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!
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.
isnreal having some preparatory protests for color revolution🤣🤣🤣
i wonder if some mfer will try to say thats cause its usa condoned, bibi is actually anti imperialist 😅😑💀
but for real, will they do election in the middle of a war or what
The occupation of Gaza will be effected under Bibi and so he becomes the scapegoat to hang that sin upon allowing Israel 2.0 to install a Quisling government and restore some kind of apartheid status quo but with Gaza under occupation and even more militarized settlements in the West Bank.
They’re going to do their best to slow roll this genocide and Bibi being performatively cast out gives them ideological cover in the eyes of the west.
Most of Isntraelis think bibi isn't going hard enough. There are no more moderates, and he most likely purged anyone in government that could oppose him.
If they remove netanyahu (they won't be able to) then it just means someone worse will take his place.
mfw western puppets refuse to learn from history
Military coup d'etat probably
"there is a long history of antisemites trying to prevent the state of Israel from expressing its lived truth through nuclear first strikes. the protestors in the wasteland of the beltway are doing Russia's work by complaining about radiation sickness"
Israel and the US would have a perverse sort of poetry to it.. beyond all the apocalyptic destruction and loss of life of course.
I made comments here in the first month or two of the war that I didn't see any path to strategic victory for Israel, which would inevitably lead to a civil war. I thought the best solution was for Genocide Joe to offer asylum to the Netanyahus in the US in return for Bibi helping Shin Bet and Mossad sweep up the people who need to be neutralized in order to make peace stick and prevent a civil war.
Civil war in Israel is probably the best outcome we can hope for
Frankly, I'd rather not have a civil war in a nuclear-armed ethnostate populated by people who think they are favored by God.
They're not going to nuke themselves. Their primary motivator isn't religion, it's ethnonationalism and colonialism. Religion absolutely has a component to it, don't get me wrong, but they know that if they go down then Isntrael goes down with them.
I'm not worried about Israel nuking itself, I'm worried about it nuking someone else.
Religious beleifs are absolutely a motivating factor for certain segments of Israeli politics. It's not the sole motivation, but it's not some non-factor either. Bibi's base of support at this point is religious nutjobs.
Alright fair, but I also think the u.s would absolutely prevent such a stupid thing from occuring bc that would mean the end of the Eurozone (since they're def targets Solomon protocol)
I think a coup would absolutely kickstart a civil war, which would be a good thing tbh. It would at least divert resources being used on the gazans and Lebanese towards themselves.
Color revolution let's goooooo
nah, israel is too united in its ethno-nationalist project for civil war.
My argument isn't that there is a likelihood of a civil war between imperialist and anti-imperialist forces within Israel (the latter doesn't even meaningfully exist). There were already notable tensions between Netanyahu and Shin Bet/the security services prior to 10/7. They tend to represent the more neoliberal/realist imperialist order, whereas Bibi's base is the far-right neocons. The type of civil war I am thinking of is conflict between the two major camps of the Israeli ruling class, along the lines of Benny Gantz and Shin Bet/Mossad vs Natanyahu and the settler state. Someone is going to have to take the fall in Israel for letting 10/7 happen, and the way that this war has gone is only going to make it more contentious.
But that’s just politics, bibi takes the fall, cia-plugged neolibs take the wheel for couple of years. For civil war to start you need something extraordinary, like deaths during protests with either police or military cleanly split, or for gdp to do another 40 percent drop.
Bibi and his coalition aren't going to take the fall willingly. They are going to try and pin the failures on the IDF, Shin Bet, etc. and the Benny Gantz's of Israeli politics. The guy has been under indictment for corruption for like a decade and has been trying to take over Israel's court system to keep himself and his allies out of jail. They are going to fight to put the blame on the security services and their political opponents. This is why I think that the best way to get a peace deal is for the US to over the Netanyahu family asylum and immunity from prosecution or extradition. That's not even considering what's going to happen to whoever does sign any peace deal on the Israeli side (i.e. getting Rabin'd).
A civil war in Israel isn't guaranteed to happen, by any means, but its something to be concerbed about given that the government wasn't exactly stable or have a popular mandate before 10/7. A strategic failure in Gaza where they don't get any of the hostages back by force and don't destroy Hamas is going to cause a lot of teeth gnashing.
Another huge gdp drop seems likely to me, especially in light of Ansarallah's recent escalation targetting further asea. Between that, Syria's hit on Ben Gurion airport, and Lebanon's likely escalation to port strikes, the occupuers are going to face their own blockade
That doesn’t mean civil war is not possible. The entire war has be pretty bad for the Israeli economy, they’ve had to call up reservists who would otherwise be participating in the economy, tons of those reservists I’m sure are business owners too who are falling behind on their personal finances. Tons more people had to be resettled in other parts of the country which also costs the state money. I’m sure there’s a million other things, but all that aside if you compound the problem by the fact that they’re LOSING the war with Hamas and they want to start a war with all their neighbors apparently. Makes sense that the US is trying to color revolution Bibi. The US is not going to sacrifice the entire Israeli project just for him.