Image is of a crowd protesting in Athens.
Last week, on Friday, hundreds of thousands of Greeks poured into the streets to strike and protest on the second anniversary of the deadliest train crash in Greek history, in which 57 people died when a passenger train collided with a freight train. On this February 28th, public transportation was virtually halted, with train drivers, air traffic controllers, and seafarers taking part in a 24 hour strike - alongside other professions like lawyers, teachers, and doctors.
The train crash is emblematic of the decay of state institutions brought about from austerity being forced on Greece in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession, in which the IMF and the EU (particularly Germany) plundered the country and forced privatization. While Greece has somewhat recovered from the dire straits it was in during the early 2010s, the consequences of neoliberalism are very clearly ongoing. Mitsotakis' right-wing government has still not even successfully implemented the necessary safety procedures two years on, and so far, nobody has been convicted nor punished for their role in the accident. The austerity measures were deeply unpopular inside Greece and yet the government did not respond to, or ignored, democratic outcry.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
The whole de-Nazifying defense comes off hollow if they're just going to cozy up to another Nazi-like regime.
I mean come on, that was already pretty hollow.
How was it already hollow? Ukraine has a ton of Nazis in power who were specifically targeting ethnic Russians. It might not have been their core motivator but let's not pretend that de nazifying Ukraine isn't an essential goal for Russia's ability to secure its borders and ensure a neutral Ukraine moving forward.
this is who they sent to fight the Ukrainian Nazis
This is actually a farce of a point, Ukrainian Nazis aren't stupid. They don't have enough real support to go blackshirts on Russians. If this was the case the original "de-Nazification" argument would have taken a lot better and a lot quicker in Russia. Ukrainian Nazis went after extremely soft targets like Romani, Jews, and foreigners. "De-russification" has (stupidly IMO) been the most democratic policy post-Maidan. The outsized influence of Nazis in Ukraine has been because they're effective at hiding behind/within the government and popular sentiment. The reason Ukrainian Nazis are entrenched is because they get bureaucratic positions, they do absolutely terribly in the polls.
Please tell me you’re joking.
I don’t even bother with pulling the exact figures because even Wikipedia couldn’t whitewash the Ukrainian support towards Bandera:
Also you are conveniently forgetting that far more Communists joined the Wagner to fight the Ukrainian Nazis than whatever far right militias there are fighting for Russia. Don’t get me wrong, these people do exist, but you only hear about them being disproportionately amplified by Western media that also conveniently ignore all the communists (who by the way do not like Putin) that volunteered to fight for Russia against Ukraine.
None of what you're saying matters. They killed thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. They ran child camps teaching kids songs about killing and eating Russians, which journalists went to and got on video. They terrorized ethnic Russians, tortured and killed them and their families. Saying they don't have real support to do the things they were actively doing without anyone trying to stop them except for Russians is nonsensical. They clearly had support, they did it and got away with it and were elevated to higher and higher positions year after year. Why are you white washing literal Nazis?
War crimes in the DNR/LNR are not the same as what you were implying. You're completely mixing shit up when it suits your argument.
Songs about killing Russians have been in Ukraine since time immemorial and have been taught to children since time immemorial. A large portion of Kolomyika songs over the last 2 centuries are about hating Russians in some way. You're entirely culturally out of your depth. For example the famous "Гуде-шумить сосоночка ", or "The Pine Trees Hum and Rustle" has the line:
Ви, москалі, людоїди, You (slur) Russians are cannibals
It was literally recorded in the USSR in 1988 for the first time and is a folk song from time immemorial. You're literally out of your depth in figuring out what is and isn't Nazi. You don't even speak any of the languages involved.
What have I mixed up? You claimed they didn't go after ethnic Russians and I pointed out when they did. Where is the mix up?
Okay, so you're providing a historical context behind anti-Russian sentiment, which if anything just explains the material basis for why Nazism took root since Russians were the definitive anti-Nazi force. A bunch of anti-russian people feeling happy to be Nazis because they hate the Russians who are the ones against the Nazis is pretty common in eastern europe. It doesn't mean they aren't nazis.
You're literally saying "the azov nazis teaching children songs about eating russians is actually just ukrainian history, not nazi stuff" ??????
These people are so funny "No our local hero Hunka the Jewslayer is not a nazi he is actually from proud Ukrainian heritage he only severed in the SS cause he had too ): " Just Incredible leaps of logic "actually it is our culture to be awful and suck" you are really not doing yourselves any favors!
"but look at this one Russian Nazi!!!!" cut to literally every captured Ukrainian soldier being covered head to toe in portraits of hitler and bandera committing war crimes
hahaha look man they had to rename those streets and build statues in the honor of Bandera and Shukhevych it is part of their culture ok!!!!!