Image is of a crowd protesting in Athens.
Last week, on Friday, hundreds of thousands of Greeks poured into the streets to strike and protest on the second anniversary of the deadliest train crash in Greek history, in which 57 people died when a passenger train collided with a freight train. On this February 28th, public transportation was virtually halted, with train drivers, air traffic controllers, and seafarers taking part in a 24 hour strike - alongside other professions like lawyers, teachers, and doctors.
The train crash is emblematic of the decay of state institutions brought about from austerity being forced on Greece in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession, in which the IMF and the EU (particularly Germany) plundered the country and forced privatization. While Greece has somewhat recovered from the dire straits it was in during the early 2010s, the consequences of neoliberalism are very clearly ongoing. Mitsotakis’ right-wing government has still not even successfully implemented the necessary safety procedures two years on, and so far, nobody has been convicted nor punished for their role in the accident. The austerity measures were deeply unpopular inside Greece and yet the government did not respond to, or ignored, democratic outcry.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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.
A number of schools in Hunan, Anhui and Zhejiang provinces in China have recently started implementing a new policy of 2-day off week for high schoolers, and have sparked quite a debate among parents and netizens in China.
- High schoolers in Grade 10 and 11 will now get 2 days off per week, and Grade 12 students get to have 1 day off every week.
- Currently, there is no weekend for many high schoolers in China (the “higher ranking” a school, the tougher the routine), you get half a day off per week (~2 days off per month).
- A typical high school day looks like this: wakes up at 6am, arrives at class room at 7am, starts morning self-study routine, sits through the classes, stays for the evening self-study session, gets home at around 10pm, and if you’re lucky, gets to bed at around 12am. Rinse and repeat every day.
- As anticipated, many parents are not happy with the new policy: the gaokao (national unified exam) is so competitive that even a 1-point difference in scoring can make or break your chances of getting into university. Some parents in Hangzhou are worried that their kids might be disadvantaged if kids from the other cities don’t have as many days off.
- This has led to an explosive demand for private tuition on the weekends as parents send their kids to tuition classes instead. Previously, tuition was part of the school program and parents pay ~1000 yuan per semester. Now they have to pay an additional 1000-2000 yuan per month.
- Some private tuition companies have seen the business opportunity and have begun advertising “weekend packages” for parents, with such slogans as “you can go to work with a peace of mind. we will take over the duty of the school to take care of your kids instead.”
- One such “weekend package” as reported by the news which includes tuition for 6 subjects + physical education costs 3680 yuan per month, which is 47% of the monthly income for an average household.
- Some parents are now petitioning for the schools to keep their libraries open on the weekend and crowdfunding to pay for the teachers’ “weekend overtime fee”.
- Even more absurdity ensued, as some schools received “letters to volunteer to return to school on the weekends” by “very concerned” students.
China can be a magical place sometimes. The level of extreme competition has intensified in recent years to such an extent that it is taking a toll on everyone’s daily lives, and I don’t blame the people who want to emigrate to Western countries at all. I know many Chinese immigrants overseas who don’t want to put their kids through this.
A society doing this to their children is profoundly sick. (As are western societies, to be clear).
This is sadly common in East Asian culture.
South Korea is just as tough if not even worse. The CSAT started in 2006, and while gaokao exams took place over 2-3 days, for CSAT, students have to finish the exams for all 6 subjects in just over 8 hours.
There was a South Korean documentary made in 2016 (공부의배신 Betrayal of Study) that examined the lives of high school students. One girl slept only 4 hours every night, took 5-6 doses of coffee to stay awake, spent more than 10 hours practicing writing on exam papers that her fingers formed blisters and started to bleed. She ended up tying the pen to her finger with a knot and kept going.
I watched the documentary with Chinese subtitle but unfortunately couldn’t find any source with English subtitle, otherwise I’d link it because it’s quite revealing.
Parents spend tons of money to get their kids to private tuition classes. According to a survey, there are now 3 times more private tuition centers in South Korea than there are convenience stores.
