Image is of a protest in San Diego against ICE.
On January 7th, 37-year-old Renee Good was murdered by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. While a considerable amount of the discussion online has been about the direction her wheels were turning and things like that, truthfully, I think it’s just fundamentally bad to shoot a person to death with a gun if you happen to be a state mercenary enforcing an incredibly racist federal policy, regardless of the circumstances.
The murder has since prompted a wave of vigils and protests, not only in Minneapolis, but also in virtually every major city in the country. The demands are justice for Good in particular, and the abolition of ICE in general, to avenge its many victims. The Trump administration has done all they can to inflame the situation, designating Good a “domestic terrorist” and saying that the agent who shot her will be immune from prosecution.
Protests and resistance to this administration’s policies have, encouragingly, had an element of international solidarity - not only are flags from countries throughout Latin America (and also Palestine) present, but speakers in protests have even been actively condemning the recent imperialist actions against Venezuela. For it is, of course, one joint struggle. The imperial boomerang always returns - and in the modern day, it returns rapidly.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
The US is not in a good way right now and it’s very hard to imagine any kind of return to the conditions of a year ago. Trump is fucking wildin out, and the people are responding in a way we haven’t seen since the George Floyd Rebellion of 2020. The internationalism you mentioned is in large part, I’m proud to say, a result of
being the leading organizing force in most of these protests. The outage and unrest are only accelerating and a communist vanguard party is well positioned to push that movement far beyond where it’s been so far.
I posted a lot last year about efforts for the Party to connect with the 50501/NoKings protest. Those were able to mobilize enormous numbers of people, but only in the form of very neat and gentle weekend marches. Now, that relationship has grown much stronger - one of 50501’s national leaders was on a recent People’s Forum webinar in response to the attack on Venezuela and she spoke firmly about the interconnectedness of national and international struggle. They are now committed to a joint day of action with the Party on January 20th. This is a mass school and work walkout - a significant escalation from getting together on a Saturday afternoon and a key stepping stone to the long term goal of a general strike. To get to the big GS, we need the masses to develop to resilience and dedication through practice.
A lot of that practice is already playing out in the sharp rise of protest frequency the last two weeks. People are ready to show up not just once every month or two but once or twice a week. And they are receiving the Party’s political and organizational leadership because of the skill and dedication of our cadre.
This wicked system will not last.
I’m very excited to see unity forming and PSL leading the charge. A real fuckin vanguard looking party. People are ravenous for answers and solutions to our situation and they are waking up that the Democrats won’t give it to them. All the while we have thousands showing up regularly and hearing socialists speak, maybe opening a lot of people’s eyes for the first time.
Best news I’ve read in ages. May it be the first pebbles that launch the avalanche. Love and solidarity to our American comrades.
Isn’t that a totally lib org? I blocked them on Bluesky because their posts were lib city.
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Edit 1
I had no idea it started on Reddit. And “grassroots”? I don’t believe that and there’s no mention of who funds it. Smells very fishy.
Also - how involved is the democratic party in this “grassroots” thing? They must have their tentacles involved. I simply can’t believe otherwise.
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Edit 2
I’ve been googling but the results are worse than shit.
It’s a space contested by libs and leftists. It draws millions of people and they will either be pulled to socialism or co-opted by the Dems.
I don’t know if you saw my edit. Also - who funds it?
In my experience, a lot of the original (local) organizers were basically just angry libs online who have never organized a day in their life, but looked to the Democratic Party for leadership informally. They seemed to mostly chat in discord and started having regular meetings eventually. There was no official structure or centralized leadership, although in places like DC it seemed like a slightly different story. Interestingly, where I live this also meant that unions which were often deeply attached to the Democratic Party were in contact and open to being involved, but the Democratic Party itself seemed to offer no help or financial support.
There is a big distinction (often missed by ultra-left tendencies) between the people showing up to these no kings events and the 50501 leadership regardless, and the PSL identified that this is opening a relatively progressive space for large numbers of dissatisfied working class people. -so by engaging with popular language, and even being helpful to their organizers (despite some significant political differences), there is massive potential to help shift the conversation toward revolutionary socialist consciousness to people who would have otherwise only looked to the Democratic Party.
