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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"Volkswagen's management wants to close at least three plants, cut tens of thousands of jobs, and also slash pay by 10% for remaining staff, according to a statement from staff representatives."
Volkswagen Passenger Cars CEO Thomas Schäfer said: "We have to get to the root of the problems: we are not productive enough at our German sites and our factory costs are currently 25 to 50 percent above target. This means that some of our German plants are twice as expensive as our competitors."
He stressed that operations "cannot continue as before".
You’re welcome
I did that!
Welcome to the Periphery, Germany.
Watch them turn to more war machines again.
Good. Let Europe crash and burn
Tens of thousands of blue collar jobs gone and everyone left gets a pay cut to own the Euros
We shouldn't celebrate when workers suffer for the shareholders benefit
The way things are going, with the absence of a leftist presence in the west, this is going to make Germany more fascist and more insane. These laid off workers are not going to blame the bosses and the yanks.
Unless someone tells them who to blame. Its always nuts to me that migrant crisis wasn't blamed on the french and americans. People want someone to blame, give them something approaching reality
Yep, the AfD was already gaining worrying amounts of support. At this rate I think Germany will go mask off again before the end of the decade.
Oh no! They will support genocide?!
They might put whitey in concentration camps
It’s hard to give a shit about the genocidal imperial core cannibalizing itself and collapsing. I ain’t gonna feel bad for the guys at the genocide factory getting laid off
We shouldn't feel pity for the labor aristocracy. Workers in the first world =/= Comrades. Their jobs have made them comfortable and happy to support the status quo. Most of these people would never think of fighting to things better for everyone because they already had it pretty good. Deteriorating material conditions of the working class in the first world don't just increase the chance of revolution in those countries they also undermine the support for imperialism.
Unlimited joblessness on first world autoworkers.
That would just lead to an acceleration towards even more fascism, no solidarity, and the already marginalized people of these countries to suffer more.
These workers already support fascism. Autoworkers make 45% more than the median income in Germany. VW is subsidized by the German government. These workers are literally a privileged class that is feeding off public money. These are labor aristocrats even when only compared with average German workers. These are not marginalized people.
Trade unionism is not socialism. Any union that does not actively work to seize the means of production is just another layer of bourgeois middle management. Trade unions can be fertile ground for agitation and recruitment and can at times be useful allies but in general their cause is not in the interests of socialism.
This is as reductionist as saying delivery drivers cause diabetes.
But I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.
You're 100% correct yet these labor aristocrats facing a capitalist crisis is exactly what creates the conditions for fascism to fully take hold domestically.
And oppression under fascism is what creates the conditions for a socialist revolution. The Russia was plagued by the whites. China had the kmt. Cuba had batista and the usa.
this is accelerationism speak, plus just untrue. the bolsheviks gained a lot of power before the whites, usually through a united front to wrestle power from the monarchists and then couping the social democrats after that.
The Chinese were fighting colonialism and fasicsm, the KMT being only one of many enemies but still sometimes an ally against japan. The chinese left used to be a strong part of the KMT and potentially taking it over if the right KMT hadn't purged them. leftist radicalization also occurred from multiple commune uprisings and leftists movements happening at the time. The Chinese revolution is also just fucking insane, the communists most likely would have died like 1000 times over in several different situations but came back even stronger. They may have the most inspiring revolutionary history arguably outpacing the bolsheviks themselves.
Mostly economic colonialism and country collapse it to blame, fascism actually kills off leftism because that it is what it is made to do, and its very effective at it. German, italian, and eastern european communism was slaughtered and has not since reached the pre-fascist heights of popularity due to the maintainment of many aspects of fascism in those countries.
fascism will kill communism if they have the power to do so, and unless we have more power than them we will lose.
Pointing out that worsening material conditions are the cause for revolution is historical analysis not accelerationism. Its not accelerationism to notice that fascist violence as a precursor to socialist revolutions is a reoccurring theme. I'm not saying we should cause the suffering in the hopes of causing revolution (that is accelerationism) I am saying we should see this as a sign that we need to agitate and prepare.
the bolsheviks gained a lot of power before the whites,
They did... because of pogroms and fascist violence under the czar. The whites stepped it up a notch it forced the liberals and fence sitters choose a side. If the whites had been more moderate they might have sided with the Menshevik revisionists and Russia would have been taken over by social democrats and liberals. and we know where that leads.
Mostly economic colonialism and country collapse it to blame, fascism actually kills off leftism because that it is what it is made to do, and its very effective at it.
This is a cause of revolutions in general but a revolution can tip into fascism or socialism. It comes down to a question of who has the popular support and weapons. Communists are every bit as effective at killing fascists.
fascism will kill communism if they have the power to do so, and unless we have more power than them we will lose.
Fascism will kill everyone if it has the power to do so. so what? Fascism cannot stand up on its own it needs an enemy and when it runs out of one enemy it makes another. It is inherently flawed. It is based on false premises.
Communism is the opposite. Even if every copy of every leftist book were burnt and everyone who read them was killed Communism will still win because it is based on materialism. It is science. Just like E=mc2 or that the acceleration of gravity on earth is 9.807 m/s² communism would be rediscovered if it were forgotten because it is not an ideology it is a fact.
“Accelerationism” is when you observe the trajectory of capitalism apparently. The poster above is correct and you are not thinking dialectically
Under neoliberalism the enslaved countries' people suffered even more
Fascism is weak, so weak that they can't even control the narrative anymore
Ahistorical