Bulletins and News Discussion from March 11th to March 17th, 2024 - It's Eurover - COTW: Portugal
Bulletins and News Discussion from March 11th to March 17th, 2024 - It's Eurover - COTW: Portugal
This year really is just gonna be us swinging from election to election, I suppose. I feel Lenin's beaming red eyes on me.
Up next on our electoral tour is Portugal. The current government - a coalition of the center-left Socialists and the center-right Social Democrats - has been mired in corruption scandals, resulting in a general election being called a mere two years after the last one. The fascist and vaguely populist Chega party has gained significant support over the last two years due to the economic hardships. Yesterday, the Social Democrats secured a narrow win of 79 seats compared to the Socialists' 77. Chega, in third place at 48, would appear to be the best candidate for a coalition, though the leader of the Social Democrats has said that they would refuse a coalition with them due to their xenophobic views. Regardless, the fascist surge is worrying, if expected.
Portugal's economy is going pretty badly even as European countries go, with little growth in productivity or investment over the last decade. The origins of this crisis date back to Portugal making the euro their national currency in the early 2000s, thus surrendering their ability to control their own currency, becoming reliant on investment from Germany and France, and suffering greatly in the 2012 European debt crisis. Unemployment and low wages spurred emigration; in 2013, the youth employment rate was about 40%; this has only come down to 25% recently and is increasing again. The government is heavily reliant on debt for public spending, with a debt-to-GDP ratio skyrocketing to over 100% in the two decades since the turn of the millennium. The capitalist sector is simply not profitable enough and hasn't been for 40 years, which is only a problem if you are a capitalist economy. For more on the Portuguese economy, check out Michael Roberts' recent analysis, from which I obtained a lot of this information.
Inside Portugal is the same story playing out across much of Europe. A failing center or center-left political party, unable to cope with the economic troubles of the last few years due to absolute obedience to neoliberal policies. A fascist party rising, but with no alternative economic plan, hoping that perhaps oppressing minorities and going after "wokeism" will make their God, The Economy, rain blessings down on them again.
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 Portugal! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
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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"A Faster Rearmament": Danish Regime Puts Warfare Over Welfare
Increased use of forced military service as well as lavish arms purchases at the expense of social services are claimed to be necessary to deter imagined Russian threat.
Full text
THE WEST'S DESCENT INTO FASCISM — In a carefully choreographed press conference in Copenhagen today Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's undisputed social democratic supreme leader, announced her hard right regime's plans for what she herself terms "a faster rearmament".
Flanked by minister of defense Troels Lund Poulsen and foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, in what was intended as a display of internal regime unity, the supreme leader went on stage before a select audience of loyalist reporters in the government compound's oppressively grey-tinted hall of mirrors with a stark message for the Danish public: Evil forces are looming, a rapid militarisation of society is necessary and sacrifices will have to be made by the common people.
Spending Soaring
Frederiksen's regime is sparing no expenses in their aggressive military buildup. Already this year military spending will exceed the minimum of two percent of GDP imposed on Denmark by it's American overlords and reach 2.4 percent of GDP. Over the next ten years the regime intends to spend DKK 190 bln. (almost USD 28 bln.) on the military.
The money is going to be spent on purchasing among other things armoured vehicles, surface to air missiles and anti-submarine weapons.
Frederiksen stated that Denmark "shouldn't be a country sheltered by others", tapping in to repeated regime messaging about the windswept Nordic kingdom not contributing their fair share to the American NATO pact.
Forced Service To Solve Recruitment Woes
A large part of the plan consists in expanding the use of forced military service despite human rights concerns. Today only young Danish men risks being conscripted into military service for the regime. In the future young women will also be affected. Regime messaging tried to cast this as a stride forwards for gender equality.
Not only will all genders be at risk of forced military service, more of them than today will be press ganged into the military and they will be there for longer.
In a break with previous policies, where only volunteers were deployed to active duty, conscripts will now face the risk of being deployed to NATO pact rapid response brigades.
The increased use of forced military service happens to solve a perceived recruitment crisis in the Danish military. When asked why increased salary to troops has not been attempted before using forced conscription, minister of defense Poulsen deflected, claiming that salaries were "a union contract issue".
"Europe is at a fateful moment"
"We are not rearming because we want war," said Mette Frederiksen "We are rearming to avoid it". She was seconded by her minister of defense who claimed that the military is "facing a monumental task" and said that "Europe is at a fateful moment " before he went on to talk about how the perceived threat of alleged Russian aggression had increased over the last year.
Foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen went on to state that Russia was not a direct threat to Denmark at the moment but claimed that rearmament is necessary to prevent them from becoming one in the future.
Economic Hardship Amid Military Spending Spree
The dominant reactionary factions in Denmark's rubberstamp parliament has already made positive statements about most of the regime's grandiose military plans, making it a near certainty that significantly increased parts of the Danish national budget will go to the military.
Mette Frederiksen states that the aggressive military buildup going to mean that "in the future we can't afford everything we want", echoing her statements in a Financial Times interview earlier this year where the supreme leader claimed there were no money available for further investments in social welfare due to the alleged necessity of splurging on the military.
While funding for the military seemingly has no end, the picture is grimmer in most parts of the Danish public sector where lack of investment has left essential services such as schools and hospitals chronically understaffed and underfunded. This dire situation is exacerbated by a recent inflation crisis caused by economic mismanagement in the capitalist bloc causing hardship for poor and marginalised Danes.
Euro way of life go
Ask an American why their wages, benifets, and healthcare suck. Ask them why they can't afford education or a home anymore.
There's more than enough money coming into the US for it to have socialized healthcare and a military if the former was a priority for anyone in the government
The US already spends more public funds per capita on healthcare than any country. On top of that comes a private healthcare spending per capita only surpassed by Switzerland. Whatever it is the American healthcare system needs it is not more money. Maybe less grifting and profiteering would be a good place to start.