Or perhaps the end of the beginning, if you’re a little more pessimistic.
Image is from this Bloomberg article, from which I also gathered some of the information used in the preamble.
While Trump was off in the Middle East in an incompetent attempt to solve a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis, China has been doing something much more productive.
Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, had a summit with CELAC (a community of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries). There, he promised investment, various declarations of friendship, and visa-free entry for 30 days for citizens of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. Lula signed over 30 agreements with China. Colombia is joining the New Development Bank and hopes to gain the money for a 120-kilometer railway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as an alternative route to the Panama Canal. Even Argentina, ruled by arch-libertarian and arch-dipshit (but I repeat myself) Milei, was uncharacteristically polite with China as he secured a currency swap renewal to shore up their international reserves.
It wouldn’t really be correct to say that Latin America is “siding with China over the US” - leaders in the region will continue to make many deals with America for the foreseeable future, and even Trump’s bizarre economic strongman routine won’t make them break off economic and diplomatic relations. What’s significant here is that despite increasing American pressure for those leaders to break off all ties with China, few appear to be listening - and given that China is perhaps the most important economy on the planet right now, that is a very predictable outcome.
As the current American empire takes actions to try and avoid their doom, those very actions only guarantee it. As Latin America grows ever more interconnected with China and continues to develop, America will grow ever more panicked and demanding, and this feedback loop will - eventually - result in the death of the Monroe Doctrine.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Apparently Milei banned the right to strike.
Argentina going down the gutter and the people taking it in the chin.
Accelerationists in shambles.
Chinese table tennis (ping pong) fans are incensed over an incedent in which Wang Chuqin’s paddle appeared damaged before a doubles match against Brazil
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202505/20/WS682be796a310a04af22c069b.html
There’s videos on douyin of one of the paddle keepers (who inspect the paddle, then put it in a protective bag) pressing down on the paddle bags, and standing them on end, leading to comments that this may be deliberate damage.
I haven’t seen this posted, but I learned about today from breakthrough news about Project Esther
Leaked Documents Reveal Trump Admin Plan To Destroy Palestine Movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN8QKCfQHa0
The Group Behind Project 2025 Has a Plan to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/us/project-esther-heritage-foundation-palestine.html or archive link https://archive.ph/Bx3c3
Project Esther: NYT Details Right-Wing Plan to “Rebrand All Critics of Israel” as Hamas Supporters https://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/19/project_esther or archive link https://archive.ph/fBdaI
Is the Fasces in the Capitol intentionally shaped like a dollar or is the dollar intentionally shaped like the fasces?
Removed by mod
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2qq2n3800o Kneecap member charged with terror offence
In case you nerds missed it, Lemmy.world beat us by having the first domestic terrorist of lemmy
I must inform you that there is no genocide happening in Palestine and just saying the word “genocide” in any concept except WW2 and when talking about China disrespects the memory of victims of actual genocide. Oh and there is also a genocide of whites happening in South Africa.
LOKOMOTIV BEATS TRAKTOR 2-1 IN OVERTIME AND WINS THE GAGARIN CUP!!! MY BOYS THE RAILWAYMEN LED THE LEAGUE ALL SEASON AND THEIR HARD WORK PAID OFF LETS GOOOOOOO
УРА ЛОКОМОТИВ
I’ve mentioned before on an older account, but from around 2013-2016 I spent an inordinate amount of time lurking on Stormfront - not Reddit, I mean the real Stormfront. It was fascinating, I just couldn’t believe people openly talked about such horrible things. I felt like a scientist in a lab.
I’m grateful for this experience as I feel it really gave me insight into what are now dogwhistles today.
And back in the day, there was so much crap there about “white genocide” and South Africa. They loved the all-white (but not technically, wink wink it’s about language not race…) town Orania. Such obvious bullshit but the racists just ate it up.
So to now see what was a fringe but open white supremacist talking point be parroted by the president of the US… I don’t know it’s just a bizarre scene for me. The fact that Musk repeats all this and is likely the source feeding Trump tells me he is waaaay more racist than he shows.
When I lurked in Stormfront out of morbid curiosity way back in the day, 95% of the forum was Wehraboos vs Romaboos, people obsessing over nose sizes, and crying about Black people.
White South Africans are the most racist bastards you’ll ever meet.
The ones that left earlier generally had a damn good reason to leave - to run from their atrocities.
Being that openly racist was mainstream as all hell in 60s, 70s, and barely tamed in the 80s and 90s - and even then only replaced by euphemisms like “urban single mothers” etc.
The one or two decades in which it was impolite to be overtly racist were the exception.
I thought they still cried about rhodesia because what the world needs is another anglo settler state.
