this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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This megathread's topic is inspired by our lovely news regular, @Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net, who talks often about the conditions inside El Salvador and gives nuanced and informative takes.

As the Trump administration continues to make foreign policy blunders that would make even the staunchest anti-imperialist accelerationist blush - and we are barely three months in! - it's interesting to compare and contrast his policies of incompetent imperialist and domestic management to the dictators in other countries.

Bukele is somewhat unique among fascists, in that he seems to not hide - and seems to even admit to - his evil, self-describing as the world's "coolest dictator". El Salvador has no particular shortage of prominent fascists in their history, but one major example is Maximiliano Martínez, who led the country over much of the 1930s and the early 1940s. He was responsible the deaths of many thousands of communists and indigneous people, and yet joined World War 2 on the side of the Allies and against the Nazis.

The comparisons between Martínez and Bukele - and, indeed, between Bukele and Trump - in terms of their impact on minority groups are slowly growing as world attention is being drawn to the country. The recent meeting between Bukele and Trump has shifted a spotlight onto El Salvador's crime policy; the internal conditions of El Salvador's prisons are genuinely monstrous. One gets a similar feeling as when reading descriptions of the conditions of Holocaust victims in German concentration camps. Trump has made statements to the effect that he want a similar crime crackdown inside the United States, and I certainly believe that he wants this (ICE is already just kidnapping people off the streets into vans), but his administration has been so chaotic and mismanaged that it's difficult to determine whether this will be an interest he rapidly drops in favor of some other hair-brained scheme.


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.


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[–] companero@hexbear.net 61 points 4 days ago (1 children)

5-6 km Russian breakthrough southwest of Kostiantynivka, per https://t.me/s/kalibrated

Some initial reports that Russia may have also begun assault operations on Pokrovsk. A few soldiers were apparently geolocated within the city.

[–] RNAi@hexbear.net 46 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (5 children)

It always cracks me up the lines being drawn farm-field-to-field like control areas follow alambrados. Like imagine a farmer waking up and checking this fucking thread and going "aw shit I can't sow the east field today, the frontline shifted 10 hectares"

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[–] StillNoLeftLeft@hexbear.net 79 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Happy May Day comrades! cat-com

Some May Day reporting from Finland. The local reactionary nazis held a gathering in the city of Tampere today. Their gathering was fully protected by the cops who violently arrested 15 counter-protesters and used a growd control rifle on them.

The local bougie newspaper report about this here, you can see some of the nazis protected by the cops. They've essentially built a little pen for the fash and during their pathetic unjoyous little march they protected them from all sides.

The national news piece here.

A short video about the cops shooting a counter-protester who is throwing back a torch the fash threw in the crowd. This video will expire in two days.

The counter-protesters threw eggs and torches toward the fash and in general tried to make their cop protected little march fail.

This picture of one of the counter-protesters goes extremely hard:

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[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 66 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (7 children)

In a very predictable turn of events, National security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, have now been fired from the Trump administration. This comes after Waltz took responsibility for the "signal leaks" on military operations in Yemen to an Atlantic journalist, and Laura Loomer led a social media campaign to get Waltz and Wong fired, including an in person meeting with Trump.

Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy to leave posts in White House, sources say - CBS News, 1 May 2025

Update: Trump is sending Waltz to the UN (essentially giving him a "soft landing" instead of being kicked to the curb), Marco Rubio will dual hat as both the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor, similar to Henry Kissinger from 1973-1975. Some were portraying this as a win for the "pro peace/negotiations with Iran faction", but given Rubio's appointment and subsequent statements, that is not the case. With Musk and Waltz now gone or relegated to background characters, Rubio has consolidated a ton of power, as I've said he's in the same position as Henry Kissinger was. In fact, Rubio has even more power than Kissinger did, with USAID under State Department control.

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[–] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 54 points 4 days ago (13 children)

I came across a popular Tik Tok clip of Dan Bilzerian "Prince of Grifters" dismantling Zionist talking points during an interview on the Patrick Bet-David podcast; and I got to say the western left is utterly devoid of skilled orators

The rock solid confidence Bilzerian displayed while he shut down the typical "do you condemn Hamas" line of questioning left the interviewer stuttering and visibly taken aback

It's a social effect I haven't seen anywhere else, not Hasan, not Sam Seder, Finkelstein occasionally approaches this skill but even then he falls slightly short.

