Trump's victory, and the further mass oppression of minorities, is closer than ever before. May god have mercy on our souls.
previous preamble
The totalitarian capitalist dystopia which was created by the United States in the aftermath of the Korean War has increasingly experienced problems as the multipolar world is being gradually birthed.
Due to the widespread exploitation of the population, long work weeks, and high housing prices, the population growth of South Korea has plummeted, with the lowest fertility rate on the planet, and the highest suicide rate in the OECD. While a capitalist "success story" before the 2008 recession in terms of profit accumulation for the richest at the expense of most others, conditions have grown more dire in the Long Depression since the crash. GDP growth per year has averaged out at 2-3%. For more concrete figures, labour productivity has stagnated, particularly in the service sector. The rate of profit hit a peak when the dictatorship ended in the late 1980s, but has since massively tumbled. These dynamics are not unique to South Korea; they are happening throughout the West.
While South Korea is stagnating, perhaps even falling, its northern neighbour is rising. With Russia already persona non grata to much of the developed world and yet still maintaining fairly good economic growth and continuously albeit gradually moving towards victory in Ukraine, Putin sees no reason to be intimidated by the West's shunning of the DPRK, and Russia is establishing ties as well as military and economic deals. This seems to portend an end to the post-Soviet period of forced isolation due to UN actions forbidding the people of the DPRK to leave the country (which many westerners believe is a policy originating from the Korean leadership due to their propagandized education).
Many in the West are still, regrettably, unable to properly analyze the geopolitical situation of Korea due to their government programming, leading to bizarre takes about imminent collapse, or desperation on the part of Russia or the DPRK, unable to recognize that the DPRK has a powerful military sector all its own, and decades of autarky has created a durable society where limited resources must be used efficiently and effectively. The position of the Korean Peninsula seems likely to be a critical part of the US-China conflict, whether this is an outright war or instead a series of proxy wars. Indeed, Korea's position may soon become very important in global trade routes if the US tries to cut off the Strait of Malacca to Chinese-bound cargo ships, with vital resources like oil and food potentially transported both over land and via the Arctic Route over Russia and through the DPRK to China. Russia's leadership clearly sees the importance of Korea in the future, hence their actions now; and, of course, South Korea siding with Ukraine has also forced Putin's hand to oppose them more openly.
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 South Korea! 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.
NATO allies are discussing reclaiming some Chinese-owned infrastructure in Europe
They're thinking of seizing assets to start an economic war with China while simultaneously fighting an actual war with Russia. Americans really are hellbent on trying to destroy the euro
Westerners cry about CHYNA “stealing intellectual property” and go on satanically racist rants about Chinese students being SEESEEPEE agents while they themselves actually steal actual things
As we all know there definitely aren't western assets or factories in china that can easily be seized in retaliation
tim apple is gonna so mad
Number one thieves to have ever existed crying about other honourable civilisations “stealing” their shit is always funny.
Go on reddit and find some random video of Chinese kids playing during recess or anything with coordination, and every comment will be like “The Sinoid brainpan has evolved to store totalitarian ribosomes which allow them to function as a hive mind, being perfectly in sync and passing the ball to each other without fail. The Chinese child prepares for war from the second they’re born, whether it’s shitting their pants or drinking water, each action is a Confucian metaphor of utter domination”
God these people are fucking stupid.
The Saudis threatened to pull their money out of europe if Russian assets were seized. Not because the Saudis are trying to help Russia but because it would show the west is untrustworthy. If the west could just steal Russia's money, when they aren't even at war, what's to stop them from stealing the Saudis money when the whim hit them? The Saudis threat to pull their assets is part of why the west hasn't gone ahead with the silly schemes to give Russia's money to Ukraine.
What do you think Saudis are going to do now that the scheming has been expanded to cover China even if they held off on pulling the trigger on Russia? Is that going to belay their fears? no. Its just going to prove that the west will start a fight with them and use the fight as an excuse to steal all their shit.
And it won't just be the Saudis that see this. Everyone is going to divest from europe or america other than europe and america. Everything they do just pushes people away more and more europe and america are going to be cut off from the entire world economy because they can't even play by the rules they made.
The US is giving Russia’s assets’ interest to Ukraine I think. Like a couple billon I think
Nope they backed off.
When you thought the fascist would own up to your silly business deals lol.
Just have to hope the CPC will reply in kind. Not holding my breath though.
Please do that Europe, so that China claims all of your companies' factories and fucks over your bourgeoisie.
God be willing America tries that too, I'm praying 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
This would be a funny opportunity to some pre-emptive scorched earth policy by these Chinese-owned infrastructure
If they want to self-destruct Taiwan's electronic chip factories, respond in kind...
Europeans are just going to sabotage it themselves so Americans can siphon their industry, then blame migrants
I mean, that's one way of doin' it.... but I guess there is a precedent for it...
What part of "there is no money" don't they understand? But, seriously, how is that going to work with whatever the new "stability" and "growth" suicide pack is called, that already demands austerity so that we throw more money at weapons that don't exist, mitigation of killing the planet, killing migrants in the Mediterranean, and all the rest of it? Have everyone have american, or more, unpayable private debt for life, since they'll never admit how money works?
The 5 years olds will keep getting whinier as their treats stop coming, and they aren't even smart enough to realize they need to treat the cops like military to deal with it.
Ah, well
