this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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Image is of Donald Trump Jr. in Greenland, proudly demonstrating what he's learned in his standing lessons.


The imperial core is continuing the process of self-cannibalization as the interimperial wars between Europe and the US over resource and territorial control continue. Greenland, populated with less than a hundred thousand heavily exploited people, is the newest territory to fall under Trump's gaze. The main draw is the mineral resources present there, of which it boasts nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum, and much more than remains unexplored under the ice. But the ice is melting, and profit must be made. There is an additional element of wanting Arctic territory to counter Chinese and especially Russian interests and aims; Russia is increasingly eyeing the northern Arctic route as an alternative to more vulnerable routes through the Suez Canal or around Africa, and is investing heavily in icebreakers for that purpose.

However, even if Europe possessed the desire to resist American annexations - and they absolutely do not, at the end of the day - they do not even have the ability. Denmark may, to a lesser or greater extent, make angry sounds and talk about national honour or some such, but their military would be trampled underfoot by even the New York Police Department, let alone a concerted military effort by the US. If Trump wants Greenland, he will have it. This will naturally increase the grumbling in Europe about reconsidering the Transatlantic alliance, and that grumbling may, in the medium-term future, as the American Empire continues its decline, lead to meaningful results. But in the short term, Europe shall have to bear whatever Trump throws at them, for they obviously cannot now ally with Russia, who was the natural counterweight to American interests for decades before 2022.


Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

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 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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[–] Praxagora@hexbear.net 3 points 17 minutes ago

Checking in from my new Little Red Book "#wuhluhwuh" addiction to post this quote I just saw on there (the app is such good agitprop) of the Chinese rep apparently popping off at the UNSC today. I checked their UN mission site transcript and IT'S TRUE lol. Here's some choice excerpts.

For some time now, and in fact today, the US has been peddling false narrative to discredit and smear China at the Council's meetings on the Ukraine issue. [...] At earlier meetings, I responded to the US fallacies many times. Today, I might go a little further. 

First, if China had really provided military supplies to Russia, the situation on the battleground would not have been where it is now. [...]

[...] The fact is, since the beginning, the US has used the Ukraine war to advance its geopolitical strategy and serve its own agenda. To sum up, first, the US wants nothing more than a weakened and defeated Russia through the war, so as to dominate European security and further increase its influence in Europe. Second, through the war, the US intends to stoke up bloc confrontation, create divisions, and contain and isolate China, a strategic rival in their eyes. Third, the US wishes to project a positive image to offset the international community's criticism of its policies in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the US has failed on all three attempts.

[–] FuckyWucky@hexbear.net 24 points 4 hours ago (3 children)
[–] Fishroot@hexbear.net 8 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security on Monday, with the increases ranging from 70 yuan (US$9.55) a month to over 200 yuan.

Lmao, absolutely pathetic.

70 is about 2 bowls of Lanzhou Lamian in GZ

[–] SevenSkalls@hexbear.net 10 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Woo! Plus @xiaohongshu is always saying they need to switch to a consumer economy over manufacturing so hopefully this is the first step towards that.

[–] xiaohongshu@hexbear.net 9 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (2 children)

It’s a small step but the commentary I’ve seen is that minimum wage growth has halved compared to a decade earlier (which went from a national average of 14% in 2014 to only 5% in 2023).

Each data point is the January yoy minimum wage growth per province. The outlier in 2023 was Anhui lol, which did not raise its minimum wage for the previous eight years.

The fundamental problem is that budget spending at the national level is still tied to foreign reserve accumulation and government bond selling, instead of just printing the money needed to raise wages. This direct affects how the local government spends as well since many local governments are facing budgetary issues with falling property prices and insolvency. So we still need an ideological breakthrough to see real growth.

[–] niph@hexbear.net 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Is it true that covid restrictions also ate up a bunch of local government budgets? Heard it from relatives

[–] Fishroot@hexbear.net 2 points 55 minutes ago* (last edited 51 minutes ago)

If the budget of the government is tied to GDP growth. Yeah pretty much.

My relatives know a lot of migrant workers in the construction sector and most of them went back to the countryside due to the lack of work since covid.

[–] FuckyWucky@hexbear.net 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Damn, sad that some local governments didn't raise minimum wage for 8 years. One of the characteristics everyone likes to mention about China is that unlike other countries, it constantly kept up the minimum wages.

