Image is of German farmers blocking the road near the Brandenburg Gate in early January 2024.
The ruling German coalition - the FDP, the SPD, and the Greens - has been in dire straits since the war in Ukraine began due to their steadfast commitment to destroying their country as much as possible in solidarity with Ukraine destroying themselves too. Scholz is deeply unpopular, with a record low approval of 20%, and his party's approval is even lower.
The German left has been entirely unable to take advantage of this situation, with Die Linke fragmenting due to split opinions on what position they should hold on Ukraine, among other issues. As a result, the major conservative party, the CDU, has gained a lot of voters over the past couple years. Most worrying, however, is the gains that the fascist party, the AfD, has made - from 10% in 2021 all the way to ~20% today. A significant chunk of the vote is likely protest votes due to the lack of an alternative, but a vote for fascists makes you a fascist nonetheless.
Recent controversies with the AfD - including an allegation that they held a secret meeting discussing a plan to mass-deport millions of migrants in an obvious parallel to Nazi meetings planning to remove all Jews from the country - has recently slightly damped approval for the AfD. This meeting generated counter-protests and condemnation from many Germans. It was later revealed that the meeting might not really have happened as alleged, but it doesn't actually matter, because the AfD's stance is being increasingly reflected by the ruling coalition, who recently introduced a bill allowing faster deportations of rejected asylum seekers and significant new powers for authorities in that regard, including potentially the criminalization of sea rescue organizations and imprisonment for aid workers.
The German government is increasingly considering banning the AfD, with their anxiety and motivation to do so rising as the AfD maintains and improves its position as Germany heads towards elections in late 2025. There are intermediate steps that could be done, such as revoking state funding, but if that doesn't work, then the party might well be banned. While I will never argue with fascist parties being banned, this probably won't fix anything, as the underlying economic and social conditions that are fueling these electoral shifts in the first place are not improving. Germany, the largest industrial power in Europe, is mired in a recession, particularly a manufacturing recession, from which there appears to be no escape. It has so far carefully shepherded its natural gas resources to keep the population as mollified as possible, but this has come at the expense of industry. In a trend starting from July 2022, manufacturing PMIs are still well below 50, reaching 45.5 in January 2024, which indicates decline. I suppose if you wanted to look on the bright side, it's better than it was in July 2023, where it was a whopping 38.8, so the rate of decline is becoming a little slower.
And this is just the domestic stuff. Germany has also famously sided with Israel to support them during the ICJ genocide case, has kowtowed to Netanyahu as they bond over being Genocide Experts, and maintains its support of Ukraine, continuing to send military gear and money to be converted to scrap metal by Russian artillery - rather than spending money on doing anything about the cost of living. In the face of a historic economic downturn, it has only more fervently stated its desire to remain militarily opposed to Russia for decades.
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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.
It just occurred to me, and I don’t know why it took so long, that the reason the GOP house leadership has been so “principled” about consistently opposing Ukraine funding is because they have traced the blank checks and found that a ton of it is recycled back into the Democratic Party and their allies. It’s purely partisan and about cutting off the unlimited spigot of hundreds of billions of corrupt dollars all going to their rivals, who will then use that money to further take power.
The GOP is being very pragmatic and materialist in obstructing all of government to stop Ukraine funds. Democrats think they are controlled by Putin, GOP members spout some America first isolationist BS they don’t believe (they are fine with other massive imperialist projects such as Israel and Taiwan, just not Ukraine).
Basically, for whatever reason Democrats who engineered Project Ukraine have tried to monopolize the Ukrainian imperialist superprofits for their own partisan allies instead of spreading it around a bit to ensure bipartisan support. That seems like a major fuckup from the Democrats, not inviting in the neocons and petty bourgies to have a slice of the pie.
Michael Hudson made the same point in this interview here: The Complex Dynamics of U.S. Politics, Foreign Aid, and Global Influence
But I think the calculation is deeper than that. The Democrats want to entice the Republican donors and bring them to their side. The military industry complex, oil and gas etc. all saw their profits increased from the Ukraine war. The conservative boomers who had been complaining about “Biden’s inflation” all saw their stock and housing assets went up exponentially under Biden.
The GOP donors are now facing the dilemma of choosing to have their conservative policies being more competently implemented under the Democrats, or choosing to stick with the traditional conservative party which is being taken over by MAGA crazies who don’t really know what they’re doing anyway. Basically the Democrats are creating such a situation where if you don’t jump ship you’re gonna miss out on that big slice of the Ukraine pie.
Trump tried very hard to give the billionaires their tax breaks, but if we’re being honest here, Biden’s achievements to help the bourgeois donor class have far surpassed that. Like, literally engineering a war to profit from the hundreds of billions of dollars spent in Ukraine, while killing millions of lives in the process. You have got to hand it to Biden when it comes to sheer ruthlessness.
Biden's biggest move though is fucking over Europe to benefit the US: the war in Ukraine, getting EU to go all-in on sanctioning Russia, heating up the Red Sea & blowing up Nordstream - all of these weaken EU and strengthen America, and make EU more vassalized and dependent on the US.
So it's not really a sustainable move for the international bourgeoisie that make up imperialist capital. A short term boost for the core from cannibalizing neighbors that will weaken their overall empire. They are essentially retracting the borders of periphery-core to concentrate the exploitation. A de-industrialized, de-militarized EU in recession is a weaker western empire.
It is not sustainable but the empire doesn’t think in long term. European capital had to sacrifice themselves to save American capital.
Unlike those who think the realist faction of the conservatives that believe the US should ally with Russia to defeat China is a rational choice, I don’t see any good evidence to support the notion that the US could risk having Europe/Russia at the sidelines while it is challenging China directly.