I mean yeah it’s like when Qanon went full mainstream
Ok I need to know, why does pretty much every country go out their way to kiss zionist ass? From the gulf states to Vietnam and China, why is international politics so weak to try to do anything to barely slap "Israel"s hand? Serious, not shitposts.
Its mind baffling, it goes outside any logic or reason and I would even consider it against materialism. It’s like giving reason to all right wing talks about zionist control over the world lmfao.
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Israel, is in fact, USA/Israel, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, USA plus Israel. Israel is not a country unto itself, but rather another illegal occupaton of a fully functioning USA empire made useful by the US Armed Forces, the Central Intelligence Agency and vital imperial components comprising a full empire as defined by any competent dictionary.
Many Palestinians get murdered by the USA empire every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the illegal occupation which is widely used for murdering Palestinians today is often called Israel, and many of its victims are not aware that it is basically the USA empire, developed by the colonizers who genocided almost all of the Native Americans a few centuries ago.
There really is an Israel, and these people are getting murdered by it, but it is just a part of the empire they are victims of. Israel is the illegal occupation: a part of the empire which resides on land that belongs to someone else who did not consent to getting murdered or having their land taken away. The illegal occupation is an essential part of the empire, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete empire. Israel is normally used in combination with the USA empire: the whole empire is basically USA with Israel added, or USA/Israel. All the so-called Israel distributions are really distributions of USA/Israel!
copypasta bit aside, it would be a blunder to openly state your hostility to Israel because it will only make you the next target of the US sanctions regime (a sanctions war is already being doled out to the entire world). The US would most likely use any Chinese sanction of Israel as the excuse for all out war which neither side would be able to control not to mention what the stage would be like for smaller AES/Global South nations like Vietnam.
The WPK in the DPRK having the most consistent position on Israel (does not exist has never existed) stems from them already being made into a global pariah for decades by the US (which has led to millions of deaths). Many capitalist Global South countries with centrist or socdem governments have so much more to lose.
Honestly, it probably came down to economics.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that there is still a 10% global tariffs on every country other than China, and Trump has made it clear that support for Israel is non-negotiable, not only for their foreign “partners”, but also for domestic US citizens.
This is one place where I think the US ruling imperialist class really leaned in on Trump’s pompous performance to psychologically manipulate the world’s reception towards US policies.
If Trump had just announced a 10% global tariffs, there would have been huge public outcry across the world.
Instead, what we get was at first, an insane Trump tariff plan where everyone laughed at how stupid it is “haha he’s imposing 150% tariffs on the penguins!!” and then Trump would “walk back” to “only 10%” and the world suddenly breathed a sigh of relief and quietly accepted the rate - for the fear that any noise could irritate a vindictive Trump to raise tariffs against their particular countries again.
A tariff is a tax on US consumers, it would raise the price, but on the flip side, it also means that the exporting countries have to deal with surplus export capacity. Every country now hopes for a deal with Trump because the first countries that manage to bring their tariffs down to 0% would be the winners against their exporting competitors.
Trump’s global tariff is actually threatening to unleash a mercantilistic fight among the exporting countries, and this is very dangerous because you can’t just keep adjusting the prices - at some point, overproduction leads to price collapse, and economic recession.
And while this is all playing out, the US is reshaping the global supply chain to its own interest.
This is happening because the world (many Global South countries) have bought into the “export led growth” model (lie) proposed (imposed) by the IMF. The idea that you have to earn export revenues before you can invest domestically can only work as long as there is a country willing to run a huge trade deficit at all times so you, the exporting country, can accumulate the trade surplus.
This was how Taiwan and South Korea “won” the race back in the 1970s-90s (the Four Asian Dragons), before the rise of China, and every other country has since flocked to emulate that strategy, believing that one day they will also become like Taiwan and South Korea.
Trump is now saying “I’m bored of the old winners, they no longer benefit me, I’m now reshuffling the board to pick a new set of winners. Here is your chance to rise to the top if you stroke my ego enough.” Pure mercantilism.
This is also why you see so many pro-BRICS, pro-China “alt media” people are now going through their cognitive dissonance. “US import only comprises 2% of China’s exports lol! Who cares??” But somehow many countries found themselves unable to just stop exporting to the US and replace their demand somewhere else. Strange.
I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but for the 25th time this week (lol), if there is no country willing to take on the net importer role to replace the US as a net deficit spender, then the US will always have a say on global trade.
That’s simply how the world has been shaped over the past several decades with the US and China enjoying running huge trade imbalances at the expense of the rest of the world. One of these two countries have to decide they no longer want to be part of this cursed marriage, and the shocking revelation is that the US seems to be the one who wants to break off from this marriage, and China doing everything it can to save it.
