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Dengism goes hard

Al Jazeera: Apartheid South Africa reached a tipping point, Israel will, too

The number of children killed in Gaza has surpassed the annual number of children killed in conflict globally; the number of civilians killed in Gaza has now exceeded the total death toll in Ukraine since February 2022. These numbers are climbing every day, as the Israeli military continues to indiscriminately bomb civilian buildings, including hospitals and schools.

As a Black South African, watching these horrific events unfold, I cannot but reflect on my country’s own violent past. I recall the relentless planning and violence that accompanied the last decades of white South Africa’s attempts to make apartheid work. I remember the fears that grew among white South Africans as they put their trust in a sophisticated military capability, a conscription army, a nuclear weapons capacity and steadfast friends in the West, particularly the United States, Britain and France.

It was the height of the Cold War and South Africa claimed to be the only democracy in Southern Africa, protecting “civilisation” from the encroaching threats surrounding it. Its military might and expansive police force were accompanied by a series of policies designed to maintain white minority rule. Each attempt to impose new such policies failed in the face of mass resistance. The more they failed, the more brutal the violence meted out by the military and the police with the encouragement of white politicians and a terrified white electorate.

The “terrorists”, as the national liberation movements were referred to, could not be crushed by the mightiest army in Southern Africa. By mid-1985 a significant section of the white electorate and some in the ruling party realised that the problem of Black resistance was not going to go away. Something more drastic was going to be required.

The then State President, the hawkish P W Botha, himself a former defence minister, was encouraged by a faction of his party to open parliament that year with a conciliatory speech, to make a grand policy statement that would offer the Black majority a hopeful sign that they would become part of the whites-only democracy that was South Africa. It was called the “crossing of the Rubicon speech”. Botha played along but at the last minute baulked and defiantly went in the opposite direction, instead giving a speech in which he vowed to intensify the fight against “terrorism”, refusing to negotiate with “terrorists” in prison, like Nelson Mandela. What followed was the extension of the state of emergency in South Africa and the killing of thousands of people resisting apartheid rule, as Botha and his faction turned to more and more violence and repression.

Eventually, his own party leaders staged a palace coup and installed F W de Klerk in power. The new president and the faction he represented had realised that the end was nigh, that the decades of repression were not succeeding in making a political and economic system work that excluded the majority and only benefitted the white minority. De Klerk and his faction realised that whites were not going to win the war, even if they had more guns, bombs, tanks and artillery and could probably continue to rule for a long time through sheer force. It was not sustainable because the more repression they deployed, the more resistance they faced and the more white South Africans lived in fear.

The more the violence was flashed across the world’s television screens, the harder it became for white South Africa’s friends in the West to steadfastly support it. It was a tipping point that led to political negotiations, to talking to “the terrorists” who they saw as their existential enemy. It was a tipping point that created the pathway to a single state with equal citizenship for all, based on residency, not origins, race, religion or ethnicity.

...

Ordinary Israelis may begin to realise that no matter how sophisticated or strong the Israeli army, Mossad, or the apartheid regime appear, the “Palestinian problem” is not going to go away as long as the Palestinians are alive. Just as with white South Africans, fear grows exponentially. And Israel is responding to that fear with a colossal bombing campaign of annihilation. But as white South Africans learned, violence cannot eradicate the “problem”, nor create the life of peace they might long for. [...] Whatever may be left in the ruins and rubble that awaits us after this war on Gaza, Israel’s “Palestinian problem” will not have gone away. Ordinary Israelis will surely never sleep again with the confidence that their state can fully protect them. They will do well to learn from white South Africans who, after 300 years of minority rule, realised it was an impossible political project to continue to defend so violently, and still maintain any semblance of a moral high ground.

There is a tipping point when even for the defenders of such a project, the faint question rings louder and louder in the collective conscience: how far is too far? There can be no going back to the promises of security based on what was before. There can be no going forward in peace if it means more and more blood of children and civilians haunting successive generations who will have to take responsibility for the actions unfolding before our eyes today. As a South African who has lived to cross the Rubicon, I hope this catastrophe will force Israelis to see that only a just and inclusive political solution based on equal citizenship for all is going to bring them freedom from fear.

