Well, Iran and their allies' response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren't talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don't really know where to look right now.
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.
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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.
Please indulge me in doing some washingtonology: What parts of the US bourgeoisie are behind the two competing factions in the US election? I know that Trump's VP pick is a puppet of Peter Thiel's far right tech clique but what about the other people? Did the coup against genocide Joe change the power dynamics of the factions behind the democrat party?
Capitalists are pragmatic, usually. For example, the MIC donate roughly 50/40 to republicans and democrats. Not a lot are truly exclusively ideological that they’ll ignore the other side.
If anything they use their funding as a weapon and threaten to donate more across the isle
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daniellechemtob/2024/07/30/forbes-daily-the-billionaires-behind-kamala-harris-presidential-run/
https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/2024-election/billionaires-backing-kamala-harris/
Tech Banks Commodites Hollywood
Reed Hastings (Netflix / Obama) , Gates, Soros, Ried Hoffman (LinkedIn) , Sandberg (Facebook), Vinod Khosla (Silicon Valley Gig Economy Exploitation)
This is a brief roster of my impressions of the current main groups within the mono-party. It goes without saying that only people above a certain net worth get their opinions heard. The categories do overlap a bit. The red team historically has more bourgeoisie at its back (at least in public), and the blue team historically has the ability to mobilize more “mass” support. I put mass in scare quotes because not only does bourgeois democracy provide false choices to the people, anywhere from half to a third of voting age USamericans don’t vote for president at all. The centrality of abortion in the Harris messaging and the chance for the first woman president will likely give them the grassroots edge, for whatever that matters.
Blue Team
Bidenists: People materially, ideologically, or opportunistically committed to Ukraine or “israel”. This includes a number of defense contractors, investment firms, and intelligence people.
Silicon Valley: The contradiction of tech’s desired reputation (change, progress, etc) with the excess and corruption of the tech boom resolves itself in massive donations to the democratic party, at least from the usual CEO’s (Alphabet, Microsoft, etc).
Deep Party: Obama keeps decently quiet about who he pulls which strings for, but Kamala did not kick out Joe. She’s an unpopular but available figurehead, and I don’t really know enough about who’s behind that beyond vaguely saying something about the Clinton Foundation.
Finance Capital: Biden has led a great intensification of wealth away from poor and middle class minorities and to the financial bourgeois. Many of them are smart enough to see that.
Hollywood: They are louder then they are significant, but they do have some amount of money and some amount of soft power/ voter appeal. As a Californian from the area, I’d say most of them are just excited Biden is gone. Kamala was a bad AG, and most of us hate Sacramento people by default. Kamala could mess this one up in a number of ways.
Red Team
Small Industry Capital: The jetski dealership owners, the ranchers, the farmers, and the small factory owners are still kicking around USamerica, and they control a lot of local jobs and clout. These people have been locked in with Trump since ‘16, because racism, tariffs, and tax cuts are exactly what they all want.
Crypto Valley: Silicon Valley is not cleanly sticking to Kamala; this is especially the case in newer and more speculative industries. AI, crypto, and some venture capitalists want Trump. Marc Andreesen, Elon Musk, and the Bitcoin conference all have shown support for Trump, I believe in hopes that he will deregulate crypto. Kamala is making similar promises though, and these people haven’t wavered in their support for Trump.
Thielites: Thiel represents both the recent trend of the Valley and the MIC working hand in glove and also spending a lot of money on elections. A chunk of Republican bourgeois greatly support both. This is distinct from the Crypto people because Thiel owns the VP and Palantir.
Finance Capital: Trump cut a lot of taxes, and he’s smart/ dumb enough to guarantee rate cuts if he wins. Some bolder/ dumber finance capital people want even more than what Biden is offering.
Resource Extraction Capital: The shale oil boom accelerated massively under Trump. This is especially worth thinking about if geopolitics causes the price of oil to spike. Additionally, Shell and Chevron were set for coal and gas exploitation in Ukraine before the war, so they count as part of the people “left out” of the Ukraine cash cow.
Christian Nuts: These people have so much money it’s unreal. The dog that caught the car with abortion, now it has too much influence and no target. In my opinion, this is the main source of “weird” messaging that dips into white/ Christian nationalist stuff too much. The hogs must be sated.
The next #1 villain for the Christian nutjobs is trans people. Politically, the trans community is on the backfoot. Christofascists are out for blood and trans issues are a bigger motivator for the right than they are the center