Won a local by-election that I've been doorknocking for recently

Won't say anymore as it'll definitely dox me but it's a score.

Thank you Reform for splitting the Tory vote.

An interesting piece that tries to answer the question: "Why does everybody in the West think that China's economy is doing very badly when it demonstrably isn't?" from a very capitalist Hong Kong research group thinktanky place:

At an investment conference in Kuala Lumpur recently, I caught up with an old friend and Gavekal client. Over coffee between sessions, we talked about one of the most visible changes of the last few years in Asia: the Chinese cars that have so quickly appeared on roads across the continent. This led us to the comments made in September by Ford chief executive officer Jim Farley. Freshly returned from a visit to China, Farley told The Wall Street Journal that the growth of the Chinese auto sector poses an existential threat to his company, and that “executing to a Chinese standard is now going to be the most important priority.” By any measure, this is an earth-shattering statement.

Making cars is complicated. Not as complicated as making airliners or nuclear power plants. But making cars is still the hallmark of an advanced industrial economy. So, the idea that China is suddenly setting the standards that others must now strive to meet is a sea-change compared with the world we lived in just five years ago.

This led my friend to question how Farley and other auto industry CEOs could have fallen quite so deeply asleep at the wheel. How could China so rapidly leapfrog established industries around the world without all those very well paid Western CEOs realizing what was happening until two minutes ago?

The rest of the piece continues in that more informal style, so I'll just summarize the rest of the article:

During the pandemic, and especially as the Ukraine War was causing chaos, nobody from the West really bothered to visit China, and so haven't seen how things have developed. This is in line with a Dengist strategy of keeping a low profile and not flaunting their capabilities, but it wasn't as if China was stopping them from visiting - CEOs just had other things to worry about with supply chain disruptions.

The author then basically says that China is doing capitalism better than the West, and now the West is (rather hilariously) backing away from jerking off the very concept of globalization and now think tariffs are awesome again.

Next, he talks about how the West has been pretty consistently racist against Asia throughout history, and these racist impulses still very much exist, so they would naturally underestimate China. There's also the fact that China is a communist state, and everybody in the West is brought up on anti-Soviet propaganda (the author doesn't use that word, unfortunately).

He moves on to explaining how the West is assuming that China = Japan 30 years ago, with inaccurate similarities drawn between their economic situations. The West is saying to itself that China will need to do massive fiscal stimulus to keep growing and get out of its "rut", but they don't seem to be considering if this rut is actually intentional, in order to bring down Chinese real estate and focus on more productive endeavors. This graph says it all:

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There's no real conception that the collapse in real estate might actually be the policy and not the catastrophic consequence of like, communists not understanding Economics 101. The government explicitly said that this was the goal the entire time. Additionally, the property bust has hit the biggest cities the hardest, especially among millennials, but third and fourth tier cities are doing fairly well (the rural situation is complicated but dissatisfaction is concentrated in older people there). As the first and second tier cities are the most often visited by Westerners, their image of China is disproportionally negative. Meanwhile, in the third and fourth tier cities, there has been an industrial and transportation boom, which has gone almost unreported in the West.

Some more explanations for Western negativity include a general tendency to report bad news more than good news ("China is FIVE DAYS from TOTAL COLLAPSE!" gets more clicks than "Things are doing pretty good in China.") as well as China's lackluster stock market performance relative to its massive improvements, and Americans hyperfocus on stocks.

And, of course, the final contributing factor: that the US is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars to "...raise awareness of and increase transparency regarding the negative impact of activities related to the Belt and Road Initiative, associated initiatives, other economic initiatives with strategic or political purposes, and coercive economic practices.” via the Countering the PRC Malign Influence Fund Authorization Act.

Two unrelated thoughts:

1. Trump's batshit crazy cabinet actually proves that voting Trump was the correct accelerationist position. If you wanted to accelerate the downfall of American hegemony and the weakening of American institutions by appointing the biggest dumbasses on the planet, then you got your wish with this 2nd Trump admin. I sympathize with Americans comrades, but chickens come home to roost like the great martyr Malcolm X said.

2. Russians actually entered deep into Kupiansk, I can't believe my eyes. Actually insane development, I didn't expect this at all so quickly honestly. It says a lot about the state of Ukrainian defences at this point. The story of Kupiansk is very interesting and serves as a good blueprint of the future of how Ukrainian territories will be integrated into Russia. Russia took over Kupiansk without a fight in February 2022, because the mayor was an intelligent man who spared the city from unnecessary bloodshed by calling the Russian command and telling them that they're free to enter the city without needlessly destroying infrastructure and civilian life. Civilians stayed, got their wages from Moscow, repairs were done quickly, civilians didn't leave, schools switched to Russian which the population already spoke perfectly, and that angered western media so much. When the Ukrainians took back the city in September 2022, mass arrests took place and sob stories were planted in media. The city was turned into a military hellhole by the AFU and most civilians had to flee. Russia kinda stabbed those people in the back during that disastrous period, but that's another discussion.

