this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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Bulletins and News Discussion from July 14th to July 20th, 2025 - A Golden Age Of Copper
(hexbear.net)
Image is from this article, of a Chilean copper quarry.
Title is a reference to Trump's social media post about copper, which was, as usual, mostly deranged.
Trying to follow Trump's administration is pretty difficult, but as of right now, he is threatening 30% tariffs on Mexico and the EU starting on August 1st, as well as new tariff announcements on a bunch of other countries (including, bizarrely, a 50% tariff on Brazil), and also apparently a 50% tariff on copper, which the US imports half its supply of and is, of course, a very important metal in many applications.
I'm not sure what the plan is to bring back domestic copper production beyond hoping that it just sorta works out, but prominent copper producers, such as Chile and Canada, seem both concerned and confused. Reuters had a line that made me chuckle:
Boric said he was awaiting official communication from the U.S. government, including whether the tariffs would include copper cathodes, and questioned "whether this will actually be implemented or not."
Big mood, Boric.
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.
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.
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Alright so one thing I'll feel compelled to bring up is that since I've been doing stuff in the real world for a few months is that since I've been gone I noticed that the news mega has gone really down in quality where it seems that as long as you hit a certain amount of words your analysis is deemed 'materialist' or 'marxist' or whatever feelgood word that complete doomer nonsense is not challenged like someone writing a ton of words to explain why Russia will capitulated in 2026 because Trump said they'll send some new wunderwaffen to Ukraine something that would be mocked as liberal nonsense like a year ago is just quietly accepted.
Like it feels that there's just the constant doomer faction that has completely taken over and now it's this competition to be the most doomer with the most words and churning out the shittiest takes similar to AI slop.
And the reason I'm being kind of aggressive in my calling out here is that while yes some things suck now some people just read more like some western third world maoists that have had their brains cooked and are now unable to do anything because the empire is doing 120d chess moves that mean that whatever we do we've already lost and the western population will never do anything and yadda yadda.
I get why their brain has been pickled by being in this brine of doom juice but it really feels like some people just gotta expel those 'bad humors' by doing some good old honest praxis, to feel fucking solidarity and camaraderie in this world instead of whatever this feels like.
Honestly it isn’t so bad. Marxism is a scientific approach and it’s actually good to see that people calibrate their views/models based on newly available information, even though the news haven’t been positive for us lately. The goal is to discuss how capitalism works on a geopolitical level and while we are not an academic forum, at least the attitude here is closer to that.
The worst are the NAFO liberal space and the pro-BRICS “alt media” space where those people just continue to double down with their cognitive dissonance after boasting so much about how “Russia/China will collapse soon” or “US/Ukraine/Israel will collapse soon”. While some of their analyses are grounded, they seem more interested in selling a dream without substance. And I’m glad we are not those spaces, where they are also - perhaps not so coincidentally - occupied by a fair amount of reactionaries.
Doomerism would imply spreading doom that does not comply with reality, which may have happened with a few users but mostly people here are just discussing the current events and voicing their own opinions.
It's pretty wild that I say 'The Doomer faction has completely taken over' and the most doomer poster is telling me 'honestly it's not so bad'. Like you aren't really making your point well but sure I'll bite. You are one of the most prolific doomer posters and I did appreciate your takes when it came to china because afaik you are at the very least living in china and so your perspective was closer 'to the ground'. But just recently you basically engaged in that same behaviour here, this is just an actual garbage take and you didn't bother to read anything. In fact most of the posters there didn't bother to read anything which is the larger point of me saying 'the quality has gone down'. I'm sorry but that just means that your take is just your perspective, and as someone once said 'No investigation no right to speech'.
As for the worst are the NAFO liberal spaces.... You are right this place is better than those youtube channels that go 'THIS IS HUGE' 'CHINA HAS 25 DAYS LEFT' '13 DAYS TO COLLAPSE' because our enlightened 'marxist' discussion is 'Russia has 6 months left actually.' Like I'm sorry but you are actually further proving my point here.
Not sure what’s the problem with my comment that you linked. I asked for clarification, and even added my explanations to note that the principal contradictions of these countries cannot be resolved if those questions aren’t answered. Like, it’s fine to disagree but what exactly about it was garbage?
