Image is of Azerbaijan's President, Aliyev (left) and Armenia's President, Pashinyan (right) in a meeting a month or two after Azerbaijan took Nagorno-Karabakh.
- Never go to a second location.
- Always get the interior ministry post.
- Never get in a helicopter or any small aircraft.
- If someone with a gun enters your car, they’re gonna kill you.
- If someone tells you they’re not going to kill you, they’re calming you down to kill you later.
- Never give up your nukes.
- Never release the opposition's political prisoners.
- Never let the opposition delay elections.
- If someone starts to get into German runes, drop them.
- Never trust a South American with a German name.
- Never move anywhere for a religion.
- Never go into the sewers unless you’re a sewer guy.
- If someone’s trying to get you to commit a crime, they're FBI (sometimes CIA or military intelligence).
- Never become an FBI informant.
- If you do become an FBI informant, record everything.
- Never relinquish your arms.
- Always get it in writing.
- If you keep gambling, you’ll eventually win.
- Never talk to cops without a lawyer.
- Always pay your mercenaries.
- Don’t let anyone take your passport.
To add an addendum to rule 3, never put your President and Foreign Minister in the same helicopter or small aircraft. Especially if doing so in bad weather conditions. Especially if you're already under threat from a hostile nuclear power in the region with a proclivity for terrorism (though this probably isn't Israel's doing, in this particular case).
Anyway, Azerbaijan. Not a great country, I think. Did some genocides. They're a petrostate that is hosting Cop29, which I suppose is a way for the bourgeoisie to implicitly convey their contempt for the green movement. They got weapons from Israel, too.
Just for the record, there's an Iranian province called East Azerbaijan, which is not the same as Azerbaijan.
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.
The Country of the Week is Azerbaijan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
It's funny how the current managers of empire are willing to torch their own "international" institutions (that they set up for their own benefit) in order to prop up their settler colonial project that's going to implode in the long run anyway
I wonder if they truly perceive restraint as weakness and that's why they always double down and never back off
This is the only explanation. A rot has set in, an inability to EVER back down or admit failures or withdraw on anything. If failure is to occur then it must always be justified through some convoluted method.
It's a huge and incredibly glaring weakness that can be put to use by forcing them into bad situations they will always double down on.
I think we already see this with the axis of resistance goading israel on, or maybe with Russia recently attacking from the north and basically inviting more ukrainians into another meat grinder
Their outsized influence in the organizations is a benefit for them, but in the long run imo it doesn't benefit them to have a table for everyone to sit at and speak. Especially in the information age. I do think they see it as a growing threat to sovereignty and hegemony and are at this point trying to burn it down.
Ukraine and Israel are simply bridgeheads for the empire to pump dollars into the foreign sector to regain the hegemonic position of the dollar following the inflation caused by Western sanctions against Russia in 2022.
Biden took a huge gamble and placed a bet that China/BRICS dare not do anything to disrupt the dollar, and it worked. The dollar is already starting to regain its dominance across the world, while there is not yet an alternative that can convince the world to ditch the dollar. With dozens of countries on the brink of default, they will be willing to sell whatever necessary to earn those dollars. America gets its free lunch once again.
Whatever it is, the current wave of de-dollarization effort has failed. Until the next global financial crisis, that is.
No, you're vastly downplaying the geopolitical significance of Israel, or more specifically, its role in the maintenance of maritime trade routes under Western control and its role in stalling WANA political unity. WANA already has linguistic, religious, and cultural similarities that can serve as a strong foundation towards political unity. A politically unified WANA would indeed be a world power with control over essential trade routes (Strait of Gibraltar, Suez Canal, Bab-el-Mandeb) as well as oil reserves from the Gulf. This is one of the aims of the Zionist entity.
Without the Zionist entity, political unity is inevitable. Western imperialism does not want this unity to happen. Consequently, the US will never let go of Israel. This will not be like apartheid South Africa where the US reluctantly abandoned South Africa once they had been militarily defeated by anti-apartheid forces with Cuban support and had become a pariah state. The US will hold on to Israel until the bitter end.
Help a comrade out, I've never heard of this. The "internet of shit" is telling me this is some brand of cannabis gummies but that doesn't seem right given the context.
West Asia and North Africa, I'm assuming.
West Asia North Africa, as opposed to the term MENA (Middle East North Africa)
Awesome, thanks!
West Asia and North Africa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_and_North_Africa
The US is likely to die trying in this case.
So like the next 6-48 months?
