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.
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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.
Median zoomer pro hamas/resistance but anti ansarallah?
Then again polls are often vague as hell.
Y'all are not jaded enough. Zoomers like Palestinians because they're the smol beans
Yemen is fucking shit up and so they're scary terrorists that need to be genocided
Feel free to cite me in whatever communist book or psychology paper you're writing
Once again, RedSails has the correct take from our Brazilian comrades: https://redsails.org/western-marxism-and-christianity/
If you begin to have success you are proving unworthy of that success
fucking love that article. i think it should be required reading for any new western socialist, would be helpful for western anarchists to read this too.
Pretty much. People acting like Gen Z is filled with ML's when majority of them are radlibs and the furthest left being DemSocs at best. Same reason many of them have negative views of China while showing some level of sympathy for Cuba. Wouldn't be the same if Cuba's economy were the size of China or even Vietnam.
It's just ageist boomer bashing from the Zoomers and millennials here who don't realize how ageist they are
Communist party membership was like 2-5 times higher and union membership was dozens of times higher in the last century. They just assume Zoomers are more radical because younger people must obviously be better than older people
Disclaimer: I'm a Zoomer
Most Americans aren't capable of figuring out causal relationships, that's why. "Thoughts and prayers to the Palestinians. WTF why is Yemen bombing us?!!"
The wording here is critical because it says "international shipping", meaning that Ansar Allah are just firing at whatever ship crosses the strait, which is not true. So it's easy to paint Ansar Allah's actions as just evil and unprovoked.
Palestinians are "noble victims" who you can sympathise with. Palestine has also been in the news for decades and everybody kind of know that they were minding their own business and then the zionists came and took their land. Yemen is different. The average westerner knows nothing about it, except that it sounds like someone you were told were scary during the war on terror. People hear about Yemen and all they think about are generic Muslim extremist terrorists because this is what the default view on Muslims, especially Muslims with guns, is in the satanically racist west. And on top of that, people are being told that the Yemenis are attacking "international shipping", presumably for no reason other than a nondescript terrorist impulse.
Of course western opinion are going to view Yemen less favourable than Palestine.
Americans don't know this at all if you ever talked with them about this before 10/7
They don't want to know but deep down the knowledge is there, just like the knee of the genocides America is built upon. At least for those among them who have the potential hold a non-horrible opinion.
Uh oh, looks like you decided to take meaningful action against the genocide. Silly Yemenis, don't you know that the only acceptable options are:
As punishment we will bomb you dirty savages until you learn your rightful place in the world, while the people pretending to care about Palestine cheer it on because their treats are slightly delayed.
Can't wait for the "Trust in the courts. Trust in the law," takes from libs (who also probably don't think South Africa should be bringing the legal cases, but who's counting...).
yeah, I could see the average American zoomer going "well, what's going on in Palestine is a tragedy and I've seen those awful videos, but the Houthis indiscriminately hitting ships is just way out of line. international shipping is sacrosanct and needs to be maintained for The Economy." because they have no idea what's going on with it or how those two things connect. somebody can correct me if I'm wrong but I imagine that the average American perception is a) Ansarallah are terrorist pirates who are just hitting ships totally at random and for no real reason other than they're evil or angry, and b) they have no idea that has even been a war in Yemen, nor what a "Yemen" even was prior to a couple months ago, and certainly have no idea of the massive civilian death toll
This is why I think the common Hexbear takes that think this genocide will hurt Biden in November are misguided
The wartime boost is starting to manifest, after months of being offset by Americans mad that they had to start paying student loans so they couldn't buy all the holiday treats they wanted
This country lives for genocide, Biden sealed his victory by expanding the war outside of Gaza cause now he can pull a Bush 2004
The cruise missiles will continue until polling improves.
gen zkylon with another L
I saw Hasan's reaction and I agree this polling is quite dubious because the question is not representing reality correctly at all.
There is no answer here that says "I don't want the attack on shipping but I support Yemen's opposition to Israel" which I expect to be the "normal" lib position. The question presents the reality as if its only about randomly attacking shipping without context or justification.
Therefore taking this at face value is probably a mistake, I don't think this result mirrors general attitude towards Israel at all and it would be a mistake to jump to that conclusion. You ask a dumb question don't be afraid to get a dumb answer.
That said I maintain Biden is a far better candidate than people realize but that is almost a different discussion. This result should not lead you to the conclusion 80% of the people are in favor of a war in the ME.
"Military response" is also vague to begin with for some it means anything from an invasion to sending a few more ships on a 2 week vacation cruise.
Not just vague. LOL. Notice how they've phrased is as an attack on the practice of international shipping in general.
EDIT: Also LOL at the "increase" vs. "not increase" choices. Where the fuck are muh "decrease" and "JUST FUCKING IMMEDIATELY STOP IT ALREADY, YOU @#$@#$ #%&*$@#%$!!!!!" choices?
we are all so fucked