For the students, this is their one shot to get a white collar job after graduation.
This was actually one of the themes explored in the film Parasite and there are layers that can be easily missed by the audience if you’re not familiar with the societal competitive pressure exerted upon the students.
For the students, this is their one shot to get a white collar job after graduation.
I think this is the key problem underlying all of this. Asian parents and students are not irrational, they are reacting rationally to a brutal system. You can not blame them for doing what it takes to achieve what is considered a good and materially safe life.
A society in which you only get one shot at “the good life” is inevitably going to promote this sort of behaviours.
A less severe variant of the same mechanisms can be seen in the west where increased social stratification has made the educational system more competitive and led to alarming levels of anxiety and other mental health issues among young people.
You can treat symptoms to some extent by banning private tuition or by making ad campaigns telling young people how awesome it is to get a trade job instead of pursuing academic training but it is always going to be a bandaid.
The radical response, the one that goes to the root of the problem, is to construct the economy in such a way that social recognition and material comfort is not a privilege for the meritorious few but a fact of life for the masses. An advanced economy needs engineers, doctors and accountants but it also needs carpenters, binmen and truck drivers. The idea of your kids growing up to have an average position in society should be comforting, not terrifying.
That is so depressing to read, everything about it is sad.
To what extent is this caused by lack of access to higher education? Or, rather, would this problem be alleviated by more openings or are things so competitive that nobody cares to be the 2nd best student in the 2nd best med school in the country?
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The interesting part about the Imperial Exam in ancient China is that it was literally created for the Emperors to reassert their control over the feudal aristocrat classes.
China is a large country and throughout the dynasties and even periods within a dynasty, aristocratic factions (usually formed based on geographical boundaries) vie for control over the country and the entrenched class holds a lot of sway over the imperial policies, with the most prominent one being the Guanlong group that has massively entrenched over the late Northern/Southern Dynasty and the ensuing Sui and Tang dynasties.
Often times, when a new Emperor ascends to the throne, those with ambitions would want to establish their own power base, and the imperial examination was one such mechanism to recruit talents from the lower classes (寒门) to fill the ranks. Note that these officials who are born in the lower class are still treated as a different class in the Imperial Court even though they work directly for the Emperor. Such is the social structure of feudal societies.
I’m not too familiar with European history, but I would guess that the European nation states were too small to allow for such fierce internal division of aristocratic factions. The Emperor of China ruled over a huge territory and when one dynasty overthrows the other, the new government cannot simply replace the local provincial courts with its own people as that would quickly lead to rebellions. So substantive change has to take place slowly and insidiously, while at the same time, such arrangement naturally opened up the spaces for influential vested interests to form over time.
I’m not too familiar with European history, but I would guess that the European nation states were too small to allow for such fierce internal division of aristocratic factions.
They were tiny by comparison. The Kingdom of France was considered big by (Western) European standards and it was smaller than Nanzhao. The small size of European polities also meant they didn’t need a giant feudal bureaucracy.
In European history, aristocratic factions also very much existed based on regional power - eg anyone with the surname Dudley or Warwick had immense sway over who was on the throne of England for several hundred years, because they held military power in the form of private armies (retainers) and could choose whether to back up the king with that power or not.
Around the year 2000, many Chinese universities began to massively expand their enrollment number. So, the competition occurred because there is now a chance for everyone to get into university. For the students, this is their one shot to get a white collar job after graduation.
As you know, education is very important in East Asian society, and being able to get a white collar job not only means higher pay but also reflects a certain status. This is exacerbated by the fact that many Chinese parents only have one child, so they’d do anything to make sure that their kids can have a shot to enter universities.
You can even see this kind of mentality persisted in Asian parents who have immigrated to Western countries which has become the Asian parent stereotype.
My impression is that competition for its own sake has become culturally endemic in the region and I was hoping to challenge that notion. Maybe, I reasoned, there are enough openings in East Asian universities to give everyone a chance, but crucially not enough to make that chance a reasonable one. Therefore if enrollment numbers increased even further, you’d still have competition for the top university spots but the competition wouldn’t be so fierce.
