Due to American cluster bombing campaigns advised by Kissinger during the Vietnam War to damage supply lines, over 2 million tonnes of ordinance were dropped on Laos over about a decade, averaging a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes. Laos is thus the most bombed country on the planet up to this point. 80 million bombs failed to explode - the cleanup operation is expected to take centuries, and 25,000 people have been killed and injured by bombs in the last 50 years. About 50 people are killed or injured every year to this day.
After the United States withdrew from Laos, the Pathet Lao took power and abolished the monarchy. Kaysone Phomvihane became a dominant figure in Laotian politics, keeping the course on Marxism-Leninism and implementing the first Five Year Plan in 1981. The second Five Year Plan in 1986 was modelled on Lenin's NEP, and this doubled rice production and significantly increased sugar production. After the fall of the USSR, Laos allowed a small capitalist class to exist, with similar control over them as in China. Laos maintains a 48-hour work week with paid sick leave, vacation time, and maternity leave, and workers are well-represented in trade unions. They faired relatively well during coronavirus from a social standpoint due to quick and efficient action to lock down the country, experiencing ~750 deaths out of a population of over 7 million.
There is hope even after utter destruction by genocidal oppressors.
The weekly update is here on the website.
Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Wednesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Friday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Laos! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
twitter | nitter
I know the UN is built from the ground up to justify and protect imperial powers, but is there anything america/Isntrael could do to be kicked out/sanctioned? Even if isn'trael nuked Gaza would that get them anything more than the equivalent of the UN shaking their finger at them?
Using a nuke would actually cause the country to be destroyed the other nuclear powers would not allow the use of a nuke to go unpunished because it would set the precedent that nukes can be used against a country or people that does not have one and open the doors to using them wide open. If inst'real can use them against Gaza then they could against Iran, Syria, Yemen etc. There is no way that can be allowed it also would turn nukes from a deterrence to a regular weapon of war as insane as the US is I am not sure even they would be ok with that. (I know your question was probably rhetorical but I have thought about this too.)
I'll admit it was semi-rhetorical, it would surprise me if even the psychos in isn'traels gov went as far as nukes (if only because they would catch some fallout both literally and metaphorically), but so far it looks like amerikkka is willing to back blatant genocide and all the UN can do is say "this is bad". Putting aside nukes for a minute, what would be the final straw be for amerikkkan support be? Is there one?
I think if Bibi went on tv and said "We are doing a genocide we are going to kill all of them systematically" the US might actually have to take some action to save face....even then I am not sure they might say that Bibi is crazy and does not represent what they are doing blah blah. Aside from that I honestly don't know what they could do that would make the US give up on them.
Oh that's easy. All Israel would have to say is something to the effect that they will no longer be the toehold of U.S. hegemony in the Middle East. So pretty much anything to do with not antagonizing U.S. targets like Iran, or not supporting the movement of oil on behalf of Western capitalists.
Yeah, it has nothing to do with how inhumane Israel is being. It has to do with whether it furthers U.S. interests. Short of some domestic U.S. movement that threatens to burn down the Pentagon or bring large swaths of capitalist industry to a grinding halt, Israel can do anything it likes to Palestinians and the U.S. (state) won't give a flying fuck.
You know for some reason it was much easier to imagine bibi saying " I am evil and love killing!" then it was to imagine Israel breaking with the US haha. You are totally right though it just did not enter my mind even when I was thinking about what they could do to lose the backing of America.
yes
occupying forces have no right to 'defense' from those they occupy. if they want to maintain an inhuman occupation, they have to put up with events like 10/7 and take it on the chin.
They can't even gesture towards a resolution that does not end in continued genocide they could at the very least been like "Sorry guys we told them to stop but they keep doing it we can't make them stop ):" and then keep giving all weapons they want. Biden really wants to win the election I see!