Also known as "Foucault's boomerang" or the "imperial boomerang".
Image is of a sniper on the roof of the Indiana Memorial Union at Indiana State University, overlooking a student protest.
The Imperial Boomerang is the observation that the tactics of mass oppression and totalitarianism used by Western countries in their colonies and neocolonies will, sooner or later, return home to be used against the citizens of those Western countries. While the people living at the time of WW2 were, rightfully, in deep shock of the concentration camps used by Nazi Germany, those paying attention to what was occurring in Africa would not have been terribly surprised. Concentration camps were used in several countries in order to separate out ethnic groups and place them in more easily controlled environments which aimed to prevent them from rising up and fighting back against the Western governments which exploited them. There is the additional factor of governments taking notes from each other - Hitler was inspired by America's racial segregation and genocide of indigenous groups, which author Carroll Kakel among others have written books on.
Today, the totalitarian strategies used by the Zionist entity in occupied Palestine are being brought home to Western countries as the American Reich and its global influence accelerate in their decline. Gaza was and is a cyber-concentration camp, with digital surveillance taking place alongside old-fashioned techniques of paying informants. Aside from being an unsinkable aircraft carrier and disrupting the entire Middle East, Israel's primary role appears to be to generate new ways to monitor entire populations. Propaganda about China being an authoritarian police state with social credit scores and AI which knows where everybody is at all times was probably created, at least in part, to deflect attention from Israel doing those exact things. The paranoid and flimsy American regime with its gerontocratic upper circles now use these tactics at home: cracking down on any and all protestors with political views left of Mussolini; placing snipers on roofs ready to fire at the slightest provocation; and arresting organization leaders. Pegasus has wormed its way around the world, with a notable recent example in Poland, in which the previous conservative government used the spyware to monitor the current liberal ruling party. The Israeli military, experts only in killing children and not actual warfare, have trained the police of other nations.
It would be easy to end the preamble there, on a gloomy note about the brick wall - or, indeed, iron curtain - that upstart left-wing groups are up against. What history has shown is that these regimes are, in fact, beatable. Liberation movements around the world have found ways to counter imperialism, even if they required wars in which millions of their countrymen were murdered. The legacy of Israeli propaganda psyops and digital tracking is not victory, as Hamas demonstrated on October 7th and continues to show with every ambush executed and every Merkava destroyed. The legacy of Western military defence equipment is not success, demonstrated by every missile fired by Hezbollah and Iran which hits Israel. The legacy of the American Navy is not competence, with a naval blockade of the Red Sea still maintained after months by one of the poorest countries on the planet.
The protests of at least the last couple decades have been marked by failure to produce material results: from those against the Iraq War, to Occupy Wall Street, to the BLM protests of 2020. Of course, it would be silly to tell American protestors to start digging tunnels. But sooner or later, the failure of Western protest movements will be overcome, and a more effective strategy will be devised, in order to deflect the boomerang.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
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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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
kind of a win-win situation.
At what point of delegitimization does something actually get accomplished
It's not so much about "omg, it's becoming increasingly obvious to the world that the ICC and UN etc are just imperialist Western institutions! now the world can Hold Them Accountable and have a Public Debate about their roles!" as much as it is another straw on the camel's increasingly aching back. You're correct that delegitimization without on-the-ground action against imperialism is an incredibly slow way to change things, but when combined, and when further events occur which put additional pressure on the system which then causes further events to occur and so on, things can snowball quickly.
Like, if you told somebody in 2007 or whatever that the Donbass, a region most people probably haven't heard of in eastern Ukraine, a country most Westerners could not have placed on a map, would be the nexus of the dismantling of American Empire and the European economy due to a (relative to the world population) tiny group of separatists, then nobody would have believed you. Small things can have massive impacts later on, and it's only when looking retroactively can you be like "Oh, it was OBVIOUS that this event would go on and have this massive effect!" I'm sure there's tons of people who have talked about how great historical events had origins in little things which grew because of momentum (e.g. Ukrainian nationalism/Naziism in the troubles of a post-Soviet Ukraine), or a lack of institutional strength to prevent them from escalating (e.g. NATO's post-Cold War weakness), or because the right people were there at the right time (e.g. Putin being in power rather than some total Western comprador).
