Get it? “Revolting” is a double entendre! Anyway…
As the Trump administration continues to accelerate the flagrant disregard of “international law”, we have seen various European leaders flock to China (alongside Canada), seeking deals. Some trips have been more successful than others - for example, Macron’s was fairly dire despite his lavish reception by Xi Jinping, but Starmer’s resulted in some actual deals and tariff reductions. The intent of this wave of diplomacy with China is clear: leverage.
Nobody should be fooled into thinking this revolt immediately benefits the developing world, of course. While a relative weakening of the US compared to Europe is progressive in a limited sense (insofar as the US is the locus of imperialism), every indication shows that, when it matters, the European consensus remains aligned in most respects with the US, such as with them and the Zionist entity against Iran, against national sovereignty in Africa (e.g. ECOWAS), as well as in Latin America (either in support or not sufficiently opposing American designs there against Cuba and Venezuela, to name but two countries). It is also unclear how long such a divide will last - perhaps Trump leaving office in 2028 and a slightly less bellicose leader in power will result in many cancelled deals with China.
Despite the very shaky initial steps over the past couple years, Europe still has many miles it must traverse to achieve sovereignty, let alone socialism. For now, it will cheer on the sanctions against millions of vulnerable people and incoming bombing of Iran and Hezbollah, though perhaps it will also share a degree of the economic/military retaliation.
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.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
I would look at BreakThrough News to see some video of it. It was a pretty large overall day of demonstration, hundreds of thousands of participants across 300 locations.
Long story short, there was some great activity in certain areas. I don’t know how much the Twin Cities shut down compared to the week before. I did see that Boyle Heights, a major Latino immigrant neighborhood of LA was pretty much shut down. But there was nothing in any city that could be considered a “general strike”
I still think the day was a success in advancing the cause of a general strike and putting the idea into the people’s consciousness. I don’t know if a nationwide general strike is possible given the current material conditions, but localized general strikes where federal surges are likely to see success just like the Jan 23 Twin Cities strike.
The PSL is still pushing and agitating for a general strike, but there are no concrete further actions at this time. Hopefully, we can build towards a large mass action this May Day.
Yeah it wasn’t meant to be a hole-in-one. Historically general strikes are built up over consecutive actions culminating toward the big one. In this case PSL amplified the organic calls from black and Somali student orgs to expand the strike and then mobilized 300 cities with varying degrees of success in developing coordination with unions, churches, civil groups and small businesses for large protests and shutdowns.
The snowball is just beginning it’s long roll toward mayday, and a nationwide general strike is now closer and more popular than it’s ever been in the past 8 decades or so.
Yeah I think a lot of people are missing that local organization for both a general strike as well as localized rapid response networks and mutual aid networks will rapidly intensify when there is an ice surge in the area or other material conditions that I can’t foresee. In my town, very little “economic shutdown” occurred, just a handful of businesses either shut down, or donated a portion of proceeds somewhere (one place alleged they would donate 100% of proceeds to ACLU…)
Twin Cities had a headstart on the radical politics in general, but the success of economic shutdown and the massive participation in street level resistance wouldn’t be possible if thousands of federal agents weren’t constantly making life miserable for everyone.
There are naysayers about the general strike strategy, I’ve also heard anarchists frustrated that PSL aren’t building rapid response networks in the area, but that is putting the cart before the horse in my opinion. All socialists can do is continue the work torward a general strike, brick by beick
The important part is the action and reflection - to try and to learn - to put theory to practice and synthesize new tactics and strategies in tandem with the masses in active struggle.
We could spend the next year online arguing about the correct approach having read this or that text (some have already done so), but unless someone actually tries in the real world, we’ll end up with a bookshelf of lofty ideas and nothing else to show.
I would assume the strategy in twin cities was taken because rapid response wasn’t seen as a gap the party was needed for. Maybe it was growing organically and sufficiently, or the space was already fairly saturated with existing organizations. Maybe they might already work with some and not want to create division by working in parallel.
Conversely they probably saw the party in this instance better suited to push consciousness and push the struggle beyond rapid response, to intensify broader political organizing and coalitions. After all as anyone organizing on the ground knows, rapid response alone will not be enough to win. (This is just my spitballing on how the decision may have been made, take it with a grain of salt).
I’m also sorry to be unclear, I was talking about PSL in my area. I’m not sure what role they have had in rapid response, ice watch, and mutual aid efforts in Twin Cities. But I do think it isn’t the place of the PSL, there are plenty of orgs already engaging in that work.