Image is of a crowd protesting in Athens.
Last week, on Friday, hundreds of thousands of Greeks poured into the streets to strike and protest on the second anniversary of the deadliest train crash in Greek history, in which 57 people died when a passenger train collided with a freight train. On this February 28th, public transportation was virtually halted, with train drivers, air traffic controllers, and seafarers taking part in a 24 hour strike - alongside other professions like lawyers, teachers, and doctors.
The train crash is emblematic of the decay of state institutions brought about from austerity being forced on Greece in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession, in which the IMF and the EU (particularly Germany) plundered the country and forced privatization. While Greece has somewhat recovered from the dire straits it was in during the early 2010s, the consequences of neoliberalism are very clearly ongoing. Mitsotakis’ right-wing government has still not even successfully implemented the necessary safety procedures two years on, and so far, nobody has been convicted nor punished for their role in the accident. The austerity measures were deeply unpopular inside Greece and yet the government did not respond to, or ignored, democratic outcry.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
This video of Jeffrey Sachs dressing down the EU parliament on Russia-Ukraine is good. He more or less calls them all baby brained morons for huffing their own farts so much.
It’s like the famous dress-down of Marxists to capitalist: you’re not just wrong or immoral, we accuse you of mismanagement. You have a system which benefits you and you can’t even maintain it.
It’s beautiful to see. I just wish Jeffrey would reflect all the way back to capitalism’s fault in it. He would be a powerful Marxist. Instead he’s still a feckless liberal
Definitely. True of a lot of people. Good analysis and then the prescription is revealed and its like…“we just need slightly kinder and gentler policing/concentration camps/colonies/exploitation/etc.” WTF dude??? So close. It was RIGHT THERE!
They need to do more drugs or something. IDK. (Speaking as someone who doesn’t really do drugs. But, like, something’s gotta shock these libs’ brains out of their prisons…)
Stephen Cohen was a similar voice. And I think he kept Democracy Now semi-accountable on their foreign policy, at least as far as Russia was concerned. Once he died, Amy Goodman jumped fully on board the Russiagate train for a while… But anyway, another person who was just a little too hung up on the liberalism to be able to let go that death grip (in his case, somewhat literally).
Take their money and investments. Sachs just wants the US and Western society to survive without changes by going away from the destructive path. He wants that because he sees his family losing out if that happens. He’s just not a proletarian so why would he share the proletarian interests? Making a class traitor of him would be great, but I’m not sure those are make-able without having a strong tendency already
Hilarious beyond belief, the new prime minister of Canada saying they “must protect our way of life, and our country” against the threat of American trade war and the threat of invasion
Greece population
wonder where they are going. elsewhere in EU I imagine
i had a greek coworker once and I work in taiwan
Greece is ageing rapidly so a lot of old people likely dying as well.
damn, i thought they were like in 15 mil range, huh
I’ll repost this when the new thread drops, but the Syrian terror regime has started a cleanup operation in advance of any international visitors, specifically the UN delegation. From planting weapons and stripping bodies to put on military gear to straight-up dumping bodies in the ocean, maximum effort is being put in to obscure what really has occurred. They haven’t stopped the killing (despite the announcement of the “military operation’s” end), they’re simply trying to minimize what has already happened.
The tankies end up right again. This was always true and it was always the game.
I said this exact thing about the reworded deal lol. They want it to be an overseas US territory.
Of course we all knew that, we have a memory bigger than that of a brainworm. I’m not even that smart or whatever and this shit was obvious since I first learned anything about modern Ukraine in 2015. As soon as I read that Putin wanted their land for mining, I knew the US also (if Putin even ever did) wanted that
It’s just really funny for me when the shit we say comes directly out of their mouths a week later.
Definitely, it’s impressive! I’m probably thinking of your comment when I said that is tankies already called it
Well it seems that the Russian gas tunnel operation in Kursk has worked, they’re now geolocated on the edges of Sudzha in the old McDonald’s area lmao.
Here’s how the Kursk bulge looked around 36 hours ago:
Here’s how it looks now:
92 of the International Republican Institute’s destabilization programs in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have been CANCELED following cuts to State Dept. and USAID grants. 175 of the Institute’s programs worldwide are now in limbo because they directly depend on NED funding.
Yet another open admission that the opposition activists, “political prisoners”, and US-bankrolled “religious groups” in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela exist only because of DEEP, LUCRATIVE and sometimes long-standing CONTRACTS.