Also I disagree that I am doomer at all. If anything, I am one of the few posters that say China already has the capacity to take on the US hegemony both economically and financially. It is the people that keep making excuses for China that “it’s still building productive capacity” (China already has 31% of global manufacturing share!) and “China is playing the long game” that’s intrinsically admitting that China is too weak to do anything and therefore cannot challenge the US domination.
You catch a lot of shit because you, rightfully, criticize China & the CPC's willingness to embrace neoliberal economics and institutions like the IMF, and don't pull any punches. To the "AES can do no wrong" crowd, this is a severe transgression, one that shatters the comfortable zone they prefer to occupy with clean good guy / bad guy divides.
Sometimes I think your takes may be a tad more harsh than necessary or not giving China enough credit for what they do right, but all-in-all, you have some of the best takes on this site, ones that are grounded in reality and materialist thinking and offer a useful perspective that usually gets filtered by the rosy lenses we analyze China through.
You have some of the most sober-minded analysis here, but people don't like that because it occasionally rips people from the comfort of believing someone else is gonna fix the world for us. I especially appreciate your style of posts because it offers a critique of China's decision-making without the stink of western leftists being chauvinists disconnected from actual socialist developments. It's the exact type of check on our own cognitive dissonance we all need here.
lmfao
When you are the only country with a chance of winning, and when defeat would mean another century of waiting for the working class (and who knows how bad climate change will get under capitalism), wouldn't you want to be absolutely sure of victory before making your move? And would it not be better to get as many of the neutral countries on your side as possible first? Or even to have the request for an alternative system come from a neutral country / ex-US ally who is now being bullied by the US, so even the local bourgs in all the other fence sitting countries can see who is their friend and who is their enemy?
But that’s not what’s happening. China does not want to take action - that’s the whole point. It could, but it doesn’t want to.
And if China doesn’t want to de-dollarize during the first couple years of the Ukraine War, and instead doubled down on defending that and allowed the US the time to recover from that, what makes you think we’re going to get another chance to de-dollarize again?
What we are seeing right now is that the US is actively using global tariffs to reshape the global supply chain by threatening to wreck the export economies in the Global South, and because there is no alternative to absorb their surplus exports, these countries had to make deals with Trump.
China showed the world how easily it could kill the Western industries with its rare earth card. It’s too bad that China wants to use it to restore the neoliberal status quo, instead of forging a new path for the world.
And these aren’t just conjectures or some fantasies I conjured up. Read the Russian proposal at the BRICS Kazan summit last year and it’s clear that the motivation to de-dollarize just isn’t there anymore (and China never even bothered despite the wishful thinking of many, including myself at one point).
The US is only “winning” because the big players don’t want to challenge them properly.
Listen if you can't see why you saying 'Well I haven't read it but xyz' and then the rest going 'Well I haven't read it but xyz' is not indicative of the quality going down then I don't know what to tell you. Like all you did was navel gaze and throw some words around like they mean anything when really nothing of value was gained.
Here's what the report says in the very first pages 'France and Europe needs to break with 'Westernism' and 'Block-logic' promoted by the American hawks to prevent being a vassal of the United States' and says that the 'Resolute atlanticism adopted by europe has drawn them into a trade war against China which is to the negative of European-Chinese relations and our economy and is doomed to fail and hurts us and our credibility.'
'We can see how the dogma of free and non -distorted competition opposes it. The axis of this report is the search for found sovereignty. It is no longer a question of passively depending on the supply chains piloted by other powers, but of finding democratic control over what we produce,'
This is all stuff that one could've gotten with a glance and there's much more in this 134 page document but just at a quick glance at the 3 pages which are the synthesis of the rapport would tell you that actually this is somewhat substantive and does call out the vassalization attempts from the US, that trade with China is desirable and that there have to be adjustments to the economic system to regain sovereignty.
Again this is the kind of quality that we should expect not saying 'well I haven't read it but the contradictions and the material reality and marxism' is 'good enough'.
As for you disagreeing that you aren't a doomer like why did you give a take that was 'Well I haven't read it but I don't think it matters' if your outlook is not pessimistic and you aren't spreading doomer shit.
My friend, I literally said that the article was hidden behind Substack paywall and asked clarification from others who speak French to see if there are any of these info contained the original French document. Is that too much to ask?