US is aimlessly flailing, they can't dollarize anything with high interest rates since all the money they pump out just gets sucked right back in instead of infesting the host countries and growing to maturity as it did with past cycles. in any case, i'd imagine any country that does get dollarized can probably just go the china route in the future and have china dump some more tbills to patch over however much debt got grown in the meantime
they're trying to sow and reap at the same time currently and while it's not the end of empire, it probably won't provide the results they're looking for
as i said before, so long as brandon doesn't do something extremely funny before the elections, this cycle is probably a wash. one to look out for will be the next one
No US President has ever died in May, so hold your horses on the funny malarkey, Jack.
Somewhat unrelated, but it's pretty funny that you change your account every so often considering that your writing style makes you instantly identifiable
I appreciate them though. Whenever I'm feeling too giddy about the downfall of the West I look for their warnings to temper my excitement and consider if it ain't over yet
"the West's downfall is inevitable and hegemony will soon be a thing of the past" and "the American Empire is still a sturdy and somewhat competent entity and it will be the challenge of the century to meaningfully destroy their institutions and monetary dominance" aren't statements in conflict. they are a dialectic of thesis and antithesis that is making out, sloppy style. understanding and internalizing both will make you the True Geopolitics Understander
Agree, that's why I enjoy droplet's comments. They remind me of the difficulty of the struggle whenever I'm feeling too, hmmm, idk, "optimistic"? Or for when I'm happily dancing on the corpse that hasn't yet died.
To be fair, I was one of the most optimistic here about the end of dollar hegemony back in 2022.
When Russia canceled $23 billion of Africa’s debt, followed by China’s waiving 17 interest-free loans for 17 African countries, I thought that was it. That was the downfall of the dollar, combined with the high interest rates sucking in dollars from the rest of the world, and with so many countries on the brink of default, if they keep pushing in that direction, the dollar is finished.
Then 2023 came, nothing of the sort happened. No massive global debt cancellation as I was expecting. BRICS even reassured that they will keep dishing out 70% of their loans in dollars. It became very clear that nobody really wanted to de-dollarize, except maybe for Russia.
Meanwhile, the short term Treasury bills began to mature as interest payments, while no alternative was to be found for the Global South countries. At that point, it was all but certain that de-dollarization efforts have failed.
The fact is, in the end nobody dared to do something about the dollar. It is simply too pervasive and far too integrated into many economies that nobody wanted to take a risk.
Biden took a huge gamble - literally risking the entire financial institutions that supported the dollar hegemony - and I still can’t believe it paid off so well for him.
This is not some Biden master strategy or genius 4D chess move, it’s just the empire instinctively reacting to challenge to the dollar.
In this sense, the US didn’t exactly win the currency war, BRICS/the rest of the world lost the initiative in dismantling the dollar hegemony when the window of opportunity appeared.
The point I’ve been trying to make is that: the dollar institution could be beaten, but because everyone was so afraid of it that they’d rather let the opportunity slip than taking the risk to push for a radical change. Instead, the empire (Biden) took the risk and it paid off.
I remember the moment when dedollarization seemed imminent (I was lurking around here). So I appreciate the dose of realism (even if it's a buzz kill lol)
If you don't mind, may ask you for some resources on how to better understand the monetary system, foreign exchange, etc.
I've been reading Marxist (and Marx adjacent) economics papers from a production/value (this is what am calling it) perspective (authors such as Pasinetti, Sraffa, Shaikh, Wright, Mohun, etc.) and feel like I have gotten a better understanding of that tiny subfield. It helped me better understand input output tables, labor values, their relation to prices, and etc. But I am much less knowledgeable when we turn to actual money, international exchange etc etc. I need a good set of resources to understand even the basics I feel. Maybe someone here will say it's all in Marx and I'm betraying my ignorance. If so, then point me to whichever passage lol. There likely isn't one resource to cover all the basics, but any thing you can share would be appreciated. Thank you!
Do you think these alternative institutions are just not 'mature' enough to set up these alternatives to the dollar? They don't have the institutional know how, knowledge, confidence, etc., and so the incentives aren't strong enough. Perhaps that is too vague of a way to phrase the question. It seems like future opportunities will surely exist when the next financial crisis occurs. I also want to have a better understanding of how America can be so strong financially but so weak with it's own productive capacity, and how that will play out. All the money in the world can't buy what labor can't provide. I am not yet at the level of offering much of substance, still learning.
Also, I imagine Hudson's book would help with understanding this.
This is a needlessly doomer take on BRICS. The dollar isn’t doing that great overall and ultimately China holds the trump card for the dollars hegemony. Like I can’t tell if you guys want the dollar to perpetuate or not
Ageism incoming:
When all the rulers are mere minutes away from death, their idea of planning for the long term is deeply flawed.
that's not ageism. ageism is not hiring 40 year olds at your tech startup
they're cashing out. they think they'll win any war they'll start.