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.
Back online after two weeks of taking care of irl stuff. Random disconnected thoughts incoming:
Aunt and her kids have successfully left Lebanon into Syria and then into Iraq, very happy with that. Thank God for the Iraqis, we're forever indebted to them for just how extraordinarily generous they've been with the refugees. Fuck the Egyptians for not even doing 0.1% of that for the people of Gaza.
Son is already nearly four months old. Very nice kid tbh, not too many sleepless nights so far.
Damn the Ukraine war is progressing very fast now, I don't even have time to learn the names of the villages anymore. Cursed town Ugledar might have been the glue that held together Ukraine's defence in the south-east. Nonstop collapse since Ugledar fell and now we are looking at the first big Russian arrow since the first weeks of the war. South Donetsk is done if Russia reach Andriivka, that entire Kurakhove corner will fall in matter of weeks. Very interesting developments on the Oskol sector as well, don't understand why Ukraine is letting their east Kupyansk grouping get pinned towards the river and not withdrawing behind a very defensible river line.
I don't believe the reports about any ceasefire whether in Lebanon or Gaza. The Doha talks about Gaza are just a last ditch effort to provide a "peace in the Middle East" boost for Kamala, there's little real substance there. Same with the Lebanon negotiations, there's no incentive for any side here. Israel continue their forever war, Americans sell guns, Iranians have an excuse to lob missiles at Israel whenever they want now and Hezbollah are inflicting record damage on IDF losers.
Help me out Hexxies, who will win the election? My instincts say it's big wet Donnie, but idk these days. How are the polls looking? I read reddit and in their world Kamala will win every single state, while right wings dumbasses on Twitter say that NY is a swing state.
Trump will win the popular vote, but Kamala will win the electoral college. Trump will blame China, Latinos and he will probably return to selling shoes and other right-wing grift stuff
Don't tease me like that. At least it would make the referendum on genocide ambiguous....
Glad to hear your family is safe for now.
As for the election, it is impossible to say and pretty much a dead heat across the real battleground states. Most people seem to think PA is the state to watch, so if kamala wins there she likely wins it all. If she doesnt win there especially if she loses by a relatively large margin (over 2% at least) its probably Trump. If it is actually close, we might not know the winner for a few days like it was in 2020 because of mail in ballots and stuff (depends on the states that end up being close though)
Of course it also doesnt matter much who will win. If trump wins, our descent into fascism might be a bit quicker but also more entertaining
Trump will win but die before coming to office and also Biden will die before leaving office so Harris will be the first woman president for only a few weeks before handing the reins to Vance which ignites a civil war which is actually a bloodless coup that is redirected on the working class immediately.
fuck this is it
I was just thinking of you after seeing the Zionists bomb tyre. I’m glad they were able to get out. My instincts also say Donald
Huzzah that you and your family are safe. Are you remaining in Lebanon? In the north I hope?
I completely agree with you that all the ceasefire talks are one-sided PR nonsense. Much like Zelensky’s “peace conference” where he didn’t invite the Russians, it’s a comical farce
he lives in America I think
Welcome back comrade!
Glad to hear, thank you for checking in!
The following analysis could not be more vibes-based. My socio and geo-political knowledge of West Asia is limited. But I just have this… gut feeling, this hunch… that when the final story of Palestinian liberation is told, Iraq will play a decisive role (after the Palestinians themselves, of course). Is that a completely off-base hunch?
Edit: the US election thing, it’s literally a coin flip right now. Most of the swing state polls are within the margin of error. I do think rhe Puerto Rico thing will give Pennslyvania to Harris but I also think Trump will win Michigan because of Harris’ support of genocide. But neither of those are by themselves decisive for either candidate.
Glad to hear that your family had made it to Iraq safely. That is good news.
Yeah Ukraine is losing ground pretty quickly, their air defence is non existent, Russian stealth Su-57 fighter jets are launching cruise missile attacks at Odessa now, that's how far they can infiltrate. Sanctions on drone parts by China also seem to have hurt Ukrainian drone warfare units a ton.
The ceasefire reports are not credible as of now, the placeholder documents that leaked pretty much consisted of a list of US wishes with no grounding in the actual situation as it exists on the ground. I posted the leaked placeholder documents here
As for the US "elections", the polls show them to be at a statistical tie, but my gut feeling is the same as yours. I think Trump will sneak through similar to 2016.
Thank you for the update and recap Mr. Penis
Welcome back!