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.
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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.
Holy shit it really is Hillary 2.0.
Once again the dems said one true thing and called the bigots garbage and so kamala is gonna spend the final 72 hours talking about how trump supporters aren’t racist and “she would never say anything bad about a group of people just based on who they vote for”
Libs will say they hope you get executed by fascists if you vote for Jill stein but clutch their pearls at the suggestion that racist dumbasses are garbage.
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On 25 October, the Al-Quds Foundation in was live on Salaamedia, issuing an “emergency appeal”, which included both praise and criticism of South Africa’s response to the geenocide by “israel”, as well as harsh condemnation of Middle Eastern nations, especially Egypt. It was also heavily advised to put more pressure on the South African government to begin taking more meaningful action against Isnotreal, such as a total ban on trade with the Apartheid state. The programme also urged much more direct action including storming “israeli” embassies/consulates and complicit arms industries (much like Palestine Action) in not only South Africa, but all over the world. Even martyrdom was suggested onboard flotillas delivering food and medical aid, in an attempt to tell the ISISraeli blockade to eat shit and push forward anyway. That’s really about as radical as they probably could take it without consequence, even on South African airwaves. Still,
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Several more universities in South Africa have severed ties with their Pissraeli counterparts - University of Cape Town and University of the Western Cape, Nelson Mandela University, University of South Africa, University of Fort Hare and University of Venda. AFAIK, all 4 campuses of University of Johannesburg have maintained their boycott since 2011.
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Wits University had rejected demands for boycott.
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Several media outlets have named and identified a South African named Aaron Bayhack who joined the IDF’s elite sniper team in Gaza. One more who is due to be sent to the
if he ever steps foot back into South Africa. Of course, there’s also outrage of the pro-Apartheid “community” of a “brave, patriotic, innocent young boy” being doxxed by major outlets such as IOL and News24. Let alone the fact that a South African IDF serviceman stepping foot back into a country hostile to “israel” presents a very immediate threat to public safety. -
South Africa also submitted it’s memorial to the ICJ on the morning of 28 October. “israel” was given 9 months (until the 28th of July) to submit a “counter-argument”. It’s not a mystery as to what this so-called counter-argument contains.
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The move to change Sandton Drive to Leila Khaled Drive is again delayed. So much for the socialist fraternal kiss under the Leila Khaled street sign with the US Consulate getting Falastin-2’d in the background 2 weeks ago.
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SAJFP also picked apart that one Haaretz article “Scary Time To Be a Zionist” and called out many a salty settler.
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A journalist by the name of Hamza Chalan has escaped Jabalia and fled to South Africa with his footage also 2 weeks ago.
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Google Earth still shows Mariupol in ruins and the
still claims the city is a bombed-out ghost town, even as the population is back to over 400,000 and most services and infrastructure has been restored.
Death to AmeriKKKa; Death to “israel”
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There is something morbidly funny to me in the Zionist line that Yahya Sinwar “died like a dog.” Basically just confessing that they regularly kill dogs using drone surveillance and tank shells.
It never looks quite good to compare the killing of your enemies to killing a dog, but if you’re gonna use it it needs to be embarrassing for the victim and not your own side, like death by starvation or just plain execution.
Not to mention we’ve obviously all seen the video of him dying like a fucking boss fighting to his final breath, making a last stand while using all the strength and determination he had to remain standing and fighting
Some news from Gaza, Lebanon, and the Donbass.
Palestinian resistance forces eliminated four members of the ‘elite’ Zionist “Refaim” sniper unit in northern Gaza: https://thecradle.co/articles/gaza-resistance-kills-four-israeli-soldiers-from-elite-sniper-unit
Lebanese resistance forces destroyed a Zionist Merkava tank near El Hamames along the border: https://tass.com/world/1863801
Recent video footage of Russian forces having fully liberated the small DPR city of Selidovo: https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/Selidovo:2
All the analysts are saying that Israel’s attack on Iran failed. They had 100 airplanes in the air.
Iranian air defense (with the help of Russia) is really good. Better than Israel’s. And Iran also has better missiles as well!