[–] xiaohongshu@hexbear.net 8 points 3 hours ago

You can really see that wage growth tied to GDP growth. 2014 was the year the “twin surplus” miracle ended in China and growth has been slowing since. There are a lot of financial instruments that have been used to pump money like SLF, MLF and reverse repo but they’re all temporary solutions compared to the central bank just creating net new financial assets. But that would require the central bankers to give up adhering to their indoctrinated neoliberal ideology lol.

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 7 points 3 hours ago

Fucking something from those libs meow-tankie

[–] xiaohongshu@hexbear.net 17 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

China's economy beats forecasts in 2024, braces for trade war

BEIJING, Jan 17 (Reuters) - China's economy ended 2024 on better footing than expected helped by a flurry of stimulus measures, although the threat of a new trade war with the United States and weak domestic demand could hurt confidence in a broader recovery this year.

Exports, one of the few bright spots, could lose steam as United States President-elect Donald Trump, who has proposed hefty tariffs on Chinese goods, is set to return to the White House next week.

For the full-year 2024, the world's second-largest economy grew 5.0%, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data showed on Friday, meeting the government's annual growth target of around 5%. Analysts had forecast 4.9% growth.

The economy grew 5.4% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, significantly beating analysts' expectations and marking the quickest since the second quarter of 2023.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast fourth-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) would expand 5.0% from a year earlier, quickening from the third-quarter's 4.6% pace as a flurry of support measures began to kick in.

"China's economy is showing signs of revival, led by industrial output and exports," said Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC in Hong Kong.

However, he added, the strong GDP print last quarter may already have been flattered by front-loading of shipments to the U.S. - something that will inevitably lead to a pay-back with production and exports turning down once tariffs begin to bite.

"As exports come under pressure in 2025, dragged lower by U.S. import restrictions, there will be an even bigger need to apply domestic stimulus."

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

soviet-hmm if china completely lost usa market (lmao that fucking happening), it would lose around 14% of exports and 6 % of economy size, i mean that would be classical recession, but like meh.

"China's economy is showing signs of revival" what does american economy then show, jesus

[–] xiaohongshu@hexbear.net 7 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

I think it’s pretty clear that if the US goes into recession, China goes as well. The export economy is too intertwined with the US. (This is why I keep saying transitioning to domestic consumption and radically shift away from the export industries)

Again it’s hard to say anything right now because we’re just a few days away from Trump taking office and we will only find out what the heck is Trump really going to do after that. There is a lot of expectations from the market that US-China relationship will thaw after Biden - so we’ll see.

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

It's not clear at all, it's clear that usa recession dumps whole world into recession due to commodity dropping. If china passes don't be libs challenge, and instead of buying treasuries would just spend like crazy, they could carry world recession through

[–] xiaohongshu@hexbear.net 6 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the problem is two fold here: first, Europe is in recession (Germany just went through its second year of recession) so they won’t be able to absorb the exports. Japan seems to be the case as well. Biden’s Ukraine war has taken Europe out of the picture and the US itself has become the world’s biggest consumer market. The US running 6-7% GDP spending over the past two years (even when they mostly went to rich people) is actually keeping the world’s economy afloat because still enough new money are funneled into the foreign sector.

Second, China just reached $1 trillion trade surplus this year. And that translates to the Chinese labor creating $1 trillion worth of goods and services that they are not getting anything in return - in other words, free labor.

If the US goes into recession and consumption demand plunges, there would be no one to take in the huge export surplus that China/rest of the world has. So all the export economies are going to be hit hard - IMF loans and privatization will follow.

The only way out of this is China raising the wages so they can spend domestically (which means losing its export competitiveness and giving up its export industries) so it can absorb the export capacities from the rest of the world. China is the only country with enough consumer base that can do that, but their consumer base is weak at the moment.

I have said before: if China can accumulate $1 trillion trade surplus, why not just give their workers an extra day off and pay the same without overtime? Then you’d really be raising their spending power. That $1 trillion surplus is mostly junk papers and it’d be better to spend those labor and resources working to improve the domestic economy instead of making free shit for Westerners.

The reason China was able to carry parts of the world’s economy and prevented recession itself in 2009 was because they went fully into investing infrastructure and the property market. New cities were cropping up everywhere driving the consumption of steel, concrete etc. (Australia’s economy was notably saved by China’s huge spending then).

But that merely delayed the problem: the property market crisis and the local government debt crisis we’re seeing today, are the direct outcome of those policies. So China cannot possibly go down the same investment route again, as investment is way too high today (at 40%) and you are already getting diminishing returns. That’s why consumption is the only way out.

