Bulletins and News Discussion from October 28th to November 3rd, 2024 - LDP Falls Flat / Yet Neoliberalism / Rampages Onward - COTW: Japan
Bulletins and News Discussion from October 28th to November 3rd, 2024 - LDP Falls Flat / Yet Neoliberalism / Rampages Onward - COTW: Japan
Image is from this SCMP article.
Much of the analysis below is sourced from Michael Roberts' great website.
Japan's ruling parliamentary coalition, consisting of the LDP (purple) and it's junior coalition partner Komeito (in light pink) have lost their ruling majority. They have ruled post-war Japan for almost its entire history. The LDP is currently led by Shigeru Ishiba after Kishida stood down due to a corruption scandal, and ties to the Unification Church.
While geopolitical factors (over the cold war between the US and China, etc) may have played a role, by far the biggest reason for this result in the poor economic conditions over the past few years. Inflation has risen and real wages have fallen, with little relief for the working class via things like tax reductions. While inequality in Japan is not as extreme as in America, it is still profound, with the top 10% possessing 60% of the wealth, while the bottom 50% possess just 5%.
Shinzo Abe previously tried to boost economic performance through monetary easing and fiscal deficits, while Kishida ran on a "new capitalism" which rejected Abe's neoliberalism and promised to reduce inequality. Nothing substantial has resulted from all this, however, other than increasing corporate wealth. Innovation continues to fall, and domestic profitability is low, resulting in decreasing investment at home by Japanese corporations. Labour productivity growth has only slightly picked up since the mid-2000s and is falling again. The rate of profit has fallen by half since the 1960s, and Japan has been in a manufacturing recession - or very close to it - since late 2022. In essence: there is no choice but between stagnation or decline.
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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 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.
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.
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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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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The alt-media sphere is its own thing separate from any of the topics it purveys. It also has its own subdivisions. Most of them are not truly separate from the NATO intellectual apparatus. Most of them walk directly into traps laid by the feds. Reminder Catherine Shakdam did her thing without any issues and we only know it because she admitted it.
You may also want to ask why people who frequent a communist website post Chris Hedges, a vehement anticommunist and all-around shady individual. Why they post More Perfect Union, which - before their website remodel made it less prominent - loudly solicited "small business owners and veterans" to become their local ambassadors, and slobbers all over the Constitution and Founding Daddies.
Sometimes he admits things. And since libs love their fucking generals—often even the fucking wacko ones—it might help to shove him in their faces ("Even this guy...").
Otherwise, he's a landslide of, "The world is dying because of all this WOKE STUFF!" and other such feces.
Because multipolarity isn't inherently a left wing thing, quite the opposite, most people i know who are very vocal about multipolarism are either nazbols or fans of Alexander "Hamas cannot win" Dugin. There's a reason why Orbán, who is israhell's most loyal lapdog in the EU (and is a multipolarist also but not explicitly), is inviting Mearsheimer and Sachs to meet him here.
Orban is a huge fan of isreal because he fundamentally doesn't think Jews belong in Europe, which is a statement that Netanyahu has also directly echoed. Orban is also the man of whom Netanyahu or his failson (can't remember his name) said "he is antisemetic, but he is on our side".
Thats true, reinforces my point tho.
No idea. I mean his analysis are horrible and he is rarely right about anything.
he called Ukraine losing as it is. obviously nobody agrees with his politics and his belief in American exceptionalism. a lot of the ex-military analysts have worked with Israel. none of them are even close to ML or anything remotely left leaning. you listen to them for their opinion on military stuff, not politics, philosophy or ethical guidance.
and i dunno who counts as a multipolarity person. Danny Hiphong? Pepe Escobar? Ben Norton? none of the above have interviewed Douglas McGregor as far as I know. It's like saying why do Chinese people like John Mearschimer when he's a ghoul? It's because he tells the truth.
I was thinking for exemple about how he was expecting turkey to fight the zionist entity. In my opinion scott ritter has a better track record when it come to his analysis. But I don't expect any of them to be anti imperialist be it the duran brian ect.