Upstart Parties Crash the Ball in Spain

Conn Hallinan Foreign Policy in Focus
A new progressive coalition seeks to end Spain's punishing austerity regime and confront the country's staggering unemployment. The new kid on the block has raised the pressure on the center-left Socialists to make a choice: follow the lead of Portugal, where the Socialist Party formed a united front with the Left Bloc and the Communist/Green alliance, or imitate the Social Democrats in Germany and join a "grand coalition" and make common cause with the right?

As Brexit Approaches, Europe's Left Is Divided - and for Good Reason

Conn Hallinan Foreign Policy in Focus
Can the EU still unite a continent shattered by world wars, or is it little more than a vehicle for austerity capitalism? Soon British voters will vote on Brexit - leaving the EU. Given the absence of a strong, continent-wide left, however, reversing the current economic rules of the EU may be a country-by-country battle. It's already underway - and for all of the economic power of the EU, the organization is vulnerable to charges that Brussels has sidelined democracy.

How Far Is Europe Swinging to the Right?

Gregor Aisch, Adam Pearce and Bryant Rousseau The New York Times
Across Europe, voters are turning to far-right parties, won over by nationalism, anti-immigrant hysteria and failed economic policies of austerity. In Germany, France, Poland, Hungary and Sweden, far right parties have made gains. Left political parties in these countries have not been as successful as those in Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece.

Special to Portside: Austrian Election Report

Stan Nadel Portside
Half the voters in one of the richest and most successful countries in the world, one with one of the highest standards of living and one of the best social welfare systems-universal health insurance and a strong safety net - have turned against the parties that have brought them those benefits - and done so in favor of a far right wing party with Nazi party roots that has built its success on promoting fear of immigrants and possible future economic decline....

The Moment One Woman Stands Up to More Than 300 Nazis and Refuses to Let Them Pass

Sara Malm Daily Mail (UK)
Tess Asplund, 42, stood in the way of the right-wing extremists and silently raised her fist - this brave woman photographer steps out in front of a 300-strong Nazi march in central Sweden. The image of her peaceful protest and stand against racism has gone viral in Scandinavia. This activist is deemed a hero in Sweden for 'iconic' defiant gesture in front of a fascist march.

books

Stefan Zweig's Messages From a Lost World

Scott McLemee Inside Higher Ed
In the period between the world wars, Stefan Zweig was among the world's best-known authors. His books would soon fuel Nazi bonfires. Zweig held that humanity could no longer afford the belligerent nationalism that had led them into the Great War. Yet Zweig was struck dumb by post 1933 events. That failure, the reviewer says, was of imagination, not nerve. Against the Nazis' depredations, all the consummate writer and speaker could muster was nostalgia for a lost world.

Tidbits - April 21, 2016 - Reader Comments: Neo-Nazis in Austria; Response to 21st Century Labor Movement; Bernie, Hillary; Harriet Tubman on $20 Bill; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments: Report from Austria - Neo-Nazis Rise Again; Response to 21st Century Labor Movement from Marilyn Albert; Bernie, Hillary - Krugman, Latin American polices promoted by Secy. Clinton; Israeli Conscientious Objector; Jackie Robinson - readers correct the story; This Week in History - Celebrating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; Announcement - Jeremy Corbyn and the State of Working Class Politics in Britain - New York - May 26

Why we must save the EU

Yanis Varoufakis The Guardian
The European Union is disintegrating – but leaving is not the answer.

Democracy or Bust in Europe

Yanis Varoufakis Project Syndicate
Why is Europe disintegrating? And what can be done about it? What we should do now is what democrats should have done in 1930 to prevent a catastrophe that is now becoming imaginable once again. We should establish a pan-European coalition of radical, social, green, and liberal democrats to put the “demos” back into democracy.

Germany Has Elections Too

Victor Grossman Portside
Events in Germany are truly alarming - with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) moving up into third place and both the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD) slipping. This is connected with the immigrant wave but laden with too many nasty memories - and there is rightward shifts in France, Poland, Slovakia, Denmark and Sweden.
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