There's way too much going on right now for me to really focus on any one country this week. The aftermath of the fall of the Nepal government has, somewhat surprisingly, reverberated around the world, and not only in countries that are enemies to the West as you'd expect; for example, Morocco's government battle fiercely with Egypt's and Jordan's to be first in line to lick the dogshit off the boots of Zionists, and yet Morocco is currently embroiled in a large protest wave based primarily around a youth unemployment crisis (though their population is also remarkably pro-Palestinian, which generates additional friction). We're also seeing similar protests in Madagascar, Peru, and Paraguay, and perhaps more will come. I'm personally fairly doubtful in the potential for meaningful economic results from these protests (the current imperialist system seems too deeply embedded for a movement that isn't explicitly communist and anti-imperialist to alter conditions), but it is quite possible for new political results at least.
Outside of the developing world, it appears that the unpopularity of western leaders, such as in the UK, France, and Italy, is creating new levels of unrest. In Britain, the political system has become so utterly moribund that even the artificial democracy of a two-party system (more-or-less; the Lib Dems do exist I suppose) no longer suffices, with both Conservatives and Labour gradually sinking. The Reform party appears like it may become the new standard-bearer of the capitalists and petit-bourgeois - that is, the historical wellspring of fascism - and the Left Party (whatever name they eventually choose) may or may not rise to meet the occasion. In France, they're on their fifth Prime Minister in two years, after Lecornu lasted about a month, attempting the liberal classic: promising change, and then appointing the exact same people who have ruled for the last few decades. And pro-Palestinian protests and general strikes have erupted in Italy, in defiance of their rightwing government under Meloni.
While there's plenty of other events (e.g. continuing aggression against Venezuela that might soon erupt into a war) it would be remise of me not to mention the very much ongoing events vis-a-vis Palestine and a potential peace deal there, seemingly supported to some degree by Trump. It could be legitimate, and it could be some big act (very likely the latter, IMO). Both Trump and Netanyahu seem to believe that they're very talented political masterminds, producing manoeuvres and feints that would make Machiavelli blush. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I trust the militant organizations inside Palestine to outplay these American failsons. Hamas and similar groups are not nearly as gullible as the Iranian reformist faction - though few people are!
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA 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.
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.
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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.
First of all what's the significance of these elections? Well they're a test for 2 things, one is the status of the communist party as the 3rd largest force on the local level, something that's been declining but maintained because of a lot of effort for local party people, and the other is the reach of the far-right Chega party at the local level after they've tied for 2nd place at the national level with the socialist party, which is likely going to affect their standing locally to a certain degree, they already poll in 3rd place in a lot of localities.
Note: Local elections work on a winner takes all system, so whoever gets the most votes gets to be mayor and has to govern with the electeds to the assembly which is by proportional representation.
It's gonna be tough, we're basically fighting to maintain the local governments in a lot of places where the communists have governed since the 70s and also where we've regained the government from the hands of the socialists or the center-right, while hoping to regain a few places we lost. It's been especially ugly because the socialists aside from their usual strategy of completely obstructing governments where the communists got first place (and therefore lead the government) but not a majority they've also taken to making fake independent coalitions by not backing their own party candidate and instead backing the same 3rd party faux independent together with the center-right, so there are a couple of anti-communist coalitions around this time, also the parties to the left of the PS but to the right of the communists, who get very little votes locally, also spoil things for us a little bit and we've lost some localities by the same margin of votes they got.
Speaking of spoilers here is the most annoying thing that will happen, the same socialist party that's fighting tooth and nail to compete and dethrone the communist party in several localities is now DEMANDING that the communists back their candidate in the capital Lisbon, not for any positive "this is what we want lisbon to be like" politics but for a squarely negative "get the current right-wing mayor out", all the left parties EXCEPT the communists have joined this "left" coalition
And seeing the polls (1,2,3), it's not unlikely that the PS will LOSE to the right, because they didn't get the communist votes. Quite ironic that support from a party that for years everyone insists is dead and has no future (it's looking more like it's the PS' future that's in jeopardy) is now so consequential. The strong communist campaign in lisbon is helped by the fact that our local guy João Ferreira is REALLY good, a strong communicator that a lot of even non-communist voters understand is the most knowledgeable about the city, he's also pretty hot (see pic attached).
Here's my opinion, I am completely fine with us spoiling the PS here, not only because I'm for now against coalitions with the center-left but also because the socialists have spent the past 4 years enabling the governance of the mayor they call "the worst mayor ever in lisbon", the socialists have abstained from EVERY government budget vote and generally approved a lot of terrible shit the lisbon mayor has done, nevermind the fact that when they WERE in charge of the mayorality before 2021 the city was ALREADY going to shit, and already was a tourist playground, it only got worse. There's also a lot of differences between the communist's project for the city and the "left coalition's" project, being that the coalition's project is mostly just the socialist's project. The socialist's campaign has also been made more by attacking the communist's for rejecting the coalition than by attacking the right. That's the thing about running a meaningful leftist "3rd party" the most you're gonna do for a long time is spoil elections for the center-left so you gotta be ok with that and not be pushed into submission by fear of the right.
All this means that this sunday could be VERY annoying if the PS does lose, because we will be blamed, and it could have solely negative political costs, much like us taking an anti-nato position on the ukraine war but so be it.
I can expect there to be the usual meltdown from people who are not party members, but are sympathizers from the outside looking in, demanding that the party "modernize" ie lib up and start compromising, regardless of the results I don't want that to happen.
Sounds like the Lisbon Socialists have found the US Democrat strategy of letting a right winger fuck your shit up so you can run on how fucked up shit is (and then probably not fix anything if they do get in power).
As usual, an excellent write up on Portuguese politics. Thank you for this and do keep us updated. It’s fairly easy to follow the national election news there but the local stuff I had no idea about up until now