Image is of Portuguese parliament (specifically, during a session in which they recognized the Nakba, in July 2023).

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.

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

  • Greenleaf [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    61·
    4 months ago

    This admittedly a bit out there of a theory, but I wonder if the reason all these European politicians are so adamant about propping up Ukraine is because so many of them and their parties are implicated in preventing Ukraine from making peace with Russia back in March 2022. And if Ukraine falls, Zelensky et al will air all their dirty laundry about who made what promises and who told them to keep fighting, which they don’t want to do now because they still think they have a chance if NATO goes all-in.

    • Stylistillusional [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      33·
      4 months ago

      When it comes to Europe and Ukraine, I think it really comes down to moral indignation. They think Russia invading Ukraine is a unique moral crime. Ukraine should win because they are the good guys. Any sense of reality is almost entirely overruled by this moral indignation.

      A lot of people in Europe can’t even fathom that the West has any responsibility for this war. It must be Russian propaganda because the West is free and democratic and Russia is evil.

      Even the people in my country that are at least sometimes better in realistically understanding this war seem to be dumbfounded by the idea that regular people show a greater willingness to protest the genocide in Palestine and not against Russia.

      I truly feel it doesn’t go much deeper than moral indignation for Europe. They can’t conceive the possibility that anything they are doing for Ukraine could ultimately end up hurting Europe more than Russia. It is heresy to suggest that maybe if they went about sanctions a bit smarter, they could’ve probably helped Ukraine more.

      • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        30·
        4 months ago

        I agree that moral indignation is a large motivator for both elite and popular support for the Ukraine war in the west.

        I think there are several reasons for this:

        • Russia inherited the reputation resulting from 70 years of anti-communist propaganda from the USSR. Regardless of Ukraine, Russia is one of the most villain-coded nations in the world.
        • Ukrainians are white. The average Ukrainian looks just like the average westerner and white supremacy is still rampant, leading to westerners emotionally perceiving it as orders of magnitude more immoral to bomb white people than to bomb brown people.
        • Russia is defying the west, seemingly successfully. They don’t even seem to be hurting despite western attempts at sanctioning them. This humiliation is really hurting western feelings of exceptionalism and supremacy, further fueling their hate for Russia.
        • Russia (ontologically evil) is sanctioning the west’s (ontologically good) attempts to draw Ukraine into the garden of NATO and the EU, or attempts to civilise them as earlier generations would have called it. Russia thus stands directly in the way of goodnes and progress.
        • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          20·
          4 months ago

          I do think there’s something else. European elites are just loyal to the american world order. They’ll say so both in open and in private. Of course they are, they’d be fools not to be loyal to it as it was good for them. And as much as we talk about, say, German industrial decline, nothing has stopped German elites from investing in American LNG exporters and European LNG importers which are fleecing the masses of Europe. Likewise for the rest of the European populations, though they are now being squeezed dry by US policy they still believe, by inertia, that the ‘rules based international order’ is a good thing because they live in the imperial core and their labour is just better rewarded than that of the average person in the Global South.

          With the Elites in tow you have the entirety of media. With inertial belief still strong in the middle and lower classes of Europe, that media has fertile ground to work on. The problem isn’t today, it’s years from now. If Europe continues to stagnate then the european elites become akin to compradors in impoverished countries. That is the fertile ground where the populist form of politics (in strict sense, an alliance between a member of the elites such as, say, a junior officer or a lower landlord, with the masses) leaves the fringes more and more. And in Europe, populism hasn’t just been a big tent with some forms of conservativism and some forms of economic socialism like in LatAm. In Europe it will be straight up fascism.

          • Stylistillusional [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
            17·
            4 months ago

            It is true that the European elite is loyal to the US, but more importantly they are completely dependent on the US. At the same time the Europeans are enthusiastic participants when it comes to Ukraine, moreso than the US.

            The US has always held the position that the aim of military aid is to strengthen Ukraine’s position at the eventual negotiation table. But the Europeans for a long time believed the goal to be a total retreat by the Russians.

            Because of those fantasies, the Europeans have jumped in head first. Now the mood has soured and the Europeans are starting to realised that they have wagered the stability of their entire system on the outcome of this war. Hence those comments Macron has been making.

            I hope that all this talk of sending troops to Ukraine is part of a process of Europe accepting the reality that they played themselves. Hopefully the Americans can reign their dogs in before they do anything stupid.

            • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              13·
              4 months ago

              I think Macron is making the comments he’s making because France at one point was considered the ‘defeatist, mediator’ of Europe. When the whole of Europe, the Germans most of all, were more loyal than the King, Macron ‘tarnished’ himself as weak. Since Macron’s form of politics is just being a hollowed out neoliberal that panders to everyone at once, pretending to be more militarist than his own soldiers is likely something that Elysée aides have convinced themselves plays well to the public.

              Sure, people like to bring up rational geopolitical reasons why Macron is making these foreign policy statements. Like losing influence in the Francophonie, or the french mercs who got merc’d, or, as you say, the souring in Europe and a need to keep the aid going. But Macron is primarily concerned with his political survival and nothing, not even one million ukrainian lives matter more than that.

