Bulletins and News Discussion from June 24th to June 30th, 2024 - Waiting for War - COTW: Lebanon

Never turn off this website again. I saw the Bolivia news, rushed to the news mega and saw the gates of heaven locked. My hands started trembling as I realised that I had nobody to talk to about internal Bolivian politics. Out of desperation, and may Allah forgive me for these words, I started tweeting. Astaghfirullah wa atoub ilayh

Just citing Biden’s twitter account here… he is “appalled” at the protest of land being auctioned off in occupied Palestine (where all the violence came from the Zionist side) but merely “disturbed” that a white American woman tried to drown a Palestine child in a pool recently.

Fuck you Genocide Joe

In a bid to increase productivity in its economy (now mostly owned by Northern Europe after the financial crisis) and 'fill gaps in skilled work' Greece is now moving to a 6 Day Work Week in many sectors.

Congratulations European technocrats, you've managed to roll back hard won progress by almost 200 years.

Gotta say that coups these days are embarrassing. What happened to taking the TV station, having a guy with a goofy military hat deliver a speech on live TV, shooting the president, shutting down the capital, making calls to Washington DC and suspending the constitution. The real pros of the 60s are all dead.

any officer after 1991 can't coup. all they know is cia, declare martial law, post on twitter, be white, eat shit and die

Violence outside L.A. synagogue taxed LAPD, sparks condemnation from Biden, Newsom, Bass

Sharing this article only to highlight how the propaganda machine works.

The article first talks about how all these very important people (Biden, Newsom, Bass) are condemning pro-Palestine protestors for targeting a Jewish synagogue.

The last part includes several sympathetic interviews with members of the congregation.

Sandwiched in there is a brief mention of why that specific synagogue was protested at the specific time: there was a presentation/meeting going on about buying up land in Gaza. So… just a little “how can we take advantage of the genocide and ethnic cleansing going on?” shindig. Never is anyone on the pro-Palestine side even interviewed to give their side.

The way it is written gives the uncritical reader (most readers) the impression that Jewish congregants are being targeted just for being Jewish. That they give a mention of the stated reason is irrelevant when you soak your article in condemnations from government officials and when you only provide statements from one side.

Edit: turned on Hasan a moment ago, he’s discussing the protest. Pretty awful stuff coming from the Zionist side that was never mentioned in the LA Times article like “sand n-words go home!” And the violence was entirely one-sided (Zionists attacking protestors) but the article never mentions that, it conveniently focuses on “arrests”.

My country is COTW again let's goooooooooooooooooooo

Free AMA for all the Hexbearians today. Ask me anything about Lebanon (and Syria, hell even Iraq because my wife is from there and I've spent lots of time there)

Arab league no longer designates hezbollah as terrorists

In some non-Biden related news, the Supreme Court ruled that cities are allowed to make sleeping outside illegal.

This is such a giant leap in criminalizing homelessness. Like, this has been in the works for a while, and in a lot of ways municipalities have been making homelessness de-facto illegal, but now they can just ticket or arrest people for a basic part of living, a fundamental need of continuing existence.

Biden is gonna come on stage loaded with Drugs lol. He refused a drug test.

Now Reddit Frontpage is filled with Democrat gaslighting about how Biden actually won the debate and was tough on Trump.

An interesting comment posted on Naked Capitalism by a traveler to occupied Palestine who sheds a little light on what it looks like far from the front:

Funny to remember how widespread making fun of the "Soviet Gerontocracy" was in the 70s and 80s in western media and politics. This is so so so much worse. Suslov, Brezhnev and Chernenko at their worst and most decrepit state were monsters of vitality and intellect compared to what we are seeing from Amerikkka these days.

You can put renal failure induced encephalopathy Andropov on the debate stage 5 minutes before he died and Biden would still seem barely sentient comperatively

Armoured vehicles donated to Ukraine by Canada not suitable for driving off road

Lmao what a joke, the MIC can't even make an off road vehicle anymore. They break down when you try to take them cross country. Good thing all war takes place on paved roads then right?

