Bulletins and News Discussion from October 28th to November 3rd, 2024 - LDP Falls Flat / Yet Neoliberalism / Rampages Onward - COTW: Japan

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.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

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.

698

You're viewing a single thread.

698 comments

On 25 October, the Al-Quds Foundation in was live on Salaamedia, issuing an "emergency appeal", which included both praise and criticism of South Africa's response to the geenocide by "israel", as well as harsh condemnation of Middle Eastern nations, especially Egypt. It was also heavily advised to put more pressure on the South African government to begin taking more meaningful action against Isnotreal, such as a total ban on trade with the Apartheid state. The programme also urged much more direct action including storming "israeli" embassies/consulates and complicit arms industries (much like Palestine Action) in not only South Africa, but all over the world. Even martyrdom was suggested onboard flotillas delivering food and medical aid, in an attempt to tell the ISISraeli blockade to eat shit and push forward anyway. That's really about as radical as they probably could take it without consequence, even on South African airwaves. Still,

Several more universities in South Africa have severed ties with their Pissraeli counterparts - University of Cape Town and University of the Western Cape, Nelson Mandela University, University of South Africa, University of Fort Hare and University of Venda. AFAIK, all 4 campuses of University of Johannesburg have maintained their boycott since 2011.

Wits University had rejected demands for boycott.

Several media outlets have named and identified a South African named Aaron Bayhack who joined the IDF's elite sniper team in Gaza. One more who is due to be sent to the if he ever steps foot back into South Africa. Of course, there's also outrage of the pro-Apartheid "community" of a "brave, patriotic, innocent young boy" being doxxed by major outlets such as IOL and News24. Let alone the fact that a South African IDF serviceman stepping foot back into a country hostile to "israel" presents a very immediate threat to public safety.

South Africa also submitted it's memorial to the ICJ on the morning of 28 October. "israel" was given 9 months (until the 28th of July) to submit a "counter-argument". It's not a mystery as to what this so-called counter-argument contains.

The move to change Sandton Drive to Leila Khaled Drive is again delayed. So much for the socialist fraternal kiss under the Leila Khaled street sign with the US Consulate getting Falastin-2'd in the background 2 weeks ago.

SAJFP also picked apart that one Haaretz article "Scary Time To Be a Zionist" and called out many a salty settler.

A journalist by the name of Hamza Chalan has escaped Jabalia and fled to South Africa with his footage also 2 weeks ago.

Google Earth still shows Mariupol in ruins and the still claims the city is a bombed-out ghost town, even as the population is back to over 400,000 and most services and infrastructure has been restored.

Death to AmeriKKKa; Death to "israel"
- That's an awesome SAJFP article.
- It must be nice living in a country with a real anti-zionist presence in national politics. All we get is "Jews have a special status in western history so we must fight the dangerous new antisemitism". Even the people who nominally support Palestinian liberation wrap it in layer upon layer of condemning "terrorism".

You've viewed 698 comments.