Bulletins and News Discussion from October 14th to October 20th, 2024 - Paper Tigers
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.
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.
it's just more optics bullshit. it's like when trump was saying "china flu" and feds were doing a "china made covid" psyop and simultaneously the state department was saying that you shouldn't commit hate crimes against asian-americans.
Too little too late, nothing can save them. If they had come out with a similar statement a month after 10/7 and continued to to push the narrative that they care about Arabs and Muslims, then they might do better.
But we all know that stopping weapon shipments to the entity is the only way. Not just for Arabs/Muslims but the left in general.
The FBI published an Overview of the U.S. Government’s Terrorist Watchlisting Process and Procedures. This document advances transparency by providing a general description of this system and mechanisms to ensure that concerns about it are handled in a timely and fair manner.
Including this, as a way you have helped Muslim Americans, is a micro aggression, no?(idk a better term)
DOJ continues to support law enforcement agencies’ transition to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Beginning in January 2021, NIBRS became the national standard for law enforcement crime data reporting in the United States and the transition to NIBRS represented a significant improvement in how reported crime is measured and estimated by the federal government
If it were the Federal Incident-Based Reporting System, people would probably pronounce "FIBRS" the same as "fibers"; if it were the National Incident-Based Emergency Reporting System, people would probably figure that "NIBERS" rhymes with "fibers"; but alas, it's not either of those, it's the National Incident-Based Reporting System, and "NIBRS" is for many people just one step too far for the intended rhyme to be obvious, and so the brain bases the pronunciation on whatever closest word it can think of in a split second.
I guess it's a similar deal as how people say GIF, some people see that acronym and subconsciously think of words like "gift", some people see it and think of words like "gin", and then the people who thought "gift" say "well it's not pronounced 'giraffics'" in order to justify their pronunciation, and then the people who thought "gin" will retort "well it's not pronounced 'oonderwater', but you don't make 'SCUBA' rhyme with 'bubba', do you?" — people, it would seem, just can't seem to stand the possibility that their pronunciation is arbitrary and not based on any sort of rational logic.
That Old English word that's spelled "gif" and pronounced "yiff", that became our word "if". In fact in the West Country they apparently still say "yif" to mean "if" even today, according to Wiktionary!
I figured that's how they would get around it, but also that there are surely people who purposely miss pronounce it. Seems much easier to make the acronym different by doing something like omitting the B.
Feels like it's purpose-made to invite bad behavior.
there is no way that this doesn’t end up targeting pro-palestine activists with the now federally expanded definition of antisemitism that “includes” antizionism