Washington’s political and media mercenaries (see: “democracy activists”) have been making bank 🤑💰💳 in recent decades in Latin America. SecRubio’s friends in Latin America are desperately calling him to try to get their payments resumed. He probably had to change his number.
Another L for Narco "Nazi’ Rubio
God damn look at this:
“The Economist’s country of the year for 2024”
spoiler
Each December The Economist picks a country of the year. The winner is not the richest, happiest or most virtuous place, but the one that has improved the most in the previous 12 months. The debate among our correspondents is vigorous. Previous winners include Colombia (for ending a civil war), Ukraine (for resisting an unprovoked invasion) and Malawi (for democratising). In 2023 we gave the prize to Greece for dragging itself out of a long financial crisis and re-electing a sensible centrist government. Our shortlist this year had five names on it. Two took a stand against bad government. In Poland the new administration of Donald Tusk, formed after parliamentary elections in 2023, spent the year trying to fix the damage done by its predecessor. The Law and Justice party, which had ruled for eight years, eroded liberal democratic norms by capturing control of the courts, media and business, following the model of Viktor Orban in Hungary. Mr Tusk has begun the long slog of repairing institutions. He has also made Poland an even stronger pillar of European security, with its large army and rising defence spending. However, he has cut some constitutional corners, and Poland’s relations with Germany are poor.
Some 10,000km away, South Africans also demanded better. In elections in May the African National Congress (ANC) lost its parliamentary majority for the first time, having ruled since the end of apartheid in 1994. Voters were fed up with economic failure, aggravated by ruling-party bigwigs gutting and looting organs of the state. The ANC must now govern through a coalition, and its more reasonable leaders have chosen to do so with the Democratic Alliance, a liberal party with a record of running towns and cities well. The new coalition will struggle to solve gaping problems such as unemployment and crime, but it offers a chance of better rule.
A country can win our prize for economic reform. Argentina’s policies have long been dire, with profligate spending, high inflation, multiple exchange rates and serial defaults. In 2024 Javier Milei, its “anarcho-capitalist” president, unleashed the world’s most radical free-market experiment, slashing public spending and deregulating. This paid off: inflation and borrowing costs fell and the economy started to grow again in the third quarter. But Argentina still has an overvalued currency, and public support for shock therapy may not last.
Our runner-up is a late entrant: Syria. The ousting of Bashar al-Assad on December 8th ended half a century of depraved dynastic dictatorship. In just the past 13 years civil war and state violence have killed perhaps 600,000 people. Mr Assad’s regime used chemical weapons and mass torture against perceived opponents, and resorted to industrial-scale drug-dealing to raise cash. His fall brought joy to Syrians and humiliation to his autocratic backers—Russia, which lent him air power to drop barrel bombs, and Iran, which counted Syria (with Hamas and Hizbullah) as part of its “axis of resistance”.
Mr Assad was easily the worst tyrant deposed in 2024. But the quality of what replaces him matters, too. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the most powerful rebel group, which now controls Damascus and chunks of the rest of Syria, has been pragmatic so far. But until 2016 it was affiliated with al-Qaeda, and for some years it governed Idlib province competently, but repressively. If HTS gains too much power, it may impose an Islamist autocracy. If it has too little, Syria may fall apart.
Delta force
Our winner is Bangladesh, which also overthrew an autocrat. In August student-led street protests forced out Sheikh Hasina, who had ruled the country of 175m for 15 years. A daughter of an independence hero, she once presided over swift economic growth. But she became repressive, rigging elections, jailing opponents and ordering the security forces to shoot protesters. Huge sums of money were stolen on her watch.
Bangladesh has a history of vengeful violence when power changes hands. The main opposition party, the BNP, is venal. Islamic extremism is a threat. Yet the transition has so far been encouraging. A temporary technocratic government, led by Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel peace prizewinner, is backed by students, the army, business and civil society. It has restored order and stabilised the economy. In 2025 it will need to repair ties with India and decide when to hold elections—first ensuring that the courts are neutral and the opposition has time to organise. None of this will be easy. But for toppling a despot and taking strides towards a more liberal government, Bangladesh is our country of the year. ■
The Economist,[1] a journal that speaks for the British millionaires, is pursuing a very instructive line in relation to the war. Representatives of advanced capital in the oldest and richest capitalist country, are shedding tears over the war and incessantly voicing a wish for peace. Those Social-Democrats who, together with the opportunists and Kautsky, think that a socialist programme consists in the propaganda of peace, will find proof of their error if they read The Economist. Their programme is not socialist, but bourgeois-pacifist. Dreams of peace, without propaganda of revolutionary action, express only a horror of war, but have nothing in common with socialism.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/may/01c.htm
Apparently lots of pigs out protecting Tesla dealerships today in Chicago and New York
A thought just occurred to me on these tariffs. There is of course the bullying and domestic political reasons for Trump doing it. But it could also be accomplishing a roundabout, latent greedflation sort of thing for US companies.
