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.
It's 9.30am and there are very serious things being said in British politics this morning.
Ministers on TV saying that conscription is a real possibility and that Britons face a "call up" if we go to war with Russia, with the implied point they're making being that they are expecting that outcome eventually.
This being picked up obviously by all the major outlets. https://archive.is/TCWGD
If they want officer fragging they're going to get it because honestly I don't fucking think anyone is down with this.
https://news.sky.com/video/theres-a-1939-feel-to-the-world-right-now-former-minister-warns-of-possibility-of-conscription-13055178
deleted by creator
Ive never had a recruiter actually check my references so just lie on your resume and apply
A British navy correspondent clarified that the move came after top commander saw a post on the site "Hexbear" that said:
Baseless panic by the British ruling class cause Russia will win the war
They're not going to war with Russia or bringing back conscription, cause they know they'd get wrecked, all the anglos want a wartime popularity boost without the war
It is probably hot air for the most part but...
British military are getting pretty desperate in terms of recruitment numbers in general. Almost 40% of Army recruits are under 18 but increasingly very few stay after their term of service. They seem to be doubling down on this tactic of 'trick the kids' with them just this week getting into bother for a series of Army recruitment events that were due to be hosted in Fortnite before they were pulled by Epic games.
The economy here is fucking cooked (I wrote a long version of this but it was just too much and distracted from the point). The only government jobs plan either party would actually consider might be massive military recruitment.
Britain fucking hates young people. I don't mean the usual inter-generational conflict or just 'woke kid's stuff. Education is a shitshow and being made so deliberately, young people are massively over-policed (with policing proposals now included removing all trees and bushes from parks as they may obscure video surveillance, police successfully objecting to the creation of public spaces such as sports courts or skate parks etc), they're almost totally fucked economically, and have close to 0% representation in politics and media (not that they're all good). I could see politicians seeing conscription as a way to try and tamp down potential social upheaval from younger people.
What the actual fuck
Yup. As was pointed out here the other day, we're one of the only countries in the world that allows enlistement at 16 (and basically every other country that does is either tiny and at war or it's a way for pre-enlisting for mandatory conscription at 18 anyway).
Public schools have also historically promoted, supported, and given resources to 'cadet' programmes which are basically the militarised boy-scouts where they pressure kids to pre-enlist or actually enlist at 16 (it's just like all those cool camping trips and visits to France we did!)
British reliance on and recruitment of child soliders is extremely fucked.
Oh I remember my dad watching a reality TV program on 16 year olds enlisting into the British military now that you've said that, yeah it's very messed up. Similar to veldskool (bush school) during apartheid South Africa.
I want to hear more about how cooked the British economy is
Obviously I'm talking about the actual material economy that affects ordinary people here, not GDP numbers and extractive profiteering but, in brief, the service economy that New Labour pivoted oh so smartly too before decades of recession and austerity seems to be dying on its arse.
Commercial rents saw a massive dip toward 2008 levels last year, but the 'silver lining' recently is that commerical landlords have seen a 10% increase in claiming commercial rents. The only problem is that seems to be from increasing the cost, not the number of filled vacant units. Towns and high streets are increasingly offering empty business premises to pop-ups, galleries etc because the number of empty units has gotten so bad. The only problem is that after these extremely cheap temporary deals expire, they can't afford the rents and rates.
Part of the reason for the above is that traditional retailers and franchise locations of chains are dropping like flies. A worrying amount of major British retailers have gone bust in the last couple of years, including ones that actually did better during the pandemic rather than worse. Most of the biggest coffee, pub, and retail chains not in financial trouble are still planning on closing a significant number of locations.
Worse still is that there's been a massive decrease in local availability of businesses that are actually pretty important services. Some of the biggest declines in specific locations are things like post offices, chemists, newsagents (local shops), and bank branches. Increasing these are now based miles away on retail and business parks outside towns and cities, only easily accessible by car, which means people have to travel away from town centers to where everything is a massive supermarket or fast food chain, which further depresses the local economies of everything else.
Small businesses (actual ones, not I run a call centre with 1000 employees) had a brief boost post-Covid, in part due to the discount rents and rates mentioned above, but the failure rates are also pretty disasterous. Last year failure rates for new businesses were higher than they have been since 2008 and I've seen reporting that as many as 80% are now failing in the first couple of years which is way higher than usual. Naturally some of this is that living costs have exploded, so people have less money to spend in general but then there's also...
