Israel trying to pass the hospital bombing off as Palestine doing it is utterly disgusting and guarantees Netanyahu a spot in the deepest pit of Hell for all eternity, obviously, but do not forget that
a) the only reason why Westerners will believe it is because they want to believe it - they are not being brainwashed and this is not some masterful propaganda being weaved around us to turn kind-hearted people into monsters,
b) no Westerner opinions matter at all. In most Western countries there is no real anti-Israel option to vote for even if they did realize that Israel was a giant factory for crimes against humanity, and Westerners protesting against things in general almost never achieves anything (tens of millions protested for BLM in 2020 and not only did the situation not change, it got worse), and
c) the people whose opinions do matter (both the people in the region, and the leaders who aren’t already Zionist compradors) already know that Israel is full of shit and that they just murdered nearly a thousand civilians in a single bomb attack.
It is despair-inducing to think that the genocidal Zionist entity is so brazenly, so smugly getting away with bullshitting this away into a cloud of confusion, as they release their metaphorical squid ink just like they did with the stupid babies story, but the propaganda and the media narrative that they are creating isn’t what matters. It cannot address the fundamental contradictions ripping the country, the region, and the world apart any more than masterfully-applied makeup can fix a stab wound. It can merely obfuscate.
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
The Country of the Week is still Palestine! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
The weekly update isn’t coming because I’m sick and too focussed on the collapse of the Zionist entity.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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
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.
Last week’s discussion post.
https://archive.ph/1QPpK
Please dear God OPEC, do the funny
Mr. OPEC this is your opportunity
I honestly think an oil embargo at this moment could break the empire’s back, neither the US nor Europe is in a position to handle it. In particular the US’s fictional-ass economy would get real nonfiction real fast
The US is a net petroleum exporter country and even then, half of its imported oil came from Canada. America is going to do just fine. Europe, however, is fucked - which is exactly the outcome the US wants. America is going to eat up the whole of Europe.
The US is a petroleum product exporter but it has to import a lot of crude to put through the refineries. About twice as much as it’s able to produce locally. The Canadian supply wouldn’t be impacted, but I could see all of the other top countries on the list signing on to sanctions - maybe even Mexico under the right circumstances.
I don’t think the US would literally run out of gas, but I want to see a price shock. Oil companies being oil companies, they’ll raise pump prices even more than a price shock would justify, and significant damage can be inflicted on the American economy and political will to fight.
From the European angle, it would drive wedges between the US and European states, and more importantly between European populaces and their out-of-touch leaders.
It would also hasten the end of the petrodollar.
The thing you have to remember is that a lot of fracking operations become profitable as the prices rise. The fracking boom happened when we were at $100+ a barrell, and it came down because the Saudis wanted to reclaim market shares, so they increased production.
You are correct through that a lot of US refineries are set up to handle heavier, more sour crude than what comes out of Eagle Ford or Bakken, although most of it comes from Canada and Mexico.
How much easy fracking is left to do? At a certain point you’re spending more energy to get the oil out and refine it than you get back when you burn it
There’s an estimated 3.6B barrels recoverable oil in Eagle Ford currently, and the average breakeven point on those operations is around $60/barrel.
I wonder how much of the US inflation control over the past year can be contributed to draining half the strategic petroleum reserve to depress energy prices.
Oil prices are not added to calculation of inflation nor is food or housing
no, but think how much more expensive everything else would have gotten if oil prices hadn’t been controlled
OP is correct. The US inflation last year was mostly caused by supply chain disruption (post-Covid and Ukraine war), higher energy price (sanctions against Russia) and monopolists driving up prices in anticipation of high energy prices.
More expensive production cost, more expensive raw materials mining cost, more expensive transportation/logistics cost, and speculative price hiking (because capitalists perceive there to be an oil price increase) all factor into both producer and consumer price inflation and more.
The US government released unprecedented amount of SPR to ease the oil supply shortage, which would otherwise have caused even higher inflation and sent the global economy straight into recession.
There are 2 main measures of inflation, core and non core. Core CPI excludes food and energy because it is “too volatile”, it is the measure the Federal Reserve supposedly pays the most attention to regarding interest rate policy. However headline CPI is what tends to get the most press because it includes food and energy.
Right before winter baby! Do another war while half the world’s resources are cut off.