However, I suppose it doesn’t matter if everyone who wants to become engineers and doctors actually can when the competition is downstream from those guaranteed high status, high paying jobs.
In my experience it’s not about raw numbers or an endemic culture of competition so much as generational trauma and perfectionism. China is still only 2 generations out from the Cultural Revolution. My parents were in the first wave to go to university after it ended and for them, a difference of .5 marks meant falling 50 places in the rankings and losing their only shot. Even though I grew up in the west, that anxiety passed down in the way they raised me.
The other thing about Chinese culture is that we are obsessed with optimising. Everything should be done in the most efficient way possible. And so for a lot of kids the pressure isn’t so much about competition but about achieving an ideal of perfection. It’s taken years of work to unlearn that for me.
How are these “weekend packages” skirting the ban on private tutoring that’s been in place since 2021? I assume it’s not that hard given the parents will do anything to get them and they’re not online so you can structure it as a club or something, but curious what the reaction of regulatory officials has been.
theyre not, the police get kickbacks and look the other way so long as people upstairs arent pressured to ‘do something’
there are routine inspections but heads up will be given so people can clear out ahead of time
as demographics shift, the problem of education (elite overproduction) will fix itself to some degree (50% hs admittance cutoff already relaxing, blue collar work is more and more well compensated as labor pool shrinks), but it wont go away without massive reforms, which will likely not happen as there are too many people who benefit from the way it is currently set up, same as hukou
this case of education and its motivating factors is a great example of superstructure shaping base, how pecuniary emulation remains a relevant, perhaps even marxist, concept even today, and is a primary driver of why the asian diaspora, particularly in america, is so dependent on white supremacy for its continued existence
What does pecuniary emulation mean?
A different term for “social climber” basically. People putting themselves into situations where they devote their labor to climbing the ladder and emulating the lifestyles of those above them thereby reinforcing the current state of things.
The most extreme version of it would probably be the Wealth Gospel trend in America, where the actions of millions of proletarians are shifted into a form of emulation of the wealthy thereby algning their interests with the wealthy in practice. They will work against their own interests for the possibility of becoming their oppressor.
Short answer is the parents simply don’t care.
This is nothing new. South Korea has tried banning private tuition years ago. In fact, the South Korean government went so far as to canceling middle school and high school admission tests, and introduced a system that randomly allocates students to high schools to eliminate “elite schools” and to prevent parents from gaming the system.
This merely drove the parents to send their kids to private tuition, which the South Korean government also tried banning. None of this is going to work. In a system where securing a white collar job at Samsung is literally going to change your life, parents will do everything - no matter how illegal it is - to make sure their kids have a shot at this.
All the punitive tax through law enforcement on private tuition is only going to drive up the costs of education, with parents willing to dish out more and more of their monthly income to ensure that their kids can gain even a slight advantage over their peers. It also drives up administrative cost because good luck taking down all the illegal tuition centers (and many businesses have dozens of inventive ways to skirt the rules like turning them into “training courses for parents that happen to involve students”).
In a society where education is given the utmost priority, the end result is that your average household is going to spend even less on other stuff, and drags down the economy as a whole.
Without a true reform on the education system and the economic structure at large, you’re merely treating the symptoms.
I’ve seen the study hours for the gaokao. It gets very, very intense.
It seems this plan doesn’t address the root of the problem, so I can see how parents might get upset. It sounds like there needs to be some fundamental restructuring of the university system or something like that.
How much is the university entrance stuff “real” vs cultural high demand on kids/students? Like can people generally get into a college and get a good education but it just isn’t the super “prestigious” schools?
A typical high school day looks like this: wakes up at 6am, arrives at class room at 7am, starts morning self-study routine, sits through the classes, stays for the evening self-study session, gets home at around 10pm, and if you’re lucky, gets to bed at around 12am. Rinse and repeat every day.
this is child abuse. rare china L
This reminds me of your post comparing the work conditions of car factories, with workers organizing to demand more hours from their bosses.