The prosecutors in the RICO case against the cop city protestors in Georgia just blatantly ignored attorney client privilege and showed a bunch of confidential material to each other and the Atlanta police.
Extremely critical support to moronic prosecutors who will (probably) be forced to let the protestors off for free now

Convinced this tiktok phillipines shit is feds.

The "their flag upside down" shit reads as cia to me. If this was on twitter you'd do a search for the phrase and find it in dozens of very slightly differently worded posts by fake accounts.

EDIT:

I'm also convinced that the posts about it on /r/thedeprogram are also feds.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/comments/1do86bb/america_what_the_fuck_are_you_doing_what_is_this/

20day old sus account.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/comments/1doiylu/am_i_the_only_one_being_bombarded_with_content/

Account with similar karma quantity, hasn't posted in 1 month, before that it didn't post in 1 year.

Call me tinfoil hat my fed-dar is going off.

bah gawd its TIME magazine with the steel chair

lol blueanon does it again folks

The BBC is now editing out scenes in shows that reference non-binary people existing.

https://nitter.poast.org/KaskaJessica/status/1806793749886033933

In case anybody forgot, the Biden campaign signaled he would only run for one term in 2019.

Campaign advisers argue that announcing his intention to only serve one term and signalling that he will choose a younger running mate and cabinet would increase Biden's chances of being the Democratic nominee.

One of the most interesting aspects of a declining empire is the anxiety it creates in those administrating it. There are many factions seeking to undo the decline and they all disagree heavily on how to go about that, the result of this division is that they are tearing it apart even more.

A few media outlets are using this pic, I’m sure to make him look more vigorous. I’m just getting violent fascist vibes.

Macron in a lot of ways seems to be following the Obama playbook. He's a young, by most accounts competent manager of an empire in decline wedded to his neoliberal ways while espousing hope and change. Due to the fact that neoliberalism can't actually do anything besides make a small circle of people an immense amount of money, the state atrophies anyway and brings about mass support for the far-right as the only viable alternative. Macron and Obama both will leave office having done their best to make sure a fascist government gets elected.

NGL, watching insufferable radlibs and BlueMAGA types eat their own shit is pretty enjoyable.

This is what you get you you rally behind the decrepit husk in charge of a decaying genocidal empire.

Are we back? Yes we're

US mobilisation is occurring. Ignore the bullshit about evacuations, the fleet will be used as a floating base for special forces operations to deploy from under the cover story of evacuations.

Okay, so we're all eyerollingly familiar with the "revolution betrayed, same as the old boss" trope in media and pop history, usually aimed at anything leftist to imply that nobody can ever escape recreating the nightmarish qualities of the status quo, because it turns out that the way things are is just The Way Things Are, for good reason, as nature and your wise betters ordained. It's the natural order, and naive radicals who think they can build something different are destined to be seduced by wealth and power into becoming the very despots they blah blah blah, we know how it goes.

As a cultural artifact of capitalist realism and a method of control, it's a well-examined phenomenon. But I want to examine it as an artifact of liberal guilt. Specifically, guilt for supplanting feudalism and then immediately overseeing the horrors of the industrial revolution both inside the core and without. Seeing the way liberals now are sealing their eyes and ears to any evidence of their ideology's culpability in what's going on in the world, and having observed their Quixotic "cannot fail, only be failed" attitude for some time, the Revolution Betrayed narrative now so obviously aligns with other liberal copes that I'm kind of embarrassed I didn't see it before. They believe that they are the best (only) "realistic" option, that if they can't do it then it can't be done. If their ideology and mode of production has failed to deliver a better world after four hundred years, then that means a better world simply is not possible, and anyone who says otherwise is either lying or stupid.