Think about it this way: people think that it was Kissinger’s genius idea for US to ally with China to defeat the USSR in the 1970s, and somehow this can still be applied to US-Russia relations today, but really it was a marriage of convenience between the US and China when both sides had something to offer one another. America was going through multiple domestic and international crises at the time, and needed to get rid of its industrial base to crush the trade unions and the growing working class movements at home, while China had a vast reserve of cheap labor that could accommodate the productive investment from American capitalism and benefit from that.
No such conditions exist for US and Russia today.
First, the US and Russia are direct competitors in the export of raw materials (especially fossil fuel), military equipments as well as having a highly developed skilled labor workforce. Russia could and had been supplying all those to Europe at a fraction of a price, cutting away the US share of the market.
Second, Europe itself has a developed manufacturing base and high tech sector that rival the US itself in industries and technology. To a lesser extent, the euro had been able to maintain a 30% strength above the dollar, despite all the shortcomings of the euro.
Think about this: if Europe and Russia join their forces, they no longer need the US anymore. They could definitely stand on their own and become an independent global superpower, and this not only threatens to challenge the US empire directly, but their position on the US-China issue will be decisive. If EU/Russia throw their weight behind China, then the US would be facing two superpowers at the same time, and it could not possibly have survived that challenge.
This is why a US-Russia alliance is untenable, and has never been a realistic option for US foreign policy. Helping Russia grow, paradoxically, will only accelerate the EU independence from the US. The only rational move for the US imperialists is to ensure that Europe is destroyed and therefore cannot become a backstabbing threat during their upcoming showdown with China. This is why the Ukraine war is so important for them - to destroy and devour the economy of the EU and weaken Russia in the process. The first has been achieved, the second - I’m not so sure yet. But I see this as the inevitable and objective process of how the US imperialism operates to ensure its own survival.
This has always been the Democratic Party's sales pitch. On the whole, they are much more competent stewards of empire. In hindsight, you can look at how they spoke of various imperialist adventures contemporaneously. They took no issue with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on anti-imperialist grounds. They wrung their hands about how incompetently these imperial campaigns were being managed. When it comes to domestic issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, their primary concern is not our civil liberties, but the cost of legitimacy exacted by failing to keep appearances in areas which fundamentally don't harm the bottom line. This is why they support the military and the cops 100% and only lament that they are fucking dogshit about wearing their racism on their sleeves.
The Democrats hold a secure position in many of the wealthiest districts in the country, and this has been the case for a while now. The Republicans are left fighting over an increasingly fractious coalition of fixed capital industries and revanchist dweebs who are more interested in arbitrarily punishing people instead of keeping the imperial treat conveyor well lubricated.
Somehow, I’m shocked that democrats are actually being tactical and doing something to gain power, but unsurprisingly that power will not benefit any of us in the slightest nor are the means benefitting humanity.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
They have many of the same bribers / allies. It wasn't just Democrats. John "Bomb Bomb" McCain and Lindsay Graham were instrumental in the 2014 coup and following building arms networks in Ukraine.
The parties are united in this 3rd Red Scare. They are divided only in a public face.
Democrats cry about Russia. Republicans cry about China. In the mean time my Republican representative is bragging about how he supported AUKUS and how much money is involved.
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I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Very interesting. I’ve heard this sort of thing mentioned recently but haven’t seen much in the way of specifics on the “recycling.” Any good reporting on this? Sure the Hudson interview below is good but something in print would be nice if you got anything.
As Hudson said in the interview, nobody has done a deep diving into tracing the financial flows of all those money yet, so it’s all a conjecture, but a reasonable assumption at that. Just like there is no concrete proof of the US bombing the Nord Stream pipelines, but there are reasonable assumptions and tangential evidence to support that.
Maybe in a few years’ time, some investigative journalists will do an expose on the subject, but until then it’s all speculative, but think about this:
Why would the Democratic leadership be so insistent on giving Ukraine $60 billion in the latest bill they’re trying to pass, while holding back the actual military equipments that can actually help Ukraine in fighting Russia? Where do all those money end up? (Hudson parallels that to AIPAC getting money from US spending which are then recycled back to the campaign contributions of US politicians. This is a well established fact. It is the way that the US electoral system is run that relies on campaign donors that made such mechanisms possible.)
There are also tangential evidence such as Hunter Biden involvement in Ukrainian companies e.g. Burisma Holdings that point toward a Democratic-led money laundering front that left out the Republicans. This is probably why the Republicans had been so intent on bringing Hunter Biden down, not because like some thought they cared about the stupid scandals, but because they are seething at the blatant billion dollar money laundering scheme that they have little access to.
Yeah, all sounds about right. Was just hoping somebody had maybe already done the digging and written something up about it. Never really considered that with respect to AIPAC, but shit… makes sense.
Democratic politicians don’t believe the GOP is some kremlin controlled party. Their voters do.
Right that’s my point, democrat politicians know they support Ukraine to get rich. It’s the voters who think they are in an eternal conflict with the forces of Putler
Does the GOP actualy matter besides whatever Trump says or does? I mean literaly if he gets elected again they'll fall in line behind whatever he decides and as far as Trump goes we have a pretty good grasp of what he is likely to do and they'd have absolutely zero issues if somehow Trump goes against expectations and continues/doubles down on Ukraine.
The simplest explanation still stands for me, Russia is conservative while Ukraine is western liberal values only because its a aesthaticaly liberal project. If Trump switched sides the GOP would embrace the Ukrainian nazis even harder and even catch the liberals on their own bind over whether or not they actualy hate Russia lol. Actualy probably not even that, how much do you think it would take for libs and chuds to unite over a Trump presidency warmongering over their common enemies? Trump bombs Syria and suddenly he is "presidential". We know history already.
Analyzing where the Republicans stand on any issue is only relevant if you assume a Dem victory moving forward.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: