Bulletins and News Discussion from November 4th to November 10th, 2024 - This is a Giant Problem
Bulletins and News Discussion from November 4th to November 10th, 2024 - This is a Giant Problem
Image is from this article on the excellent Canadian environmental journalism outlet, The Narwhal.
The Giant Mine just outside of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada is one of the country's largest recognized environmental liabilities. The mine's 100 plus year history illustrates the continuity between resource colonialism in the late 19th/early 20th century and neoliberalism at the turn of the millennium.
There were several gold rushes in northern Canada/US in the late 19th century, such as the Klondike. The Giant gold strike on was first discovered by settlers about the same time as the Klondike, but as Giant is on Great Slave Lake (named for an Anglicization of the name of local peoples, not after slavery) instead of the Pacific Ocean, it is much less accessible and didn't take off like the Klondike. Parallel with displacement of local Yellowknives Dene people https://ykdene.com/, the town of Yellowknife sprung up around small mining operations through the 30s. It wasn't until after WW2 that the mine was developed at a large scale. Starting operation in 1948, Giant was owned by a Canadian mining conglomerate through the 80s, then some Australians, and for the last ten years of its operating life, by Americans, who went bankrupt and abandoned the property in 1999. The Canadian federal government is responsible for the site and its remediation now, similar to the way the EPA has Superfund sites in the USA.
The project is infamous for poisoning the people and environment of the surrounding area through arsenic poisoning. The ore at giant is arsenopyrite, an arsenic sulphide mineral that often contains gold. Roasting it in large furnaces or kilns releases the gold as well as fine arsenic trioxide dust. The most infamous arsenic poisoning incident was in 1951 when a Yellowknives Dene toddler in died after eating contaminated snow in the fallout area, 2 kilometers from the processing mill's smokestack. Over the years, improvements to the mill reduced the amount of toxic dust released to the environment. This is better than blasting it into the air wildly, but meant that the site accumulated hundreds of thousands of tonnes of arsenic trioxide dust that they chucked in empty mine workings underground. Unfortunately, arsenic trioxide dissolves in water as easily as sugar and so represents a tremendous risk to groundwater and waterbodies nearby, like Great Slave Lake and Yellowknife's water supply.
Arsenic issues contributed to labour disputes as well. In 1991 the union workers of the plant went on strike, refusing management's demand to reduce their salary and wanting better safety measures for workers . The company brought in Pinkertons and strikebreakers, backed by RCMP thugs. The situation escalated, culminating in a bomb planted on a train track deep in the mine. When it was triggered, it killed 6 scabs and 3 Pinkertons. For the next year, the RCMP interrogated mine workers, their family and community without determining who did it, supporting the company in their refusal to sign a new contract until an arrest was made. Finally a worker named Roger Warren confessed to doing it alone and was sentenced to life in prison. He was released in 2014 and died in 2017.
Since 1999, the site has been the responsibility of the Canadian federal government and is being every so gradually remediated. Operated through what are effectively private-public partnership contracts, environmental engineering companies are attempting to clean up and isolate the huge amounts of arsenic trioxide dust. The concept is move the dust into specially ventilated chambers of the underground mine, where it is frozen in place and thus prevented from leaching into groundwater. Active remediation is supposed to be finished in about 15 years at a cost of $1 billion CAD, but will surely take longer and cost more than this. Also, freezing material in place will definitely work because the climate isn't changing, and the Canadian north is definitely not seeing extreme levels of temperature rise.
After active works are complete, the site will require perpetual care.
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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 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.
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Been hearing that a Trump victory is particularly bad for Brazil. How true is this?
probably because he is friends with bolsonaro and he may used that to get back at lula
Bolsonaro doesn't have any political rights or enough popularity to beat Lula da Silva, everyone knows if Lula runs for reelection he will win because the right-wing and left-wing candidates are not as popular as Lula and lack a loyal voter base like Lula's. Besides, Bolsonaro is still fighting the Supreme Court, and Alexandre de Moraes keeps fucking with him every week. Trump's election will be bad because of Trump's econimical policies, of protectionism, this will either fuck with Brazil's economy or push Lula for closer relation with China (specially with the G20 meeting, Xi wants to talk with Lula personally).
If Trump does what he promised to (which is a toss-up because he's very easily distracted), raising tariffs on imported goods will dry up income for a lot of global South countries, which in the long term has the potential for multipolarity to flourish, but I the short term will cause a ton of human suffering, specially as GS countries run out of USD reserves to pay external debts and are forced to cut public spending as part of IMF-led restructuring plans.
You can see the results already, the BCB has gone from maybe slightly lowering interest rates to raising them yet again.
The last time Trump was president we were hit with tariffs, some strategically placed and others less so. Our aristocratic class was scammed out of a year of earnings via Trump's trade war and the US picking up some of our soy and beef sales contracts to China. Embraer was almost tariffed into being sold to Boeing. Being a peripheric country tied to the western financial system, we'll see enough speculation and uncertainty to eat away at common people's purchasing power and the Lula government lacking any majorities in Congress and kow-towing to liberal policy is ill-equipped to do anything about it.
The way I see it, the one bright spot is that this week's uncertainty towards BRICS and China's BRI will be undone. If Brazil is cut off from american markets just because Trump wants it to be, then it will have to join the BRI. Just to be clear, ministers have said that Brazil wants to join while Celso Amorim corrected them. A second aggressive phase in the US means there's no reason or means to play both superpowers. The Americans barely play already, and will stop doing so next year.
