Bulletins and News Discussion from May 20th to May 26th, 2024 - Never Break TrueAnon's Rules For Life - COTW: Azerbaijan
Image is of Azerbaijan's President, Aliyev (left) and Armenia's President, Pashinyan (right) in a meeting a month or two after Azerbaijan took Nagorno-Karabakh.
Never go to a second location.
Always get the interior ministry post.
Never get in a helicopter or any small aircraft.
If someone with a gun enters your car, they’re gonna kill you.
If someone tells you they’re not going to kill you, they’re calming you down to kill you later.
Never give up your nukes.
Never release the opposition's political prisoners.
Never let the opposition delay elections.
If someone starts to get into German runes, drop them.
Never trust a South American with a German name.
Never move anywhere for a religion.
Never go into the sewers unless you’re a sewer guy.
If someone’s trying to get you to commit a crime, they're FBI (sometimes CIA or military intelligence).
Never become an FBI informant.
If you do become an FBI informant, record everything.
Never relinquish your arms.
Always get it in writing.
If you keep gambling, you’ll eventually win.
Never talk to cops without a lawyer.
Always pay your mercenaries.
Don’t let anyone take your passport.
To add an addendum to rule 3, never put your President and Foreign Minister in the same helicopter or small aircraft. Especially if doing so in bad weather conditions. Especially if you're already under threat from a hostile nuclear power in the region with a proclivity for terrorism (though this probably isn't Israel's doing, in this particular case).
Anyway, Azerbaijan. Not a great country, I think. Did some genocides. They're a petrostate that is hosting Cop29, which I suppose is a way for the bourgeoisie to implicitly convey their contempt for the green movement. They got weapons from Israel, too.
Just for the record, there's an Iranian province called East Azerbaijan, which is not the same as Azerbaijan.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Azerbaijan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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.
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.
He does. The "Biden no longer crosses the lawn alone" story a while back was about them hiding his decrepit shuffle as he walked to the helicopter ("Air Force Two" or whatever the fuck stupid name they have for it).
Right. I"m told it is "Marine One". Whatever, Git in heli and crash, GenoJoe. Call it whatever you like. Name it something even more galaxy-brained, like you did your vicious, abused doggy.
In doing so, would the US lose their permanent security council seat? Even if they didn't the UN is an incredibly valuable tool in lending the US legitimacy in invading and carving up peripheral states - would they throw it all away for something that isn't necessarily existential for Israel?
If you mean the Uniting for Peace resolution, and how it got through the GA, then yeah. The resolution itself is rarely used anyway, but the reason it was implemented at all is because the US walked it through every echelon and secured its existence after "authorizing" its own invasion of Korea. A unilateral general assembly resolution on Palestinian statehood would most likely require strong conviction by a 2/3rds majority and extensive support from one of the permanent members to actually get anywhere if a gridlock happened in the SC.
Decisions of the General Assembly on important questions shall be made by a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting. These questions shall include: recommendations with respect to the maintenance of international peace and security, the election of the non-permanent members of the Security Council, the election of the members of the Economic and Social Council, the election of members of the Trusteeship Council in accordance with paragraph 1 (c) of Article 86, the admission of new Members to the United Nations, the suspension of the rights and privileges of membership, the expulsion of Members, questions relating to the operation of the trusteeship system, and budgetary questions.
Emphasis mine.
So if the US and allies boycotted, the vote could definitely get through. But right now it seems European nations would rather begrudgingly support international liberal institutions rather than undermine them, so I doubt it would happen. And it seems like the security council doesn't need to approve enlargement?
If by enlargement you mean admitting new member states, the security council must vote For with their 60% majority and no vetoes before the general assembly is able to vote, and they must then vote For with a 2/3 majority.
The WFP is part of a strategy to facilitate dumping of highly subsidized starchy staple crops from the global North on the global South in a way that undermines local food self-sufficiency. Not saying that it wouldn't be a humanitarian disaster because defunding it isn't going to immediately fix the issues that are preventing food sovereignty, but fixing the program is necessary to secure a just transition and maybe America butting out will enable better things to fill the vacuum. Or maybe this is just groping for the tiniest sliver of silver lining amidst what's probably going to turn into an ugly and destructive meltdown by our aging overlords.
oh, but did those 150 million people show the talent of Bill Gates in monopolizing his software and then enshittifying it knowing there is no possibility of it being usurped under the protection of a genocidal world empire? didn't think so
So you're telling me that one itsy-bitsy act of cannibalism would allow us to fund it for decades? Sounds like plenty of time to figure out some dual power.