It seems like changing the gaokao and university entrance process is the only way to alleviate the concerns of giving kids more time off, which should be encouraged. I had heard school was competitive, but high schoolers at school for over 100 hours a week really puts it into perspective. How long is a school day before high school?
Middle school (Grades 7-9) isn’t as intense, but in Grade 9 most students will take the admission tests for ordinary high schools (普高).
Only half of the middle schoolers will succeed in entering an ordinary high school, which will then set them off the path towards taking the gaokao, while the rest who failed will go to vocational or technical schools.
The pressure is still there, and some say it’s even harder than gaokao to get into a good ordinary high school (schools with resources that give greater likelihood for their students to succeed).
Thanks for this insight.
One more question I have, if you don’t mind humoring me: if parents in China didn’t care about pushing their kid to be successful via these metrics, can a child go through this education system without having to be put through such intense pressures? Does the school itself enforce as much as the parents are, or is it more an issue of parental pressure than baked into the education track ?
I went to elementary school in China for two years, in grade 2 + 3 (age 6-8). I arrived at school at 7:45am for pre-class prep, and left at 5:30 usually. I think classes were until 4:30 or 5. This was back in the mid 90s and I’m fairly sure it got worse after I left
Thanks for sharing your experience. Was there a lot of play and art and such things that could be considered fun by kids or did it already start feeling like preparing for academia at that age?
There was no play other than at break times, it was a full schedule of classes. In the summer we got an extra hour for lunch though so we could have a nap. It was funny because you had to have a nap in that time - at home room after lunch everyone who didn’t have a nap had to admit to it and explain why they didn’t 🤭
We had art classes - it was mostly learning to draw as I recall. The school didn’t have a lot of money for stuff like art supplies back then. The classes I remember were: Chinese (learning characters, making words, reading texts, memorising poems, writing short essays); maths (we had to memorise the times table up to 9 and each recite it individually for the headmaster who graded us on it - most terrifying moment of my life at the time! Also I remember doing basic algebra); civics (actually my favourite, it was mostly about learning to contribute to society and not being selfish); art; and PE. I’m sure there must have been science, history, and geography but I can’t remember them at all.
We had little red neck scarves made of silk which were a sign of your pride in the country / communism. I remember being so chuffed the day I got mine as I’d heard a rumour that you wouldn’t get one if you weren’t a good student and I didn’t know if I’d make the grade since I had moved home from abroad and was behind in everything. We also learned how to use an abacus to do arithmetic and calligraphy. We had flag raising every week and outdoor stretches every morning. There were ~50 kids in my class I think!
Our teacher was strict but super caring and kind. I remember every time when we got homework back from the teacher, she would ask everyone who got 100% to stand up and everyone else would admire them. One time in Chinese class she did that and I was the only one who stood up! Proudest moment ever. She then remarked to the rest of the class “this kid only started learning to write this year, y’all have no excuse” lolll suckers
Damn that’s sad. Definitely the Government should clamp down on cultural bads.
Ansar Allah just declared they will resume their naval operations if aid does not start entering Gaza again within 4 days.
You can tell Jolani was trained by the west by the public face. Interim government, respecting communities, independent investigation
Also I was right, gag order is back after the initial wave of evidence. There appear to have been more concerted efforts to get rid of bodies/obscure the number of dead, as well as the use of artillery instead of small arms to kill and intimidate coastal residents into flight
China announces plans for major renewable projects to tackle climate change
BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters) - China said on Wednesday it would develop a package of major projects to tackle climate change as it moves to bring its carbon dioxide emissions to a peak before 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060.
The world’s largest producer of climate-warming greenhouse gas said it would develop new offshore wind farms and accelerate the construction of “new energy bases” across its vast desert areas, the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s economic planner, said in an official report published on Wednesday.
“China will actively and prudently work towards peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality,” the report read.
Among the proposed projects cited in the report by the state planning agency was a controversial hydropower facility on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet, which has raised concerns in India about its potential impact on downstream water flows.
