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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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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Minor but still significant victory for LGBT rights in China https://www.attitude.co.uk/news/world/chinese-court-recognises-two-legal-mothers-in-landmark-lgbtq-ruling-471531/
china still has a long way to go with lgbt rights, but at least they're moving in the right direction. can't say the same for the western world
Just legalise gay marriage man why the hell is it taking so long
Western imperialists taking up the rainbow flag as their banner has made progressing on these issues outside the imperial core a lot more difficult, as any widespread concerted campaign will likely have western NGOs involved and be seen as an arm of imperialism. That’s why these countries can only progress bit by bit at their own speed, because wide sweeping changes have these associated risks now.
Blame the western imperialists for conflating LGBT rights and genocidal bombing campaigns together. Blame western “progressives” for happily being an arm of the NGO-imperialist complex.
I don't think rainbow imperialism is really relevant to China or the Chinese State tbqh. We aren't talking about Afghanistan. If the CPC estabilishment wants to take action on LGBT rights, they'll just do it. Be it from organic demand from grassroots or due to an international image issue, China is sovereign enough to do what it wants.
Different populations and political systems arrive at solutions at different rates. China has its share of conservative minded people, as well as older people in government. Not to mention it's fair share of brainworms. Every country on Earth has that constituency of people prone to become transvestigators, and who believe Russia is gonna win the war because 'western militaries are filled with women and lgbtrans'. So, yeah, China, Vietnam, Cuba these countries are gonna do things at their own pace, with their own priorities, and not just because somebody else did it first.
Let's also not forget how overnight LGBT issues changed in the West. Obama was not in favor of gay marriage in his first term. He only changed tack due to lobbying and bribery from wealthy donors and corporations. Hell, here in Brazil gay marriage is legal entirely because of judicial fiat.
Hell, here in Brazil gay marriage is legal entirely because of judicial fiat.
This is how it happened in the US also. It did not happen through legislation, but through a Supreme Court case. Then all of a sudden all these liberal politicians who never considered it a priority and wouldn't campaign for equality if it cost them so much as one vote took credit for it.
Yeah my vague sense is that there isn't much of a reactionary movement in China, either. There are individuals that oppose gay people but I don't think there is an equivalent if the Heritage Foundation or anything like that. If I'm right about that then there wouldn't be much backlash if gay marriage were simply legalized.
There are homophobic cults like Falun Gong and Christian sects, but they are mostly persecuted and under the thumb of the state
They could be persecuted harder though. Get cracking Xi!
Look up how china sometimes treats black basketball players
This is exaggerated by white nations to pretend they aren’t the most racist cesspits on earth
Look up how china sometimes treats black basketball players
why is it that a couple racist individuals in China becomes "China"? 1.4 billion people judged by the actions of what, a small handful? 5? 10? Come the fuck on, this is not comparable to a long history of racialized genocide, slavery and systematic oppression and its lingering effects.
In Hong Kong it was the pro-UK, pro-colonizer landlord class of protesters that were racist against LeBron James and BLM. They were anti-mainland China and racist against mainlanders AND black people and anyone who wasn't rich asian or white. They accepted Azov white supremacists from Ukraine into their movement to fight with them against police. It was the pro-Chinese, pro-mainland faction that were calling them out. This gets conveniently ignored by western leftists, the most westernized parts of China are the most racist.
That's fine and all but asian racism against black people is unequivocally a thing. Where it came from and whether it is perpetuated by Chinese bourgeoisie in Africa is another matter, but it is a thing.
I think you are being racist against Asians right now with such broad generalizations and lack of any institutional or systemic racism here
i cant believe there are racists in china
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Damn I didn't know conservative characteristics were just a Chinese thing
I mean yeah? Being a victim of imperialism for so long is probably has a conservatizing effect
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I am aware of all of this & even like China FYI
If China was truly conservative they’d normalize it because pre colonialism China was rather accepting (based off what I’ve read here and in other left spaces).
A Chinese retvrn guy but his pfp is a statue of a gay emperor.
No, precolonial China was not accepting of LGBT people. At various points in history it was varying levels of acceptable for male rulers and bureaucrats to have male lovers. Some of these relationships but not all were pederastic as well. There was an alleged institution in one province where gay men could marry each other but would have to break up eventually and find wives in order to reproduce the family unit. Patriarchal cultures at best have some sort of mechanism to recuperate LGBT people. The only culture that can be accepting of LGBT people is communism.
Anyway, go read The Fragrant Companion by Li Yu for 17th century sapphic Chinese literature with obligatory comphet. Better representation than all of modern Chinese TV lol.
Thank you for correcting the incorrect information I had.
Yeah it's no problem. The Han emperors did have a lot of male lovers to be fair.
China will do its own thing and at its own pace. No Westerners or countries get to impose their will upon them.
You know how incredibly ironic this sounds when the US literaly does just that in Taiwan(though at least here they'll be forced into a war) or the whole dollar dominance issue you love to talk about so much. And you not even wrong on that either, dedollarization isn't happening yet etc, but at the same time yeah nobody will impose their will on China, except the US Secretary of State or the Fed, then its always a red carpet reception lol.
Gay marriage is legal in China in the province of Taiwan. Maybe if the Taiwanese ruling class stopped dreaming about total war with the mainland they could campaign for increased social rights for queer people and bridge the gap.
But no the CIA has to fund queer NGOs and do rainbow imperialism all over the world and the Chinese populace still substantially rural and conservative and there's no push in the CPPCC to legalize gay marriage atm. The CPC can't just up and legalize gay marriage without the consent of the majority of Chinese people, but they can make sure that Chinese queer citizens are not mistreated more than they already would be because of their gender/sexuality.
The US only got gay marriage because we queer people had to die and fight for our lives for decades (even while Reagan let loose AIDS on us and systematically denied treatment) and the supreme court of unelected lawyers took pity.
sorry for ranting, but I think queer rights has the most amount of promise in a socialist system (I mean look at Cuba which worked through its anti-queer brainworms) but every country is different and one shouldn't be an idealist.