A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like “in Minecraft”) and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is a map of Middle Eastern oil/gas production sites, which Iran has promised to strike in retaliation if their own energy infrastructure comes under attack.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preamble

For the weekend of August 1-2, Trump had once again promised major strikes on Iran, which would have included crossing the critical red line of striking their energy infrastructure. In response, Iran once again essentially promised to end the possibility of modern civilization as we know it throughout much of the Gulf States and, to a certain extent, the Zionist entity, with the economic impacts radiating outwards around the world from there. The frustrating part about these threats from Trump is that while he’s reneged on them before, the consequences of them actually occurring are so dire that it’s difficult to ignore them; rolling a dice with even a 5% chance for complete catastrophe will always be nerve-wracking.

Anyway, as we all know, these strikes did not occur, with the excuse this time being much the same as the previous times: our regional allies begged us not to (potentially true) and Iran called us and said they were willing to negotiate/surrender (untrue). The point of these threat displays is at least twofold: first, to see if Iran is genuinely going to flinch, or, at least, if internal elements that may or may not exist will be spooked into action against the IRGC; and second, to manipulate oil prices downwards by creating constant cycles of “relief” out of an otherwise relatively constant downward trend as Hormuz stays closed and oil reserves continue to ebb. I do say “relatively”, of course, given that Ansarallah now appears to be delivering a boot up the ass of Saudi Arabia by taking offline quite a lot of its refinery infrastructure.

It is into this situation that Ukraine seems to want in. For those out of the loop, the situation over in Ukraine has largely the same overall attritional dynamics as previous years, but with a few added wrinkles. Ukraine started striking Russian infrastructure a while ago, and while their effectiveness is hotly debated and I don’t want to dismiss them as totally ineffectual, it’s clear that the psychological effects - such as they are - are greater than the material effects. Russia’s retaliation strikes have been considerably more impactful, including strikes on Ukrainian Black Sea ports and vessels, and a campaign explicitly against gas stations across Ukraine, as well as some rather impressive and disruptive explosions at Ukrainian military fairs and production sites. Zelensky has admitted publicly that they are now basically out of Patriot missiles and that Russian missiles are now landing entirely unopposed (beforehand, they were just landing largely unopposed, given the lackluster performance of Western air defences in general). He seems to have considered a possible way out: linking together the Ukraine and Iran Wars to a united front against Russia and Iran, which would then grant Ukraine more munitions to keep fighting on.

Now, for all the fear I’ve seen of this occurring (and, don’t get me wrong, the US and Russia being in non-proxy, direct conflict is a genuinely frightening prospect for continued life on Earth) how linking together two wars which the West is quite decisively losing into a single war would help at all is beyond me. At this moment, at least, US military planners appear to agree with me. Ukraine hit a Caspian Sea vessel going to Iran a while ago, but then seems to have quickly apologised after being given a stern talking to by the US. This shows just how willing the US is to grant Ukraine more aid, as their own interceptor stockpile is running very low due to Iranian strikes. One would almost feel sympathy for Zelensky if is wasn’t for… well, everything that’s happened. The path of Ngô Đình Diệm is a tough one to walk.


Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on the Zionists’ 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.

Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

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.


  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netM
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    2 months ago

    Brazilians see the country as having less political risk, and Sheinbaum, from Mexico, is the most approved leader. Argentina registers a 62% disapproval rating for Milei and leads economic pessimism and inflation projections in Latin America - BdF

    Article

    A new round of the Latam Pulse survey , released this Thursday (6), indicates that the Brazilian population perceives the country as having the lowest political risk among its main neighbors, while Mexico leads the regional ranking of government approval.

    The survey, conducted by AtlasIntel in partnership with Bloomberg, monitors political and economic indicators monthly in seven Latin American nations to provide an overview of regional stability: Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, and Peru.

    In Brazil, the federal government is reaping the benefits of its social agenda. Measures such as free medication through the Farmácia Popular program (82% see it as a success), income tax exemption for incomes up to R$ 5,000 (79%), and the Desenrola program (65%) appear as the most positive indicators for Lula’s administration in the survey.

    On the other hand, Brazilians are showing resistance to the new fiscal framework (43% consider it a mistake) and to the removal of companies like the Post Office from the privatization program (48%).

    To arrive at these results in Brazil, AtlasIntel used the Random Digital Recruitment (Atlas RDR) methodology, interviewing 5,021 people between July 22 and 27, 2026. The confidence level is 95%, with a margin of error of one percentage point, plus or minus, and the survey is registered with the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) under protocol BR-08602/2026.

    Brazil registers the lowest Political Risk Index (Atlas-PRI) in the sample, scoring 39 points on a scale of 0 to 100. This index assesses the potential for political turbulence based on three dimensions: institutional instability, social conflict, and crime. The lower the number, the greater the perception of a safe and predictable environment.

    Conversely, Chile and Peru are perceived as the scenarios with the highest political risk, both scoring 52 points. In Chile, corruption is seen by 51.7% of the population as the main national problem.

    This instability in Chile is reflected in the view of the job market, rated as “bad” by 61% of respondents. However, Chilean pessimism about employment is only surpassed by that of Argentina, where the perception of a labor crisis reaches the most critical level in the region: 73% of Argentinians consider the situation bad.

    Argentina, under the leadership of Javier Milei, is experiencing a period of profound popular discredit . The Argentine president is disapproved of by 62.4% of the population, and the country has the worst Consumer Confidence Index (-37 points) among all those monitored. The economic perception is one of freefall, with 56% believing that the country’s situation will worsen even further in the next six months.

    Argentinians also lead in the desire for diplomatic distancing from the United States, with 48% of the population advocating for more remote relations. This sentiment is linked to the defense of national sovereignty, with 44% of those surveyed in Argentina rating the respect shown by Americans for the country’s autonomy as “terrible.”

    In Mexico, which has the highest presidential approval rating in the region (57% for Claudia Sheinbaum) , relations with its neighbor are also tense. The image of US President Donald Trump is negative for 64.5% of Mexicans.

    Furthermore, most respondents in Mexico consider the tariffs imposed by the US to be unjustified and rate the treatment of immigrants as “very bad” (49%). Venezuela (55%) and Peru (46%) are the countries that maintain the best positive image of Americans in the region.