I think the fact that they think this is inevitable also goes a long way to explaining their semi-mystical view of power. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" Everyone bows sagely. I don't even necessarily disagree with the basic take here, but they just leave it at this vague truism that is inevitably leveled at those seeking the power to liberate themselves, but not at those from whom people need liberating. Because their power is ordained by law, by the natural order. It turns the phrase into a masochistic civility fetish (literally, like a totem) that whispers to you that it's okay not to fight, that it's "evil" to fight dirty even for your life, and that the most morally pure thing you can experience is defeat. Secular Calvinism and lack of education have done a number on us all here in the states and resulted in generations of highly propagandized "too smart for politics" rubes who are narrow-minded about most things but shockingly credulous about state enemies, utterly sanctimonious but completely lacking knowledge of past and present, liberals, I realized I was just describing liberals, this post is getting away from me.

Anyway, thoughts on "Revolution Betrayed narratives as Liberalism's Pyramid Head"?

Shit's going down in Kenya:

Of the Kenyan protestors killed by Kenyan pigs so far, at least 8 were cadre from the Communist Party of Kenya:
https://twitter.com/BookerBiro/status/1805632212609458629?mx=1
https://twitter.com/BookerBiro/status/1805713069127221381?mx=1

The government threatened to shut down a Kenyan news channel: https://twitter.com/KTNNewsKE/status/1805592519507374399?mx=1

Kenyans throwing rocks at some fancy club that is owned by a Kenyan MP:
https://twitter.com/africansinnews/status/1805631555450106142?mx=1

Kenyans storming the Parliament and burning shit:
https://twitter.com/redstreamnet/status/1805597168377483624?mx=1

been slacking on posting in the newsmega but I can't let this shitpost in verbal form from the Polish president during the Swiss Ukraine summit go unposted:

In the part of the world which I represent, Russia is often called 'the prison of nations', and for good reason, because it is home to almost 200 ethnic groups, most of which became residents of Russia as a result of the methods used in Ukraine today. Russia remains the largest colonial empire, in a world which unlike European powers has never undergone the process of decolonization, and has never been able to deal with the demons of its past. As members of the international community we have to finally say there is no more space for colonialism in the modern world.

Starmer is going to put Israel lobbyists in every single senior government position.

i haven't seen anyone mention this, but New Caledonia is rebelling against french rule right now

french settlers are forming paramilitaries to continue their occupation and colonialism at any cost, france refuses to grant independence, shit is getting heated

Julian Assange expected to be freed after 5 years in UK prison under US plea deal

Thank god liberals have started talking about replacing Biden. They’re just in time for it to be only 5 years too late

Military general does worst coup in color revolution history, is immediately arrested.

Watched the Debate for fun and giggles and was not disappointed. It's real Falling Roman Empire hours, all we need is for Trump to pay the secret service to make him the president and history has repeated itself as a farce

More debate commentary because I’m watching it late:

Biden: it’s the finest military in the world. No one wants to [inaudible] mess with us [inaudible]

No one wants to mess with the US navy? Is there someone you forgot to ask??

Luis Arce normally:

Luis Arce when the US tries to coup him:

https://x.com/ArmchairW/status/1805450204541284734

I've pointed out on many occasions that the Russians have the capability to launch a strategic offensive in Ukraine basically any time they want to.

But what I have not addressed is conditions. What would they want it to look like? How would they know when to "roll tanks?"⬇️

Critical to this analysis is just how successful the Russian decision to adopt a "ground and pound" approach to destroying the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been. Despite the full and enthusiastic backing of NATO and a Ukrainian numerical advantage for much of the war, the Russians have maintained a lopsidedly positive loss-exchange ratio against their enemies throughout. Ukraine is going into demographic collapse while Russian society at large has barely noticed the war.

@MNormanDavies pointed out some time ago that the Stavka has placed a heavy emphasis on efficiency in this war. Many Russian decisions at the operational-strategic level can be explained simply by their seeking the most efficient means to inflict mass casualties on the AFU with the lowest risk to themselves. Thus, any decision to transition to high-speed, mobile warfare from low-speed, positional war can be expected to follow that rubric. In other words, the Russians will launch an offensive to rout the AFU after its back is broken in positional war, rather than attack seeking to "change the game" and defeat the Ukrainians in mobile war. The "game" heavily favors the Russians and they're not in a rush to change it!

