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 didn’t you ask them yourself, you fucking twat? I hope they all feel embarrassed that tucker carlson of all people was the one with enough courage to interview putin
Apparently the Kremlin has been declining all requests from Western Journalists (except Tucker) and that’s part of why they are malding so hard. Of course, they wouldn’t do an “interview” but just go on a chauvinist tirade of idealistic absolutism and moralism full of “gotcha” questions and selective framing. Putin declining their interviews is smart, they would just be smear jobs and he knows it.
that’s based then. Still interesting that they let tucker interview putin. I can’t imagine the white house letting someone like vladimir solovyov interview biden for example
Also can you imagine Biden in a 2-hour interview going over hundreds of years of history? LMAO, he would start sputtering out and falling asleep like 25 minutes in
Oh man i’d love to watch that. I need this
We’d get some great bits out of it though. He’d probably start recounting the time he had dinner with Washington
Biden: “well, you see, fat. It all started back in a little pool in Delaware…”
I think they secured a promise from Tucker that the full unedited interview would be aired, there would be no funny business with out-of-context clips or editing tricks to change meaning.
This allowed Putin to go on his weird little tangents and history brainworms, which kinda rules. Everybody had to tune in to listen to Russian history hour with uncle Vlad.
I’m begging American “journalists” to stop calling Putin a dictator. He has far more popularity and mandate than the Japanese PM or the South Korean President yet they are never called strongmen or dictators.
To Liberals, “Dictator” has nothing to do with popularity of a figure. They’re well aware that Mao was beloved by the vast majority of the Chinese populace when pressed. In fact, to them a popular figure is even more likely to be a “dictator” than an unpopular one.
A “Dictator” is a figure who is strong enough to push against the capitalist class and exert their will upon a nation, even if that will is a popular one that improves quality of life for all. Look at Gadaffi, he’s always called a Dictator despite him being extremely popular and vastly improving Libyan’s lives.
Whereas someone who is extremely unpopular and never was elected but appointed, such as Sunak in the UK, is not considered a dictator because he bends to the will of international capital.
American libs will see unpopularity as a sign of a healthy democracy. To them an unpopular leader must be doing something right because doing popular things is just aPpEaLiNg tO ThE mAsSeS
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A dictator is whoever they’re ordered to hate by the media
It’s amusing that Russia puts on the same show of faux democracy like the US with elections and debates and all that shit, but he’s uniquely evil because checks notes he wields his power and silences people he considers dangerous. Regardless of his opponents are actually dangerous or not, the democrats should learn from him and silence republicans permanently because they’re actually dangerous. But instead they’re just friendly rivals in a sport of American governance.
I mean, the Democrats do silence their actual enemies. Hence them taking down RT America and prosecuting black socialists who were organizing against war. It’s just that the Republicans…aren’t.
So authoritarian, unlike America where treason and espionage is legal.
Why doesn’t Politico hold the presidents of the country it’s operating in accountable for murdering opponents, murdering civilians, and rewriting history and spreading brazen lies about the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and even Europe?
#1: Mr. Putin, sir, how dare you?
Mr. Putin, do you wipe your ass while sitting or standing? Or do you use a bidet?
This one’s really obscure but
He should have asked him about traveling with his poop collection