Very slight change of plans: I'll begin the updates next Monday instead of this Friday. So this week will have no updates. Dang. So y'all better post hard enough to make up for it. But not so hard that we get past 1000 comments by the end of the week.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists, for the “buh Zeleski is a jew?!?!” people.
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
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 ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.
https://t.me/asbmil ~ ASB Military News, banned from Twitter.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster - crowd-funded U.S journalist, mostly pro-Russian, works on the ground near warzones to report news and talk to locals.
https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it's a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.
https://t.me/rybar ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
With the entire western media sphere being overwhelming pro-Ukraine already, you shouldn't really need more, but:
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.
:galaxy-brain:
China's economy continues to grow despite zero covid policies: CHINA IS DOOMED TO FAIL
Infinite COVID: Millions dead, millions disabled, life expectancy on downward trajectory, partial collapse of the hospital system, growing disbelief in modern medicine, extreme wealth inequality, contraction of the economy followed by partial rebound
Zero COVID: Few thousand dead and disabled in a gigantic country, life expectancy continues to grow, hospital system secured, continued increase of living standards, decreased growth of the economy followed by partial rebound
It's obvious which one is better, but of course :porky-scared-flipped: can't let it show and thus their economists are in denial.
only critique I have is that China doesn't have a free healthcare system
A very deserved critique particularly when you have the example of cuba
And they used to have one under Mao and the Deng dismantled it
:denguin:
deleted by creator
I had this talk with a moroccan relative of my wife pretty recently. They were talking about some tiktok of Chinese problem being "locked up" and how Zero-Covid was barbaric, while also lamenting the fact that in Morocco the government tried to put in place some extremely harsh curfew measures / lockdowns. I argued that the government then didn't provide much in the way of support for the population, and people then rightfully determined that the lockdowns were bullshit, and everybody started going out like they were planning anyway. Also apparently the army that was used to supplement the police force didn't get paid a lot, so a lot of moroccans just bribed the guards (allegedly) in order for them to be left alone. I think I got my message through, but i gotta admit that it gets hard to combat the ambient propaganda that's being sent over whatsapp and consumed by my wife's entire extended family.
Also just systemically a market economy starts to disintegrate if you shut down too much stuff for too long, even if it's totally unproductive shit, due to financial entanglement. Money needs to keep moving around or the system starts to eat itself. Like how a bar might be broke after two months shutdown, even though it's still there obviously, and all the people who work there are still there, but it's now non-operational because number go down, which means some people won't get the money they're owed, and others are out of a job, and so those people don't have any money, and that ripples around until it actually hits something important. And the only fix the government can do is sprinkle around money liberally, which in turn means half of it goes to the best-connected and not the people who actually need it, which in turn just causes the whole machine to become unbalanced.
You missed a bit - "coupled with huge stimulus spending and profits for companies, then followed by crushing recessions imposed by central banks to reduce inflation"
(Inflation in China is 2.8%)
Oops, totally did! Thanks, it bugs me when people talk about how China's economy isn't growing fast enough for them compared to the west when the situation is even worse here in the west when you take into account inflation (and inequality) wreaking havoc!!
Also while other major countries' economies shrink by the same metric. You know, the countries that forced mass death and disablement on their populations "for the economy".