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.
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 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.
I’m guessing Bolivia? Which side are the people in the picture on, what’s with the eagle and the suspicious banner? context?
Ethnocacerism , rebuilding the third inca empire or something …
They want to create an Inca communist state. They want to recover the lands they consider Inca, they worship Evo Morales, Hugo Chávez and Lula da Silva (there are some very strange Trotskyists in South America who say that Lula is secretly an ultranationalist and hides his power), and they mainly want to take control of Peru, reunite it with Bolivia, conquer Ecuador and attack Chile with nuclear weapons (just kidding, they just want revenge against Chile). They are mostly veterans of the Peruvian Internal Conflict, of Ecuador’s various border wars and were members of Fujimori’s death squads (but they hate Fujimori because Fujimori is an extreme right-wing neoliberal monster who hates the natives). They don’t like Marx because he’s European and have replaced him with the creator of Peruvian communism, Mariátegui, and the native hero, Tupac Amaru.
They took control of several smaller conservative and socdem parties to run for public office and also attempted a coup in 2005. Ollanta Humala, former president of Peru, was the son of the creator of this movement and his government was supposed to be an ethnocacerist government, but ended up becoming just a socdem. Today, they are against the current Peruvian government, are allied with the Shining Path, the Peruvian Communist Party, Peru Libre and some socdem parties, and are part of the left-wing and liberal anti-government movement. Iirc Ollanta Humala lost his first election in 2006 because of his links to the ethnocacerist movement. Allan Garcia (Socdem’s rival) basically said that Ollanta was going to kill all the black and gay Peruvians in Peru, he also talked about his links with Fujimori and the fact that Ollanta had promised to pardon Gonzalo (Shining Path leader) and Víctor Polay (MRTA, the good left-wing guerrillas during the 1980s and 1990s, basically they were just defending themselves).
They are racist towards Afro-Peruvians (there is still a lot of racism in Peru) and hate gay Peruvians. The Nazi symbols mixed with the Inca symbols are still used, but I have no idea why they were used and it seems that most Peruvians don’t know why either. They seem to have abandoned racism somewhat recently. They have even said that they are brothers and friends of Venezuelans and Brazilians. Their creation was inspired by Peru’s left-wing social democratic military dictator, Velasco, who during the 1960s promoted native ideology and tried to make some native languages Peru’s second language, as well as hating Chile, not trusting Allende and hating Pinochet even more. Although Velasco was overthrown in the 1970s, the left wing of the Peruvian Army still existed for some time. Their ideology at the beginning was just “Maybe the government should do something to regain the trust of the poor native population”, but after Fujimori’s coup and the failed liberal counter-coup, I think they became much more radical due to the neoliberal reforms and Fujimori’s genocide.
Anti-Fujimorism is a weird coalition that basically forces a bunch of people to support the most random candidate against the Fujimorista candidate. I don’t think the Etnocarceristas are that relevant nowadays, but they are part of the Anti-Fujimori group. And the still have some influence within the armed forces.
I really appreciate your posts, comrade. Thank you
Sounds like the anti-status quo revolutionaries dont really agree on anything but taking down the government. I think that’s ok. It seems like a common thread in revolutions to figure out red vs brown stuff after the government is toppled. From what you say it also sounds like the red side of the resistance is gaining the upper hand in Peru.
Most fascist are part of the Fujimorist group that supports the current goverment (made up of traitors, war criminals, conservatives, pro-Fujimori Liberals and neoliberals)
The current goverment is very unpopular, only this group likes them, and some rich people that live in Lima, capital city. Theres a huge anti-fujimori alliance made up frpm basically everyone that hates Fujimori (Anti-Fujimori Neoliberals, Liberals, Conservatives, Socdems, Native Americans, Shining Path, Communists and the Ethnocacerists).
The people in Peru are really tired of Liberals, Conservatives and Neoliberals. They want actual change and a strong goverment, that’s why the two main popular candidates are the Far-Right Fujimorista and the Far-Left Native American candidates. And considering Fujimorism Unpopularity, any runoff would mean a very narrow victory for the Anti-Fujimorist Candidate (thats why we get Liberals, Neoliberals and Conservatives openly supporting Far-Left candidates, because they really hate Fujimori).
It’s Peru, those are Inca Nationalists and allies of the Shining Path. I think they were close to Ollanta Humala’s goverment, because he is the son or nephew of their leader. They claim to be ultra-leftist that want an Inca communist state and unite with Boliva, so they can nuke Chile. They are very racist towards Afro Peruvians and lgbtq+ people.