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Bulletins and News Discussion from June 17th to June 23rd, 2024 - Macron's Gambit - COTW: France

Image is of the leaders of various parties making up the French left coalition in the coming parliamentary elections, from this article.

Macron has recently called a snap parliamentary election in the aftermath of the far-right getting a large proportion of the votes in the EU elections. Why exactly he called an election at a point of profound weakness is a little beyond me. Explanations that I've seen range from "He thinks the element of surprise will benefit his party and not others," to "WW3 is about to start and he doesn't want to be leader for it," (which, like, isn't true - Macron is the President of France, not Prime Minister, he won't be unseated by this election and he has said he will not stand down regardless of result), to "He doesn't want to swim in the shit-filled Seine."

While we still have a couple weeks to go, the polling I've seen generally puts the far-right in first place with the left-wing coalition slightly behind, with Macron's party all the way back in third place. Anybody who knows anything about French politics knows that while France does actually have something of a left opposition in aggregate (in contrast to the two wings of the Capitalist Party in the UK and the US, for example), French left coalitions are profoundly unstable and this one will inevitably split - perhaps even before the voting begins - meaning they aren't nearly as useful as they otherwise could be.

Living in a France governed by far right parties would be awful, but maybe they might at least be against the carnage in Ukraine, and sue for peace with Russia? Well, possibly not, if the example of Meloni in Italy is anything to go by. It seems that the differences between the "centrist" parties and the fascist ones truly are not that great, beholden to the exact same set of capitalists regardless of which party wins, and will likely bend the knee to NATO, though they may grumble a lot. Would a left coalition be better on Russia/NATO? They have already helpfully told us that they won't (only opposing sending French troops to Ukraine but otherwise being full steam ahead), and additionally are genocidal Zionists. Western leftists have long been hampered by a dramatically faulty misunderstanding of how geopolitics works, with many seemingly believing "imperialism is when countries interact with other countries" and "democracy is when you can vote between two parties even if widely popular policies aren't at all represented by either of them, and if those popular policies are enacted but it's by a one-party state then that's authoritarian evil" and other such strange ideas, making them terminally useless on foreign issues and pretty unremarkable on domestic issues too. France is no exception.

And just to top it all off, this is coming in a period of further imperial decline for the tattered remains of the French empire, with West Africa rebelling and Kanaky (New Caledonia) deeply unhappy with recent French decisions.

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 France! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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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  • This is different from my usual posts. It is an open letter from one of the only Marxist formulations in my country. I think it succinctly addresses a lot of the local arguments that are of interesting rhetorical value and in which I assume a lot of the people here are not often exposed to, especially when Western media often likes to picture Malaysia as Pro-Hamas and Pro-Palestine.

    Note: It is common to refer to people by their first names in formal settings because a majority of the ethnic groups here have no concept of a family name. This is true for Indonesia and Brunei as well.

    Palestine is more important

    I take note of Tengku Zafrul’s defence of BlackRock, which has strong links to Israel, arguing that it has major shares in Apple, WhatsApp and Facebook. I take note of Defence Minister Khaled Nordin defending the inclusion of Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems, both complicit in Israel’s military dominance, in the recent Defence Service Asia (DSA) 2024 expo held in Kuala Lumpur with the argument that Malaysia is a free trading nation. I take note of Anwar’s urge of caution against not participating in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (Rimpac), a US-led maritime military exercise which includes the participation of the Israeli army.

    But one thing remains. Palestine is more important.

    Zafrul should understand that the deep roots of BlackRock in all major cultural mechanisms of the world is a cause for concern, not submission. Khaled should understand that giving space for those actively involved in the cleansing of innocent souls to put up a booth in our nation’s capitol is indirect endorsement of their practices. Anwar, so vocal with his support for Palestine when a microphone is in his hand, should understand participating in any US-led military exercise, especially with the direct involvement of Israel, makes his supposed support ring hollow. None of these have to do with global participation or the United Nations, whose highest court ordered Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah.

    We understand that this capitalist government alongside every other capitalist government we have had bends the knee willingly to the US and it’s allies no matter how many lives are lost. We understand the need for free trade and the intricacies of navigating an unfree world with the conglomerate of NATO nations bullying others willingly. We understand that taking any material step to disrupt the lives of the US, Israel and their military industrial complex is an immense risk for our nation.

    Having said all of that, Palestine is more important.

    We know this government wants to make political gains against Perikatan Nasional, so every Palestine protest by them is labelled a political ploy. We know Perikatan are also only using this issue for clout, using the issue to further divide Malaysians on the basis of race and religion. We know the mudslinging on both parts is to distract from the real issues people like BDS Malaysia and Gegar are pushing.

    We acknowledge all of that. But Palestine is more important.

    Have some perspective. There is a genocide happening. There are pictures of children being dismembered. There are videos of bombs raining down on innocent Palestinians. Bombs made by whom, funded by whom? And at this time when the world is divesting, when people around the globe are protesting and day-by-day, though the bombs keep raining down, the will of the Palestinian people remains unbroken. When victory approaches as each material step is taken by those who claim to be allies of Palestine. When necessary military action is taken by all who can over the land Israel occupies. Is it at this time we want to play the card of free trade, global citizenship and national security?

    It is time to take some risks. Begin withdrawing from all of the above actions. Send back the US ambassador until the conflict is over. Take some risks because, to us, Palestine is more important. To you?

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