Bulletins and News Discussion from November 11th to November 17th, 2024 - Chapo? Like, the President-elect of Mozambique? - COTW: Mozambique
Bulletins and News Discussion from November 11th to November 17th, 2024 - Chapo? Like, the President-elect of Mozambique? - COTW: Mozambique
Thank you to @carpoftruth@hexbear.net for covering my position as Supreme Dictator of the Goddamn News while I was moving and getting set up in my new home in a top secret Kremlin-funded bunker five hundred feet below the ground. Our regularly scheduled programming returns this week.
On October 9th, Daniel Chapo won the Mozambique general election with about 70% of the vote. Chapo is the head of FRELIMO, the Marxist-Leninist party of Mozambique's liberation, which fought an internal anti-communist resistance called RENAMO which was backed by Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa; Frelimo won in 1975. However, as the USSR fell, Frelimo began to allow elections inside Mozambique, and has ruled the country with significant majorities in each election ever since.
The main opposition party inside Mozambique is Podemos, which is led by Venancio Mondlane, a former member of Renamo and trained inside the USA. He alleges that his polling figures predicted a majority win for him, not Frelimo, and has accused Chapo of electoral fraud. There have been the usual slogans about how they yearn for freedom. The EU, of course, "witnessed irregularities." As @WilsonWilson@hexbear.net has pointed out, Mozambique has massive undeveloped gas fields and is outsourcing the development process to France, Norway, the UK, and the USA, while mysterious Islamist groups have popped up to cause chaos in the exact regions which have the gas, slowing the process of actually developing those gas fields. Overall, it appears to be a cookie-cutter colour revolution attempt by the imperial core designed to install a comprador for cheaper resources. Its proximity to BRICS+ member South Africa may also be significant, noting the colour revolution in Bangladesh earlier this year exerting influence near India and China.
Protestors have been battling against the police and government since late October, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries as well as massive disruption, as the government has intermittently blocked access to the internet and social media. As of today, calm appears to be returning, with border crossings beginning to reopen.
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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.
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As expected, the transphobic Moon of Alabama is the first 'right wing but anti war' website to make the beautiful argument that just because Trump is gonna appoint even bigger warmongerers and neocons than last time, that doesn't mean he'll listen to them. Looking forward to even more copium along the way.
The ministers and eunuchs and queen and knights and bishops and aristocracy and clergy are all bad unlike the king who is good.
You joke but the principle of 'things are fucked, if only we could get the monarch's ear' is quite important historically.
People who thought that were the feudal equivalent of useless libs who constantly get politically outmaneuvered.
This is legit Dostoyevsky and tolstoy
What is it about Trump that inspires these parasocial relationships? All these justifications and conspiracy theories, it’s like a neglected child inventing reasons for why their Dad does love them actually
He's the only politician left.
Politics is not about policy wonkery or party loyalty. That's for weirdoes and people in denial. Politics is about passion. It's about wether you'd conceivably sit down with some govnah for a few drinks. It's about wether you trust this person to be your elected monarch. Once you do, you can also trust them to have done their best in your name.
That's the game. Only the vast majority of politicians play towards the lords, whereas people like Bernie and Trump build trust towards the commons. The Dems and the Republicans both have donor classes they are held to, in fact its the exact same class. But the Dems being the party of the upper 10% cannot even pretend to like the commons. The Republicans otoh also hate their base, but Trump is capable of bringing a muslim to the podium to pretend he likes Palestine. Kamala and the Dem operatives wouldn't even hide their disgust.
Since Bernie was disciplined into irrelevance that means Trump is the only politician left in the US.
Kamala and the Dem operatives wouldn't even hide their disgust.
This post has convinced me people who think populism has real meaning have the same distortion of reality going on as people who think pro wrestling is real.
I wouldn’t call Moon of Alabama “right wing” - the name itself (a reference to Brecht) already indicates a left wing origin. It was funny when we found out a while back that Noam Chomsky read the website.
They’re mostly the old anti-imperialist left who were active during the 1960s-80s (I have talked to a couple users there online so that’s the impression I get) that continue to hold a grudge against the neoliberal “left” that began to infiltrate the traditional workers parties in the 1990s and brought into them various social progressive issues (like LGBT rights) that end up eclipsing the old working class leadership.
But it’s true that the unregulated comment section is a disaster. With a firm “no moderation” policy, you have all kinds of Nazis and right wingers and conspiracy cranks hanging out there spewing insane rhetoric.
People unable to grasp that there exists those on the left with reactionary biases or positions. Transphobic old school lefties is a huge group, it doesn’t really accomplish anything to pretend they are actually on the right.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but Stalin was not the most progressive in this area either and rolled back Lenin’s more progressive policies - and he did so because of mass public pressure, a lot of the USSR had people with the same reactionary biases.
Instead of exiling these people they just need consistent education and struggle sessions to be brought on board
I have talked to enough Western leftists to know that most of them cannot think dialectically.
Even their critique of capitalism is rooted in bourgeois reductionism - you have to first be a leftist and progressive in order to support a left wing movement. If you aren’t already a progressive, you will never be one.
However, that’s simply not how the real world (or people in general) works: you can also support a left wing movement first, and then through further interactions with the movement, being shaped/turned into a progressive minded person. Maybe it’s from the people you talk to. Maybe it’s the policies enacted that helped you and everyone you love. Maybe it’s just because you’re now happier because you’re living in a free and fair and progressive society that alleviates all the pressure and burden of living under a capitalist dystopia.
I suppose we don't want to believe it because the implications are terrifying.
Nobody is free until we're ALL free.
Looking forward to Simplicius’ blog post about betrayal in 2 months