Image is of the Te Pati Maori (Maori Party) cofounders, Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. They have 6 of the 123 seats in the New Zealand parliament.
Officially confirming that the Republican primaries were a gigantic waste of time for everybody involved, Trump has massively beat everybody else in Iowa, and will very obviously be the Republican candidate for 2024. Given the abysmal state of the US economy (for everybody who isn't in the top 1-10%, which is mainly what national statistics reflect when they aren't telling blatant falsehoods), it's more plausible than ever that Trump may indeed once again become President - though I personally refuse to predict one way or another due to how volatile politics and geopolitics currently are. Project 2025 is coming, folks - either as the official Republican governance program, or as what the Democrats will do in 2026 after the midterms, stating that they have no other choice and have to reach across the aisle as they are the Adults In The Room™.
In other news...
Late last year, New Zealand voted in a new and very right-wing government, composed of the center-right National Party, the libertarian ACT Party (ACT stands for the "Association of Consumers and Taxpayers", good lord), and the fascist New Zealand First party. By what I can tell, this was the well-trodden path of "Vaguely center-left party does neoliberal austerity and causes a recession and workers fucking hated it and voted in a different party out of desperation," though the flooding and cyclones did add challenges to Chris Hipkins' short reign after Jacinda Ardern resigned.
It's worth noting that Hipkins was at least fairly China-friendly, meeting up with Xi Jinping on a five-day visit in the summer. They still do the whole "We have concerns about human rights" thing, but of all the countries of the imperial core, New Zealand is - or, perhaps, was - one of the most amicable. In 2021, China was New Zealand's single largest trading partner, with a third of exports going to China (more than Australia, the US, Japan, and South Korea combined), and they receive 22% of their imports from China too, more than any other single country.
Christopher Luxon, the new Prime Minister and sentient thumb, has said that he is exploring a closer relationship with AUKUS:
Luxon said New Zealand was interested in becoming involved in AUKUS Pillar 2: a commitment between the three partners to develop and share advanced military capabilities, including artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and hypersonics.
“We’ll work our way through that over the course of next year as we understand it more and think about what the opportunities may be for us,” Luxon said. “AUKUS is a very important element in ensuring we’ve got stability and peace in the region.”
This is not to say that Hipkins wanted nothing to do with AUKUS or Western organizations aimed generally against China - in fact, pre election, "he was open to conversations about joining Pillar II of AUKUS". But the current government is pushing down on the accelerator pedal.
The left-wing Maori party, Te Pati Maori, has stated that they want New Zealand to remain non-aligned, as joining AUKUS would erode the sovereignty of the country:
As Maori we cannot allow our sovereignty to be determined by others, whether they are in Canberra or Washington. Aotearoa should not act as Pacific spy base in the wars of imperial powers. Joining AUKUS will severely undermine our country’s sovereignty, constitution, and ability to remain nuclear free. There is too much at stake for our government to make a commitment of this magnitude without a democratic process.
In general, the party leaders of Te Pati Maori want New Zealand to be the "Switzerland of the Pacific", which is perhaps not the greatest analogy given all the problems Switzerland had and has, but we understand the intended meaning of desiring neutrality.
The Country of the Week is New Zealand! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
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 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.
Unfortunately this is not wholesome at all; those Indian soldiers are getting the Chinese soldiers to say "Jai Shri Ram," which is effectively a Hindu nationalist slogan. It's the kind of slogan that Hindu nationalists chant directly before engaging in pogroms against Muslims and Christians. They're doing this today of all days because this week Hindu nationalists are celebrating the opening of a temple to Rama at his supposed birthplace that was a sacred mosque (the Babri Masjid) burned down during the 1992 Hindu nationalists riots that killed hundreds of Muslims.
EDIT: In fact it was exactly this slogan that the Hindu mob shouted right before burning down the mosque, so a very obvious fascist dogwhistle here.
Also this is a slogan they use while bulldozing mosques, torturing Muslims by branding their foreheads, with humiliations like forcing them to say this slogan, and other ways that are obviously reminiscent of Zionist antics like forcing children (who they have just orphaned) to say fascist slogans for Hebrew Tiktok
Wholesome in contrast to active warfare between the two nations at least!
Fair enough, I'll definitely agree that it's better than open warfare between India and China. Thankfully feels like we're lightyears away from that outcome, especially given BRICS.
Cooking up a tier list of the most sub imperialist countries in BRICS I just need to make sure I know my shit and don't contribute to misconceptions about countries like Iran and Venezuela and Russia being imperialist (Lenin would agree with me btw). I'm coming for $outh Afrikkka and Egypt and India
and $audi Arabia and the UAE if that needs to be said
I prefer the KKKSA
god this website sucks ass sometimes. what about Russia's advanced capitalist economy, complete with a developed finance sector, and its war to annex the resource/population-rich territory of Ukraine (contested by the NATO imperialist bloc), is not manifestly imperialist by the definition laid out by Lenin? how the fuck are South Africa more imperialist in your view?
To quote a saved comment by a poster who will not be named:
Their "advanced finance sector" does not a Wall Street make, (squinting) Cleobury Mortimer 🧐🧐🧐 are you sure we're talking about the same central bank doing its damndest to sabotage the country more than half the time? Are we calling every central banking system in the world FINANCIAL IMPERIALISM because they're abominations composed of Chicago boy ancap memes?
Also important to note that like the UN, the US and its allies have a special position in international financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank allowing them to pressure countries like Argentina into neocolonialist farces like we're witnessing today. Calling Russia imperialist dilutes the accusation to the point it could be levied at Burkina Faso 😭😭😭
Great question, and put so respectfully! Glad you asked: Since capitalism has gone into its worldwide monopoly phase, capitalist production tends everywhere towards concentration and towards monopoly. By your definition then every capitalist country in the modern era is also an imperialist one, from Ethiopia to even Uzbekistan (which is occasionally thrown out as a fringe argument for Russian imperialism in the global financial sense, to throw you a point if u want 🤷♂️)
I'll try to hurry up with the explanation of South Africa's sub-imperialist role but if you don't agree with the definition of the term being used in the writing I'm studying there's no basis for us to communicate and ur just gonna get mad at me :3