For more on the situation in Nepal, I recommend @MelianPretext@lemmygrad.ml's comment here.
Following a "anti-corruption" protest movement spurred by a social media ban (but with much deeper roots) in which dozens of protestors were killed by state forces, the government of KP Oli has been ousted, and an interim leader is currently in power as the country prepares for elections. Notably, events have been characterized as "Gen Z protests", and this leader was decided (at least partially) by a Discord vote. When a non-western government rapidly falls, it's wise to at least glance in the direction of the United States, and there are almost certainly elements of color revolution here. But, as always, it's more complicated than simple regime change - Nepal is a deeply troubled economy even as developing countries go.
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Despite winning 75% of the seats in parliament in 2017, the various communist parties have failed to unify towards forming a common agenda and solving the problems of the people. When the nominally united communist party split in 2021, infighting and opportunism eventually brought on the rightist politicians we see today.
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The Nepalese economy is not successful. Disasters are slow to be ameliorated, education and healthcare is underfunded, and poverty is fairly rampant. There have been significant developments made by the communist parties, such as electrification programs and some poverty reduction, but it has been insufficient.
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The petty bourgeois usually come from oppressed Hindu castes, and are frustrated by the domination of upper castes, and so are inspired by India's BJP. They essentially want a return to monarchy, under the guise of anti-corruption, and despite their relatively small numbers, are powerfully organized.
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Of the countries that aren't tiny islands, Nepal has the highest per capita rate of work migration, due to insufficient employment in Nepal. The jobs that Nepalese citizens receive overseas range from unpleasant to unbearable in both labour and wages, and this has generated rightful suspicion that the government cares more about foreign direct investors than their own citizens overseas.
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The government of KP Oli was close to the United States, and India's Modi has promoted the BJP in Nepal. Both countries have sought to exert influence over Nepal, though Prashad speculates that, if there is indeed a foreign mastermind at work, India is more likely to be the culprit behind these recent protests, in a gambit to use the chaos to promote/install a far right monarchist government.
I agree with Prashad that it seems unlikely that mere electoral changes will result in anything terribly productive, though whatever government emerges will inevitably hoist the banner of anti-corruption to try and legitimize themselves. We have seen the same breakdown of electoralism as a meaningful pathway to solve national problems all across the world, from the superpowers to the poorest states. Until a rupture occurs, greater surveillance, policing, and repression seems guaranteed.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA 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.
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.
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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.
I regret to admit badempanada may have been right about this exact point (and not much else recently)
but I guess we'll see in a couple weeks if all of us are designated terrorists and could lose our passports, PSL goes under attack, people keep losing their jobs, and some prominent left-winger gets shot
maybe nothing will happen
I think it’s just revealed how utterly dead “free speech” is. When Charlie Kirk was spreading his vile bullshit, what was it? Oh the 1A has no exception for vulgar speech, hate speech, insulting speech, vile speech, demeaning speech, etc.
But now? Don’t you dare say you didn’t care he died if you want to keep your job. And since it’s a private entity firing you, 1A doesn’t apply, because reasons! Controlled speech bad, unless you outsource censorship to the private sector, then it’s good! I mean, this has always been true, this is just showing how absurd it really is.
It also doesn’t apply even if you work for the government, also because reasons. Or if you’re a black student at a public state university, also because reasons. Because, and liberals seem incapable of understanding this, the law is made up and they can do whatever the fuck they want.
Truly the only thing that matters is that the state has a monopoly on the use of violence.
Everything else is downstream of that.
Hey now don’t you worry, liberals are working tirelessly to chant their magic incantations in the temples in the hopes that the robed priests will cast a spell against the state!
Yeah no, robed priests wont do. But what about trying those etsy witches again?
It turns out that power, real power, is and has always been the ability to put a gun in someone’s mouth.
Everything else is just saying “nice doggy” while you fumble with the safety.
The most ironic thing here was that it was the liberals who brought "cancelling" to the forefront circa 2016-2020, and they were "cancelling" people for saying the exact same stuff liberals had said less than a decade ago. People were getting "cancelled" during 2016-2020 for saying the exact same stuff that Obama said on the campaign trail in 2008 and 2012! Firstly how is that even workable, and secondly how legitimate was the heel turn by the libs on such core beliefs? Then post 2020 the liberal strategy went even further, and essentially boiled down to "we must win every election from 2024 until Trump and his allies physically can no longer campaign", which is another unworkable and impossible goal. Of course if your opponent gets into power, they are going to use the tools you used against them, against you. This is now happening , and is extremely basic logic even kids understand. But no, anyone that offered criticism of the liberal strategy during this time period, no matter how far left, was labeled "a nazi fascist Trump supporter". For daring to criticize Hillary, Biden or Harris. For daring to question if the 180° turn by the libs on social issues to suddenly be ultra progressive was legitimate.
Libs truly thought their were “owed” elections and control over the bourgeois mechanism of power exertion. Their "democracy" died with thunderous applause.
Does this imply the reverse, if only libs hadn’t been so mean, then the fascists wouldn’t be weaponizing the state against them?
Not necessarily, but the Democrats did break the unspoken agreement between the two parties not to go after each other in certain way. Trump was the first US president to be tried and convicted of criminal charges for instance. Not even Nixon with Watergate faced that, because he was pardoned to prevent such an occurrence. They also tried (and succeeded for a while between 2020-2023) to get Trump and all his accomplices banned from pretty much every social media platform, from any news programme, from public life essentially and called it "deplatforming". Which led to some incredible thoughts (which have aged very poorly) from the brightest minds liberalism has to offer. Prime example:
This "deplatforming" house of cards all collapsed when Trump won the Republican nomination, by being Trump, and Musk bought Twitter and allowed all his accomplices back in. Liberals were having full on meltdowns that the news was covering Trump's presidential campaign, instead of just ignoring it under the rules of "deplatforming".
What I'm trying to say is that if you're going to break all the pre established rules (both official and unofficial) to go after a political opponent, you have to win. There is no other option. What's the saying "if you go after the king, you better not miss". Same concept applies. Liberals overplayed their hand and missed. And now we have to face the consequences.
Maybe it implies that, but to be more charitable "liberals should have been more principled and directed their efforts somewhere more productive" would be another conclusion.
Liberals should have been more principled and then the fascists wouldn’t be cracking down on PSL and Jimmy Kimmel?
Who knows what would have happened I guess, we are where we are now.
This discussion occurs in "idealism space" anyway, there shouldn't be any expectation of thought leadership by liberals, of course. That doesn't mean we can't analyze or discuss it.
Maybe if committed liberals showed some backbone, offered some restance to fascism early on, they would have slowed the burn or even won. We know you just end up with slow burn liberalism anyway, but I don't think the Democratic establishment would be going after jimmy Kimmel if they were in power.
This is what a liberal constitutional order does. It privileges capital. Everyone is equal under the law, never mind that you're not equals out in the world and your boss has actual power over you. The US constitution is a list of things the government can't/won't do on your behalf to protect you from capital.