I absolutely fucked this thing as soon as I got the chance
Gotta calculate the W:D ratio for any given week nowadays.
Until Yemen brings down a US warship, I think we're currently in "There are weeks where years happen" territory, which appears to be the new baseline after a slower period in summer 2023
Some of them I just remember them saying (like Gallant's statement for instance). I also find that Zionist statements can sometimes be a little more... defensive, than Nazi statements. Like, the Nazis were very proud to be killing Jewish people en masse, whereas Zionists sort of go like "No, you're being unreasonable, it's actually fine and good that we're murdering Palestinians. Actually, you're the evil and despicable one for not cheering on every bombing in Gaza." Like quote 7 for instance. Also tends to be a little more... grotesquely performative, versus the very cold Nazi ideology of "Yep, let's just wipe out all these people and get on with the rest of our day." Like, for the Zionists, being satanically genocidal also makes them more theatrical; "Bring down buildings! Bomb without distinction! ...Without mercy!"
China, a nuclear-armed state, isn't going to go to war against another nuclear-armed state unless they are existentially threatened. I don't think it's terribly more complicated than that.
China's role here is to help the cause from behind the scenes. They can help Iran, who can then go on to help the regional resistance organizations. For all we know, they might be putting pressure behind the scenes on Saudi Arabia and the UAE to not escalate; though, Saudi Arabia doesn't need to be persuaded to not draw the ire of Yemen's drones. Their shipping companies might be obeying the blockade and not shipping to Israel (how much of it is mere paperwork and how much is the government siding with Palestine's cause, idk). And wasn't the reason why Hamas evaded Israeli surveillance because they used Chinese phones?
I will agree that events since October 7th have been fairly embarrassing for Russia and China on the diplomatic level, but anybody who knows anything about Chinese foreign policy knows that it is not very good. This conflict will almost certainly end up as no exception. They'll probably abstain on most important issues, and this will make people throughout the Middle East (and the world) rather unhappy, but the alternative is... the United States, the country arming the genociders.
I'm obviously very much of the opinion that Russia and China should give Yemen and Lebanon a hundred hypersonic missiles each and trained crews to launch them, but that's not gonna happen. It drains my sanity a lot less when I try and focus on the actors actually trying to bring down Israel and stop the genocide - your Sinwars and Nasrallahs and al-Houthis and so on - rather than like, mentally writing a letter to Xi Jinping telling him to land a million Chinese soldiers onto the shores of Israel.
For those who don't want to go to a google docs form, here are the statements:
(CW for extremely disturbing and genocidal statements)
This isn't one of those "gotcha! It's all Zionists/Nazis!" things. There are actually statements from both in there. I got 13/20.
1
"We declare openly that the [group] have no right to live on even one centimeter of [country]."
This was said by...
spoiler answer The former Israeli Army Chief Of Staff, Rafael Eitan. :::
2
"All the [group] will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle."
This was said by...
spoiler answer The former Israeli Army Chief Of Staff, Rafael Eitan. :::
3
"The [group] have no right to claim equality with us. If they wish to speak on the streets, in lines outside shops or in public transportation, they should be ignored, not only because their are simply wrong, but because they are [group] who have no right to a voice in the community."
This was said by...
spoiler answer Joseph Goebbels. :::
4
"The [group] aren’t educated towards peace, nor do they want it... To me, they are like animals, they aren’t human."
This was said by...
spoiler answer Eli Ben-Dahan, the former Israeli Deputy Defense Minister. :::
5
A group of children in a school bus were found singing this poem:
"All the world hates the [group],
And the main thing is to kill them one by one!
With these feet I stepped on my enemy,
With these teeth I bit his skin,
With these lips I sucked his blood.
And I still haven’t had enough revenge."
Which political ideology did the school bus belonged to?
This was said by...
spoiler answer Zionist schoolchildren in an illegal West Bank settlement. :::
6
"They will get no food, no water, no fuel, everything will be closed. We are fighting against human animals and will act accordingly."
This was said by...
spoiler answer Yoav Gallant, the current Israeli Minister of Defense. :::
7
"What’s so horrifying about understanding that the [entire group] is the enemy?"
This was said by...
spoiler answer Ayelet Shaked, the former Israeli Minister of Justice. :::
8
"The [group] always lives from the blood of other peoples, he needs such murders. The victory will be only entirely and finally achieved when the whole world is free of [group]."
