Well, Iran and their allies' response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren't talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don't really know where to look right now.
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.
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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.
I have no idea what to think about this election now. On one hand Kamala pretty much has all the same policies as Biden, and therefore should have the same weaknesses from those policies (especially with Arab-American voters in Michigan). But on the other hand they might be successfully gaslighting people into thinking she's better somehow, even though her support for Israel is pretty clear. She also obviously hasn't been very popular, but the gaslighting might be working there too.
If she wins, it will be the epitome of Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss.
Identity politics are playing are very large part here with liberals. It's like they are convinced that Harris will be different because she's not an old white male. Obama 2.0, but as farce.
My thesis is that as things get more bleak, they can get away with promising less and less.
The Obama honeymoon lasted until he got into office and stated breaking campaign promises. The question here is whether the Harris honeymoon will last until the election.
I'm like 90% sure that Trump gets absolutely washed in November. It's 2024 so anything can happen, but what I'm seeing right now is a slightly less dramatic version of 2008 Obama hype, the "normal whites" hypothesis creeping back into play, and Trump just not having that dawg in him like he did in 2016.
I think turnout will be slightly down overall from 2020 but Harris takes a bunch of Midwest battleground states and Georgia, which will be more than enough.
The power of Harris-Walz over Trump-Vance for "normal people" seems like its way too much for him to overcome at this point barring some admittedly very possible economic or foreign policy disasters (line go down too much, aircraft carrier sunk on live tv, etc) that make apolitical people think Trump will be a stronger leader
:sicko-yes:
I'm holding back any calls on the election till after the next debate. If Kamala does more coconut tree style rambling and trump brings his A game, she's done. If Trump goes all "Hannibal Lector" and Kamala pops some uppers instead of xannies, she'll take it.
First, we're in the honeymoon phase. It's only been two weeks. A lot of people are still enjoying the fact that Biden dropped out in the first place, and Harris as the presumptive nominee is getting a lot of that residual goodwill by association. My guess is that the actual election is still going to be very close. I can't imagine Harris is going to get more popular than she is right now.
Second, I think there's an argument that, while Harris may be toeing the party line, she isn't an Israel hardliner the way Biden is. Biden wasn't just going through the motions, he really believes in the Zionist project, and would likely never have changed his mind, regardless of public sentiment or electoral prospects. There might be a sense that Harris will at least be more pragmatic about the issue. It's the reason Trump was arguably the better candidate on Israel, simply because, for all that he was supportive of Israel, his unpredictability and total lack of conviction might have actually led to better outcomes than Biden, who would seemingly do anything to ensure that Israel gets to keep killing Palestinian children unabated. With Biden, there was no hope for anything good regarding Israel. Now, there's at least a small window of opportunity for something better, if fleeting and ultimately futile.
Last, I don't think we can rule out that there were a number of people who, regardless of their politics, were genuinely worried about Biden's health and cognitive function (with good reason!). Replacing him with someone who can remember people's names and can stay up past 9pm may be all they needed to feel good about voting for the Democratic candidate, rather than staying home.
I'm sure that identity politics is part of it, as is being able to wishcast about a candidate who hasn't actually had to make any real decisions, but there are a lot of reasons why people might feel better about Harris than Biden, even if there are no meaningful policy differences at the moment. The lack of policy differences will play out over the next few months, and we'll see if the momentum continues. It might be enough to beat Trump, who should be easy to beat given his general unpopularity, but I can't imagine her presidency would go well if she maintained Biden's "nothing will fundamentally change" attitude towards policy.
:agony-deep:
That's just the gaslighting. Let people hope she'll be better when she absolutely won't. She said the word ceasefire so people think she's going to be tough on Israel, even though Biden has already said it, but both of them have redefined it to mean "Hamas surrenders and Israel keeps bombing anyway".
That was definitely a big issue, but Biden minus cognitive decline would still lose, just by less.
To be clear, I don’t think there’s any real hope for change between Harris and Biden, just that there’s the opportunity for change, and people are getting excited about that opportunity. When it’s clear that this will be a business as usual administration, people will stop giving a shit and get back to complaining. It’s not gaslighting to take advantage of the honeymoon phase to build momentum. That’s politics. Harris hasn’t really given any indication that she has a different policy than Biden, that’s pure projection on the part of people who want to believe that things can get better by voting.
A great example of a similar phenomenon is Kier Starmer’s approval rating. He was doing great right up to the moment he got into power, then he tanked immediately. People were happy to support him and his party to get the other guys out, but the moment he got in and became the new status quo, people turned on Labour. They just can’t quite get their heads around the fact that it’s the stays quo they hate, not the current government supporting it.
I think it helps that previous VP’s have been pretty boastful about how moderate they were from Truman all the way to Biden, which made it that much more annoying when Dems tried to make it seem like they were further left than they ever would be.
Harris doesn’t quite have that with her being a one term Senator. All her baggage is found in her positions before that and most will handwave it away. Even back then she pretended to be more left-leaning than she was and fooled leftists like Aaron McGruder into supporting her.
People don’t and have never voted on actual policies. Democracy is vibes-based.
counterpoint to every criticism: bizarre, inappropriate laughter