Bulletins and News Discussion from February 3rd to February 9th, 2025 - Fuhrer Failsons

Image is of Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute a week or so ago.

I didn't really want to keep spotlighting American domestic events as I had assumed that shit would calm down pretty quickly, but it appears that the Trump administration, including Musk, are determined to bring down the empire from the inside.

One of the most important lessons of ruling a country - and especially an empire - is to never, ever believe your own propaganda; and yet now we have neo-Nazi failsons disrupting parts of the imperial apparatus and causing general government mayhem because they actually seem to believe in libertarianism; that the state and the capitalists are somehow in opposition, rather than working in lockstep to maximise profit and boost American hegemony around the world.

I'm not so optimistic as to believe that a national collapse is FOUR DAYS AWAY, like those weird anti-China cranks often speculate - the US has at least a decade or two left even under these conditions. But consider the damage being inflicted in these past couple weeks, and extrapolate that over the next four years. Does any living American political figure possess the competency to halt - or even meaningfully slow - the already ongoing decline? And could they achieve power (or even be allowed to do so) after Trump's term is done?

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Assalamu Aleykum to the good people of Hexbearistan. Finally back from my Iraq trip with my wife and the kid. Absolute top tier travel destination, would recommend for sure if you're thinking about doing a lil Middle East trip one day. Here are some little notes on the trip:
Flew from my city to Istanbul, spent a few miserable hours in Istanbul's expensive ass airport, then flew to Baghdad. My kid was surprisingly chill during almost the whole trip, no extended periods of crying or anything. The plane from Istanbul to Baghdad was filled with non-Arab foreigners, which was quite surprising honestly. Lots of Chinese people for some reason, which usually leads to new schools and ports spawning in any country that the Chinese visit.
Baghdad Airport is functional but quite rundown. I went in with my Lebanese passport which technically needs a paid visa on arrival, but the guy on the counter waived the fee for me and just said welcome. My wife's uncle was waiting for us outside and we were on the highways of Baghdad after a few kisses and hugs. The first few kilometers must be a shock for every new visitor to Baghdad, as it is filled with posters of Qassem Soleimani, Yahya Sinwar and Hassan Nasrallah. Iraq is still a very anti-imperialist country, you will finds flags of Yemen, Palestine and Lebanon in every corner. I thought it was super cool that one could find posters of the Houthis on billboards and shops selling Hezbollah memorabilia.
Baghdad as a city has recovered well from the American invasion and occupation. New roads and bridges spawning everywhere, barely any armed military presence, new and shiny malls and restaurants everywhere, massive international schools and it's just alive in a way that only Beirut can reach. The biggest problem is the traffic congestion, which the new Baghdad Metro project hopefully solves in a few years. The trash situation is also annoying, Baghdad is a quite dirty city, the people are as responsible as the government there honestly.
The food was fucking amazing, but I've gained a few extra kilos from all the fatty foods. Some of the new restaurants are insanely good, and white people will never understand the appeal of a nice proper cafe with hot tea, diabetes-inducing sweets and hookah. Internet was decent, but this website barely loaded without a VPN for some reason. I paid around $10 for a week of unlimited 4G data.
Made a quick one-day trip to Erbil, capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan. Took a smooth four hour drive there and crossing the inofficial "border" was pretty straightforward. Very beautiful city with great markets and more good food. Lots of new exciting construction projects in Erbil and it's cleaner than Baghdad, but same traffic issues. It's a good intro city for someone that wants an authentic Middle Eastern city, but not too "complicated", nor too artificial like the Gulf cities.
Finished the trip with a Shia Islam religious pilgrimage megatour with my wife's family. We started in Baghdad and visited the Shrine of Imam Musa bin Jafar Al Kazim, then we drove around two hours to Karbala and visited the Shrine of Imam Hussain and Imam Abbas, then another hour to Najaf and visited the shrine of the greatest Muslim to ever live, Imam Ali bin Abu Talib. Was a great trip even if I'm not really the strongest believer out there. The shrines were magnificent, definitely something I'd recommend to everyone here.
Overall summary is that Iraq is worth visiting, especially if you want to give your tourist dollars to a country that 100% doesn't use them to murder Palestinians or buy American senators. It will be a culture shock for sure, but Baghdad is a nice and historic city, with the added bonus of having top tier food. I'll upload some pics if I figure out how to do it in a non-doxxing manner.
- Welcome back, for what this is worth hexbear scrubs meta-data from images uploaded here
  
