Image is from @Parsani@hexbear.net, who got it from @RNAi@hexbear.net, who got it from Discord.
Thread update: Prigozhin’s fucking dead.
The BRICS summit will begin on Tuesday and end on Thursday, with various world leaders, politicians, and representatives meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa.
America’s anxiety about the summit has been obvious. They have been complicating the event by pushing for the arrest warrant for Putin to be upheld if he steps foot in the country. While this is a remarkably dangerous and unhinged thing to do - even by America’s standards - to the leader of a nuclear superpower who could end the world within an hour, it does betray their desperation. Unfortunately, for those of us who wanted to see Putin surrounded by an army of security guards fending off people holding handcuffs, he has sent his Foreign Minister, Lavrov, in his place. Additionally, America has likely been spreading rumors about the lack of interest in gaining new members in the organization.
With apparently 20 countries formally seeking membership and another 20 informally doing so, the bloc has been elevated, whether they like it or not, to the position of the international vanguard of the non-western world. It is extremely important to say that this is not the same as it becoming an anti-American bloc, and many of them (including original members Brazil and India) wish to keep a friendly relationship with the United States. Nonetheless, with the United States’ policy of “if you are not with us, you are against us,” and as the US seeks to weaken China, in coming years many of them might find themselves under hostile pressure.
BRICS has to try and solve many problems if they are going to chip away at America’s stranglehold of the world economy. These problems - like mitigating the dollar’s status as a global reserve currency, and America’s dominant role in the world economy - are extremely complicated, and will takes years, even decades, to be overcome. Therefore, one should temper their expectations and excitement for this summit. It took tens of millions of deaths in cataclysmic wars, and then several more decades, for America to reach its current position. I see no reason to believe why its downfall will be any less bloody and elongated.
To end on a less depressing note, I’ve been searching for appropriate anagrams given the list of countries that seek to join BRICS. Obviously not all of them will make it in, but even so. The best I’ve come up with is HIBISCUS EMANCIPATES BBBBKKRVV.
(also, “bulletins and news discussion” can be rearranged to “libidinous newsstands uncles”.)
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week’s first update is here in the comments.
This week’s second update is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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
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.
Last week’s discussion post.
Apparently they’ve decided the Ghost of Kyiiiiiiiiiv is real after all
What are libs saying about Prigo being iced?
Like it’s pretty obvious he was killed by Russia and it’s corrupt as hell, but surely libs aren’t going to defend Wagner of all groups.
Oh, who am I kidding they defend Azov so no doubt they would have whitewashed Wagner had they succeeded.
Due to complications of capitlaism I am losing a child. I get this is an emotion people in the global south have had to get accustomed to. Just god damn though. How do we all just keep going?
deleted by creator
Germans are again pushing the “6 guys in decrepit sailboat did the Nord Stream 2 sabotage” story and the libs are all worked up about it.
There’s a new twist…it’s hinted that otherwise useless and incompetent Russians were able to perfectly stage this incredibly complex and risky operation to blame the Ukrainians…
“According to Zelenskyy, it is difficult to criticize the Ukrainian counter offensive when the country’s forces do not have the appropriate weapons.”
I see you are criticizing the drastically low output of my steel mill, yet your criticism is unfounded as we do not have any furnaces.
“we dont have enough resources for a counter offense”. Then dont launch the counter offense
You know, this is Zeleskyy quite literally admitting that Ukraine does not have the resources to beat Russia, but you’ll never hear libs saying so.
To be fair, he also said he would trade Belgorod for NATO membership in that press conference, so
I’ve noticed that in the past couple of years, especially since the whole Ukraine thing, that there is a skyrocketing amount of concern trolling from the U.S. government and Russian guasanos that Russia is becoming a Chinese colony. I’ve seen multiple YT videos from CIA funded channels like Infographics about how “China is Russia’s real enemy”.
This is extraordinarily ironic because America literally directs the foreign policy of its EU vassal states. Like they can’t even do business with other countries if America does not consent.
Because a greater cooperation between China and Russia will make both countries nearly self sufficient
basically just trying to do another sino soviet thing but also a little bit of asiatic hordes racism
Given current conditions, a other sino-soviet style split is more or less impossible based on my understanding. The two nations have everything to gain from working together, don’t interfere or even really comment on the other’s internal affairs at all, and each fully understand why they need to stand united against the Angloids.
Russia is becoming a Chinese colony
They are still trying to manifest the whole “Cynah will colonize siberia1!1!1! Yellow peril” thing and its not working, since they can’t stop being racist against russians lol.