These tariffs go into effect, US companies importing these goods raise their prices at least in commensurate, but in many cases a little more. It sucks for a while but the economy absorbs it generally; people are just forced to take out more credit and/or shift their spending (even though for a great many, there is not much more blood left in the stone). Eventually Trump takes the tariffs away, and perhaps companies lower their prices a little bit, as a PR show, but nowhere near to reflect the full tariff relief. That then sets the new standard, and latent profits start flowing.
Idk, it would be playing with fire though, especially in very low margin industries. For smaller companies that can’t handle it, they may get hit too hard and could go under. Doing this could also open space in tight markets and provide some further juice to capital consolidation
Tariffs are only useful for developing countries to protect developing industries. They will only serve to make US companies even less competitive with overseas companies. When the tariffs go away, US companies will have to have competitive prices again or go under. Many would go under, as you said. Engels said it best 140 years ago
I have no idea how anyone could think this is sound economic strategy
The real problem is that it is not even a strategy. Import taxes are an useful and strategic measure that you can take. Just not in a blanket fashion or by themselves. Let’s say you want to start hiring americans into blue collar jobs to make cars or whatever. You may or may not want to raise import taxes over cars brought in from México or China. What you probably don’t wanna do is raise import taxes over everything that comes from México or China. Or better yet Canada. China/México can probably offer capital goods (machinery, etc) that bolster your competitiveness. Canada is your resource colony, that’s where you get input goods and extra energy from.
Hence all the contradiction in Trump’s speeches. He says that tariffs can substitute income taxes while at the same time saying they’ll reindustrialize the country. That can’t happen by default. If your tax base is tariffs then you’re still importing everything you need, just paying for government via import taxes. If you reindustrialize then you don’t have to import nearly as much and therefore needs to levy taxes some place else. The former is exactly what Trump’s government wants to achieve. The most regressive taxation system imaginable, the sort which you only see in countries like Brazil.
Brazil used to do developmentist economics, even during the pro US dictatorship era. There was protectionism as part of a broader industrial policy. The 1982 onwards financing crisis triggered by the Volcker Shock made that untenable. So Brazil ended up devaluing its currency and retooling the economy away from import substitution towards being export driven. Most things tied to industrial policy was dismantled - except for a handful of things such as the regressive heavily consumption based tax system, the high import taxes and agricultural subsidies. Trump’s tech-landlords seem to think even agricultural subsidies are superfluous. All you need to do is levy export taxes instead.
I think the US (and west in general) has the capacity to do it in an alternate way, though subsides.
It can setup a EV plant as a SOE and hire workers and as it is the state, it can set prices to be lower than or close to imported EVs from other countries.
Global south countries have to worry about exchange rates (so it makes sense to tax and take away purchasing power to prevent unnecessary imports) and there are external debt issues but that’s not the case with the U.S. and west which have very liquid markets for their currencies and allowed to float.
The US does not have the capacity to set up a competitive SOE. The federal government doesn’t have the ability to do anything other than print money or drop bombs. It can’t even build roads without hiring 100 subcontractors.
Hey so something interesting (or perhaps a nothingburger) is happening WRT Puerto Rico. According to the Daily Mail (archived link) some lobbyists are pushing for Trump to sign an executive order to give Puerto Rico independence. Those born in the island after 2026 would cease to have US citizenship, and all federal funding would be cut. I’m unsure about how they would deal with all the federal property in the island, or the military bases.
The lobbyists’ argument is that the island is costing the federal government $657B so it would be better to just let it go. Now, this is obviously pretty concerning because Trump is a neoliberal who easily could fall for that argument, and obviously they are very racist against Puerto Ricans so they are not concerned at all about the damage this would cause to the island. Now, keep in mind that while there is support for independence within PR, most who are pro-independence want to first create a self-sufficient economy in the island, which is far from the present situation. Apparently one of the lobbyists behind this draft executive order is a bourgeois Puerto Rican living in the US; presumably this is someone who would benefit from Puerto Rico becoming a neoliberal “sovereign” client state, as opposed to a colony.