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 5 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

And despite europe being in recession, their (china*) exports grew shrug-outta-hecks

I do agree they should increase consumption (or rather decrease working hours to deal with youth underemployment and factory work being undesirable). Make manufacturing 6 hour a day with minimal wage high enough, stop high education chasing and let people have fun spending money and free time, like a socialist should strive for.

[–] xiaohongshu@hexbear.net 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

And despite europe being in recession, their exports grew

Of course, Europe now needs to work harder to sell stuff so they can earn the currencies to import energy as they can no longer get cheap energy from Russia. So, exports grew, imports are falling, wages will fall/stagnate, and consumption will go down. It’s pretty much an economic dead zone at this point, as Michael Hudson pointed out.

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I meant *china's exports, europe is a bigger market than usa (despite usians thinking they are center of the world), so despite anemic behavior, they haven't fucked china growth wise (have fucked belt and road wise though).

Even if we take 5 billion outside of usa vassals, they have 500 million *middle income (local) people buying xiaomi and chinese cars, they can pass by being best buddies of global south

[–] xiaohongshu@hexbear.net 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I mean, Europe is in austerity and recession but that doesn’t mean their accumulated wealth just suddenly disappear. They still have strong economic power but import has indeed fallen in the EU and there is no way they can absorb the supply from the rest of the world if the US replicates a 2009 GFC style recession.

The point though, is that without the fundamentals for growth, it will be very difficult for the EU to stay as a strong economic bloc as it had over the past two decades. Over the long term, they’re screwed.

Two US journalists bravely called out “Secretary of State” Antony Blinken for being a war criminal today.

Max Blumenthal: https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1879926469633487204

Sam Husseini: https://www.rt.com/news/611039-state-department-husseini-blinken/

Huge respect to these two guys for doing what is right.

[–] Lovely_sombrero@hexbear.net 36 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

We were banning TikTok because it is a huge national security threat, but also we need to roll the TikTok ban back because it hurts the influencers!

Congress panics realizing no one is going to buy TikTok before the ban (a problem they created!), with Sen. Schumer saying: " It's clear that more time is needed to find an American buyer and not disrupt the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans of so many influencers who have built up a good network of followers."

https://x.com/kenklippenstein/status/1880007290830688609

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 30 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (3 children)

The fact that millions of people have a job for talking nonsense and promoting/shilling products on social media, to the point where the US can't ban a social media platform because it could cause millions to be unemployed or face a substantial reduction in income, is just incredible. Self made crisis of a grifter society.

They should absolutely let the ban happen then. Influencers are modern day snake oil scammers, and infinitely more harmful, given how often they're scamming children

A just society wouldn't allow someone to become a multimillionaire off of promoting drop shipped garbage and other scams

[–] miz@hexbear.net 8 points 3 hours ago

remember to like and subscribe

[–] QuillcrestFalconer@hexbear.net 19 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

~~Society of the spectacle~~

Society of the grift

[–] SexUnderSocialism@hexbear.net 23 points 7 hours ago

Lol. Lmao, even.

[–] edge@hexbear.net 26 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (3 children)

What's stopping TikTok from moving their URL to tiktok.cn and giving instructions on sideloading the app? Even a non-jailbroken US iPhone can have apps sideloaded.

As far as I've seen, the ban bill just says that app stores and web hosts can't do business with them.

Edit: they could even move the URL and release an update to the app now before it's banned. Anyone who already had the app installed would still be able to access it.

[–] Lovely_sombrero@hexbear.net 22 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

The US government told them they will get banned unless they move their servers to Oracle. They did so, now they are getting banned anyway. My guess is that the servers will have to shut down and moving everything was too costly and/or they started the migration too late?

[–] mkultrawide@hexbear.net 19 points 7 hours ago

LMAO not the move to Oracle. I didn't know that. It's easier to escape Alcatraz than Oracle.

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 12 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

That solution would work, and I doubt the US government would even bother to try and stop it. Because 98% of TikTok users aren’t going to bother sideloading and maybe don’t even know what sideloading is.

[–] edge@hexbear.net 9 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Like I said, if they push an update before the bans goes through, millions of people will still have the app installed from the app store, so they would be able to continue using it without even needing to sideload.

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 4 points 5 hours ago

I mean, make pwa, fuck apps

[–] ClathrateG@hexbear.net 52 points 10 hours ago (2 children)
[–] mkultrawide@hexbear.net 33 points 9 hours ago

we've got 400,000 pounds of marijuana in storage

cereal2

[–] john_brown@hexbear.net 41 points 10 hours ago

I'm sure the police are correct that rats really love cocaine and it's not just that all the bags of cocaine have been replaced with flour

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