens probably disagreeing with that but he was like “teens were already going to be pro-Palestine so saying the protests show that is naive”, that’s gibberish.
The whole time he kept trying to steer the conversation around my principles regarding “when is it ok to bomb a hospital” and every time I said “it’s not okay to bomb a hospital and if you do it and you feel you have to do it you deserve to live with the obvious consequences that should come with it (The Hague), there should be no exceptions to judging war criminality” he was like “no one would agree with you, that’s an insane ask, that’s unrealistic”
These motherfuckers are truly on the backfoot rhetorically. I’ve basically given up on convincing him in any way, shape, or form. Recently all I’ve been thinking about regarding that is “his opinion doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things when he’s very clearly outnumbered”
Holy shit, apparently the parliamentary leader of Zelenskyy's party (Davyd Arakhamia) just came out and confirmed that Ukraine was in fact offered a peace deal early on and that Boris Johnson was involved in talking them out of it
https://youtu.be/g5hrJNGZxYE?si=5gsVlKj-kh8NWGp-
(The interview clip is in Ukrainian, but you can do auto-translate)
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It's genuinely fascinating how the BBC has been reporting on the genocide so far, they keep surprising me. This is how they're reporting on South Africa closing the Israeli embassy:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-67482681
The headline reads "Israel recalls its ambassador from South Africa". That South Africa closed Israel's embassy is not mentioned until the fourth paragraph.
The BBC is so bad. It's not like it was even in 2020, it's become so so so bad.
Lol like clockwork, my conservative religiously anti-communist family is sending milei edited videos at my family chat. "He's very articulated" is one of the comments 😂 in the video he is blaming everything on socialists, how socialism is a disease, blablabla.
Funny thing is that the video is super edited like he says 4 words when it cuts to another quote. I wonder why!
When war broke out in Gaza following the horrific surprise attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, Elham, who lived in West Gaza's al-Rimal neighborhood, sought refuge in churches, including Saint Porphyrios, the enclave's largest and oldest Christian house of worship.
When an Israeli airstrike hit the 860-year-old Greek Orthodox church, killing 18 Christian Palestinians, Elham survived the bombing. According to her family, which said another member died in the strike, Elham then moved to the Holy Family Catholic Church in search of safety
But when she grew restless and decided to walk home last week, Elham was shot in the leg without warning [by an Israeli sniper], her family said.
"She fell and she couldn't move so she called relatives back at the church and they panicked and then they called her neighbors to see if they could see her," Hammam said.
"They said everybody can see her, she's out in the open," her nephew continued, "but no one is able to go get her because of the snipers in the area." Elham bled out on the street for days before dying, Hammam said, adding that no ambulance, no aid worker, no one who could help was able to get to her due to fighting in the area.
jesus fucking christ
The Argentine election has reminded me why so many in Central America admire Putin and politicians like him. He's a right-winger who's perceived as being a nationalist putting his country first without kissing up to the US or Europe. Many of our right-wingers seem to despise their own country and do everything they can to please the US and EU, often holding second homes in Miami or Madrid.
It's a reason Bukele is annoyingly popular. He postures himself as someone who doesn't let the US control him even though a closer look shows that it's a dubious claim.
Biden will ban polygamy if he wins a second term which means you have to vote for him... harem reduction.
Israeli strikes on south Lebanon kill two journalists, several civilians
They were Al-Mayadeen journalists, a pro-Hezbullah satellite news channel.
Turns out the funni
timeline is not funny at all and actually is pretty terrible. I don't know many things, I am a mediocre nobody who sucks at pretty much everything and will be forgotten as soon as I die. However, I am sure of one thing. Communism will win. It is inevitable. From this complete disaster, the Red Star will rise.https://t.me/PalestineResist/20021
🚨🇾🇪 Yemeni Armed Forces: — In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful Based on religious, national, and ethical responsibilities, considering the "israeli"-American brutal aggression that the Gaza Strip is undergoing, including daily massacres and genocide, in response to the demands of our Yemeni people and the free nations, and in support of our oppressed people in Gaza.
The Yemeni Armed Forces declare that they will target all types of the following ships:
- Ships carrying the flag of the zionist entity.
- Ships operated by "israeli" companies.
- Ships owned by "israeli" companies.
Furthermore, the Yemeni Armed Forces urge all countries of the world to:
- A. Withdraw their citizens working as part of these ships' crews.
- B. Avoid shipping on these ships or dealing with them.
- C. Inform your ships to stay away from these ships.
And Allah is a witness to what we say.
Sanaa, 6th Jumada Al-Awwal, 1445 AH
November 19, 2023 AD
Issued by the Yemeni Armed Forces
Organized Religions are organizations used to reinforce the status quo of the ruling class. That’s their basic form and impact on history going back to the earliest organized societies.
There will not be a socialist Pope until Rome is ruled by socialists. Then every pope will be socialist.
The Christian church is totally accountable for directly managing and supporting genocides against the native people of the Americas. For supporting monarchies. For supporting slavery.
That’s not racist against Europeans. It’s political reality and we can’t be afraid to call out religious organizations for being arms of the state.
People are not born into a religion, it is not an immutable part of who they are.
Jeremy Scahill
The list of Palestinians to be potentially released by Israel has 300 names:
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270 children
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30 women
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233 have not been convicted of anything
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21 are accused of throwing stones
For more information on Palestinian minors held by Israel and how they are treated, two reliable resources are Israel's leading human rights organization B'Tselem:
And the Palestinian human rights organization Addameer:
Israel's own list of the 300 Palestinians proposed for release states that 233 of them are "במעצר" meaning under arrest, meaning not convicted. There is also extensive documentation on the lack of due process & basic rights afforded Palestinians accused by Israel of crimes. This is a fact that has been widely documented by major international human rights organizations for decades.
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The nonce with unfortunately good military analysis has come and offered his thoughts on this conflict. It basically echoes everything I and others have been saying for the last ~2 months.
Scott Ritter: Hamas Winning Battle for Gaza
While the ceasefire, negotiated between Israel and Hamas by Qatar, was mutually agreed between the two parties, let no one be fooled into thinking this was anything less than a victory for Hamas. Israel had taken a very aggressive position that, given its stated objective of destroying Hamas as an organization, it would not agree to a ceasefire under any conditions. Hamas, on the other hand, had made one of its primary objectives in initiating the current round of fighting with Israel the release of Palestinian prisoners, and in particular women and children, held by Israel. Seen in this light, the ceasefire represents an important victory for Hamas, and a humiliating defeat for Israel.
One of the reasons Israel eschewed a ceasefire was that it was confident that the offensive operation it had launched into northern Gaza was going to neutralize Hamas as a military threat, and that any ceasefire, regardless of the humanitarian justification, would only buy time for a defeated Hamas enemy to rest, refit, and regroup. That Israel signed on to a ceasefire is the surest sign yet that all is not well with the Israeli offensive against Hamas.
This outcome should not have come as a surprise to anyone. When Hamas launched its October 7 attack on Israel, it initiated a plan years in the making. The meticulous attention to detail that was evident in the Hamas operation underscored the reality that Hamas had been studying the Israeli intelligence and military forces arrayed against it, uncovering weaknesses that were subsequently exploited. The Hamas action represented more than sound tactical and operational planning and execution—it was a masterpiece in strategic conceptualization as well.
One of the main reasons behind the Israeli defeat on October 7 was the fact that the Israeli government was convinced that Hamas would never attack, regardless of what the intelligence analysts charged with watching Hamas activity in Gaza were saying. This failure of imagination came about by Hamas having identified the political goals and objectives of Israel (the nullification of Hamas as a resistance organization by undertaking a policy built on “buying” Hamas through an expanded program of work permits issued by Israel for Palestinians living in Gaza.) By playing along with the work permit program, Hamas lulled the Israeli leadership into complacency, allowing Hamas' preparations for their attack to be carried out in plain view.