It also said it would develop a direct power transmission route connecting Tibet with Hong Kong, Macao and Guangdong in the southeast.
However, coal will remain a key fuel, with the NDRC report saying the country will continue to increase coal production and supply this year even as it plans for trials of low-carbon technology at its coal-fired power plants and to promote initiatives aimed at substituting fossil fuels with renewables.
China has been struggling to strike a balance between fostering economic growth and meeting its environmental goals.
The NDRC said the 3.4% reduction in the amount of carbon emissions per unit of economic growth last year “fell short of expectations”, blaming rapid growth in energy consumption as well as extreme weather.
China is not expected to meet its five-year goal to bring carbon intensity down by 18% by the end of this year, and it has not yet announced an annual target for 2025.
It will also struggle to meet a separate target to cut the amount of energy consumed per unit of growth by 13.5% by the end of this year, despite exceeding expectations with a 3.8% reduction last year, analysts said.
“Despite the world record expansion of renewables, an inconvenient truth is that China’s economy hasn’t become much more energy efficient in recent years,” said Yao Zhe, global policy advisor with Greenpeace in Beijing.
Since the megathread is about the greek train scandal and crash i’ll maybe make an exaustive post describing how deep the corruption goes but as a note since im seeing again a lot of “omg based” reactions to footage of “protestors” clashing with the police in left twitter and such here is a reminder, especially for the west:
In Greece and in a lot of western countries these “black bloc” violent clashes with the police are very often directly started & instigated or even fully done by some dozens of undercover cops and state paid agent provocateurs to, for one give an excuse to the cops to tear gas and break up the larger crowd of the actual protests and beat innocent people up, to scare everyday people from attending protests in the future ,especially people of older age and families with Kids and of course paint a violent picture of the mass actions later in the media, making it the focal point. Some dumbass anarchists and maybe some other lumpen usualy join the fun and stone and molotov throwing after the cops vs undercover cops etc instigate the party.
So its not “wow based expression of worker and anti-state rage” when you see some dumbass molotov suspiciously always falling short of a cop in some footage from Greece or wherever. In this case it was a gladio like tension stretegy made to ruin a mass protest and strike of a million people in Athens alone, organized and pushed by a lot of communist adjustent unions and worker centers that undermines any possible revolutionary leftist cause. Im not saying its the rule and for example the clashes in the yellow vest protests couple of years ago should be painted with the same brush without analysis. But its something to always have that at the back of your head as a leftists attending protests and observing and analysis mass movements
im late ik. Democrats are so useless all sitting there doing nothing, no booing, no slogans, no shouting, nothing. except for that one guy.
Thank you for featuring Greece, this is the biggest strike or protest we’ve had at least since the fall of the junta, about 1.5 million of people took to the streets, many of them striking for the first time ever
Speaking of Greece, they may open the doors to LGBTQ Turks fleeing Istanbul and Ankara.
Hell yeah! Good luck to you all!
It’s just radio silence in the western media about it. 15% of a European nation’s entire population protesting, and even the rare western coverage is framing it as violent.
What country are you referring to? It’s in every news section on the radio
It’s just radio silence in the western media about it.
This is how you know the strike is legit and not some shitty attempt at a color revolution.
They’re too busy treating Zelensky like he’s Jesus
If you look through certain news sites about it (e.g. Reuters), there’s like a dozen images of fires and police before they meaningfully show crowd sizes. Expected stuff from the western media I suppose.
I heard this reported on NPR earlier today. Definitely wanted to know more, but they kind of handwaved it as not being politically motivated, but then also mentioned [CW: self harm]
spoiler
the driver shot themself in the mouth
afterwards. So I guess the driver just happened to be armed as a lucky coincidence?
The driver was an ethnic German who had a bobby pistol. Not unusual as these are sold over the counter.
What’s going on with the Greek left these days? Haven’t really heard shit since Syriza was in power.
