Image is of German farmers blocking the road near the Brandenburg Gate in early January 2024.
The ruling German coalition - the FDP, the SPD, and the Greens - has been in dire straits since the war in Ukraine began due to their steadfast commitment to destroying their country as much as possible in solidarity with Ukraine destroying themselves too. Scholz is deeply unpopular, with a record low approval of 20%, and his party's approval is even lower.
The German left has been entirely unable to take advantage of this situation, with Die Linke fragmenting due to split opinions on what position they should hold on Ukraine, among other issues. As a result, the major conservative party, the CDU, has gained a lot of voters over the past couple years. Most worrying, however, is the gains that the fascist party, the AfD, has made - from 10% in 2021 all the way to ~20% today. A significant chunk of the vote is likely protest votes due to the lack of an alternative, but a vote for fascists makes you a fascist nonetheless.
Recent controversies with the AfD - including an allegation that they held a secret meeting discussing a plan to mass-deport millions of migrants in an obvious parallel to Nazi meetings planning to remove all Jews from the country - has recently slightly damped approval for the AfD. This meeting generated counter-protests and condemnation from many Germans. It was later revealed that the meeting might not really have happened as alleged, but it doesn't actually matter, because the AfD's stance is being increasingly reflected by the ruling coalition, who recently introduced a bill allowing faster deportations of rejected asylum seekers and significant new powers for authorities in that regard, including potentially the criminalization of sea rescue organizations and imprisonment for aid workers.
The German government is increasingly considering banning the AfD, with their anxiety and motivation to do so rising as the AfD maintains and improves its position as Germany heads towards elections in late 2025. There are intermediate steps that could be done, such as revoking state funding, but if that doesn't work, then the party might well be banned. While I will never argue with fascist parties being banned, this probably won't fix anything, as the underlying economic and social conditions that are fueling these electoral shifts in the first place are not improving. Germany, the largest industrial power in Europe, is mired in a recession, particularly a manufacturing recession, from which there appears to be no escape. It has so far carefully shepherded its natural gas resources to keep the population as mollified as possible, but this has come at the expense of industry. In a trend starting from July 2022, manufacturing PMIs are still well below 50, reaching 45.5 in January 2024, which indicates decline. I suppose if you wanted to look on the bright side, it's better than it was in July 2023, where it was a whopping 38.8, so the rate of decline is becoming a little slower.
And this is just the domestic stuff. Germany has also famously sided with Israel to support them during the ICJ genocide case, has kowtowed to Netanyahu as they bond over being Genocide Experts, and maintains its support of Ukraine, continuing to send military gear and money to be converted to scrap metal by Russian artillery - rather than spending money on doing anything about the cost of living. In the face of a historic economic downturn, it has only more fervently stated its desire to remain militarily opposed to Russia for decades.
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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.
why does he look like he got an artificial tan on?
edit: okay fuck you tucker I can't believe you got free copies of historical papers from the Russian archives.
edit2: intellectual dishonesty on the establishment of Soviet Ukraine, the assignment of the Donbass basin to the republic from Putin. States it's unknown why Lenin, and Stalin, and the Bolsheviks did the things they did, when there's writing on it
Edit3: Putin being longwinded fucking with tucker's kinda funny.
edit4: tucker thinks there's a real fear of a strong Russia than there is of a strong China, fucking dumbass. Putin dead on said that's dumb and the U.S obviously fears the Chinese Reds more than the Russians.
edit5: lol in the bit right before NATO & Clinton, where Putin says "NATO expanded 5 times, and each time they did we said "Please don't, we're as bourgeoise you you are.
" "
edit6; Isn't this a shot of Biden in 1993 at Yeltsin's "GOD BLESS AMERICA!" speech? (Front row, middle)
Edit7: later on, I disassociated for a bit and stopped paying attention for a bit, Putin says the reason why the troops outside Kiev withdrew was because the other world leaders in western Europe suggested to him to withdraw those troops as a sign of good will as peace negotiations were kicking off.
Edit8: Putin talks briefly on the history of Ukrainian fascism, so far nothing inaccurate.
edit9: wait there may be an innacuracy, but that may be on Putin's own part of erasing Ukrainian nationhood, he states that the ukrainian nazis in ww2, who are worshiped as heroes in modern ukraine, conducted genocide against poles, jews and russians while leaving out ukrainians.
edit10: Putin says he considers Ukrainians to be a part of the one Russian People. He says obviously Ukrainians disagree with him, okay fine. He then accepts their opinion that they have the right to consider themselves a separate people but says the caveat must be this seperation must not be built on Nazism.
edit11 Tucker or whoever he pays to make the video Table of Contents fucking sucks at doing so. The way the interview is conducted so far is clucker asks a question, hoping for a quick answer lol, and Putin spends a good amount of time answering it. the TOC should reflect this and not make generic section selections.
edit12: tucker interrupts putin again, and putin tells him essentially to shut up and let him answer the question, when asked about denazification.
edit13: Tucker interrupts putin again, but now about pursuing peace talks. Putin answers this with saying the original peace talks were close to fruition but then were torpedoed by the West, and that the Ukrainian President and Legislature have now made it legislatively illegal to negotiate with Russia. Tucker interrupts again and says he meant whether if Putin was negotiating with Biden for peace in ukraine and not with the Ukrainians. Fucking lol
edit14 apparently Biden and Putin haven't talked since feburary 2022, at least publicly on official channels. Bit later after talking about western fear mongering to extract more money from their respective citizens to continue fueling the Ukrainian war machine, Fucker asks Putin - in reference to New York Senator Upchuck Snoomer's recent comments - if he's afraid of american soldiers fighting on the frontlines of ukraine. The response is that there's already Americans fighting on the frontlines of Ukraine in the form of mercenaries. Also the countries with the most mercs in Ukraine are Poland, the U.S, and Georgia in that order.
