Or perhaps the end of the beginning, if you’re a little more pessimistic.

Image is from this Bloomberg article, from which I also gathered some of the information used in the preamble.

While Trump was off in the Middle East in an incompetent attempt to solve a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis, China has been doing something much more productive.

Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, had a summit with CELAC (a community of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries). There, he promised investment, various declarations of friendship, and visa-free entry for 30 days for citizens of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. Lula signed over 30 agreements with China. Colombia is joining the New Development Bank and hopes to gain the money for a 120-kilometer railway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as an alternative route to the Panama Canal. Even Argentina, ruled by arch-libertarian and arch-dipshit (but I repeat myself) Milei, was uncharacteristically polite with China as he secured a currency swap renewal to shore up their international reserves.

It wouldn’t really be correct to say that Latin America is “siding with China over the US” - leaders in the region will continue to make many deals with America for the foreseeable future, and even Trump’s bizarre economic strongman routine won’t make them break off economic and diplomatic relations. What’s significant here is that despite increasing American pressure for those leaders to break off all ties with China, few appear to be listening - and given that China is perhaps the most important economy on the planet right now, that is a very predictable outcome.

As the current American empire takes actions to try and avoid their doom, those very actions only guarantee it. As Latin America grows ever more interconnected with China and continues to develop, America will grow ever more panicked and demanding, and this feedback loop will - eventually - result in the death of the Monroe Doctrine.

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

Please check out the RedAtlas!

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.

  • dualmindblade [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    50·
    14 hours ago

    The very first paragraph of the final report from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, a PDF that took 3 years and presumably millions of dollars to create

    Americans are already familiar with how the Chinese government conducts economic warfare with crucial technologies such as semiconductors: corner the supply chain, then choke it to weaken the United States. But this is not the last time Beijing will run this play, and it is not even the most dangerous version of it.

    Imagine a not-so-distant future where researchers in Shanghai develop a breakthrough drug that can eliminate malignant cells, effectively ending cancer as we know it. But when tensions over Taiwan reach a breaking point, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the strategic apparatus of the Chinese government, hoards the treatment under the guise of national security, cutting off supply to the United States. After years of access, this lifesaving drug is immediately in shortage, requiring doctors to ration it while American biotechnology companies scramble to reconstitute production in the United States. The streets and social media overflow with people demanding that the United States abandon Taiwan. The Administration faces an agonizing choice between geopolitical priorities and public health.

    This scenario is fiction. But something like it could soon become reality as biotechnology takes center stage in the unfolding strategic competition between the United States and People’s Republic of China (China).