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.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
WhatsApp hacked by Israeli spyware firm - and you don’t even need to click a link. Just receiving the message leaves you vulnerable.
Israel targeted around 100 journalists in the attack, according to Meta.
So yeah, if you have WhatsApp, it’s time to not have WhatsApp.
Removed by mod
China announces retaliatory tariffs on the United States, including export controls on certain rare earth minerals used for the aerospace, advanced technology and solar energy industries.
- Telegram
Georgian opposition leader Nika Melia and the former mayor of Tblisi, Gigi Ugulava were arrested along with several other protestors over the weekend in renewed protests against the Georgian government
Protests have been ongoing in the country since the November parliamentary elections, in which the Georgian Dream Party retained power and subsequently voted in a new president under new presidential election rules.
The former President of Georgia, Salomé Zourabichvili, left the country after her term expired but has yet to concede that she is no longer president.
- Telegram
Georgian Juan Guaido Gaiden Arc continues
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy7gp341j0o pretty concerning this contain specific instructions for how to become said cannon fodder
In awe of this woman’s ability to keep digging herself deeper and deeper
Removed by mod
Isn’t WhitePeopleTwitter the headquarters of the Brunch-liberals? I remember blocking that sub during the first trump admin because half of it was Jeff Tiedrich clapbacks, and all the comments would just be puns / songlyrics / Reddit-injokes that stopped being funny in 2013.
I saw it this morning. And I saw that some are saying that because the comments were violent the sub was supposed to be banned. Maybe that was Musk. 😁
The idea of a country called “The Savior” being a prison colony sounds like some very on the nose world building.
Lol they are offering to house inmates for a fee. Literally the foreign policy of a private prison.
The foreign policy of a slavery state, because that’s the jail they’ll probably be sent to.
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.
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.
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.
Get our ass Xi
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
go explore the periodic table and check up on the funny elements, it’s good entertainment
Bolognium, mamamium
Until MARS accepts its destiny as our beautiful 53RD STATE and supplies us with its precious turbinium ore, the White House has no choice but to place more TARIFFS on the Red PlanetTry to impeach this
wait until you hear about the Chinese monopoly on dysprosium, terbium, and praseodymium
I swear someone keeps adding fake elements to the lanthanide row when nobody is looking. The only real element is neodymium, the crazy magnet element
joe biden, the actor?
lol all that Canadian defiance and “we will never retreat!!!” was just piss in the wind, just as everybody already knew
I don’t understand why everyone seems to be buying Trump’s propaganda that Canada and Mexico are caving in, when it seems obvious that they’ve just successfully fobbed him off with bs promises that cost them very little
the Mexican border guard postings might as well be a domestic jobs program. that’s not even a real concession, usually nations pay to get foreign militaries away from borderlands. I think Sheinbaum or her team really got one over on trump/rubio there. The Canadian deal is just “drugs are terrorism” policies to mask civil repression, which is something they were already doing. And the opportunity to create a new alphabet agency for “counterterrorism” is like Christmas day for feds of all nationalities.
Actually these “deals” are so cheap I feel trump has to be trying to come back for more in a month
I seem to recall a WTYP episode about the Train Maya, where the mexican guest-host talked about the Mexican Army having quite a lot of influence on Mexican politics, and that AMLO was kind of afraid of potentially getting couped by the army, which was why his reforms couldn’t fundamentally touch the main points of corruption/sidedealing within the army. Some of that might have been cope that AMLO wasn’t as radical as some people hoped for, but it was probably also true to an extent, particularly given that previous links between the Mexican army and the US.
Canada agreed to implement a plan they already agreed to under Biden
Public Safety is coordinating the $1.3-billion effort to further strengthen the border, and disrupt illegal cross-border activity.
Basically giving Trump a propaganda victory to get him to shut up for a month.
So Canada had already caved to the US, then pretended to put up resistance for a few days, then went back to doing their usual business. Still really dumb of the libs to have thought that they were every going to seriously defy the US though
This isn’t “caving” to America, Canada is built on militarized repression of motility. This is a win for them, because they get to do something they already want (more cops to target migrants and Indigenous people under the guise of “security”) and now they even get to say that this thing they already wanted is absolutely definitely worth the money and really quite a “cheap” tradeoff to stop big bad America’s unreasonable tariffs.
Increased border security and larger military/police budgets is just standard operating procedure.
Trump proposes sending US prisoners to El Salvador
Classic Bukele move. This will no doubt spark more anti-Salvadoran sentiment in the region.
MS-13² coming soon, what could go wrong?
MS-169
Apparently according to the article they want to send MS-13 members (including those that may have obtained US citizenship) to El Salvador’s jails.
“Any unlawful immigrant and illegal immigrant United States who is a dangerous criminal – MS-13, Tren de Aragua, whatever it may be – he has offered his jails,” Rubio said.
