this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
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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.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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The RSS feed is here.
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 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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Can someone familiar with Myanmar speak to China's support for the various armed groups? I saw a post on SocialistRA asserting that they are funding the ethnonationalist forces hoping to capitalize on the winners to exploit the natural resources. Western news barely touches Myanmar these days other than to acknowledge the Rohingyan genocide.
Lol the faction situation is too complicated to even propagandize about for RFA and The Irrawaddy π China supporta the MPLA in a small northern section they border.
You're going to see a lot of leftists continue to try to use this, the Communist Party of the Philippines' debunked allegations of China fighting a proxy war against them, and rescucitating the Sino Vietnamese war to try to score points online, but it's already been happening for years.
I've had these arguments with Maoists before but could always use more ammunition. Would it be possible for you to share some of your info re: debunking? Especially sources like articles, books, accounts, etc.
For sure, I'll leave an IOU here so I come back to it when I'm on PC
ty!
China pays all sides so it always comes out on top. I am pretty sure it gave the junta jet fighters.
I've decided to start tallying the unsourced allegations you make here
From what I understand China doesn't support the various groups, but rather specifically the wa state army because its on the border.
Apparently they just want to shut down the phone bank scammers that operate in the area.
https://myanmar.iiss.org/
This is a site with an interactive map of the conflict. I think an interviewee on radio war nerd is associated with the creation of the map iirc.
The Tldr of Chinese involvement is there are involvement of China because the border between the two state is pretty porous for drug/arms trades and human trafficking. I remembered seeing on the news that one of the antigovernment faction set up a base of operation within Chinese territory around 2008. There was also closer relationship ties after Aung San Suu Kyi make a deal with the ruling junta for trade and border control. I also remember when the situation in Myanmar got worst after Aung san got ousted, there were anti government groups that expressed support for the Chinese government.
Iirc china granted asylum to members of the Myanmar Communist Party (and it seems it has also armed them) and the National League for Democracy (Socdem, the pro-Aung San Suu Kyi militia).
The only news around this was this article.
https://eastasiaforum.org/2023/06/17/chinas-support-in-myanmar-driven-by-self-interest/
The support seems to be from 2021 which ASSK was about to get couped. This action has no real ideological motivations behind it. You can see the realpolitik consideration when the Junta « stabilized » and normalized relation with China
I'm pretty sure china and chinese actors are just "pro-incumbent", I read in this book called "the ripple effect" related to china and southeast asia that in areas controlled by the junta, it deals with the junta, but in some areas where de facto they're ruled by the rebels it might deal with the rebels.