Bulletins and News Discussion from August 12th to August 18th, 2024 - Marshall Plan: Now As Farce - COTW: Ireland
Bulletins and News Discussion from August 12th to August 18th, 2024 - Marshall Plan: Now As Farce - COTW: Ireland
Image is of one of Ireland's only manned navy ships, the Samuel Beckett. Image sourced from this BBC article.
Putler has been HUMILIATED by the Kursk offensive and this proves that Russia's army is in tatters and unable even to defend its own territory. However, it is simultaneously true that Russia poses an existential threat to countries thousands of miles away, as this recent Politico article demonstrates. Ireland - a country that immediately springs to mind as one surrounded by enemies - is being bullied due to its lack of military.
Despite bearing responsibility for 16 percent of the EU’s territorial waters, and the fact that 75 percent of transatlantic undersea cables pass through or near Irish waters, Ireland is totally defenseless. And I mean completely unable to protect critical infrastructure, or even pretend to secure its own borders. [...] Ireland’s “navy” of six patrol vessels is currently operating with one operational ship due to chronic staff shortages. [...] Ireland simply has no undersea capabilities. How could it, when it barely spends 0.2 percent of GDP on security and defense? And it has, in effect, abdicated responsibility for protecting the Europe’s northwestern borders.
For all we know, the dreaded sea-people from the Bronze Age Collapse could soon emerge from the North Atlantic.
Unfortunately, things are even worse up in the skies. Ireland has no combat jets, and it’s the only country in Europe that can’t monitor its own airspace due to the lack of primary radar systems. Instead, the country has outsourced its security to Britain in a technically secret agreement between Dublin and London, which effectively cedes control over Irish air space to the Royal Air Force. This must be the luck of the Irish — smile and get someone else to protect you for free.
While this is very silly, rearmament has long been a part of US imperial strategy on an economic level. Desai, discussing the US imperial strategy in the WW2 period:
By 1947 [...] the domestic postwar consumer boom was nearing its end. While financing exports became more urgent, the 1946 elections returned a Congress unlikely to approve further loans. Now the Truman Administration concocted the ‘red menace’ to ‘scare the hell out of the country’, enunciated the Truman Doctrine of US support for armed resistance to ‘subjugation’ which launched the cold war, and Congress granted $400 million to prevent left-wing triumphs in Greece and Turkey in 1947.
One reading of history states that the US was so intimidated by the USSR that this forced a policy of massive arms production even outside of official wartime. Why this arms production is not occurring today can be puzzling, and (very reasonably) explained by neoliberals exporting industrial production overseas. However, a different historical reading can explain both the first Cold War, and the ongoing situation in which American weaponry is being almost purposefully given in insufficient numbers to give Ukraine a chance of victory and thus only prolonging their suffering (while generating massive profit for the military-industrial complex):
In this sense the Cold War was not the cause of US imperial policy but its effect. It combined financing exports with fighting combined development by national capitalisms as well as communism. When such ‘totalitarian regimes’ threatened ‘free peoples’, ‘America’s world economic responsibilities’ included aid to countries battling them.
By selling massively expensive weapons to Europe, America could simultaneously guarantee export markets for its industries, trap Europe into reliance on American industries at the expense of their own, and divert European funds away from constructing factories which could compete with American ones. Providing a way to defend against Soviet communism (and now Russian "imperialism") is merely a happy side-effect, and so the lack of effectiveness of American weaponry is causing no great panic among the military-industrial complex, nor an urgent plan to quintuple artillery shell production or Patriot missile production - the deals for F-35s and such are still there, and they are what matter.
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 Ireland! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail 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.
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Requesting thoughts from the New Mega Economic Bureau:
I do believe the prospects for the Israeli economy are very grim (inshallah). They've lost a huge number of citizens to emigration, disability, and death. The economy relied quite a bit on over 200k Palestinian workers who Israel has said they don't intend on welcoming back. I think they will stick to that, and their plans for replacing those workers from others from places like India I don't think will pan out (both for logistical reasons and because Israelis are deeply racist). I can't imagine they will be able to draw immigrants like they used to and will likely bleed more citizens as they've shown their own people just how precarious their lives there are. The tourism industry there is dead. Their reputation in surveillance and security - an important export industry for them - has taken a massive reputational hit. I doubt Intel will want to continue on there.
When the potential destruction of the Israeli economy (and thus, by extension, the Israeli state) is brought up, a perfectly understandable retort is that the US will do whatever they need to to prop up the Israeli economy. That's what I more or less what I think at least on the surface. But the question I have been asking myself is: is it even possible for the US to prop up the Israeli economy?
