A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like “in Minecraft”) and comments containing it will be removed.

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.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist 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 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.

  • Socialism_Is_The_Alternative [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    43·
    2 days ago

    Pepe Escobar on the ongoing USD decline:

    The US dollar now represents less than 40% of global currency reserves - the lowest in at least 20 years. Gold now accounts for more global foreign exchange reserves than the euro, the yen and the pound combined. Central Banks are stockpiling gold like crazy, while BRICS accelerates the test of alternative payment systems in what I previously defined as “the BRICS lab”.

    One of the scenarios being directly proposed to BRICS, and designed as an alternative to cumbersome SWIFT, which does at least $1 trillion in transactions a day, features the introduction of a non-sovereign, blockchain-based trade token. That’s The Unit.

    The Unit, correctly described as “apolitical money”, is not a currency, but a unit of account used for settlement in trade and finance between participating countries. The token could be pegged to a commodity basket or a neutral index to prevent domination by any single country. In this case it would work like the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), but within a BRICS framework.

    https://sputnikglobe.com/20260114/pepe-escobar-how-brics-may-deliver-structural-shock-to-us-dollar-system-1123462096.html

    • xiaohongshu [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      25·
      2 days ago

      This does not compute at all.

      Central banks accumulate gold precisely because they couldn’t find/settle on an alternative, so they are shifting the risks of dollar depreciation (and confiscation by US sanctions) to the speculative gold market, which fluctuates as much as S&P500! Clearly a worse alternative.

      There will be no BRICS alternative currency (or a bancor-like settlement unit). Read Russia’s proposal on de-dollarization that was published during the BRICS Kazan summit in 2024 - it is one of the best written paper on de-dollarization and the Russian side was unusually realistic about it. The “basket of currency” idea was pretty much dead by then.

      Here’s what Putin told Batista (who’s mentioned in the Escobar article) at the Valdai Discussion Club meeting in November 2024:

      BATISTA (former vice president of BRICS New Development Bank): I would like to ask you, Mr President, if you could expand a little on two topics you touched upon in your presentation and comments: BRICS and the US dollar.

      What role do you see for BRICS in constructing alternatives to the unreliable and dysfunctional dollar system? Russia proposed during its 2024 chairmanship of BRICS a detailed, interesting proposal for a new system of cross-border payments based on national currencies.

      …

      My second point is a more difficult one. Don’t you agree that payments in national currencies have a limit and that we ultimately must move step-by-step, gradually and carefully towards new means of payment and a new reserve currency?

      PUTIN: … I have heard a lot of discussions at the expert and journalistic levels about the need to consider creating a single currency. However, it is too early to talk about that, and it is not a goal we have set for ourselves. To even consider a common currency, we would first need to achieve a higher level of economic integration among our countries. Secondly, the quality of our economies must reach a certain level, ensuring they are similar and compatible in terms of structure and performance. Anything beyond that would be unrealistic and could even be harmful. Therefore, there is no need to rush into this.

      I would like to conclude by reiterating something I often emphasise when answering questions like this. We never aimed to abandon the dollar, nor do we have such an intention. It is the political and financial authorities of the United States or Europe when they refuse to accept payments in euros. The euro has yet to establish itself as a global currency, and yet, they are undermining it themselves. It is absurd.

      Unfortunately Escobar has been selling the BRICS “basket of currency” idea on the alt-media sphere for so long that he’s essentially backed himself into a corner now that it has not and will not materialize. His articles often contain no sources and usually comprise of what his “high ranking officials” friends told him.

      • MarmiteLover123 [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        24·
        2 days ago

        His articles often contain no sources and usually comprise of what his “high ranking officials” friends told him.

        I still remember when he said that Israel had planned to set off an EMP from a nuclear weapon carried at high altitude by an F-35 over Iran, but Russia shot it down. I stopped listening to Escobar after that.

        • Jabril [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          15·
          2 days ago

          I first heard about him when I heard he chooses to publish on fascist website untz review, same as Michael Hudson. No one who chooses to publish content on a fascist website is worth any time, even if they said something right every now and again

    • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      14·
      2 days ago

      So if I understand this correctly, the trades would happen with normal currency (for example RMB and RUB), but the payment processor would use a neutral currency to clear the transaction or to escrow? If yes, that sounds good on paper.

    • mx_oceanwater_they_them [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      13·
      2 days ago

      The token could be pegged to a commodity basket or a neutral index to prevent domination

      Currency baskets … I think some “stable-coin” startup tried to do this in the US, the basket would include all power blocks currency (Dollar, Euro, Renminbi, Indian Rupies …) , but was quickly banned.