...
Hamas knows that it cannot engage Israel in a classic force-on-force encounter. Instead, the goal was to lure Israeli forces into Gaza, and then subject these forces to an endless series of hit-and-run attacks by small teams of Hamas fighters who would emerge from their underground lairs, attack a vulnerable Israeli force, and then disappear back underground. In short, to subject the Israeli military to what is the equivalent of a death by a thousand cuts.
And it worked. While Israeli forces have been able to penetrate into the less urbanized areas of the northern Gaza strip, taking advantage of the mobility and firepower of its armored troops, the progress is illusory, as Hamas forces harry the Israelis continuously, using deadly tandem-warhead rockets to disable or destroy Israeli vehicles, killing scores of Israeli soldiers and wounding hundreds more. While Israel has been reticent in releasing the figures of armored vehicles lost in this fashion, Hamas claims the number is in the hundreds. Hamas' claims are bolstered by the fact that Israel has halted the sale of older Merkava 3 tanks, and instead has organized their inventory of these vehicles into new reserve armor battalions to make up for the heavy losses being sustained in both Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah forces are engaged in a deadly war of attrition with Israel in operations designed to support Hamas in Gaza.
...
While Israel may have been able to garner the support of the international community in the aftermath of the October 7 attack by Hamas, its gross overreaction has instead turned world public opinion against it—something Hamas was counting on. Today, Israel is increasingly isolated, losing support not only in the so-called Global South, but also in traditional strongholds of pro-Israeli sentiment in the US, UK, and Europe. This isolation, combined with the kind of political pressure Israel is unaccustomed to receiving, helped contribute to the Netanyahu government’s acquiescence regarding the ceasefire and subsequent prisoner exchange.
Whether the ceasefire will hold or not remains to be seen. So, too, the question of turning the ceasefire into a lasting cessation of hostilities remains an open question. But one thing is certain—having declared that victory is defined by Hamas’ total defeat, the Israelis have set the stage for a Hamas victory, something Hamas achieves simply by surviving.
But Hamas is doing more than surviving — it is winning. Having fought the Israel Defense Forces to a standstill on the battlefield, Hamas has seen every one of its strategic objectives in this conflict reach fruition. The world is actively articulating the absolute necessity of a two-state solution as a prerequisite for a lasting peace in the region. Palestinians held prisoner by Israel are being exchanged for the Israelis Hamas took hostage. And the Islamic world is united in condemning Israel’s desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque.
None of these issues were on the table on October 6. That they are being addressed now is testament to the success Hamas enjoyed on October 7, and in the days and weeks that followed, as Israeli forces were defeated by a combination of Hamas' tenacity and their own predilection for indiscriminate violence against civilians. Far from being eliminated as a military and political force, Hamas has emerged as perhaps the most relevant voice and authority when it comes to defending the interests of the Palestinian people.
I do also want to apologize here for previous statements I made a month or so ago about how prisoner-swaps are kinda meaningless because Israel can just arrest a bunch more Palestinians. While that is true, it ignores that at least some of these prisoners are very important. A few of the current higher-ups of Hamas, including its current head, came from these prisoner swaps in the past.
For anyone who missed it: last night there were riots in the city centre of Dublin following the stabbing of children outside of a school during the day. The far right assumed that the attacker was an immigrant and began burning buses, trams, police cars and destroying and looting shops. From what I could tell, it was loosely organised and was mostly oppurtunists and fascists looking for an opportunity to attack people. Supposedly the attacker was an immigrant, but had been made an Irish citizen 20 years ago. He was subdued by a Brazilian immigrant. Police were very slow to respond to the rioters, despite them always being organised and showing force whenever a left wing gathering is happening. Group chats were leaked (the veracity of them is unclear), with one particular group chat called "kill all immigrants", and a voice message sent by the owner of the group chat telling people to go out on the streets and kill any immigrants they see.
Supposedly no one was seriously injured during the riots. This shows the serious threat of the far right in Ireland which, while previously extremely small, has been growing rapidly over the past five years. The neoliberal parties in power, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, have done nothing to oppose the growth of these fascists, and instead handed them a silver platter to base their anti-immigrant platform on, that being the housing crisis in Ireland. Fascists have grown more popular mainly due to their insistence that the housing shortage is because of immigrant invasions, white replacement etc, instead of pointing their fingers at the landlords and investors who hoard homes.
On a personal note, its been a kick in the backside for me to get back into organising. My mental health has been atrocious lately so I've been inactive in my org, but clearly no one has the luxury to take breaks anymore.
Damn at my work 1/4 of the employee were laid off. On Friday at 12 am. Thanks for giving them a great weekend to reflect how loved they are by their employer. Fuck corprate brainded CEOs.
Roger Waters got a very warm reception to what looks like a sold out stadium in Agentina with much cheer to "if you're one of those 'I like Pink Floyd, but I hate Roger's politics' types then you can fuck off to the bar."
So there may be hope left against that
supervillian.142 Palestinians that have died in prison (mostly children) are kept in refrigerators as a form of collective punishment and psychological torture against their families: https://nitter.net/Resist_05/status/1728320589088378933
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some time ago I made a joke about the F-35 being AAA game development applied to military equipment, and, uh... they're apparently releasing the F-35 in Early Access:
Upgraded F-35s fly with partial software as DOD hunts for delivery fix (archived)
WASHINGTON — The first production F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with an early, incomplete version of the software powering a key upgrade was flown last week at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas, facility, the company told Defense News.
The Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Program Office is considering whether a strategy of loading interim versions of the Technology Refresh 3 software into the latest F-35s might provide a way to end a months-long delivery halt, and allow the government to start accepting the latest versions of the fighter. Technology Refresh 3, or TR-3, is the name for a batch of hardware and software upgrades to the newest F-35s ... TR-3 has been stymied by software problems and difficulties integrating it with the new hardware, and its schedule has slipped significantly. It was originally expected to arrive in April but has now slipped until well into 2024, perhaps as late as next June.
When asked if this might entail using an interim or early release version of the software, the JPO said “potentially,” and that the software could be updated down the line to complete the TR-3 capabilities. “The JPO and Lockheed Martin are working with the U.S. services and international customers on potential options to deliver operationally acceptable aircraft that would most likely require future software drops for a subset of capabilities to meet all requirements,” the JPO said.
must inspire a lot of confidence to fly a plane described as "operationally acceptable"
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Article about the absolute state of the Bundeswher
https://zeitung.faz.net/fas/politik/2023-11-19/e26b252ad4f98875f4842475d6ee98b1/?GEPC=s5
The Bundeswehr only has around 50,000 assault rifles… not even every second soldier in the army would have a rifle.
When your comrade gets shot, you pick up his rifle.
Germany should stop talking shit about Palestine because Hezbollah could probably take them out.
This is vomit inducing. Best place for the vomit would be this fucker's face.
South Africa hosting an "emergency" BRICS Summit today: https://www.africanews.com/2023/11/20/israel-hamas-war-south-africa-chairs-brics-meeting-on-gaza/
has pre-emptively recalled its ambassador to South Africa, to allow him to cope as South Africa finally looks to sever relations and has filed a claim to the ICC: https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2023/11/20/Israel-recalls-its-ambassador-as-South-Africa-calls-for-Israeli-embassy-closure
Has any major American media outlet reported anything happening in the West Bank during the last few days? I guess they think of the arrests and the deaths as generic "unrest" not worthy of coverage.
This jumped out at me: "At the moment, the Israeli military are arresting on average around 64 Palestinians every night in the occupied West Bank."
2m ago (01:10 GMT)
Palestinian teen killed amid ‘intensification’ of Israeli raids in occupied West Bank: Correspondent
Charles Stratford reporting from Ramallah, occupied West Bank
The death of a 17-year-old youth happened during one of a number of raids in and around the city of Nablus in the north of the occupied West Bank.
