Image is a frame taken from this video of Iranian missiles raining down on Israel without interception due to a weak and depleted air defense system after a year of war and genocide.
Mao, 1956:
Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn't. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.
When we say U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, we are speaking in terms of strategy. Regarding it as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal. For instance, if it has ten fangs, knock off one the first time, and there will be nine left, knock off another, and there will be eight left. When all the fangs are gone, it will still have claws. If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end.
Strategically, we must utterly despise U.S. imperialism. Tactically, we must take it seriously. In struggling against it, we must take each battle, each encounter, seriously. At present, the United States is powerful, but when looked at in a broader perspective, as a whole and from a long-term viewpoint, it has no popular support, its policies are disliked by the people, because it oppresses and exploits them. For this reason, the tiger is doomed. Therefore, it is nothing to be afraid of and can be despised. But today the United States still has strength, turning out more than 100 million tons of steel a year and hitting out everywhere. That is why we must continue to wage struggles against it, fight it with all our might and wrest one position after another from it. And that takes time.
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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.
I mean it is on multiple websites, I just didn't want to quote the fucking financial times and couldn't find the Twitter post I first learned about this from.
Sure and maybe the news that China is cancelling a trade deal is true, but the point of these types of NGOs is to frame it with a lot of unsubstantiated spin. This article you linked writes specifically that the trade deal comes as a punishment for failing to privatize, but I can't find a single non-US funded source that links those as cause-and-effect. There is no evidence that this deal is being cancelled as a lever for privatization, which is the thing that you are criticizing China for doing.
That's why when you use sources like this you can't take their reasoning at face value, that's just spreading Atlantic Council narratives.
I really do hope it's just a matter of framing, because in terms of perspective it looks like another big L in a long chain of recent L's. I can't remember their last big W at this point.
Please tell me I'm crazy to think there's a non-zero chance that China unconditionally de-nuclearizes as a gesture of goodwill towards the U.S.
Read the Chinese read out of the last few meetings with americans. They keep insinuating that usa always says one thing and does another and that makes them untrustworthy. They couch it in diplomatic language but the message is there consistently.
China looks at american diplomats as liars and clowns. You can see the derision on their faces. They trust america 100%... to be greedy shortsighted liars.
There is no risk of China pivoting. Even if they did there is no chance usa would accept anything less than complete subjugation. Just look at how hard Putin tried to do everything the west wanted. Russia did everything they could to join the "civilized" world and in return the west sent a CIA backed nazi to overthrow Putin and when that failed they started funding nazis in ukraine to start a war.
Frankly its insulting to think that the government of China can't see that.
I could find Marxist leninist maoist critiques but that would be sectarian.
Please do, actually, and find a source that corroborates what you are criticizing: that this trade deal is being cancelled in order to punish Cuba for not privatizing. Otherwise all you have substantiated is that the deal is cancelled, and not the why of it, which is what people are getting mad about. A deal being cancelled isn't really anything: that happens all the time.
...do you accept Twitter posts? Not sure what the citation rules here are and if they follow the same rules as not being encouraged to admit that hamas guy died until hamas fid a press release. Should I wait until Cuba officially criticizes Beijing?
To be fair though, apparently the sugar harvest in Cuba the last few years has been mega fucked for some reason. That could also be a factor.