Energy prices are fucked. Obviously it matters most for people not freezing to death in their own homes, but it's also ripping through small businesses and the hospitality sector in general. A lot of those small businesses that were plugging the gaps were cafes, restuarants, micropubs, and the energy costs of running kitchens, coolers, or even the lighting and heating in things like barbershops has become exorbitant. Most are just clinging on, usually with reduced opening hours or days, but hundreds of thousands have closed at record rates.
The energy issue also hits suppliers for nightlife and leisure hospitality though, with almost all but the biggest macro-brewers annoucing closures weekly and breweries that own pubs consoldiating and selling the properties. Nightlife like gig venues and clubs have been closing steadily for years due to increased costs and the issue of expensive property developments being built in those areas and then having their licenses over noise and opening hours pulled with the support of police and councils who don't want to deal with the policing 'requirements' in general. Gig and cultural leisure venues have also seen a massive decline (and increased cost for) touring musicians or events due to Brexit and our genuinely insanely visa system that basically makes it prohibitively expensive and complicated for bands or touring events.
Then there's the 'managerial services' sector. The big plan of New Labour and again after 2008 when average people were increasingly broke due to endless recession and austerity, was to pivot to professional services and consultancy with a heavy focus on export. Think business services, 'creative' services like marketing, and more recently digital/tech. These made up the overwhelming amount of our exports as well as a lot of employment at higher wages. Brexit fucked it. I'm not one to wail that everything is the fault of Brexit, but it's badly hurt those sectors. We're now much harder to do business with and more expensive than the US or Europe, never mind the growth of remote teams from lower paid countries.
From the point above you can then add the great venture capital rug pull and interest rates to the digital/tech sector here too. A massive amount of investment capital basically disappeared over night and while people have made noise about it being tough for tech (assuming you're not one of the massive monopolies) I don't think we're seeing the scale and reality of how close to failing a lot of these small and mid-sized digital businesses are. It's an industry I know a lot of people in and work with occassionally and in pub-talk rather than official statements near everyone is freaked by costs and the potential lack of long-term viability.
Capitalism truly eats itself
As does racist nationalism... another aspect that's affecting staffing costs for restaurants, bars, cafes etc especially in big cities, where there's actually money, is the lack of 'skilled immigration' due to the UK recently massively raising the minimum provable income level for immigrants and spouses to come to the UK.
It was £18,600 and it'll be increasing to £38,700 to get a visa. Lots of these places were staffed in no small part with recent immigrants (for a variety of reasons, mostly exploitative) but it's gonna be hard to try and hire someone who had a provable, regular, old fashioned salary of almost 40 grand at home before they came here to work for just above minimum wage in kitchens, on counters, or waiting tables.
We can't even do exploitative immigrant labour 'right'.
And that's not even getting into the shitshow of boarderline slave labour British agriculture uses but is increasingly running out of places to exploit it from.
Damn the rest of Europe gearing up for war now and the escalations in the middle east... What is even happening
Imperialism going through its expected consequences. Capitalist empires can only compete effectively through armed conflict
Ps. Read Lenin
Unrelated, but I’m a little embarrassed at the fact that I call myself an ML but haven’t read any Lenin yet. Would you suggest starting with State & Revolution, or Imperialism? Or something else?
I found State & Rev to be a great starting point
They're both enlightening and accessible reads. Imperialism... is a bit more technical, the political side of the analysis had to be attenuated due to censorship from the tzarist regime in the time it was written, so it might be a little bit grinding for a first read.
ministers should go dig some entrenchments in the north sea if they're so worried
Baltic countries, Scandinavian countries, Germany, all making much the same war sounds lately. Very worrying.
Might be too America-centric but could they be trying to kick something off before Brandon loses in November and funding to Ukraine gets gutted?
I think they've just come to terms with the fact that Ukraine is losing, and now they've got to switch to "scary Russia" rhetoric to justify the situation to their populaces. I don't see why either side would actually want hot conflict with the other, especially not for the Amerikans' sake.
They should march to Crimea once more for fun
they not goona get asked , thats the point of consriction..