Now that I watched that wretched film Napolean starring that timid Brooklynite and directed by the alien, I can proudly say i am now a Marxist-napoleon

https://archive.is/YXjQN

Which one of you nerds lathed "AI Prompt Engineer job title" a while back?

Prompt engineer is one of the hot jobs AI is creating

Business Insider writes.

Literally a bullshit job. Whoever gets a job like this should get swirled then shoved in a locker.

What I'm Reading: Pushing back on pandemic revisionism.

Pandemic revisionism has been on my mind lately. It seems that many people incorrectly believe we didn’t achieve much, despite our efforts. How quickly we forget. The horrors of New York City in the early days of Covid-19 reflected a virus spreading without mitigation. Virtually everywhere other than New York City experienced Covid-19 dramatically differently—that is, other US cities encountered the novel coronavirus in the context of serious efforts to contain it. That’s why truckloads of dead bodies didn’t become a fixture anywhere outside of New York City’s early outbreak.

I’m not alone in worrying that people have forgotten all of this. Lately, New York Times writer David Wallace Wells has been using his column to interview some pandemic experts around this topic. His interviews with two colleagues with whom I have collaborated, Dr. Katelyn Jetelina and Dr. Michael Mina, are highly recommended reading for anyone interested in what lessons from the pandemic we should have learned—and these go beyond the usual platitudes.

So for this installment of “What I’m Reading,” I’m sharing another Wallace Wells interview. In this interview, Wallace Wells interviews the authors of a new book entitled “The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind.”

This is no ordinary interview. Wallace Wells clearly read this book and identified within it a key—and devastating—contradiction in its reasoning. Here is an early excerpt from the interview:

In the beginning of the book you write, in what almost feels like a thesis statement for the book: “A central tenet of this book is that we could not have done better, and pretending differently is a dangerous fiction, one that prevents us from taking a much needed look in the mirror.”

This claim, that the U.S. could not have done any better, runs against your other claim, that what we observed was an American failure. It is also a pretty extreme claim, I think, and I wanted to press you on it in part because it is, in my view, undermined by quite a lot of the work you do in the book itself.

Would the U.S. not have done better if it had recognized earlier that the disease spread through the air rather than in droplets? Would it not have done better if it hadn’t bungled the rollout of a Covid test in the early months? You write at length about PPE shortages and the problems of coordinating care between hospitals in the early months — would the country not have done better if it had addressed those problems quickly, or not suffered from them to begin with? Disparities in health care access — is it a dangerous fiction to think we might address that? You guys are big champions of Operation Warp Speed — would it not have been better if those vaccines had been rolled out to the public in nine months, rather than 12, getting shots into the arms of the vulnerable elderly before the first big winter surge? —David Wallace Wells, The New York Times.

Indeed, how can someone say we failed and also say that we could not have done any better?

[...] Wallace Wells surgically dissects a bizarre but increasingly popular viewpoint espoused in the book; that we did too much and that the benefits were nowhere near sufficient to justify them.

bolsonaro under investigation for harassing a whale

9m ago (18:10 GMT)

US may redesignate Houthis as ‘terrorist’ organisation after ship hijacking

White House National Security Council spokesman Kirby says the Biden administration is considering the redesignation, citing “recent targeting of civilians by the Houthis” and “piracy of a ship in international waters”.

The Biden administration formally delisted the group as a “foreign terrorist organization” and “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” in 2021, undoing a last-minute move by former US President Donald Trump. The UN and aid groups had criticised the designations, saying the restrictions they created complicated aid delivery in the war-torn country.

The Yemen-based Houthis yesterday claimed the hijacking of a cargo ship in the Red Sea with 25 crew aboard. It said the ship was linked to Israel, although Israel said none of the crew were Israeli. They continue to be held by the Houthis.

Speaking to reporters, Kirby also said US officials did not want to comment on a possible captive release deal between Hamas and Israel: “We won’t say and do not want to say anything in these delicate hours that could put a deal at greater risk.”

- Al Jazeera

🚨 Islamic Resistance in Lebanon:

After carefully monitoring the entry of four IOF soldiers into a house in the Al-Manara settlement, the warriors of the Islamic Resistance hit them with specialized guided missiles. The house collapsed on top of them and all of them were killed.

