Bulletins and News Discussion from July 15th to July 21st, 2024 - It's Joever
Image is of Joseph Robinette Biden, who has stepped down and will not run against Trump in the 2024 election.
In the aftermath of Trump surviving an assassination attempt, many professional opinion-havers are now talking about the scourge of "political violence" that has overtaken, or will soon overtake America, and how we must not let chaos rule. This is, of course, patently absurd. The American government and its allies have been the greatest force of political violence on the planet since the beginning of colonialism, and the foundations of the country are made of corpses. Today, America commits political violence by forcing Ukrainians into the maw of Russian artillery instead of trying to reach a peaceful settlement, which Russia has repeatedly expressed interest in and offered Ukraine relatively favourable terms. They supply Israel with endless weaponry to destroy entire cities and populations, while Biden supporters insist that somehow things could be worse than daily massacres and mass starvation.
In May 1945, French police fired on protestors, causing retaliatory attacks on French settlers, killing about a hundred. In response, the French murdered 45,000 Algerians in a little under two months, in a frenzy of political violence called the Sétif and Guelma massacre. As the massacre was being completed, the International Court of Justice was established. It goes without saying that Algeria never benefited from the ICJ, and the War of Independence from 1954 to 1962 was made inevitable. Over a million Algerians were killed before France could bear the fighting no longer and gave up, and Algeria won itself a state. Comparisons to the ongoing war of independence and genocide in Palestine are obvious.
While the means of colonial violence have evolved over the centuries, the basic structure of it has not. As in Algeria, Vietnam, and Cuba, resistance groups in and around Palestine are fighting for a world with less political violence. The American government would drown every city in the developing world in blood to prevent peace.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Algeria! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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.
Which one of you wrote this highly upvoted masterpiece on /r/JoeBiden?
I'm in shock. I don't know what was the final straw for the President, a man who I have considered -- and still do consider -- to be a real-life Jed Bartlett hybridized with Captain America.
I trust the President and always have. He has never let me down. For him to make such a move means he must have compelling reason to do so.
I keep thinking back to 2020. That year, in a moment of somber and morbid inspiration, we lost Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an icon to whom, if she were a religion, I would convert despite my pro-life -- yet otherwise liberal -- tendencies. Her death was like a clarion call for all of us to rise up and remove the now-convicted-felon donald trump. I wondered much these last few weeks what would be the move which would propel us in this election.
Starting now, we must quickly pick up the pieces and, just as Captain America said in Endgame, we must "Assemble". We have a convention coming up. The delegates, democratically chosen by the voters, will democratically elect at that Democratic convention the nominee of the Democratic Party.
reading this has actually ruined my fucking day. I agree, this has to be a bit by one of us. otherwise I'm gonna have to find this person and give them a swirlie
What "concern posts"? I am happy to stand with the Vice President. I would have carried the President over hot rocks like Samwise carried Frodo up Mount Doom if I had to. He has said "it is her time now" and I shall be honored to carry her just the same.
Imagine being fooled into thinking Democrats would destroy the One Ring when they've been wielding it to their own benefit on and off for centuries now and just doing more of the same Sauronism with it.
Just like Elio in Luca Guadagnino‘s masterpiece Call me by your name, I feel a sense of excruciatingly painful but still beautiful loss as I stare into the flames left with nothing but memories and desire at the news of Oliver’s marriage. Biden was my Oliver and Kamala, at best a Marzia.
I saw a headline last week that tried to compare this to Seven Days in May, in which the uninspiring and insufficiently anti-communist president was almost couped by the evil Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Burt Lancaster.