I would be fascinated to know if these takes have any significant spread inside Russia and China themselves, because their populaces seem to be the ones you would want to hit with this propaganda to try and weaken their relationship which is a direct threat to the United States (or, more accurately, the United States is making a direct threat to themselves by not getting out of Ukraine nor Taiwan)
if it’s just for westerners then it just seems like they’re setting up the next liberal thought-terminating cliche. creating the “if: mention China and Russia, then: say Russia is China’s resource colony and China is an imperialist” thought pathway
They actually have a non-insignificant presence on Chinese social media spaces.
For example, on Zhihu (Chinese Quora-like forum) you can see highly upvoted anti-Russia posts (“Ukraine is winning, Russia is doomed”, “Russia cannot be trusted” and raising all kinds of past Sino-Russia feuds “China should never cooperate with Russia” etc). While it is true that Chinese ultranationalists hate Russia and want to see Russia weakened in this war, there are also a lot of libs who think China’s future lies with the West.
These posting activities have an astroturf-y feel about them that I can’t exactly put my fingers on, and I’m not the only one who notices this - people on Bilibili (Chinese Youtube equivalent) also complained about the many suspicious pro-Ukrainian/anti-Russian posts on Zhihu. In fact, at one point in early 2022 a lot of people complained about them being Taiwanese trolls that Zhihu actually started showing the IP location (province) of each poster/commenter lol. Very soon all those posts started to come from different provinces in China, and people just accused them of starting to use VPNs instead. It’s kinda comical, maybe there are indeed a lot of Chinese libs who hate Russia, but there is a clearly mismatch in pro-Ukrainian content between Zhihu and Bilibili.
Zhihu (Chinese Quora-like forum)
Quora is a uniquely cursed website even by the standard of the average western forum so this isn’t surprising at all
The Ultranationalist Chinese still crying about that small sandlot in Heilongjiang that was giving to Russia at the end of the Cold War is probably the most pathetic thing I have ever heard. Why would you want to hold on to that part of North East part of China when you are going to deindustrialize during the Reform and Opening up and that in the future you’ll know that Russia is going to sell you resources in that small area (if there are any)
This is especially funny when this issue is bought out by Pro-western Chinese who use this issue to ‘‘point out’’ the hypocrisy of not letting Xinjiang, Tibet or Hong Kong to have sovereignty
India and South Africa’s drip is too nice. I wish more countries would ditch the western suit and wear something more interesting
lemmitors are just mass downvoting negative articles about Ukraine in their news comms, even if it comes from mainstream sources like Wapo or ft. Someone in the comments just has to accuse the OP of being a tankie or having a pro-Russian agenda and then engagement with the post just craters so it doesn’t show up in feeds anymore.
Wear em down, it won’t be too long before we break through their first defensive lines (mass downvoting)
Operation Ikea Freedom will be an overwhelming success when it launches.
I propose that we tone down the rhetoric, draw them into our spaces before closing the encirclement, exactly like how Paulus’s 6th Army was destroyed in Stalingrad.
I go in at night and upvote everything, but by the next day they’ve redownvoted the whole field again, sometimes stacking their downvotes on top of eachother.
I am absolutely certain that some of them are vote manipulating with multiple accounts and that one of lemmy’s main problems going forwards is going to be the question of how to combat vote manipulation.
removing downvotes did a lot to create a healthier and more engagement minded culture here.
Unfortunately, saying “it worked for hexbear” would probably poison the well.
The biggest thing about not having a downvote is that if someone is talking absolute rubbish you MUST respond to counter it, which is extremely effective when you aim to speak and reach the truth of a given matter.
Good way of putting it.
I also like how it removes the ability to be passively negative. Systems with downvotes allow people to be passively interacting with opinions and statements and get themselves worked up without at any point engaging mentally with the subject matter. Having to take the time to actually express the opinion forces at minimum a brief moment of thought.
Whoever’s idea it was to do this really had a handle on how forums work.
My support for it wasn’t based on that but instead based on the interesting research that shows it’s bad for us.
This study in particular: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1405.1429.pdf
“We find that negative feedback leads to significant behavioural changes that are detrimental to the community,” say Cheng and co.
“Not only do authors of negatively-evaluated content contribute more, but also their future posts are of lower quality, and are perceived by the community as such,” they say. And it gets worse: “These authors are more likely to subsequently evaluate their fellow users negatively, percolating these effects through the community.”
This means that a downvoted person is more likely to engage in future. And that their future interactions are more likely to be bad. It creates a negativity spiral.
That’s fascinating, thanks for linking the study.
It is. My personal opinion is that this is what creates the combativeness of reddit, where every interaction is viewed by people as a debate to be won. And it creates horrible behaviour.
That feedback loop probably drives a lot of engagement for
I agree. And I know that they are quite aware of this research as it was given to me by a former admin I used to be acquainted with.
