The confusion is due to the fact that most of what calls itself “the left” in the West has been totally won over to the current form of imperialism – aka “globalization”. It is an imperialism of a new type, centered on the use of military force and “soft” power to enable transnational finance to penetrate every corner of the earth and thus to reshape all societies in the endless quest for profitable return on capital investment. The left has been won over to this new imperialism because it advances under the banner of “human rights” and “antiracism” – abstractions which a whole generation has been indoctrinated to consider the central, if not the only, political issues of our times.
The fact that “sovereignism” is growing in Europe is interpreted by mainstream globalist media as proof that “Europe is moving to the right”– no doubt because Europeans are “racist”. This interpretation is biased and dangerous. People in more and more European nations are calling for national sovereignty precisely because they have lost it. They lost it to the European Union, and they want it back.
That is why the British voted to leave the European Union. Not because they are “racist”, but primarily because they cherish their historic tradition of self-rule.…The
Another illustration of the paradox of liberalism involving social, political and economic liberalism in which social liberalism is being used as tool to target economic liberalism at the expense of political liberalism. This is another instance illustrating how difficult it is to integrate social, political and economic liberalism. As result, many are losing confidence in liberalism as a viable social, political and economic theory and are looking for alternatives. This is freaking out the liberal establishment, which views the only alternatives to liberalism as being either fascism or communism. As a result debate has become irrational.
Good backgrounder on French politics going to the presidential election, too.
Counterpunch
The Main Issue in the French Presidential Election: National Sovereignty
Good backgrounder on French politics going to the presidential election, too.
Counterpunch
The Main Issue in the French Presidential Election: National Sovereignty
Diana Johnstone
Stop calling them "left".
ReplyDeleteSee also this article in the New Statesman - How Jean-Luc Mélenchon built a resistance
ReplyDeleteQuote:
His strategy, designed by his chief economist Jacques Généreux, consists of unilaterally disobeying European Treatises: disregarding budgetary norms to implement a Keynesian stimulus package, creating a public investment bank, and ending privatisation policies. His prognosis is that the EU will not dare exclude France because such an exclusion would signal the end of the European project altogether. The EU will thus have to inscribe French exceptions to the treatises (just as it had done for UK). Such exceptions could prove highly desirable to other austerity-stricken countries such as the infamous PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), with enormous pressure placed on the most intransigent promoters of austerity, the chief of which is Germany.
Far from being anti-European, this strategy is aimed to save the European project which, according to Généreux, is doomed to implode if unreformed. Généreux had reached this conclusion as early as 2012: Brexit and the European-wide rise of the far-right has confirmed his diagnosis. Unencumbered by a reluctant party, Mélenchon has been able to forcefully defend a position that Corbyn was unable to hold, thus shattering the “in/out, good/bad” dichotomy of the Remain and Leave campaigns in the UK.
@Unknown
ReplyDeleteFrance to Germany: we will stay on the euro currency. Germany to France: then all your euros are belong to us. http://www.finfacts.ie/cmsb/uploads/germany_trade_partners_2015_surplus_feb102016.jpg
But we'll be happy to loan them back to you.
djrichard - If that is Germany's attitude, then there is the plan B - from the paragraph prior to my quote above, it says
ReplyDeleteQuote:
In 2012, François Hollande was elected on the promise of renegotiating the Lisbon treaty, a promise he failed to hold, and proceeded to impose austerity measures in France (cutting down public spending and corporate taxes, flexibilising the labour market), constantly justifying these measures by the necessity to abide by European norms. He has thus fuelled a deep resentment against both the center-left and the EU. Meanwhile, Mélenchon has campaigned for a showdown with the EU: reform it or leave it (“plan A, plan B”).
If France leaves, it is the end of the EU.
What Johnstone says isn't quite right. While national sovereignty is obviously a significant issue, clearly there is something else at play if neo-fascist parties like France's NF, Germany's AfD, Greece's Golden Dawn are garnering significant support, not to mention all the similar parties in almost every country in mainland Europe. Many of these parties either are direct descendants of 1930s fascist parties in some way or another, or model themselves on, and don't hide their admiration of, these parties that left Europe drowning in blood. It takes a good deal of naivete to claim ignorance of these overwhelming facts, but people do. Many people either feign disgust or are genuinely shocked when confronted with the facts. "Are you calling me a fascist?" they whimper. It's an unusual question. What else should you call someone who supports fascist parties and fascist policies?
ReplyDeleteNow, before anyone asks what choice do people have, other than cast their votes for neo-fascists and admirers of the SS, it's not the right question to ask, because what should the people of Europe have done back in the thirties? After all, it's hardly news that succumbing to the madmen of the thirties did not work out so well. Why succumbing to this barely new breed of headbangers should work out for the better, requires more than mere assertion, especially when all the evidence is that nothing good can come from voting for authoritarian and nationalistic parties that can't see beyond the amount of melanin a human being carries or their religious beliefs. Anyone who believes that it won't be open season on minorities is living in a parallel universe.
How large is the European Alt-R, for whom race is an issue?
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Definitely not a majority.
How many fanatics does it take to hijack a nationalist movement into an authoritarian nightmare?
Not that many.
"France to Germany: we will stay on the euro currency. Germany to France: then all your euros are belong to us."
ReplyDeletePretty much the same comment is made by most politicians in the Western world "there's no such thing as publicly created money only commercial banker created money."