Provide sources.
I wouldn’t say the attack was a failure. Key air defence systems responsible for defending key assets, early warning radars and above ground missile and drone production facilities were hit. This has been evidenced by satellite imagery, photos of the attack, and Iran’s own claims, and not IDF claims.
Vast majority were intercepted. It was a failure. They fired a LOT of missiles. Hundreds. They planned for the operation to go for something like 8 hours but just gave up a few hours in.
I wouldn’t say hundreds of missiles being fired is realistic given the amount of planes involved. Of those 100 or so jets, some are going to be fighter escorts not carrying any air to surface missiles. That’s not mentioning aerial refueling and AWACS craft. Then there’s the amount of Air Launched Ballistic Missiles (ALBMs) each jet can carry. With each jet fully kitted out with drop tanks for the required range needed to get to Iran, you’re looking at two ALBMs max per plane in the case of the shorter range ones like ROCKS, and with the heavier ALBMs carried on the F-15s, with a detachable booster stage, you’re probably only looking at one per aircraft max in a asymmetric loadout with drop tanks, as pictured below.
If you do an estimate on the very high end, and say 80 jets were carrying ALBMs while the rest were escorts and support aircraft, and 20 jets were carrying one ALBM, and 60 jets two ALBMs, that’s 140 missiles at most, and I’d say that’s a high end estimate. Realistic numbers are probably under 100. The legitimate leaked documents had detected that 56 ALBMs were prepared by October 15th, so I’d say that would be a reasonable minimum.
As for interception rates, satellite imagery that I have been unable to see or access yet (please take that into account) shows no damage at Bidganeh, but lots of probable air defence activity. So we can assume if such imagery is accurate, then air defence systems had success in interceptions there, but hits were also landed on air defence systems at other locations.
Where is this coverage?
YouTube. Ray McGovern, Scott Ritter, Colonel Douglas McGregor
Scott Ritter
Isn’t that the guy that has been going on about Iran having S400 air defence systems and Su-35 fighter jets for eons now, with no evidence presented of such occuring. Also with regards to Russia and Ukraine, everytime Russia takes a village he reacts as if the Ukrainian frontline is going to have a full on collapse.
Su-35 has been rumored to be received in Iran just this week actually, credible sources inside Iran report
I think that’s based on satellite images with above ground aircraft shelters big enough for them. But it’s still going to take a while for them to be operational, unless Russia has trained Iranian pilots covertly. In that case, the aircraft will be operational as soon as they’re assembled, assuming they arrived in pieces.
Isn’t he also a pedo? Yeah, it’s ad hominem, but I also don’t want to go around quoting some pedo to make a point on geopolitics lol
He didn’t actually do any sex acts with minors. I’m not going to defend his actions or anything but this came after his vocal criticisms of the war in Iraq and the lack of evidence of WMDs. He was convicted for chatting with someone who he says thought was and adult roleplaying a teen ager in a sex chatroom but the prosecution says was an actual teenager. (who is conveniently unidentified)
To me it looks like a honeypot/set up designed to make him a toxic source.
Yea but he’s also one of the only public figures that was pushing back against the WMD narrative and starting the Iraq War, and it was brave of him to do that and still earns him a lot of credibility
These people are literally imperialist spies.
Edit: i seriously can’t spell
Road blockade in Virú on the Panamericana Norte, connecting Trujillo to Lima. Peruvians are protesting a wave of crime and insecurity that the U.S. backed right wing coup regime does nothing to curb.
Peruvian National Police (PNP) firing live shots to disperse protesters in Valle de Dios, Chao in the North of Perú. Will the US backed coup regime once again commit another massacre at the hands of SOUTHCOM trained armed forces?
Illegally ousted and detained President of Perú Pedro Castillo sending his solidarity to one of his biggest supporters since the US backed coup, Evo Morales.
