Image is of a large protest in the Ivory Coast, sourced from this article in People's Dispatch.
This week's megathread is based largely on a detailed article from People's Dispatch, featuring statements and analysis from Achy Ekessi, the General Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Ivory Coast (PCRCI), brought to my attention by @jack@hexbear.net's comment in the last megathread.
The president of Ivory Coast, the 83 year old Alassane Ouattara, is aiming for a fourth term in power while barring out much of the opposition. I can't really do the all the history of how the situation wound up this way justice in a preamble as it's fairly complicated (read the article if you are interested), but to summarize, Ouattara is currently the only coherent candidate for the French to support. Back in 2011, the French helped Ouattara overthrow the previous (pan-Africanist) president, Laurent Gbagbo, and then arrested him and sent him to the ICC, and he was then acquitted and released in 2021.
Gbagbo is now running against Ouattara, but his base, the working class, has large swathes that are not present on the voting rolls and so it would be unlikely for him to win. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Tidjane Thiam, a former CEO of the Swiss Bank Credit Suisse, whose base is in the richer strata of the Ivory Coast, which overlaps with Ouattara's base. He would be more likely to win, but would certainly maintain many Western imperialist relationships. Ouattara, however, has simplified the electoral situation by simply barring both of them from running in the election at all.
Ouattara has, on paper, delivered some amount of economic development to the Ivory Coast. But as expected, most of it is funnelled to the bourgeois, as well as to foreign corporations and governments, while the working class are swallowed by the cost of living crisis. There has been significant infrastructure projects, but these have not only generated massive debt, they also have only really addressed the damage caused by the 2011 civil war and intervention by the French.
The rest of Western Africa has either entirely exited the orbit of France (Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso), are wavering/unstable (Senegal, Benin, Guinea), are beginning to show doubts (Nigeria, Ghana), or are economically weak enough to not be a major blow for the French to lose (Togo, Guinea-Bissau). The loss of the Ivory Coast would be a major setback for French neocolonialism, and be a potent example to nearby countries.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
Could China's strategy be focused on either waiting for a major economic collapse on the US or maybe trying to avoid shaking the US economy too much to avoid a direct confrontation from them?
If the US has an economic collapse, then who’s going to import stuff from China? So actually China has to adapt immediately (transitioning into domestic consumption economy) or die along with the US.
This is where I disagree, because their exports increased while US trade cratered. China is simply not that dependent on exports to America.
Yes, China is dumping their exports in the European markets and some Southeast Asian countries as intermediaries, who hope to sell them once the tariffs are off. This is nothing but pure mercantilism.
The balance of payments problem is a very simple problem. The US runs persistent trade deficits every year to absorb the surplus export capacities from the rest of the world. For the past few decades, the world has orientated their economy in such a way that the oversupply of goods is being absorbed by the US as the world’s net importers.
If the US reduces its import, then unless some other countries are willing to step up and run the trade deficit to absorb those surplus goods, it will devolve into a mercantilistic fight where the countries will try to dump export goods onto one another and trying to kill off the competitor’s domestic industries. This is already happening to Europe with China dumping their goods over there, and why Europe made a concession to the US in the end. Because in a scenario where nobody wants to step up and absorb their exports goods, everyone still needs the US market, as it turns out.
It is mathematically impossible for all of the countries to run trade surpluses with one another. This is why I always say China has to be the player who steps up by transitioning into a domestic consumption economy, which will raise the purchasing power of its own people for them to import from the other countries to absorb their exports.
So China importing from the other countries will not only lower its own trade surplus, but also allows other countries to shift their export market away from the US, and thereby liberating themselves from US financial imperialism. The problem solves itself.