this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2024
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Iran has struck Israel.

previous preambleThe continuing fall of the remains of the British Empire is pretty entertaining from the outside: an archaic royal family that is seemingly being smote with disease by God itself for their past crimes; a navy that virtually no longer functions, ramming into foreign ports and under constant repair; and an economy that cannot seem to stop sputtering, fucked whether they're in the EU or outside it. Watching the impacts on people from the inside is a little more worrying, though.

A fifth of the population is in poverty, including nearly a third of all children. These figures have barely shifted since the Labour government in the early 2000s, aside from a decreasing poverty rate for pensioners. Actually, poverty hasn't substantially shifted since Margaret Thatcher. Before her, the poverty rate was around 14%, but her catastrophic policies caused a major increase, and poverty levels since then are still 50% higher than over 50 years ago, because neoliberal economic policy since then has not fundamentally changed. Parties and corporations have impoverished the usual vulnerable groups, such as large families, minority ethnic groups (including half of Pakistani and Bangladeshi households!) and disabled people. These differences are also regional, with the North more impoverished than the richer Southeast (but some of the poorest boroughs are in London, so it's a complex pattern).

With Corbyn's defeat in 2019 mere months before the pandemic began, the Labour Party shifted back towards the right, with left-wingers purged from the party if they did not kowtow to Keir Starmer. This leaves us with a situation where the only substantial difference between the two parties would be on social policy, but it goes without saying that economic policy is the overwhelming factor that determines if minorities can have a decent life. Worker-oriented movements since then have been largely not under the umbrella of major party leaderships, such as the Don't Pay movement in late 2022 that arose in the wake of dramatically rising energy prices where 3 million people vowed to not pay them (which did lead to results).

Most notably recently is the major upset in the constituency of Rochdale - the victory of George Galloway - who is the leader of the Workers Party of Britain, which describes itself as both socialist and socially conservative. This took place both in the context of aforementioned economic troubles, as well as anger over Israel's genocide of Gaza in the British population, especially in British Muslims. It remains to be seen how much of this is an isolated event, especially as Corbyn has, understandably, refused to collaborate with Galloway due to his socially conservative stances. The UK general election will be held at some point within the next 9 months or so, and might well be a shitshow depending on what happens domestically and geopolitically before then; parallels to the current American electoral shitshow with increasing anger over Biden are pretty apparent. The Conservatives are quite likely to lose given 14 years of uninspired rule if current polling is correct, but it truly is a race to the bottom.


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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.


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[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 50 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Why are Musk and lackeys like Shellenberger attacking Brazil's democratic rule of law when X normally complies with local government's user bans? Intercept Brazil reveals Musk is losing big to China's BYD in bids to capitalize on Brazil's lithium reserves and electric car market

Intercept Brazil's Article (Portuguese Only)

ELON MUSK'S attitude towards Brazil, especially in confrontation with the Brazilian judiciary, is unusual. With regulatory challenges in several countries, the billionaire often puts his extreme right-wing activism on the back burner to facilitate the entry of his conglomerate's companies into other nations.

In India, for example, X (formerly Twitter) has even taken a stand against court rulings in the country, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of the far-right Bharatiya Janata Party, for more than a decade. But he made a point of saying that he would abide by every one of them. There, Musk intends to invest US$ 3 billion in Tesla factories to curb the advance of his main competitor, the Chinese company BYD, in the region.

In Brazil, however, the billionaire took a different tack. By buying Twitter and turning it into X, Musk also bought a powerful political tool that brings together world leaders, communicators and researchers from all over the world. Now, he is using this communicational power to destabilize the country and boost his own business.

The onslaught was coordinated: first, on the 4th, the Twitter Files, which show the company's lawyers complaining about the orders of Alexandre de Morais, who called for the blocking of accounts involved in coup demonstrations.