edit15: Well right after that last blurb, Putin says he's not worried about U.S troops being sent to Ukraine because doesn't the U.S have more pressing matters to attend to in their own country? Immediately lists off the most recent republican brainworms as red meat to face pucker's audience. Namely the border, migration, and national debt.
edit16: finally reached the nordstream boom boom talks. It's funny that Putin immediately laughs at tucker's proposition of releasing evidence that US/CIA/NATO blew up the pipelines and "wins a propaganda victory". It reminds me of the Soviet joke about Soviet propaganda vs American propaganda. Putin immediately replies saying it is really fucking hard to win against the american propaganda machine that has its tendrils all across the media sphere of the world
edit17: in discussing financial power and the Dollar as the world reserve currency, Putin says the American leadership's greatest mistake is leveraging the power of the dollar for political actions in foreign policy struggles, as the Dollar is the cornerstone of American power in the world. The weaponization of the Dollar has weakened the trust in it and as a result dollar reserves has shrunk in the treasuries around the world. Additionally, prior to 2022, the majority of foreign trade transactions made by Russia was done in dollars and euros and currently the Ruble and the Yuan are utilized in foreign trade transactions. This forced change in utilized currencies for trade has erroded the strength of the dollar to the point that oil-producing countries are beginning to accept the Yuan as legal tender alongside the Dollar. Putin finishes out the blurb saying the U.S government is killing itself slowly through its conduct with regards to the weaponization of the dollar.
edit18: when tucker's asking if putin's afraid of China's economic successes eclipsing Russia and turning them into an economic colony, Putin tells him that's a boogeyman (aka you're full of shit), that China's peaceful, willing to compromise, has existed as a neighbor that Russia has coexisted with for centuries and will continue to do so. Says America's also economically hurting itself by trying to cut out and cut off China from it's economy.
edit19: Apparently Putin worked with his friend Xi to make a financial goal of $200 billion in mutual trade this financial year, and as of when the interview came out they've accomplished the goal with a surplus windfall of an additional $30-$40 billion dollars in mutual trade. China stay winning
edit20: tucker asks a bunch of spiritual mumbo jumbo bullshit trying to give putin red meat to feed to tucker's evangelical nutjob section of the audience. I think putin's too much of a stick-in-the-mud nerd to put on a populist performance because he keeps talking about history'n'shit.
edit21: ducker asks about Elon musk and AI, Putin says Elon will do whatever he wants (because america is a playground to the rich) but should try to restrain himself on these topics with formalization and regulations akin to what's usually seen in government regulations and international agreements on experimental tech.
edit22: after disassociating through the blurb about some dipshit journalist in Russian jail for espionage, Tucker asks putin again about why not just calling up biden and trying to negotiate a peace settlement - something that was already asked and answered way earlier - and I'm like dude you already asked him that and you already got an answer. Are you naïve dude? Do you think you talking to putin could somehow deus ex machina the end of the war?
edit23: I pretty much blanked out on the final minutes of the interview. All in all, it's an interesting interview of Putin and probably one of the most easily-accessible ones to an english-speaking audience. I can think of so many better questions I'd like to ask him and other members of Russian leadership on economic and political matters, but in terms of filling in some gaps of knowledge of prior events over the past two years and hearing his perspectives on the costs of economic warfare makes this interview worth spending two hours listening to so as to gain a better grasp on the mindset of the Russian leadership with regards to the martial and economic war they are currently embroiled in.
That's it. I'm done editing this.
Mmm, he said he agreed with Ukraine to withdraw them as part of the negotiations. But then once they were wirthdrawn, Ukraine trashed the negotiations at the behest of U.S./E.U. leaders, and followed instructions to fight Russia to the end.
yeah thats the part we all saw back when it happened and when the revelations came out the u.s/uk sank it as well. But I remember for the longest time a lot of us were arguing about the theory of why did Russian forces fall back from Kiev, and that blurb from putin - whether it's 100% truth or partially true - comes to me as a funny capstone to those arguments years back where some of us, myself included, thought it was some kind of military maneuver.
Obviously if there really was intelligence about an imminent Ukrainian offensive against Donbass, Putin is not going to let loose the fact that the Kyiv offensive was needed to divert the troops away to foil the Ukrainian offensive plan, regardless of whether the intelligence was real or not.
If the intelligence was indeed real, then Putin had just revealed that Russia had informants at the level where such military operations are planned. It would discourage others from leaking intel to the Russians, because Putin would just sell you out to some foreign journalists while the Ukrainian counter-intelligence agents hunt you down.
If the intelligence was fake, then it is an embarrassment that Russia fell for an obvious bait, and the abysmal state of the Russian FSB. It wouldn’t look good for Russia either.
My guess is that the reality was somewhere in between. They probably couldn’t determine the accuracy of the information, but decided that the cost of not acting on it is probably greater even if it means it could be a trap.
And it would still be a reasonable decision: a Ukrainian blitz into Donetsk city would have made it magnitudes harder for the Russians to retake, and we’d be looking at civilian casualties far greater than what we’d be seeing today, and scolding the Russians for not taking pre-emptive actions because they were too naive about NATO’s intentions. “How could Putin not see that NATO has been building an army for 8 years??!!”
Yeah. I wondered about this possibility a while ago too. I think it was mentioned by some commentator. Mercouris, probably.
us war nerds got owned by peace negotiations lmao
removed
No, that's not Biden in the photo; here is him in 1992
spoiler
they honestly look similar to each other in far off shots, so I genuinely couldn't tell. Like I guess the hair's a little darker on the other guy, but they look alike.
Thank you for your service
Biden's hair was already a lot greyer than that in 1993.