Bulletins and News Discussion from December 4th to December 10th, 2023 - The Legacy of Kissinger - COTW: Laos

Due to American cluster bombing campaigns advised by Kissinger during the Vietnam War to damage supply lines, over 2 million tonnes of ordinance were dropped on Laos over about a decade, averaging a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes. Laos is thus the most bombed country on the planet up to this point. 80 million bombs failed to explode - the cleanup operation is expected to take centuries, and 25,000 people have been killed and injured by bombs in the last 50 years. About 50 people are killed or injured every year to this day.

After the United States withdrew from Laos, the Pathet Lao took power and abolished the monarchy. Kaysone Phomvihane became a dominant figure in Laotian politics, keeping the course on Marxism-Leninism and implementing the first Five Year Plan in 1981. The second Five Year Plan in 1986 was modelled on Lenin's NEP, and this doubled rice production and significantly increased sugar production. After the fall of the USSR, Laos allowed a small capitalist class to exist, with similar control over them as in China. Laos maintains a 48-hour work week with paid sick leave, vacation time, and maternity leave, and workers are well-represented in trade unions. They faired relatively well during coronavirus from a social standpoint due to quick and efficient action to lock down the country, experiencing ~750 deaths out of a population of over 7 million.

There is hope even after utter destruction by genocidal oppressors.

The weekly update is here on the website.

Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Wednesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Friday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.

The Country of the Week is Laos! 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.

1.5K comments

The ultra-patriotic dance of Maduro's government, the right and the business community
Article by the newspaper of the Communist Party of Venezuela
- I get that they're mad and that it's about maduro being a little too nice to the bougies but this doesn't really give any explanations as to why he's doing it and why they think that it's a mistake under the conditions. Overall come away from the article with more questions than answers.
  
  this doesn't really give any explanations as to why he's doing it
  they say its to call for national unity and support after ignoring the worker protests calling for a minimun wage increase even tho by his own works venezuela has had a really good year economically.
  like if you want the actual position of the PCV on the esquibo issue i can translate it since its on its newspaper

1512 comments