Image is from this article in the New York Times.
A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Morocco on September 8th, with the epicenter 73 kilometers away from Marrakesh.
At least 2500 people have died as of September 11th, most outside Marrakesh, with more people being pulled out of the rubble every day, making it the deadliest earthquake in Morocco since 1960, and the second-deadliest earthquake this year (first being, of course, the one in Turkiye-Syria in February, which killed nearly 60,000 people). While the deaths are the most horrific part, damage to historic sites has also been very significant - including buildings dating back to the 1000s.
Morocco is situated close to the Eurasian-African plate boundary, where the two plates are colliding. The rock comprising the Atlas Mountains, situated along the northwestern coast of Africa separating the Sahara from the Mediterranean Sea, are being pushed together at a rate of 1 millimeter per year, and thus the mountains are slowly growing. As they collide, energy is stored up over time and then released, and faults develop. The earthquake this month originated on one such fault, as did the earthquake in 1960. The earthquake hypocenter was 20-25 kilometers underground, with 1.7 meters (or 5 and a half feet) of rock suddenly shifting along a fault ~30 kilometers (19 miles) long.
Earthquake prediction is still deeply imprecise at best, and obtaining decent knowledge and forewarning of earthquakes is highly dependent on dense seismometer arrays that constantly monitor seismic activity, such as in Japan, and detailed understanding of the local and regional tectonic environment. The best way to prevent damage is to build earthquake-resistant infrastructure and establish routines for escaping buildings and reaching safety. All of these, of course, are underdeveloped to nonexistent in developing countries, particularly in poorer communities inside those countries.
The Country of the Week, in honour of Allende's death 50 years ago (the only bad geopolitical event that has occurred on September 11th, of course), is Chile. Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
The weekly update is here!
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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
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.
Last week's discussion post.
The latter. Obama tried something like this in the 2010s and called it the New Silk Road Initiative. It got nowhere - didn't even receive any real funding, let alone construction beginning on it. I would be surprised if this new project falls on its face quite as hard as there's now a much greater incentive to get some form of anti-China supply routes, but I expect that before long we'll see articles talking about how it's being delayed, or companies are pulling out, or there's some scandal here or there.
In all, it's going to be like the Inflation Reduction Act and other measures to boost manufacturing is in America - looks great until you look into it, and you realize that it's just on very shaky foundations (what comes to mind is that article from yesterday on how the Arizona chip factory will be useless in a US-China war in which Taiwan is occupied by China or at least its factories unable to work and import/export). It's not going to have zero effect, there's way too much money being pumped in for it to do nothing, but "Bidenomics" is just too tainted by neoliberals to be a really serious threat. I disagree with @SimulatedLiberalism@hexbear.net on that last point I think, but I agree on most other points, particularly how this is a war of finance capitalism vs industrial capitalism. The US won't win by trying to reindustrialize - the parasitic rot is just too deep now, and it would take nothing short of a gigantic industrial bourgeois revolution to change that. Where they can win is by using their financial tools effectively. They are not currently, because in part the ideology runs too deep; in financial institutions, in universities, in businesses, etc. The superstructure is shaping the base, rather than the other way around. I think they absolutely have the potential - the anti-Western movement could be demolished without even that much effort if the US was run by hypercompetent fascists (as oxymoronic as that might be) who knew how to use their tools correctly, which is the scary part. But there's nobody on the horizon who seems more competent than Biden, and that is not a compliment for Biden but an insult to the opposition. I mean, Trump? DeSantis? Fucking Chris Christie? And on the Democrat side, Buttigieg? Harris? Warren?
What I'm a little curious about actually is why they're attempting this project in the first place. Yeah, sure, "we need to have alternative projects to evil China's", whatever, but like, America and the West is not the side that people typically imagine with supply routes under threat in the event of WW3 with China. I do wonder if it's essentially an acknowledgement that Russia and China are increasing in military and particularly naval presence, especially as Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia join BRICS and thus will become more closely aligned, and those countries happen to be near critical straits and gulfs, like Suez, and the Gulfs of Oman, Aden, etc.
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India is fraught with numerous internal contradictions (North India vs South India, caste contradictions, religious contradictions, Aryan-descendant vs Dravidian-descendant vs tribal-descendant) and much of India is already hard hit by climate change, further sharpening those contradictions. I think people underestimate how much of India is build on sand and how India's domestic situation can get ugly very very fast.
In general, I don't see any country or group of countries replacing China anytime soon. The closest would be Vietnam if Vietnam had 10 times the population it has now. That doesn't mean these capitalists can't invest and prop up a target country with the goal of turning it into the next 1980s era China, but that takes time and money, something those neoliberal ghouls don't want to spend.
For what is worth while this is all 100% correct I think it is also something we will only have to worry about for the immediate short term future.
I don't believe western capitalism be it ruled by industrialists or finance capital is ever going to be willing, let alone able of dealing with the consequences of climate change and this is their ultimate limitation. Nature realy doesn't care about ideology, the US will be ravaged by climate change, well along with the rest of the world too and this is the issue.
The foundation of modern capitalism is now linked to the status quo of the current global markets, the freedom of movement for capital and access to all raw materials and resources.
Even for industrialists what is industry without ample access to labor and raw materials? The population will not stick around in areas that are literally unlivable but industrial centers are most optimally located near trading hubs or with easy access to such, guess what is the first immediate effect of rising sea levels.
The raw materials wont travel around the globe in a super container if those ships are instead carrying other vital industrialized goods. Even without oil yeah ultimately we could go back to sailboats but you can forget mass industrialization either way. IMO.
In short, capitalism as it exists today would collapse if global trading collapses and I believe climate change will do this. So TL;DR competent or not, financial/industrial or not I don't see much of a chance of the current US status lasting beyond 2035 maybe 2050 due to climate change.
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I'd not disregard capitalist on capitalist violence though, the US is lucky compared to Europe for example.
To be fair in my doomer scenario I also almost take US balkanization for granted and then I'm not so sure anymore.
I am reminded of all the whinging during COVID because there was literally no one to work at starbucks to get rich people coffee because so many people died. They'll be the last to suffer, but they'll be the first to complain about it.
Yeah, to me, it's a decaying empire trying to right a sinking ship. Most decaying empires have some faction that's competent and not corrupt enough to realize the whole rotting house will collapse if they don't do something. For the Qing dynasty, it was the Self-Strengthening Movement. For the Roman Empire, it was Diocletian forming the Tetrarchy that gave new life to the empire. Sometimes, it pans out like the Tetrarchy, which didn't last that long but it at least stalled the collapse of the empire for a good couple of centuries for the west anyways, but most of the time, it's like the Self-Strengthening Movement, reforms that come too little too late.
BRI with burger characteristics is not like the two I've listed above because these aren't domestic reforms aimed at stabilizing the empire, but it comes from the same general place of anxiety of empire collapse. I do not think the US has the technological and logistical know-how to competently pull this off.