Politics in Greece are unfortunately more or less dead. After Syriza’s capitulation in 2015, they were in government for one term, they lost the next election but they were a close second to the conservative party. The election after that we have a surge of extreme right wing parties (I think since the restoration of democracy in Greece it was the first time that the right wing parties all together get more than 50% of the vote) and the collapse of Syriza. After that Tsipras resigned from its head and then Syriza splits into 2 parties both of which collapsed in the polls even further. Right now, the polls show a very weak conservative party at ~25%, and then 5-6 parties around 6-10%, some of them being far-right, christian fundamentalist and the others center left and left. On a bright side, the communist party is making some gains, even though not sure how much faith to put in them.
2 years ago a horrible train crash happened (head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight train). The result was the death of 57 people, many of them university students returning after a holiday to Thessaloniki where they were studying. The train company (used to be public but privatized during the economic crisis) had dismantled many of the security measures, so the accident has a political dimension and caused a shock in Greek society. Furthermore, there seems that the government tried to botch the investigations on the accident, there is a theory that one of the trains was carrying illegally some flammable substance which is used to adulterate gasoline that made the fire that was caused by the crash even worse, and this is why the government is trying to hide what happened. Last Friday was the 2 year anniversary of the accident, and a general strike was called that was joined by most sectors, and lead to the biggest demonstration in Greece at least in the last 40 years (some estimates puts the number of Greeks attending throughout Greece at more than 1 million people). I was quite surprised by this, and shows some fighting spirit back in the Greeks which had disappeared after the capitulation of Syriza. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is any political party leadership who can use this discontent and push for real left change in the country, but we will see.
Elon Musk calls Poland’s foreign minister a “little man” and tells him to be quiet after Radoslaw Skorski claims that the Polish government pays for the use of Starlink in Ukraine and that it may be necessary to look for another alternative.
Elon Musk says it “makes no sense” for the United States to be part of NATO to “pay for Europe’s security”. The Wall Street Journal says that many European leaders regret making their security dependent on the US.
- Telegram
Leftist podcasters taking piss out of calling z-man dictator do be annoying, how the fuck a person outlawing political parties he don’t like (including (chuddy) communists) (and pro russian is not fucking excuse, they are parties not militant movements, allegedly democracy allows for parties being elected who pursue different foreign policy), arresting them on treason if they criticize him, and extending his rule by pure fiat is not a dictator. And american prestige honestly citing 57 percent approval rating is just lmao.
I already said this a couple of weeks ago, but it’s funny how libs made fun of former President Yoon of South Korea for trying to do back in December what Zelenskyy has been successfully doing for the last 3 years.
Yet libs have no problem with Z-man doing it.
Liberal’s Advocate: Z not holding elections is way less entertaining than the circus around the Yoon coup attempt. Even here, people are way more interested in the Yoon coup because it was such a mess, I remember looking through the pile of jokes about it when it was happening. Z not holding elections is just boring, I barely see anyone talking about it, let alone making jokes.
Ukraine continues to be a litmus test for leftists even after three years
Marvel and Harry Potter brain. There are good guys, and bad guys. We’re always the good guys.
Trump vs Zelensky is like a switch triggered in people’s brains and because it’s Trump being mean to him that means Z-man is good. Fucking brainrot. It’s happening everywhere. I even see “leftists” defending british military because JD Vance said we haven’t been to war in 30 years. This shit causes people to turn off their brains or reveal deeply held nationalist thoughts.
While JD Vance was factually wrong in saying that the British military hasn’t been at war for 30-40 years (they were involved in Iraq and Afghanistan), his underlying point was correct in that European armies are woefully unprepared, inadequate, understaffed and ill equipped for a war without US support, and thus no one takes European claims of “20k peacekeepers” seriously. The Gulf war and bombing of Yugoslavia should have been the warning signs for Europe. Iraq should have been their red line. But no, we are now here 22 years after Iraq and Europe has no plan, no sovereign project.
real ww1 war credits moment (i.e. that everyone is extremely full of shit)
You mean there are no honest and good sides in the inter-imperialist struggle for securing colonies and supremacy, and that the only way out is revolutionary socialism? If only anyone had written a book about this about 107 years ago…
Sounds like a tankie, sorry, i will vote for my genocide-supporting socdem party
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UK libs: “How dare they suggest Britain hasn’t been to war? We’ve bombed several countries full of Slavic, brown, and Irish people who were unequipped to fight back.”
its falling apart
Israeli forces kill two Palestinians in southern Gaza after cutting off aid to the besieged enclave and reneging on the ceasefire deal.
