Image is of Bolivian President Luis Arce (center, with glasses) face-to-face with General Zuñiga (in camouflage) during the coup attempt.
On the 26th of June, while Hexbear was in an 8-hour hibernation, General Juan José Zuñiga marched 200 troops and some armored vehicles on the government palace in an attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government of Luis Arce. This is somewhat reminiscent of Jeanine Anez’s coup in November 2019 where she overthrew the socialist president Evo Morales, but while that coup was due to a colour revolution likely orchestrated by the United States and had at least a tiny amount of political/public legitimacy and “followed the rules” in a certain sense (as Morales was trying to abolish presidential term limits, which is only evil if a socialist is doing it), this was a much more naked attempted seizure of power by a military general.
This coup was quickly terminated without even a momentary transfer of power. Democracy was saved.
Despite being in the same party, Morales and Arce have increasingly been in opposition. Morales champions anti-imperialism, rights for indigneous people, and poverty reduction. This last one especially has been threatened by Arce, though it’s not entirely his fault, as the Bolivian economy is threatened by the same crisis affecting so many developing economies around the world right now - say it with me now - a lack of dollars and mounting debt. The US Federal Reserve is carrying out a bloody offensive against the world’s poor, and this has combined nastily with a rather uninspiring “post”-coronavirus economic recovery in Bolivia, as well as diminishing natural gas production (and thus less exports with which to earn dollars).
While the coup was ongoing, Morales banded behind the government. Afterwards, however, Morales expressed his skepticism about whether the coup was, in fact, genuine, calling for an independent investigation into it, and saying that Arce “disrespected the truth, deceived us, lied, not only to the Bolivian people but to the whole world." This is because General Zuñiga made a series of very interesting statements to his family and colleagues, saying that Arce had “betrayed” him, and saying that Arce had told him “‘The situation is very screwed up, very critical. It is necessary to prepare something to raise my popularity.'" This does check out on the surface level, at least: Arce has suffered increasing unpopularity as the economy has suffered.
Interestingly, Morales’ narrative has been supported by the anarchocapitalist leader of Argentina, Javier Milei, who is currently busy completely destroying his own country and stripping the copper out of the walls to give to American capitalists. Milei said that the coup attempt was “fraudulent”. Meanwhile, those inside MAS opposed to Morales’ accusations of a false coup have accused him of allying with the fascist right and becoming an instrument of imperialism.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Bolivia! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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The bulletins site is here!
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Last week’s thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
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.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
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 Telegram Channels:
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.
WASHINGTON, July 2 (Reuters) - One in three Democrats think U.S. President Joe Biden should end his reelection bid following last week’s debate against Republican Donald Trump, but no prominent elected Democrat does any better than Biden in a hypothetical matchup against Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Tuesday.
The two-day poll found that both Trump, 78, and Biden, 81, maintain the support of 40% of registered voters, suggesting that Biden has not lost ground since the debate. Election Day is Nov. 5.
Among the names of top Democrats put before respondents, only Michelle Obama, wife of former Democratic President Barack Obama, outperformed Biden and led Trump 50% to 39% in a hypothetical matchup. Michelle Obama, author of the best-selling 2018 memoir “Becoming,” has said repeatedly she does not intend to run for president.
…
Biden has vowed to stay in the race. But should he exit, the Democrats whose names emerge as possible replacements perform only as well or worse than Biden against Trump in hypothetical matchups, according to the poll. Vice President Kamala Harris, for example, trailed Trump by one percentage point, 42% to 43%, a difference that was well within the poll’s 3.5 percentage point margin of error, making Harris’ showing statistically just as strong as Biden’s.
Thinking about having some fun online telling Biden loyalists they would rather lose than vote for a black woman
The largest operation so far by Hezbollah was just carried out, 200 missiles and 20 drones were fired in the last few hours, settler bases everywhere in the north are on fire
The last 2014 frontline remnant shifted :,(Happy Won-Our-Freedom-To-Keep-Slaves Day y’all!
Ukraine map is moving fast again. We’ve had a major Russian breakthrough in the 2014 line near New York (lol) and Toretsk. The Russians have also opened a third Kharkov front in the north and a limited incursion into Sumy border villages has also been reported. The entire microdistrict in Chasov Yar has been captured and the Avdiivka front keeps moving further and further every day with Ukrainians slowly getting pushed back to the Vovcha River. It looks like the summer objectives for Russia this year will be cutting the Pokrovsk-Konstantinvka highway, surrounding Vuhledar (my most hated town in Ukraine tbh), capturing the rest of Krasnogorovka, reducing the Siversk salient, capturing the rest of the LPR villages, and finally working on that Toretsk-New York urban area by crossing the canal near Chasov Yar. Looking forward to learning new village names and learning about Soviet industrial achievements that seem to exist in every Soviet town.
Meeting the restrictions to the letter would disrupt the Pentagon’s ability to purchase the vast quantities of medical supplies, drugs, clothing and other types of logistical support the military relies on, officials contend. “There are certain parts of the world where you literally cannot get away from Huawei,” said Brennan Grignon, the founder of 5M Strategies and a former Defense Department official. “The original legislation had very good intentions behind it, but the execution and understanding of the implications of what it would mean, I personally think that wasn’t really thought through,” she said."
US can’t ban Huawei use by the US government because the US needs Huawei to conduct imperialism abroad because western companies won’t operate in warzones the US created.
The Pentagon is against the US blanket banning Huawei hardware for supposed “national security” reasons because of national security reasons.
Reminder that when Labour win a super landslide victory today, this is what we could have had if Britons were less thick:
Sums up the UK atmosphere right now
Indian flag was spotted in Rafah
https://x.com/TheEconomist/status/1808807485186212143
The presidential debate was awful for Joe Biden, but the cover-up has been worse. The dishonesty of his campaign provokes contempt. He must withdraw
Lmao. I feel like it’s game over for Biden. I didn’t think so many lib friendly media outlets would roast him like this tbh
who cares about terf island, what are your predictions for the Iranian election tomorrow?
Thinking about the idea of packing the court and like, one thing I havent heard of is if there is actually a reserve of pragmatic liberal judges who would be candidates for expanding the court.
My gut feeling is you would just get these morons who would decline the whole venture as being a naked power grab and against the spirit of the civic cult.
One month in and still unsure whether we’re looking at a decade-week summer, the summer of Kamala or just maybe a classic white boy summer? What’s it gonna be?
For anyone masochistic enough to be following the British election tonight I highly recommend keeping an eye on one of the most powerful posters on the issue at the moment on Twitter @eyuplovely (as endorsed by
)Also on the reasonable chance that he posts here; hello.
