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Sunday’s French Election
EuropeAside from this moral victory, the French people have little to be happy about. The bad news was that France ended up electing Emmanuel Macron, an efficient technocrat who consciously incarnates French capital’s need to eliminate the ‘French exception’ and level the wages, rights and benefits of the French common people down to the average of the European Union.
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Labour party’s plan to nationalise mail, rail and energy firms
EuropeLabour’s election package will be built around Corbyn’s “10 pledges” from last year’s annual conference. That focused on infrastructure to help create “a million good quality jobs”, a promise to build half a million council homes, getting rid of zero-hours contracts, ending privatisation in the NHS and funding social care, the national education service, more focus on climate change, renationalisation and a more progressive tax system.
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“Things are serious”: Update on the French Presidential Election
EuropeAs Youssef Boussoumah, a member of the Parti des Indigènes de la République (which helped organize the mass march against racism and police violence on March 19), pointedly asked in a social media post a few days ago: “what stops us from getting rid of the pest (Le Pen) on May 7 and eliminating cholera (Macron) the day after?” The question deserves to be asked at every occasion.
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Believe it’s a new French Revolution? Hold your horses
EuropeAt all times we must be wary of fake Leopard-esque changes, which are sold to us at the time of popular unrest by the rich as ‘revolutions.’ Sometimes, they’re not easy to spot. But here’s an excellent tip. Genuine revolutions can never be led by neoliberal pro-austerity investment bankers who attend Bilderberg conferences and whose successes are toasted by David Miliband and George Osborne.
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Is France having a Bernie Sanders moment?
EuropeLike Sanders, Mélenchon’s campaign focuses on class inequality and speaks to a groundswell of anger against the super-rich and the political establishment. Also like Sanders, Mélenchon combines strident calls for social justice with a sharp critique of the fossil fuel industry, calling for a rapid transition to renewable energies. And like Sanders, Mélenchon and his ideas are experiencing a sudden and unexpected resurgence.
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The Beneficiaries of Conflict With Russia
EuropeThe US arms and intelligence industries are the main beneficiaries of confrontation with Russia, closely followed by the hierarchy of the defunct US-NATO military alliance who have been desperately seeking justification for its existence for many years. For so long as the military-industrial complex holds sway in Washington, there will continue to be sabre-rattling and mindless military posturing.
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Nazis, NATO, and Canada’s Latvian Love-in
Canadian PoliticsThe official spin on NATO deploying some 4,000 troops — including an estimated 450 Canadians — into the Baltic States is that this will be a tangible deterrent to the evil Russians. Such a bold troop deployment right on the Russian border could also be viewed as an unnecessary provocation towards the Kremlin.
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French Socialists choose leftwing rebel Benoît Hamon for Élysée fight
EuropeHamon secured a clear win of more than 58% over the centrist former prime minister Manuel Valls on around 42%, according to the first partial results. It was a victory for the party’s leftwing rebels against the pro-market, centre-left policies of François Hollande – a damning verdict by voters against what many on the left consider as the failed presidency of an unpopular leader.
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Protesting the Capitalist University
EuropeYet as I walk the line in the bitter cold talking with chemists, social workers, sociologists, accounting professors it occurs to me that we are in the end the university and that management is in the end the product of an ongoing usurpation of both labour and knowledge. Next week I will lecture on this in an improvised teach-in on the picket line. Learning must go on.
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Who Profited From the $440 Billion Greek Bailout? Not Greeks
Economic CrisisOne might think that US$440 billion in loans would have helped Greece recover from the global recession of 2008-09 and the Europe-wide chronic, stagnant economic growth ever since. But no, the US$440 billion in debt the Troika piled on Greece has actually impoverished Greece even further, condemning it to eight years of economic depression with no end in sight.
