A week ago, the Bolivian left-wing party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), currently led by Luis Arce, decisively lost the round of elections against the right-wing. This comes after a prolonged period of "infighting" between Arce, and Morales, who previously led the MAS prior to the 2019 coup which briefly installed Jeanine Anez.
I put infighting in quotes because despite the nominal similarities between Arce and Morales, it is clear that this is not merely a counterproductive battle between two men - instead, the Bolivian left has arrived at a time of unavoidable conflict between two competing strategies. The electoral strategy is represented by Arce, who has aligned himself with a more middle-class-oriented campaign that is more economically liberal, whereas Morales represents a more working-class-oriented campaign that seeks to go further than tepid reform.
Such a conflict between electoralism and revolutionary action is inevitable in any and every developing country that 1) possesses a functioning left-wing party or organization, and 2) is under internal and/or external pressure by capitalists. This crisis must be resolved eventually - and this electoral failure is how such a crisis is manifesting right now. So while the Bolivian left has indeed lost the election, it is not yet defeated. The revolutionary campaign can, if it is willing, still ultimately stand triumphant. But what must be done is a real movement towards socialism, which goes beyond technocrats reforming from above, and instead transforms the state into a full political project of the working class, in which their movements, organizations, and protests are genuinely empowered. Such a project will involve repression by the forces of reaction, not least by the United States, but it is the only road left to take.
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's Genocide of Palestine
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 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.
He begins by saying that this is the continuation (or rather intensification) of an ongoing naval operation in the southern region of the Maracaibo Lake, now reinforced with 15,000 more personnel. He says this operation covers 851km of the 2,219km that make up Venezuela's border with Colombia. He then lists a number of assets to be used such as helicopters, airplanes, unmanned drones, SIGINT elements, recon, and so on.
He goes on a bit to talk about how the territory is divided in units and how each unit contains about 250 men, he explains this is an operation with a "quick preparation time" because the terrain is well known and that they also know the charasteristics of the "armed terrorist narco groups that seek to enter Venezuela from Colombia". The naval infantry and it's assets will be used to patrol the rivers, and unmanned drones will be used for exploration along "points of interest". As for naval assets he explains that there will be patrols along the lake as well as up north, while bigger vessels will be ordered to patrol Venezuela's territorial waters.
He doesn't explicitly says this operation is oriented against US military presence, the only hint could be the deployment of larger vessels up north but it's vague. He remarks this (ongoing) operation is to secure their territory and oil production facilities in their border with Colombia, but that's it. He doesn't even mention "the Caribbean", OSINTWarfare is kinda lying and a lot of people in the comments genuinely believe Venezuela is going to strike US vessels or something...
So it's mainly an operation to secure the border with Colombia then? That makes a lot more sense.
I agree, there's no way Venezuela would directly confront the US Navy, it would be Operation Praying Mantis 2.0.
Technically the Gulf of Venezuela is a Gulf of the Caribbean Sea, so I guess that's what's meant by these social media accounts mentioning the Caribbean even if the Venezuelan Minister of Defence didn't mention it himself. Clickbait using technically correct terms I guess.
Yep, he's very specific about deploying military forces to cover up the entire border with Colombia. Not unusual, the Venezuelan Army has done this in the past with varying degrees of intensity.., and firefights did happen. For example, in 2021 a small mechanized patrol was ambushed by "dissident FARC elements" in the state of Apuro, southern Venezuela, right at the border. A BTR-80A was damaged by a mine and at least one soldier was killed. I also recall a video of another BTR-80A supporting infantry as they moved up on a "FARC" grouping some years ago. These incidents saw the Venezuelan Army deploy heavier assets such as F-16A/B Block 15 aircraft for bombing runs as well as "Hinds" for close air support.