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.
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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.
What is the true power and political status of the Houthis? Asking in the context of the recent CTH ep and this exchange on r-blackwolffeed.
They control the parts where people actually live. Look at a population map and match it up with the parts controlled by which groups. The "legitimate" government controls empty desert, big fucking whoop.
The second point is just kind of irrelevant. Like, who gives a shit if they benefit from doing cool and good things? Fuck, I hope they do personally benefit after all the shit they've been through.
HEY ANSARALLAH, IMPEACH THIS!
The Houthis are an imperialist Iranian proxy, like the Hamas-Israel war this is an inter-imperialist war and both sides must engage in revolutionary defeatism
Finally, an intelligent take in this god-forsaken megathread. If the Yemeni proletariat merely joined hands with the Palestinian and Israeli proletariat and overthrew their respective bourgeoisie, we could have peace throughout the Middle East. But instead, these people insist on continuing cycles of violence
(/s just to be sure)
Lmao probably 35% of people outside this thread on this site think this, and they are too scared to come in here and challenge us on it
The NewsMega is the site. Let's be honest
This is cozymega erasure!
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Voight is trolling/shitposting
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Happens to the best of us.
[they're being sarcastic]
Pronouns tag says he him
Oh should I add the comrade they
I have added 'any'
I didn't say they because they're non binary, I used they because there's multiple people shitposting
English do be ambiguous sometimes.
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since capitalism globally has now entered its monopoly phase, capitalist production tends everywhere towards concentration and towards monopoly, every capitalist country in the modern era is also an imperialist one ☝️🤓
🇧🇫🇳🇪🇲🇱🇬🇳🇪🇷🇪🇹🇸🇳 are for example budding imperialist powers!
The one I heard recently from leftcoms is even worse.
“Just as industrial capitalism is a progressive advancement from feudalism, financial imperialism is a progressive advancement from industrial capitalism. Therefore, we should support financial imperialism defeating the reactionary developing nations”
About Ethiopia yea, funniest one is "🇪🇹 is failing the 1st level of HOI4"
(this being about the US-backed TPLF)
Financial imperialism was never good. Luxembourg's accumulation of capital said as much long ago. Of course her brand of Marxism saw freedom, the emancipation of the working class, tied to the working class as a subject of history, not an object, and that it could self actualize and master its own social reproduction and the reproduction of society at large by reappropriating social wealth
Nah, nah, apparently he's talking about the Port of Aden and that is an extremely important location in Yemen. Look at the Yemeni genocide - US naval ships blockaded Yemeni ports to prevent food and medicine from coming in. You gotta hold your ports.
All of Ben Norton's stuff on the Houthi's has been great. Worth a listen. Among other things, he brings up a Frontline documentary about them them that came out years ago that goes through it pretty well.
https://soundcloud.com/geopoliticaleconomy/yemen-houthis-israel-red-sea
I’m watching the YouTube video right now, based on your recommendation. I’m learning so much. Thanks.
Does the Yemeni government in exile even control the island they supposedly claim? I recall hearing UAE military waltzed in and took over when they felt like it? (???)
But again, it's literally that one fucking island closer to the horn side of the entrance to the strait
Yeah but that doesn't count for governments in exile because the rules based order and the parliamentarian said so
I literally stopped listening to American prestige shortly into the Russian Ukraine conflict, because this quickly became so clear. Danny Bessner seems to have (interestingly) like a reverse revolutionary defeatist attitude, that while the west is being challenged it's still overwhelming entrenched and the emerging multi-polar world is divided and whoafully inadequate to the task of rivaling the USA. Like he'd be cool with it but we won't be so lucky...
The first poster is just looking for something in Chapo to be mad at and didn't listen to what was being said.
What Derek said was basically "The Houthi's are the government of North Yemen". Will brought up that North Yemen is where most of the people live, which Derek confirmed/agreed with, but mentioned that they don't control Aden (which they don't). He was saying this in the context of something he talks about more a little later, which is that the Yemeni civil war has been frozen for a few years, negotiations have mostly not gone anywhere, and that it's hard to say whether or not a united Yemen as we knew it pre-civil war will even exist going forward.
As to the second point, that user either doesn't understand sarcasm or wasn't listening. Derek makes a comment in a clearly sarcastic tone that "Yemen experts" in Western media that were saying "The Houthi's aren't doing this because of Gaza, they will keep doing it, etc" and then responds to his own sarcastic comment by saying that they weren't doing it before and they stopped during the ceasefire, so you might as well try another one anyways and call their bluff.
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