Trump's victory, and the further mass oppression of minorities, is closer than ever before. May god have mercy on our souls.
previous preamble
The totalitarian capitalist dystopia which was created by the United States in the aftermath of the Korean War has increasingly experienced problems as the multipolar world is being gradually birthed.
Due to the widespread exploitation of the population, long work weeks, and high housing prices, the population growth of South Korea has plummeted, with the lowest fertility rate on the planet, and the highest suicide rate in the OECD. While a capitalist "success story" before the 2008 recession in terms of profit accumulation for the richest at the expense of most others, conditions have grown more dire in the Long Depression since the crash. GDP growth per year has averaged out at 2-3%. For more concrete figures, labour productivity has stagnated, particularly in the service sector. The rate of profit hit a peak when the dictatorship ended in the late 1980s, but has since massively tumbled. These dynamics are not unique to South Korea; they are happening throughout the West.
While South Korea is stagnating, perhaps even falling, its northern neighbour is rising. With Russia already persona non grata to much of the developed world and yet still maintaining fairly good economic growth and continuously albeit gradually moving towards victory in Ukraine, Putin sees no reason to be intimidated by the West's shunning of the DPRK, and Russia is establishing ties as well as military and economic deals. This seems to portend an end to the post-Soviet period of forced isolation due to UN actions forbidding the people of the DPRK to leave the country (which many westerners believe is a policy originating from the Korean leadership due to their propagandized education).
Many in the West are still, regrettably, unable to properly analyze the geopolitical situation of Korea due to their government programming, leading to bizarre takes about imminent collapse, or desperation on the part of Russia or the DPRK, unable to recognize that the DPRK has a powerful military sector all its own, and decades of autarky has created a durable society where limited resources must be used efficiently and effectively. The position of the Korean Peninsula seems likely to be a critical part of the US-China conflict, whether this is an outright war or instead a series of proxy wars. Indeed, Korea's position may soon become very important in global trade routes if the US tries to cut off the Strait of Malacca to Chinese-bound cargo ships, with vital resources like oil and food potentially transported both over land and via the Arctic Route over Russia and through the DPRK to China. Russia's leadership clearly sees the importance of Korea in the future, hence their actions now; and, of course, South Korea siding with Ukraine has also forced Putin's hand to oppose them more openly.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The "Country" of the Week is South Korea! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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Last week's thread is here.
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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
![](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/83e2c3ad-1355-4391-a3e7-4cab068e5dc8.png)
Good news everyone, the literal President of the United States was not incoherent last night nor, apparently, this morning. As you can see, there's nothing to worry about.
I wonder how many gallons of the Hitlerian drug cocktail they pumped into his living corpse for his Goebbels speech
And this from his fund raising email sent out a few days ago. It’s gross. The vaguest vague reference to genocide, or not even, maybe just a bad debate and a vibe. People Are Demoralized.
GEORGE W. BUSH WAS PRESIDENT 16 YEARS AGO![emoji agony agony](https://www.hexbear.net/pictrs/image/7bdbc255-05e5-4922-92d9-59cdc7686f1a.png)
Apparently Reagan doesn't count as modern either.
Reagan I understand. Regardless of how damaging his policies were, his public perception was mostly positive by the end of his presidency.
Bush was the opposite. I think he holds the record for all-time lowest approval rating, and was so unpopular that the Democrats ended up with the presidency and a near-supermajority in the house and senate following his second term. People were just as mad at Bush then as they are about Trump now, I remember it so clearly. They protested and wrote articles and burned effigies because his administration knowingly led the country into a senseless war. "Serious people" talked about prosecuting him for war crimes. And that's to say nothing of how brazenly illegitimate it was that he was elected in the first place.
Calling Trump the worst president in modern history is good for brevity, but it just doesn't make sense. You have to toss an entire decade into the memory hole to make that statement. I get that they've been working hard to rehabilitate Bush in the past few years, but it wasn't that long ago. There should be enough people still mad about that stuff that there would be some pushback, but I guess all of those people have decided that it's more important to drag Joe Biden's corpse into a second term.
I don't know if they were quoting someone, but @[email protected] posted in a thread not too long ago "The curse of the socialist is to remember things" and I think this is exactly what they were talking about.
Bernie Sander's doesn't view Iraqis as people
Bernie stocks continue to fall. Rating: sell sell sell.
Sounds like Bernie's brain isn't working right these days either.
This is why there's no revolution.![emoji knifecat knifecat](https://www.hexbear.net/pictrs/image/19b66cd7-208b-41bc-8c61-3cb371b2d5c4.png)
I wish I could say it pains me to say this, Bernie, but![emoji gulag gulag](https://www.hexbear.net/pictrs/image/5132a068-3744-4b65-a00d-5cbe83da2e53.png)
Does anyone have an analysis of what that actually means that isn't just a link to PPB?
He went to a picket line once and the media jacked off about him being the first acting president to do that. He forced the railroad unions to take a mediocre deal where libs try to twist their brains into pretzels to justify it being good. He gave out tax subsidies for companies that use union labor to on-shore jobs that don't exist.
Hard to say but I think it technically checks out compared to all president's going back to probably Carter.