Then, a provocative tweet from Musk himself, like a dog whistle, to mobilize Bolsonaro supporters against 'censorship'. The circus was set up: Bolsonaro's father and Eduardo did a live, Nikolas Ferreira, Paulo Figueiredo and Allan dos Santos, who was banned, did another.

The far right mobilized, Musk used his network to challenge a court order from the Brazilian Supreme Court - which is illegal, according to the Marco Civil da Internet - and call for the impeachment of Alexandre de Moraes. Our minister ended up including the billionaire in his extensive investigation into digital militias.

What explains Elon Musk's escalation on the Supreme Court? It's not just political alignment with the far right, coup-plotting or an unconditional defense of freedom of expression. It's a commercial strategy that involves the interests of other companies in the conglomerate: SpaceX, Starlink and Tesla.

The race for 'white oil'

On Monday 8th, following his affronts to Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, Elon Musk began following a powerful Norwegian investor. Nicolai Tangen is CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, an investment fund that has businesses in various parts of the world - many of them in the mining sector.

The two set up a conversation in a circle, the live audio tool on X (formerly Twitter). Only Tangen made the meeting public; Musk was more discreet.

In 2023, Norges Bank Investment had investments in more than 8,000 companies in 72 countries. Brazil is among them. The bank owns just over 1% of Petrobras, 3% of Cosan, 5% of the construction company Tenda, to name but a few.

It is also an investor in the Canadian mining company Sigma (with 17.6 million dollars, less than 1% of the company) and the Spanish Rio Tinto (with 2.5 billion invested, more than 2%). He also has more than 2% of the Dutch metallurgical company AMG.

This is where the interests of the CEO of Norges Bank and Musk begin to intersect.

In 2023, a Bloomberg report showed that Elon Musk was interested in buying Sigma Lithium, one of the largest lithium miners in the world. The metal is essential in the production of Tesla's electric cars. One of Musk's company's suppliers is Brazil's Vale, which sells lithium and nickel.

In 2022, when Musk came to Brazil - officially to launch his satellite internet, Starlink - two researchers from USP raised doubts about the real interests of the visit. In an article, Eliane Cristina Silva dos Santos, from the Institute for Advanced Studies, and Maria da Penha Vasconcellos, a professor at the School of Public Health, showed that the visit took place at an extremely strategic moment in Brazilian lithium production.

Lithium, the lightest metal in existence, is considered "white oil". The material is essential in the production of batteries, solar and wind energy, as well as electric cars. In other words, in times of energy transition, it is essential. Latin America, especially Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, has 68% of the world's reserves of the metal.

It was right there in Bolivia, in 2020, that Elon Musk was involved in an intrusion similar to the one in Brazil. That year, the billionaire responded to a tweet critical of his support for the coup against the government of Evo Morales because of his interest in Bolivian lithium. "Let's coup whoever we want! Deal with it," Musk replied (the tweet has since been deleted, but has been recorded in this report).

Back to Brazil: in recent years, the Brazilian Geological Survey has discovered several reserves of lithium, especially in the Jequitinhonha Valley, in the north of Minas Gerais. Three companies exploit the ore in the region: Companhia Brasileira de Lítio, Canada's Sigma and AMG Mineração.

Only the first one was national - the government of Minas Gerais owned 33% of the company. The scenario looked promising for us to manufacture our own Brazilian batteries. However, the partner company in the venture, Oxys Energy, went bankrupt in 2021 - and the government of Minas Gerais began to argue that the state should not enter the business.

In October 2022, the state's share was sold to the British company Ore Investimentos. Vale do Lítio was handed over; at the end of 2023, Governor Romeu Zema, from Novo, went to New York to secure new foreign investment for the region.

According to Observatório da Mineração, which covers the subject, three companies, Latin Resources, Atlas Lithium and Lithium Ionic, are already probing the area for new lithium reserves. Sigma Lithium and AMG are already in production - and both have investments from Norges Bank Investment.

Sigma, founded in 2011, saw its shares explode after discovering lithium reserves here, and global demand for the metal increased. In 2023, the company confirmed that it was negotiating with potential buyers.