We’ve seen video of the body of that youth being carried by friends and family and supporters after he was killed.
These are just the latest raids that now happen every night right the way across the West Bank – another indication of the intensification of Israeli military raids and attempts to arrest Palestinians since the Hamas raids on October 7.
At the moment, the Israeli military are arresting on average around 64 Palestinians every night in the occupied West Bank and the latest death of that 17-year-old youth in Nablus means that there have now been 227 [Palestinians] killed since October 7.
- Al Jazeera
Argentina’s Javier Milei backs away from dollarisation as central bank pick rejects role
the man named to lead Argentina’s central bank by libertarian president-elect Javier Milei has turned down the job over policy differences, amid signs that the South American nation’s maverick next leader is backing away from his flagship policy of dollarising the sickly economy.
Emilio Ocampo, an economic history professor and former investment banker, was the leading advocate within Milei’s team of dumping the Argentine peso in favour of the US dollar. The author of a recent paper advocating dollarisation, he had been working on a blueprint to implement the plan after the new government takes office on December 10.
But a person close to Ocampo confirmed on Thursday night local news reports that he would no longer accept the post.
“The only reason for Ocampo to be at the [central bank] was to dollarise,” the person said. “He was never going to the central bank to implement someone else’s plan, which he doesn’t agree with.
looks like the national capitalists (probably led by macri) forced him to drop his idea for dollarization, they will probably also block his anti-brics+ policies too
The central bank is struggling to find buyers for short-term peso-denominated debt that it issues to suck local currency out of the system, signalling that its efforts to contain inflation are flagging in the face of market uncertainty.
looks like this is the main reason, makes no sense to buy debt in a currency that isnt going to exist for long, even with how weak the argentine peso is its lets the national capitalists control the economy, dollarization would have let to the international capitalist to take over the argentine economy and eliminating most national capitalists like it happen on Mexico with the TLCAN.
Cant for for anarcho-capitalism to be blamed for every neoliberal policy failure that Milei will be forced to keep by his coalition
People don't understand how much destruction in Gaza the Israeli army caused. Wait until journalists are able to reach the areas that have been out of reach for along time now. The situation is beyond catastrophic in Gaza. Ceasefire now.
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Bad empanada is my idol, man is fedposting at Milei rn, actually could get a visit by the police lmao https://nitter.net/badempanada/status/1726411197111501302
https://twitter.com/badempanada/status/1726411197111501302The last sight of many a commie
"Im crashing this country with no survivors"
Responsible Statecraft: Pentagon fails sixth audit in a row
On Wednesday, Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord revealed that the Department of Defense had failed its sixth audit in a row, with no significant improvements over the last year. “We are working hard to address audit findings as well as recommendations from the Government Accountability Office,” McCord said in a statement. “The Components are making good progress resulting in meaningful benefits, but we must do more.”
In a repeat of last year’s audit, just one in four of the Pentagon’s auditing units received a clean bill of financial health, though auditors made some progress in accounting for the agency’s $3.8 billion in assets. McCord said that a clean audit likely remains years away, according to Reuters. The Pentagon remains the only federal agency to have never passed an audit. Its failure to make significant progress has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who called for an independent audit of the department.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee also slammed the Pentagon for its financial troubles, arguing in a post on X that the department’s “inability to adequately track assets risks our military readiness and represents a flagrant disregard for taxpayer funds, even as it receives nearly a trillion dollars annually.”
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said the news showed that it’s “time to stop misdirecting hundreds of billions of dollars away from domestic and human needs to pad unnecessary budget lines for endless wars, failed weapons, & the Pentagon’s corporate handouts.”
The news could reinvigorate efforts to impose a 1 percent budget cut on any parts of the military that fail an audit, a policy that would “provide a much greater incentive to get financial books in order,” according to Jennifer Knox of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
I propose a 100% budget cut on any part of the military that fails an audit. And also on the parts that succeed an audit.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67508560
David Cameron is one of the few western politicians saying things like
It is vitally important that we demonstrate to the Palestinian people, to the world, that we want to help. Those people need food, they need water, they need medicine
it's fucked when David fucking Cameron is the best of the cabinet about Gaza lol. and he's a fucking demon
(I called it)
Someone explain to me how the prosecution of voices critical of Israel's regime is not censorship in favour of the government position? How the prosecution of people seen "protesting for Palestine" isn't a suppression of the right to peaceful protest and a clear example of government suppression?
How is this any different than China?
German police say they have raided the homes of members and supporters of Hamas and Samidoun, another Palestinian organisation that is banned in the country.
About 500 members of the security forces led the operation, with 13 places searched in the capital Berlin, the interior ministry said.
Four other regions were targeted to a lesser extent as police seized smartphones, laptops and various writings, the ministry added.
"We are carrying out action against radical Islamists," Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said earlier on Thursday.
"By banning Hamas and Samidoun in Germany, we have sent a clear signal that we will not tolerate any apology or support for Hamas's barbaric terror against Israel.
"Islamists and ant-Semites must not feel safe anywhere."
Germany on November 2 banned Hamas and Samidoun.
According to official figures, Germany hosts an estimated 450 members of Hamas, proscribed as a "terrorist" organisation by the European Union, the United States and Israel.
The ministry said that while Hamas members had not staged "violent action" in Germany so far, they had tried to raise funds to help the group overseas and "influence the social and political discourse in Germany".
It said Samidoun on the other hand was "prone to use violence … and denies the right of Israel to exist".
very cool and normal
I stand with both Thanksgiving and ChristmasCynical Grinch Leftist can never destroy the holiday spirit
They are both holidays about coming together
Milei proposes closing 12 secretaries (in red)
Closing the turism and sports when that sector brings so much money to the country is a move outside human comprehension
This study from Tel Aviv university (PDF warning, 392KB) on the recent conflict has recently been released; I quote:
The survey was conducted in Hebrew and in Arabic by the iPanel research institute between October 23 and 28, 2023 among 609 respondents: 506 Jewish respondents and 103 Arab respondents. Calculations were adjusted so that the respondents would constitute a representative national sample of the adult population aged 18 and above. Maximum sampling error: +/- 4.2%
It is full of fascinating findings. For example:
- 57.5% of Israeli Jews think the IDF has been using "too little force" in Gaza since October 7th, and only 1.8% think it has used too much.
- Only 6.7% of Israeli Jews are "very much in favor" of a peace with Palestinians, while 57.3% of Israeli Arabs are "very much in favor" of the same.
- A single state solution ("the creation of a binational state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea with full and equal rights for Jews and Palestinians") gets 2.4% and 21.4% "very much support" from Israeli Jews / Arabs respectively. Counting also "moderate support", we get 8.5% / 46.6% respectively.
- For a two state solution ("the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel"), that goes to 6.9% / 35%. Counting also "moderate support", it's 28.6% / 71.9%.
Brazil’s reclusive Bolsonaro has a skin infection, ‘cannot wear pants’
sorry if this has been posted before but...
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has barely been seen in public since failing to win re-election, is holed up in his official residence because of a skin infection on his leg, a newspaper said on Wednesday.
“It is a health issue. He has a leg injury, a skin infection,” Vice President Hamilton Mourao told O Globo on the sidelines of an event at the Planalto presidential palace.
“He cannot wear pants. You want him to come here wearing Bermuda shorts?” Mr Mourao was quoted as saying.
Ever wonder if X person or brand has professed public support for Israel?
https://reversecanarymission.org/ is a search bar for just that. Bookmark it
:mystery-emote: 🔻
:mystery-emote::settler:Elon is going to go on a charm offensive backed up by his nutsack riders on the right to woo over the ADL then he'll burn all the good faith in a single hour replying "WOW insightful!" to KekGroyper88's post about jews putting soy in muscle milk powder to shrink white guy's dicks.
Can't stop thinking about the mad lads in Yemen and how much respect I have for them.
