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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ISW: Hezbollah’s Military Forces Are Failing in Lebanon
In case you weren't already convinced that ISW is a full-blown propaganda outlet.
The operation has so far successfully destroyed and disrupted many of the capabilities required for Hezbollah to threaten northern Israel
Aren't they still regularly launching rockets?
Hezbollah is attempting to present itself as a competent, confident military organization, but it has so far failed to effectively execute any major military campaign at scale
???
Criticisms directed at the IDF’s slow pace of operations ignore Israeli operational design and lessons learned in the Gaza Strip. Some Lebanese officials implied that the Israeli operation is failing because IDF forces have not penetrated deep into Lebanon.[18] The IDF’s slow movement is a deliberate choice designed to root out and destroy Hezbollah tunnel infrastructure methodically. This approach was presumably derived from a lesson learned in the Gaza Strip, where after a relatively rapid armored assault, the IDF slowed its pace of operations and began methodically reentering areas and ripping out subterranean and above-ground infrastructure.[19]
Hezbollah has also routinely claimed it “hits” Merkava tanks with anti-tank missiles but has yet to publish any evidence indicating that these “hits” knocked tanks out of action or slowed Israeli operations.
Lmao. When you're fighting a guerilla war you don't tend to stick around after ambushing your enemy. And these hits are almost all with modern ATGMs such as the Kornet, HJ-8 or Almas— tanks don't shrug off hits from these things. They either get destroyed or severely damaged.
Isn'traels slow and methodical approach
Russias slow and failing terror campaign
Difference is that Russia is actually methodically taking ground and achieving their strategic objectives
Yeah but you’re not really winning unless you kill a couple thousand children every week!
ISW was so hilariously wrong about every single thing in Ukraine, I would take this as extra confirmation that Hezbollah is winning
you mean Victoria Nulands Husband is unobjective ?
the IDF slowed its pace of operations and began methodically reentering areas and ripping out subterranean and above-ground infrastructure.
Hezbollah is just cosplaying as a military so when they achieve strategic objectives in southern Lebanon by stopping Israel from making any meaningful territorial gains, destroying Israeli regiments, and generally making Israel's "invasion" of Lebanon a complete and utter failure, it's not Real it's just play.
how could the think tank run by Victoria Nuland's sister-in-law be a propaganda outlet
