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.
Trump rewrites RNC speech after assassination attempt: ‘I’m supposed to be dead Politico
After the shooting, he scrapped his original convention speech that was going to take aim at President Joe Biden and his administration’s policies in favor of an address focused on trying to unite the nation. Trump sees his new speech as “a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together,” he told the Examiner.
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Trump also addressed a widely circulated image of him raising his fist as blood trickled down his face, telling the Post “Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.”
“The energy coming from the people there in that moment, they just stood there; it’s hard to describe what that felt like, but I knew the world was looking,” Trump said to the Examiner. “I knew that history would judge this.”
Here’s hoping that Trump doesn’t pull this off. Biden’s best bet is Trump going full fascism so he can capitalize on the terror under Trump.
I think Trump is really going to go for the "unity" thing. He's got this in the bag. He already understood that his best debate performances are when he just lets Biden destroy himself whilst he appears "presidential" and actually stands back. He'll do the same here. It's his to lose at this point, and even if he is feeling Full Vengeance Mode he gains nothing by showing his hand before winning.
it's fascinating how this venal sack of shit has such good political instincts. if he can pull off a conciliatory feint and deny the pearl clutchers what they want most, Biden may suffer the worst election loss in American history
The other day someone was talking about New York actually being a little iffy for some reason. That sure surprised me, and I don't know what it's based on. But that would be fucking huge if there's any merit to it.
New York is basically West Virginia and only stays blue because of downstate. Hochul is a complete clown and the Trump-like Zeldin nearly beat her. It could very well go red again if Hochul keeps being Hochul.
Looks like polling has it at a tighter margin than previous elections, but it's still Biden +7.5.
AFAIK (which isn't much) upstate NY and Long Island can be pretty conservative. Republicans controlled the state senate as recently as 2017, although that was due to some conservative Dems siding with them. A sufficiently depressed Democrat turnout (say, due to the candidate being historically unpopular and having a melting brain) and a sufficiently increased Republican turnout (say, due to the candidate surviving an assassination attempt) could be enough to close that gap, but it still seems unlikely.
Maybe if polls start indicating an even closer race it could cause higher turnout from Republicans that usually don't bother because it's usually a solid blue state.
“The energy coming from the people there in that moment, they just stood there; it’s hard to describe what that felt like, but I knew the world was looking,” Trump said to the Examiner. “I knew that history would judge this.”
It's been said before but I am amazed at how publicity brained he is. Someone shoots at him and his first thought (after his shoes) is playing to the crowd, raising his fist and telling them to "fight, fight, fight". It's incredible not only how well the shooting went for him but how he reacted like a perfect media creature, his only thoughts were how it was going to look on the news.
“Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.”
Incredible trump quote that's not far off the mark. He's got this election in the bag if he can keep underplaying his fascism and leans into the Great Unifier schtick, and judging by how he's been playing this election so far I think he's got it
that's baked in now, isn't it? biden's already talking about cracking down more on anyone who dares to protest against his ongoing enthusiastic support for the genocide of the palestinian people. he'll have to so he can demonstrate how steadfastly opposed to political violence he is.
It's going to be weird to see them switch places like that. Biden will be the spray tanned senile fascist and Trump is going to be the reasonable, reach across the aisle unity candidate (in appearances anyway)
Maybe this is how he'll cinch his Reaganite legacy that'll lead to people still loving him decades down the line regardless of how much he fucked the working class over
if America still exists in 30 years both parties will revere trump the same way they do regan. I bet trump will compare himself to Regan even more now that they've both survived an assassination attempt
This is also what happened in 2016 but we like to block it out for some reason cause it doesn’t fit the radlib narrative. Trump ran as a moderate and as an anti-war candidate. He gave lip service to economic policies that were to the left of Obama.
Trump is too skilled a bullshit artist to use the assassination attempt to go more fash. He knows he doesn't need to do that as the fash are already solidly behind him. Contrary, he understands that the failed assassination has given him a huge opening with civility libs who are horrified about the attack on Our Democracy™ who will gobble up any cheesy unity slop delivered with "presidential" vibes to soothe their upset anxieties.
the crowd is going to baying for blood, he's profoundly selfish & will be personally angry. very very easy to get the biggest applause of his career while weakening his electoral outlook. i wouldn't put my money down on him doing the 'smart' thing
I wonder if he'll find some way to try to blame the assassination attempt (or something else big) on China...or maybe Mexico. Best way to unify is against a common enemy and all that....
Unification AND fascism sounds like a "winning" combination.
Brace yourself for the inevitable “Folks, the Deep State took out JFK, they took out MLK, but they couldn’t take me out... In that moment, God told me, Donald, it’s not your time yet. You have to save America.”
a chance to bring the whole country [...] together
Unity as in Gaullism/Mussolini-style "participation" of the reactionary workers in bourgeois "management" (read: terror), I guess? Guessing the bit about "even the whole world" means ? Maybe I should be more charitable to Trump - I'm sure he means well :)