So a bunch of Challenger II MBTs were spotted with anti-drone cages in Ukraine, most likely near the frontlines. So I guess it's time to remind everyone of this glorious article:

British-made tanks are about to sweep Putin’s conscripts aside - Telegraph

Thanks

But I'll be fine, I can pay for the tickets and my family in Spain also offered to pay for them. Thankfully housing is guaranteed and there is no need to pay for rent. Only issue is I don't have dual citizenship and I don't hold a Spanish passport, but I have started the process of getting dual citizenship earlier this year, although that takes quite some time to get it done. An option would be going as a tourist and starting the process in person at any of their Civil Registries, I am elegible so it's just a matter of time.

We'll see what the future holds, and I truly appreciate the intention of helping, it is from mutual support where we draw our strength

No need to rig when most candidates submit voluntarily to the IMF and the US. It's perfection, they get willing subjects without much spending in campaigns, coups and stuff.

Argentina's primary election winner Javier Milei, the ancap, said that if he's elected he'll cut diplomatic ties with China because "they're Communists and I don't deal with Communists". Diplomatic, political and economic suicide, here we go!

Also he said the US and Israel would be "our top allies" if he wins, how original. He also gave names for a possible cabinet and how he's going to reorganize the government: A number of ministeries will be eliminated, state scientific institutions will be privatized (He's on the record saying "What have scientists done for us?, they need to be competitive") and the Central Bank will be "demolished". He mentioned the Ministry of Defense will be under a woman who is known for being a Videla apologist, she claims the last military junta did not carry out a genocide and denies 30,000 people were disappeared, tortured and killed by the state. He also wants a "voucher system" for education, public schools and universities are pretty much gone, instead, the state would give people "vouchers" for them to "spend on educative institutions of their choosing", thus "forcing schools and universities to compete among themselves". And probably his "top issue" is complete dollarization of the economy. His path will be most likely similar to Menem's neoliberal plan, first he'll "fix" high inflation (In the case of Menem it was hyperinflation of the late 80s), this will be seen as very positive by the general population. He'll most likely do this by cutting a deal with the IMF and other foreign entities, they'll let him "reign in peace" for two or four years, in exchange, Argentina will give up it's energy and lithium reserves (among other things, like labor reforms and shit like that), sealing our fate.

We're living in the wildest nightmare. Capitalism has brought this country to it's knees numerous times before, and the "libertarian" solution to capitalism is even more capitalism. I am contemplating more and more just leaving this hollow piece of shit behind and migrate to Spain, at least for a number of years. I just don't feel particularly safe here no more, this is a nightmare scenario, this isn't just your typical right winger taking power and getting kinda obstructed by democratic institutions, these are true Fascist demons taking power and going all in. I'm not sure he'll be able to fully implement his agenda, most likely he'll fail along the way, the problem is that this shit will bring high social tension, economic devastation and a massive drop in quality of life. Do I really want to live through this crap AGAIN? I grew up during the late 90s and early 2000s, I remember the December 2001 riots, I can still hear the echoes of the "Cacerolazos" (people banging pots to protest), I remember my school friends asking me if we could give them spare cardboards to their parents because these could be sold for some money, I remember the endless waves of unhoused people looking for food in the trash (who are more and more visible today) and, of course, I remember the police killing 30+ people during the protests as if this was 1978. No, I don't think I want to live through this again, even less when I'm a target for these lunatics. There is fight in me, but is there any fight in those around me?

Death and Eternal Suffering to all Fascists.

america bad

See? You can still be right even as you spew nonsense and false equivalencies.

So I was browsing and I saw a user post a video of Pyongyang taken from a very tall building. The user kinda admits the city looks cool but finishes by saying "these buildings are all empty and there are impoverished people", first commenter say Pyongyang is the cleanest city because people are "not allowed to do anything" (?????).

May burn and suffer a painful death. I am tired of better than thou white ass cracker motherfucker gringos. The world will be a better place without them.

Protecting us from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards that are 9489156498km away from Fuckall Town in Iowa.

I don't think they're going to band together, because who is even going to lead that coalition? The key issue here is that Milei and Bullrich are friendly to each other, in the past they held talks about forming a possible electoral front, promising cabinet positions and so on. So in reality, this race between the two is more like a friendly contest than anything else, it now depends on the individuals and their aspirations. Whoever wins is most likely going to make very friendly offers to the other (example: Milei winning and offering the Ministry of Security to Bullrich, a post she used to hold in Macri's presidency).

Another thing is the nature of the primaries. During the primaries, people vote because the vote is almost worthless (unless you're a small party trying to make it to the 1,5% minumum required to compete in the Generals or you have an actual primary going on within your party), and in the past we have seen very wild tendencies during the primaries and a completely different thing during the generals. Last election cycle, Fernandez absolutely wiped the floor with incumbent Macri during the primaries, but in the generals the election was so much closer. This can be the case of an anomaly, people voted Milei "to send a message", people might have voted Milei as a "punishment vote" against the Government and the principal opposition group, not because "they're serious about it". Punishment votes are a common practice, at least here, several candidates in the past were voted not for ideological reasons, but to punish certain parties for being shit.

