Image is of a Hezbollah missile attack on a military camp west of Jenin.
The situation between Hezbollah and Israel is rapidly escalating, with massive bombing campaigns on southern Lebanon by Israel predominantly on civilians (as the tunnels in South Lebanon are mostly unreachable to the Zionists, just like in Gaza), while Hezbollah and its allies respond with missile attacks predominantly on Israeli military facilities. Israel is spreading an evacuation order to the residents of southern Lebanese villages while also bombing their routes of escape and civilian infrastructure, similar to a terror tactic used widely in Gaza.
Northern Israel is currently under military censorship to hide their losses, so we get very little information other than what the Resistance provides and what videos and images get through the censors.
I don't know if Israel will dare a ground incursion soon, but it seems fairly likely in the coming days or weeks.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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 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.
A chunk of recent news has been about about why younger boys are turning more conservative while younger girls are not.
Has anyone considered that this is because of the musicians having a reduction in cultural influence? In the past, musicians were the primary cultural influencers of this age group. I think this is still true for women while I think men now primarily get their cultural influences from either videogame influencers or get sucked into manosphere(incelosphere) spaces via sports. I think the pipeline of sports into manosphere (particularly combat sports) is under-discussed.
I wonder too if covid damaging live music played a role in the shift too. Thinking back, the way boys used to try to "get girls" was via music and live gigs and stuff. The music had a positive influence on them. Whereas now they're inundated with shit about dominating and taking women like they're meat by these dickbags that onboard them into incelosphere via combat sports.
I think its general atomization for both genders tbh, coupled with (frankly) workplace atomization. (and maybe social spending pricing going though the roof, its not 10-20 bucks to concert its like 100-200)
Yeah you have on the one hand a major loss of social opportunities, and on the other a ready made relief and also narrative/justification for that in right wing online communities. And in a way the fantasies of fascism are based in desire for community.
It is $10-$20 to go to a local concert though. The expensive ones are for celebrities, and tbh their fans aren't exactly revolutionary.
I don't really think it's music. The most popular music when I was growing up was as misogynist as any redpill influencer is today. Eminem was one of the biggest music artists when I was a youth, and he wasn't some shining example how to act. I think music artists are still fairly influential on young men, people like Travis Scott, 21 Savage, Post Malone, even Kanye West still draw big stadium/arena crowds of young men. I think there are bigger structural issues as play.
Modern fascism has a lot more to offer to young men than young women. The return to tradition explicitly pitches a vision of society that centers on the patriarch that provides for his brood mare(s). I don't think there is anything special about the medium of the message (music vs sports vs video games vs other forms of influence), it's the message itself that people respond to.
I don't see how anyone believes this is possible though. You can't return to tradition without halving the labour force of society and that's never happening under capitalism. While the flip-side of this is that the more women are unequal in work the more they need to work to have the same stuff. They will get less free time, less holiday and less time for being potentially available to form relations with men if conditions are oppressive to them.
I do. I think the people that are attracted to making music are generally more left leaning people compared to the people that are attracted to taking part in or doing commentary about combat sports. I can't quantify that as anything more than a general vibe I get though.
they do not understand how capitalism actually functions so none of this enters their brains. they are liberals. they believe that merely getting enough of the population to agree that a certain course of action should be done is sufficient to make that course of action occur in real life, hence why they get so hung up on the whole "the woke left are brainwashing children in order to prevent that consensus, we need to spread our values better so that a large majority agrees with us!" but that isn't really how politics works. they literally don't even conceive that it might be impossible for the reasons you state, because what they think is "well it was possible 100 years ago so if we simply reverse every single policy done since then (except the ones that I personally like) then we can retvrn to tradition."
the most honest ones also tend to be the most outright fascist as they are able to see that a reversal of society like that would require a cataclysmic societal rupture, the genocide of tens of millions of people or limited nuclear war or a dozen other things.
Yes, you've accurately depicted an important contradiction. Fascists don't do dialectical materialism though. Anyway, the only complete resolution to this sexual contradiction is communist social relations, so even though fascism cannot resolve this contradiction, it's the best option the ruling classes (bourgeoisie, men) have to retain power.
The thing I'm wondering is whether we should be highlighting it as a means of trying to get through to some of the people being pulled into this stuff. I can't really decide whether it's a good thing to highlight or not. I don't even know if a meaningful conversation about it is even possible either, a lot of the people going on about this stuff are barely coherent and I don't think they even know what they want other than the vague male supremacy vibe they have going on. I don't think many of them can articulate exactly what they want in terms of policy or social design, except the ultra religious that want literally 1940s wife at home social relations but they're never going to be realistic about the economic feasibility of that.
