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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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.
For US electoral news, swing state polling and predictions, and other such things, please head to the containment megathread.
Discussion about the potential worldwide geopolitical impact of Harris/Trump is still fine to discuss here.
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For the 32nd year in a row, the United Nations votes overwhelmingly to end the US embargo on Cuba. The vote today was 187-2.
Countries voting against: United States & "Israel"
Ansarallah says do not vote for Trump or Harris:
https://xcancel.com/Seamus_Malek/status/1851871758200246345"Trump's danger is not limited to the outside world, but also to America itself, and he may be the cause of its destruction, but it is not appropriate for the Muslims of America to embrace his election so that they are not the deciding vote for his victory. It is preferable for them to abstain from voting for either candidate because both of them are linked to destructive projects for humanity, whether they are bloody or contrary to nature."
There's a lady on tiktok that comes up for me very often and she sets off my psyops alarm bells every time.
https://www.tiktok.com/@openbookshelf
Show
She shows up for me often and has nominally soft socialist-adjacent criticisms of power, authority, current government, wealth, landlords, even anti-monarchism and anti-cop, etc etc etc. But when it comes to the biggest issues? The issues of anti-imperialism? She falls on the side of nato EVERY.SINGLE.TIME.
She's a pretty lady, whose brand is basically a caricature of Britishness, she pulls off the British librarian caricature that I can only describe as like Rachel Weisz in The Mummy. Is almost always seen with a mug of tea in her hand and if it wouldn't make it too obvious I think they'd throw the British Union Jack flag in every video but instead they keep that to only a few.
It's like she's tailor-made to suck people in to a kind of up your arse intellectualism that then redirects any potential anti-establishment or revolutionary energy into fucking uselessness.
The biggest giveaway here however is that she worked in China until recently, for the Chinese government she claims, for 3 years. Yet she calls the party by the shibboleth CCP and regularly performs anti-China propaganda unprompted, like it's a job. She does not promote other left accounts. She does not promote events. She exists solely as a sheepdog.
This strategy is what I think should be called "de-influencer", the goal is to stick people into the left that appear left and have a great media image that's attractive and easily something people can be sucked in by, and to use that to suck air out of the sails of real leftist influence in online platforms.
I'm telling you, this woman is a cop. GCHQ, Scotland Yard, MI, some branch of Civil Service, maybe military, I don't know. But she's one of them.
The fact that she stopped working in China at the exact moment in time China cracked down on western agents within their government makes me think she was pulled out because it got dangerous.
Jesus christ, bill Clinton gave an incredibly pro genocide speech
Edit:
How many civilians should Israel kill? “I am sorry but we are not keeping score that way.”
He literally did the Hexbear post
Hitler wasn't elected, he was appointed chancellor by the lesser evil candidate.
Kamala has vowed to have a Republican in her cabinet.
These two statements have absolutely no relation whatsoever.
Lula doesn't endorse an arms embargo on israel
Back online after two weeks of taking care of irl stuff. Random disconnected thoughts incoming:
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Aunt and her kids have successfully left Lebanon into Syria and then into Iraq, very happy with that. Thank God for the Iraqis, we're forever indebted to them for just how extraordinarily generous they've been with the refugees. Fuck the Egyptians for not even doing 0.1% of that for the people of Gaza.
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Son is already nearly four months old. Very nice kid tbh, not too many sleepless nights so far.
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Damn the Ukraine war is progressing very fast now, I don't even have time to learn the names of the villages anymore. Cursed town Ugledar might have been the glue that held together Ukraine's defence in the south-east. Nonstop collapse since Ugledar fell and now we are looking at the first big Russian arrow since the first weeks of the war. South Donetsk is done if Russia reach Andriivka, that entire Kurakhove corner will fall in matter of weeks. Very interesting developments on the Oskol sector as well, don't understand why Ukraine is letting their east Kupyansk grouping get pinned towards the river and not withdrawing behind a very defensible river line.
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I don't believe the reports about any ceasefire whether in Lebanon or Gaza. The Doha talks about Gaza are just a last ditch effort to provide a "peace in the Middle East" boost for Kamala, there's little real substance there. Same with the Lebanon negotiations, there's no incentive for any side here. Israel continue their forever war, Americans sell guns, Iranians have an excuse to lob missiles at Israel whenever they want now and Hezbollah are inflicting record damage on IDF losers.
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Help me out Hexxies, who will win the election? My instincts say it's big wet Donnie, but idk these days. How are the polls looking? I read reddit and in their world Kamala will win every single state, while right wings dumbasses on Twitter say that NY is a swing state.
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Bernie Sanders uploaded a video on his YouTube channel about voting for Kamala even if you’re upset by her position on the genocide. He says “Israel has a right to defend itself” in the first ten seconds.
Richard Spencer just endorsed Kamala lol
Said his single issue is continuing the war in UkraineJUST IN: milei fired his Foreign Minister because she voted in favour of lifting the blockade on Cuba at the recent UN assembly.
Wow, watch StateSpox laugh and make jokes when Matt Lee asks about a UN vote condemning the US embargo on Cuba
Lee: You aware of the vote tomorrow
Miller: I wasn’t tracking this on my bingo card
Lee: How is the US going to vote
Miller: I doubt we’ll be voting to condemn ourselves (laughs)
Lee: Last year of Obama’s presidency you guys abstained, as you probably know it’s basically the entire world votes to condemn it and you and Israel vote against, so do you have anything to say about this yearly display of international isolation
Miller: I don’t (smirks)
MUST NOT FEDPOST...
MUST NOT FEDPOST...
MUST NOT FEDPOST...
https://nitter.poast.org/AssalRad/status/1850980965503680900
The Israeli terrorist regime has banned the UN agency UNRWA from operating inside "Israel". This includes the west bank territories.
Death to Israel, death to America
