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.
It really does seem like the momentum has shifted in Kamala’s favor. While I do think it’s still basically a coin flip, I’ve gone from slightly favoring Trump to slightly favoring Kamala in the last couple days.
And if Kamala ends up winning and you’re feeling a bummed about it, just remember that we cannot “punish” the Democratic Party. If they do lose Michigan due to Gaza and losing Michigan causes them to lose it all, that will not change their policies and attitude towards Palestinians one iota. They will not have a come-to-Jesus moment and decide they need to change course. The genocide in Gaza is America’s genocide, subcontracted out to the Israelis. The current uniparty policy of fascism and imperial domination of Western Asia will continue unabated regardless of who is president. We have to find alternate routes and do what we can to support the Resistance, in whom the only hope for liberation rests.
I've never hoped to change the Democrats' mind, TBH. What I want is for PEOPLE to see that the Democrats lost because of the genocide. And for them to see that openly conducted genocide is still not accepted by the working class.
That would just lead to the media saying that independents were turned off by the democratic base accommodating Muslims oops I mean terrorists.
Sure. The mainstream media is going to say what it's going to say. We can pretty much always expect that to be about the worst spin possible. shrug
True, for the democrats losing will not mean a moment of self reflection, it'll make them close their ranks and become more unhinged and reactionary. See their reaction towards leftists when they lost to Trump in 2016, instead of changing and inviting them to a coalition, they blamed and shamed them and made them responsible for Trump (when it was their fault to begin with). It'll be the same if Harris loses, instead of opening up to the arabs and muslims, they'll blame them and they'll continue to shift to the right. They'll feed them to the Republicans as punishment, they don't care, liberals are no different than nazis.
And no Bernie and no AOC will be there to prevent it.
Winning also won't mean a moment of self-reflection either. They will become the smuggest mother fuckers around, they will take it as justification that they can be unhinged reactionaries.
In fact, exactly the same outcome happens both ways.
How do you figure?
Seeing shifts in polling on Thurs-Fri.
If you are gonna look at polls, looking at 538's aggregate is still your best bet. Her polling numbers are still slightly declining.
Probably referring to the Selzer Iowa poll which suggests a possible upset in Kamala's favor.
Alot of scared people who are realizing that the new homeless laws are leading to camps being built where they live. Those camps may hold more than just homeless based on Trump beating off to the alien and sedition act.