My understanding is that all "aid" from the US to Israel takes the form of US dollars being used to purchase US-made munitions and military equipment. The money never touches Israeli hands, is never sent through the Isreali economy, and is not used for anything "productive" from the Israeli economic perspective. And this the general modus operandi for US foreign aid - the foreign country doesn't get cash and they CERTAINLY aren't granted like, the ability to recruit US firms to build facilities there. So point being... sure, the US can take USD and buy not just military gear from the US MIC, but they can also buy food from US farmers, cars from US manufacturers, etc. They can make sure Israel has food to eat and coal to keep power plants running. But all of that won't actually do anything for the real, productive economy of Israel.
Oct 7 has shattered the very foundations of the productive economy of Israel - industrial capital, in the language of vol 2 of Capital. And these fundamental problems that have been created cannot be cured with US foreign aid. If I'm right then I don't think there's any the US can do in order to rescue the Israeli economy in the long run.
Thoughts?
It is...problematic to talk about this for obvious reasons, but there is no way that Israel won't be able to get extreme bank loans at some point. Eventually they'll just have to sell stolen land instead of giving it away for free to settlers.
Intel isn’t going to give up on producing chips in occupied Palestine until their factory starts getting hit with ordnance. They’re still building an expansion.
The two important things I’d like to point out related to this are:
- Israel provides an important tech service to
, which is that they aren’t bound by the same laws as far as hacking and software fuckery are concerned. This is a big part of why so much fucked up police state software comes from Israel. Americans and American companies can’t legally develop or sell the tools that cops use to hack your phone and such, and the American security state really needs to copy your phone and look at your nudes. - Second, a ton of engineers and scientists from the former
are now Israelis. This is according to a coworker of mine who lived it: After the illegal coup which dissolved the USSR, the people who knew shit was about to get really bad and had the means to escape did. This lead to a huge wave of immigration to 
and , but they shut the door pretty quickly. 
opened their doors to any Jewish person who wanted to get out of the crumbling mess, so Russian is the second most commonly used language behind Hebrew in the Zionist entity.
Okay, I drank too much and don’t recall where i was going with that second point, but it’s something I wanted hexbears to think about when I started writing it. Not to make you sympathize with them, as it’s not like they’re currently committed communists, but to improve your understanding of the historical forces at play.
And post.
- Israel provides an important tech service to
I think they will stick to that, and their plans for replacing those workers from others from places like India I don't think will pan out (both for logistical reasons and because Israelis are deeply racist).
All the khaleejis pull this off just fine.
If you want to look at what is most likely in store for the Israeli economy, you should look at what happened it after the Yom Kippur War. They kept defense spending really high as a percentage of GDP and it stagnated their economy growth. They are increasingly borrowing to finance the war, as revenues are down, and they will have to borrow more to rebuild. The ruling coalition relies on the support of a Haredi community that 1) doesn't want to serve in the war and 2) want more and more money to support their lifestyle. This is, of course, in conflict with the tech and finance workers who drive probably the most significant portions of Israelis economy, and then primary and secondary order service workers that support the lifestyles of those tech and finance workers. All of these people are eligible to get drafted and have to pay for the Haredim's social support, which is not popular among the groups. The country is a mess and there is a huge internal conflict that will need to be unwound. Normally, I would expect austerity post war, but I'm not sure.
I think the US/NATO could technically prop up Israel, at least enough to help them limp along. The rest of the West has a lot of money invested in Israel, and if it's determined that the rest of the West is going to have issues if the Israeli economy collapses and defaults on debt, then I think we will see an economic intervention. You also have to take into account that the Zionist lobby is very strong in the US. The just dropped $25M in two house races. What will it spend to make sure Israel gets a sweetheart deal in terms of a bailout/debt forgiveness?
All the khaleejis pull this off just fine.
Went there. Know some people from there. They are no where near as racist as Israelis. Zionists are so racist that they're currently wrecking their own economy by attacking the low wage labor they desperately need that Palestinians provided.
The closest racism I can think of that somewhat mirrors Zionist depravity is MAGA racism against anyone they deem "illegal". Look at Florida now, their economy took a substantial hit when desantis took office and promised a hard line stance on illegal immigration.
Fruit rots on the fields, and Florida had 2 industries: agriculture and tourism. Both have suffered, but especially the former.
This isn't even unique to Florida, since Trump took office, the people that did the jobs that actually were necessary to american's lives (for dirt wages) are too afraid to come to work. This is understandable and I don't blame them at all. Why would you show up to work dirt wages to pick produce under the threat of deportation at the hands of ICE?