Commander of the Yemeni Navy to the crew of Israeli-owned cargo ship Galaxy Leader:

"We consider all of the crew as Yemeni people. Anything you want, we will bring it. You can consider Yemen as your own country."

https://twitter.com/Aldanmarki/status/1727327179028025744?t=i9jCKheKU9gCFRyDLWiCJQ&s=19

Israeli snipers shot a man and left him to bleed and they opened fire at anyone that tried to go help him. CW gunfire

Huge victory in the Sahel. Mali and Wagner PMC liberated a northern city Kidal from NATO terrorists.

https://orinocotribune.com/mali-celebrates-liberation-of-kidal-from-separatist-groups/

⚡️SUMMARY of Hamas military spox, Abu Obeida speech:

• Our fighters continue to confront the aggressive Zionist aggression.

• 335 Zionist military vehicles were targeted in total, since the incursion began.

• We targeted 33 Zionist vehicles in the last 72h.

• Over the past 3 days, we carried out qualitative operations against enemy forces, resulting in confirmed casualties.

• We targeted an enemy infantry group in Beit Hanoun with an anti-personnel IED.

• One of our fighters attacked 8 soldiers east of Rantisi Hospital, causing fatalities & injuries.

• Yesterday, our fighters rigged & detonated a tunnel entrance, causing a powerful explosion targeting the IOF. Following that, a soldier was sniped & killed.

• The heroics of our fighters on the battlefield are a source of pride for every free person in the world, and we face a brutal, oppressive force.

• We thwarted the enemy's plan to achieve a rapid victory in Gaza, and our fighters stand firm in their positions.

• The fearful enemy leadership decided to place its soldiers in the heart of the inferno in Gaza.

• The enemy continues to hide its military losses.

• We attacked with bombs & machine guns at point-blank range a military vehicle of the enemy that deployed a group of soldiers, resulting in 5 casualties on Tuesday.

• We consider that the enemy's human losses have not yet begun.

• Ready to continue the confrontation and counter the enemy, no matter how long the aggression lasts.

My chud father tired to the situation in Israel "every group has terroists...." and went on the conflate Pakistan with Palestine.

Guess who this is

Twitter thread on Israel using the bodies of dead Palestinian children to film atrocity propaganda: https://nitter.cz/bidetmarxman/status/1728163260954775685 (CW: dead Palestinian children)

least unhinged Israeli: "What Hamas is committing is worse than what the Nazis did"

twitter | nitter

https://en.mdn.tv/7TcJ

DPRK withdraws from Inter-Korean military agreement

Summary of the economic impact of the war on Israel: https://nitter.cz/meowsandry/status/1728029686091956732

This thread succinctly explains the effect on “Israel’s” economy inflicted by the resistance. Highly suggest you all read the articles. I’ll just summarize a few points:

— ‘Israel’ borrowed $6B in loans just to finance this war, which is plummeting them into debt & making many investors reluctant to invest due to high ESG (environmental, social and governance) risk

— Amid an immediate effort to quell up-coming inflation, the Central Bank of ‘Israel’ has already sold $30B in foreign exchange to reserve the shekel from collapse. This coupled with the loans will inevitably drive up interest-rates, which is already starting to happen

— S&P Global Ratings lowered Israel’s credit outlook from stable to negative

— IMF chief says this could lead to a grave economic weakness, as global oil supply may face disruptions

— Companies that are supporting ‘Israel’ (ex. McDonald’s) are starting to feel the effects of the boycotts, especially in ME.

— “Israel” postponed nearly 3M shekels of loan repayments in October. A total of 117,000 loans were deferred.

— The Washington Post publishes an article stating that if the ground war invasion continues for three months, the economy would be gravely affected, and the 300,000 reservists would need to return to work, they’ve already considered reducing the mobilization of reserve soldiers (from 360,000 to 200,000)

— There are practically no flights to “Israel”

(Keep in mind, these effects all worsen as this continues, and it doesn’t include the millions ‘Israel’ has lost bc of the resistance destroying their military vehicles)

https://nitter.cz/squatsons/status/1727000719096697131#m

Russian Tu-95 bombers are reportedly preparing to launch a cruise missile attack after a long hiatus. Considering the time of year, it's probably time for more infrastructure strikes.

