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.
They didn’t “lay out a political program” dude. They talked for 2 hours and just repeated slogans and played on emotions the whole time. They never talked about what is to be done outside of “continuing to show up” and “voting” and vague “we will win, there’s more of us” stuff.
No specific political program was outlined. No education was done. Most of the speakers were Democrats or incoherent Liberals with muddled weird speeches that contradicted themselves.
If the speakers were actually socialist, and actually espoused radical positions, the composition of the crowd would change organically. The Ukraine flag waving boomer MSNBC Liberals would not come back, and the leftist radicals who find this to be a big DNC wank would return.
Then to me it sounds like PSL just got a spot on stage and made a flyer, not put this together. That happens sometimes. My branch was offered a spot on the same stage as our piece of shit Democrat mayor and we took it to counter him. If we declined, what do we achieve besides giving up an opportunity? Luckily in our city we quickly ran the Dems out of town regarding 50501 and radicalized the organizers to something much closer to our political line. Not every city achieves the same success.
I’ve organized lots of these things with the party and if a party-run event did what you’re describing it would go against all of our tactics with protests and the branch should be disciplined. A flyer in the PSL style doesn’t reveal the internal workings of an action, who was actually making decisions under what terms.
We don’t want the liberals to leave, we want them to move to our side. The goal isn’t to get protests full of leftist radicals (at this stage for protests of this sort) because they’re already on board. They should be organizing this and other events, not holding signs all day. The goal is to engage people entering political motion, move them left ,and bring them into organization. You keep saying the protests themselves won’t achieve anything on their own - obviously. So think for a second about what the point of engaging with them is.
I think peaceful marches have no purpose right now and this is a wank and waste of resources, and all you will accomplish is moving yourself and your organization closer to Democrats instead of the other way around.
People are demanding more radical action. They are looking for a banner to flock to. And PSL has not yet risen to the occasion. PSL would grow faster and radicalize more people if they themselves were a shining example of what people should be doing. Instead they are still doing nothing, even when the situation cries for more. Even when the masses yearn for someone to actually confront ICE.
The Bolsheviks exploded in size and “moved people left” by opposing the Tsar in real ways, not just peaceful protests. The peaceful orgs dried up and disappeared.
The PSL is not exclusively a protest org. They are protesting and also organizing community defense of immigrants to counter ICE look at what they’re doing in Ventura County
Did you come to this conclusion through a combination of first hand experience of their limitations and a historical understanding of political change?
I’ve come to it from attending 15 years of peaceful protests accomplishing nothing, and sometimes even worse, the fetishism of civility often stamps out and kills actual potential that flares up during riots
Most of the people protesting around 50501 have basically no prior experience. They don’t knit about or are afraid of more radical actions. They are where you were 15 years ago. Will you punish them for it? Or will you show up and say “I was where you are, and I want to help you learn from my experiences and go further”? That is the PSL’s strategy towards peaceful protests. They are not an end. They are a tool to build connections and radicalize people.
I think we should just actively disregard the 50501 boomer liberals, they are not the base of the revolution. In 15 years they will be dead from old age lmao. Have you seen the average age at these things?
50501 got a record number of people out protesting. That’s more than any leftist org has been able to do, and that’s because most of the US is still very much liberal. If we acknowledge a mass movement is needed to make change, which we should as Marxists, then we need those people to be on our side and not against us. And to do that you nerd political advancement and education, the kind the liberals and right have been doing through their mass media channels for the last 50 years.
You are free to organize people a different way, fire bombing police stations or whatever it is you’re thinking they should do, and you might get some leftist anarchists helping you out with that too, and I for sure think it will be based, but I’m not sure you’ll get the mass movement. We’re all after the same thing, it’s a all a matter of means. The Democrats and most Dem Socs are not after the same thing, so long as the PSL retains it’s independence by staying a different party from them, that’s the difference and why they won’t be moved right. It’s why you don’t see them out here condemning Maduro or Cuba like AOC or Zohran.
False. Palestine Action, in a single action, did more damage to imperialism and achieved more for the global working class than all of the millions of paraders at the No Kings Parade day festival, which achieved nothing other than just clogging up cities to dance in silly outfits.
Are we communists? Act like it. Stop this tailist Liberal nonsense. If you meet the liberals where they’re at you just become a Liberal. You just get integrated into this failed system. You have to be willing to stand on principles to grow when the time is right. At crucial moments you have to make the decisive and correct decisions, that’s how the bolsheviks and the CPC and others won against all odds. Correct analysis, correct timing, correct principled decisions and not buckling to what the Liberal masses wanted in their false consciousnesses.
it sounds like that PSL chapter just sucks which supports my earlier comment
is there somewhere in the country where PSL events are anything other than permitted marches?
im not aware of any advertised civil disobedience, but my impression is they have a big hand in the ICE watch community defense stuff in areas they have a strong presence along with other various mutual aid programs. if there were any PSL agitators somewhere in any protests they’ve kept it to themselves