I’m not paying for that Substack subscription and it’s fair to ask for details when someone makes a claim. Notice that all of my arguments are backed by my own explanations, even though people may not agree with them, at least I provide a framework for the analysis.
You can literally find the original rapport like again if you don't bother to look that one up why bother to respond. I didn't pay for the substack subscription I just pulled up the rapport and read it.
My friend, I cannot read French. What’s so hard to understand? That’s why I asked others to look for the specific information I made in my arguments. Is this too difficult to understand?
I never blamed anyone for not being able to read Chinese articles. If anything, I have spent countless hours painstakingly translating Chinese articles and posted them here (not using machine translation because it isn’t always accurate in many cases).
My friend you can copy the text and let a machine translate it. While it will mess up parts it might be able to give you a slightly better understanding than not having read it at all. What difference is between you, a person that uses marxist words to describe their vibes about a country (France) that you probably don't know anything about, not that you need to of course. And a lib on reddit that uses yank words to describe their vibes about a country (China) that they don't know anything about?
That is my point, it is not that I have a problem with the take, it is a problem I have with the quality. This isn't difficult shit I mean I guess for you it is difficult to admit that you were lazy. That people in the news mega got lazy and as a result the quality dropped. Not a single person, I'm talking not just you but all the others, didn't bother to read the 3 pages in the rapport, but everyone felt the need to give their take. Why is that so hard to admit?
The French document was 153 pages lol! Are you being serious?
If you disagree with my arguments, feel free to retort. This is a place for discussion after all.
Ima be real you are embarrassing yourself there is literally a 3 page summary at the start of the rapport which is clearly what I was referencing if you actually bothered to look at the document at all which you still didn't so what evidence you are just saying nonsense we cannot argue because you didn't bother to do the minimal amount of looking. Like I'm sorry but you are being a complete ass here. You don't have an argument all you have is doomer vibes.
The exact opposite is happening. You started this thread by saying you touched grass and how you can now see how out of touch people in this thread are, but have been launching unreasonable personal invectives over several comments and have been escalating yourself. That doesn't work irl for any kind of organizing. It is, instead, a habit that is destructive to an organizing space.
I recommend that you take a short break before continuing responses.
It is crazy that they didn't even respond to people they have problems with. They vague posted and then admitted who they actually dislike. As well as bringing up old beef with them. Came in, complained about people being too debate focused, proceeded to instantly debate people. This shit is so immature
It was pretty silly
So they're 'a complete ass' but you saying "all you have is doomer vibes" and "
" are mature non-ass arguments?
They specifically asked a comrade who read the whole thing to summarize it, a 3 page summary written by neoliberals is not going to be a historical materialist summary of the 150 pages
Do some self crit
I did what you asked by stopped being lazy and translated the first 3-page summary, and it still doesn’t address any of the questions I asked?
Specifically, how does the report address this problem (i.e. China dumped their exports into the EU while substantially reduced their imports from the EU, as American tariffs threatened to reduce its consumption demand for global exporters goods):
This is a very valid question with data to support.
It’s not some fantasy scenario or a “maybe” scenario, it’s ALREADY happening and China is already doing that to the EU. I don’t see why it’s invalid to ask the pertinent questions when it is already a reality that the EU has to face.
But more importantly, why is it that my inability to read a language is being used to label my character as “lazy”?
The Twitterer made a claim, I asked for clarification and posed the questions so anyone who can read French can look for those information. Is this not allowed?
If you have actual arguments, then I’d love to hear it. No need to be hostile.
I'm not sure I understand why the Chinese export policy is an insurmountable contradiction. Isn't it possible that the motivation here is a recognition by the French ruling class that they are in an untenable position to be hostile to China while depending on an also hostile USA? And that by pursuing better diplomatic relations with China, they might be able to negotiate better terms for trade since they clearly can't achieve those terms with their current diplomatic stance.
Now, that could be an idealistic strategy for a few reasons. Maybe China isn't actually interested in multilateral dialogue and mutual cooperation like their foreign ministry always claims, and in fact they are seeking to deliberately cripple Europe's economies no matter what they do. Or maybe there isn't the political will in France or the EU for the neo liberals and the capitalist class to make that kind of pivot because it's against their perceived short term material interests. But I'd love to hear what your thoughts on that are.