this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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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.


The Country of the Week is Germany! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
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 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.


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[–] LibsEatPoop@hexbear.net 36 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Sharing this video and the Hexbear link along with my comment on the post about it:

This, in my opinion, needs to be pinned (and spread/shared, and kept in a sidebar of resources of Palestine etc etc).

It's a full document of everything to do with the genocide in its first 100 days. It's from Oct 7 and goes day by day, with pictures and videos by news agencies and on the ground by Gazans (this is where the dead Palestinians come in). It shows the hypocrisy of the Western leaders side by side with what is happening at the exact moment. It shows the difference between Western journalists and Arab journalists. It shows Palestinian doctors and medics breaking down and crying, but also their incredible, incredible bravery. It shows Israeli politicians talking of using the nuclear bomb, and of starving the Palestinians. It shows the IDF bombing not just residential buildings every day but the people the bombings kill, the people who mourn, the people who try to rescue the survivors. It shows the hospitals, the mosques, the refugee camps. All while providing proper context needed per international law for war crimes, genocide, and what international leaders are doing/not doing. And, of course, what Israeli politicians are doing.

Again, the video is NSFW. The creator has not censored the videos. There are dead people. It is genuinely heartbreaking in a way I cannot communicate. It is not every day of the conflict - a lot of the times it is just buildings being destroyed but those buildings have people in them, and often enough in the following days you will see dead people, including children.

I wouldn't have shared it if I felt it was just atrocity propaganda. But I've followed the creator for a while. They always make good videos. And, as I stated above, in this one too, they don't just show video after video, but put in effort to show how and why Israel lies, commits war crimes, US enables it etc.

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[–] Torenico@hexbear.net 36 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Milei's economic reforms stall in Congress, bill returned to committee stage

President Milei's ‘omnibus’ mega-reform bill dealt major setback lawmakers in Congress prevented it from advancing; Bill was promptly returned to committee stage for a rewrite.

President Javier Milei's sweeping ‘omnibus’ reform package was dealt a major setback on Tuesday as lawmakers in Congress prevented it from advancing and the bill was promptly returned to committee stage for a rewrite.

Basically the law goes back to stage zero. This has never happened before, a law has been approved in "general" but then sent back to square 1 because it's just terrible lmao. The first ancap country is not doing so well.

The drama in the Chamber of Deputies came despite the bill winning general approval in the lower house last week. However, as lawmakers began voting on the mega-reform bill article by article on Tuesday, it became clear that the government did not have the numbers to pass key sections.

Oscar Zago, leader of the ruling La Libertad Avanza caucus, called for the bill to "to go back to committee" in a motion passed by lawmakers that left the Milei's sweeping economic reform bill – which includes privatisations and the revamping of the penal code – up in the air.

Milei responded furiously to the news. "Our government programme was voted for by 56 percent of Argentines and we are not willing to negotiate it with those who destroyed the country," the far-right leader said in a post on the X social network from Israel, where he is on an official visit.

The "Omnibus Law" won general approval in the Chamber of Deputies last Friday, though lawmakers planned to vote on its articles one-by-one in Tuesday’s session. However, Zago called for the bill to be returned to committee stage, declaring that the government’s allies in the opposition were committed to supporting key chapters of Milei's initiative.

The bill's key points include the delegation of emergency powers to Milei allowing him to govern by decree and sweeping state reform, including a swathe of privatisations of state firms.

Left-wing lawmaker Myriam Bregman told reporters that "this means they [the government] have to start from scratch.”. "The popular repudiation [of Milei’s reforms] was felt throughout the country," she continued, referring to protests that occurred last week in front of Congress during debate on the bill. The future of Milei’s deeply controversial reform package – known formally as the "Ley de Bases y Puntos de Partida para La Libertad de los Argentinos" – is now unknown.

Milei has previously vowed to toughen austerity measures should the bill not pass Congress and even to put it to the people in a referendum. The president’s office said in a second statement issued Tuesday night that provincial governors had taken “the decision to destroy” the bill and accused them of “betraying their voters.”

In last week’s marathon congressional sessions addressing the bill, the government was still negotiating articles with its allies even as the legislation was being debated.

Lawmakers did not receive a final copy of its text until the second day of sessions.

This an important bit. They were debating a law and they didn't know what the law is about lmao

Earlier in the afternoon, the deputies present had approved special "delegated powers" for Milei, which would allow him to govern by decree for at least one year, though opposition lawmakers managed to reduce its scope. "We are afraid of a weak democracy, which concentrates in a single person the possibility of extorting companies, organisations and citizens and ends up leaving us all defenceless,” said Coalición Cívica ARI deputy Paula Oliveto.

The original text of the law promoted the far-right idea of "limiting all state intervention that is not necessary to ensure the effective exercise of their constitutional rights.”

The government received narrow support (134 to 121 votes) for the declaration of an economic, financial, security, tariff, energy and administrative emergency. The opposition forced the withdrawal of declarations of fiscal, social security and health emergencies.

"Unfortunately, the adjustment will have to be greater ... it will be necessary to review each one of the government's expenses to comply with President Milei's order, which is zero deficit," said Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni in comments to the LN+ channel.

Straight up making threats lol. I'm not sure they should keep fucking around like that...

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[–] ziggurter@hexbear.net 36 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Even reactionary POS Larry fucking military-brain Wilkerson knows Israel is absolutely fucking insane and doomed. Netanyahu is Deadly Wrong | Col. Larry Wilkerson (also talks about Urkaine, etc.)

[–] Gucci_Minh@hexbear.net 36 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Not sure where to post this but PLA Eastern Command just released a MV parody of classic song 爱拼才会赢 changed to promote taiwan reunification lmao:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1TK421y75e

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[–] dumpster_dove@hexbear.net 35 points 9 months ago

There are some google street view images of aftermath from the January 1 earthquake in Japan, and in some places they overlap with the old images so you can see what it looked like before. Don't know if this counts as news but I found it interesting.

google link 1

google link 2

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 35 points 9 months ago (2 children)

if us congress manage to pass a bill without border evilness, that would be what, third time, they fumbled the bag on their reactionary shit? Social security in the 90s, then under obama, now this

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