This was said by...
spoiler answer Julius Streicher, senior Nazi Party member. :::
9
"This is a war between two people. Who is the enemy? The [group] people."
This was said by...
spoiler answer Ayelet Shaked, the former Israeli Minister of Justice. :::
10
"Even 1 million [members of group] are not worth a fingernail of [speaker's group]."
This was said by...
spoiler answer Rabi Yaacov Perrin, defending Zionist terrorist Baruch Goldstein who murdered 50 Arabs in a massacre. :::
11
"Finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live. If you have [group] neighbor, don’t wait, go to his home and shoot him."
This was said by...
spoiler answer Ezra Yachin, giving a speech to soldiers entering Gaza in the aftermath of October 7th. :::
12
“There is only one solution which is to destroy [group] completely."
spoiler answer Moshe Feiglin, a member of the Likud Party. :::
13
"With compulsory transfer [of group] we (would) have a vast area… I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it."
This was said by...
spoiler answer Zionist David Ben-Gurion, in 1938. :::
14
"The [group] are responsible for the war. The treatment they receive from us is hardly unjust. They have deserved it all."
This was said by...
spoiler answer Joseph Goebbels. :::
15
"Bring down buildings!! Bomb without distinction!! Stop with this impotence. You have ability. There is worldwide legitimacy! Flatten [a place where group lives]. Without mercy!"
This was said by...
spoiler answer Revital Gottlieb, a Likud MK. :::
16
"[country] is ours. We will protect [country]…against you animals, against you traitors, against you barbarians, you’ll never live again"
This was said by...
spoiler answer An American Zionist protest leader. :::
17
"I will return to [city] when the last [group member] is terminated, I don't care if they are children, elderly, people on crutches."
This was said by...
spoiler answer A resident of Kibutz Beeri. :::
18
"Who are the ‘poor’ women of [group]? They are all the mothers, sisters or wives of terrorists."
This was said by...
spoiler answer Israeli President Isaac Herzog. :::
19
"We shall try to spirit the [group] across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country… expropriation and the removal of the [group] must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."
This was said by...
spoiler answer Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, in 1895. :::
20
"The [group] is a devil in human form. He should be exterminated root and branch."
This was said by...
spoiler answer Joseph Goebbels. :::
the exact same people who say shit like "Oh, so you actually think the US is involved in all these different places and causing coups and overthrowing leaders? Maybe those parties and leaders were just unpopular?" then turn around, stub their toe on a chair, and accuse it of being a Russian sabotage operation organized by the KGB and Putin himself
“China does not seek to change the current international order, still less reinvent the wheel by creating a new international order,” Liu said. “We are one of the builders of the current world order and have benefited from it.”
China doesn't really have a choice but to fight the US either way, regardless of what they say about trying to be besties with the West.
Beijing’s goal, Liu said, is to “deliver a better life for the Chinese people.”
And this is why. The US cannot allow this to happen. It's not a case of "Oh, we'll just keep the current order in place but we'll just be friendly communists in it. Multipolarism? Never heard of it." The very existence of Chinese development, both inside and outside of China, is an existential threat to the US and imperialism everywhere. They exist in contradiction. One must win; the other must lose.
This is why I don't really care about the rhetoric of the Communist Party. It doesn't matter what they say, or what their intentions are - history will march on all the same, events will develop, and they will be forced to respond to them. They will respond in line with their material interests. Those material interests will be diametrically opposed to the United States. Therefore, conflict develops, while everybody is fawning about what great friends China and the US are and can be.
Statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, January 9th:
The occupation falling into ambushes of death and explosive tunnels is an important indicator of its sinking in the mire of Gaza. Gaza has become an explosive minefield, harvesting more leaders, officers, and soldiers of the occupation.
The escalation of strikes of the resistance against the zionist forces entrenched in various areas of the Gaza Strip confirm that the Strip has become entirely an explosive minefield, harvesting more leaders, officers, and soldiers of the occupation, and a graveyard for its vehicles and armored vehicles.
The enemy’s admission of the killing and wounding of dozens of soldiers in the last hours by falling into resistance ambushes, explosive tunnels, sniper fire, mortar shells, and explosive devices in the ongoing battles in the central and southern Gaza Strip, and the continuation of the resistance in striking the zionist depth with rockets after more than 90 days is an important indicator that the occupation is sinking in the mire of Gaza, and that the resistance is imposing itself in the field, owning bases of control and command, and an element of surprise and ambush for the occupation soldiers.