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these are the people that lecture you about anti-semitism and racism

The Haka in the NZ parliament video has been quite viral on Arab social media circles in the past two days, and it has generated some pretty interesting reactions that I will share here.

Reaction type number 1: why? The most common reaction is people being completely unaware of the history of Maori peoples in NZ, so they share or comment on the video in an attempt to understand the context of the video. Many comments ridiculing the thing, but most were just curious about who these people are.

Reaction type number 2: damn this is cool. Many thought it was cool and that it shows that Maoris are brave people that are not afraid to capture the white man's institution to do their dance and show their culture.

Reaction type number 3: this is a defeated people. This type of reaction was the most interesting in my opinion, because people made a lot of comparisons to Palestinians inside Israel who participate in elections and have representation in the Knesset. It was a lot of "is this really it?", this is a defeated people whose culture and way of life was mostly decimated by colonisers, and now they're standing in the white man's institutions wearing the white man's clothing and doing song and dance. I have to emphasise that most of these reactions actually came from a place of love for native people, but they saw the Haka in this particular context as a sign of humiliation, not strength. One guy wrote that Israel might let three Palestinians do a dabke in the Knesset in 2050 as they sign a law that deports all remaining Arabs in Greater Israel.

Fantastic news everyone

Houthi rebels are brandishing increasingly sophisticated weapons, including missiles that "can do things that are just amazing," the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer said at an Axios event.

Lol. Lmao even. At this point, if I was the Pentagon I would simply hire Yemeni engineers

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante on Wednesday said the Houthis "are getting scary."

"I'm an engineer and a physicist, and I've been around missiles my whole career," he said at the Future of Defense summit in Washington, DC. "What I've seen of what the Houthis have done in the last six months is something that — I'm just shocked."

https://www.axios.com/2024/11/14/laplante-houthi-antiship-missiles-iran

Continuing their state-protected tour of violence, dozens of Israeli fans beat a french fan in the stands of the France v Israel match the other night. Some media has framed it as 'booing and clashes' but more and more videos from the game have been appearing since then.

Police and security did little to nothing to stop the violence as fans further down the stands looked on helplessly, but arrested French fans trying to get others out of the mob of Israeli hooligans. After the match an Israeli fan in an IDF tee shirt was interviewed by the French media grinning and saying the level of security was "wonderful, magnificent, maybe too much even" before pointing out that they had a "small incident in Block K" which they dealt with "directly". There's also video of French fans showing police and security, with video evidence on their phones, that the Israel fans were the aggressors. Of course they were ignored.

Macron and other French ministers were at the match to "show their support for fighting anti-semitism" after Amsterdam. They didn't mention or condemn the Israeli violence against French fans afterward from what I can see.

When the leaders of European states repeatedly and reflexively defend Israeli violence against and above their own citizens as victims - in countries that are already sliding ever-rightward - they're pouring fuel on the kindling of actual antisemitism. It's going to end very badly indeed.

The NYT asks - Why Was There a Broad Drop-Off in Democratic Turnout in 2024? (archive)

Gaza - not mentioned, even though they talk about Harris getting fewer votes than Biden in Dearborn. Grocery prices - not mentioned. Are you better off than you were four years ago? Not mentioned.

Some analysts point out that Ms. Harris was simply the latest political casualty of a postpandemic global trend favoring challengers, no matter the incumbents’ politics, in places like Japan, South Africa, South Korea and Britain.

Mexico? Not mentioned, because then they'd have to point out that incumbent parties that have actually done something to help people out of poverty tend to win reelection.

Loser shit:
https://xcancel.com/QudsNen/status/1856249160623693844

A pro-Israel rally in Washington was expected to draw 40,000 people, but only about 200 attended, according to media reports.

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too lazy to make a post but on amerikkkan celebrities, beacons of virtue.

Imagine donating to campaign to fight fascism (together with 700 mln dark money, but putting that aside), and they pay katy perry cool 1 million for appearance

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are you client maxxxing rn, hexbears? I'm my kitty's client

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disgusting husks of human beings, absolutely perversion from top to bottom in that department of anything resembling morality

Twitch declares that “Zionist” is a slur, will issue bans for criticizing “individuals” based on their “religious beliefs or background” (genocide, settler colonialism)

https://archive.ph/qwX4r

Direct implications for leftist anti-genocide influencers like Hasan and his platform, also possibly setting precedents for mass censorship and removal of other Palestinian and anti-genocide organizing on major social media networks.

[Post: https://hexbear.net/post/3904798]

Maduro declares himself a Marxist-Leninist. Says he believes in Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao-Zedong, Fidel Castro, Bolivar and Chavez.

https://tankie.tube/w/4niduPYSN8w2j6DK7RZpow

EDIT: The quality of this is shit I'll reupload.

EDIT2: Reup https://streamable.com/cijwwe