This year really is just gonna be us swinging from election to election, I suppose. I feel Lenin’s beaming red eyes on me.
Up next on our electoral tour is Portugal. The current government - a coalition of the center-left Socialists and the center-right Social Democrats - has been mired in corruption scandals, resulting in a general election being called a mere two years after the last one. The fascist and vaguely populist Chega party has gained significant support over the last two years due to the economic hardships. Yesterday, the Social Democrats secured a narrow win of 79 seats compared to the Socialists’ 77. Chega, in third place at 48, would appear to be the best candidate for a coalition, though the leader of the Social Democrats has said that they would refuse a coalition with them due to their xenophobic views. Regardless, the fascist surge is worrying, if expected.
Portugal’s economy is going pretty badly even as European countries go, with little growth in productivity or investment over the last decade. The origins of this crisis date back to Portugal making the euro their national currency in the early 2000s, thus surrendering their ability to control their own currency, becoming reliant on investment from Germany and France, and suffering greatly in the 2012 European debt crisis. Unemployment and low wages spurred emigration; in 2013, the youth employment rate was about 40%; this has only come down to 25% recently and is increasing again. The government is heavily reliant on debt for public spending, with a debt-to-GDP ratio skyrocketing to over 100% in the two decades since the turn of the millennium. The capitalist sector is simply not profitable enough and hasn’t been for 40 years, which is only a problem if you are a capitalist economy. For more on the Portuguese economy, check out Michael Roberts’ recent analysis, from which I obtained a lot of this information.
Inside Portugal is the same story playing out across much of Europe. A failing center or center-left political party, unable to cope with the economic troubles of the last few years due to absolute obedience to neoliberal policies. A fascist party rising, but with no alternative economic plan, hoping that perhaps oppressing minorities and going after “wokeism” will make their God, The Economy, rain blessings down on them again.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Portugal! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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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.
The artist of Stonetoss has been identified as a Hans Kristian Graebener from Texas. CW for uh, all the vile shit in his comics.
He was identified by his email being exposed in the Gab hack in 2021. Some fun nuggets:
He lost 23 Bitcoin in a hack in 2014 (current value in USD: 1.6 Million)
He posted frequently on Reddit about being circumcised and donated to foreskin regeneration startups
He appeared in a 2014 NYT article where he was described as “an enormous bald man named Hans”. He had apparently flown to New York for a pro-Gamergate meeting. It includes this banger of a quote:
Also, he works at the Houston office of Open iT… 👀
Artificial incelligence
Fellas, is it being an incel not to want your gentials cut up? Idk sounds pretty sus to me
No, but if you obsess about it on Reddit, probably yes?
I think it’s perfectly understandable to be fixated on a genital surgery you never asked for?? Maybe it’s not healthy, but I can’t fault someone for having an unhealthy reaction to trauma
Make fun of this guy for being a reactionary dipshit cartoonist, not for having a legitimate (if overly fixated) grievance with puritanical cultural hegemony
I agree it should be far down the list of things to criticize him for, if it makes the list at all. My take has also always been that circumcision (unless an adult decides to do it to themself, for some odd reason) it a wrong and abusive thing to do. But it does strike me as a bit bizarre and a little off-putting for someone to focus so much on, and especially when they’re busy spending so much of the rest of their life’s focus on being reactionary toward everyone else. Just kind of an uncomfortable proximity to “men’s rights activists”.
I broadly agree, yeah. But nevertheless I think that in situations like this it’s the wrong move to lump the off-putting in with the outright abhorrent when it comes to dunking. I mean, it’s not like we’re starved for material here, right?
(also for consistency’s sake there are legit reasons for infant circumcision as far as health in which case I wouldn’t call it wrong or abusive, but those are very rare compared to the millions of babies just getting it lopped off because of Kellogg’s cereal or smth
Yeah. I think I agree with all that.
Not at all, but stonetoss is a misogynist nazi pig so fuck him
we’re not talking about body shaming but i hope the sentiment is clear nonetheless
Yeah I mean I share the same trait but thanks for policing it anyway
So do I. Just because you share a trait doesn’t give you license to put people down in regards to it
Anytime people bring it up it’s usually to attack Jews. So this doesn’t surprise me
The circumcision stuff is the only part of his character (as in his personality, not the characters he draws in comics) I have empathy for.
Also, when I say he posted a lot about circumcision, I mean hundreds of reddit posts. Damn.
“It is not a stretch to imagine why a person would have wanted a choice over their bodies. It is a mystery, however, why people would be so defensive at such a suggestion. Anyways, time to draw my 50527th comic on why t-words are just f-words in drag.”
Like he literally uses the term “body dysmorphia” to refer to his own mental state, it’s shameless!
IT part is the least surprising thing here. i need my STEM lefties to fight back
Lmfao he works in IT. I’m always uneasy around white American IT guys or gamers because there’s like a 70% chance they’re some form of rabid right-winger