Thank you to @carpoftruth@hexbear.net for covering my position as Supreme Dictator of the Goddamn News while I was moving and getting set up in my new home in a top secret Kremlin-funded bunker five hundred feet below the ground. Our regularly scheduled programming returns this week.
On October 9th, Daniel Chapo won the Mozambique general election with about 70% of the vote. Chapo is the head of FRELIMO, the Marxist-Leninist party of Mozambique’s liberation, which fought an internal anti-communist resistance called RENAMO which was backed by Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa; Frelimo won in 1975. However, as the USSR fell, Frelimo began to allow elections inside Mozambique, and has ruled the country with significant majorities in each election ever since.
The main opposition party inside Mozambique is Podemos, which is led by Venancio Mondlane, a former member of Renamo and trained inside the USA. He alleges that his polling figures predicted a majority win for him, not Frelimo, and has accused Chapo of electoral fraud. There have been the usual slogans about how they yearn for freedom. The EU, of course, “witnessed irregularities.” As @WilsonWilson@hexbear.net has pointed out, Mozambique has massive undeveloped gas fields and is outsourcing the development process to France, Norway, the UK, and the USA, while mysterious Islamist groups have popped up to cause chaos in the exact regions which have the gas, slowing the process of actually developing those gas fields. Overall, it appears to be a cookie-cutter colour revolution attempt by the imperial core designed to install a comprador for cheaper resources. Its proximity to BRICS+ member South Africa may also be significant, noting the colour revolution in Bangladesh earlier this year exerting influence near India and China.
Protestors have been battling against the police and government since late October, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries as well as massive disruption, as the government has intermittently blocked access to the internet and social media. As of today, calm appears to be returning, with border crossings beginning to reopen.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.
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.
Well you’re certainly no Arghiri Emmanuel… what on earth is your basis for these remarks? Does this stuff just come to you? I saw you elsewhere here demanding people read articles for you so that you might comment on them. Interesting research method I must say.
That’s called a joke, comrade.
But seriously, myanmar and thailand should both be overthrown. The monarchy is evil, I don’t care if they want to join brics. As for myanmar, the country has been abusing it’s minorities for years. (The rohingya are not like people in xingjiang, they really are suffering) They are not socialist anymore and haven’t been socialist for quite some time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Solidarity_and_Development_Party
So which part is actually the joke? Was repeatedly asking people for an AI style summary the joke? Because it wasn’t. On the other hand it still sounds like you believe in this Hearts of Iron IV Mearsheimer stuff based on the followup. You must be a kid or something throwing out this absolutely barebones knowledge of what’s going on in Myanmar while also making bold “serious” assertions about countries being “destroyed” in order for China to grow. They have demonstrated they do not have to do this, which I contrast with the Arghiri school of world systems and the Mearsheimer style international relations people, who project this need for exploitation and conquest on to a country which encompasses enough resources to achieve limited autarky. I don’t actually find anything you’ve said funny period so I would really appreciate a “synopsis”, since apparently we are comrades.
Actually it’s funny you mention mistaking them as socialists, one of the podcasts I’ve seen posted here, Radio War Nerd, I forgot to mention here that they tried to imply socialists should have critical support for the TPLF in Ethiopia (they use child soldiers and are allied with US evangelical neocons) because they used to be Maoist aligned… decades ago.
I worry that Myanmar could end up getting the same kind of sloppy treatment. I haven’t seen any serious discussion of it. The usual “they had a genocide against Muslims under the US regime as well as the new junta and it is complicated” comes up for sure. Seems like a product of Voice of America and RFA funding, this awareness, moreso than research, as Manipur should get mentioned as much when people talk about the worldwide Islamaphobia going on
I do not know you. Anyways, good, not interested (still would feel obliged though) in retreading arguments with either Arghiri or John Mearsheimer fans tonight. I was not under the impression Myanmar is socialist. Was expecting something like framing the China-friendly militias on the border as destabilizing the country. As far as destabilizing regional influences, I point the finger at Thailand copying US aid legislation.
Why did you respond 3 times? And did you just imply that the rohingya aren’t being ethnically cleansed?
Lol I love this response “shit this guy is verbose, I have to get rid of him!”. Why didn’t you answer any of my questions? I had more thoughts on the conversation after a few minutes, and then a few hours, and I made it easy for anyone to respond to a broken down chunk of what I wrote.
Why did you respond with an accusation that is easily refutable by reading what I wrote?
Please point out what I said makes you think I deny there are pogroms against Muslims in Myanmar. Are you going to ask me for my own synopsis?
No, not only that, I specifically made a point of comparing the pogroms against Muslims in Myanmar to the BJP pogroms in Manipur and then deleted it accidentally as it was part of a bit I considered vaguely mean spirited when I am really being overall friendly here. Apparently not brusque enough since you didn’t get my point.
…you’re being histrionic in a way that deflects from the topic, which is why I am not engaging you.
Nothing I said is deflecting from anything. I have tried to more deeply engage you on a subject you brought up in the thread. Apparently you were being glib, you deflected repeatedly. You don’t have to reply if you have nothing to say.
In fact I just went back to correct what I said to show I now understand your confusion slightly more as I accidentally deleted a comparison between pogroms against Muslims in Myanmar and in Manipur (India).
You are engaging with me, you just asked me if I think pogroming Muslims is cool. Is asking someone what they meant by “it was a joke” when it was ambiguous, in order to potentially discuss international relations, is that histrionic? Or is deliberately misreading someone to try to paint them as a bad person histrionic?
That’s alot of text. Christians fighting the myanmar government are oftentimes lefties, same way there are also ethnic Chinese rebels.
When I see a lot of text I also start assuming people are simultaneously really a big fan of Thailand’s monarchy due to BRICS-friendliness while wanting to cheer on anti-Muslim pogroms. I am sure that was another “joke”.
My point was literally just that Chinese actions are to stabilize their border countries and you didn’t make it clear what part of your statement was a joke.
P.S. Asking people for cliff notes of articles they post is a pet peeve. I won’t press the issue. Personal stance, though, online is supposed to be turn-based. Using a turn to ask someone to spend a turn on what you should have spent a turn on just bugs me. It’s a balance of course, as posting things without explanation or sourcing then forces everyone else to waste time looking things up. THE BALANCE MUST BE PRESERVED BEAN.