FT: Europe’s problem? It’s too attractive
Europe’s soft power is threatening to undermine Europe’s soft power. Harvard’s Joseph Nye defines soft power as the power to attract. A recent global poll confirms once again that Europe has this in profusion. If you ask people in countries as diverse as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, South Africa and Brazil where they would like to live, if not in their own country, most of them choose the US or Europe. By contrast, far fewer want to live in China or Russia.
And right there is Europe’s problem. So attractive is Europe that millions of people would like to move here. Hundreds of thousands will actually try, risking their lives on flimsy boats across the Mediterranean. “It’s Europe or death,” said one. But the fear of uncontrolled mass migration is driving some European voters to xenophobic populist parties that not merely exploit but actively stir up civilisational panic about it.
Increasingly, 2023 is looking like a new 2015. The refugee and migrant crisis that began that year boosted the vote for the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and the Freedom party in Austria — not to mention, for Brexit. Now the AfD is again growing in strength, even in prosperous German regions such as Bavaria and Hesse. The Freedom party tops Austria’s opinion polls. This week, Geert Wilders’ anti-Islamic populist party scored a shocking success in the Dutch elections. And we have elections to the European parliament next June.
...
Europe’s soft power is not just about its prosperity, welfare systems and quality of life. It’s also about freedom, the rule of law, tolerance and respect for human rights. In that same poll, respondents in many parts of the world said that Vladimir Putin’s Russia was not part of Europe “when it comes to its current political values”. Europe is associated with a set of values. But Europe is not credible as a continent of values if it violates them itself, precisely at the points where people from the rest of the world encounter it: at its borders, above all, but also in the reception of asylum seekers and the inflammatory mischaracterisation of people of migrant backgrounds already inside those borders.
...
Fail either in one direction or the other and the manner in which Europe addresses the consequences of its “power to attract” will start subverting another important aspect of its soft power — its values. Here is Europe’s soft power dilemma.
Not its values! Anything but its values!
Westerners really will bomb, sanction, and otherwise exploit the shit out of countries and then wonder why people are streaming out of them and towards slightly better places to live and go "Hm, is it our lovely and tolerant policies, or our fantastic environments, or our delicious foods?"
⭕️ بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
تصريح صحفي
استجابة لجهود الرئيس الروسي فلاديمر بوتين وتقديراً للموقف الروسي الداعم للقضية الفلسطينية أفرجت حركة المقاومة الإسلامية حماس عن أحد المحتجزين من حملة الجنسية الروسية.
As a response to the Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Russian position in supporting Palestine, the islamic resistance movement Hamas has let one of the prisoners that hold Russian citizenship go.
Zionists express bafflement over an Arab with blue eyes: https://nitter.cz/RaniaKhalek/status/1728066657480810723
I didn't know how to process my emotions during an intense ethnic war. But then then the Assistant to the Regional Manager had coffee with me and now I'm right as rain.
being totally normal:(Warning: Estonian cope. Also it's in Estonian) https://maailm.postimees.ee/7903548/saksamaal-algas-haarang-hamasi-toetajate-kodudesse
In brief, Germany is now raiding the homes of people who show support to or are associated with pro-Palestinian groups, with the added cope of "Hamas engaging in
" alongside links to other articles of Estonian cope about Russia. Anyways, anyone have that one video where a Jewish South African got assaulted by the police in Germany some months ago for being in a Palestine rally?Israel broke the ceasefire first on October 7th. The first shots fired were from automatic sniper rifles mounted by the IDF on the border walls of Gaza.
any updates on this?
1,000 boats to leave Turkiye for Gaza waters in new ‘Freedom Flotilla’
This is the epitome of dumbfuck "commentary" on china by westoids
-
gesture vaguely about some "international rules based order" that china is breaking somehow while not really making sense
-
insert some Chinese sounding words that are completely irrelevant to imply some kind of "oriental inscrutability"
(Tianxia means "under heaven" and i have no earthly idea how this factors into this)
-
...aaaand South Africa finally did it and delivered a fresh
to Isisrael.One of the pro-Apartheid parties is very fittingly named "COPE".
Seems like the current consensus explanation for the Swedish PM saying Israel has the right to genocide is that he actually said "Folkrätt" which roughly means international law.
Israel has the right to international law. Equally as soft nonsense as the previous explanations, still hinging on the suggestion that our PM just cannot speak Swedish properly. Also Im unclear on if they want us to believe that he was saying "Israel har rätt till folkrätt" or if the suggestion is he reversed the word order.
The actual government twitter accounts are just saying its a mistranslation and urging people to please stop saying that the Swedish PM endorses genocide.
Genocidal goons looting the dead bodies of their victims for jewelry: https://nitter.net/Anna_AnninaEl/status/1728427029547114924
Today's MoA is good: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/11/on-sub-imperial-power-by-arnaud-bertrand.html#more
In other words, Fernandes’ point is that the key characteristic of the “rules-based international order” relates to the actual structure of the American (or British, French, Australian, etc) social and economic system, which seeks to enforce an order where the whole world is open to the penetration and control of their respective national moneyed classes. Which is why the order is about hegemony, and not about security, and why the former so often comes at the expense of the latter.
It’s interestingly something that John Mearsheimer often laments about if you listen to him: “why would the U.S. act in such foolish ways that go against what my realist theories recommend?”. He was adamantly opposed to the war in Iraq, warned for many years about the risk of a clash with Russia in Ukraine if we expanded NATO, and keeps speaking out against the U.S.’s unequivocal support of Israel. And by doing so Mearsheimer actually admits that realism doesn’t quite explain the behavior of states and that his theories are therefore not quite right. Fernandes here offers an explanation that better predicts the actual behavior of the US and its “sub-imperial powers”: you cannot understand states’ behavior if you limit yourself to a state-centric view, you also need to look at the unique characteristics of their political, social and economic system.
You may dismiss the "sub-imperial power" discussed above as a "lame phrase so [the Aussie] wouldn't have to say vassal". There is some truth to that.
But to distinguish monetary hegemony from security driven imperialism as the root cause of the global mess is, to me, a new insight. Said differently: The survival and security aspect is only relevant as far as it concerns the moneyed class. Mearsheimer's realist view somewhat misses that aspect.
Via Al Jazeera live blog -
The Palestine Red Crescent says that Israeli soldiers have been firing teargas and rubber bullets at journalists who have gathered to document and report on the release of Palestinian prisoners outside of Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank.
Raed al-Helou, a Sky News Arabia photographer, was injured in the hand while he was wearing his ‘Press’ vest, he told Al Jazeera.
“I was standing with a group of journalists. Suddenly, the Israeli army fired teargas at us. After that, foot soldiers attacked us. While I was hiding behind a car, I noticed a green laser light on my hand. At this moment, something hit me there,” al-Helou said.
Another journalist, Fadi al-Assa, Alaraby TV correspondent, said: “We were standing on the rooftop of a house, our “Press” vests clearly showing, but soldiers kept firing teargas and rubber bullets at us.”
Israeli forces, he added, confiscated his team’s camera memory cards and forced them to leave the rooftop of the building where they working. They also prevented them from taking their equipment, he said.
Interesting how people keep leveraging the stockholm syndrome charge against the most clear cut and obvious cases of short term hostage taking for material concessions.
Obviously the original case was a bank robbery where the robbers took hostages to exchange for an escape route, but now we have Hamas taking hostages to exchange for supplies, temporary ceasefires, imprisoned Palestinians etc. When you take hostages like that you know that as far as you are concerned these people will be returning to their homes. You dont really have a reason to want anything from them except just basic calm and cooperation.
So in a situation like that you're most likely to just treat them as normally as circumstances allow, and if the holdup on an exchange is happening because "their" side is stalling or trying to "cut the knot" of the hostage situation then in this isolated space its obvious to the hostages whos the threat and whos trying to resolve the situation.