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff “plans to return to the region in the coming days to work out either a way to extend phase one or advance to phase two”, a State Department spokesperson told Reuters.
“We don’t have an agreement on phase two,” said Sa’ar. “We demand total de- militarisation of Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad out, and give us our hostages. If they agree to that we can implement tomorrow.”
Seems like the Palestinian people’s remaining hope is that Trump gets personally insulted by Netanyahu deciding to break the ceasefire.
This would never get asked, because the MSM is pro-Israel, but if I was a lib reporter trying to “hold Trump accountable” I would be asking why Ukraine is supposed to believe that Trump can hold Russia to a ceasefire agreement when he can’t manage to hold Israel to one. He will probably just blame it on Hamas, anyways, but still.
Trump electronically repo’d HIMARS
we are in the cool zone now
Russia has invited Israel to the 2025 Victory Day Parade in Moscow.
(March 3, 2025 / JNS) Russia has invited Israel to attend its Victory Day commemorations in May alongside representatives of China, Brazil, Slovakia and Serbia—but not Germany, the United States or most European Union’s member states, Russian media reported Sunday.
The annual May 9 commemorations on Red Square in Moscow feature a military parade and speeches by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in recognition of the sacrifices made by his country in its war against Germany in World War II. This year is a round anniversary since the German surrender to the Red Army 80 years ago.
A national holiday, May 9 is a major patriotic holiday in Russia and throughout much of the post-Soviet world. The holiday’s main event is the Red Square parade. In contrast to past anniversaries this year, Russia did not invite the United States, most of the European Union, Canada, Australia and other countries it deems “unfriendly,” according to News.ru.
I think Russia invites the president of Israel to the victory parade quite often, ultimately WW2 is known for the Holocaust for obvious reasons, so having the president of what’s seen as the Jewish state present is seen as important. I know that Netanyahu has attended previous victory parades before, and that the president of Israel attended in 2005, along with G.W Bush during the height of the Iraq war.
Russia effectively exports white people to Israel, they’re very cozy. Russia is Israel’s main supplier of oil. Which is why the Ukraine and Gaza Wars have always been funny from the
perspective.
And Russia was also forbidden from attending the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January. Satan, whose government policy is verbatim that of Hitler’s policies of Lebensraum and Final Solution, used his platform to declare the ICJ/ICC, South Africa and every Palestinian as an extension of the Third Reich, so extremely huge Holocaust revisionism energy there.
Satan has been granted exemption from the ICC’s arrest warrant by much of the EU including Germany and Poland on the grounds of white supremacy.
Russia’s, or more accurately, the USSR’s role in freeing much of the camps has largely been disregarded as “Kremlin propaganda” following the war in uKKKraine.
Inviting “israel” to the Victory Day parade is a massive
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Extremely disappointing but I am curious what the hell he’s doing, given the growing relationship they have with Iran. If it goes any further than inviting to parades then I’m curious if Putin is angry at Iran for some reason, perhaps over Syria.
I mean, Israel has ties with virtually all great powers. They cooperate with China on miltech and surveillance. They cooperate with Russia on diplomacy. And they are the real 51st state. Not too long ago we had news of Israel lobbying the US to help Russia keep/retake bases in Syria to counterbalance HTS/Turkey, while also making public overtures towards the SDF. Israel will and does deal with everybody, including those arabs they aren’t genociding like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi and so on.
The whole de-Nazifying defense comes off hollow if they’re just going to cozy up to another Nazi-like regime.
I mean come on, that was already pretty hollow.