Also, bonus: there used to be another economic bloc that could challenge US’s dominance, and that is the EU. The euro is a far more acceptable saving currency for the rest of the world compared to yuan - and the real threat to the dollar hegemony in recent years. (If you somehow think I’m a “chauvinist” for China, you’ll see here that this is not the case).
However, very conveniently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just had to happen, and with the EU losing their cheap gas supply from Russia, it’s all but over for Europe:
The Russia-Ukraine war killed the euro and subjugated the entire European subcontinent to the US. This is what allowed Trump to advance to the next stages of US imperial strategy.
Regime Radio did a book review on The World For Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources.
One of the host said that in the cold war a lot of the commodities traders are Israelis who played a role in funneling resources and money to regimes that are not West friendly during the cold war.
My guess is that Israel was an important strategy partner that is useful to curb Arab nationalism in the region as petroleum is a vital resource in the region. As Petrol played a less and less important role in the future, the West-Israel relation will decrease, but there might be some probability that Israel will hedge their bets with BRICs countries for its survival.
Almost every nation on earth has an entrenched oligarchy/compradore/capitalist class that massively benefits from continued US Dollar hegemony and therefore the Zionist occupation and extermination campaigns. Whether those oligarchs run the country (the West, India, Gulf countries, etc) or simply hold varying degrees of internal power within the country( Russia, China, Colombia, Brazil, even to a lesser extent Iran & Venezuela) or are running parallel governments (Yemen, South Korea, takfiri proxies in North/West Africa) the issue is pervasive.
We must understand that the fight against Zionism is truly a class-struggle on a global scale (the Palestinian Resistance and Yemeni Government of Change and Construction are the global vanguard.) It is for this reason that the defeat of the zionist colony will transform the world geopolitical and economic landscape in favor of socialism insha’allah. This is, to my understanding, the position held by the Masar Badil organization.
Because Israel is the 51st state. Going against Israel means going againt the United States.
I mean they sure arent helping. But Israel is allowed to do what they do, because its advantageous for the west to allow them to do so. China & Vietnam can be easily justified with the sentiment that no country should intervene in another countries internal politics, otherwise that line of thinking could lead to people using the fake “Uyghur genocide” or like the conflict of the lowland peoples with the người Thượng/degar inside vietnam to justify intervention/sanctions.
The anti-west states arent really looking to be the next world police, more so a multipolar world where states are left alone or so goes the thinking.
they libs
surveillance tech
Article
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has recovered well after his release from jail last year, his wife told AFP ahead of the premiere of a documentary Wednesday that includes never-seen-before footage of the whistleblower.
Assange is at the Cannes Festival to promote the documentary by American filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, wearing a T-shirt with the names of killed Gaza children at a photo session on Tuesday. The 53-year-old former hacker is not talking to the media, however, with his wife Stella Assange saying, “He’ll speak when he’s ready.”
“We live with incredible nature at our doorstep (in Australia). Julian’s very outdoorsy. He always has been. He’s really recovered physically and mentally,” Stella, a Spanish-Swedish lawyer, told AFP.
Assange was released from a high-security British prison last June after a plea bargain with the US government over Wikileaks’s work publishing top-secret military and diplomatic information.
He had spent five years behind bars fighting extradition from Britain and another seven holed up in the Ecuador embassy in London where he claimed political asylum.
Award-winning director Jarecki said his film, “The Six Billion Dollar Man”, aimed to correct the record about Assange, whose methods and personality still make him a divisive figure.
“I think Julian Assange put himself in harm’s way for the principle of informing the public about what corporations and governments around the world are doing in secret,” Jarecki told AFP.
Anyone willing to trade years of their life for their principles, “I think you’d have to look at that person as having heroic qualities,” he added.
The film includes personal videos handed over by Stella, who initially joined Wikileaks as a legal advisor and went on to have two children with Assange while he was living in the Ecuadorian embassy.
It also features testimony from people who helped spy on Assange, including a private security agent who said he installed bugs accessed by the American security services in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Former “Baywatch” actress and Assange’s friend Pamela Anderson, fellow whistleblower Edward Snowden, and Australian human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson also appear.
Jarecki pushed back on some of the criticism of Assange, notably that he endangered lives by publishing unredacted US documents with the names of people who spoke to American diplomats, including informants or human rights campaigners.
He also dismissed any links between Wikileaks and Russian intelligence services over the leak of Democratic Party emails ahead of the 2016 US presidential election which embarrassed Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton.
An investigation by US special counsel Robert Mueller, who probed alleged Russian interference in the 2016 vote, found evidence Russian military intelligence hacked the Democratic Party and passed the information to Wikileaks.
