I’m not saying he was sad about it. He was scared he was going to get the same treatment.

There’s some evidence to suggest that Hitler’s decision to commit suicide was influenced by the news that Italian partisans captured and lynched Mussolini and his mistress.

He had announced a week earlier to his closer associates that he would stay in Berlin and kill himself if the city wouldn’t hold. But nonetheless, within less than a day of learning of Mussolini’s fate he did the deed. He was also in a very unstable mental state during that week, going on tirades about the worthlessness of German people, how he was surrounded by traitors and cowards, and how they all deserved to be erased from history for their failure.

So it’s possible he’d had killed himself either way to avoid being lynched by a mob or to not confront the day after a German surrender, whether the Western Allies had reached Berlin first or not.

If the scenario you are talking about had happened, it’s possible he might have lived, but I still doubt it. Hitler had a much higher international profile than both Mussolini and Hirohito. To the average European, American or Soviet, he was THE reason for the war. It’s likely he would have still been tried and executed, especially as the attrocities at concentration camps had been uncovered and made public. It would be a very difficult task for the Allies to rehabilitate Hitler in the eyes of their own citizens, the world, and also the Germans.

Also, the Soviets would still have plenty of leverage to force the trials, particularly since it was agreed beforehand at the highest level, and they occupied territories the Allies were interested in, like Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Japan is a different story, precisely because its own attrocities were never really part of the public discourse in the West during or shortly after the war. Some things, like Unit 731 did not become public until the 50s and 60s.

They have nothing to lose but their laser chains.

True, but you are correct that that is the usual way politicians get in and out of Kiev.

That would make his departure time much earlier then, which would put him even more surely in the strike window.

I don’t know what the exact specifics are, as I don’t seem to be finding definitive evidence for this and I’ve been looking at it all day. Best I could find is that on the morning of the 11th of July he arrived in Kiev and met with Zelensky. He made some statements, and then later at noon he visited a drone production facility in Kiev and he was being shown different drone models. There’s photos and articles of him visiting there.

Supposingly, sometime between the afternoon and nightfall (either while he was there or a few hours after he left), Russian missiles and drones hit that facility. I couldn’t find anywhere on Russian media or Russian Defense Ministry releases anything about this particular facility, but Russian and Ukrainian telegrams are abuzz with how the facility was hit according to “their sources”. Usually the Russian Defense Ministry advertises the day after such strikes what exactly they hit (example from the 11th of July and the 14th of July about the previous nights). No matter the case, there’s definitely a focus on targeting weapons manufacturers in Kiev and elsewhere, so it would make sense that Skyfall’s facility (the one Graham visited) would also be targeted, as it is a very high-profile one.

The official line is that at 20:27 at night local time, the ambulance went to Graham’s house in Washington and confirmed his death.. Before his death was officially announced, people playing around with police scanners listened to the emergency call. This would indicate that the report that Graham died of an aortal tear is factual, unless it is part of a cover-up.

It takes about 8 hours to go from Kiev to Washington DC by private jet (fastest jets can do a bit less than 1000 km/h and air distance between Kiev and Washington is a bit more than 8000 km). So for Graham to arrive in Washington by… let’s say 20:30 in the evening, he needed to leave Kiev at 11:30 Washington time. Kiev is 8 hours ahead of Washington, so 11:30 Washington time is 19:30 Kiev time. So it’s reasonable to assume that Graham left Kiev sometime between noon-early evening, so he could arrive in time in Washington to die. Which is not such an unreasonable timeline as some people suggest, depending on what time the strike occurred.

Russian strikes usually occur late at night when most people are asleep and not inside targeted buildings working, but that’s not always the case. According to various Telegrams, the supposed strike happened sometime between afternoon-night. So it’s quite possible that Graham was there when the facility was being hit. From media releases, we know Kiev was definitely being hit between 16:00 and 21:00 and it was a particularly intense one (no time in this article, but look at the photos), but we don’t get many specifics. And this timeframe would definitely put Graham either at the facility, or on his way to the airport during the Russian strikes.

So why would everyone cover this up including the Russians? Let’s look at the possibilities:

• There’s no cover up and Graham died from an aortal tear in his Washington house, after a long journey, which might have ended with a Russian bombardment on his way to the airport. The facility in question wasn’t targeted or hit, which is why it doesn’t get named in Russian defense ministry releases.

• A US senator being killed by a Russian missile strike, even as collateral damage, would be grounds for WW3 for various reasons (even a rational US would probably feel they have no other choice but to counterstrike the Russians to save face after such a humiliation becomes public knowledge). So both Russians and Americans have agreed to keep silent about this so as not to let the nukes fly and end the world.

