This year really is just gonna be us swinging from election to election, I suppose. I feel Lenin's beaming red eyes on me.
Up next on our electoral tour is Portugal. The current government - a coalition of the center-left Socialists and the center-right Social Democrats - has been mired in corruption scandals, resulting in a general election being called a mere two years after the last one. The fascist and vaguely populist Chega party has gained significant support over the last two years due to the economic hardships. Yesterday, the Social Democrats secured a narrow win of 79 seats compared to the Socialists' 77. Chega, in third place at 48, would appear to be the best candidate for a coalition, though the leader of the Social Democrats has said that they would refuse a coalition with them due to their xenophobic views. Regardless, the fascist surge is worrying, if expected.
Portugal's economy is going pretty badly even as European countries go, with little growth in productivity or investment over the last decade. The origins of this crisis date back to Portugal making the euro their national currency in the early 2000s, thus surrendering their ability to control their own currency, becoming reliant on investment from Germany and France, and suffering greatly in the 2012 European debt crisis. Unemployment and low wages spurred emigration; in 2013, the youth employment rate was about 40%; this has only come down to 25% recently and is increasing again. The government is heavily reliant on debt for public spending, with a debt-to-GDP ratio skyrocketing to over 100% in the two decades since the turn of the millennium. The capitalist sector is simply not profitable enough and hasn't been for 40 years, which is only a problem if you are a capitalist economy. For more on the Portuguese economy, check out Michael Roberts' recent analysis, from which I obtained a lot of this information.
Inside Portugal is the same story playing out across much of Europe. A failing center or center-left political party, unable to cope with the economic troubles of the last few years due to absolute obedience to neoliberal policies. A fascist party rising, but with no alternative economic plan, hoping that perhaps oppressing minorities and going after "wokeism" will make their God, The Economy, rain blessings down on them again.
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 Portugal! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is 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.
The West has given drones to Ukraine that have sunk warships in the Black Sea. Might not the Russians give hypersonic missiles to the Houthis to sink British and American warships in the Red Sea? What would the Anglos actually do about it?
I mean Iran has already given the Houthis hypersonics as of September last year. The Houthis even fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at Israel in November, which was intercepted in space. The big problem is that these are ballistic missiles, and hitting a moving target the size of a ship with a ballistic missile is extremely difficult. I don't think that it has ever been done before. The Houthis are also not Russia or China, they do not have AWACS aircraft and spy satellites that will be able to provide live course correction to a ballistic missile, like Russia does with the Kinzhals. So Russia giving the Houthis a bunch of hypersonic ballistic missiles will not help. And there is no way Russia is giving anyone access to their hypersonic cruise missiles, they only used them for the first time last month.
Putin wouldn't do it because he is a cowardly west appeasing lib. The west needs to be humbled but russia and china don't have the courage to give them a bloody nose.
Then again, westoids might nuke everyone if that happened.
Critical support to Russia and uncritical support to China, but the whole “they don’t actually want to give the west a bloody nose” is spot on.
I think that’s a little too critical. They are literally destroying NATOs easternmost army. How is that not a bloody nose?
that's because they were basically forced to do so. they want to destroy that but not do anything that might piss the west off more.
Forced to do so or not, they are still doing it. That’s all that matters. Do the missiles evaporating NATO Nazi proxies not count because they were “forced” and not done electively?
Interesting how otherwise realist and materialist people become moralist mind readers when the subject of Putin or Russia comes up. Intentions do not matter. Why are you even making moral judgments based on perceived intent? This is morality theater lib nonsense
Imperialism will never be toppled by a morally pure crusade. It will be toppled by lots of individual nations acting in their own interests, forming an anti-imperialist fighting coalition. Why they are in the coalition is not relevant, only that they point their gun in the correct direction.
If the time comes they betray the anti-imperialists or turn their gun the wrong way, that can be addressed at that time. There’s no indication of that currently, Russia is locked into the anti-West faction at this point for the foreseeable future.
You’re aware that might trigger nuclear conflict right? Like what are you even saying at this point?
Calm down dude
Russia was definitely forced into this conflict. they had put a lot of political power on the line by making themselves the guardians of the Russians in east ukraine.
Russia has done more to fight American imperialism in the last couple years than China has, sad to say. China has been complicit and cowardly and generally just folding to western demands still. I do respect that China has had solidarity with Russia, but they could be doing a lot more.
Same, I understand china's position but omg you could turn off america's economy overnight please use that against them.