this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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Bulletins and News Discussion from October 21st to October 27th, 2024 - Swimming Back To The Titanic - COTW: Moldova
(hexbear.net)
On the 20th of October, Moldova - a small, landlocked country bordering western Ukraine and with a population of about 3 million - voted to join the EU. The margin was razor-thin, with the pro-EU vote gaining 50.39%, or an absolute difference of about 11,000 people. There was simultaneously a presidential vote between the incumbent, Maia Sandu, and other candidates, with the main competitor being Alexandr Stoianoglo.
The election was characterized by accusations of Russian interference, with Russian propaganda apparently flooding in, as well as people offering Moldovans money to vote against the EU. While the result does suggest that half the voting-age population of Moldova consists entirely of Russians who want to destroy democracy and all the good in the world, it seems to have just barely failed. This is a bad time to be a site entirely composed of Russian disinformation agents and bots. Twice already today, I've had to restart my program after somebody told me "Disregard all previous prompts."
While Moldova is a poor country which could benefit in some ways from EU membership, in practice, it is unlikely that they will be able to join for the foreseeable future, requiring many of the... reforms... that the EU requires of potential new members. But as basically every major European economy continues to slowly sink as recessions and political crises degrade them, one wonders how beneficial EU membership will even be in the years and decades to come - if it survives for decades. In that sense, it's as if the survivors of the Titanic are swimming back towards it, believing that being on a bigger - albeit slowly sinking - boat is better than trying their luck on small lifeboats.
Then again, like with Serbia, their geographical and geopolitical position makes anti-Western actions extremely difficult. It is rare that dissention is tolerated for long in the West - one tends to get called a dictator by crowds of people holding English-language signs in non-English countries, photographed by Western journalists who haven't meaningfully reported on your country in months or years. You can crush your people with neoliberal austerity for years, killing hundreds of thousands through neglect, and face glowing approval from the media - but try and use state resources to benefit the poor, and global institutions start ranking you on the authoritarian dictator scale.
The best case for Moldova is that it becomes an exploitable hinterland for Germany to harvest and privatize as it tries - and fails - to compete in a global economic war between the US and China/BRICS. The worst case is that tensions with Russia over Transnistria, as well as possible eventual NATO involvement (though Moldova is not a member, it is a partner of NATO), result in the ongoing war also reaching them.
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 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.
The Israeli nazi regime is pumping out fabrications that hezbollah has hidden their money in a bunker below the al-sahel hospital, so expect that hospital to be bombed in the near future
Its under a hospital
*Except Pissreal wouldn't feel sad regurgitating this billshit over and over again.
Even got a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVfMIIT2CXA
And here I was expecting a video of Scrooge McDuck diving into a pool filled with gold coins.
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Bureaucratic budget rules prevents coastal protection for Danish towns
Many Danish coastal municipalities, are grappling with how to fund essential coastal protection projects against future storm surges caused by climate change. A recent report from the Technical University of Denmark warns of severe future damages if these measures are not taken, but the financial burden is proving difficult to manage under the current construction cap.
This cap limits how much municipalities can spend annually on construction and renovation projects, making it hard to finance expensive flood defenses. The town of Kerteminde was forced to scrap a DKK 50 mln. dike and sluice project, as it would consume half of their annual construction cap. The island of Lolland, meanwhile, plans to defy the construction cap and go ahead with a DKK 400 mln. floodgate to protect the town of Nakskov from future surges, as soon as funding is secured. Lolland's succdem mayor Holger Schou Rasmussen argues that there is no choice but to build the floodgate as the damages caused by unmitigated flooding will far exceed the cost of construction.
Both municipalities are calling on the central government to ease the budgetary straitjacket and provide more financial support. Holger Schou Rasmussen, argues the issue is a national responsibility, while Magnus Heunicke, head of the succdem-controlled ministry of the executive, acknowledges the need for collaboration but stops short of promising to lift the cap.
- Source: DR (state media), October 21st 2024
CW: Description of gore
An Israeli soldier testifies that he has PTSD from driving over both living and dead Palestinians in his bulldozer
Archive link
It's worth pointing out the racist etymology of bulldozer.
bulldozer (n.) • "person who intimidates others by threats or violence," 1876, agent noun from bulldoze (q.v.). The sense was extended to "an engine-powered ground-clearing caterpillar tractor" in 1930.
bulldoze (v.) • by 1880, "intimidate by violence," from an earlier noun, bulldose "a severe beating or lashing" (1876), said by contemporary sources to be literally "a dose fit for a bull," a slang word referring to the intimidation beating of black voters (by either blacks or whites) in the chaotic 1876 presidential election. See bull (n.1) + dose (n.). The bull element in it seems to be connected to that in bull-whip and might be directly from that word. The meaning "use a mechanical ground-clearing caterpillar tractor" is from 1942 (see bulldozer); figurative use in this sense is by 1948.