• The Russians knew where Graham was and intentionally targeted him or didn’t care to postpone the strike. After all the deaths and damages caused in Russia by NATO and CIA-assisted drone strikes, it wouldn’t be an unreasonable answer/warning. In this war, Russians have often followed a pattern where Ukraine, Europe, UK or USA escalates in some egregious way, and then a few weeks later, Russia takes revenge quietly and without fanfare. They then informed the US that they were willing to silence what happened, if the US wished it so.

• Graham died as a result of Ukrainian AA debris falling at his location (or Ukrainians are at fault for some other reason), and the US can’t afford for something like that to get known, as it could kill the mood for supporting Ukraine. Russians agreed to keep quiet to avoid a potential WW3.

• Something else happened. There are other conspiracy theories claiming that Graham was assassinated by some other actor. The two main suspects in this theory is Iran (for obvious reasons) and Israel (as a warning to Trump to not abandon them, and/or Graham was privately having second thoughts about continuing the conflict with Iran). I put no stock in this. If it was Iran, Iran would be celebrating by now, or the US would be proclaiming they are coming after Iran. Israel could have literally killed anybody else besides their most staunch supporter to warn Trump (e.g. JD Vance, who seems to actually be lobbying to stop the war in Iran). Also, it doesn’t seem likely to me that Graham would have qualms about supporting Israel’s genocides under any circumstances.

There’s a conspiracy theory going around that he was killed in a Russian strike on Kiev. He was visiting Ukraine around the time of his death.

Yes

I don’t know much about what other Marxists think. Vucic seems to be pro-Russian and there’s a lot of misinformation going around. It seems that the EU and the US are trying hard to destabilize the country. On the other hand, the accusations that Vucic is corrupt seem to be at least somewhat credible. There’s reports that his government is working along with organized crime, and in the recent protests, far right football hooligans (who are usually involved with organized crime as muscle) were used to clash with the protestors. I’m not sure what’s going on.

Might help in your quest:

Mass graves, grave questions: Britain’s secret Srebrenica role

A lot can change in 6 hours and 20 minutes apparently.

I think there’s 3 major factors here:

1. Religion dominates in the global south in a way that it doesn’t so much in the west anymore (perhaps excepting the US and maybe UK and Germany to an extent). Religions generally promote traditionalism and conservatism through various means, especially when the religion is Christianity. This might sound as idealism, but consider that religious proselytisation was used both as a tool of colonialism for hundreds of years, and for indigenous and oppressed people it often became the only legal/tolerated way of maintaining a semblance of community/governance/connection to their pre-colonial past. Also, religion acts as a gateway of relief for poor and oppressed people, as observed by Marx and others. As a result, religious institutions are deeply entrenched in global south societies, and as a consequence, people who don’t conform with the ideal view of a pious person get heavily persecuted. There are obvious exceptions to this that should be mentioned, like Iran (last I heard) offering transition surgeries and support paid by the state.

2. Besides religion, inciting hatred between various minorities has always been used as a tool of colonialism, as part of a divide and conquer doctrine. For example, the British empire would regularly provide special privileges to ethnic minorities in its colonies, and then use them as a military, political and economic force to control the area and suppress everyone else. When the British empire ended, the animosity between different ethnic groups remained (and sometimes actively stoked by the West afterwards), creating further divisions and conflict and maintaining post-colonial devastation, thus dependency on the former colonizers. More specifically, take a look at how Israel utilizes homophobia as a form of control in Gaza. Israel regularly monitors all civilian communications in Gaza and when they identify a sexually divergent person, they will blackmail them and force them to turn into an informant. When they are found out and killed, then Israel will promote it as an instance of why Hamas (for example) is a backwards and homophobic organization.

3. The wave of US-branded identity politics in recent years has been utilized as a major tool for destroying the left globally by Western psy-ops. Terms popularized by conservatives such as “the gay/feminist/SJW agenda” have been very successfully conflated with what the left stands for. And in particular, at the eyes of a lay-person (especially westerners), a communist and a liberal have become identical in the last 15 years or so, in large part due to this fearmongering by conservatives (but obviously this false equivalency is also fueled by US internal politics and other factors). By many peoples, this is now seen as the latest way in which the US utilizes culture as a way to influence other societies and their politics, as well as to conduct wars and sanctions using “humanitarian reasons” as excuses. The tragedy is that this view is both correct and false. For example look at Russia and the Soviet Union. The USSR experienced an intense wave of cultural warfare from the 60s onwards, which eventually contributed to the loss of societal cohesion. Pessimism replaced revolutionary optimism and people became disillusioned by the socialist system. After the fall of the USSR, many Russian citizens suffered from some sort of inferiority complex, where they wanted to become as westernized as possible. Putin’s Russia had to try and fight this, by heavily promoting religion and history worship as a way to restoke Russian patriotism and break western influence on Russian politics. As a result, homophobia has become rampant in Russia, eventually becoming state policy. One can say this is an overreaction and a mistake, or that it was necessary for Russia to be able to fight the West. Regardless, Russia’s policy on homophobia has also been used by the West as a propaganda tool against them. Russia thus fell in a sort of Catch 22.

