Image is of the American military during their occupation of Haiti at the beginning of the 20th century, taken from this NYT article from 2022: Invade Haiti, Wall Street Urged. The U.S. Obliged.
In the aftermath of the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in 2021 and his replacement by Western comprador Ariel Henry, the situation in Haiti is the most dire it has been in decades - by some metrics, even worse than the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake (CW: rape, violence including against children). Millions do not have enough food. Outbreaks of disease are rampant. The government - such that it still exists, which is becoming increasingly debatable - has only a minority control over the capital city, with some estimates putting the influence of armed groups at 80%.
America’s search for somebody, anybody, to intervene in Haiti has ended, with Kenya answering the call. President Ruto has announced that he will send 1000 police officers to Haiti. Kenya’s Foreign Minister has tried to sell this intervention as pan-Africanism. Other Caribbean states, like the Bahamas and Antigua and Barbuda, have offered to send police officers too.
I can’t really say it any better than the Black Alliance for Peace’s own statement:
Kenya has offered to deploy a contingent of 1,000 police officers to help train and assist Haitian police, ostensibly to “restore order” in the Caribbean republic. Yet, their proposal is nothing more than military occupation by another name; an occupation of Haiti by an African country is not Pan-Africanism, but Western imperialism in Black face. By agreeing to send troops into Haiti, the Kenyan government is assisting in undermining the sovereignty and self-determination of Haitian people, while serving the neocolonial interests of the United States, the Core Group, and the United Nations.
There is an urgent need for clarity on the issue of occupation in Haiti. As described in a recent statement on Haiti and Colonialism, Haiti is under ongoing occupation. No call for foreign intervention into Haiti from the administration of appointed Prime Minister Ariel Henry can be considered legitimate, because the Henry administration itself is illegitimate. BAP has repeatedly pointed out that Haiti’s crisis is a crisis of imperialism. Haiti’s current unpopular and unelected government is propped up only by Haiti’s de facto imperial rulers: the unseemly confederacy of the Core Group countries and organizations, as well as BINUH (the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti), and a loose alliance of foreign corporations and local elites.
Henry and the UN have made a mockery of sovereignty by mouthing the slogan “Haitian solutions to Haitian problems,” yet finding the only solution in violence through foreign military intervention. After repeated failed attempts to organize an occupying force to protect their interests and impose their will on the Haitian people (including appeals to the multinational organization, the Caribbean Community [CARICOM] for troops), they have now found a willing accomplice in Kenya, an east African country with its own set of internal problems.
Indeed, what’s in it for Kenya? An opportunity to both train and enhance the salaries of local police forces and garner a patina of prestige, or at least bootlicking approval, from the West. And for Haiti? White blows from a Black hand and a further erosion of their sovereignty.
And, by the way, here’s the Black Alliance for Peace’s statement calling for no intervention by ECOWAS in Niger, calling the organization a Western comprador organization similar to CARICOM’s role in Haiti.
Welcome to our friends throughout the Lemmyverse!
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.
This week’s third update might not happen because I’m busy dunking.
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.
I don’t exactly understand the long-term plan of patsocs like Jackson Hinkle. When I first noticed him around two years ago, his shtick was only “le based Russia support based Trump”. Now it has fully evolved to critically supporting countries that any public figure American, Dem or Republican won’t even touch with a 10 inch stick because it’s so taboo to do so in public. He’s openly supporting Iran, Anti-Western coup leaders in Africa and even President Xi and the CPC. Okay he supports random countries because their leadership is homophobic, which Hinkle seems to care about the most, but the horseshoe theory-esque mental gymnastics are interesting to me honestly. Is the imperial American mind rotten enough that you can make it support anti-imperialism by elevating the contrarian elements? What’s the play here for someone like Hinkle?
Part of me wonders whether some patsoc types are getting Thiel money on the down low to muddy the waters a bit about anti-imperialism by connecting it to chuddery to put off libs/radlibs while being aesthetically socialist enough to put off regular chuds (just look at the time “MAGA Communists” tried to convert a bunch of chuds and were all just called commie cucks) but I don’t know if I’m being too TrueAnon brained, haha - That said even the fucking Red Scare podcast was getting Thiel money who knows.
Either way the hilarious thing about Jackson Hinkle is how a few years ago he was a super basic Bernie guy so if you find his old tweets he’s like “OMG! AOC is freaking amazeballs #gritty” which he may want to delete given that he’s apparently a “badass redpilled” NazBol now or whatever.
There is no long-term plan lol. The only plan is to grift.
And the reason the grift was even moderately successful is because Western leftists have completely failed to capture the growing segment of anti-imperialist audience radicalized by the ongoing global conflict, it’s as simple as that. It’s like when you open the only Italian restaurant in town, no matter how shitty it is, people who crave Italian food are still going to eat there.
Its kinda funny that western governments were so scared of leftists that they infiltrated and influenced the anti-imperialism out of them only for anti-imperialist position to be taken up by “social conservatives” aka bigots. Reactionaries treating the symptom not the disease is a tale as old as time.
i don’t really know who exactly jackson hinkle is. i mostly know of patsocks because y’all talk about them. but i assume the simplest explanation here works best: the long term plan is to find a grifter’s niche. none of these people believe anything. at least, the successful ones don’t. think candace owens, who started as an anti troll activist who then left the left and became an uncle ruckus supremacist of some kind.
now if you were to ask why patsocks exist at all, it’s probably because of the 20 year long conservative pickle. simply put, why do they like to complain about globalists? its because of jews, yes. but its more than that. the socioeconomic world that exists today - freedom for markets, freedom for capital flights, freedom to not pay taxes and not have public services - has utterly fucking destroyed the west. rural americans arguably suffered worse on average. yet unlike the left, conservatives can’t decry reagan, thatcher, libertarianism and globalization. they have to make it about culture wars. it can’t be just that your job was outsourced and your grandparents’ union was villified and destroyed. it has to be about the jews bringing brown people to replace the white people.
PatSocs are very very old as an phenomenon and were the very reason why america’s communist movement failed, so the American leftist should be VERY concerned about this “issue”.