These specifics can change when you start changing the circumstances, such as if the hostages are taken also for interrogation of information, or you dont have a clear material goal in mind as the hostages are being taken, then the relationships and treatments will change, but in these pretty simple situations its just eminently understandable how basic human camraderie can create a positive relationship between hostage and hostage taker.
Edit: And of course as an opposite to this, Israel does not take hostages for the purposes of extracting concessions from Palestinians, they imprison Palestinians for the sake of imprisoning and disempowering Palestinians, whatever function they can have as hostages later is secondary, the cruelty is primary.
Why is the number commonly cited for the US military budget $800 billion (the budget request from Congress) and not $1.5 trillion (total funding available)?
Military costs are not all discretionary. On top of that, there's the $300 billion for veterans affairs.
I found this article about Milei yesterday to learn a bit about him and it's absolute unhinged. I read this part and I lost my shit, cackling at work:
But he quit football at 18 to study economics, going on to lecture at university, then working as an economist at various financial institutions.
In his free time he sang in a band, Everest, which played Rolling Stones songs — and he looked the part. Advertisement
Milei claims he hasn’t combed his hair since he was 13, adding: "From that moment on, the invisible hand combs my hair.”
Interestingly, the Islamic Republic of Iran successfully launched the Noor 3 spy satellite into space less than 2 weeks before Al-Aqsa Flood.
I fully expect that the Palestinians included this into their calculus and planning because the satellite is basically providing targetting data and intel for the entire axis of resistance at this point.
"Iranian head of the IRGC Aerospace unit Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that said the new satellite has capabilities such as “imaging in different light spectrums with high quality and resolution, telecommunication relay services, sending commands and receiving data over long distances in real time, for example for drones and sea vessels, and finally global positioning services for missile guidance and navigation systems.”"
Western anarcho-Bidenists: Noooooo, you have to condemn Hamas!
Palestinian anarchists: https://nitter.cz/ResistanceDyke/status/1727518039334085012
CNN is so disgusting going on about how the children's hospitals in Egypt were made up special for the hostage children. Totally ignoring the some 6,000 dead Palestanian children, but ofc those are subhuman and don't count.
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A few minutes of an interview with a doctor who up until a few days ago was in Gaza. I don't think it needs a content warning but it is grim, depressing, and awful.
British surgeon @GhassanAbuSitt1 is in no doubt - the destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza is a deliberate strategy by Israel.
BRICS condemns Israel war on Gaza in signal to the West (Al Jazeera, 21 Nov 2023)
just thought this bit was interesting:
India, though, has not been as vocal and has in fact cracked down on pro-Palestine marches at home, seemingly siding with Israel and its biggest benefactor, the US, in what is seen as a split within the BRICS itself.
But that split did not seem glaring at Tuesday’s summit, which experts say is a first-of-its-kind meeting for a group that has previously focused on economic issues.
“I am not sure I recall a similar extraordinary summit being called,” Gruzd told Al Jazeera. “It does reflect on the growing assertiveness and confidence of the BRICS grouping, not waiting for the West. BRICS has generally shied away from political and security issues; this meeting goes against that trend.”
Legalism is so fucked. Even the best lawyers are contributing to an absolutely shit system. Imagine, as a group of lawyers who regularly stand up against this sort of thing in theory, not being able to stop the courts from repressing your freedom of speech and assembly by halting your union vote on something which is 100% none of their fucking business.
Anyway, yeah: public defenders, of all people, being falsely accused of anti-Semitism for opposing genocide. Yeehaw.
That's the most active use of passive voice the NYT has ever used to describe Israeli atrocities. What I'm saying is that it's a little less passive than usual which actually is a big change. Sadly enough.
Feels like the pro-Ukraine crowd is deluding itself again into thinking Russia is doomed to failure. Here's an example from a random lib forum:
These liberals are legitimately living in a parallel universe, even compared to the mainstream media now. Q-anon but for centrist libs.
Edit: don't know why that screenshot came out so small. Open in new tab for a larger image.
Ok something has been nagging at me since they lowered the number of casualties from the prison break. Whats a reasonable hostage:armed men ratio? 2:1? 3:1 if they are mostly women and children?
Reports of the casualties in the days after oct 7 were at 1400 for a bit and then scaled back to 1200 (minus 427 military and police) because some of the corpses were harder to identify due to "damage" and turned out to be Hamas fighters.
How many of those Hamas fighters were holding hostages and were likely close to them when they were killed? Killed in a way that made it IDing them take a month. There are multiple witness accounts of the IDF and police firing on hostages and their captors. There are also admissions of IDF shooting anything that moved and video of them blowing up random cars and a person on a bicycle.
So back to the ratio. 200 Hamas fighters blown up beyond identification means how many hostages as collateral damage? How many Israelis did the IDF kill? I'm starting to think its more than half. Then I think of the testimony from Yasmin Porat . I'm starting to think maybe Hamas only killed a few people who resisted and the rest were killed by trigger happy IDF.
There might be a solid case for an unequivocal "Hamas did nothing wrong" stance.
So ceasefire just means IOF cops do the brutalizing instead of the bombers?
Dublin be like:
We gotta get more racist
Oh and even mcnuggets weighing in, should have had both legs broken.
P.S. you having shite housing, and your prime minister being landlord, are in fact connected, dissafected irish masses
I think the decision to remove a recent article posted by one of our comrades which criticized white gay males should be reconsidered because I don't think it was reactionary
It included the segment from a gay white male perspective on why intersectionality is still important, and the article specifically mentions the Gay Liberation Front, the org named after the National Liberation front of Vietnam, where Leslie Feinberg spent so much energy fighting rival assimilationist orgs and assimilationist currents motivated by gay white male individuals who always had the liberty to jettison anti-racism and anti-imperialism if they wanted to (and successfully did so, e.g considering the current state of Pride© and queer struggle today, the tendency of many queer spaces to end up almost exclusively white, and among these spaces even as irrelevant but visible and memed about "leftist" discords being 100% white anti-authoritarian chauvinists etc etc)
The article goes into intersectionalist and assimilationist currents, I think many respondents did not read the article before writing
Legal argument on why the seizure of Galaxy Leader isn't piracy: https://nitter.cz/meowsandry/status/1727184910710882785
We're so close to having an unedited Ben Garrison comic that just has "cum" labeled everywhere
Recent events have got me thinking just how goddamn foolish modern apartheid supporters/neo nazis are in South Africa. Thinking back to the AWB in the 90s, these people made a three legged swastika as a logo, seemed obsessed with the current North West province, tried to fight a war over fucking Ventersdorp (a town of 4000 people) because F.W de Klerk was speaking there, wanted to make Brits their capital, and ended up fighting battles against the apartheid police and army, as well as invading the bantustan located in the current North West province and getting humiliated by them.
I'm glad they were so stupid, because at their peak they had over 500 000 members. Now they only have 5000.
I do condom hamas and jerk off dead IDF soldiers
Youtube comment
Occupation is the problem not the resistance. Remember Mandela?
Ordered shit online and discovered the website had an old login from me with an old address that they decided to fill in as my billing address, however my delivery address was taken from paypal and was correct therefore.
Sent them an email telling them that the billing address specifically is wrong and that it should match the delivery address, get an email back telling me they fixed it.
Delivery notification this morning... they changed the delivery address to the outdated billing address, and now tell me that the delivery company doesnt allow address changes usually so I gotta wait for them to return it with no recipient then redeliver it.
What a headache.
Edit: Oh this is news.
Hezbollah blew up
some barracksthe headquarters of the Galilee Divisioncan't wait for the idf to claim that 2 soldiers were lightly injured
Fascinating that as soon as there were reports of Gabriel Boric's "nightly visits to his lady friend" Argentina elected a guy that has clearly never eaten ass.
Its like Chile and Argentina are intercontected and only one of their presidents can fuck at a time.
What I'm Reading: Pushing back on pandemic revisionism.