Egypt and Yemen should just Just close the strait to any ships going to Israel.

fuck landlords
fuck cars

There have been reports of Israeli attacks near the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

- Al Jazeera

That's the entire thing.

It must be so easy to be an Israel apologist. They just say "Hamas uses hospitals as military strongholds," and there's no a hint of cognitive dissonance. They get right on with the rest of their day. I think on average since the war started I've used "[Redacted]" at Hexbear about once a day. And my usage keeps going up.

https://nitter.cz/Shack_Rat/status/1728511374144201161

https://twitter.com/Shack_Rat/status/1728511374144201161

Thai hostage sister statement

Israel is not okay. Jpost is completely unhinged already, but this is a minister oped

Israeli Anti-Furniture Brigades performing their mission effectively and efficiently.

Receiving reports that the Hamas front known as "IKEA" - that is, the Islamic Khamas Evil Army - might be the next target for Israeli bombing raids.

https://archive.is/3Ea6D

KKKanadian super-pigs are about to invade the U.S.

Also did you know that the USDA has drones and airplanes dedicated to hunt pigs on the border? Is there seriously not a single agency that doesn't have an armed wing?

Hordes of "super pigs" are running amok in Canada, and may soon spill across the border into the northern U.S.

These wild feral pigs, which roam Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada, are predicted to be moving southwards into Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana.

What makes these pigs such a threat is that they are a result of crossbreeding between wild Eurasian boars and domestic swine. The animals combine the boar's environmental resistance and the pig's size and fertility to create a rapidly reproducing population that is very hard to eradicate.

The U.S. has already started to be invaded by these feral pigs, with around 6 million of the swine having entered at least 35 states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Now, however, the Canadian populations may descend from the north.

"Hybrid populations of wild pigs are not a new issue in the U.S. Generally resulting from the interbreeding of domestic swine and introduced Eurasian wild boar for hunting purposes, hybrid wild-pig populations in the States have the larger size and reproductive rates of domestic swine and the hardiness of wild boar," Elizabeth A. Bradley told Newsweek. She is a researcher at Auburn University's College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Environment in Alabama.

"This is part of what facilitates the negative impacts of this invasive species on natural ecosystems and agricultural production," Bradley said.

These pigs are considered an invasive species due to the level of damage they can cause: they tear up farmland, rooting for bugs and eating plants, destroying crops and disrupting local wildlife. In southern U.S. states including Texas, these wild pigs already cause billions of dollars in damage to croplands every year. They can also spread diseases to domestic pigs at farms, including African swine fever, and have even been known to attack humans, though this is infrequent.

"The impact of wildlife on our populations is a fact in general. In the last few years, the numbers of feral pigs and wild boar increase more and more," Domenico Fulgione, a professor of population ecology at University of Naples Federico II in Italy, told Newsweek.

"The United States of America has spent more than $1.5 billion every year because of the damage caused by feral hogs, the hybrid form that lives in their territories. The most-important issues are down to the depression of biodiversity; wild pigs destroy the undergrowth of many forests, alter the soils, and prey on many species of ground-nesting birds, as well as reptiles, amphibians and plants of various species, even rare ones.

"Damage is also caused to farms because of rooting. They crash into our cars, and also epidemics are a consequence of their big populations," Fulgione added.

These pig hybrids also reproduce very quickly, having up to six piglets in a litter, of which they can have two in a single year. The population of swine is so fecund that, even if 65 percent of the pigs were killed every year, the total number would still rise.

The presence of these pigs could significantly disrupt native ecosystems, and have knock-on effects all across the food chain.

"In Europe, for example, due to a considerable increase in wild boars, we have observed a significant increase of its predators, the wolves, but an increase also in some types of scavengers such as jackals. Even predators, if in large numbers, are difficult to manage and make compatible with agriculture and animal husbandry," Fulgione said.

