Image is from this Black Agenda Report article by the Communist Party of Kenya.
In June, large anti-government protests shook Kenya. President Ruto and his parliament were attempting to pass the new Finance Bill 2024, which, among other things, would have hiked taxes on the population, with a 16% sales tax on bread and a 25% duty on cooking oil, as well as new taxes on financial transanctions and vehicle ownership. There would also have been levies on women's sanitary products and digital goods such as phones, among other measures affecting hospitals.
Hundreds of protestors stormed the parliament building and began to tear the place apart. Shortly afterwards, on June 26th, Ruto announced that he was withdrawing the bill, calling the tens of deaths and hundreds of injuries "unfortunate". A couple weeks later, Ruto then fired his entire cabinet (aside from his foreign minister) and communicated his wish to the nation to form a "broad-based government". Funnily enough, in July, it was announced that the majority of positions were to be filled by members of the old cabinet, while other positions were taken by members of the opposition. This has prompted scepticism among the population, including calls to resign, but there haven't (yet) been any major anti-government events to pressure this outcome. The Communist Party of Kenya has been working to get some of their comrades back after they were abducted by the police during the protest period, and have otherwise supported the protests against Ruto.
The measures in the bill were strongly encouraged by the IMF. Kenya's debt is currently around $80 billion, of which about 10% is owed to China for infrastructure projects (such as a railway linking the capital, Nairobi, to the port city of Mombasa, as well as 11,000 kilometers of road throughout the country). The rest is owed to a combination of the US, IMF, World Bank, and Saudi Arabia. More than half of government revenue is going towards repaying the debt - but despite these massive payments, it has only grown. The most recent round of IMF plundering (and the impetus for current events) began in 2021, when they offered a 38-month programme to "help" Kenya, which would involve the usual warfare on the poor and the dismemberment of any useful societal institutions.
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 Kenya! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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.
if it's so disastrous, why do a ton of billionaires support one?
Do they? They support getting their taxes cut and they bribe congress and their taxes are cut.
They say they support this. Howver I don't see them bribing senators and getting it done.
elon musk, thiel, bill gates all support it
So a specific section of the bourgeois class who's work has no material relation to anything in general. Who then also have no specific interactions with low wage persons possibly allowing them to understand them in an abstract way that the tradional bourgeois cannot. That is an interesting divide. However I think that does support my idea that it is against bourgeois class interests.
Nope, its the most pro-bourgeois policy possible in that it will allow for permanent victory in the class war
It’s not the petty bourgie shop owners and small business owners that actually set policy, and this class will go the way of the dodo as Amazon and Meta and Google and other monopolies absorb everything else. And the big time Musks and Bezos and Zucks understand the power of UBI towards their ends. Who cares what the small business owners think, they will be extinct in a couple generations.
If it is that clearly in the bourgeois interest I feel like they would be on board with it even more. There is no way musk is just smarter than the other vampires and got himself in on the ground level of the future. I feel like if the peak faction of capitlaism knew it was secretly for the best they could bribe their way into it. Look at all the things they can bribe themselves into anyway. Where is the disconnect I am not seeing? The billionairs just haven't read as much theory as the trillionairs?
It’s not actually necessary to implement UBI while there’s not much unrest. Once there’s a depression and mass unemployment you will see it come into play. As I said, its entire point is placation of the working class during automation and currently the working class is already placated and servile.
Instead of revolution we will get UBI funded by imperialism.
I guess I can't see it. Maybe I can't get a wide enough view of it. It seems to me that a ubi would go a long towards building class solidarity. It creates a large group of people who have specific similar material intrests, relaseases them from reliance on bourgeois, and provides material security in ways that make them harder to exploit. Without the threat if homelessness and death the reserve pool of labor would be much more robust I feel.
how would making a bunch of spoiled non-workers who profit off of imperialism directly assist in international worker class solidarity? seems the exact opposite to me, creating new pseudo-classes that are dependent on exploiting workers.
you further socialism by making a bunch of people into petty bourgeois rent seekers? and with their new free time they will do socialism for some reason? this is liberal delusion and the exact opposite of what would happen, they would become placated sellout compradors and reactionaries who cling to UBI at the expense of all others
I think we are way below global working class solidarity. Step one would be having solidarity with others around us. I think we as a people are too treat brained. We are more likely to acknowledge a class intrest if we have a treat to bond over. We can observe that happening. Having UBI would be a treat most of us could share in common and have shared experiences trying to manage or defend. That and having some resources for a change would give us the possibility to thinking about things for a change. I think maybe we are considering different aspects. The way I see it UBI starts the possibility of dual power. We have historical record of people banding together to defend resources. That is what unions are right? There would be a clear evolutionary process where the UBI works better when people share resources. What president do you feel is applicable to UBI experement?
There's a word for this, it's called Social Chauvinism or Social Fascism. In imperialist nations this sort of behavior is fascism. UBI is a social fascist policy in the west
Internationalism and international solidarity are not negotiable. They are the primary most important thing. Imperialism is the primary contradiction, and if you sell out the global south to placate the "workers" of the global north then that's just imperialism with extra steps
Every policy is a fascist policy in the west. Not that this is really going to happen, but if it did what is the mechanism as you envision it preventing class solidarity?
If you give UBI out to people, that's not class solidarity as I've explained to you. Workers have class solidarity. People who sit on their asses getting paid are a different class. You are dividing up the working class and buying out portions of them. That's the opposite of promoting solidarity.
UBI is a fundamentally reactionary and fascist anti-communist policy, stop defending it.
You have said that multiple times. I am saying I don't understand how. You have stated your case, I just don't see what backs it up. I fail to see the connection is what I am saying.
it's pretty damn simple that you non-workers won't have solidarity with workers. In order to be in the working class you actually have to... work. Is this really that hard for you to understand?
Yes. I see no reason that would be true. I feel solidarity with non workers. Most workers don't feel solidarity with eachother. I have seen people have plenty of solidarity with people who enjoy the same kind of treat as each other. It all seems largely arbitrary
class is not arbitrary, it's determined by relationship to the means of production. Putting non-workers on UBI is a fundamentally different class relation. Please read marx before you go around pushing social fascist anti-marxist positions
You have again restated you case. I agree that is your case. I do not immediately understand how having UBI, assuming it works and all that, would alienate people from the cause of human liberation. If every citizen gets ubi, we have created a class of most people who are still in mostly the same position as workers as before except they can organize without fear of starvation. Are you saying this is specifically a case marx predicted and already answered? If that is so I have missed some reading, what bit should I catch up on?
if you disagree with my definition of class, you disagree with the fundamental basis of all marxism
Elon Thiel and Gates want a flat tax and see UBI as the Trojan horse to get that done
Whatever you need to tell yourself to trade ultimate defeat in class war for short term treats
I don’t want an UBI or flat tax