Image is sourced from this article.

It takes very little effort to find an article from Western state propaganda decrying Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas as authoritarian and rife with human rights abuses. This is the natural reaction the US has to any successful liberation movement. This fairly long report from Jason Cohen, a socialist who travelled to Nicaragua one week ago, should quell any suspicions.

He describes a country with high political consciousness among the masses, who are working to construct critical infrastructure for the country and their communities. There is a virtual education system that is free across the entire nation, which serves the dual goal of democratizing education and ensuring that those in rural areas or without much free time for university can still achieve degrees and a quality education; and these classes cover technical skills in the production of infrastructure and agriculture, but also political and ideological education in order to counter the fascist propaganda produced by imperialist nations abroad.

While Nicaragua is deeply invested in its nationality and national figures who led to their socialist revolution, such as Sandino, they are also immensely proud of their indigneous history, recognizing it as also part of their anti-colonial history which continues to the present day. Additionally, they honour the struggles of other nations on the continent, such as the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, as well as Castro in Cuba and Allende in Chile. Countries around the world are also celebrated and admired, such as Burkina Faso; during the Reagan administration, Nicaragua and Burkina Faso were comrades in arms, and now Traore is continuing the legacy of Sankara's anti-imperialism in the present. Perhaps most relevant today is their dedication towards Palestine, involving the creation of the Parque Palestina (shown in the post image), in which the Palestinian flag flies alongside the flag of Nicaragua. In July, Leila Khaled of the PFLP gave a speech in Nicaragua, in which the solidarity of the two nations was highlighted.

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 Nicaragua! 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

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
    ·
    2 months ago

    New Left Review on US inflation:

    Three points are noteworthy. First, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure clearly understates inflation. It takes account of the ‘substitution’ that occurs when households shift to buying lower priced goods, effectively using households’ coping mechanisms as an excuse to artificially lower the inflation figures. It also gives a lower weighting to shelter costs, even though they have skyrocketed thanks to the housing bubble and the everything bubble. Second, since 2000, when the Federal Reserve accelerated its efforts to drive bubble-driven growth and changed its preferred inflation measure to PCE, the CPI has often been above the 2% target. No matter which inflation measure is used, inflation has generally been above interest rates during this period, making real interest rates negative. Finally, inflation today remains well above the 2% target, even if it has dipped below interest rates in recent months; yet the Federal Reserve flatly refuses to raise rates further, having brought them to 5.33% in July 2023. After all, this rise has already caused major ructions, from the failure of a string of banks beginning with Silicon Valley Bank to the instability in the commercial real estate, private equity and treasury markets and beyond.

    Though the Federal Reserve claims that inflation is now down to 2.9% and predicts it will fall further, the Bureau of Labor Statistics disaggregation of the inflation numbers shows a rather different picture. While inflation has been dragged down by the lowering of food and energy prices, core inflation, a measure that excludes those prices because of their volatility, is still at 3.2%. With food and energy prices expected to increase in the coming months, not least thanks to continuing US and NATO warmongering, Powell’s declaration of victory may be premature.

    What of his claim to have achieved a ‘soft landing’? There is equal reason to be sceptical. On the one hand, adverse jobs data suggest that a recession could still be looming. On the other, if interest rate cuts manage to prevent a recession, this leaves the door open to continuing inflation and ‘no landing’ at all. Raising the curtain on neoliberalism in 1979 with historically unprecedented rate hikes, the Federal Reserve has since, by nursing successive asset bubbles, deprived itself of the ability to use the only anti-inflationary weapon in its arsenal. Having arrogated to itself responsibility for managing the economy, it has now proven unable to do so.

    • FuckyWucky [none/use name]
      ·
      2 months ago

      all this assumes that higher interest rates results in lower inflation. does the Fed even believe that? the high interest rate right now is giving is giving free money to debt holders

        • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
          ·
          2 months ago

          And is it just me who thinks it’s completely insane to see left wing publications regurgitating neoclassical myths like using monetary policy to control inflation (or the US deficit is too high it’s going to bankrupt, for that matter)? Like, why are leftists succumbing to neoliberal theories? Does the Western left even follow Marx these days?

          The piece does not subscribe to this view. Earlier on:

          To answer, it is necessary to consider the recent history of the Federal Reserve. Throughout the neoliberal era, it has subscribed – in practice if not explicitly in theory – to the Friedmanite view that ‘inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon’, and that the cure is therefore a reduction in the money supply. Most progressive economists reject this approach, arguing that it tends to lead to recession and high unemployment.

        • FuckyWucky [none/use name]
          ·
          2 months ago

          It only works if the inflation is caused by people having too much money

          even in such a case, near full employment, the effects of monetary policy is so ambiguous. if the private sector (not just businesses, everyone except the Government) are buying up goods/services beyond capacity then the interest payments increase would act as an additional stimulus.

          taxes are so much better than interest rates. you can target it at income groups, you can target it at profits, you can target it at specific good/service.

          another alternative, entire banking sector is under Government control. then the interest rates can be targeted at specific groups too. so if you want to buy a luxury car, you would be charged a higher rate compared to a mass manufactured regular car.

          • Hexboare [they/them]
            ·
            2 months ago

            Australia has a luxury car tax, 33 percent for cars priced above a certain threshold

            However the entire government sector is under banking control

        • CleverOleg [he/him]
          ·
          2 months ago

          And is it just me who thinks it’s completely insane to see left wing publications regurgitating neoclassical myths like using monetary policy to control inflation

          While this isn’t an excuse, I think even on the left it’s hard to escape the underlying economic assumptions of society. While we should insist that leftists and leftists publications educate themselves and be better informed how the economy works… it’s not as simple as reading up on the first volume of Capital or even the third volume. Understanding the nuts and bolts of modern capitalism is hard. Of course it’s imperative the Marxists most of all understand it (again, not making excuses), but I think there’s just a dearth of resources out there to improve here.

            • FuckyWucky [none/use name]
              ·
              2 months ago

              if anything New Deal spending wasn't enough due to the opposition from the reactionaries. it wasn't until WW2 when the war spending actually pushed the US into full capacity.

            • CleverOleg [he/him]
              ·
              2 months ago

              I think if Trotsky became head of the USSR, there probably would have been counter-revolution and full capitalist restoration one way or another within a decade or two.

              • sinstrium [none/use name]
                ·
                2 months ago

                Trotsky would have done the actual alliance with nazi germany and would have lost.

          • sinstrium [none/use name]
            ·
            2 months ago

            In most socialist countries, marxist economics is like a degree which requires studying at an universitiy, its not something which rando joe who was struggling with calculus I can read on in like a year.