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Catalonia’s Paradox
EuropeCertainly, the days leading up to October 1 were days of paradox. Disobedient parties called for order and calm, while leftists turned to the Catalan police. Right-wing forces appealed for institutional disobedience, disguised as complying with the new Catalan legality, while activists and anarchists lined up to vote. A reactionary government accused its citizens who wanted to organize a referendum of plotting a coup.
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Norwegian Elections: Another Right-Wing Victory, and a Serious Labour Defeat
EuropeMaybe the Norwegian election is just another sign that the era of social democracy is now coming to an end. All those, all over the world, who have been looking at the Nordic Model as their final aim, may have to rethink and reassess their policies and strategies. But who on the left can now provide us with a class policy with perspective?
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Report from Germany: Merkel Clobbered While Rightists Threaten
EuropeThe results of the German elections: Merkel and CDU/CSU clobbered, Social Democrats, clobbered, and although Merkel’s party will form a coalition and remain in power, the third key story, and the truly alarming one, is that one eighth of the voters, almost 13 percent, vented their anger in an extremely dangerous direction - for the young Alternative for Germany (AfD) far right party.
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Momentum is getting ready to help Labour win the next election – and beyond
EuropeDisparaged and smeared for almost two years, Momentum came out fighting during the general election campaign, spurred on by a sense of idealism which ended up bringing us close to sweeping Labour into government on the most transformative manifesto for a generation. We’ve already achieved a huge amount, transforming Labour into the largest left-of-centre party in Europe.
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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.
