Trump's victory, and the further mass oppression of minorities, is closer than ever before. May god have mercy on our souls.
previous preamble
The totalitarian capitalist dystopia which was created by the United States in the aftermath of the Korean War has increasingly experienced problems as the multipolar world is being gradually birthed.
Due to the widespread exploitation of the population, long work weeks, and high housing prices, the population growth of South Korea has plummeted, with the lowest fertility rate on the planet, and the highest suicide rate in the OECD. While a capitalist "success story" before the 2008 recession in terms of profit accumulation for the richest at the expense of most others, conditions have grown more dire in the Long Depression since the crash. GDP growth per year has averaged out at 2-3%. For more concrete figures, labour productivity has stagnated, particularly in the service sector. The rate of profit hit a peak when the dictatorship ended in the late 1980s, but has since massively tumbled. These dynamics are not unique to South Korea; they are happening throughout the West.
While South Korea is stagnating, perhaps even falling, its northern neighbour is rising. With Russia already persona non grata to much of the developed world and yet still maintaining fairly good economic growth and continuously albeit gradually moving towards victory in Ukraine, Putin sees no reason to be intimidated by the West's shunning of the DPRK, and Russia is establishing ties as well as military and economic deals. This seems to portend an end to the post-Soviet period of forced isolation due to UN actions forbidding the people of the DPRK to leave the country (which many westerners believe is a policy originating from the Korean leadership due to their propagandized education).
Many in the West are still, regrettably, unable to properly analyze the geopolitical situation of Korea due to their government programming, leading to bizarre takes about imminent collapse, or desperation on the part of Russia or the DPRK, unable to recognize that the DPRK has a powerful military sector all its own, and decades of autarky has created a durable society where limited resources must be used efficiently and effectively. The position of the Korean Peninsula seems likely to be a critical part of the US-China conflict, whether this is an outright war or instead a series of proxy wars. Indeed, Korea's position may soon become very important in global trade routes if the US tries to cut off the Strait of Malacca to Chinese-bound cargo ships, with vital resources like oil and food potentially transported both over land and via the Arctic Route over Russia and through the DPRK to China. Russia's leadership clearly sees the importance of Korea in the future, hence their actions now; and, of course, South Korea siding with Ukraine has also forced Putin's hand to oppose them more openly.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The "Country" of the Week is South Korea! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
Something I was going to post in the old thread before it got locked about libertarians being stuck in the "small government" mindset, citing this desire for "freedom and meritocracy":
Some thoughts on the concepts of freedom and meritocracy.
Freedom: When someone says freedom, you must always ask "Freedom for who?" and "Freedom to do what?". Real existing capitalism gives you a wide array of choices within a narrow band of consumerist gratification but is that the freedom you want and need? If you have the money you are free to buy any car offered for sale but the invisible habd of the market does not offer even the richest oligarch the possibility to ride on a well-integrated public transit system, only government decisions can give you that freedom.
The free market gives you the freedom to buy disposable plastic crap but it does patently not give you the freedom to live in a clean environment with a stable climate. The free market gives you the freedom to be unemployed, to be poor, to be ripped off by landlords and price gougers. Unless you belong to the gilded one percent, real existing capitalism gives you shitty freedoms that no sane person would want to have.
I get the notion of "I don't want the gubmint to tell me what to do!". I agree with it. I don't want the government to interfere in how people live their lives. I don't want them to legislate about what women can do with their bodies, or what consenting adults do together, or what music you listen to or what clothes you wear or what religion consenting adults practice together.
But here's the thing: The free market will only stay out of these things for as long as doing so is profitable. If it is deemed profitable to regulate your life, the free market will do so. During American apartheid, businesses were happy to exclude black people to get white customers to come. It is not that long ago that having visible tattoos would seriously impair you chances of getting a job and openly queer people face significant discrimination from the free market of real existing capitalism to this day.
There is no reason why a socialist system could not be set up to stay out of people's private business. In fact, a system controlled by the people in all of its colourful diversity is more likely to respect and protect that diversity than one controlled by a tiny bourgeoisie.
In fact socialism is going to set people free to pursue self-realisation by ensuring everyone has acces to essentials like food, housing, education and healthcare.
Meritocracy: The thing is literally a joke. The term was coined as a satire of the class-based British education system which claims to fill positions of power and status with the objectively most suitable people, but who always chooses the same well-connected posh boys from fancy boarding schools and influential families.
With that being said, nepotism is obviously bad for a society and people should be hired based on qualifications, not on who they know. This is not how things work today under real existing capitalism. Not only do you have all the more or less shady hires in the private and public sector alike, you also gatekeep the access to the qualifications, making it much harder for a kid from a poor family to realise their full potential than it is for one from a rich family.
Corporate influence over government also leads to non-meritocratic hires, in which corporate power is used to distort the stated purpose of public institutions, like we see it in regulatory capture.
The concept of meritocracy also leaves a big question to be asked: What about those without any merit? Human beings are not born alike and some of us does not have the talents or interest for acquiring skills considered meritorious. Some of us are born with disabilities, some of us grow up having shitty schools, some of us comes from families unable to support our development.
How is it fair that someone gets to live a life of luxury for being born with the talent and circumstances for having merit while those born without is condemned to poverty and despair?
Also, a lot of functions considered non-meritocrious and therefore undeserving of material comfort, are essential to the functioning of society. A society made up of just engineers and lawyers would collapse within weeks. Complex societies needs a host of different jobs being done, we need truck drivers, binmen, nurses, childcare workers, construction workers etc. Yet real existing capitalism does not provide them with material safety and comfort.
I think it's actually impossible for anything vaguely resembling meritocracy to exist without socialism. So many of the factors that come into play when people talk about "meritocracy" come down to your circumstances in childhood into early adulthood. People who talk about meritocracy are lying to you and they're lying to themselves.