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
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.
A large Finnish union, Akava, has organised a walkout today between 14:00 and 16:00 (i.e. starting now). So me, ya boy, super_mario_69, is currently on strike (ama). It is a political strike action taken to protest the current right-wing government’s bullshit. There were pretty wide-spread strikes last week, and the industrial union is going on strike later this month. Orpo seems rather upset about it (lmao eat shit)
idk if this walkout makes any material difference, and if all I’m doing is painting a big-ass target on my back for the inevitable next round of layoffs, but I’m not gonna miss out on an opportunity to take action for once
What do the unions and their workers think about the new government, and the previous one?
The new government is universally reviled by most people under 30, low-income workers, and the “blue-collar” unions (especially health care). Among boomers, chuds, the self-proclaimed middle-class, and the Economists Union (certified cringe union that are explicitly not partaking in any strike action, lmao) opinions range from lukewarm to supportive.They see the incoming austerity measures as “necessary” to counteract the previous governments “excessive spending” and something something national debt. The Confederation of Finnish Industries, EK, are ecstatic at the prospect of relaxed worker’s rights and lower wages, of course. They are kind of like a nega-union but for bigass companies and shareholders and
and can always be counted on to have the worst most ghoulish ambitions. Unfortunately they also have a lot of influence in economical policy. All of their boogiemen (national debt, excessive spending, etc) are complete imaginary garbage made up by the IMF or what the fuck ever, of course, but such is the state of most of Europe I suppose 
The previous government was generally less ghoulish with regards to labour politics and such, and generally had the opposite support (liked by under 30’s, low-income workers, and blue-collar unions; hated by chuds, boomers, middle class etc). They weren’t good by any of our definitions, but for what it’s worth they managed to begin undoing some of the damage the Sipilä cabinet had inflicted during their term before (getting rid of the “Aktiivimalli” for instance, a similar proposition to what the yellow vests protested against in France). Buuut then their reputation got absolutely fucked because of how they handled the pandemic, and then again by all the ukraine shit and then again with the following cost of living + energy crises. Not all of that was even their fault, but the damage was already done and the shit ass tabloids weren’t gonna miss out on starting a ruckus. Add to that the fact that they were mostly women, combined with how unbelievably fucking racist/sexist/everythingphobic the finnish people tend to be, and here we are now. The pendulum will keep swinging back and forth until either the proletariat takes up arms or the natoid warhawks finally get their wishes fulfilled and we all burn in nuclear hellfire.
Economist unions are about as useful as stock broker unions or real estate agent unions
If the revolution comes it will be nice to have a list of people who only get a token trip to the gulag before they are sent around the back of the shed.
Thanks, this was a great read.
Also,
lmao
hell yeah