I'm personally trying to approach ongoing events through that lens, of "how would a historian looking back on these times interpret events and how things progressed," and in that model, abstract things like an institution gradually decaying tend to be real catalysts of change years down the line once people realize that the institution has indeed lost its power. Obviously I generally fail because I don't have a phone line directly to Sinwar when he creates his plans to upend the whole Middle East on one October night/morning, but I think it's still a worthwhile exercise.
I think delegitimization is an idealist concept. We shouldn’t confuse diplomatic niceties with actual views. I mean, are we seriously supposed to believe that the reason that the US hasn’t been destroyed is because countries have too much faith in western institutions and ideals? I mean the fake meaningless institutions like the ICC, not actual financial ones. “Choosing” the US hasn’t been much of a choice for the last 80 years. We shouldn’t take diplomatic press releases at their face value. Of course they’re going to say some generic “increasing cooperation with our trusted ally” type PR and not “if we don’t do what they say they’ll grind us into dust”. The US’ basis for its power is material, not hypnotizing the world which will be freed if the spell is broken.
The limiting factor isn’t that state-level actors are somehow unaware of the incredibly obvious fact that western institutions are imperialist tools, it’s that the US has concrete, material power that is waning, but still present. Public-facing diplomatic showmanship is just that.
The decision of the ICC will not have any impact. The EU vassals will continue to be vassalized and the US boot will be on everyone’s neck just as hard as it was before. The countries that have condemned Israel will continue to condemn Israel and those that have supported Israel will continue to support Israel. Those that have issued generic “death bad” statements will continue to issue generic “death bad” statements. Public statements are almost as worthless as reading tea leaves.
The decline of the US will cause the delegitimization of its institutions, not the other way around.
Abstract concepts like "delegitimization" aren't the main driving force, but there is a dialectical role that it plays. The US can't dominate exclusively by force, and the more it has to rely on force the weaker it finds itself. Larger and relatively stronger allies (regional-scale powers) aren't easily threatened and are increasingly following their own agendas instead of deferring to Washington. And in some cases, the US is so hated by the local population that allying too closely would risk a popular revolt, and those states can't remain in power exclusively by force either.
Once the US’ power in a region is weakened to the point that open (and successful) defiance can be accomplished and once the conditions exist for that to be done, it will happen in that region.
The US’ ability to maintain power (including “soft” power) is a chain of “if you don’t, then” ending with “if you don’t, then we will bomb/destroy your country”. It must also rely on local compradors who they must likewise have some degree of leverage over. Obviously the US has been defeated before, and where it cannot enforce this is where all the news mega favorite countries tend to be. For obvious reasons, these countries don’t feel the need to refrain from calling Biden a poopoo head. The US hasn’t been trying to make going with an alternative a death sentence for nothing.
The point being that state-level legitimacy is a reflection of these “real” factors, and that we shouldn’t confuse the causation. Western institutions have never been legitimate to those facing the end of a gun barrel, but the raw exercise of power has little to do with legitimacy and, well, a lot to do with the barrel of a gun. The US can maintain power without the approval of the local population, and of course the comprador governments will grant it diplomatic, state-level legitimacy through “cooperation”. The US maintains its power through enforcement.
Much of those who have had the privilege of approving of the US have been European labor aristocrats. That is waning too, but they can start burning American flags in every street in Europe and it would not change the vassal-lord relationship. I’m not saying that the relationship hasn’t changed over the past few years, but any change is due to things such as blowing up a pipeline and making them dependent on you for oil, with legitimacy being a public-facing concept that only tails underlying material factors.
Once it becomes widely acknowledged as a genocidal pariah state. Same w South Africa, just more difficult because of how tight the IS-Israel relationship is
Excellent, I look forward to it
I would say that "nothing happens" is a pessimistic outcome. Trying to do something and failing will delegitimise the ICC but so will not even trying at all.
If the ICC proves itself incapable of charging a genocidal fascist like Netanyahu while also having charged Putin for evacuating children from a warzone then it will be yet another piece of evidence that the "rules-based international order" is nothing but American imperialism with a PR budget.
There is no possibility that "nothing gets better of worse" in the horizon. This would be seen by those who matter (political authorities in most countries of the world and local bourgeoisies) as another severe mutilation of international institutions which the same US and other countries fought for existing and undermine the prestige and image of the United States.