My personal take is that I still doubt anything will come of this. Resident commissioner (non-voting congressman elected by PR) Pablo José Hernández spent yesterday putting out fires claiming that no one in congress actually supports this draft. Whether or not that’s true, it definitely seems that no one wants to be up-front about supporting this. Trump himself hasn’t said anything about Puerto Rican independence at any point, he has only ever stated his opposition to statehood for the island. I think Rubio certainly doesn’t want to let this go through, since the US bases and military equipment in Puerto Rico are a relatively important part of power projection against Cuba and Venezuela. Also, the dumbest possible reason, Puerto Rican independence is mostly something supported by liberals and leftists in the island, so it’d be kind of a culture war L for Trump to be the one to grant it.
Also, in theory Trump doesn’t have the power to make the decision to drop a US territory like that, it’d have to go through Congress, but obviously that’s not stopping him.
Nationalists celebrating Roman Shukhevich. I mean this with all sincerity Ukraine needs better heroes to look up to
Leftist podcasters taking piss out of calling z-man dictator do be annoying, how the fuck a person outlawing political parties he don’t like (including (chuddy) communists) (and pro russian is not fucking excuse, they are parties not militant movements, allegedly democracy allows for parties being elected who pursue different foreign policy), arresting them on treason if they criticize him, and extending his rule by pure fiat is not a dictator. And american prestige honestly citing 57 percent approval rating is just lmao.
Ukraine continues to be a litmus test for leftists even after three years
Marvel and Harry Potter brain. There are good guys, and bad guys. We’re always the good guys.
Trump vs Zelensky is like a switch triggered in people’s brains and because it’s Trump being mean to him that means Z-man is good. Fucking brainrot. It’s happening everywhere. I even see “leftists” defending british military because JD Vance said we haven’t been to war in 30 years. This shit causes people to turn off their brains or reveal deeply held nationalist thoughts.
UK libs: “How dare they suggest Britain hasn’t been to war? We’ve bombed several countries full of Slavic, brown, and Irish people who were unequipped to fight back.”
Its easier to parrot militant language than actually think militant. A lot of people still hope for the return of the “adults” - the return of a begin capitalistic society utopia where the empire has a humane face & gives them healthcare. The empire’s enemy du jour is then an acceptable sacrifice to make.
While JD Vance was factually wrong in saying that the British military hasn’t been at war for 30-40 years (they were involved in Iraq and Afghanistan), his underlying point was correct in that European armies are woefully unprepared, inadequate, understaffed and ill equipped for a war without US support, and thus no one takes European claims of “20k peacekeepers” seriously. The Gulf war and bombing of Yugoslavia should have been the warning signs for Europe. Iraq should have been their red line. But no, we are now here 22 years after Iraq and Europe has no plan, no sovereign project.
real ww1 war credits moment (i.e. that everyone is extremely full of shit)
You mean there are no honest and good sides in the inter-imperialist struggle for securing colonies and supremacy, and that the only way out is revolutionary socialism? If only anyone had written a book about this about 107 years ago…
Sounds like a tankie, sorry, i will vote for my genocide-supporting socdem party
I already said this a couple of weeks ago, but it’s funny how libs made fun of former President Yoon of South Korea for trying to do back in December what Zelenskyy has been successfully doing for the last 3 years.
Yet libs have no problem with Z-man doing it.
Liberal’s Advocate: Z not holding elections is way less entertaining than the circus around the Yoon coup attempt. Even here, people are way more interested in the Yoon coup because it was such a mess, I remember looking through the pile of jokes about it when it was happening. Z not holding elections is just boring, I barely see anyone talking about it, let alone making jokes.
Pipe/tunnel guys, we are so back.
Photo is supposedly of a Russian soldier infiltrating Sudzha (Kursk region) through a gas pipeline.
It sounds like the operation might have been a failure, but we’ll have to wait for more info. I would not be surprised, because it’s likely Ukraine expected this and planned for it due to previous events.
You can tell Jolani was trained by the west by the public face. Interim government, respecting communities, independent investigation
Also I was right, gag order is back after the initial wave of evidence. There appear to have been more concerted efforts to get rid of bodies/obscure the number of dead, as well as the use of artillery instead of small arms to kill and intimidate coastal residents into flight
