Bulletins and News Discussion from July 15th to July 21st, 2024 - It's Joever
Image is of Joseph Robinette Biden, who has stepped down and will not run against Trump in the 2024 election.
In the aftermath of Trump surviving an assassination attempt, many professional opinion-havers are now talking about the scourge of "political violence" that has overtaken, or will soon overtake America, and how we must not let chaos rule. This is, of course, patently absurd. The American government and its allies have been the greatest force of political violence on the planet since the beginning of colonialism, and the foundations of the country are made of corpses. Today, America commits political violence by forcing Ukrainians into the maw of Russian artillery instead of trying to reach a peaceful settlement, which Russia has repeatedly expressed interest in and offered Ukraine relatively favourable terms. They supply Israel with endless weaponry to destroy entire cities and populations, while Biden supporters insist that somehow things could be worse than daily massacres and mass starvation.
In May 1945, French police fired on protestors, causing retaliatory attacks on French settlers, killing about a hundred. In response, the French murdered 45,000 Algerians in a little under two months, in a frenzy of political violence called the Sétif and Guelma massacre. As the massacre was being completed, the International Court of Justice was established. It goes without saying that Algeria never benefited from the ICJ, and the War of Independence from 1954 to 1962 was made inevitable. Over a million Algerians were killed before France could bear the fighting no longer and gave up, and Algeria won itself a state. Comparisons to the ongoing war of independence and genocide in Palestine are obvious.
While the means of colonial violence have evolved over the centuries, the basic structure of it has not. As in Algeria, Vietnam, and Cuba, resistance groups in and around Palestine are fighting for a world with less political violence. The American government would drown every city in the developing world in blood to prevent peace.
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 Algeria! 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.
Fucking US Latinos and their “my people” shit is just as annoying as Mestizo Americans claiming to be indigenous. It’s always done in an annoyingly dramatic way like this to justify some neoliberal bullshit.
AOC: Joe Biden actually stomps among old people, who are hard for Democrats to win. Those are not people who are on Twitter but they vote more than any other bracket. You can't assume those voters will transfer to any other candidate.
I'm sorry but she is a complete idiot.
Most Biden voters are just anti-TrumpIt is getting worse most people who were coping with themselves saying they support Biden are now admitting they just don't like Trump. This is insane, this is the worst possible scenario.
But no acshually Biden is really popular with the right voting group. Not only go fuck yourself, this is just the 12th different version of the same copium shit.
Transfer what vote from old conservative dipshits? You dumbass he already doesn't have any.
This idea that there are Biden or bust voters out there is absolutely insane period. There is no world in which a 60yo boomer democrat is going "uhm acshualy even though my boy Biden endorsed his literal VP I wont vote for her because turns out I actualy prefer the other racist fascist!".
The rest is some garbage nonsense pearl clutching about possible litigation even though Biden is not the nominee yet.
Also how can the party that simultaneously say democracy is at stake Trump must not win will turn around and say "uhm acshualy idk about the legality of substituting our shit candidate that is not even our candidate yet, better not bother I guess. Anyway democracy is at stake if you don't vote!"
Yeah her pre-election resume is extremely suspicious, the "I was just a widdle bawtendaw" game is such a dodge. She did that less than a year, she was a staffer and in the NGO/CIA circuit before that
I think she outplayed herself (making a decision to look responsible/mature by accepting the status quo, and getting caught on the wrong side of the issue when the dam broke) and now she's too stubborn and not savvy enough to pivot.
She also probably recognizes that at this point, if Biden drops she's going to lose her bona fides as a progressive.
While Biden could help with her impeachment yadda yadda of the Supreme Court NOW, if Biden loses then he can't feign support for it later. Oh well, nevertheless... (it wasn't ever going to happen anyways.)
IMO, she's taking marching orders from someone. The purpose of AOC, Bernie, and the squad is to sheepdog, discredit, and instill ideological confusion among what could become the US left. That's their real purpose within the US government.
Pelosi and Obama having second thoughts about Biden while Bernie continues to humiliate himself by supporting Biden to the bitter end is completely by design. Whether Bernie genuinely believes this because he's Biden's friend or whether he's forced to do it by gunpoint doesn't matter in the end because they got what they want: a so-called progressive who has repeatedly debased himself and the movement he represents for the sake of some white supremacist imperialist that even other white supremacist imperialists have second thoughts about. The fact people here are going, "wtf Bernie why are you still doing this? I want my fucking money back, you fucking fraud" means Bernie is fully committed to playing the role he has been assigned to.
AOC is more or less doing the same thing. Since AOC has time and time again shown herself to be a careerist and opportunist, most likely she's doing this because she has been promised something that will help her political career if she's willing to humiliate herself and further discredit US progressives. It's the political equivalent of "I'll give you $1000 if you eat this banana on the ground that I've stepped on."
Do you think she and Bernie are blackmailed? Her behavior on the livestream was very unnatural. It’s not how normal politician engage with their audience.
Well, that's the stick. Being enticed with rewards for going along combined with blackmail for not going along. I know AOC was spooked by 1/6, mentioning how strangers were casing the Capitol before it happened and how the panic buttons her office were completely disconnected. Here's a Snopes article, and I know it's Snopes, but it has a screenshot of her tweet.. Red MAGA wasn't anywhere near her office, so the implication of her accusation is that feds who were sympathetic towards red MAGA or really dislike AOC/the squad purposely disconnected the panic buttons in hopes red MAGA would find them and finish them off.
I guess if you don't think they are offering her anything, then they could be threatening her. The result is still the same in the end.
It isnt what she knows, its what biden knows. He's got dirt on enough people that even in his current state he is a serious threat to many individuals in the party but AOC is probably one that is the deepest in his pocket.