Iran has struck Israel.
previous preamble
The continuing fall of the remains of the British Empire is pretty entertaining from the outside: an archaic royal family that is seemingly being smote with disease by God itself for their past crimes; a navy that virtually no longer functions, ramming into foreign ports and under constant repair; and an economy that cannot seem to stop sputtering, fucked whether they're in the EU or outside it. Watching the impacts on people from the inside is a little more worrying, though.
A fifth of the population is in poverty, including nearly a third of all children. These figures have barely shifted since the Labour government in the early 2000s, aside from a decreasing poverty rate for pensioners. Actually, poverty hasn't substantially shifted since Margaret Thatcher. Before her, the poverty rate was around 14%, but her catastrophic policies caused a major increase, and poverty levels since then are still 50% higher than over 50 years ago, because neoliberal economic policy since then has not fundamentally changed. Parties and corporations have impoverished the usual vulnerable groups, such as large families, minority ethnic groups (including half of Pakistani and Bangladeshi households!) and disabled people. These differences are also regional, with the North more impoverished than the richer Southeast (but some of the poorest boroughs are in London, so it's a complex pattern).
With Corbyn's defeat in 2019 mere months before the pandemic began, the Labour Party shifted back towards the right, with left-wingers purged from the party if they did not kowtow to Keir Starmer. This leaves us with a situation where the only substantial difference between the two parties would be on social policy, but it goes without saying that economic policy is the overwhelming factor that determines if minorities can have a decent life. Worker-oriented movements since then have been largely not under the umbrella of major party leaderships, such as the Don't Pay movement in late 2022 that arose in the wake of dramatically rising energy prices where 3 million people vowed to not pay them (which did lead to results).
Most notably recently is the major upset in the constituency of Rochdale - the victory of George Galloway - who is the leader of the Workers Party of Britain, which describes itself as both socialist and socially conservative. This took place both in the context of aforementioned economic troubles, as well as anger over Israel's genocide of Gaza in the British population, especially in British Muslims. It remains to be seen how much of this is an isolated event, especially as Corbyn has, understandably, refused to collaborate with Galloway due to his socially conservative stances. The UK general election will be held at some point within the next 9 months or so, and might well be a shitshow depending on what happens domestically and geopolitically before then; parallels to the current American electoral shitshow with increasing anger over Biden are pretty apparent. The Conservatives are quite likely to lose given 14 years of uninspired rule if current polling is correct, but it truly is a race to the bottom.
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 the United Kingdom! 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.
Wtf is ecuador doing? They saw Israel going sicko mode and just thought they'd join in?
Short Answer: A comprador was elected and betrayed the left and the Ecuadorian people by selling the country to the US. The more chaotic the country, the better for the US, because they can justify intervention. Noboa, the current president, who is a millionaire ghoul who uses child and slave labor, is trying to intimidate the left, since they controls the legislature.
Long answer: Ecuador's economy collapsed at the end of the 90s. The neoliberal government tried to fix the economy by dollarizing it and selling all its natural resources to the IMF to get more loans. This made matters worse, as Ecuador now had to pay to use its own natural resources.
In 2000, inspired by Chávez's coup attempt in 1992, the army struck against the government. Two factions soon emerged, the radicals (mostly poor whites, natives and chavistas) and the moderates (socdems). In the end, the moderates won the struggle, but gave amnesty to the radicals. The junta lasted until 2002, when one of the moderate generals was elected to power in free and fair elections. This Socdem general was just a comprador and switched sides to side with the neoliberals, which caused more political and economic instability and eventually led to his impeachment.
Finally, in 2006, Rafael Correa (a relatively unknown economics professor who had been appointed Minister of the Economy by the interim government) was elected. He won against Alvaro Noboa (Daniel's father). Correa, as Minister of the Economy, had already become more or less a head of state. Presidents and heads of organizations and countries preferred to talk to him rather than the interim president.
Correa became very popular with the local population. He began to really fix the economy, invested money in social programs and improved the police budget, making Ecuador the safest country in South America. Especially when compared to neighboring Colombia, which was suffering from a low-intensity civil war between leftists, the government and the cartels.
Correa had two incidents during his administration, the first when Colombia, under the command of extreme right-wing president Álvaro Uribe, illegally invaded Ecuador and killed some people for allegedly being members of the FARC (at the time, Colombia's largest left-wing guerrilla group). Correa was furious and Chávez said that if this happened again, Venezuela would openly support Ecuador in an armed conflict against Colombia.
And in 2010, the US tried to put a hit out on Correa. A large section of the Ecuadorian police revolted against Correa. He was furious and went to the building that the coup leaders were using as their headquarters, slapped them in the face, gave a long speech about how stupid they were and basically said: "I'm here, kill me if you have the guts!". The coup failed. His supporters surrounded the building, and the army stormed it, rescuing Correa and arresting the leaders. Correa later said: "This is not Honduras, the Citizen's Revolution and Democracy will not be destroyed!", referring to the 2009 coup in Honduras that the US supported.
He remained in power until 2017, gave Julian Assange asylum in the UK and began to have close relations with China, eventually supporting his vice-president for president, Lenin Moreno. Lenin was elected, but soon moved away from Correa and into neoliberalism. Lenin's vice-president, Jorge Glass, was against this. He was therefore dismissed by Lenin. Then he sold Assange to the Americans in exchange for IMF loans, made huge cuts to the budget, took out several loans that he embezzled.
The CIA attempted to arrest Correa using Lawfare, the same they did with Lula da Silva. Attempted with Cristina Kirchner, Ollanta Humala and others. Also the really weird suicide case of former president Alan Garcia. Correa was granted assylum in Belgium, as his wife is Belgian.
Finally, a man called Guillermo Lasso was elected president and he was just an ordinary neoliberal. Lenin fled the country after his term ended because he was wanted by the police. Lasso ended up almost being impeached, but he closed the congress and called new elections because Lasso was found to have links to the Albanian mafia
Daniel Noboa has been elected to govern Ecuador for two years until real elections can be held. Unfortunately for Noboa, the left still controls congress and has refused to allow him to impose useless laws in the name of "fighting" the cartels that are terrorizing the country.
GOOD post
is Correa back in Ecuador or still in Belgium? do we know which country Lenin is hiding in?
Paraguay, the same country where the Somoza family hid during the 1980s before being killed by Argentine Peronist guerrillas. The US gave him a job at the OAS as a consultant for people with disabilities or something like that. He applied for asylum in Paraguay. He also revealed that he is ill with something that causes internal bleeding if he walks too much.
Still in Belgium. I think he will only return to Ecuador after a friendly goverment is elected.