The future is not uncertain, it's dark. An election between a Bolsonaro with long hair and a female Bolsonaro awaits, one wants to militarize the police because crime rates, the other wants you to sell your own baby if you can't make it to the end of the month, if you have a spare lung you might as well just sell it (He's legit about this, libertarian moment anyway). My only hope is that Peronism implodes and all the votes scattered around are taken by the left. Left-wing Christian Juan Grabois did a decent election (especially for a guy smeared by the media 24/7), 1.3 million votes is not bad even though he lost the primaries to Sergio Massa (5 million votes). The Left did pretty meh, 600k is all there is, but I think if we play our cards right (we will most likely wont, for a reason I'll explain soon) we can get a chunk of these 1.3 million voters, maybe.

And why we won't play our cards right? Because Trots, despite being my comrades, are dogmatic. Like I understand being the "party for the revolution" but holy shit, open up a little. In general I am in agreement with them, but there are key things I disagree with, one being the over-reliance on Dogmatic Trotskyism, it is their way and their way only, it's heavily disappointing because you can build a leftist movement but they're just excluding whoever because it doesn't fit in their own version of how things should be. This isn't natural to Trotskyism, but to many other more radical left wing parties, but it's disappointing to see regardless.

It's sad, Peronism has stolen leftist votes and Milei has stolen leftist messages. This could be a wonderful place to build Socialism but here we are, barely hanging on. I just hope the Gestapo-like officer who's going to execute me at least sold one of his lugs to pay for the bullet...

Regardless, Communism will win. Even in the most desperate and adverse situations, we will find a way out, because this fight is for our own survival. I feel like a positive message needs to be sent.

The funny thing is that these people have usually been in politics for years, if not decades.

Well, Milei is like Trump in the sense that they're not career politicians, so he can easily play like the "outsider" role candidate. However, like Trump said "drain the swamp", he immediately became the swamp as he gained power within the Republican Party, Milei is doing the same. He's "anti-political caste", and the moment he had to build an electoral party, he allied with a shitton of career politicians. But in the end Milei, like Trump, are no true outsiders, nor they have "revolutionary" ideals. They're the establishment, the capital establishment, the one that doesn't get mentioned because well, Capitalism. Their supporters get really mad once you tell them that whatever they're trying to do is recycled capitalist garbage sold as new and innovative.

I saw some news that he is being investigated for selling political offices before the elections or something like that

Yes, their party sold vacant places in their tickets for cash, because they are like that. There were also a big number of sexual abuse cases within the party, because of course these people hate women.

The issue is that Milei held conversations with Bullrich not long ago, they even considered going together on a single ticket. Milei is kinda hostile to Juntos por el Cambio but he likes Bullrich due to her "strong stance" against crime and narcos (which means militarized police and restricted civil liberties, in disguise), so I wouldn't be surprised if they reach an actual agreement towards the generals in October, Bullrich can provide Milei with what he needs and Milei can provide Bullrich with a lot of young white ass cringe libertarians who think we should nuke the Central Bank or something.

With 96% of the votes counted, Milei reached 7 million votes. Barely 600k for the Trots and 1.3 million for Grabois, the christian leftist, who with every day that passes I'm more and more convinced he was allowed to run to suck off votes that would otherwise go to the Trots (not all of them, but a big part indeed).

Milei wins because something in our society is very rotten. While they can fuck off, some of the stuff they say is actually true. No, we shouldn't nuke the Central Bank or the Ministry of Health or Social Development, but when they complain about insanely high taxes, they're right. They see it from a crap perspective, yes, but the core of the problem persists, taxes are TOO high, and they are paid by common people. I believe, of course, taxes should be raised for the wealthy (something Milei of course is against) and significantly lowered for us, the fucking proles, but they can sense a problem, the problem is they're fucking capitalism bootlickers and they fail to see what causes it. They believe taxation is Communism, fuck me. Also if this motherfucker gets to do what he wants, I can kiss my beloved University of Buenos Aires good bye and my career as an historian will die overnight.

Juntos por el Cambio is picking up some steam but it wont be enough to catch up Milei at least on the presidential ballot. The issue is that Milei has shown everyone that he can win just by himself, that'll make a lot of political parties around the country to seek an alliance, which will give him the access to Senate seats and he can actually win governor positions in the provinces. It's insane, Milei outflanked the left by using a left-wing rethoric, the "anti-political caste" belongs to the left, this guy just took it and used it to further advance capitalism into the country.

A Milei presidency will be an absolute disaster, Ancap ideals are self destruction. But on the other hand, I still firmly believe Communism will ultimately be victorious.

