...one has to wonder what the latest Blinken round of visits to the Middle East was supposed to accomplish, since all it did was expose our impotence. Even the Financial Times could not hide that the meetings with Netanyahu and then Arab leaders were a train wreck. Netanyahu rejected even any itty bitty ceasefire, branded a humanitarian pause, to get relief in, demanding that Hamas release all hostages first. The fact that Israel has welched or underperformed on its past begrudging promises to let trucks from Egypt in, would make that a non-starter even before getting to Hamas being sure to stick to its position of wanting to trade hostages for Palestinian prisoners. And of course the Arab states are not about to budge. Blinken got a more pointed version of what he was told before.
Antony Blinken faced intense pressure from regional allies to facilitate an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, laying bare the stark gap between US support for Israel and the outrage in Arab capitals over the siege and bombardment of the strip….
Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister, demanded an unconditional ceasefire, a commitment that Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly rejected after meeting Blinken on Friday.
Blinken had been expected to “brainstorm” with Arab diplomats the future of Gaza, home to 2.3mn Palestinians, after the war ends. Safadi bluntly rejected those talks as premature. “How can we even entertain what will happen in Gaza when we do not know how Gaza will be left?” he asked Blinken. “Are we going to be talking about a wasteland? Are we talking about a whole population reduced to refugees?”
This comes off as the sort of thing someone who had just read classic texts on negotiating trying to put in practice: “Gee, let’s get a dialogue going! Let’s get to ‘Yes’ on some less fraught issues to pave the way for further agreement!” In addition, “brainstorming” is cringemakingly American. You don’t do that with people who are mad at you. You don’t do that in a crisis. Between independent entities, you do not do that at the top level. You have low level people or emissaries float ideas. So why this exercise? The worst is that Biden and Blinken come off as so disconnected from reality that they though they might get someone to accommodate US needs.
Friendly reminder: when commenting about a news event, especially something that just happened, please provide a source of some kind. While ideally this would be on nitter or archived, any source is preferable to none at all given.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
The Country of the Week is still Lebanon! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
You're going to have to (hex)bear with me on the update this week. Have you been feeling generally pretty terrible this last month or so? So have I, and doomscrolling and archiving it all is my quasi-job at this point. Not good, folks, more and more people are saying it. I'll get over it eventually.
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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/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/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.
What is the Fengqiao model? Generaly speaking, a mass line based model developed and advocated in Mao’s era that directed the masses themselves at the local level to carry out the on-site “rectification” of “reactionary elements” in society promoting greater degrees of local self-governance and "decentralizing" class struggle. The “Fengqiao experience” ,named after Fengqiao Township, was the process of mobilizing the masses in order to “strengthen the dictatorship over class enemies.” Here is how the top Party leader of Fengqiao District at the time (early 60s) reflected back on it:
During the National People’s Congress in 1963, the minister of public security, Xie Fuzhi (谢富治), gave a speech called, “Relying on the Strength of the Masses, Strengthening the People’s Democratic Dictatorship, Transforming the Majority of ‘Reactionary Elements’ into New People” (依靠群众力量,加强人民民主专政,把绝大多数“四类分子”改造成新人). Xie’s speech made specific mention of the example provided by Fengqiao.
On November 20, 1963, Mao Zedong added his written instructions to the Xie Fuzhi speech, in which he said: “The example of Zhuji raised here is a good one — various regions should follow this example, expanding the work through pilot programs.” Before the Cultural Revolution, the ministry of public security released materials about Fengqiao, but the People’s Daily never reported on these. On December 21, 1977, the People’s Daily published the piece from the top Party leader of Fengqiao District quoted above. That piece was called, “Raising High the Red Flag of Fengqiao Erected by Mao Zedong, Relying on the Masses to Strengthen Dictatorship"
In the struggle against the enemy, arrest is necessary and proper only for a small number of class enemies; as for those you can choose to arrest or not, none should be arrested; you must mobilize the masses to carry out a struggle of reason, to deal with the enemies, carrying out on-site monitoring and rehabilitation, without the need to submit issues to higher authorities. This experience was affirmed and praised by the greater leader and teacher Mao Zedong.
Until recently, no top Chinese leader since Mao Zedong had ever been quoted publicly in the People’s Daily or other state media making remarks on the “Fengqiao experience.” But in 2013, marking the 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s written instructions, Xi Jinping broke this pattern by issuing “important instructions on the development of the ‘Fengqiao experience’." But the focus and promotion of the model has increased considerably in the last few years.
In the report of the 20th National Congress it was clearly directed that that the "Fengqiao Experience" in the new era must be upheld and developed at the grassroots level of society and based on it the mechanism for correctly handling contradictions among the people under the new situation should be improved. To facilitate and regulate the expression of public demands, coordinate interests and safeguard rights.
In March 2023, Xi again emphasized the need to uphold and develop the "Fengqiao Experience" in the new era, improve the mechanism for correctly handling conflicts among the people under the new situation, and promptly resolve conflicts and disputes at the grassroots level and in the bud by involving the masses in the identification of elements ,practices or people that must be reformed. During the Hangzhou Asian Games, Xi made a special trip to inspect the Fengqiao Museum and affirmed the great historical and practical significance of the "Fengqiao Experience".
The other day, along with the meetup i originaly linked Xi met with like 4 heads of state (including the Australian dumbass) ,yet his meeting with cadre representatives of the "fengqiao model" was the frontpage news on the People's Daily and other state media over them
To end with some interesting (optimistic and with a bunch of assumptions) food for thought. The "common prosperity" project, lauded as the next stage in socialism with chinese chracteristics and specificaly its "pilot" in Zhejiang, aimed to be completed by the mid 30s, calls , among other things, for "adjusting income distribution" and "adjusting excessive income". No specifics have been given on how that wealth redistribution will be achieved but it is notable that county-level social conflict and dispute mediation and resolution centers have been also a behind the scenes focus of the "common prosperity" pilot in Zhenjiang and its also the province with the most developed and widespread grassroots "fengqiao model" system
that Xi and the CPC is opportunisticaly using these slogans and programs to better control the population and redirect their energy and attention to petty local matters without those programs being radical at all. Unless and until something undisputably based happens in China at a large scale and rapid manner and not this glacial, opaque and zig zag shift towards basedness maoists wont really let their suspicions down and be open on such a possibility. Wouldnt really blame them that much.
its actually refreshing to see a critical take on china, I feel like we sometimes act a bit too much like fans and uncritically support whatever Xi says or whatever China does. Or maybe Im not on here enough and I've missed out on great critiques, in which case I'd love to get links.
mechanism for correctly handling conflicts among the people under the new situation, and promptly resolve conflicts and disputes at the grassroots level
looks like anti-swingset aktion is back on the menu, how could he object?
He's a hell of a character. He did used to have an amazing video up on his channel titled, "So your family suffered under communism, why should I care?" that I miss a lot.