I just knew that Bukele would pull a stunt like this.
Donald Trump wants Ukrainian rare earths deal in return for US military support US proposal appears to align with President Zelenskyy’s strategy to keep Washington onside
President Donald Trump on Monday said he wanted a deal granting the US access to Ukraine’s rare earths resources in exchange for continued military and economic aid to Kyiv as it struggles to halt Russia’s invasion. The proposal appears to align with a strategy Ukraine has been developing to deepen ties with the Trump administration by allowing the US access to critical minerals used in high-tech industries. Speaking at the White House, Trump reiterated complaints that Washington had provided more support to Ukraine than its European allies. “We’re looking to do a deal where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earth and other things,” he said of Ukraine. Trump suggested Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government was open to it. “We’re putting in hundreds of billions of dollars,” said Trump. “They have great rare earth. And I want security of the rare earth, and they’re willing to do it.” A person close to Zelenskyy told the Financial Times that Trump’s remarks “seem to align with the ‘victory plan’ presented to him in the fall”. The person said Ukraine had offered Trump “special terms” for co-operation on key resources, stressing the need to protect them from Russia and Iran. “Of course, we are ready to work with America,” the person added. Zelenskyy presented an outline of the plan to Trump in New York last September during the US election campaign. It includes the sharing of critical natural resources with western partners, replacing US troops in Europe with Ukrainian forces and offering Trump investment screening powers to block Chinese business interests in Ukraine. Kyiv holds vast reserves of titanium, iron ore and coal, as well as about 500,000 tonnes of untapped lithium, collectively estimated to be worth tens of trillions of dollars. Some of these resources are at risk of being lost to Russia’s advancing forces in Ukraine’s east, or have already fallen under Russian occupation. “Control over mineral resources has become a part of the war,” said Mustafa Nayyem, the former head of Ukraine’s state agency for restoration and infrastructure development. The country is not only fighting for its territory, he added, “but also for the right to manage its strategic wealth, which could be a crucial factor in its recovery”. Trump has vowed to bring a swift end to Russia’s war against Ukraine. He previously said his administration had held “very serious” talks with Russia over the war. “We made a lot of progress on Russia, Ukraine,” Trump said on Monday. “We’ll see what happens. We’re going to stop that ridiculous war.” While supportive of Trump’s enthusiasm to bring the three-year war to an end, the American leader’s suggestion that he had formulated part of a plan with Russia without Ukraine has irked leaders in Kyiv. Speaking to the Associated Press on Saturday, Zelenskyy said his team had engaged with Trump’s advisers and expected in-person meetings soon. “They may have their own relations, but talking about Ukraine without us — it is dangerous for everyone,” Zelenskyy said.
Too bad all those rare earths are in russia now.
I think a simple step is being missed here. Totally understandable.
To divvy up the remnants of Ukraine you have to actually win the war you incompetent fucking Imperialists!!!
I totally understand missing that part. It’s so minor and easily overlooked.
“They have great rare earth. And I want security of the rare earth, and they’re willing to do it.”
I would love for Trump to explain what he thinks a “rare earth” is, off the cuff
It’s like rare pepes but much, much bigger
“Rare earth is when you have a very tiny country. The more country you have, the less rare earth. The US is a lot of country, folks. Russia made Ukraine a very rare earth for us! Very kind”
As usual, typical American policy, but more mask off.
Will the liberals who decry this have any comments on the Ukrainian privitization website (formerly) sponsored by USAID?
Biden already got them to give over land and promises for future privatization in exchange for money & weapons: https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/war-and-theft-takeover-ukraines-agricultural-land
Trump is just being loud & stupid about something that is already basically a done deal, it is just a series of understandings and loan agreements and not one big piece of paper that says “US gets land & minerals”.
Trump to speak with China’s Xi after hiking tariffs, White House says
The call will be Trump and Xi’s first known talks since Trump took office on Jan. 20. They previously spoke before Trump’s inauguration.
“It’ll happen in the next couple of days,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said of the latest call.
…
“China hopefully is going to stop sending us fentanyl, and if they’re not, the tariffs are going to go substantially higher,” said Trump. “China will be dealt with,” he added.
China, which has long called tariffs counterproductive, offered relatively muted criticism of the tariffs and signaled an openness to talks.
The country’s government appeared poised to seek a deal with Trump that could delay or stop tariffs, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The U.S. dollar hit a record high against the Chinese yuan traded offshore and was hovering near those levels on Monday.
Here comes the main show. The others are just side shows, sorry.
