Image is allegedly of the note Trump wrote while editing a speech while on the way back from the G20 summit.
The top Russian-Chinese agent, Donald Trump, has decided that the pace of dedollarization and the decline of American financial hegemony is going too slowly. He has therefore decided to put tariffs on everybody; from America’s largest trading partners to uninhabited islands. In the process, he is trying to create an autarkic America. Jokes aside, interpretation and analysis of this has ranged across a wide spectrum. I think we can broadly agree that the most idiotic are the “true believers”; those that actually believe Trump’s every word, and that this will somehow bring back American manufacturing and whatever other inane promises he has made.
However, there is a much more interesting debate. The first camp are those who believe Trump is acting as an inadvertent accelerationist due to his lack of understanding about how the world economy and dollar hegemony functions (and that this will subsequently ensure that countries flock to China instead). The second camp are those who believe that Trump does know what he’s doing, at least to a certain extent, and that the effective result of this period of madness will be countries kowtowing to the United States; renegotiating trade deals to be even more in favor of the US in order to get tariffs reduced. There’s even a yet more cynical camp who believes that in fact, this entire trade war is just theater for further national wealth redistributions from poor to rich; that all these monumental international trade wars are more of a sideshow. To quote the linked article: “[…] out of the mountain of tariffs that threaten to turn into a global trade war will emerge the mouse of further tax cuts.”
I’m not embarrassed to admit that I have absolutely no idea which one of these is the closest model to reality. We’re in new economic and political ground, and even if the tariffs are quickly renegotiated and/or dropped, the impacts will continue to reverberate around the world for years. I’m sure we’ll debate this for months to come here, though!
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
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.
idk if we’re allowed to link mutual aid threads here https://hexbear.net/post/4572197 sorry mods if not lmk and will delete
Ex-Marxist turned right-winger Mario Vargas Llosa, candidate for the Peruvian presidency in 1990, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, has died at the age of 89.
Freikorps, but more institutional. This is exactly what ICE was created for.
Mearsheimer has given an interview to one of the Finnish tabloid rags and this also made the national news today which was citing the tabloid article.
The article part tries to shit on him but also states his views on how he thinks Finland joining nato was a mistake, the Finnish president is a lib and that the Ukraine war is the result of nato expansion. This might be worth reading via translate as the tabloid tries very hard to undermine his opinions, but as they try to be nuanced, it largely fails in this.
The article seems to have 1000 comments, but those can’t be read without signing into their site. That is a lot of cope for a country this size.
Ecuador Election Update BREAKING: “We don’t recognize the results,” says Revolución Ciudadana candidate.
- Kawsachuan News
Big brain move: notice the market get too volatile and insecure, so you keep changing the economic outlook every 12 hours so that the big players don’t know wtf is happening and decide to just hold out for a while and not sell anything.
//
On another note, it’s hard to appreciate the timescale of the American empire while you’re living through it. I just noticed that the possibly strongest empire in human history started to crumble after what, 70-80 years? I usually think of empires lasting for centuries, with generations and generations of a golden age.
Left-wing and progressive parties in Ecuador express concern over the series of irregularities by the National Electoral Council (CNE) and the government of presidential candidate Daniel Noboa, implemented just hours before today’s presidential runoff elections.
The statement reads:
Throughout the electoral process, we have witnessed the shameful role played by the National Electoral Council (CNE). It has failed to fulfill the functions established in the Constitution, which, among other things, mandates that it be the overseer of the electoral process and guarantor of transparency and equality for all contestants in the elections, but none of this has been fulfilled. The latest events we note below should concern and outrage all of us who defend democracy and transparency.
- Last-minute relocation of 18 polling stations under the guise of winter weather. Rain has been ongoing for two months, and flooding has been punishing for two weeks. However, the decision was made at the last minute. Coincidentally, these changes affect the precincts where the ruling party did not perform well in the first round.
- National government broadcasts, four times a day, in complete electoral silence, announcing alleged government actions; something that is expressly prohibited by law, but the CNE remains silent.
- Delegations of international election observers are prevented from entering the country.
- Use of state resources to distribute bonuses (USD 570 million), last-minute payments to state suppliers, and unofficial trips by the presidential candidate, all for the purpose of campaigning.
- Decree of a state of emergency in 7 provinces, suspending the civil rights of inviolability of the home, correspondence, movement, and assembly; Coincidentally, these are the same provinces where presidential candidate Noboa failed to receive a favorable vote in the first round.
- Suspension of voting for Ecuadorians in Venezuela.
We demand that the CNE assume its responsibility and guarantee transparent elections within the framework of the law. We are vigilant for the good of the country; we will not allow them to violate democratic principles. We alert international organizations, the EU, the UN, the OAS, and civil society oversight bodies about these regrettable events that continue to affect our country’s weak democracy and hinder this process of citizen participation.