It's deeply frustrating that a dipshit influencer can instantly create a memorable clip like that while a legion of left-wing podcasters and commenters can barely match its punch even after 18 months of trying

[–] Eiren@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

The problem is that leftists get shut down (by libs and radlibs, but often even by other leftists) if they say things that are mean or rude, even if they're also true. As a result, there aren't any in-your-face, never-back-down leftists in the spotlight.

Good example is Roger Hallam.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 41 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

The problem with Bilzerian is that he's straight up antisemitic. In that he is very prejudice towards Jewish people. So he doesn't care about being bigoted towards Jews, which is why he speaks like that.

[–] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 42 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (11 children)

Exactly and that adds to my frustration, but we can't afford to let racists and bigots monopolize the concept of confidence in political spaces

We need more leftists who can harness Badempanada energy, but without the basement gremlin aesthetic

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[–] SamotsvetyVIA@hexbear.net 53 points 5 days ago

Can someone post on mutual aid that Doctors Without Borders will match your donations https://doctorswithoutborders.org/matchnow

[–] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 46 points 4 days ago (2 children)

How true are all those stories of American hacking savants hacking into North Korea? I’m admittedly tech illiterate so all that stuff is foreign to me.

[–] P1d40n3@hexbear.net 47 points 4 days ago (9 children)

Where are you seeing stories of American hackers compromising the Dprk? I passively keep up with cybersecurity, and Dprk hackers working remote jobs and stealing crypto are the stories I see

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[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 49 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (7 children)

With regards to the US-Ukraine natural resources extraction deal (referred to as the "minerals deal" in Western media):

After reading the statement by Ukraine's Minister of the Economy Yulia Svyrydenko, and comparing this statement to the draft proposal for the natural resources extraction deal from February 26 2025, it appears if Ukraine has just signed the February 26th agreement with little to no changes. A complete capitulation for Ukraine, Zelenskyy's temper tantrum in the White House accomplished nothing. Ukraine ended up signing onto basically the same agreement that was presented to Zelenskyy at the White House, just now months later at the last second, on the last day of April. (According to the leaked 100 day peace plan, work towards ending the war is to begin after April, so this was the last possible time for Ukraine to sign the natural resource extraction deal).

Yulia Svyrydenko statement

Xcancel mirror

Full text of February 26th draft proposal

Comparison of the two, click here to expandFor clarity, I'll put Svyrydenko's statements in quotation marks, and the 26 February agreement outside of them, like so:

Svyrydenko's statementa

26 February agreement.

Let's look at it:

  1. Full ownership and control remain with Ukraine. All resources on our territory and in territorial waters belong to Ukraine. It is the Ukrainian state that determines what and where to extract. Subsoil remains under Ukrainian ownership — this is clearly established in the Agreement.

That was never up for debate, it's actually a part of the agreement. In fact, for the agreement to work, the Ukrainian government has to own (directly or indirectly) the resource extraction projects and manage them: The Fund will collect and reinvest revenues contributed to the Fund, minus expenses incurred by the Fund, and will earn income from the future monetization of all relevant Ukrainian Government-owned natural resource assets (whether owned directly or indirectly by the Ukrainian Government).

  1. Equal partnership. The Fund is structured on a 50/50 basis. It will be jointly managed by Ukraine and the United States. Neither side will hold a dominant vote — a reflection of equal partnership between our two nations.

The February 26th agreement already states this, jointly managed fund, Ukraine 50%, and USA share the maximum amount permissible under US laws: The Fund will be jointly managed by representatives of the Government of Ukraine and the Government of the United States of America... The maximum percentage of ownership of the Fund’s equity and financial interests to be held by the Government of the United States of America and the decision-making authority of the representatives of the Government of the United States of America will be to the extent permissible under applicable United States laws...The Government of Ukraine will contribute to the Fund 50 percent of all revenues earned from the future monetization of all relevant Ukrainian Government-owned natural resource assets.

  1. National assets are protected. The Agreement does not alter privatization processes or the management of state-owned companies — they will remain Ukrainian. Companies such as Ukrnafta and Energoatom will stay in state ownership.

Again, this was already stated, current Ukrainian projects are not included: For the avoidance of doubt, such future sources of revenues do not include the current sources of revenues which are already part of the general budget revenues of Ukraine.