Pandemic revisionism has been on my mind lately. It seems that many people incorrectly believe we didn’t achieve much, despite our efforts. How quickly we forget. The horrors of New York City in the early days of Covid-19 reflected a virus spreading without mitigation. Virtually everywhere other than New York City experienced Covid-19 dramatically differently—that is, other US cities encountered the novel coronavirus in the context of serious efforts to contain it. That’s why truckloads of dead bodies didn’t become a fixture anywhere outside of New York City’s early outbreak.
I’m not alone in worrying that people have forgotten all of this. Lately, New York Times writer David Wallace Wells has been using his column to interview some pandemic experts around this topic. His interviews with two colleagues with whom I have collaborated, Dr. Katelyn Jetelina and Dr. Michael Mina, are highly recommended reading for anyone interested in what lessons from the pandemic we should have learned—and these go beyond the usual platitudes.
So for this installment of “What I’m Reading,” I’m sharing another Wallace Wells interview. In this interview, Wallace Wells interviews the authors of a new book entitled “The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind.”
This is no ordinary interview. Wallace Wells clearly read this book and identified within it a key—and devastating—contradiction in its reasoning. Here is an early excerpt from the interview:
In the beginning of the book you write, in what almost feels like a thesis statement for the book: “A central tenet of this book is that we could not have done better, and pretending differently is a dangerous fiction, one that prevents us from taking a much needed look in the mirror.”
This claim, that the U.S. could not have done any better, runs against your other claim, that what we observed was an American failure. It is also a pretty extreme claim, I think, and I wanted to press you on it in part because it is, in my view, undermined by quite a lot of the work you do in the book itself.
Would the U.S. not have done better if it had recognized earlier that the disease spread through the air rather than in droplets? Would it not have done better if it hadn’t bungled the rollout of a Covid test in the early months? You write at length about PPE shortages and the problems of coordinating care between hospitals in the early months — would the country not have done better if it had addressed those problems quickly, or not suffered from them to begin with? Disparities in health care access — is it a dangerous fiction to think we might address that? You guys are big champions of Operation Warp Speed — would it not have been better if those vaccines had been rolled out to the public in nine months, rather than 12, getting shots into the arms of the vulnerable elderly before the first big winter surge? —David Wallace Wells, The New York Times.
Indeed, how can someone say we failed and also say that we could not have done any better?
[...] Wallace Wells surgically dissects a bizarre but increasingly popular viewpoint espoused in the book; that we did too much and that the benefits were nowhere near sufficient to justify them.
9m ago (18:10 GMT)
US may redesignate Houthis as ‘terrorist’ organisation after ship hijacking
White House National Security Council spokesman Kirby says the Biden administration is considering the redesignation, citing “recent targeting of civilians by the Houthis” and “piracy of a ship in international waters”.
The Biden administration formally delisted the group as a “foreign terrorist organization” and “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” in 2021, undoing a last-minute move by former US President Donald Trump. The UN and aid groups had criticised the designations, saying the restrictions they created complicated aid delivery in the war-torn country.
The Yemen-based Houthis yesterday claimed the hijacking of a cargo ship in the Red Sea with 25 crew aboard. It said the ship was linked to Israel, although Israel said none of the crew were Israeli. They continue to be held by the Houthis.
Speaking to reporters, Kirby also said US officials did not want to comment on a possible captive release deal between Hamas and Israel: “We won’t say and do not want to say anything in these delicate hours that could put a deal at greater risk.”
- Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera: Apartheid South Africa reached a tipping point, Israel will, too
The number of children killed in Gaza has surpassed the annual number of children killed in conflict globally; the number of civilians killed in Gaza has now exceeded the total death toll in Ukraine since February 2022. These numbers are climbing every day, as the Israeli military continues to indiscriminately bomb civilian buildings, including hospitals and schools.
As a Black South African, watching these horrific events unfold, I cannot but reflect on my country’s own violent past. I recall the relentless planning and violence that accompanied the last decades of white South Africa’s attempts to make apartheid work. I remember the fears that grew among white South Africans as they put their trust in a sophisticated military capability, a conscription army, a nuclear weapons capacity and steadfast friends in the West, particularly the United States, Britain and France.
It was the height of the Cold War and South Africa claimed to be the only democracy in Southern Africa, protecting “civilisation” from the encroaching threats surrounding it. Its military might and expansive police force were accompanied by a series of policies designed to maintain white minority rule. Each attempt to impose new such policies failed in the face of mass resistance. The more they failed, the more brutal the violence meted out by the military and the police with the encouragement of white politicians and a terrified white electorate.
The “terrorists”, as the national liberation movements were referred to, could not be crushed by the mightiest army in Southern Africa. By mid-1985 a significant section of the white electorate and some in the ruling party realised that the problem of Black resistance was not going to go away. Something more drastic was going to be required.
The then State President, the hawkish P W Botha, himself a former defence minister, was encouraged by a faction of his party to open parliament that year with a conciliatory speech, to make a grand policy statement that would offer the Black majority a hopeful sign that they would become part of the whites-only democracy that was South Africa. It was called the “crossing of the Rubicon speech”. Botha played along but at the last minute baulked and defiantly went in the opposite direction, instead giving a speech in which he vowed to intensify the fight against “terrorism”, refusing to negotiate with “terrorists” in prison, like Nelson Mandela. What followed was the extension of the state of emergency in South Africa and the killing of thousands of people resisting apartheid rule, as Botha and his faction turned to more and more violence and repression.
Eventually, his own party leaders staged a palace coup and installed F W de Klerk in power. The new president and the faction he represented had realised that the end was nigh, that the decades of repression were not succeeding in making a political and economic system work that excluded the majority and only benefitted the white minority. De Klerk and his faction realised that whites were not going to win the war, even if they had more guns, bombs, tanks and artillery and could probably continue to rule for a long time through sheer force. It was not sustainable because the more repression they deployed, the more resistance they faced and the more white South Africans lived in fear.
The more the violence was flashed across the world’s television screens, the harder it became for white South Africa’s friends in the West to steadfastly support it. It was a tipping point that led to political negotiations, to talking to “the terrorists” who they saw as their existential enemy. It was a tipping point that created the pathway to a single state with equal citizenship for all, based on residency, not origins, race, religion or ethnicity.
...
Ordinary Israelis may begin to realise that no matter how sophisticated or strong the Israeli army, Mossad, or the apartheid regime appear, the “Palestinian problem” is not going to go away as long as the Palestinians are alive. Just as with white South Africans, fear grows exponentially. And Israel is responding to that fear with a colossal bombing campaign of annihilation. But as white South Africans learned, violence cannot eradicate the “problem”, nor create the life of peace they might long for. [...] Whatever may be left in the ruins and rubble that awaits us after this war on Gaza, Israel’s “Palestinian problem” will not have gone away. Ordinary Israelis will surely never sleep again with the confidence that their state can fully protect them. They will do well to learn from white South Africans who, after 300 years of minority rule, realised it was an impossible political project to continue to defend so violently, and still maintain any semblance of a moral high ground.
There is a tipping point when even for the defenders of such a project, the faint question rings louder and louder in the collective conscience: how far is too far? There can be no going back to the promises of security based on what was before. There can be no going forward in peace if it means more and more blood of children and civilians haunting successive generations who will have to take responsibility for the actions unfolding before our eyes today. As a South African who has lived to cross the Rubicon, I hope this catastrophe will force Israelis to see that only a just and inclusive political solution based on equal citizenship for all is going to bring them freedom from fear.
Idiot neolib toady I know on another social media space brought up the Myanmar civil war going on now and referred to the country as having a "communist military government that has been mostly stable the last 70 years"
Fucking nitwits
Norm Finkelstein reports...
Regarding the hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, the Times reports that "Hostages likely won't be released until Thursday at the earliest, to allow time for Israeli judges to review potential legal challenges to the prisoner release, according to Israeli officials."