This worked quite well, and showed itself in particular when the PSL successfully helped shift a “no kings” event to “ice out” messaging, which was a clear departure from the Democratic Party’s stance on immigration and would not have been the focus were it not for PSL (at least as far as I can tell). I know at least locally, this was also when the lib organizers were bullied into allowing our Palestinian coalition partners into speaking at their demonstrations and it was met with an incredibly positive response from the crowd that shut up all of the negativity coming from the most reactionary lib organizers. (where I live, the things they told the Palestinians not to say (that everyone ignored) ended up getting the most positive responses from the masses)
I agree with jack, this has proven to be the correct call and has potentially bridged the gap between the growing anti-imperialist movement in the US and the mass movement against Trump that otherwise would have inevitably ended with only a call to vote for the Democrats and something performative. Hundreds of thousands have been able to connect the dots between Trump and the system itself rather than just blaming Trump. And for instance, when Maduro was kidnapped, there was another break from the typical Democratic Party imperialist politics, where many many more people turned out than normal for anti-war demonstrations despite the democratic party bending over backwards to manufacture consent. Where I live, the local media even covered those actions, and mentioned the PSL, despite for years leaving out the Party’s name or attributing our actions to other socialist organizations if they covered an event at all. imo, it has also proven that the PSL can intervene in national politics in a way that a communist party has not been able to since the 30s. The US is still nowhere near broad revolutionary consciousness, but this is still a significant change
Yup,the difference in local media coverage lately has been wild to see.
I’ve interacted with a ton of these people. It’s definitely grassroots and nobody funds it. None of them had any clue what they were doing when they started a year ago and they had no resources or training. Just people mad at Trump who wanted to protest that went viral.
Somebody funds it. How involved is the democratic party?
you are assuming that the Democrats are competent, but they have so much contempt for their own constituents that they won’t lift a finger. They assume that it will all work in their favor as the official “Opposition” ™ - and the saddest part is that is true everywhere the communists exclude themselves from those spaces
What are you basing that on? What expenditure of funds have you seen?
They want to have control of it and in some cities they do. In other cities they’ve been totally boxed out. Lots of places remain contested. The leadership is very ideologically divided, but swaying more and more left.
Google is giving me shitty results. I searched for “50501 democratic party involvement”. The following is not a good source. But it’s the best I found so far.
[Edit. The source was simply too shity so I deleted the link and quote. I wish google worked. Sigh.]
The 50501/no kings protests in my nearest city are certainly 100% in alignment with the democrats, with local democrat officials speaking at them and instructing everyone to vote blue and indicating that voting blue is the only possible route to stopping trump. I don’t know anything about the movement’s organizers but the protests here just present as DNC stump speech events.
States have public donor databases that will contain detailed breakdowns. All of these 501 orgs have to report, usually on a quarterly basis.
It is funded by DNC associated groups
How would interacting with the random libs who show up give you any indication in who is funding the events? Are you speaking to the organizers themselves? I really don’t see how you are reaching these conclusions, this is an obvious DNC front group
Yes, I would recommend reading the comments you respond to
No it’s completely DNC controlled and Liberal. Entryism to DNC orgs doesn’t work. They will work to peace police the protests to death
No it isnt
This is not a DNC org and it’s not entryism
What does that even mean
If you don’t know what peace policing a protest to death means you obviously weren’t around for the dwindling and suffocation of the George Floyd riots into peaceful meek DNC campaign events, and you aren’t really trustworthy to advise on tactics and strategy if you aren’t familiar with this American tendency to protests
Ok
Watch as PSL walks right into the sheepdog trap laid out for them, as they do campaign events for Democrats. I really hope I’m wrong and PSL has some other plan cause based on an outside view their events are indistinguishable from 50501/No Kings events which are DNC campaign events. Them getting further entangled with those backstabbing opportunists does not bode well.
What do you think should be the strategy to engage with the very large numbers of people attending these protests?
PSL protests I see aren’t much different than the 50501 protests. Lots of American and Ukraine flags, lots of Drumpf gay with Putler signs, always permitted and law abiding and working with the cops.
I get that PSL has a target on their back right now with Trump singling them out, but can anyone tell me how this is any different than no kings 50501 permitted happy marches?
I feel like if PSL doesn’t escalate and rise to meet the moment they will be useless and discarded just like 50501 and no kings, as their protests are basically identical atm
me when im lyin
I literally went to two PSL events this week that 50% of the signs were American flags or some variation of epic witty Libshit.
The protest was permitted and we marched along approved routes while the cops kept us in bounds.