+$1390 bribe is their best against “literally Hitler”.
i feel like iran is cheating or something , like in a PC game you would not even get a choice to show this much restrainted , if somebody bombs your soil or embassy or honored guest for presidential inaguration…
It would just be a Pop up window with “So theres war now” …
Anyway … Israel will now apperently strike Iran again because of the 2 Palmtrees that got damaged on nethanyaus Residence or something
Edit: wtf is that even suppose to mean …
Many new comments!
It’s all from a Zionist troll
Kamala fucking sucks but at this point I kind of want to see her win for the sole reason that it would make Elon sad
Hezbollah targeting a shelter: https://xcancel.com/MenchOsint/status/1850489072378085692
Afermath: https://xcancel.com/15Escao/status/1850504934854451471
Notice the car and bus in both clips.
Dozens of civilians have been killed and thousands displaced in Sudan’s Gezira state, aid groups said, after several days of attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been battling the army for more than a year. In an interview with The AP on Friday, Chaiban said the war has created “one of the most acute crises in living memory” with more than 14 million people forced to flee their homes, plunging Sudan into the world’s largest displacement crisis.“ We’ve never in a generation seen these types of numbers,” he said. About 25.6 million people – more than half of Sudan’s population – are expected to face acute hunger this year due to the conflict.
What is the Marxist position on this war? I know little and feel shitty about that every time I see news. -self crit. This was a shitty question, I shouldn’t have asked. If anyone has good resources, I want to learn more and that’s my point.
The UAE and their RAF toddies are genocidal freaks no better than ISIS, the Sudanese government on the other hand is incompetent, corrupt and in the past empowered the RAF to its now ironic detriment
The SCP (Sudanese Communist Party) has called for an immediate ceasefire between rival factions, so I’m going to follow their lead
Idk… but I guess RSF prolly bad, from what I’ve heard on r/Trueanon
It follows the general blueprint of other African countries like Nigeria: you have a completely corrupt government that kowtows to the West and you have a separatist faction that destabilizes the already corrupt government. Both are needed to make the country vulnerable to imperialist machinations. The ultimate goal is to turn the country into something like Haiti where the corrupt government is replaced with a cabal of white colonizers but the destabilizing agents are still there.
Notice that Sudan has already been Balkanized with the creation of South Sudan. This is another part of the plan. They want to exploit ethnic and religious tensions. The West engineered the split between the Muslim Sudan and non-Muslim South Sudan, and now they are funding Islamists using the UAE and the Zionist entity as an intermediary.
If you want to learn more, here’s an article: https://hoodcommunist.org/2024/03/07/what-you-need-to-understand-about-imperialism-in-sudan/ The Marxist position is to recognize that neither side has the Sudanese masses’s interest at heart and to call for the cessation of hostilities.
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the correct Marxist position is to withhold a position until you are properly informed. not asking what the 'Marxist position" is. also that shitty feeling is your humanity. follow it. do more research instead of asking for your predigested take. dont have the time? cool then you dont get to have a position on this until you do, dont worry millions of people will still beremovedd, starved and massacred when you get around to it. the only think you CANT do is to parrot an opinion on an issue youve done no research on becasue someone on a forum with 95% white people on it (white people who already have many racist brain worms) told you to. this shit is actually offensive the apathy of white “leftist” is actually offensive. if you REALLY cared you WOULD NOT ask someone that, god please never do that in real life unless you want to look like a ignorant yankie.
What’s the point of having a group of like-minded people except to not learn everything on your own? Maybe my question is not worded well, and I will also take your critique seriously, in that I should investigate further.
But why would I begin by nothing? This is my first real moment of thinking I maybe have some time to learn something about it. I’m going to begin with a basis among comrades, look for resources from communists (and look, another comrade gave that knowledge about a communist party, though I will have to search further on my own).