"Furthermore, an effect on the populations of human hunters should not be overlooked, which will inevitably increase the food consumption of meat that is not always carefully and meticulously analyzed by health professionals. The transmission of diseases by parasites that also infest humans is sometimes directly proportional to the increase of these host animals and their reckless consumption," Fulgione added.

The USDA is attempting to keep the Canadian pigs out of the U.S., using aircraft and drones to patrol the border. Experts are considering ways to wipe out the pigs, as hunting is unsuccessful. It often results in no more than 2 or 3 percent of the animals being culled, and makes them more wary and nocturnal, and therefore harder to track down.

Some suggestions for controlling the population include large ground traps, net guns fired from helicopters, or even poison, but this risks harming other native wildlife.

"We can't forget that they are complex animals. Looking at their habits, we understood that they are skilled in pre-adapting to the environments they are going to invade," Fulgione said.

"Hogs must be studied before defining a common strategy that must be shared between states. Killing? Traps? It depends both on environmental and social variables. The interaction with our species is very close, and management has to deal with this element."

Some funny and probably positive news from Greece with the political landscape there being both the same and the opposite from other countries in Europe rn.

Its same in the sense that New Democracy (not Maoist but like 80% Macron - 20% Le Pen) governs after getting ~40% in the elections this year all while the socdem to center-left has either been eating shit and imploding (SYRIZA), being PASOK doing nothing after being Pasokified and or being Varoufakis enjoying his internationalist larp party at ~2% outside of parliament. With Syriza's implosion being the funny one since they ate shit in the elections, Tsipras resigned and then they literaly imported some better looking Pete Buttigieg - Beto O'Rourke dude from the US but with worse politics (reaganite, campaigned for Biden in 2008) and made him the leader so now they are about to be polling at signle digits. Like look at this

But there are also opposing trends compared to other countries.

The Greek Communist Party (Hardline MLs who also dont suck too much on LGBT issues anymore despite what the convo was some years ago) has more than doubled their support, consistently hitting 10%+ in recent polls and now has a real chance of actually reaching 2nd place. Looking at the state of communist parties and movements in most of the west , at eurocommunism and in general the post war trajectory of most , you dont have that kind of party that doesnt suck in 90% of issues with that kind of parliamentary numbers + organizational strength at a youth or union level almost anywhere else.

Also contrary to other countries the far right is very split and incoherent . After the collapse of Golden Dawn the overtly anti-migrant fascists, neonazis , ethnonationalists, alt-right nutjobs, religious nutjobs etc are split over 4-6 parties with basicaly no organizational strength or organic reach. They wont and cant reach any really threatening unified movement as of now and they mostly overtly clownish and lame

Broke: The UN is Hamas.

Woke: The IDF is Hamas: https://nitter.cz/MayadeenEnglish/status/1726773772110151768

PFLP Founder George Habash "Al-Hakim" when asked about relations with the Islamic forces in the Arab countries (1997):

"This is one of the greatest dilemmas facing the Arab national liberation movement, at the pan-Arab level and within each country. To begin with, one cannot take an arbitrary decision concerning whether or not to cooperate with the forces of Islam, putting them all in the same basket, as it were. Second, one feels an obligation to deal with them because these forces are indigenous to their societies, except for some movements or groups with dubious connections. This means that we and the forces of political Islam should find a common denominator that would permit us to work together under the current and foreseeable circumstances.

However, we need to differentiate between the Islamic forces that are truly engaged in the struggle on the basis of their perspectives on society and their ideology (as is the case with Hizballah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine, and the Jama'a Islamiyya in Jordan) and those forces and groups whose acts are no longer either comprehensible or justifiable on the human, ethical, or Islamic dimensions (as is the case now in Algeria and Egypt).

We believe that our relations with Islamic forces of the first type should be characterized by a deep alliance in the struggle with the enemy of our nation to bring about a showdown. The condition for such an alliance should be that joint action should be undertaken on a democratic basis."

(From Twitter)

Dutch elections

Ukraine is proudly enlisting grandparents and children in their war to own the Russians

Ukrainian grandma says she's too old to fight Russians in the infantry so learned to pilot drones instead

Love the 20-40% of comments on MoA's latest piece on 'sub-imperial power' trying to make it about jews instead of capitalist elites.

new footage from the Hamas Tunnels