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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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 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.
Backstabbing in BRICS? President Maduro has just revealed that Brazil told him that they would not veto Venezuela’s membership, but at the last minute Lula’s government blocked them off.
yea, it was 100% about the venezuelan elections drama about them not doing what Lula told them
lula is increasingly proving to be a fucking dork.
The Bernardification of idols
Never trust liberals.
Always trust liberals.... To fuck over anyone for personal gain.
Maybe when he hit his head he forgot his promise 🤕
Well, Brazil is right there next to Venezuela, and has a high tech oil industry. Yet it was in cooperation with iran that Venezuela began developing its own refining capacity.
Brazil has always been on the fence, very much like russia
Venezuela developed most of their oil industry during their neoliberal times with help from private companies from the US. When Obama/Trump began sanctioning Venezuela, it also affected their refining capacities. Biden promised to pay Venezuela and to give parts for the oil refineries but it never happened because Biden is a POS liar, that sanctions Venezuela, but still buys oil from them. Brazil is known for not sharing their technologies and Brazil never cared too much about Venezuela because Brazil has their own oil fields. They used to pretty much own like 60% of the Bolivian economy, until Evo said he would buy it from Lula and he did, and Lula didn't care to lose that because Evo was an ally of his anyway that would sell Brazil cheap gas.
But after the sanctions, Venezuela's oil industry began developing itself, these last few years their production gas been rising, and the refineries that were almost abandoned due to sanctions are working again. Perhaps not in full, but there has been indigenous development, and iran has helped with that, by sending engineers, swapping oil, equipment and chemicals. Brazil could have lent a hand, but as you said, they didn't care.
For what it's worth, I read somewhere (can't remember where exactly) that Russia has offered to try to settle the diplomatic feud between Brazil and Venezuela. I suspect VZ will become a partner state in due time, once a more level-headed statesman can convince Lula to stop rat-fucking for the greater good of BRICS.
on pepe escobar's telegram he linked to an article explaining that Brazil blocked Venezuela because (i'm simplifying it here) they don't want to get in trouble with the US
I saw on some liberal newspaper that this wasn't the final list, but just a pre-list or something like that. You can read more about this in this article I found (Portuguese Only). I tend not to comment about these things since these situation always change from time to time, Petro used to attack Maduro during the Presidential election, but as president he visited Caracas and kicked out Guaido. As it was said before, Lula probably only did this because Maduro didn't follow what Brazil wanted, and because of the i nfluce of Lula's actions on the elections in Brazil.
New Belden Rule, never slip and hit your head in the bathroom
I don’t think it is really surprising, BRICs is basically a complain blocs with no concrete ideology and with frenemies as members