I’ve been focussing elsewhere so I’m not up to date on the whole China fentanyl thing; is this something the US made up as a casus belli to tariff China or is it just “China makes everything so they also make fentanyl and it finds its way to the US”?
either way, I’m assuming that China will fold on whatever Trump wants here
China has acknowledged the issue and made steps to prevent it
The Justice Department acknowledges the efforts of the People’s Republic of China, Ministry of Public Security. The following companies are out of operation now: Jiangsu Jiyi Chemical, Tianjin Furuntongda Tech Co. Ltd, Wuhan Jinshang Import & Export Trading Co. Ltd., Hubei Shanglin Trading Co., and Wuhan Mingyue Information Technology.
In addition, DEA Administrator Milgram said, “I would also like to recognize the work done by the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of Public Security in taking action to schedule protonitazene, piperidone, and 1-BOC-4-AP, which were not scheduled at the time of these investigations, but have now been scheduled.”
Specific instances
Guangzhou Tengyue Chemical Co. Ltd., based in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, was charged with attempted importation of protonitazene, along with Chinese national Xiaojun Huang, who allegedly maintained a Bitcoin wallet for the remittance of payments for illicit synthetic opioids on the company’s behalf.
Hubei Shanglin Trading Co., based in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, was charged with attempted international money laundering, along with Chinese national Zhihan Wang, who was the alleged registered owner of a Bitcoin wallet associated with the company utilized to complete the sale of fentanyl precursors.
Jiangsu Jiyi Chemical, based in Beijing, Hebei Province, China, was charged with attempted importation of protonitazene, along with Ji Zhaohui, a Chinese national, who was the alleged holder of the Bitcoin wallet associated with the company.
Tianjin Furuntongda Tech Co. Ltd, based in Tianjin, Hebei Province, China, was charged with attempted importation of fentanyl precursors, along with Wenxing Gao, a Chinese national, who was the alleged registered agent of Tianjin Furuntongda and the owner of a cryptocurrency wallet associated with the company.
Wuhan Jinshang Import & Export Trading Co. Ltd., based in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, was charged with attempted importation of protonitazene, attempted importation of a fentanyl precursor, and attempted international money laundering, along with Wenying Nie, a Chinese national, who was the alleged holder of a Bitcoin wallet associated with the company.
Wuhan Mingyue Information Technology, based in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, was charged with attempted importation of fentanyl precursors and attempted international money laundering, along with Chinese national Huanhuan Song, who was the alleged recipient of funds via Western Union on the company’s behalf and the alleged holder of a cryptocurrency wallet associated with the company.
Henan Oumeng Trade Co. Ltd., based in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China, was charged with attempted importation of protonitazene and attempted international money laundering, along with Yinxia Zhao, a Chinese national, who was the alleged holder of the Bitcoin wallet associated with the company.
Shanghai Senria New Materials Co. Ltd. doing business as Shanghai Senria Biotechnology Co. Ltd., based in the Fengxian District of Shanghai, China, was charged with attempted importation of protonitazene and attempted international money laundering, along with Zhenbo Han, a Chinese national, who was the alleged holder of the Bitcoin wallet associated with the company.
The Fox News-tier story that’s been pushed around for the last few years is that Communist Triads (yes, seriously) are sending fentanyl one step away from being synthesized over seas, and the last step is done in Mexico or Canada. This dodges all customs, and furthers the nefarious plot to undermine our sacred and precious democracy. This explains a little why China, Mexico, and Canada are all part of the fentanyl thing in Trump’s mind. Warning for The New York Post, but it’s a good brainworm sample.
In reality, China has the largest chemical industry in the world, and makes most every precursor chemical used in USamerica. This includes chemicals used by pharmaceutical companies, and maybe savvy consumers, to make fentanyl and carfentanyl. Most precursors are some type of piperidone, and most of those are already List 1 chemicals. If you have the knowledge and equipment, you can synthesize fentanyl without using any of those precursors. You could also make your own piperidone the long way from black pepper. Is this a thing Trump will bring up and threaten about? Yes. There isn’t really a reality to the narrative though, so idk how China can fold towards the fantasy story.
They are gonna ban spices and we’ll truly enter a white people’s utopia
Trump’s logic is “China has been robbing us for so long” which is the exact opposite from what has been happening: that America has been getting free goods and services made from hardworking Chinese labor for years. That was the excuse last time. I don’t know about the fentanyl but he made up any excuse he wanted last time to commence a trade war with China.
We simply have to wait and see what the negotiations look like, which could take months and over many rounds, just like last time. Trump has also said that he will visit China in the first 100 days, so this could be a preliminary step towards that.
In any case, out of all the countries Trump has threatened, China is the only one that has the capacity to fight back. So it will be interesting to see what Trump actually wants here, and how much he is willing to offer/negotiate.
I’d expect some kind of win-win agreement coming out of this, but Trump is also known to be very inconsistent so who knows how much China is going to trust his words.
Yes to both of those lol
The USA reaffirming the one China policy seems like a way for Trump to show good faith with the negotiations.
donny wants treaty ports again
