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.
Thanks, this is a perfectly timed comment because I was planning to ask if anyone had deeper insight about the Finnish elections. All I know about the candidates is:
Do you have any guesses who's likely to win? And how do Finns generally view the current president Niinistö? I guess they must like him if he's had multiple terms.
Stubb has at least been leading the polls, for what it's worth. He isn't outspoken about anything, and doesn't really seem to hold any opinions on anything, or care about anything else than the line going up. The politician's politician. Very much the business-as-usual veil-of-normalcy candidate. Very popular among the so-called middle class and petit-bourgeois for that reason, I suppose. Generally strongly disliked by the younger generations, because back when he was minister of finance during the Sipilä coalition he swore on his mum's grave to not make cuts to education and student grants, and then did it anyway (the Koulutuslupaus farce). Did a bunch of photoshoots and PR stunts about how he's gonna save education and improve students lives immensely and all, which obviously hasn't aged well and become a bit of a meme.
I don't really know what the general public opinion is, since I'm in a cozy little bubble where 100% have already voted or will vote for Li Andersson. If I were to speculate, based on earlier election results, vibes and what YLE says, the most likely scenario would be that Stubb and Haavisto go to the second round, where Stubb will more or less narrowly take it home in the end. Most people in the bigger cities under 40 will vote for Haavisto, but homophobia combined with his association to the Green Party will likely hold him back nationally, because finland is after all very "traditional", shall we say. Last time Haavisto was close to getting elected president, people in the semi-rural area I was living at the time were saying shit like "are we supposed to have a First Man?! Is he going to be at the independence day ball with his HUSBAND?! Nothing against gay people, of course, but what will people think???" It just creates too much of a ruckus, you know. That was a long time ago, though, maybe things have changed. Either way, many leftists will sit out the second round and then everyone will blame us for Haavisto losing.
People generally like Niinistö for the same reasons as Stubb; namely that he hasn't really done or said anything particularly scandalous (apart from his wife being, what, half his age? I guess that's not scandalous enough), he belongs to the most milquetoast neoliberal party (NCP), and is an endearing finnish grandpa type of guy. He's rather popular on the internet as well, what with that fucking dog and all, which probably contributes to his domestic popularity, considering how weirdly desperate for international recognition finland tends to be. Anyway he kept the mask on, avoided stirring the pot, God is in his heaven, everything is normal on Earth.
Basically,
Good answer. Personally have fully checked out from electroralism after the Left Alliance went pro-Nato and I started to more clearly see that their understanding of leftism is mostly whining about social justice issues, but then backing capitalism and nationalism all the way to the bank. It's a very neoliberal left. There is no real left option here.
And the presidential election being mostly a ceremonial little spectacle where people can vote their way into feeling better while the right wing government is pushing for the heaviest austerity and cuts to basic workers rights makes it all feel pretty pointless.
Can't lie though, seeing any of these bourge ghouls speaking for the country will still feel bad, but I am not sure if it really matters which one of these it is. Stubb is an obnoxious neoliberal, but so is Haavisto. It will suck either way.