              I agree with your statements. I’d only add that Europe gets soured on America’s fuck ups for years, but they never let it go. Europe thinks that Obama and France destroying Syria and Libya put their union on the way to fascism and disintegration. Europe thought bigly about Trump badmouthing NATO or Bush threatening them into complying with the Iraq War. None of this mattered and I think the self-sanctions against German industry still won’t because these are financialized economies and the elites can just shuffle their portfolios around.

          • Kaplya@hexbear.netEnglish
            8·
            4 months ago

            Michael Hudson has this funny story that one time, by chance he ended up seated next to the CEO of a huge German corporation (Volkswagen or something, I forgot) in a dinner organized by the State Department. The German CEO, mistaking him for someone important from the State Department, basically spent the entire evening hinting to Hudson that “you know, our loyalty will always lie with you”.

    • MrPiss [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      30·
      4 months ago

      My first thought is that they also must protect their countries failchildren who were sent to loot Ukraine. hunter can’t be the only one right? There have to be important EU leaders who would be caught up in that corruption but that’s mostly a guess.

    • grandepequeno [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      22·
      4 months ago

      all these European politicians are so adamant about propping up Ukraine is because so many of them and their parties are implicated in preventing Ukraine from making peace with Russia back in March 2022

      tbf that’s only a handful of these guys, like definitely Bojo (and the tories) and maybe some german and french politicians (?), most european politicians are in it for love of the game baby

        • grandepequeno [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          16·
          4 months ago

          Yeah that’s what I mean, the main players might be defending ukraine now because they had a hand in fucking them over but portugal, spain, austria etc are irrelevant and didn’t play into that decision at all, they’re just defending ukraine because that’s what you do

    • Tunnelvision [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      18·
      4 months ago

      We also have to consider the military trials that will take place once Russia wins. It’ll be Nuremberg 1.5 edition. And also depending on how conspiracy brained you are the Russians supposedly have information about genetic and biological weapons development in Ukraine so that could also be a big reason Europe doesn’t want to give up either.

      • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]@hexbear.netOPMEnglish
        23·
        4 months ago

        I do genuinely believe that the West envisaged that Russia would collapse within a few months, as it dovetails nicely with the following points:

        • Leftover anti-Russian propaganda from the Cold War, particularly with how the USSR collapsed due to internal crises; I would say it’s mostly guaranteed that Western intellectuals took all the wrong lessons and interpretations from how and why the collapse occurred.
        • A general belief in their own superiority (the garden vs the jungle), looking at examples of how sanctions in the past have affected and weakened other nations, thus believing that Russia would similarly collapse because, again, they took the wrong lesson from previous sanctions on weaker countries. The emphasis on how many sanctions there were, and their projected impact on the Russian economy (which failed to materialize) feels in retrospect feels like the geopolitical version of trying to create reality by pure insistence that reality is the way that you are describing it, and we see Israel doing the same in Palestine today by insisting that Hamas is on the verge of defeat, or has been defeated, when in reality the vast majority of Hamas’ resources and fighters and tunnels are still intact.
        • Additionally, a general belief in the superiority of their propaganda mechanisms and narratives that they could funnel into the Russian population, and indeed, propaganda is just about the only sphere remaining where the West has unquestioned superiority - though propaganda can only go so far to actually affect the world, so long as the general population is kept relatively happy (as the Russian population was and is, especially compared to Europe).
        • The military preparation of Ukraine for 8 years to resist Russia. It’s hard to say precisely what the people in charge of that program intended - was Ukraine supposed to be able to take on Russia’s military alone (due to a critical misjudgement that Russia’s military was weak), was Ukraine supposed to just hold out for a little while and wait for Russia to collapse, or was Ukraine not really ready yet but events had forced the US to goad Russia? - but you don’t pour weapons and training into a country for years on end in the way that they did for Ukraine for no reason at all. Profit is a secondary benefit for the American Empire, there’s always a guiding principle of weakening enemies first and foremost.
        • Starting the war at the end of winter so that gas supplies potentially being shut off would not have too great an impact, because by the winter of 2022, Russia would surely have been internally overthrown by West-friendly liberals and the gas could be restarted; this reason might have been given to the Europeans by the Americans to assuage them, as obviously America not only doesn’t care about Europe’s supply of gas, it indeed actively benefits from it being shut off.
        • The narrative that “Russia expected Ukraine to fall in a few weeks and now Putin is really pissed that it didn’t, what a mad and incompetent dictator!” always felt a little… strange, and bitter, at least to me. It feels like a projection of the West’s expectations onto Russia - they, in fact, are very angry that Russia didn’t fall in a few weeks and are just expressing that anger by assigning the reverse to Putin instead.

        Russia failed to collapse but Ukraine also didn’t collapse. So it feels like we’ve been in the Plan B of both sides since the summer of 2022. Russia hoped that they wouldn’t have to go this far and that Ukraine would surrender to their (pretty reasonable) terms, and was met with a West that was proudly saying “Haha! Putin and his top experts thought we WOULDN’T slam our hands on this boiling-hot stovetop, and keep them there, writhing in agony! Those utter fools, completely incapable of analysis!” So then Russia had to mobilize forces, and so did the West, and 2023 happened and now 2024 is too.