  1. No debt. The Agreement includes no provisions regarding any Ukrainian debt obligations to the United States. Its implementation allows both countries to expand their economic potential through equal cooperation and investment.

Debt obligations (such as the $500 billion clause or 2021 GDP match clause) were already removed prior to the 26 February agreement, at a cost to other areas. Also on co-operation and investment: The Fund, in its sole discretion, may credit or return to the Government of Ukraine actual expenses incurred by the newly developed projects from which the Fund receives revenues.

  1. The Agreement complies with the Constitution and maintains Ukraine’s European integration course. It is consistent with national legislation and does not conflict with any of Ukraine’s international obligations. Importantly, the Agreement sends a signal to global partners that long-term cooperation with Ukraine — over decades — is not only possible but reliable.

Word for word what is written in the 26 February agreement: In drafting the Fund Agreement, the Participants will strive to avoid conflicts with Ukraine’s obligations under its accession to the European Union or its obligations under arrangements with international financial institutions and other official creditors.

  1. The Fund will be financed exclusively from NEW licenses. Specifically, 50% of the revenues from new licenses in the field of critical materials, oil, and gas — generated after the Fund is created — will be directed to it. Revenues from existing projects or those already accounted for in the budget will not be included. The Agreement also outlines future strategic cooperation.

A rehash of point 3, and also already part of the February 26th agreement: The Government of Ukraine will contribute to the Fund 50 percent of all revenues earned from the future monetization of all relevant Ukrainian Government-owned natural resource assets (whether owned directly or indirectly by the Ukrainian Government), defined as deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, and other extractable materials, and other infrastructure relevant to natural resource assets (such as liquified natural gas terminals and port infrastructure) as agreed by both Participants, as may be further described in the Fund Agreement. For the avoidance of doubt, such future sources of revenues do not include the current sources of revenues which are already part of the general budget revenues of Ukraine. Timeline, scope and sustainability of contributions will be further defined in the Fund Agreement.

  1. Legislative changes will be limited and targeted. Only amendments to the Budget Code are required for the Fund to operate. The Agreement itself will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada for ratification.

The Fund agreement shall be ratified by the Parliament of Ukraine according to the Law of Ukraine "On International Treaties of Ukraine."... Contact persons responsible for preparing the Fund Agreement on the basis of this Bilateral Agreement are: from the Government of the United States of America: the Department of the Treasury; from the Government of Ukraine: Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economy.

  1. The United States will help attract additional investment and technology. The Fund is supported by the U.S. government through the DFC agency. This will assist us in attracting investments and technologies from U.S., EU, and other international partners that support Ukraine’s fight against the Russian aggressor. Technology transfer and development are a key part of the Agreement — because Ukraine needs not only capital, but also innovation

The Government of the United States of America and the Government of Ukraine intend that the investment process will lead to opportunities for distribution of additional funds and greater reinvestment, to ensure the sufficient supply of capital for the reconstruction of Ukraine as set out in the Fund Agreement... Further contributions may be comprised of funds, financial instruments, and other tangible and intangible assets critical for the reconstruction of Ukraine...The Fund Agreement will include appropriate representations and warranties, including those necessary to ensure that any obligations the Government of Ukraine may have to third parties, or such obligations that it may undertake in the future, do not sell, convey, transfer pledge, or otherwise encumber the Government of Ukraine’s contributions to the Fund or the assets from which such contributions are derived, or the Fund’s disposition of funds...The Fund Agreement will pay particular attention to the control mechanisms that make it impossible to weaken, violate or circumvent sanctions and other restrictive measures.

  1. The Agreement provides tax guarantees. Fund revenues and contributions will not be taxed in either the United States or Ukraine, ensuring maximum effectiveness of the investment process.

That's not a good thing if it's only revenue... Also: Neither Participant will sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of, directly or indirectly, any portion of its interest in the Fund without the prior written consent of the other Participant... The Fund will collect and reinvest revenues contributed to the Fund, minus expenses incurred by the Fund... The Fund, in its sole discretion, may credit or return to the Government of Ukraine actual expenses incurred by the newly developed projects from which the Fund receives revenues.

I guess sole discretion of the fund decided on tax free.

The United States will contribute to the Fund. In addition to direct financial contributions, it may also provide NEW assistance — for example, air defense systems for Ukraine.

To promote the safety, security and prosperity of Ukraine...Further contributions may be comprised of funds, financial instruments, and other tangible and intangible assets critical for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

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