Want the pictures?
comrade, you either gotta get actively organised, or stop trying to wreck shit by whining about how it could be better
I’ve seen plenty to criticize from PSL, but if you’re not involved in this or another org, you’re just moaning online, you sound like a smug kid
I’m twice as old as you probably and have been through more shit than you know. PSL should look to movements like the Black Panthers (getting armed) and the civil rights movement (civil disobedience) at this crucial juncture. They are being too complacent and electoralist. This is the correct Marxist analysis of the situation, sorry it offends you. PSL is being too passive.
Sure
While I was there I saw 3 Ukraine flags, too many American flags to count, and over half the signs were things like “don’t kill lady Liberty” and “save our democracy and constitution” and that kind of No Kings shit. This was a PSL event. Just go to PSL PDX Instagram to see nonstop evidence of this at their rallies.
When are they going to do anything cause right now they do peaceful permitted marches and that’s it. They are 100% identical to No Kings in their composition and tactics.
Yes, these photos definitely depict
Also,
Bother to pay attention to what the party actually does before you make claims like this. Or just continue to vaguely yell “do something”, I dunno, that seems like your vibe.
I didn’t have my phone, these aren’t my photos but ones curated by PSL’s instagrams. The reality there was much more lib than these photos. It was indistinguishable from a No Kings rally
Let’s say you’re right, which I have no reason to believe you are. What should the Party do when attendees show up with an American flag? Make them leave? Or de-emphasize the liberal messaging in the propaganda produced from the event? Something else?
Ok
i think you and your chapter do good work from what you’ve described on here but you need to admit that not every PSL chapter is even 1/10 as effective or principled as yours, it wouldnt be surprising at all to me that lunchfiend’s local PSL chapter is either libbed up or just too weak to actually meaningfully contest the dems’ message at these protests (which unless it is a relatively new chapter probably reflects poorly on the chapter’s leadership)
This would be an enormous failure if so and from my understanding of the party (which is good) is almost certainly not the case
This is much more likely. The party has to build its strength everywhere and contest with existing political forces both in opposition and alliance. My city has a very weak dem machine and had no existing left movement of scale when we showed up, so we filled the vacuum easily. Portland obviously isn’t like that. It’s also totally possible that this is just one event that was mostly Dem run and they managed to snag a spot they wanted to try taking advantage of.
i think the issue is that PSL kinda has the same problem as DSA to me: some chapters are 100x better than others and im not actually sure how much control the national PSL organization has over the individual chapters. if PSL sent an order down saying to escalate, how many chapters would actually be able to meaningfully escalate? hell, how exactly should they escalate? encourage protestors to riots? start arming their safety marshalls? etc.
The strength of the PSL vs organizations such as DSA is its ability to coordinate nation wide through its national organization. If the decision was made to escalate nationwide, I guarantee you every branch would do so.
i will take your word for it ig, but it still leaves the question in how many chapters actually have both the amount of dedicated cadre and integration into the community to actually carry out that order
Without revealing too much, I’m a member of a small branch, maybe a dozen members. We’re growing very quickly but we’re still definitely small. However, the national structure of the PSL allows us to punch far above our weight. When Maduro was kidnapped, we had 400 people show out to a demonstration with twelve hour notice. In a small city this is huge. While we were in the streets the (much larger) local DSA was putting out a both sides wrong statement (Maduro is a dictator BUT…) while the anarchist folks were locked in fierce internal debate (heard that theough the grapevine).
Yes, you’re right in that current tactics aren’t disrupting too much and likely due to limited capacity at the moment. However, we are growing at unprecedented rates and have the structure to truly respond once we’re ready.
The PSL is the real deal, able to turn in a dime nationwide. This is why you see Trump going on an unhinged rant about how we all have the same signs. If you’re not a member of an organization, I highly encourage you to join, or if you’re a part of another organization or union to direct them to work with the PSL.
Civil disobedience. This isn’t rocket science. How do people forget how civil unrest and disobedience works every time and default back to "peaceful protest"ism? Is this a uniquely American form of dementia?
it’s not rocket science but it’s not actually that far off imo? i dont really disagree that these peaceful protests will ultimately do nothing besides try and connect principled anti-imperialists together, but im also not the one risking the hammer of god coming down on my head by making the call to escalate at a protest im responsible for, so i think if we’re going to suggest they escalate we should be very specific in how we think they should escalate. get up on stage and call for a march on a police station? use your cadre to try and start a riot? do you send your safety marshals with rifles? there are a lot of different ways to escalate
No they shouldn’t “start a riot” those happen organically. They should fucking do what civil rights leaders did. Can i be more clear? They should occupy public locations, block commerce, shut down facilities, have sit-ins and in the meantime getting serious and training their members how to defends themselves and getting armed.