I dont have much experience with Macs, but I believe you can install Linux on it, though it depends on the model and components. Macs are notorious for breaking other OSs installed on them if you dont handle some things with care (like leaving alone the MacOS partition on your hard disk so Apple can be happy every time it wants to force an update down your throat), so definitely do some research based on your model and components, before doing anything else. The process to install varies depending on your Mac device.

Linux has many different iterations designed for specific purposes and situations, and I think there’s a couple of them specifically designed for MacBooks. Asahi comes to mind, but I haven’t tried it myself.

Otherwise, any Windows laptop will work. Dells, Lenovos and HPs in my experience are pretty good bets with decent hardware and affordable price. Depends on your usage. If your laptop comes with Windows 11 (it most likely will), then be sure to wipe them off, as they can also mess with your Linux installation. Dell has been trying to release Linux laptops on and off. Their new Linux XPS model is said to be pretty decent (but pricey at 1500-3000 dollars).

I have Ubuntu on an old HP 255 G8 Notebook and Arch on a newer Lenovo ThinkPad T14 G3, and I am pretty happy with them.

Generally, stir clear of laptops that have Nvidia graphics cards, as they often dont vibe well with most Linux. Also, people say that Intel CPUs tend to work better with linux than AMD, but I’ve seen 0 difference.

GrapheneOS is definitely great. It doesn’t support faceID however. I don’t know how much you need it for other apps, but if you just need it for security, it’s a completely unreliable technology. A password/pin is much stronger. With faceID, someone can unlock your phone with a simple photo, or even while you sleep. I’ve seen police use faceID to unlock people’s phones when the people deny to unlock it for them, by just pointing it at their faces.

Apple’s faceID is actually a bit more secure, because iPhones have extra sensors to recognize when the phone is being fooled by a photo. Google-based faceID is just based on the camera, so very easy to fool.

On the other hand, GrapheneOS has much better permission settings, which can provide much stricter or looser control on individual apps, which is a much more significant security feature than Apple or Google OS.

If none of this is practical for you, then you basically have no choice but to go Android. Although technically you could have a device for your banking needs on Android, and a device for personal use on Graphene. I’ve also heard it’s possible to turn some android phones into dual booting devices (running both OS and switching between then 2 by restarting the phone), but I’ve never seen it done.

You don’t have to stick to Google’s Android OS though. There’s CalyxOS which is open source and free (for the most part). It’s still Google-based, but it gives you the possibility to get rid of the most serious Google spyware/adware, and has better security options. No FaceID here either.

LineageOS is also a pretty good alternative to Graphene, but I hear it’s less functional (but more user-friendly to install). Still, you can set it up to connect to Google services, which would enable you to run any Android app probably. By default gets rid of all of Google’s spyware/adware. Also no faceID.

A pricier (and perhaps riskier) option is to get a Fairphone device, which is a completely de-googled phone, fully repairable, and its OS is compatible with almost any Android app (and also able to run iOS apps). The only catch is that your service provider might not actually work with that phone for some reason. I’ve heard this is a particular problem in the US. I don’t understand why this problem exists.

For your laptop, I’d recommend Arch Linux if you are a beginner. It’s got a similar UI to the standard OS (Windows, Mac), it has extra features to enhance usability for people not familiar with Linux systems, and it’s got great support for running Android apps natively on your PC. However, it doesn’t come in 1 package. You will need to get the base OS, and then you install add-ons to it, depending on your needs. So it will take some time to research and then set up.

If you want an all-in-one package and don’t mind about flexibility then Ubuntu is the way to go for beginners. It’s real easy to learn and use, and it has similar features to Arch (but just takes a bit more effort to set up anything not natively built in). If your work involves coding and you know your way around Linux, then I’d recommend a more advanced build, like Red Hat.

Just to be clear, I was being ironic. My uncle is always harping about the good old days, when they had pickled squirrel.

You haven’t lived until you’ve had pickled squirrel

Preservation and torturing children

This is vanilla stuff. We have pig’s ears and hooves in jelly.

Not the OP, and these are not Marxist sources, but:

Simplicious the Thinker, on Substack has done an excellent job breaking down what is going on in Ukraine, both on the battlefields, but more critically in the political arena of both Ukraine and Russia.

History Legends on Youtube has also been doing an excellent job breaking down events on the battlefield, usually debunking Ukrainian and Western lies about the war. The best part is that he is definitely not pro-Russian, and actually started out as a pro-Ukrainian.

UN special rappartoire on Palestine.

Very outspoken against israeli war crimes. Find her and listen to her talk.