100% vote manipulation by firms contacted by the ClA
lol maybe. I’m not against the idea the feds are already here, they’ve infiltrated 5 person marxist book reading groups several times so we know for certain that they get to stuff early.
/r/worldnews still has articles saying Ukraine is winning, crazy cope over there
Granted, they also had some saying it’s losing iirc. Like the WaPo one earlier last week, but they aren’t upvoted as much.
Browsing through the deluge of
TwitterX nobodies and found something that perfectly encapsulates a liberal’s thought process.
Brazil’s Supreme Court rules that homophobia is now punishable by prison.
Hate speech is punishable by prison terms of 2 to 5 years in Brazil.
Another lula w
Bricsmaxxing
Blowback Season 4 is going to kill me. From the US sabatoging a revolution, to the Soviets fucking up, then reactionaries winning.
New rankings after 14 days hiatus. Nothing big is happening, Ukraine vs Russia has never been this boring, West Africans are just fighting with words now thank god and even the Middle East is chilling and watching Saudi football.
Russia - Ukraine cuck n chad power ranking
Gigachad Chad Neutral Beta Male Virgin Cuck Lukashenko (Forever chad) 149.200 radio frequency (beautiful stories of humane surrender thanks to this frequency) Kadyrov (he’s back and he wants Poland) Zelensky (bro got his planes by begging, respect) ⬆️ Putin (not going to South Africa, no long speeches about niche Romanov events in 1843) ⬇️ Prigozhin (massive chad, no doubt at this point) SuriyakMaps (good neutral objective maps) Rybar (producing good maps as always) Shoigu + Russian defence ministry (gotta say that their performance has been impressive, still cucked tho) The Russian government (they’re fumbling their economic policy like true neolibs) International cuck n chad power ranking
Gigachad Chad Neutral Beta (Fe)Male Virgin Cuck Bashar Al Assad (guaranteed spot for the Lion as always) Niger coup dudes (still hanging on, told the devil Nuland to fuck off) Fernando Villavicencio (don’t know his politics, but no one should be shot while running for president) the UAE (if they’re supporting a side in a third world conflict, support the other side) ECOWAS (restoooooring democracy) Random boxer in Sweden (punched the Quran burner in the face) Daniel Ortega (dude is just trolling the US at this point) Libertarian presidential candidate in Argentina (absurd, but funny, but scary Victoria Nuland (the devil in human form, she’s good at her job tho) Orgs “fighting” anti-semitism while defending fascism in Israel US Solider that seeked asylum in North Korea (dude rocked too hard) Diane Feinstein (she just want to dies in the senate, hilarious that she still hasn’t resigned) Plane lady (leveraged her public meltdown into an influencer career) Government response to Hawaii fires (you can feel the racism and contempt in UHD) Ron DeSantis (he’s actively melting down, Trump’s energy is too powerful) where do the American soldiers that stabbed someone in Germany land
what if that’s the next big international incident
I assume that germany is too cucked to complain about it
Its nothing new.
Amerikkkan soldiers randomly commiting crimes near military bases is expected at this point
you’d think that the people who are powerful enough to be feinstein’s handlers would also be powerful enough to secure a replacement and just let the bitch die normally but lol
is she even coherent at this point?
If Feinstein became a non-issue then her handlers would lose the power from her seat and seniority. They can’t even sell it off since it’ll be Newsom that gets to pick it.
Nigerien soldiers led by Brigadier General Abdourahamane Tchiani overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26.
Niger’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation informed on Friday that the country’s military government gave French Ambassador Sylvain Itte 48 hours to leave the country.
According to the foreign ministry statement, the decision follows several actions by the French government contrary to Niger’s national interests. Among them, the French ambassador’s refusal to respond to an invitation to meet with Niger’s new foreign minister, the statement said.
For its part, the French Foreign Ministry said Friday night that it would not accept the Niger junta’s request, stating that “the military government has no authority to order France to withdraw its envoys.”
Nigerien soldiers led by Brigadier General Abdourahamane Tchiani overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26. In response, 11 members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sanctioned Niger and threatened military intervention to restore democratic order.
In early August, the junta declared that it would annul several military cooperation agreements with Paris signed under the ousted president. Niamey’s regime has accused France of planning a military intervention in the country to reinstate Bazoum.
The junta appointed a new government and recently proposed to return the country to civilian rule within 3 years. ECOWAS has rejected the proposal and continues to demand the immediate reinstatement of Bazoum.
Neighboring countries, including Guinea, refused to go along with the sanctions, while Mali and Burkina Faso said they would consider any military intervention in Niger an act of war against them. Late on Thursday, the West African country declared that it authorized its two neighbors to come to its defense in the event of an ECOWAS intervention.