Negotiations with Musk, however, did not progress, and the issue became urgent for the billionaire: this year, a Chinese competitor entered the game.

China's BYD advances worldwide and takes the lead in Brazil

In January, the Financial Times reported that China's BYD, Tesla's main competitor in the production of electric cars, had overtaken Musk and started negotiating the purchase of Sigma. The deal is valued at R$14.3 billion.

Brazil is one of the pieces on the board of the trade war, as it has become the center of BYD's global investment strategy. The company has announced that it will increase its investments in Brazil by up to 1 billion euros. In October last year, BYD took over Ford's factory in Camaçari, Bahia, and will initially have the capacity to produce up to 150,000 vehicles a year.

BYD's meteoric growth in Brazil is visible on the country's streets: in 2023, 17,947 of the Chinese company's cars were sold in Brazil, an increase of 6,900%. More than that: sales of BYD electric models exceeded all other electric models combined.

If BYD is gaining ground in Brazil, the scenario is even more worrying for Musk in the rest of the world. In 2023, the Chinese manufacturer sold 1.57 million electric vehicles, up 73% on 2022, and added 1.44 million hybrid cars to the market. With this, it overtook Tesla, which delivered 1.8 million units in the same year, and faces a forecast drop in sales for 2024.

[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 37 points 9 months ago

Faced with this scenario, Musk has contradicted his self-proclaimed anti-state profile. During Tesla's results presentation in January, Musk called on the US government to implement protectionist measures, such as creating tariff barriers for China's BYD.

Biden's election: billions at stake

The proximity of the US presidential elections may also explain Musk's foray into Brazil. The billionaire is a notorious supporter of former president Donald Trump against the current incumbent, Democrat Joe Biden. A tweet shared by Musk on Sunday helps explain the strategy: to paint the alleged censorship in Brazil as the reality of a second Biden term.

"Brazil's present is our future if the Democrats achieve their dream of increasing the number of Supreme Court justices," reads the caption of a post by businessman David Sacks. In the image, a printout of a headline reads: "Democrats want to introduce law to increase the number of Supreme Court justices from 9 to 13". Musk shared the post with the following message: "They want to cheat".

But the headline in the image is from April 2021, not now. And in fact, Biden appointed a bipartisan commission to study possible reforms to the structure of the Supreme Court, but the Commission did not recommend increasing the number of judges.

The opposition to Biden's candidacy, as well as the attacks on Moraes, are related to billionaire interests. An example of what is at stake made headlines in the US press last week when Biden revealed plans to tax companies that use US airspace for rocket launches, as SpaceX does. The money would be used to fund the work of air traffic controllers.

In recent weeks, Musk has intensified his demonstrations of support for Trump, even though during Biden's term the businessman was pragmatic: he maintained relatively cordial relations with the White House, where he even paid a visit in 2021.

But since March of this year, when he met Trump and potential donors, he has plunged into the election campaign. And, as he himself makes no secret of, Brazil is part of this game.

How Musk instrumentalized X

The current Musk-Moraes crisis was sparked by the disclosure, last Thursday, 4, of the so-called Twitter Files Brazil, a series of internal company emails released by American journalist Michael Shellenberger.

The messages, exchanged between former Twitter employees in 2020 and 2022, reveal the legal team's disagreement with decisions by the Brazilian courts that ordered the exclusion of content in investigations involving the spread of fake news.

Based on the emails, Shellenberger accuses Alexandre de Moraes and the Brazilian judiciary of four illegalities: demanding that the former Twitter reveal personal details about users who uploaded hashtags that he "didn't like"; demanding access to the social network's internal data, in violation of the platform's policy; unilaterally censoring posts by Brazilian parliamentarians; and trying to turn the social network's content moderation policies into a weapon against supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Despite Musk's propaganda, the Twitter Files Brazil revelations contradict a lie that the billionaire himself propagated: that Twitter's former management favored the left in the 2022 elections.