The difference between these scenarios can be seen quite easily by comparing two very successful offensives: Operation Bagration in 1944 and the 1975 Ho Chi Minh Offensive. Bagration routed the once-mighty Army Group Center - at the cost of 180,000 killed in action, three times the total Russian death toll of this war. I'm sure the Russians would much prefer the 8,000-strong butcher's bill of North Vietnam's war-ending 1975 operation - and they have the strategic insight to see that modern Ukraine, as a corrupt and deeply dysfunctional garrison state propped up by endless foreign aid, is far more akin to South Vietnam than Nazi Germany.

So what does this look like in practice? The Russians are going to keep poking and prodding in their usual methodical way until part of the line collapses "in depth," and then all hell is going to break loose. That could actually be quite soon - for instance, the recent Russian maneuver in Kharkov was likely intended to accelerate this timeline - but regardless, the State Department will be warming up their helicopters shortly afterwards.

As an addendum, it's just occurred to me that the Ukrainian Hundred Days Offensive of summer 2023 could be likened to Lam Son 719 as a poorly conceived and executed offensive maneuver by an army that had no real idea what it was actually getting itself into... perhaps a topic for examination later.

Adoptee diaspora are often some of the most insufferable people. In Guatemala a lot of them get adopted by bougie liberals who fill their heads with US/ white superiority complexes. Then they occasionally come here with their white partners and tell us we’re stupid and backwards for not doing things their way like embracing neoliberalism more.

I bring them up because one of them got into our org and began his NATO-leftist bullshit almost immediately. Tried to purge me for being “imperialist” because of my positions on Russia/Ukraine war.

He ended up getting purged instead. He now lives in a gated community with his white wife where he continues to post about how our org has been compromised by Russia.

Something I wonder about when I post in threads like this is the possibility of it being sifted through one day by historians, of some sort. Whether that’s internet archivists digging around the wreckage of the old worldwide web for lost media 20 years from now, or scholars from a post-internet empire 5 centuries from now trying to salvage whatever data they can from what they view as the height of human civilisation. Just as the tiniest Roman shopping list carved onto stone would give us insight into what life was like for a distant ancestor of ours, our posts could give our descendants a glimpse into our world.

If you are a curious scholar or even a passionate amateur sifting through the digital detritus of the 2020s to learn what life was like in the leadup to the third world war, i have only one message for you: MARG BAR ISRAEL

Guys I don’t think Biden has the ability to actually form his own sentences anymore. Even about cornpop. They are all pre-scripted by his staffers and all he can do is robotically repeat a version of the script that has undergone some demented transformation in his swiss cheese brain regardless of the relevancy to the topic at hand, and if you try to ask him anything off-script or a follow-up question, or press him on anything he just short circuits like a “choose your own adventure” game that’s really just railroading you into only one possible ending

crazy situation in Kenya rn, 10 shot dead by pigs, parliament stormed

So the strategy for Coups these days basically involve occupying a building then saying you control everything.

In 2020, I nearly died from mysterious industrial chemical exposure at my home. Later I discovered my employer (Apple) was dumping toxic waste into our windows from their Skunkworks semiconductor fab next-door. I tipped off EPA, who raided them in 2023. EPA just sent me the report

The best election leaflet I've ever seen

September Debate would be fire when Biden's Dementia gets worse. Hope he just dies while shouting at Trump about why Chocolate Chocolate Chip is the best ice cream flavour.

Yesterday the Palestinian Youth Movement called out the squad and the DSA for their support of Biden

PYM's response to recent attacks and demonization of the Palestinian liberation movement in the United States by opportunists and members of the so-called "American left":

For the last 9 months, people all across the United States have organized in opposition to Israel’s genocide, and for the last 9 months, the Biden administration has ignored our mass movement, continuing to arm and facilitate this genocide. Biden and all elected officials who have endorsed him have blood of over 40,000 Palestinians on their hands. Elected officials — self-proclaimed as progressive or otherwise — who have voted to send money to the Zionist entity, or who have vilified the movement for Palestine, have the blood of our people on their hands.

