Here is today's update!

Links and Stuff

Want to contribute?

RSS Feed

Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Add to the above list if you can, thank you.


Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins


Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.

Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)

Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.

Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.

On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.


Yesterday's discussion post.


  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
    hexagon
    M
    hexbear
    25
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Alright, what ongoing trends/broad happenings are there beyond the Ukraine War itself?

    I can think of:

    • Global food precarity/the coming famine; fertilizer prices increasing
    • Global fuel prices high, particularly diesel, which supplies agricultural equipment as well as supply chain transportation
    • The Europe natural gas saga, as well as cost of living crisis; Europe reaffirming its position as Chief of Boot Licking to Washington to its own disadvantage
    • The "scramble for Africa" but with natural gas and oil, but also soon to be with other commodities
    • Western African states having difficulties with coups and insurgent movements; France getting kicked out
    • Internal US struggle with abortion rights and other issues soon to follow; unionization efforts increasing
    • Sri Lanka entering the Cool Zone
    • Latin America + South America unifying into a more cohesive bloc to hopefully resist the neo-Monroe Doctrine
    • Argentina hopefully joining BRICS to form an alternative to the IMF and other tools of US imperialism, as well as the BRI
    • Central Asian countries, Russia, and China becoming more diplomatically close, with India (along with Turkey etc) playing both sides for their own gain
    • To combine those last two, the trend of de-dollarization continuing, though this will be far from rapid
    • In opposition, America trying to create a bloc in SE Asia that can contain China, with some success, but I'm getting a vibe that most of them aside from the die-hards (Japan, Australia, etc) are playing both sides off each other for their own benefit
    • Ukraine War means that coronavirus is over no matter what, China is doing heckin' 1984 over there by doing the right thing and trying to save lives at the expense of The Line
    • edit: Iran ramping up anti-Israel messaging, more diplomacy occurring there (between Turkey/Syria and Saudi Arabia for example); Israel continuing to do fucked up shit in Palestine

    Anything I've missed?

      • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
        hexbear
        13
        2 years ago

        It is sort of impossible for China to suddenly go through another crisis like the 2008 crash. There are some severe fundamental differences between how both economies function and the respective political forces within it.

        But most importantly mainstream economic theory and their stereotypical explanation of 2008 are a gross oversimplification and in fact hide the main reasons. Marxist theory on the other hand is able to point out severe warning signs that appeared years in advance. I recommend you read Michael Robert's blog. Here is a faq sort of explaining the basics of this.

        The actual root of capitalist crisis is the falling rate of profit and in the US every time corporate profitability falls it lead to a drop in investment and then a crisis a few years later.

        This can't happen in China because while corporate profitability may fall the Chinese government commands investment and therefore is able to keep the economy growing. This is why the CPC keeps the relentless investment in infrastructure and other areas for example.

        And he also wrote specifically about the Evergrande case here.

        This is just a summary I recommend reading the post completely because its too long to quote here.

        But in my view, there is not going to be a financial crash in China. The government controls nearly everything, including the central bank, the big four state-owned commercial banks which are the largest banks in the world, the so-called ‘bad banks’, which absorb bad loans, big asset managers, most of the largest companies. The government can order the big four banks to exchange defaulted loans for equity stakes and forget them. It can tell the central bank, the People’s Bank of China, to do whatever it takes. It can tell state-owned asset managers and pension funds to buy shares and bonds to prop up prices and to fund companies. It can tell the state bad banks to buy bad debt from commercial banks. So a financial crisis is ruled out because the state controls the banking system.

    • Yanqui_UXO [any]
      hexbear
      16
      2 years ago

      US unhappy with the Philippines election (May 9) because like Duterte, Marcos Jr is unwilling to antagonize China