Image is a map of the Western Sahara, sourced from this article in the Middle East Eye. Much of the information in the preamble also came from there, as well as this article.
November 6th marked the 50th anniversary of Morocco, under King Hassan II, beginning the invasion and occupation of much of the territory of the Western Sahara. Today, approximately 80% of the territory of the Western Sahara is controlled by Morocco, with the Polisario Front - the government of the Sahrawis - controlling the rest, hugging the border of Mauritania. Between them lies one of the longest walls and one of the largest minefields on the planet, of which construction began in the 1980s.
The legitimacy of Morocco’s control over the Western Sahara is one of those long-lasting diplomatic issues which ultimately doesn’t seem to matter very much in terms of on-the-ground realities, and reveals the eternal uselessness of the United Nations especially in regard to actually helping oppressed people. Up until about 2020, the US and certain other Western countries did not formally recognize Morocco as having sovereignty over the whole territory, but in terms of providing genuine opposition to Morocco, it seems that Algeria is the major player in the region. While American, European, and Moroccan corporations exploit the fisheries and phosphate minerals of the region, protected by their minefields (and claims of merely advancing the cause of renewable energy development, AKA greenwashing), Algeria provides what aid they can to support the displaced Sahrawi people, many of whom have been forced to live in refugee camps.
On October 31st, the US put forward a resolution in the UN Security Council which was adopted (Russia and China abstained) and provided major support to Morocco, urging the Polisario Front to adopt the 2007 “autonomy plan”, which would, despite its name, be synonymous with an end to their independence movement. Such a plan was met with much jubilation in Morocco, with King Mohammed VI remarking "From now on, there will be a before and an after October 31, 2025.” Such a date was also the catalyst for the PF intensifying their guerilla struggle against Morocco, as legal avenues for autonomy and basic human rights are running out as the imperialists grow more desperate.
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.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
How do we solve this? My idea: A government law that mandates that all devices older than 24 months are remotely bricked, resulting in line go up.
Edit: 24 months after the device is released, not after purchase. Obviously.
Oh piss off.
Like what the world needs right now is a greater pile of electronics junk. People are not buying new toys because everything is fucking expensive. And why would they? If their device works after five years (and it fucking should, being a mass produced piece of a mature technology that you pay hundreds of dollars for) what possible benefit would there be to replace it?
I am increasingly convinced that Western economics education includes a forced lobotomy to remove all logical thinking skills.
I can’t imagine replacing a modern smartphone before it’s end of service life, so I’m expecting 5 years or so from the release date. If you are a power user or some kind of tech enthusiast I’m not throwing shade if you want the latest and greatest. But yeah nothing will make me buy-in to the idea that “it might seem smart but it’s bad for the economy!” to hold on to a device as long as it works and meets my needs.
Buy those cheap model and use it until it is dead
Anybody remember the batterygate scandal last decade? Apple got sued many, many times for secretly slowing down their iPhone processors in iOS patches to “preserve battery life” but the tech community at the time thought it was a clear case of planned obsolescence. Apple only admitted they were doing this years after it was first observed in the iPhone 6 models.
Hey peasant, why haven’t you bought a new phone yet? Why aren’t you using chatgpt? Why aren’t you optimizing your workflow?? Do you really want to allow an innovation gap???
Yeah the phone I’m using right now, it hasn’t had an update since about a year ago, released during the late pandemic era (2022), still running! It’s like, no shit, obviously if my phone still works and all my apps still work (which in most systems, software support is long after release, especially as progress is more incremental in the phone space nowadays) then I’ll keep using it!
Who’d want to bankrupt themselves for the damn economy??
Plural marketing campaign to increase phone ownership per capita.
It’s been said a bit already, but new smartphone releases are so much more similar to previous versions than ever before. The jump from iPhone to iPhone 3G, to 4(s) to 5, 6, 7, etc. each felt meaningful in those earlier days - same with samsung’s galaxy S series - but now I (someone ostensibly interested in tech) could not tell you any reason to get an iPhone 17 over an iPhone 13 besides “it’s a bit faster” and “it’ll support the latest OS for a bit longer”.
I actually did my due diligence and looked up the iPhone 17 to see what the main selling points were. Lo and behold - the camera / battery are better, and the on-board chip is faster. They actually have a section where you can compare it to previous iPhones - for the 13, it has a (“up to”) “50% faster CPU”, a “2.1x faster” (so 110%?) GPU, and “10 more hours of video playback”. Given the iPhone 13 is already pretty good at those things, and these are cherry-picked results, I can’t see a real use-case for these unless you’re gaming or have a seriously heavy workload you need a phone to tackle with a long time between recharges.
macroeconomics: spend as much as you can
microeconomics: save as much as you can
can you believe this shit? of course when people say “save” what they really mean is to donate your paycheck to wall street until a crash wipes you out. fucking unbelievable.
Like Bruce Lee said. Don’t think… Consuuuuuuuuuuuuuume… Or something