“Other than from the mouths of people in the Democratic Party, we’ve never found any evidence of any linkages between WikiLeaks and Russia,” Jarecki claimed.
Ecuador’s left-wing former president Rafael Correa, who offered Assange asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, was to attend the film’s red carpet premiere on Wednesday evening.
Jarecki was awarded the first ever Golden Globe for documentary at Cannes on Monday for his previous work, including his 2018 film about Elvis, “The King”.
This year’s festival is one of the most political for years, with hundreds of film industry figures including Hollywood heavyweights signing a letter condemning what they called “genocide” in Gaza.
It also denounced Israel’s killing of Fatima Hassouna, a young Gaza photojournalist featured in the documentary “Put Your Soul in Your Hand and Walk”, which premiered at Cannes last week.
omg I read “Assad” instead of “Assange” and got very confused
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/05/21/china-who-donation-500-million/ China to donate $500 million to WHO, stepping into gap left by U.S.
W China. Kinda wish they went for $1b but regardless $500m is a pretty good amount.
Israeli forces stationed at Jenin refugee camp have fired live ammunition at a diplomatic delegation as it was entering the camp to view the living conditions of the refugees.
The diplomats that visited the camp on Wednesday were from Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, India, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Mexico Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Sri Lanka, Spain, Turkey, the EU, and the UK, along with representatives from several other countries and journalists accompanying them.
The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates had organized the visit for the international community to witness the Israeli regime’s ongoing aggression against the Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank.
The Ministry had arranged a similar visit to Tulkarem city and the refugee camp in the northern West Bank last week.
WAFA news agency reported that the delegation wanted to enter the camp from the eastern gate, where the regime has installed an iron gate, when the soldiers fired live ammunition directly and heavily at the diplomats and their entourage.
In a statement, the Ministry said, “This aggressive act constitutes a flagrant and serious violation of the provisions of international law and the most basic rules of diplomatic relations stipulated in the 1961 Vienna Convention, which guarantees protection and immunity for diplomatic missions and delegations.”
After the incident, the delegation visited the Jenin Governorate headquarters and reviewed the situation in the camp and the city.
The camp governor, Mohammed Jarrar, explained in detail the city’s disastrous economic condition, the war’s impact on its facilities, and the destruction of infrastructure.
More importantly, he described the extremely inhumane circumstances under which 22,000 Palestinians have been forced to abandon their homes and live in the tyrannical conditions the Israeli regime has forced upon them.
Later, the Ministry condemned the assault by the occupation forces on the diplomatic delegation invited by the Palestinian Authority.
Since October 7, 2023, when the Israeli regime began its genocidal war against Gaza, the number of attacks by settlers and occupation forces on the Palestinians of the Occupied West Bank has increased dramatically.
The Israeli regime has also killed at least 1,000 Palestinians and abducted 7,000 in the occupied West Bank.
Israel’s going to literally be firing on your fucking diplomats and you’re still not going to back off from them. There’s just absolutely no limit to anything they can do.
Israel’s going to literally be firing on your fucking diplomats and you’re still not going to back off from them. There’s just absolutely no limit to anything they can do.
Israel murdered a member of the Swedish royal family and Sweden held a minor grudge for less than 2 years.
Israel has been killing western citizens, soliders, officals and aid workers for decades upon decades. The governments never cared. The disparity in treatment of russia or north korea is astronomical. 9/11 killed a few americans and destroyed two buildings and that caused 20+ years of violent rampaging through asia.
I’m almost morbidly curious to see how far they’re allowed to take it. Can they just start sending soldiers overseas to invade and occupy western states with no resistance? Can they just start launching nukes at China or Russia with no response? Can they murder a president on live television and mock the entire population of a country with no repercussions?
American cops and Israeli cops train together. “Cop city” in Atlanta has deep ties to the Israeli occupation so they’ve already been killing yankees from that alone.
Maybe not the first two parts but the last one, I could definitely believe. They have a lot of goodwill to burn through, due to their advantageous position in the maintaince and expansion of the empire. It will only cease if israhell becomes too costly to maintain. It took until the soviet union fell and fear of a communist south africa was out of the carts for apartheid to end.
(Supposedly) Russian forces have reached the border of Dnepropetrovsk. https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1925210712009302240
I hope losing another oblast will make Zelenskyy realize he needs to accept Russia’s terms or it will just get worse. (It absolutely won’t make him realize that.)
Dnepropetrovsk is basically mostly flatlands, unlike donbass which is 20 Maginot lines and industrial nuclear-bomb-proof factories with build in superbunkers. They basically need to annex it anyways to secure Donbass as a holding.