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?
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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.
Just a small update (or large in geopolitical meaning) on US military action around México and El Salvador. The US Coast Guard and Military planes that flew to El Salvador over Mexican airspace were not deportation flights as previously thought (the exact same US Coast Guard plane was used in deportation flights previously and photographed doing so by the Coast Guard themselves at the time, which is why deportation flights were suspected), these planes were actually part of a rescue operation/mission to look for a missing member of the US Coast Guard that fell overboard while operating off of the coast of Guatemala.
Therefore, there is no current deal between El Salvador and the USA with regards to deportations and housing “violent gang members” in jails, despite hints at it by Rubio. Also, the use of Mexican airspace for this rescue operation was an exceptional case, and given that US military deportation flights to Guatemala still avoid México’s airspace, I think it’s safe to say that Mexico will not allow the US military to use their airspace in future, outside of this rescue mission.
However, US reconnaissance flights are continuing on the border, and with plans designate the Sinaloa Cartel as a foreign terrorist organisation, these flights near their strongholds, and Mexican National Guard deployments there, start to make more sense.
Coast Guard Searching Eastern Pacific for Missing Service Member, USNI News, 6 February 2025
Thanks for the updates.
I think a US intervention becomes more and more likely at this point, after all you don’t gather intelligence for the lulz. The thing is: What shape it’ll have? To me they might be seeking to deploy special forces to eliminate the Cartels they want to destroy (Because let’s be honest, the Cartels themselves are useful for the US). I don’t think they’ll do a massive bombing campaign, perhaps an “israeli” style “buffer zone” and complete militarization of a huge chunk of mexican territory to “stop the flow of people and drugs”. Either way, such move would be a direct violation of Mexico’s sovereignty and a massive escalation, perhaps even absolutely worsening the region for many years to come.
I think US is going to try order around the Mexican National Guard/Military to do most of the dirty work on the ground. Of the 10 000 National Guard troops deployed, I think over 5000 are just going to Sinaloa cartel strongholds. If that’s not enough to satisfy the USA, I don’t know what will happen in future.
It will definitely worsen the region and Central America will get dragged in as always. A few cartels went straight into Flores the last time Mexico tried strong-arming the cartel and a number of Guatemala’s special forces joined them. Took years to make them leave and a lot of dead people in the process.
In a way we’re a sort of buffer along with Honduras and El Salvador that prevents them from getting much further past us. Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama don’t have nearly the same problem with cartels. Belize too for whatever reason.
Is there anything in the cartel territory that they US would want in terms of resources? Might be useful to start doing maps of resources in the country overlaid with current territory control.
This might actually benefit the Zapatistas in a way. The cartels have been hugely difficult for them and if they’re replaced with US troops they will be resistance fighters against a foreign invader instead.
Pancho Villa invaded Texas to bait the US into attacking Mexico so he could rally support. would not be the first time in Mexican history