Image is from this SCMP article.
Much of the analysis below is sourced from Michael Roberts' great website.
Japan's ruling parliamentary coalition, consisting of the LDP (purple) and it's junior coalition partner Komeito (in light pink) have lost their ruling majority. They have ruled post-war Japan for almost its entire history. The LDP is currently led by Shigeru Ishiba after Kishida stood down due to a corruption scandal, and ties to the Unification Church.
While geopolitical factors (over the cold war between the US and China, etc) may have played a role, by far the biggest reason for this result in the poor economic conditions over the past few years. Inflation has risen and real wages have fallen, with little relief for the working class via things like tax reductions. While inequality in Japan is not as extreme as in America, it is still profound, with the top 10% possessing 60% of the wealth, while the bottom 50% possess just 5%.
Shinzo Abe previously tried to boost economic performance through monetary easing and fiscal deficits, while Kishida ran on a "new capitalism" which rejected Abe's neoliberalism and promised to reduce inequality. Nothing substantial has resulted from all this, however, other than increasing corporate wealth. Innovation continues to fall, and domestic profitability is low, resulting in decreasing investment at home by Japanese corporations. Labour productivity growth has only slightly picked up since the mid-2000s and is falling again. The rate of profit has fallen by half since the 1960s, and Japan has been in a manufacturing recession - or very close to it - since late 2022. In essence: there is no choice but between stagnation or decline.
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 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.
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.
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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.
I think she will be indefinitely used as a sheepdog unless she becomes full-blown neoliberal.
Well she failed at this role when October 7th hit. Instead of acting like a lefty sheepdog she just lined up with the neoliberals to support Genocide. She doesn’t even know what she’s supposed to be doing apparently
The neoliberal role of Pelosi is more about pretending that all domestic social spending proposals are "unpragmatic" while giving more money to hedge funds.
There is a long legacy of labor Imperialists that AOC can ape while sheepdogging without being explicitly neoliberal. Lining up with the neoliberals for their imperialism is something a sheepdog can certainly manage. Much of the Democratic-aligned labor policy demands are just thinly-veiled nationalism, an attempt to align US foreign policy interests (like undermining China) with the interests of the union (expansion of members / dues).
Her job when October 7th happened was to gain the trust and sympathy of the more squishy and soft-brained Palestine supporters, and bring them back into the DNC fold
Instead she drew a hard zionist line and alienated her base, and drew nobody back into the fold.
She failed at her job because she doesn't even know that's what she is. She thinks she needs to sell out and become Pelosi 2 very slowly over time to become politically powerful, and she just needs to do it slow enough that nobody notices the shift.
AOC didn't need to sheepdog anyone on October 7th. Everyone was already in an islamophobic furor, including the "progressives" she is meant to sheepdog. This is why one of the main courses of action I and others took IRL was to immediately launch solidarity protests and teach-ins to help frame a pro-resistance narrative and to get people involved against Zionism. Things that can happen every week. I (and others) expected that the Zionist entity would undermine itself the longer their ethnic cleansing operation lasted and planned accordingly.
Her utility as a sheepdog is when the "progressive" flank might stray. Hence her shift to "concern" while still supporting Kopmala right when her polling numbers showed her neck-and-neck with Trump.
While the unpopularity of the genocide is high, Dems don't really care unless it threatens them in some way. AOC could gladly tolerate college students calling her names and every left org saying she's a sellout - so long as there were enough of the "progressives" ready to "reluctantly" vote for their genocidal candidate.
I'll do synthesis and call you both right. She could've picked either angle to try to recuperate support for the donkeys. They'd both be utter shit. She went with the one that's more obvious to any leftist and probably most other anti-Zionists. But that just changed the flavor of the sheepdogs fur-sweat, and I don't think it's clear from the hodgepodge of the working-class constituency which would have necessarily been more successful.
I think that's true. And something I didn't mention but is probably most relevant about AOC's Oct 7 messaging is that this was a "fall in line and support Israel" propaganda moment. AOC did the lib thing. Condemned Hamas, did not try to reframe the event in terms of decades of occupation, and restated a commitment to the Zionists. A "left" liberal politician can be a sheepdog in some situations and disciplinarian in others and both simultaneously in a distressingly common form, where the pol criticizes those who push back on the party in an attempt to prevent the pushback from gaining momentum. AOC does all these things, she just does it from the "I'm a lefty I promise" angle whereas the heads of the party do it from a "we are the centrist neoliberal adults in the room" angle. And they end up voting basically the same and catering to donors in the same way.
Without any real political organ for the common person to engage with and have it impact their everyday life, politics is displaced by aesthetics, the appearance of politics. In this way AOC and Pelosi are the same, they both embrace the spectacle to distinguish themselves from one another but materially they are basically twins.
Yep. Totally agree. And many months later, AOC platformed Zionists in some dumbass livestream. She started horrible on the issue, and remained horrible on it.
But, you know: she wore out a pair of athletic shoes going door-to-door when she first ran for Congress, so it's all good, right?
Also apologies if I came across as strident, I should have written my statement in a more approachable way.