Image is of Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute a week or so ago.


I didn’t really want to keep spotlighting American domestic events as I had assumed that shit would calm down pretty quickly, but it appears that the Trump administration, including Musk, are determined to bring down the empire from the inside.

One of the most important lessons of ruling a country - and especially an empire - is to never, ever believe your own propaganda; and yet now we have neo-Nazi failsons disrupting parts of the imperial apparatus and causing general government mayhem because they actually seem to believe in libertarianism; that the state and the capitalists are somehow in opposition, rather than working in lockstep to maximise profit and boost American hegemony around the world.

I’m not so optimistic as to believe that a national collapse is FOUR DAYS AWAY, like those weird anti-China cranks often speculate - the US has at least a decade or two left even under these conditions. But consider the damage being inflicted in these past couple weeks, and extrapolate that over the next four years. Does any living American political figure possess the competency to halt - or even meaningfully slow - the already ongoing decline? And could they achieve power (or even be allowed to do so) after Trump’s term is done?


Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.


  • xiaohongshu [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    11 hours ago

    What we know about China’s retaliatory measures against the US

    As we reported earlier, China’s Finance Ministry has slapped tariffs on certain American items in retaliation for the Trump administration’s 10 percent tariff on all Chinese goods entering the US.

    Here are more details on China’s tit for tat levies:

    • Starting on February 10, China will impose levies of 15 percent for US coal and LNG and 10% for crude oil, farm equipment and some autos.
    • China’s Commerce Ministry and its Customs Administration said the country is also imposing export controls on tungsten, tellurium, ruthenium, molybdenum and ruthenium-related items to “safeguard national security interests”.
    • China’s anti-monopoly regulator has also announced it is launching an investigation into Google, without offering details. Google products, including its search engine, are blocked in China, but it works with local partners, including advertisers, in the country.
    • MarmiteLover123 [comrade/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      4 hours ago

      Yeah China is the only country the US has threatened tarrifs against with the ability to fight against the tarrifs, interesting to see how this develops. I think if we have a prolonged period of economic warfare, the global economy will suffer. When the elephants fight, the mice get hurt. But I fully support China in standing up to the USA. They’re the only country who can, and someone needs to do it.

      • xiaohongshu [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        2 hours ago

        Then you have Yi Gang, the former head of PBoC, who said in December that China should not retaliate against America’s sanctions because from an economics perspective, it’s not an optimal solution.

        With libs like this running the country, I say good luck.

        • mkultrawide [any]@hexbear.net
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          9 minutes ago

          It’s why you never let “wonks” touch the levers of actual power. They don’t understand anything that can’t be quantified on a spreadsheet.

    • KuroXppi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      10 hours ago

      tungsten, tellurium, ruthenium, molybdenum and ruthenium-related

      I’m not a mineral-head but some of those sound made up. They should ban exports of unobtanium just to really rub it in