It is reported that famed attorney Alan Dershowitz will petition the Israel High Court demanding that, as part of the deal, his pool privileges be restored at Martha's Vineyard.
It says that the dead said a few weeks ago that he's happy his daughter died, but it turns out she is alive and is sitting next to him, can someone check if this is the same person from weeks ago, her name is Emily
It's her lmao https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/2740111
Which one of you nerds lathed "AI Prompt Engineer job title" a while back?
Prompt engineer is one of the hot jobs AI is creating
Business Insider writes.
Literally a bullshit job. Whoever gets a job like this should get swirled then shoved in a locker.
Commander of the Yemeni Navy to the crew of Israeli-owned cargo ship Galaxy Leader:
"We consider all of the crew as Yemeni people. Anything you want, we will bring it. You can consider Yemen as your own country."
https://twitter.com/Aldanmarki/status/1727327179028025744?t=i9jCKheKU9gCFRyDLWiCJQ&s=19
Twitter thread on Israel using the bodies of dead Palestinian children to film atrocity propaganda: https://nitter.cz/bidetmarxman/status/1728163260954775685 (CW: dead Palestinian children)
DPRK withdraws from Inter-Korean military agreement
Summary of the economic impact of the war on Israel: https://nitter.cz/meowsandry/status/1728029686091956732
This thread succinctly explains the effect on “Israel’s” economy inflicted by the resistance. Highly suggest you all read the articles. I’ll just summarize a few points:
— ‘Israel’ borrowed $6B in loans just to finance this war, which is plummeting them into debt & making many investors reluctant to invest due to high ESG (environmental, social and governance) risk
— Amid an immediate effort to quell up-coming inflation, the Central Bank of ‘Israel’ has already sold $30B in foreign exchange to reserve the shekel from collapse. This coupled with the loans will inevitably drive up interest-rates, which is already starting to happen
— S&P Global Ratings lowered Israel’s credit outlook from stable to negative
— IMF chief says this could lead to a grave economic weakness, as global oil supply may face disruptions
— Companies that are supporting ‘Israel’ (ex. McDonald’s) are starting to feel the effects of the boycotts, especially in ME.
— “Israel” postponed nearly 3M shekels of loan repayments in October. A total of 117,000 loans were deferred.
— The Washington Post publishes an article stating that if the ground war invasion continues for three months, the economy would be gravely affected, and the 300,000 reservists would need to return to work, they’ve already considered reducing the mobilization of reserve soldiers (from 360,000 to 200,000)
— There are practically no flights to “Israel”
(Keep in mind, these effects all worsen as this continues, and it doesn’t include the millions ‘Israel’ has lost bc of the resistance destroying their military vehicles)
Huge victory in the Sahel. Mali and Wagner PMC liberated a northern city Kidal from NATO terrorists.
https://orinocotribune.com/mali-celebrates-liberation-of-kidal-from-separatist-groups/
https://nitter.cz/squatsons/status/1727000719096697131#m
Russian Tu-95 bombers are reportedly preparing to launch a cruise missile attack after a long hiatus. Considering the time of year, it's probably time for more infrastructure strikes.
fuck landlords
fuck carsBroke: The UN is Hamas.
Woke: The IDF is Hamas: https://nitter.cz/MayadeenEnglish/status/1726773772110151768
Israel is not okay. Jpost is completely unhinged already, but this is a minister oped
PFLP Founder George Habash "Al-Hakim" when asked about relations with the Islamic forces in the Arab countries (1997):
"This is one of the greatest dilemmas facing the Arab national liberation movement, at the pan-Arab level and within each country. To begin with, one cannot take an arbitrary decision concerning whether or not to cooperate with the forces of Islam, putting them all in the same basket, as it were. Second, one feels an obligation to deal with them because these forces are indigenous to their societies, except for some movements or groups with dubious connections. This means that we and the forces of political Islam should find a common denominator that would permit us to work together under the current and foreseeable circumstances.
However, we need to differentiate between the Islamic forces that are truly engaged in the struggle on the basis of their perspectives on society and their ideology (as is the case with Hizballah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine, and the Jama'a Islamiyya in Jordan) and those forces and groups whose acts are no longer either comprehensible or justifiable on the human, ethical, or Islamic dimensions (as is the case now in Algeria and Egypt).
We believe that our relations with Islamic forces of the first type should be characterized by a deep alliance in the struggle with the enemy of our nation to bring about a showdown. The condition for such an alliance should be that joint action should be undertaken on a democratic basis."
Israeli Anti-Furniture Brigades performing their mission effectively and efficiently.
Receiving reports that the Hamas front known as "IKEA" - that is, the Islamic Khamas Evil Army - might be the next target for Israeli bombing raids.
Ukraine is proudly enlisting grandparents and children in their war to own the Russians
There have been reports of Israeli attacks near the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
- Al Jazeera
That's the entire thing.
It must be so easy to be an Israel apologist. They just say "Hamas uses hospitals as military strongholds," and there's no a hint of cognitive dissonance. They get right on with the rest of their day. I think on average since the war started I've used "[Redacted]" at Hexbear about once a day. And my usage keeps going up.
https://nitter.cz/Shack_Rat/status/1728511374144201161
https://twitter.com/Shack_Rat/status/1728511374144201161
Thai hostage sister statement
https://twitter.com/Dima_Khatib/status/1728542969911750970
https://nitter.net/Dima_Khatib/status/1728542969911750970
Families of Palestinian women/ children set to be liberated tonight, received calls from Israeli intelligence warning them against any celebration. One male member of each family in Jerusalem was asked this morning to go to the police for interrogation and is still detained there
So Israel is just going to kidnap a relative of every hostage they release?
Your Thursday Briefing:
Putin has said during the G20 online summit:
“The injection of trillions of dollars and euros into the economy, into the banking system, ultimately provoked a surge in global inflation, a rapid increase in food and energy prices. This is precisely what lies at the heart of the events that I mentioned [turbulence in the global economy], not our actions and our attempts to achieve justice in Ukraine, no,”
Erdogan continues to do a little trolling by not ratifying Sweden's accession to NATO in time for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers next week. Meanwhile, an intern at Baykar, producer of the eponymous and rather lackluster drones, was caught stealing four hard disks in Istanbul - possibly to sell them.
The EU is overhauling its environmental laws covering crimes, criminalizing illegal logging, the introduction of invasive species, and illegal water withdrawals. Individuals can face at least ten years in prison, while companies might get a minimum of 5% of their total reveneues fined.
The fascist PVV party in the Netherlands achieved a plurality of votes, with 37 out of 150 seats in parliament, thus needing a coalition with parties worth a further 39 seats to achieve a majority. The Labor-Green bloc won 25 seats and outgoing PM Mark Rutte's party won 24 seats. The party wants to halt all immigration and is generally anti-EU.
Finland has closed all but one of its border crossings with Russia in an attempt to stem the flow of hundreds of Middle Eastern asylum seekers sent nefariously by the scheming Kremlin to destabilise Finland. Finland will not fall for Putin's evil ruse, and will valiantly let them die in the winter cold instead of give in to terrorist regimes.
Disinformation experts in Slovakia's new government have been leaving their posts after it has been posting pro-Russian propaganda, such as that Ukrainians are fascists and that the US is to blame for the war.
The DPRK has suspended its 2018 military accord, which was signed to de-escalate tensions along the border, with its US-occupied lower half. This comes after the DPRK launched its military reconnaissance satellite. Kim Jong Un has already viewed photographs of US military facilities.
Russia and China have been angling for the best position on the Akkas gas field in Anbar province, Iraq, as the country remains very geopolitically important due to its position and resources. The gas field contains 5.6 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves.
Iran has been de-designating (that is, telling to fuck off, as is their legal right) several highly-knowledgable IAEA nuclear inspectors, with has prompted concerns by Rafael Grossi, suspecting Iran of getting up to some sussy stuff. Given the constant fearmongering over the years about how Iran is a mere 9 nanoseconds from possessing nukes, if it ever does happen it'll be a "boy who cried wolf" incident.