Yeah you can try to point this out to people with reactionary socialist tendencies like solarpunks, but for those so lost in the sauce of unprincipled reaction, it's kind of useless. You're not breaking that deadly combination of vibes based logic and reactionary class interests.
The American/imperial electorate is brain poisoned by generations of propaganda that undermines any actual understanding of politics.
This is an interesting point actually. The elder millennials and Xers I know are way more into music than me or my fellow Zers, never made that connection though.
Wait how are the kids not into music?
No they are, I guess I meant more that they're less into musicians than the other types of influncers mentioned by Awoo. Like, who wants to be in a band anymore when you can sit in your room and stream video games?
Oh you mean being musicians
Although people definitely used to idolise musicians more, I’m not sure they had much explicit political influence beyond either vague counter-culture ideas or alternatively reinforcing social norms. But definitely the fact that this kind of youth influence is now being replaced by expressly political and right wing influencers and narratives must be having some effect. And it’s part of a kind of anti-social shift that things like Covid and internet culture and social isolation etc are driving
Music is only a mirror to our complex capitalist societies. Obviously reactionary ideas are going to be popular during a time of capitalist economic crisis when the regimes are actively enforcing the propagation of those ideas and trying to silence progressive organizations that enlighten the working class. The reason girls tend to get less conservative must be because they understand that they are next in line if fascists take over and take away rights overnight.
Mass produced monopolized music with modern algorithms to search for it also plays a role, it's no coincidence that some AI generated formulaic crappy song with a simple but catchy beat is extremely easier to find than Macklemore's songs about Palestine for instance
They only know one line from each of those songs.
I recently had to inform someone who is probably going to be a GOP congressman in the next decade that RATM is communist. Dude literally had no idea. Most people just like bangers and don't examine the lyrics.
That's not what the original post is saying, and that's not how engaging with art is supposed to work. Of course most RATM fans aren't necessarily developing deep understandings of leftism from the lyrics in such a blunt literal way. That's how conservatives who want to censor art think it works.
But exposing yourself to art and culture, engaging with it in a critical way, and experiencing it collectively with other people, can make you more empathetic, more aware of the different dimensions of the human experience. It's why art and literature have traditionally been taught in schools- because it was understood that studying these things helped you learn to think. It seems like young men aren't being taught to think, even through passive cultural experiences, in the way they used to.
Idk why we'd assume a superstructural cause over just looking at the base. Patriarchal sex relations have been a thing for thousands of years but have been breaking down for a while. Combined with the world generally becoming more shit, of course the boys are going to gravitate towards the right.
Nah I know a lot of people who are into “alternative” music subcultures that tend to be associated with liberals, and have adopted the affect of openness and tolerance that comes with it, but when you actually talk to them, they’re straight up chuds
I like this idea. I think better cultural influences can have a positive effect. I was never a chud, but I was a young dumbass who voted Republican the first time I could vote. I gradually moved left to where I haven’t voted red or blue in more than 25 years. My love for good music and art kept me among people who radicalized me without even trying.
I think music probably a part of it. Many people are pointing out that leftist commentary are ignored and just as many artists have not been lefties historically. I agree with this, but if the changes in music consumption really are a factor, then I think it boils down to how part of the music scene used to be the structural framework holding together a semi-coherent counterculture. Countreculturists are rarely well-read in theory but they do absorb and reinforce a lot of concepts if you give them enough time.
That's the part of the industry that would have affected people, and it's also (imo) the side of the industry that has disappeared in recent decades. I suppose the countercultural artists still exist, but it's much harder for them to break out and develop fanbases now. Everything is streaming now and streaming numbers are highly correlated with artist/label budgets. The rumor is that you can buy top playlist placement on Spotify if you have the right connections and/or enough money. Often it's labels dealing with placement and the trend in labels is that they want formulaic music - which imo explains why all of the playlists are so bland and soulless.
Other than that, I believe the right-wing pipelines (especially in topics young men populate) are in a very mature state at this point and are probably another factor.
I don't expect any of this to get better without mass cultural changes. We've eliminated the feelings of belonging, community, and purpose. Or at least commodified them and put them behind paywalls. I think this is one reason why so many people are grasping at reactionary ideologies, to fill a sense of emptiness. And if those ideologies promote misogyny (which they usually do), then they're going to lead to greater and greater divides and repercussions for everyone.