How was it already hollow? Ukraine has a ton of Nazis in power who were specifically targeting ethnic Russians. It might not have been their core motivator but let’s not pretend that de nazifying Ukraine isn’t an essential goal for Russia’s ability to secure its borders and ensure a neutral Ukraine moving forward.
this is who they sent to fight the Ukrainian Nazis
Ukraine has a ton of Nazis in power who were specifically targeting ethnic Russians.
This is actually a farce of a point, Ukrainian Nazis aren’t stupid. They don’t have enough real support to go blackshirts on Russians. If this was the case the original “de-Nazification” argument would have taken a lot better and a lot quicker in Russia. Ukrainian Nazis went after extremely soft targets like Romani, Jews, and foreigners. “De-russification” has (stupidly IMO) been the most democratic policy post-Maidan. The outsized influence of Nazis in Ukraine has been because they’re effective at hiding behind/within the government and popular sentiment. The reason Ukrainian Nazis are entrenched is because they get bureaucratic positions, they do absolutely terribly in the polls.
The reason Ukrainian Nazis are entrenched is because they get bureaucratic positions, they do absolutely terribly in the polls.
Please tell me you’re joking.
I don’t even bother with pulling the exact figures because even Wikipedia couldn’t whitewash the Ukrainian support towards Bandera:
A poll conducted in early May 2021 by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation together with the Razumkov Centre’s sociological service showed that 32% of citizens considered Bandera’s activity as a historical figure to be positive for Ukraine, as many considered his activity negative; another 21% consider Bandera’s activities as positive as they are negative. According to the poll, a positive attitude prevailed in the western region of Ukraine (70%); in the central region of the state, 27% of respondents consider his activity positive, 27% consider his activity negative and 27% consider his activity both positive and negative; negative attitude prevails in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine (54% and 48% of respondents consider his activity negative for Ukraine, respectively).[207]
Also you are conveniently forgetting that far more Communists joined the Wagner to fight the Ukrainian Nazis than whatever far right militias there are fighting for Russia. Don’t get me wrong, these people do exist, but you only hear about them being disproportionately amplified by Western media that also conveniently ignore all the communists (who by the way do not like Putin) that volunteered to fight for Russia against Ukraine.
None of what you’re saying matters. They killed thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. They ran child camps teaching kids songs about killing and eating Russians, which journalists went to and got on video. They terrorized ethnic Russians, tortured and killed them and their families. Saying they don’t have real support to do the things they were actively doing without anyone trying to stop them except for Russians is nonsensical. They clearly had support, they did it and got away with it and were elevated to higher and higher positions year after year. Why are you white washing literal Nazis?
They killed thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. They ran child camps teaching kids songs about killing and eating Russians, which journalists went to and got on video. They terrorized ethnic Russians, tortured and killed them and their families.
War crimes in the DNR/LNR are not the same as what you were implying. You’re completely mixing shit up when it suits your argument.
Songs about killing Russians have been in Ukraine since time immemorial and have been taught to children since time immemorial. A large portion of Kolomyika songs over the last 2 centuries are about hating Russians in some way. You’re entirely culturally out of your depth. For example the famous "Гуде-шумить сосоночка ", or “The Pine Trees Hum and Rustle” has the line:
Ви, москалі, людоїди, You (slur) Russians are cannibals
It was literally recorded in the USSR in 1988 for the first time and is a folk song from time immemorial. You’re literally out of your depth in figuring out what is and isn’t Nazi. You don’t even speak any of the languages involved.
What have I mixed up? You claimed they didn’t go after ethnic Russians and I pointed out when they did. Where is the mix up?
Okay, so you’re providing a historical context behind anti-Russian sentiment, which if anything just explains the material basis for why Nazism took root since Russians were the definitive anti-Nazi force. A bunch of anti-russian people feeling happy to be Nazis because they hate the Russians who are the ones against the Nazis is pretty common in eastern europe. It doesn’t mean they aren’t nazis.
You’re literally saying “the azov nazis teaching children songs about eating russians is actually just ukrainian history, not nazi stuff” ???