Ecuador Election Update (Sources: Radio Pichincha):
Luiza Gonzalez: denounces electoral fraud after the first official results of the ballot. “There are about 11 polls in which all of them, even those of the government itself, gave us the victory”, she emphasizes. “I denounce before my people, the media and the world that we are living a dictatorship and we are facing the worst and most grotesque electoral fraud in the history of the Republic of Ecuador”, she asserts.
“In the name of the men, women, children and young people we represent, in the name of the people we represent, we do not recognize the results presented by the CNE”, said Luisa Gonzalez from the headquarters of Revolucion Ciudadana. She also indicated that they will request the recount of votes and the opening of the ballot boxes.
Correristas claim they have 52% of the votes, against 48% of Daniel Narcoa
Nicaragua has withdrawn its support for South Africa’s case against the Apartheid entity at the ICJ, confirmed on 3 April - ICJ official post
No immediate reason was given, but it is suspected that Trump had painted a target on Nicaragua’s back and may have threatened to retaliate against the 450,000 Nicaraguans living in the US, in addition to Nicaragua’s cordial relations with South Africa (who is now also being accused of complicity in 7 October, as an escalation of atrocity propaganda by the Orange Führer’s friends).
Death to ameriKKKa
Wisconsin teen killed parents as part of Trump assassination plot - apnews link as well.
A newly unsealed search warrant also alleges that the suspect’s phone contained material relating to a neo-Nazi group called the Order of Nine Angles and praise for Adolf Hitler.
The alleged double murder “appeared to be an effort to obtain the financial means and autonomy necessary to carrying out his plan”, investigators wrote.
The trump would-be-assassins are getting crazier every time
Vargas Llosa has died.
Peruvian writer and politician Mario Vargas Llosa died this Sunday in Lima, where he lived with his family. Since distancing himself from left-wing politics, he has embraced right-wing politics. In 1989, The Washington Post would write that though Vargas Llosa’s party appeared center-right, “he has ties with far-right politicians in other countries”.
Vargas Llosa has continued to be criticized due to his association with far-right groups and politicians. The Christian Science Monitor would call Vargas Llosa “a right-wing maverick” while Jacobin would plainly describe him as a “far-right novelist”.
Vargas Llosa has described himself as a supporter of liberalism and said that the individuals who have had most impact on his political thought have included Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek and Isaiah Berlin. According to The Nation, Vargas Llosa would condemn leftist groups entirely due to the controversies of some while minimizing similar actions by neoliberal governments.
He supported right-wing libertarian candidate Javier Milei in the 2023 Argentine general election. Following the arrest of Augusto Pinochet for crimes against humanity in 1999, Vargas Llosa would write an op-ed in The New York Times asking why left wing dictators were also not being arrested.
During the 2022 Brazilian general election, Vargas Llosa expressed his endorsement for conservative leader Jair Bolsonaro. “The case of Bolsonaro it’s a hard question. His jokes are very hard to endorse, for a liberal […] Now, between Bolsonaro and Lula, I prefer Bolsonaro. Even with jokes from Bolsonaro, Lula no.” said Vargas Llosa at a conference
Pavel Palisa a top ukrainian official wants women conscripted into army. “No matter how wild it sounds now, maybe we need to learn the experience of Israel in this” https://zamin.uz/en/world/147845-ukraine-may-introduce-mandatory-military-service-for-women.html
Clarification: China has stopped exports of almost all rare earth minerals and magnets, while they implement a new system that will prevent those minerals & magnets from reaching select US corporations, primarily US weapons manufacturers. Then, exports will resume.
Lmao, apparently Trump is now calling the tariff exemption “fake news.” Here’s the content of his Truth Social post, which is apparently now how trade policy is being “clarified.”
spoiler
NOBODY is getting “off the hook” for the unfair Trade Balances, and Non Monetary Tariff Barriers, that other Countries have used against us, especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst! There was no Tariff “exception” announced on Friday. These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff “bucket.” The Fake News knows this, but refuses to report it. We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations. What has been exposed is that we need to make products in the United States, and that we will not be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like China, which will do everything within its power to disrespect the American People. We also cannot let them continue to abuse us on Trade, like they have for decades, THOSE DAYS ARE OVER! The Golden Age of America, which includes the upcoming Tax and Regulation Cuts, a substantial amount of which was just approved by the House and Senate, will mean more and better paying Jobs, making products in our Nation, and treating other Countries, in particular China, the same way they have treated us. The bottom line is that our Country will be bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Monday is going to be wild.