40% of African financial institutions want a single African currency akin to the euro, and a similar number want a more open pan-African banking system. Business leaders are generally upbeat on African economic prospects but wary of inflation and debt.
The French foreign minister has said: "Contrary to what some media outlets, and social networks in particular, are saying, France is absolutely not being driven out of Africa, and we're not in decline at all."
The UN stabilisation mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has agreed to withdraw its 15,000 peacekeepers (though without a firm timeline) after President Tshisekedi called for them to accelerate the withdrawal in September, due to a lack of real protection against rebel groups.
Conflict in Sudan continues, with refugees streaming out of the region. Chad, a country of 17 million people that was already struggling, has had to take in over one million refugees, with malnutrition affecting many. The World Food Programme is aiding all they can. Meanwhile, the Rapid Support Forces in opposition to the Sudanese government have made advances in Darfur, a region in western Sudan, with four out of Darfur's five states now in RSF hands. Former rebel groups that previously opposed the government are now stepping out of neutrality and deciding to fight alongside the government. The RSF is accused of having supply lines from Chad, Libya, and CAR, which all border Darfur.
After in an extended drought season marked by five failed rains which caused 15 million people in East Africa to descend into food insecurity, flooding in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia is happening on a wide scale, with 1.5 million hectares submerged in Somalia, or over 2% of the country. This has impacted 1.7 million in Somalia (10% of the population), and overall 3.1 million across the region. Food sources like livestock are under threat due to diseases.
Gay furry hackers have hacked the Idaho National Laboratory, with employee addresses, social security numbers, bank account information, and other data posted online. The hackers said that if the INL researched creating catgirls irl, they would take down the leak.
In the Dominican Republic, 27 people have died and over 7000 homes affected in torrential rains that broke records, with 431 millimeters in recent days.
President Lula said on Tuesday that “Brazil had to play a very strong role to not allow Africa to continue being held hostage by colonizers or by very strong interventions from China, which was seeking to buy the food they needed so much,” in a public critique of Chinese policy.
Milei's office mistakenly identified the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, as instead James Cameron, the Chapo-endorsed film director.
Some funny and probably positive news from Greece with the political landscape there being both the same and the opposite from other countries in Europe rn.
Its same in the sense that New Democracy (not Maoist but like 80% Macron - 20% Le Pen) governs after getting ~40% in the elections this year all while the socdem to center-left has either been eating shit and imploding (SYRIZA), being PASOK doing nothing after being Pasokified and or being Varoufakis enjoying his internationalist larp party at ~2% outside of parliament. With Syriza's implosion being the funny one since they ate shit in the elections, Tsipras resigned and then they literaly imported some better looking Pete Buttigieg - Beto O'Rourke dude from the US but with worse politics (reaganite, campaigned for Biden in 2008) and made him the leader so now they are about to be polling at signle digits. Like look at this
But there are also opposing trends compared to other countries.
The Greek Communist Party (Hardline MLs who also dont suck too much on LGBT issues anymore despite what the convo was some years ago) has more than doubled their support, consistently hitting 10%+ in recent polls and now has a real chance of actually reaching 2nd place. Looking at the state of communist parties and movements in most of the west , at eurocommunism and in general the post war trajectory of most , you dont have that kind of party that doesnt suck in 90% of issues with that kind of parliamentary numbers + organizational strength at a youth or union level almost anywhere else.
Also contrary to other countries the far right is very split and incoherent . After the collapse of Golden Dawn the overtly anti-migrant fascists, neonazis , ethnonationalists, alt-right nutjobs, religious nutjobs etc are split over 4-6 parties with basicaly no organizational strength or organic reach. They wont and cant reach any really threatening unified movement as of now and they mostly overtly clownish and lame
KKKanadian super-pigs are about to invade the U.S.
Also did you know that the USDA has drones and airplanes dedicated to hunt pigs on the border? Is there seriously not a single agency that doesn't have an armed wing?
Hordes of "super pigs" are running amok in Canada, and may soon spill across the border into the northern U.S.
These wild feral pigs, which roam Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada, are predicted to be moving southwards into Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana.
What makes these pigs such a threat is that they are a result of crossbreeding between wild Eurasian boars and domestic swine. The animals combine the boar's environmental resistance and the pig's size and fertility to create a rapidly reproducing population that is very hard to eradicate.
The U.S. has already started to be invaded by these feral pigs, with around 6 million of the swine having entered at least 35 states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Now, however, the Canadian populations may descend from the north.
"Hybrid populations of wild pigs are not a new issue in the U.S. Generally resulting from the interbreeding of domestic swine and introduced Eurasian wild boar for hunting purposes, hybrid wild-pig populations in the States have the larger size and reproductive rates of domestic swine and the hardiness of wild boar," Elizabeth A. Bradley told Newsweek. She is a researcher at Auburn University's College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Environment in Alabama.
"This is part of what facilitates the negative impacts of this invasive species on natural ecosystems and agricultural production," Bradley said.
These pigs are considered an invasive species due to the level of damage they can cause: they tear up farmland, rooting for bugs and eating plants, destroying crops and disrupting local wildlife. In southern U.S. states including Texas, these wild pigs already cause billions of dollars in damage to croplands every year. They can also spread diseases to domestic pigs at farms, including African swine fever, and have even been known to attack humans, though this is infrequent.
"The impact of wildlife on our populations is a fact in general. In the last few years, the numbers of feral pigs and wild boar increase more and more," Domenico Fulgione, a professor of population ecology at University of Naples Federico II in Italy, told Newsweek.
"The United States of America has spent more than $1.5 billion every year because of the damage caused by feral hogs, the hybrid form that lives in their territories. The most-important issues are down to the depression of biodiversity; wild pigs destroy the undergrowth of many forests, alter the soils, and prey on many species of ground-nesting birds, as well as reptiles, amphibians and plants of various species, even rare ones.
"Damage is also caused to farms because of rooting. They crash into our cars, and also epidemics are a consequence of their big populations," Fulgione added.
These pig hybrids also reproduce very quickly, having up to six piglets in a litter, of which they can have two in a single year. The population of swine is so fecund that, even if 65 percent of the pigs were killed every year, the total number would still rise.
The presence of these pigs could significantly disrupt native ecosystems, and have knock-on effects all across the food chain.
"In Europe, for example, due to a considerable increase in wild boars, we have observed a significant increase of its predators, the wolves, but an increase also in some types of scavengers such as jackals. Even predators, if in large numbers, are difficult to manage and make compatible with agriculture and animal husbandry," Fulgione said.
"Furthermore, an effect on the populations of human hunters should not be overlooked, which will inevitably increase the food consumption of meat that is not always carefully and meticulously analyzed by health professionals. The transmission of diseases by parasites that also infest humans is sometimes directly proportional to the increase of these host animals and their reckless consumption," Fulgione added.
The USDA is attempting to keep the Canadian pigs out of the U.S., using aircraft and drones to patrol the border. Experts are considering ways to wipe out the pigs, as hunting is unsuccessful. It often results in no more than 2 or 3 percent of the animals being culled, and makes them more wary and nocturnal, and therefore harder to track down.
Some suggestions for controlling the population include large ground traps, net guns fired from helicopters, or even poison, but this risks harming other native wildlife.
"We can't forget that they are complex animals. Looking at their habits, we understood that they are skilled in pre-adapting to the environments they are going to invade," Fulgione said.
"Hogs must be studied before defining a common strategy that must be shared between states. Killing? Traps? It depends both on environmental and social variables. The interaction with our species is very close, and management has to deal with this element."
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COTW: Country Of The Week
COTW: Content Of The Warning
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the situation in Israel "every group has terroists...." and went on the conflate Pakistan with Palestine.