68% of the votes counted and the ancap got 5 million votes, currently sitting first with 31%. I certainly wasn't expecting any of this, I actually expected this guy to flop because his campaign has been in a bit of a crisis lately, but it seems that his sole figure is enough to get at least 5 million people to vote for him. Pure insanity. We will become the first Ancapistan, incredible, this country is fucking incredible.

Now I don't know if he's actually going to win, there's a lot to play here. His candidates for the Chamber of Deputies (lower chamber) are having a very good election but for the Senate, not so much. The main opposition party (Juntos por el Cambio) has two candidates fighting internally, Patricia Bullrich (the pro-cop homeless killer candidate) has won. So, this election will be most likely decided between two fascists, like holy fuck this is insane.

Peronism, as expected, failed hard. The presidency of Alberto Fernandez has been a disaster, a series of terrible economic reforms, a crushing national debt, IMF loans and public scandals (mismanaged the pandemic response, plus they were seen partying and gifting vaccines as the country was in lockdown, kinda like Boris Johnson) sealed any chance he had at a second term. Current Super Minister Sergio Massa stands no chance in my opinion, he is hated by Kirchernists and Peronists alike, terrible choice of a candidate. As for the Trots, we got 2% of the votes, pretty bad considering the good job they've been doing in the lower chamber and in organizing strikes and such.

Fifteen years ago we were talking with Lula, Chávez and Fidel about building a common front, now we're falling into fascism. Bleak future, I know the ancaps are winning because this is "a message to the political caste", but it's heavily worrying, that movement openly praises the military dictatorship of the 70s and the neoliberals of the 90s.

Okay well, at least I have family in Spain who are willing to take me in.. and I am eligible for citizenship.

It's election night in Argentina, primaries, and the ancap candidate is set to be "the surprise" (this is not surprising at all, considering liberals and conservatives alike have been pushing his name up like crazy).

Come to Argentina, there are very diverse candidates! We have:

THE FASCIST

THE FASCIST

THE NEOLIBERAL

THE NEOLIBERAL

THE FASCIST

THE TROT

THE FASCIST

And while primaries are.. primaries, they don't often show what the real tendencies are. Still, the ancaps are gaining momentum and it is unknown where they will end in the generals by October. Let us hope a meteor hits this country but miraculously only kills the fascists. Either way, depending on the results, I might ditch this god-forsaken country and move elsewhere. I was offered a home in Spain, which is not perfect because well, fascism, but at least I can make a decent living there and don't have to deal with 100% annual inflation rates and fucking ancaps running the government.

I voted for the Trots, like I always do. As for the election itself it was pretty bad, long lines of people to vote and the system was mixed at least in Buenos Aires -- paper ballot for president and national lower chamber, electronic ballot for city-related government positions, so you kinda voted twice in a day. And the electronic voting machines were not perfect and many people complained about issues, the process was slow and older people struggled.

I'll throw some updates here and there. Death to Fascism.

The Economist: Expensive Energy Might Have Killed More Europeans Than COVID-19 Last Winter

Their number is 68,000 people, due to increased energy costs since interruption of energy trade with Russia and sanctions and also colder temperatures. 68k of pretty much people who couldn't afford new energy prices, that is, poor people. Now I remember debating with friends some time ago about the war, and how badly is it going for Russia because one of their T-90M tanks was captured intact by the Ukrainian Army or their abandoned equipment was being towed by tractors, like in the meme! Sure, Russia is indeed paying a big cost in this war, not only in manpower but also economically. But so is Europe, and while a country like Germany pays nothing but crazy volunteers in terms of manpower, they'll have to pay the social, political and economical costs of the war. In their case, energy costs will increase wich puts a burden in average germans, at the same time, the Bundeswehr is seeing a rearmament process, and who's going to pay for the new contracts, the bourgeoisie?

They're in a big gamble right now, and the future is uncertain. Europe is not in a comfortable position, climate change is increasing in severity (several parts of Europe saw a pretty scary heat wave, like Spain), the war in Ukraine has no end in sight, ties with Russia are completely severed, Nordstream was blown up and nobody knows who did it (we do, but we don't tell), the world is shaping up to be at least a bipolar one, and has Europe noticed they have a leash that leads to the United States? Problems like people dying because they can't afford new energy costs are social problems, they lead to protests, and you don't want people out in the streets smashing shit up because they can't tolerate their situation no more.. Social tension is indeed bad.

How will US-EU relations evolve over time? That I don't know, but I'm sure part of the EU (and the British) leadership are considering their status right now as a mere US vassal.

A friend of mine bought me Noita, super fun game. I'm not really into rougelike (except for the permadeath which I do like in games like Project Zomboid or modded STALKER) magic-fantasy stuff, but this one slaps. It's a huge game, super fun, it's excellent for those who don't mind getting their asses kicked by the AI while at the same time it rewards you as you explore and experiment with different builds and runs, wands, spells, perks and so on. Hella fun experience imo, there's a lot to do.