Image is of a colectivo: an armed group, usually operating in impoverished areas, which act to support and defend the socialist government of Venezuela. They are often derided as vigilante terrorist groups which prop up the government, because cops are only bad when they are socialist and not murdering minorities, I suppose.
Maduro's party, the PSUV, has won the election after a staggering amount of propaganda by the opposition, who said their polls suggested they were going to win and that Maduro's loss was inevitable. The reaction across Latin America is what one would expect. Left-leaning leaders are generally respecting the results and congratulating Maduro, while those on the right and/or are US puppets (such as in semirecently-couped Peru) are calling for recounts, or even that the election was illegitimate. The US itself is also unhappy about the results. We shall soon see if their unhappiness boils over into yet another coup attempt.
Personally, I think they should have ran Guaido again.
Thank you to @Redcuban1959@hexbear.net for the election coverage here, and everything else they do in the news megathread.
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 Venezuela! 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.
Trying to reconcile my own beliefs and political stance with the feelings Venezuelan people in my life have been expressing to me has been difficult ngl. Like... What am I supposed to say? I just try to listen. I dunno.
The people of any country can/should be able to express frustration about the way their country is going, from the worst capitalist hellhole to the most underdeveloped/overexploited third world country to the pioneers of actually existing socialism.
The real measure of the validity of their criticism is what solutions they propose.
An impoverished person who has deeply suffered under Cuban/Venezuelan socialism might be deeply angry at their governments' inefficiencies and decision-making because that's what they can potentially influence, and yet also realize that the vast majority of the fault lies with Western sanctions and also refuse to join in with attacks against their governments from abroad and not wish for a coup. They should be listened to.
That same person could blame socialism and desire the US to overthrow their government and institute a divine and treat-filled capitalism, like that imagined by many in the final days of the USSR. They should be fought against as much as possible.
There's also the fact that many of the people from sanctioned socialist countries that Westerners talk to either a) had enough resources to escape their conditions, which generally would align them with anti-socialist forces, or b) were forced to escape their conditions using what little they had because otherwise conditions would be horrific and/or they would die, which would generally pre-dispose them to not liking the government for allowing that situation to occur. And also, different regions inside countries can experience widely different levels of development. So people from underdeveloped places would speak of slums and poverty, leave the country as refugees, and denounce the government to everybody they met, giving them the impression that the entire country is underdeveloped and shitty. Whereas a person in a more developed region would be getting by fairly okay and not seek to leave, but we never hear their opinion because we do not visit them.
So we aren't exposed to an unbiased sample if we don't actually live inside those countries, which most of us do not.
Thank you for this perspective, it helps.
Why white out the channel?
I don't know, whoever did the screenshot did it.
that's BlackRedGuard, i've seen him on twitter
My favorite DSA Maoist member
Think about how much respect you would give to an American liberal's complaints about American politics. It would have to be based on the content of what they are saying, what sources they use, and so on, right? They don't have good and correct opinions on the United States just because they are American. And many of them may express being very upset that a cheetoh is in the White House or whatever, failing to recognize the political mass of violence that is little different between e.g. Trump and his Dem predecessor and Dem successor.
Most of the criticism I have heard from Venezuelans in my orbit IRL are literally boomer Facebook rumors spread on WhatsApp to people here. Years-old videos presented as new. Stories about what someone's cousin heard from their friend.
It is actually more respectful to treat Venezuelans just like anyone else, just like you would treat people from your own country, and to expect them to support their ideas if they want you to believe them. Ask questions about where they heard info. Ask them to send things to you. If you know something is false, tell them. Compare incidents to voting lines in the US that are so long that people with responsibilities or health issues (I.E. most people) can't stay in them and therefore cannot vote. Do they use the same terminology consistently for these cases? Are US elections stolen by autocrats, in their minds? Etc etc.
PS depending in the class breakdown of your social circle you may be experiencing a highly biased samplr of Venezuelans. A disproportionate number of those that I know learned their politics from English-speaking Reddit and know basically nothing as a result. Just absurd propaganda narratives. People, liberals, just like anyone else.