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.
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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.
At the end of the day 90% of the increasing doomerism, critique or negativity towards things, and china in particulalar is justifyiable anger about China's relative innaction towards the genocide in palestine from people that are hopeless, living in countries that directly found and facilitate the genocide and not being able to square the China that they have been hopefull about as a socialist force of good with the extreme suffering that is allowed to so shamelessly happen. I dont have the answers here. Im just saying that the whole shift has little to do with any real shift in China's own economic or developmental policy or even foreign policy compared to 1-2-3-5 years ago, or some slide back to neoliberalism or whatever. Any reasons one had to believe some years ago, after analysing China's system and choices, that they are on the right path and are doing socialism and slowly solving their contradictions and overtaking the US and gaining in the balance of power etc etc they can find the same ones still being true and even more validated and clear. The sentiment driving and allowing that mood shift comes from the other stuff
As far as specific users go imma be honest, ever since i saw XHS buying and using some obvious anti-china slop stories like some Chinese sub(s) sinking sourced from some taiwanese tabloid and a single sexpat analyst to doom post, i cant take them too seriously about other matters either. You cant find those comments because XHS deletes everything and has changed like 5 accounts in two years but still despite that i have made some effort posts against some of their most "interesting" claims. But its increasinlgy meaningless to argue Pekingology but from a "find the neoliberalism" perspective based on assertions and stats that can be sourced, explained and used 5 different ways . Reality itself is and will bring the receipts. The reality im seeing isnt one that aligns with negative coverage of pretty much every single Chinese foreign, monetary or developmental choice that happened in the last 2-3 years (they have spoken favorably about things that happened before they started commenting, and things no one can deny like tech or industrial development but almost never about any contemporary choise or moves, and that favorable coverage of past moves is to say "Back then i actualy thought this and they were doing the good thing but i was naive and they libed up now") and where every other US foreign or monetary policy move was a correct chess move for the empire. Sorry if thats presumptious but its increadibly easy to just dismiss super serious monetary analysis when i remember that they also intermittently post YT/ Twitter threads tier slop like this for years:
For now i will simply glance over a comment quickly, shrug and say to myself "meh, i'll believe it when i see it".