As we near the 2024 elections, we know that these same elected officials will try to garner support from our community and movement. They, alongside the so-called progressive organizations endorsing them, will use the rhetoric of “lesser of two evils,” “vote out fascism” and “vote blue no matter who” to try to pressure us to back the very politicians responsible for genocide. And when we refuse — which we will — they will blame Palestinian organizations and communities for Republican victories. Let us be clear: the Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.

In the last few weeks, Democratic Socialists of America electeds Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman smeared the Palestine movement, targeting @WOLPalestine for organizing a protest outside an exhibit meant to manufacture further consent for the genocide of our people. Following these smears and in response to AOC, Bowman, and Sanders’ endorsement of genocider-in-chief Joe Biden, WOL called for a protest outside a rally organized by AOC. What followed was a smear campaign against WOL, with so called progressives aiming to fed-jacket WOL for holding DSA electeds accountable.

For the past few years, PYM and the broader Palestine movement has sought to hold DSA accountable for its relationship and support for elected candidates who directly and materially support Israel and the Zionist movement through their votes for military aid, repression of the Palestine movement, and repeated attacks and smears of our movement. As a result of these efforts, we have witnessed DSA members smear, vilify, and fed-jacket our organization and members, as well as DSA members who support a more principled and concrete position on Zionism.

The so-called “progressives” of the Democratic party, from AOC to Bowman to Sanders, are complicit in this genocide: from endorsing Biden, to voting to send money to the Zionist entity, to smearing Palestinian organizations and conflating anti-Zionism with anti-semitism. Let us be clear: no amount of “lesser of two evils” rhetoric will bully the Palestine movement into supporting those complicit in the genocide of our people. We affirm that we have not only a right, but an obligation, to disrupt the activities of all electeds complicit in this genocide.

We condemn attempts to scapegoat the Palestinian movement for the results of any upcoming elections, and reject attempts by self-proclaimed progressive organizations to paint Palestinian organizations as unstrategic for refusing to buy into the push to “vote blue no matter who” while US bombs continue to rain down on our people in Gaza.

The lack of accountability we are being asked to accept is in fact a self-fulfilling prophecy whose promise is oppression and mass death. Our movement has the right to hold accountable those who deviate from these principles, especially when others will not.

Does Biden withdrawing even matter at this point? It'll just make the Dems look even more pathetic for waiting so long to acknowledge reality, so it won't matter who they replace him with. Trump wins. It's joever.

Kenyan president capitulates to the demands of the protestors:
https://twitter.com/peoplesdispatch/status/1805989537220378776?mx=1

However, the Communist Party of Kenya has accused him of stalling for time because he doesn't actually have the legal authority to do so:
https://twitter.com/BookerBiro/status/1805978921659166980?mx=1
https://twitter.com/BookerBiro/status/1806198583479443478?mx=1

Let’s tell Ruto we are aware that the President is legally unable to withdraw a bill that has already matured for assent. His options are limited to returning it to Parliament with a memorandum for the inclusion of his proposed amendments, which, if rejected by a two-thirds majority, would become law.

Why dupe Kenyans into imagining he can withdraw it in totality? This is a legal conundrum, a deceitful ploy to buy time and distract Kenyans from their urgent demands.

I for one am shocked that the elderly man who is clearly entering the latter stages of dementia is being stubborn about not being fit to be president.

Al Jazeera

Israeli forces in Gaza City ‘executing’ Palestinians on the spot:

Rights group The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor says it has received reports that Israeli forces are committing “widespread massacres” in the Shujayea and Jdaida neighbourhoods in Gaza City.

“Our field team is receiving reports of dozens, possibly hundreds, of victims being executed on the spot or having their shelters bombed,” wrote Ramy Abdul, the chairman of the Geneva-based group, in a post on X.

Earlier, we reported the UN reporting that at least 60,000 people had been displaced from Shujayea as the Israeli military announced intensifying operations there.