  A nice feature for pictures like this (ROK-DPRK DMZ observation post
- Wa alleykumu salam, you were dearly missed. I'm happy that you and your family had a good time in Iraq. I'll surely visit it at least once in my life. It's a country rich in culture and history. There is something special about places that have anti-imperialist roots embedded in their very ground.
- Welcome back! Hope you had a good time and well wishes to you and your family.
  
  Thank you!
- Sounds fun. I've not done much travelling in my life but would have to add Iraq to my list. I'm a big tobacco stan (cigars mostly) and its on my bucket list to laze away an afternoon in a middle eastern hookah lounge
- Welcome back!
- Glad to hear you had a good time. One of my best friends is an Iraqi who was just telling me the other day about hoe everyone he knows tells him how people are desperate and hopeless there now. He hasn't been back in like 30 years and this is all second hand, of course. He also comes from a religious minority so maybe that plays a part, but I told him he sounded like a USAID commercial.
- Welcome back from the trip!
  I was doing a little google maps and looking around.
  Baghdad's airport appears to be also used for military aircraft- very interesting
  Baghdad looks to this Westerner like a bunch of big roads and shopping malls- are there any cozy backstreets? Is there an old town?
  Karbala looks rad- I like the dual shrines. I also saw a streetview of what looks like a Hezbollah stand at a festival?
  I also discovered that Lebanon has official google streetview now, which is cool. Beirut looks beautiful, so many palm trees. Streetview is also a mixed bag- while it's cool to see, it is blocked in countries like China and Cuba for a reason. I have no doubt that they are used by western intelligence agencies. I love Google streetview but Google violated its "don't be evil" motto a long time ago.
  
  Oh and a word on trash collection- does Baghdad have a municipal collection service? Do they have a dump? India is probably the poster child for litter, and I discovered that many cities there do not have municipal trash collection services and the dumps are far too small. As always, material conditions are what create these sorts of problems.
  
  There is a municipal collection service that picks up the blue municipality-issued trash cans from outside the doors of the houses. There is also bigger containers in the end of every street, but my guess is that the municipality is simply struggling to handle the volume. People also love throwing shit out of their cars and stuff like that, which sadly fills the edge of most streets with trash. I feel so bad for the poor municipality trash collectors who have to handle all this shit.
  As for the highways and the malls, well yeah, most of "New" Baghdad was built during the 60s where every architect and urban planner thought that suburbs and cars would be the sexy utopian future. Old Baghdad around the Tigris River is pretty nice with old alleyways and things like that. Check out Kadhimiya, Rasheed Street and Mutannabi Street to see more classic city.
  That street view in Karbala is from the Arbaeen pilgrimage, you find all kinds of random political and non-political stands there that hand out free food for the pilgrims. I remember commenting here a few months ago about random political stands in last year's Arbaeen.
  
  Oooh this is nice. I'm a big fan of buildings where the second story hangs over the sidewalk, it's great for shade in hot weather and keeping rain out when it's wet, and it also looks cool. Also, who is that guy on the little flags on a string above the street? He looks kinda like Jesus.
  that hand out free food for the pilgrims.
  It's cool to see Islam has pro-social practices. One of the soul-crushing things about American protestantism is the lack of care for the surrounding community. Most pro-social activities are highly limited in scope and the almighty dollar is the true religion of America. There are some small food banks but something like stands that offer free food is unheard of in the United States. Street markets are cool but all you will get at those are free samples.
  
  That's Husayn ibn Ali, basically Shia Muslim Jesus that was also betrayed and murdered by the state.
  
  Thanks for the info
- Welcome back
  glad your trip went well
- Welcome back, sounds like who had a good time!

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