Image is sourced from this Guardian article.
The Pope's fucking dead.
He gave JD Vance three chocolate easter eggs, exchanged pleasantries for 17 minutes, and then keeled over and died.
What a way to go.
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
If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.
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.
I am kinda sad to hear Pope Francis passed away, even though it was coming eventually. And I say this despite being somewhat atheist myself. In Argentina, Francis is know to some as "The Pope of the Atheists" because he was well liked among important groups of people for his militancy, not only at the head of the Catholic Church, but also during his days in the Argentinian Church. I have grown a great deal of respect for the man, of course I had a lot of disagreements with him but I don't think he was your regular super conservative Pope, far from it. It's kinda good to see he was deeply moved by the Genocide in Gaza, and he was personally invested in denouncing it until the very end of his life. That I can respect, despite our "spiritual" and political differences.
He really got under the skin of milei as well, he absolutely despised the Pope. Years ago he even called him, publicly, a "fucking Communist SOB" that is a "representative of the Devil in the Holy See". A while back he was shown a fragment of a interview an argentinian journalist did to the Pope, where he said that we should all be aware of "men without history that pretend to become saviors", he specifically mentioned that "this was the case with Adolf [Hitler]" and milei took great offense lmao and became very angry because he thought the Pope was talking about him. He is, indeed, a dangerous man without history, someone who has a messiah complex.
Francis also mantained some relationships with local Communist leaders and Socialists, especially those linked with the Church and/or doing charity work among the needy. His persona ideology however could be something along the lines of Social Justice. Truth is, he wasn't a rabid anti-Communist like pretty much all the other Popes, quite refreshing.
this statement could be interpreted in multiple ways. Seeing the gospel sociologically can be both an approach, and a critique.
hope the next pope also makes milei and the US catholics mad
What do you mean by a man without history?
He meant it in the way that people like Hitler were "complete unknowns" to the public, "outsiders" as they are called these days. Individuals whose personal history cannot be traced yet they present themselves as the ultimate saviors, people don't know who they really are, they are fooled and make a leap of faith for them. He lowkey attack milei, this absolutely unknown guy who claims he has all the answers and the key to progress and salvation, yet now that he holds power he uses it to literally kill people. He compared these men "without history" to Christ, whom he said we can know his history and how he died in the Cross. It was both a religious and political statement.