Iirc, Lula da Silva will meet with Xi during te G20 meeting in Rio. They will probably talk about this, I remember seeing some news or interview of Lula saying how he wanted to futher seek closer relations with China, and how he thought the Political and Economical system of China were good.
Ok so its not just about economics even though its what we talk about here.
The main issue stems from the Dilma coup, the neoliberal governments since 2016 until now including Lula 2.0(Lula 1 in some ways and certainly Dilma were already neolibs but I digress). Among all the usual austerity measures is the most important one, the Constitutional Amendment of the Public Expenditure Cap.
This is the key the underlines any Brazilian government since 2016 and is the main issue the left and Lula needed to fight in order to not lose again.
This budget cap is one of the most insane pieces of legislation anywhere in the world. It mandates a 20 year freeze on spending. It does not recognize Brazil as a third world country that needs disproportionaly higher social spenditure to "catch up".
But the key is it is incompatible with the long established constitutional mandated healthcare and education spending floor. Currently Brazil has a mandated floor of 15% and 18% for each.
So why both of these matter? The attack is currently coming together almost as if perfectly timed to coincide with the leftist in power. Its not like this is new though, from the beginning 8 years ago everyone knew eventualy the healthcare and education spending floor would be attacked.
The neoliberal financial market is currently attacking through high interest rates and inflation fearmongering and the left/Lula government is capitulating. Brazil looks at curbing health, education spending in fiscal package, sources say.
Government austerity means cutting social programs, worst case scenario perhaps even significantly gutting the public healthcare system(SUS). Ultimately this is political suicide. The left will be absolutely crushed in 2026 as the left was already completely crushed during the latest mayoral elections last month.
It is a warning that the Worker's Party doesn't care. The Brazilian mainstream left got a serious Lula worship problem. It realy is TINA but its clear from the recent elections this will be a crushing defeat.
Economically the bigger picture it means several things including the future prospect of a complete victory of the financial rentier capital class over the still relatively strong and rich agricultural exporting capitalists(beef, coffee, soybean both for US and China etc).
If this victory is confirmed its going to be far worse than Argentina. It means no BRICS or China relationship. It means a possible Venezuela invasion or worse.
So is it all just about Trump? Not realy, Trump's victory is a financial market dream giving every excuse to shit on emerging market currencies.
I think the Workers' Party will only lose in 2026 if Lula doesn't run, I think problems will start in 2030, no more Lula for the left, and he is the most popular leftist candidate in Brazil. We will see how things go, and how long it will take for the liberals to betray the leftist. I doubt there will be ever an Invasion of Venezuela using Brazilian troops, wars are really unpopular and it would mean suicide for any goverment in South America.
I'm sorry dude, but please understand that the entire left, not just PT got absolutely crushed during the mayoral elections. If you know even some spanish I realy recommend turn on the auto subtitles and watch Jones Manoel(historian, Marxist-Lenist), here just on the first 5 minutes Jones Manoel analyzes the direction of the left in Brazil after the elections
And you'll look at the results, one worse than the other, on the one hand, on the other, in the Brazilian northeast, there is a myth that the Northeast is progressive, that the Northeast is left-wing, that the Northeast is the barrier against fascism. In the Brazilian northeast, of the capitals, the extreme right only didn't win two: Recife and Fortaleza, the extreme right and the traditional right, right? And even so, in Recife, you can't call João Campos left-wing, right? We can develop this better, but this way it's not a one.
In the northeast there was a huge advance in the traditional right and the far right with some very striking results, for example, Bruno Reis managed to be reelected in the first round with an overwhelming vote, being the fifth term of the PT in Bahia, right? The government, Bahia is 20 years old. You see, and the third striking fact that we can't ignore is the result of the election in Porto Alegre and São Paulo, right? Rio Grande do Sul.
In the 103 largest cities in Brazil, where is the center of the political and economic population dynamics, what was the result? Left slash center left only won 10 city halls. The far right and the right won 93, it's 93 to 10. You know, this is like making a football metaphor of losing to 7 to 1. Oh, I scored a goal, but we conceded seven. You see, 9 to 1 is actually the far right and the right won in 93 cities. Of the 103 largest cities in Brazil, which concentrate the majority of the population's GDP, you see.
And then if we go making the cut by capitals the situation doesn't improve I was here with the data it's easy but I ended up losing it I found capitals There are 26 capitals right the PSD took five the MDB took five União Brasil took four the PL took four PP took two Podemos took two PT PSB Forward Republicans one of each When you will see the division in the 26 capitals there are 13 governed by the extreme right 2 by the left slash center left and 11 by the right and center right
it is worth saying one thing that is fundamental it is worth saying one thing see the president Luís Inácio Lula da Silva remained oblivious to the campaign knowing that it was Rota and admitting his very low capacity to transfer votes he was left out of the Municipal campaign so the government already admits that the President of the Republic does not have the capacity to effectively transfer votes and withdrew from the dispute so as not to stick the defeat to the presidency itself I think this says a lot about the direction of this so whoever calls this a Victory is deceiving themselves
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Climate action is screwed and Trump may start sanctioning "corrupt" Brazilians so yeah kind of. Alot of right wing Brazilians moved to Florida, he has to reward them.
Someone needs to sink the gusano state of florida into the ocean already.
Give it a couple years and some cat 6 mega hurricane is bound to eventually
Well maybe Lula shouldn’t have betrayed Maduro