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.

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.

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Fucking hell today has been scary discourse in the UK, they even have a slogan going for this conscription campaign that they're building up to. "Regular armies start wars, citizen armies win them".

    • SaniFlush [any, any]
      ·
      10 months ago

      What do they think they're going to do with that army, exactly? England isn't going to be steamrolling peaceful pre-contact island civilizations like it was still the 1800s. We're onto their bullshit by now.

    • Rojo27 [he/him]
      ·
      10 months ago

      Oh, nothing foreboding about that. Nothing at allwtf

      • Awoo [she/her]
        ·
        10 months ago

        It's a pretty scary one because it's good. There's a bit more thought and marketing going into whatever is currently happening, I'm legitimately concerned. That line didn't just come from the head of the army off the cuff.

        • MolotovHalfEmpty [he/him]
          ·
          10 months ago

          So I'm hoping this is the last ditch campaign at the end of his role. Most of it seems to be coming from Chief of the General Staff Gen. Patrick Saunders who has been banging this drum for a lot of years. Seems to be a Russia hawk, but also apparently wanted a 120k army as long as ten years ago and has mostly been roundly ignored to handwaved.

          It seems he's "leaving" his current role this year and previously got into a bit of a tiff with the government over funding and recruitment numbers last year, so not sure if he's retiring or being pushed out. But there's a decent chance this is a ego / PR for private sector push by him and some media mates before his leaving.

          That's what I'm hoping anyway, given how dismissive the government and populace in general seems to be.

      • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]
        ·
        10 months ago

        Seems to be a lot of EU sabre rattling lately. Was this something that happened during the Cold War? Or is this something different from that?

        • Awoo [she/her]
          ·
          10 months ago

          No there was way too much socialist support for the USSR in europe for this kind of sabre rattling. The left was way stronger and would've actively supported the soviets, it wasn't an option.

        • 420stalin69
          ·
          10 months ago

          Russia is going to win in Ukraine so the best thing they can salvage from this situation is nationalist fervor.

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
      ·
      10 months ago

      The U.K. government said Wednesday it has no plans to introduce conscription, after the head of the British Army said a “citizen army” would be needed to fight a future war with a country like Russia.

      Chief of the General Staff Gen. Patrick Saunders said preparing for a potential land war would have to be a “whole-of-nation” undertaking. He praised European nations closer to Russia for “prudently laying the foundations for national mobilization.”

      Saunders, who has long argued for more military spending and is due to leave his job this year, said that “within the next three years, it must be credible to talk of a British Army of 120,000.”

      “But this is not enough,” he added during a speech at the International Armored Vehicles conference in London. “Taking preparatory steps to enable placing our societies on a war footing when needed are now not merely desirable but essential.”

      He said "Ukraine brutally illustrates that regular armies start wars; citizen armies win them.”

      Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesman, Max Blain, said the government “has no intention” of introducing conscription.

      “The British military has a proud tradition of being a voluntary force. There are no plans to change that,” he said.

      He added that “engaging in hypothetical wars” was “not helpful.”

      Of all the people I'm willing to die for, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, and the fucking King are extremely low on the list

      • Awoo [she/her]
        ·
        10 months ago

        Of all the people I'm willing to die for, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, and the fucking King are extremely low on the list

        Yeah mate I'm right there with you. Still concerned that this is part of build up to something though. They don't trot out the head of the army to do a media blitz with snappy carefully planned slogans for nothing.

    • ChairmanSpongebob [he/him]
      ·
      10 months ago

      why would anyone fight for britain? the place is falling apart, and the government every day is just telling citizens to go fuck themselves

    • carpoftruth [any, any]M
      ·
      10 months ago

      I wish this was an admonishment of the US for making such heavy use of Blackwater and proxies in its various imperial wars, but no its just racism

    • ThomasMuentzner [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      10 months ago

      what happends to the regular armies, those fucker ... why do they do that ? ..they obviously cant win them ... its a relly shitty thing to do ..

    • plinky [he/him]
      ·
      10 months ago

      Rascal rishi be like:

      guys hear me out: crimean war v.3