The resistance, with its qualitative operations, succeeded in shattering the zionist deterrence force and breaking the overwhelming qualitative superiority of the zionist army in terms of weapons, equipment, and forces, through engaging in a long attrition battle and guerrilla warfare, in addition to its success in psychological and media warfare, all of which have resulted in this significant field achievement and the blatant zionist failure.
The occupation’s announcement of the death of a zionist commander in the Givati Brigade from a heart attack after watching his colleagues being killed one after the other by the Palestinian resistance reflects the reality in the Gaza Strip and what the occupation soldiers are subjected to from painful and quality strikes and from continuous unprecedented exhaustion. This enemy will find in Gaza nothing but hell, death, and destruction, and will inevitably retreat defeated and humiliated from the Gaza Strip, dragging the tails of disappointment and defeat without achieving any of its goals or the ability to rebuild its crumbling and collapsing deterrence force forever.
"Oh yeah? Well, the Houthis are gonna find the fuck out why we don't have free healthcare! It's because we need to spend millions of dollars per missile, and that missile doesn't even do what it's meant to do most of the time, and is vulnerable to missiles/drones that are either too good (hypersonic), or not good individually but can be made in the thousands, which is what all our enemies use! Take that, terrorists!"
Here's a pro tip: when a US media outlet says "This action did have an effect, but it achieved considerably less than expected," this is code for "It achieved fucking nothing. Actually, it probably weakened us more than it weakened them."
Prime example is all the articles over the last couple years talking about how sanctions on Russia are definitely doing something! They're not working as well as we want, but they are working! Meanwhile, Russia is essentially the best performing major economy in the European region, is distinctly not in a recession unlike, say, Germany, had its oil sold significantly above the oil price cap for half of 2023 (with a recent fall to "just" the price cap of $60 per barrel), with manufacturing and services PMIs doing great, record low unemployment (...well, you know what I mean...), and basically everybody who isn't a bot on Reddit is admitting is winning the war in Ukraine despite the combined military deliveries of dozens of countries throughout NATO.
Another example is of sanctions on China, perhaps best summed up by this:
(from January 2024 in CGTN)
Ah, well, nevertheless.
Simply put, if I didn't want Ansarallah in Yemen to become a battle-hardened, militant force in the region which has found ways to mitigate the impacts of western bombing campaigns, and is totally unwilling to even briefly consider US demands to stop blockading the Red Sea, I would have simply not fucking bombed them and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians for nine fucking years. Actions have consequences.
Propaganda cannot feed an army. It cannot fuel a battleship. It cannot be fired out of a missile launcher. But other than magically-conjured trillions of dollars, it's about the only thing that America can still make.
I'm generally okay with Trots but my god, the articles they put out can be really grating sometimes. Keep them on track and they can tell you a dozen interesting things about current-day struggles and labour movements. But let them stray a little and they'll just talk about how workers need to form their own rank-and-file movements free of collaborationist union leadership (which like, sure I guess, but union membership and vibrancy isn't exactly thriving throughout the world right now and I just don't think unions can have the same degree of power under financial capitalism that has exported industry to other countries so there's less means of production to even seize), and how Stalinists are destroying every good thing on the planet, and how China is secretly an even worse imperialist than America. I've spent nearly two years reading the stuff they put out and I feel like it would be pretty easy to set up an AI script to just write a solid third of their articles for them, so I hope they're getting in on that to save themselves some effort on the weekly China Bad article so they can focus on the better stuff that I know they can and do regularly write.
I appreciate that the online versions of most left-wing ideologies tend to spend a lot of time in the past for a variety of reasons - things seemed much more dynamic and changeable back then; the world is very difficult to understand and predict right now in anything but general trajectories; arguing online about past events is easier than going outside and actually doing stuff; most of the OG thinkers that you have to read to understand their works happened to be about a century or so ago and there's not a ton of big English-language communist works nowadays; etc - but of all the major left ideologies, Trots seem to be the ones who spend the most time in the past, and with ways of organizing and disseminating information that are built on the assumptions of a world that no longer really exists. They're kind of like the grandpas of the left. I can't really hate or even really dislike them that much, but you're not expecting a lot of energy and movement in that sphere compared to say, the still-surviving ML countries, or the vibrant and energetic anarchist sphere.
This is really helpful, thank you.
New thread will be going up momentarily.