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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Last week’s thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

    • grandepequeno [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      68·
      11 days ago

      I actually hope that narrative gets massively pushed “ukraine should’ve negotiated earlier in the war” because it’s what communists have been saying since it started and we can I told you so people super hard

        • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          31·
          11 days ago

          I was there for it with Iraq in the early 00s. The worst isn’t the ones who memory hole it but the ones who will wait until the narrative has definitely turned and there’s no risk of being on The Wrong Side

          Then they’ll come out and assure you that they always thought that way, that they were always saying it was wrong to engage in the war and that peace was the way to go. They’ll try to gaslight everyone, themselves most of all

    • mkultrawide [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      32·
      11 days ago

      barbara-pit upon the Banderite rats who have destroyed their country

      And yamagami upon the Westerners who armed them and supported them in doing so.

      It’s a fucking crime what has happened on Ukraine. There is another future out there somewhere where it could have basically been the neutral gateway between Europe and Asia and greatly prospered from it. Instead the fascists dogs have hid behind the front lines while sending their men to the meat grinder and selling off all the country’s assets to the Western vultures.

    • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      31·
      11 days ago

      Specially true because even if you take a naive stance(e.g Hasan) that Putin bad and war is unjustifiable it still doesn’t follow that it was a war for conquest of Ukraine, it doesn’t matter our opinion on Feb 20th 2022, we know what happened in the months followed, we know Russia tried to negotiate and settle for those territories and it was Ukraine/US that refused.

      Its frustrating because even if you want to die on this Putin bad hill you can still reconcile with the idea that the unconditional surrender is a better outcome than literaly fighting for the last Ukrainian, the main point being it is only going to get worse not better which is exactly the opposite of what the entire western MSM claimed(another red flag) throughout, the idea that Ukraine was fighting for a better negotiating position is insane.

      There is like half a dozen Rand corp papers on their own public website explaining how the US strategy to arm Ukraine is to aggressively counter Russia anyway, its all there in the open.