Image is of Rixi Moncada of the LIBRE Party voting in the election.
On November 30th, Hondurans voted to choose their next President, as well as deputies to the Congress, councillors, and other candidates. Like all elections in Latin America, the looming shadow of American intervention will be a major factor in deciding the winner. In this election, that intervention has been fairly naked, with Trump literally stating who he wishes to win (the far-right nationalist guy, Nasry Asfura). Asfura has said that if he does not win, American funding to the country will dry up - a clear threat - and Trump has additionally pardoned the former Honduran president and US ally Juan Orlando Hernández, imprisoned for smuggling cocaine into the US.
The other candidates in this election are Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, who is essentially running on the same platform as Asfura with some differences (such differences would inevitably vanish if he were to win); and Rixi Moncada of the progressive (self-described as democratic socialist) LIBRE Party. The narrative about this election is - try not to yawn - the neverending battle of democracy against communism. This narrative is obviously very important to uphold in the current environment of accelerated aggression against Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and others.
Who is going to win? As of me writing this sentence, the results have not yet been fully reported. However, there has been something of a scandal in regards to a plot - with recorded voices, though those guilty plead AI tampering - to show the best possible preliminary results for the right wing, so as to manipulate the narrative and morale of the population. The idea, is presumably, that if LIBRE were to win, the fascists could say “How did LIBRE go from 20% of the vote (which is what the preliminary results showed) to a victory?! It must be communist meddling!”
Of course, it’s entirely possible that LIBRE won’t win anyway, or get particularly close. We shall see how things turn out very shortly.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
The BSW did poorly in the last elections and came just barely (very small fraction of a percent) under the 5% barrier, which means they currently have no seats in the Bundestag.
They are currently involved in litigation to get a recount since there are strong indications of systematic miscounting of their votes. This is not likely to succeed as the courts are controlled by the liberal parties who are desperate to keep the BSW out of any positions of power since the BSW is one of the only parties that wants an end to the Ukraine war and rapprochement with Russia. This is a huge issue for the warmongers who want to keep the war going at all costs. And if they go to the parliamentary bodies responsible for making decisions on election disputes their chances are even worse. Obviously the parties who stand to lose seats if the BSW makes it back in and who are probably the ones who rigged the vote count will never accept to have a recount.
So, no, right now they are not a contender. This might change come the next elections or it may not. I wouldn’t bet on it. The establishment is already panicking about the AfD, so they will definitely not allow another anti-establishment threat from the left.
I wrote some comments explaining the BSW’s positions and their role in the current German political ecosystem here:
https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/7358785
To summarize: The major problem with them is that they have very reactionary positions on social and cultural issues. Economically they are more or less socdems. Their main draw is their sane foreign policy position, something which has become very rare in Germany.
There are a few other leftist organizations and parties that are better and don’t have the same drawbacks as the BSW, but these are typically very small (the DKP for example) and unfortunately they don’t even win local elections, let alone seats in the Bundestag.
The reason why it is very important to have leftist voices that advocate for peace, a sane foreign policy (not anti-Russia, not EU and US bootlicking) and a reasonable domestic industrial (non-neoliberal) and energy policy is because otherwise we abandon these positions completely to the far right.
Because every mainstream leftist party has capitulated to the warmongers and the neoliberal establishment, this has left the far right AfD as the only “reasonable” and “sane” choice (with the exception of the BSW and a handful of tiny communist parties) in the eyes of many people. Already the AfD is now the most popular party according to polling. I’m sure i don’t need to explain why this is a very bad thing.
Die Linke, the Greens, SPD, CDU, they are all driving more and more voters to the far right with their insane, self-destructive policies that deepen the economic crisis.
Brillant analysis, all of it. Thank you comrade.
To shed light on the dkp first hand (local group):
Let me know if you want to know more about them.