Maybe it does show some “white leftist” attitude that I should critique, but don’t act like there’s not enough that I’ve been trying to learn and apply these past years. I didn’t want a fully digested take, I wanted to know what Marxists has said about the positions.
ok well the communist party of sudan is a captured party and a shell of its former self, soooo if you went based on the uninformed comment you would have been misled. which is exactly why asking for the “Marxist position” is a thought-terminating cliche, not everyone who calls themselves a communist/Marxist/ socialist has the correct universal “marxist take” such a thing doesn not exist. and heres the thing YOU WILL NOT be able to shift the real stuff from the bullshit until you have a basic history of the country. there is NO SHORTCUT you can take here without coming off as a chauvinist whos not truly invested. ALSO like i said this is a 95% white website, where most people have not done ANY work to combat racist brain worms. getting all your points on black issues from HEXBEAR is a huge mistake!! no investigation no right to speak never seems to matter here when it comes to african countries.
Would you then like to set me on a correct path? What can I read? Everything I look into seems to be shitty analyses every time, lacking any materialist bases, which gets me nowhere. That frustration was the start of this, though I didn’t communicate it well.
My best bases is reading Nkrumah and Rodney, but I feel like those don’t help too much with the current conflict
sometime the “correct Marxist position” ™ feels like some Manichaeist\game brain rotting thinking packaged into geopolitics or current event.
This is extremely unsettling because it is basically converting human into data to support a certain position
Trying to self-crit right now, is the problem that I’m wanting a position to just adopt? Because that’s not my intention, I was hoping to get some links to good Marxist critiques/party positions to learn more.
You’re thinking like old school commies waiting for the party line. Now of course this isn’t your fault, people are asked to not comment on assassinations or retreats until it is admitted by the organizations being targetted.
the issue is that you are jumping the gun. you dont even know the questions to ask, you wanna get to chapter 5 when you haven’t even read the prologue. do you know the history of socialist Sudan? do you know what faction are involved even the names? do you know any basic knowledge about this country? start there, maybe a decade before that and do your OWN analysis first, thats how you actually become a good Marxist, THEN you read what other Marxists have written. im logging off now becasue im am scrolling Hexbear instead of my stupid chores. also last point
'“do your own Marxist analysis” then read Marxists? My question is, why would I do that instead of reading and critiquing Marxist analyses? Not everyone has to reinvent every wheel. I can look critically, it’s not like this is my first Marxist analysis. I’m gonna read and put more trust in the PFLP than anyone on Palestine, too.
If there is no good analysis, then of course. That’s the information I hoped someone would give: is there a good analysis somewhere? I’d rather learn and apply than have to create my own position on Sudan. It’s the purpose of parties really. But no party I affiliate with has said anything, and maybe, as you insinuate, there is no good analysis.
I’ll read some on socialist Sudan; I know little outside of what I already mentioned and the writings of the Communist Party of Kenya. You seem to disagree with them, if I’m understanding right.
exactly!!! you get it.
Party line
Which of the belligerents factions?
None, it’s a warlords war with gulf states involved
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/gunshots-in-khartoum
I need to be honest, if you have no idea what’s going on in sudan you are anti black, same goes for the congo. you do not care about black people as much as other groups of people facing genocide, and it is becasue of the color of their skin. you are actively failing to recognize their humanity and you NEED to feel SHAME about that. its the most valid critique that black liberals have on you, the American left does not even recognize the humanity of black people around the world. dont have me to do this for you ill be honest i don’t have the time or energy. maybe someone else can make a huge effort post that would be good, becasue it is shameful how little Hexbear cares about tragedies when they happen to black people on whom they can’t project their adolecent revolutionary fantasies on.
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Just post more. We need more people focusing on Latin America and East Africa. Everyone forgot about Bolivia until Morales almost got shot.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7dkgz71x6o
One of these structures, known as Taleghan 2, has been previously linked to Iran’s nuclear programme by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
BBC Verify has identified what appears to be damage to a storage unit at the Abadan Oil Refinery based in the south-western province of Khuzestan.
Apparently Israel did (kinda sorta, but not really) strike oil and nuclear sites? Seems kinda like an “I’m not touching you” thing, with minor targets being chosen to avoid serious implications.
The destruction of Taleghan 2 was likely largely symbolic, there’s been no visible activity there on satellite imagery for over 7 years, with half built buildings that haven’t been worked on since 2016.
to our brave medics
