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.
A funny outcome would be if Biden croaks before election day and since no one wants to step up to eat the inevitable 50 state L, the Democrats decide to not bother fielding a presidential candidate. They'll pull some civility bullshit about not fielding a candidate for the sake of not dividing country. Another funny outcome would be the same except they get a patsy to be the sacrificial lamb as in they got some random 35-year old shmuck to be the candidate.
The funniest outcome is that they just decide to pack it in after Joe croaks and libs are forced to vote for Jill Stein.
Even funnier if she wins.
She can win if you vote for her!
I'm pushing for it already. Reddit hates me. LOL.
Several months ago, I made the observation that this election is the most susceptible to a left-wing independent challenger of any election in a long time, especially if it's an existing, popular, and younger Democrat that decides to run an an independent. Get on the ballots before the deadlines (and fight off the inevitable DNC legal challenges), and then tell voters that you are the best chance they have of defeating Trump because Biden is too old and unhealthy.
Yep. Michael Hudson has made a very good case for this and other similar plays during interviews with him and Jill Stein (who he's acting as political advisor for) over the past couple months. Good shit.
Honestly, I don't think Jill Stein has the juice. It needed to be someone like Bernie or AOC or someone who already has a lot of name recognition and built-in support.
Maybe. But the more support she gets—and leftist third parties like the GP and PSL get—the better. The chances of a third-party upset might be low, but the higher we push them in both this and future elections, the better. And the more likely their policies will be adopted by the uni-party factions in the meantime (the Green Party is the only reason the Green New Deal has even been nominally discussed by some Democrats, and that's a historical trend as well).
I'm likely voting for her, since she will be on my ballot. I voted for Howie Hawkins last time since PSL isn't on my ballot and they historically make it annoying to do write-ins where I live. I think it's better to get any third party left of the Dems over the 5% threshold for federal funding, since that would mean a lot. I just don't think she has what it takes to actually win.
She could maybe hold enough electoral votes to not be ignored, but it's not like the Greens can make a deal with the GOP, and once they elect there is no way to hold the Dems accountable if and when they agree to give the Dems the electoral votes.
Joe doesn’t die. He just wanders out of the white house without anyone noticing. He gets lost in the city and somehow travels through 8 states and comically and obliviously survives a series of accidents that otherwise would’ve killed him
At that point the campaign would be to vote for the corpse since the ballots can't change. That would be voting for the corpse on the promise that the electoral college votes for their replacement/panic candidate or the promise of the electors restoring civility and reaching across the aisle to hand Mitt Romney the presidency. Actually probably something stupider than that.
We are far from the ballots being unchangeable, despite what Biden defenders have been screeching.
Biden hasn’t even actually been nominated yet.
Wait, wait, give me the lathe
Copy cat killer starts shooting at a Biden inauguration. However, to everyone's surprise, Biden dodges the bullet by having an aneurysm mere milliseconds before the first shot.