It's interesting to compare my dad, who's a stereotypical old-school boomer misogynist, with modern incels. For all of his reactionary politics, he genuinely loves women and is comfortable with his boomer understanding masculinity. I don't see this love for women and security of their masculinity in modern incels. I see his reactionary politics as a barrier to truly loving women while I see incel's reactionary politics as a political expression of their profound hatred of women. They adopt reactionary politics because they hate women. Perhaps their attraction to combat sports is led by their hatred of women and their fantasies of injuring, maiming, and even killing women. This can even explain their attraction towards gaming streamers. Anyone who's been gaming for a while know about freaks who go out of their way to kill every single sex worker they meet in GTA or who exclusively teabag enemy female avatars. Let's not even talk about the mountain of H-games where you r-word women.
So why do they hate women? My belief is that online dating apps greatly cultivate this hatred. There's this contradiction about how men can sleep around but women have to be faithful ie men are keys while women are locks. This contradiction is resolved with a small percentage of men (the chads) hoarding all the women (the beckys) with the rest of men being involuntarily celebrate (the incels). In this schema, every woman is assigned to a particular chad while every chad has multiple woman being assigned to him. In other words, all women belong to a particular harem catered towards a particular chad. The men who do not have a harem of women are the incels.
This is literally that dating app meme where all the women point to a single chad at the top with the rest being womenless incels. Online dating apps obviously don't actually want people to be in successful relationships in order to retain users, so from the perspective of the bottom 90% of male users who constantly get rejected matches, it's the confirmation of the chad-becky-incel schema. The fact that women get sexually harassed on those apps is not relevant to these men, and even with leftist men who have embraced feminism, there's still a degree of bitterness and resentment. I see this bitterness and resentment whether Hexbear men talk about their lack of success with dating apps. The problem is that since most men haven't embraced a leftist politics (and for many men who have nominally embraced a leftist politics), that bitterness and resentment is targeted towards what's in front of them ie the women who rejected them. It will eventually become hatred, which makes them extremely susceptible to reactionary politics.
Maybe live music performance help otherwise womenless men mellow out a bit. Unlike a bar or a club setting, there's less of an expectation that you have to hook up with women, but it's also not like a church setting where you won't ever hook up with women. It's a setting where single people who are ready to mingle congregate for the stated purpose of not mingling but they're still down for whatever.
I don't know if this is the case. These boys are usually not women haters before they get sucked into the manosphere, in my opinion at least. They get into combat sports because many boys at that age are into comparing themselves to the strength of their peers and they all have tendencies towards competing physically, probably partly driven by having developing bodies and varying sizes and ages.
I think they're primed for the hate though, and I think the primer is pornography and the way women are treated in porn. This gives all sorts of impressions to young boys that didn't occur in the past, and having those impressions makes taking the next "natural" step into how you become a man that treats women like that and gets loads of sex feel correct.
So pornography as a primer, followed by segue between combat sports and incelosphere grooming is the pipeline that leads these boys into conservative-led spaces and beliefs. They're then groomed in these spaces for conservative thought whether or not it's actually beneficial for them. Often it's NOT beneficial for them, it hurts their lives and relations with others, but this alienation from their peers serves as excellent space to take them further down the pipeline and blame the WOKE CULTURE for the way they're being treated, poor relations and so on that they have (all as a result of their incel male supremacy bullshit).
If instead they had gotten into music influencers like was more common previously then they would have real relationships with peers. They wouldn't be socially isolated. They wouldn't be given views that are designed to intentionally divide them from others and further socially isolate them. Etc etc.
So... Ban dating apps?
Serious question actually. Remove dating apps entirely and what happens? A vacuum opens up and people will seek out a means of filling the gap.
I don't have the answers, but modern misogyny feels very different from my dad's old school misogyny. He will never vote for a woman to be in any elected position but he'll open doors for women. Andrew Tate might also think women shouldn't be allowed to vote but I seriously doubt he'll open door for women. I seriously doubt my dad would be impressed by Tate or Rogan conception of masculinity where masculinity is measured by how many women you sleep with or how big your muscles are. His understanding of masculinity is more about starting a family and being a patriarch with grand- and great-grandchildren who all look to him as the moral center of the family.
Now that I think about it, the best way to describe my dad is that he's how modern conservative women think a man should behave. So I think that what's happening is socially conservative men and women used to be on the same page, but there is a divergence between conservative men and women. I guess you could call it the incelification of conservative men. However, I also think the amount of socially conservative women is declining as much, much of which has to do with the fact that women trend more socially liberal than men.
I'm just throwing shit on the wall at this point. I really don't know. I still think the decline of third spaces where single young people can socialize without that third space being a place for sex is a part of it.