On December 4th, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and the DRC’s Felix Tshisekedi signed the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity (pictured above). Trump boasted that he was settling a war that had gone on for decades, and remarked, idiosyncratically, “[…] and now they’re going to spend a lot of time hugging, holding hands […]”
A few days later, the M23 militia (backed by Rwanda) advanced into Uvira, a city near the DRC’s eastern border with Burundi and a major commercial and strategic location in the region. Burundi, although a small country, is a significant ally to the DRC and has sent thousands of soldiers to aid them during conflicts; this offensive by M23 aims to cut off a direct route between the two, though they do still share quite a long border over Lake Tanganyika. Tens of thousands of civilians (possibly up to 200,000) fled as M23 approached.
Signed almost simultaneously with the Accords was a Strategic Partnership Agreement between the DRC and the United States, which effectively threw open its critical minerals in the east to American exploitation. These minerals include tin, tungsten, and tantalum, which is vital for many industries. The irony is that M23 has been taking territory in the eastern DRC in order to transport these very minerals to Rwanda and onwards to global supply chains. Signing the Accord was, therefore, a remarkably pointless endeavour for everybody involved. Burundi and the DRC have complained, calling for sanctions on Rwanda, and appeasing to Trump’s pride, calling this a “slap in the face to the United States”, though I doubt the US is ultimately all that bothered about it one way or another.
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.
When on a single day 15 people of jewish faith die its a global tragedy worth erasing the freedom of millions and millions of citizens. When 15 Palestinians die on a single day its called a ceasefire.
Can both be tragedies?
one is being weaponized as a tragedy by the zionists. one is being erased. if you don’t see the difference then that’s a blindness of yours
Of course there’s a difference, I just don’t see the need for us to minimise one, especially in a safe space such as here.
That’s a kind of random thing to say when the point being made is specifically equalizing, to unminimise. Making a direct and equal comparison.
Minimizing would be comparing to a lesser situation. For example, saying, “well my dad died of cancer last year and I’m sad about that, but look people die every day; it’s part of life; get over it”. That would be minimizing.
Comparing the intentional violent deaths of 15 people to the intentional violent deaths of 15 people is by no definition minimizing.
The mainstream media and zionist mouthpieces are all “maximizing” it, without a better term. The largest part of propaganda is emphasis. I will just say that while tragic, this is anomalous and the work of daesh, which is western-backed in the first place. Israel deliberately propped up and spread daesh and deash propaganda, as did the CIA. They both benefit from spreading anti-semitism globally and propping up salafist terrorists to make the western world hate muslims. I don’t get the point of over-pontificating on the significance of a one-off anecdote of an event when there’s much more pressing things to emphasize. And if we do discuss it, it should be in the context of explaining that salafism is a product of the west and their allies, this is their fault and not the fault of Palestinians or the left.
Edit: context for those who got here from the direct link in the pinned coment: this is in response to a comment asking “Can both be tragedies?” in a discussion of the recent Bondi Beach shooting in Australia and the Gaza genocide.
In an abstract sense, yes (and I agree that they are). Practically, not really. One is treated as inevitable and just an unfortunate necessity / part of life / how it is in that part of the world. The other is treated as the sequel to the Holocaust in order to use it as an excuse for the former. In practice, it makes sense to compare them because that’s what zionists are doing when they flood the airwaves with the latter.
Edit: any instance of Jewish suffering is automatically implicitly treated as a direct descendant and potential resumption of the Holocaust, making it the most important event on earth, to the exclusion of anything else that might possibly be a complicating factor or a distraction in the media cycle. It’s quite literally impossible not to compare the two when one is being boosted almost entirely by zionists who have a huge interest in dismissing the other.
Palestinian suffering cannot be discussed without a long disclaimer about Jewish suffering, otherwise you’re antisemitic. Jewish suffering must be discussed completely in a vacuum, otherwise you’re antisemitic. These two judgments are both being made by the same people.
Yes, all of this. Forgetting that some of the victims were pro-genocide and the perpetrators IS CIA assets, so not an act of resistance. The current ongoing settler colonial zionist genocide is HEAVILY ideologically conducted via “pain supremacy” where the pain suffered by people of jewish faith is considered so brutally, abnormal and abhorrent that it commands extreme instant reaction. It justifies levels of violence not granted to any other group than white people.
Even good-natured intended sayings like calling the holocaust (which most people dont find that horrific outside its jewish victims, hell most dont even know the amount of romani, russian, polish, belarusian, greek, serbian, disabled, leftist, queer and homeless people killed by the nazis) “the worst atrocity” or the most “evil act” do reinforce it and implicitly states that the suffering of black people due to slavery, or native people of the americas due to centuries of colonialism, is less than and the crimes committed against the people groups is “not as evil” as the crimes committed against jewish people.
This can be seen on how the genocide of Palestinians is justified in european countries, after all if it doesnt look like the holocaust (aka targets primarily victims of Zionist-aligned jewish people) then its not the “most evil act” and needs not be opposed as severely.