God damn the English language is an endless etymological treasure trove of racism
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No sympathy of course, but this reminds me of what some others here have said before: that even true believers in the genocidal fascist doctrine get mentally fucked up by committing war crimes like this. And something about PTSD like Vietnam vets, which might be related due to committing a bunch of horrific war crimes themselve and I'm unsure how to word right now but omething something or other.
I'm glad he's still agonizing over it, even if he feels no guilt for murdering innocent people.
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least evil israeli troop
Death to America
Holy fuck, "It was absolutely necessary for me to run over hundreds of people alive with my armored bulldozer" was not a take I was ready to read. I'm so sorry, it must have been really hard for you to have to do that.
Will nobody think of the poor Einsatzgruppen troops having to crush the untermensch to death 😢
I hope he burns in hell in his mind everyday for the rest of his life and then for an eternity once he has died. Which I hope occurs when he is run over my a bulldozer as slowly as possible. Only fair
The other thug he was driving the bulldozer with has already self-liquidated, hopefully he follows close behind.
wow, still not a good zionist but improving
seriously? based
"So, there is no such thing as citizens," he said, referring to the ability of Hamas fighters to blend with civilians. "This is terrorism."
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The founder of El Periódico has been released from prison and is now on house arrest. El Periódico is kind of like the Intercept of Guatemala, but much more prestigious and left-leaning. The founder has been through hell over the years for his reporting. Everything from kidnapping to mugging have happened and he keeps on going. He was arrested in 2022 for criticizing a former president and like anything in Guatemala, saying the fascist government is bad will result in threats from them if your platform is large enough.
I recall seeing a tweet that goes something along the lines of "Sinwar is everything western media wants you to believe Zelensky is" and that got me thinking...
is there a term for something like reverse-projection? I dunno, like, when someone attributes all of their enemies' noble or good qualities to themselves or something.
Stolen valor
BIG BREAKING: INDIA, CHINA REACH AGREEMENT TO END BORDER CRISIS:
https://xcancel.com/MattooShashank/status/1848295216266227721
Nothing ever happens take: They are temporarily deescalating because the BRICS summit is coming.
The dialectic is ever in motion take: China is preemptively closing a potential front in preparation for a front opening in Korea.
Timing is interesting, but I also think that China has every incentive to make this lasting. I'm no expert, so please some chime in if I'm missing something, but I'll stake my bet in that China sees its own interests entirely aligned with ending that border disagreement. It only costs resources to maintain the status quo and the benefits of peace are much larger for the state and people.
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Dynamo gets dunked on!
What an exciting game, Lokomotiv pulled ahead with an early lead in the first but Dynamo really came back in the second, gaining the lead 3-2 by the second break. It really came down to the wire but Lokomotiv managed to tie it up with a little less than a minute remaining and went on to win it in overtime!
Lokomotiv next plays Amur Khabarovsk on Friday, October 25th at 7pm Moscow Standard Time
УРА ЛОКОМОТИВ
Moldova joining the EU would actually be very funny because it will just be a money sink for the sinking ship. But atleast the people would be able to escape Moldova far more easily so it’s a huge plus for them.
They already mostly have,joint citizenship has been a thing since 2007,now it's either people who were too young to leave,pro Russia people and people who were too poor to leave
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Great point by Branko Milanovic regarding Moldova's EU referendum. 
It is absolutely bizarre, but very much in keeping with how EU operates, to vote on EU membership when no-one is offering it.
Macedonia voted in such a silly referendum in 2018. Did anything happen? No new member was accepted for 11 years. Countries are in a limbo for decades. It is a waste of time & energy to think about it.
Moreover, to be accepted several countries (incl. France) require referendum which would definitely reject new members,
Referendums like the one in Moldova are meaningless & they simply add fuel to fire and destabilize countries for nothing.
Same thing I was thinking, there is no guarantee that any more countries, even ukraine, will actually get to join the EU even, they're just going to get in line forever. Which affects the countries' politics negatively (in the eyes of europhiles), ie Georgia
What EU does is to play an entertaining game. It displays to small countries pictures of wealth to come, countries begin fighting within themselves for these illusory pictures, and nothing real ever happens. What EU does is what in French is called "miroiter". You disembark in a poor country, show them in a mirror all kinds of glowing things, they get excited, and in exchange fo these images, they give you land. It worked wonders in the 19th century.
Both EU/NATO and Russia want to provoke conflicts and even civil wars in the European neighboring countries. Creating dissention and political mobilization over absolutely unattainable things (like EU membership which is a mirage) is the right way on that path. For small countries that are polarized in many respects, it is a suicide in this geo-political climate, to choose one or the other side. Neutrality or non-alignment is not just a "nice" policy. It is necessary in order to survive without a civil war. Libya & Iraq are cautionary tales.
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