Image, sourced from this article, is of George Bush in 2002 meeting with María Corina Machado, who was even then being trained as a figure to oppose Venezuelan socialism, and very briefly succeeded with the Carmona Decree. Now the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, she has begged the Zionist entity to drop bombs on the Venezuelan people.
As of me writing these sentences, it appears that the ceasefire in Gaza is underway. Zionist ceasefires are, of course, an oxymoron - not only in the grand sense that their work to continue genocidal atrocities against others locally and regionally will not cease until the Zionist entity’s occupation of Palestine is overthrown and Palestinians can resume the governance of their territory - but also in the literal sense; that bombings and shootings are often only merely reduced, and rarely cease entirely (as was/is the case on their northern border with Lebanon). Nonetheless, hopefully the population can receive some aid, and the long process of rebuilding can begin.
On the other side of the world, it seems increasingly likely that a new war is set to begin. Because the US is eschewing the usual process of generating pro-war propaganda and casus bellis (aside from a laughably transparent Nobel Peace Prize award) and seems content to just skip straight to the “bomb and depose” step, it’s quite hard to predict what precisely they want to do. Anything seems to be on the table - from freely striking Venezuelan territory where “drug dealers” are to try and prompt a Venezuelan response, to assassinating Maduro and/or his generals and hoping a power vacuum can be filled with compradors, to attempting to outright invade Venezuela and establish direct American control over important government sites. All appear to be possibilities, though as of right now, the most drastic measures seem unlikely due to their difficulty.
We know that the US has almost totally abandoned diplomatic communication with Venezuela, and that the US has deployed warships, a nuclear submarine, F-35s, surveillance planes, and at least 4,000 military personnel to the Caribbean, with some sources putting the numbers higher. Some people have suggested that the point is to try and force Maduro into a situation where he must begin hostilities, or be seen as weak and perhaps overthrown from within. It is at least encouraging that Maduro is not like Allende in Chile, and is taking this situation extraordinarily seriously; the masses are being trained and mobilized in the event of an invasion, and military drills are ongoing. Venezuela has no real capacity to stop the US from attacking and bombing them, but it is much more possible to prevent a West-friendly puppet from gaining meaningful control of the country. A comprador might be able to make a brief statement or decree in a Venezuelan city saying that Chavismo is over, but actual power will hopefully prove very elusive.
2020, and particularly 2022, has clearly become a turning point for the Western imperial system, in which increasingly aggressive and reckless moves are required to keep the system functional (stability is, at this point, out of the question). Unfortunately, this has also resulted in the deaths of many long-lasting, inspiring figures, such as Nasrallah, and many more will certainly die before the empire collapses. If Maduro is assassinated - and I’m having trouble imagining how he won’t be doggedly pursued in the days. weeks, and months to come - I have hope that a successor will rise to continue to lead the Bolivarian Revolution.
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.
The Zionist Entity'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.
jesus fucking christ gold is at 4350 already
to update on the real game in town, #beanwatch
:
cocoa crashed to 6k (rip sweet dreams
)
coffee still at 400 (no change for a month)
soybeans still haven’t crashed past 1000 (smh, crash those kulaks)
i also wonder, like oil is at 60 dollars already, the fuck usa oil porkies plan to do/arab sheikhs as well?
(oil rigs dropped from 480 to 420 since february, okay that makes sense. saudis cashflows are harder to understand)
Not to be conspiratorial but it’s funny that the plan to inspect the gold in fort knox was quietly done away with
meanwhile China is amassing gold
they are putting “gold” bars into protein powder
stay vigilant
I always find it funny when I read from the news that China has TRIPLED its gold reserves since 2023.
If you look at the reserve asset sheet from the PBoC, it amounts to ~$280 billion USD (~2300 tons) which is a fraction of its $3.7 trillion USD holding of reserve assets, and this is itself a fraction of the central bank’s total asset when you also take into account the claims on domestic institutions (which can also come from commercial banks’ holdings of USD and collateralized to the central bank in the form of government bonds).
The simple answer is that central banks around the world buy up gold to hedge against the potential depreciation of the dollar value under Trump, which they have accumulated through selling real goods and services to foreigners but don’t want to lose the value of their dollar assets. In other words, speculative asset. I strongly doubt that it will have any real impact on international finance or the dollar-based monetary system itself.
Up 30% in 2 months isn’t normal. Some of the boug are preparing for that bubble burst.
it rose 10% from my goldbug apology, they are dabbing on me, personally
Gold going up means uncertainty in the market. And there is a lot of uncertainty at the moment with potential for high tarrifs on China, escalation in Ukraine, Venezuela escalation, etc
it detached from market (as inflationary thingy), and gone back to safety valve, mysteriously, on the shutdown.
Those mysterious entities who conspire to keep gold down have now been furloughed.
I’d almost believe it tbh
Shutdown is also another big uncertainty indicator yeah.
I remember gold shooting to the moon when Trump was first elected in 2016 because of all the uncertainty.
the 30 yield stays lower than desired (for
, at 4.5), so probably someone on the side buying more than usual. (also a lot of abandoned mines become profitable after 2700, i shudder to think what kind of violence is boiling around those, even river prospecting i think around 4k becomes like minimum wage viable in fucking america). probably gulf countries are buying treasuries again tbh, like good little doggies.
maybe @Alaskaball@hexbear.net can become our local goldbug
sudan is already fucking shambles, drc is owned by rwanda, ghana maybe alrighty to deal with it, poor burkina faso/mali dealing with jnim (
)
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depends if it’s naturally occuring or like mine-mine, with rock crashers, cyanide and stuff as well, fixed capital which is not very pro-mafioso in country with military, the other is just uncontrollable shit for desperate people, easily cowed with couple of mafiosos:(
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If you have a time machine, you should travel back 10 years in time and invest your entire savings on gold, and you would have made an absolute fortune by now. Same with Bitcoin.
HOWEVER, the very moment you do that, you would have triggered a cascade of the butterfly effects that guarantee that gold would not rise lol.
I know someone who invested heavily in gold when Trump got elected in 2016 lol. He was a big Trump fan despite us being halfway around the world from the USA, and thought gold going up was a positive for the market and the world (or something along those lines). Wonder what he’s up to now.
I honestly think gold investment is out of reach for most people. First, the tax is quite heavy, so you need to hold them for long enough and for the price to rise enough in order to be worth it. Great if you’re very wealthy and plan to store your wealth in something physical for several decades, otherwise it’s probably better to invest in something else and something much easier to cash out.
Then you have to figure out the physical storage and safeguarding it, since anything that is not physical gold, like ETFs, futures, stocks where you don’t hold the gold yourself is probably not worth the risks.
I remember as a teenager wanting to buy drugs off of silk road but never going through with it and it still feels so bad. The change from those transactions would’ve made me a bajillionaire by now.
I like to remind myself that there’s no universe in which I both: have a couple bitcoin and also don’t sell my couple bitcoin for $200 each before the boom
yeah that’s fair. where we’re at now was absolutely unimaginable 15 years ago.
Oh, there are. There’s quite a few where you delete your wallet or forget your password.
Honestly just as likely, yeah…
Haha, I try to think of stuff like that as Midas gold. Great curse will befall if I somehow attain that kind of fortune!