Just like most western leftists nowadays crash and fail the “soft left to electoral socdem” plyometric box, because they use language too close to marxists, the pain supremacy aspect of liberal zionism is also something they also fail at, it sounds too “benign” and feels “just”. Despairing at the great violation of the “peaceful sanctum” of “liberal” Australia, while its regime directly contributes to the dozens of Palestinians dying EACH day without pause is exactly what many global south comrades do point out as racism of western leftists.
Could you expand on that with some examples please ? my non native English speaking ass does not understand this part. I checked what’s a plyometric box but dont understand the analogy
I believe it means that western leftists are easily convinced to support “soft left to electoral socdem” political projects despite their uselessness, because those project borrow language and ideas from radical movements (while defanging them completely). In the same way, the discourse that focused on the supremacy of “Jewish pain” tricks them because it uses “progressive” language to manufacture consent for colonialism, apartheid, and genocide.
Thanks I think it’s a bit clearer now!
to build on what you said, I hope:
even when it isn’t framed as explicitly, this is an argument that people have felt the need to make.
for example, Maafa / African Holocaust. The African Holocaust vocab being explicitly chosen in to draw a parallel to the nazi holocaust:
because some groundwork has already been done in most people’s minds to cultivate an emotional empathetic reaction and some sort of political/social/economic analysis. So with the idea of cultivating that concept and universalizing it. But basically it is admitting to the same cognitive starting point, which is that many people have internalized a “not as evil” understanding, and seek to challenge/dismantle it.
If we imagine a world where the nazis did everything the same, but by some contingency, the reparative process after WW2 had not taken the form of the zionist israel project. In that case, the subsequent theorizing of genocide would not have been so contaminated by the immediate need to to justify initiating a new genocidal project. It would have always been influenced and weakened by USwhite dominance but less materially fortified against the interventions of racialized/colonized/marginalized/thirdworld/revolutionary movements.
Literally heard this argument made in real life, explicitly, by a white jewish person directed towards a black person
Yeah the white person is also the heir to an American store chain, so just massive levels of privilege and ignorance to try that shit. Radicalizing moment for sure
No.
What do you want? Have you stood down the cops for Palestine? I have.
This comment is really fucked up. It’s good that you’re protesting but don’t weaponise it against people who challenge Jewish supremacy in news coverage.
And just because you brought it up I will tell you that you aren’t doing enough and you shouldn’t be so smug about it when you clearly have some learning to do on zionism and jewish supremacy.
I dont think they’re attacking you, they’re just lamenting the global reaction to the whole thing.
It’s very all lives matter energy. We haven’t had a massacre in three decades.
Not to be excessively pedantic… but List of massacres in Australia - Wikipedia
There was a spree shooting in 2019 and a mass stabbing last year??? So the only differentiator here is who the victims were
I wouldn’t say that is completely true. The present incident targeted a specific group in which the perpetrators were not a part.
Most of this list is men killing female partners and other (mostly female) family/community members. Going back 20 yrs I can’t find any that were done by more than 1 person. Any political/ideological motivations cannot be inferred without further reading. (Edit: other than the gender-based aspect.)
Notable is 1996 Port Arthur Massacre with death toll >2x present one. And the 2024 one… stabbing at least 18 people holy hell.
But I agree that by saying none of these even happened, it is reasonable to infer a value being given to some people and not others. I would be interested to know how the other commenter came to believe there have been no other massacres.
The other commenter has stopped answering my questions so I don’t believe we’ll get that clarification
Do you think Black Lives Matter was a slogan because of how infrequently police murdered black Americans?
You’ve got to understand that there is a difference in experience between distant and present violence. Many of us in Australia are not ignoring Palestinian suffering, we have demonstrated repeatedly in large actions that embrace solidarity. Some of the largest protests in history have been on the side of trying to stem the horrors of the genocide.
It’s also reasonable to be shocked when violence comes home to roost in a way that many people have never experienced in their lives. Australia, for all the faults of the stupid place and cruelty of the government, is a very peaceful land in terms of the day to day experience of people. It would be nationally mourned if it was anyone, this isn’t like the usa where people gunning others down happens weekly.
It’s disingenuous to act like people don’t care about Palestinian suffering. We’re all just horrified at a mass shooting, and rightfully so.
So what did All Lives Matter mean in this context? Were you comparing white Australians to black Americans because it felt right rhetorically, like this mass killing of Jews is being overshadowed because of Palestinian supremacy? Again, Black Lives Matter arose because the killing of black Americans was so normalized as to be everyday and cotidian. This is so exceptional and abnormal that, as you pointed out, laws are already being drawn up to crack down on antizionist dissent.
Why did you feel the need to use that term referring to people bringing up the massacres, is I guess my main question, especially as a non-American and presumably, a white person.
this is an extremely white comment, saying that POC who prioritize focusing on genocide over a small terrorist attack are doing “all lives matter” like racists do. This comment requires serious self-crit
And yet we know neither the poster nor the up voters will reflect