Portside

Right-wing governments in Europe's periphery are terrified of a Greek success at the negotiating table. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders writes, 'If Syriza succeeds in rolling back the EU-mandated measures...It could encourage dissident political movements in other parts of Europe...'

The Greek election was a warning that, while wealth and political power may be related, they are not the same thing: Governments can be overturned. Europe needs answers. The Greek crisis is a crisis of the entire EU. To one extent or other, every country - even Germany, the EU's engine - is characterized by falling or anemic wage growth, increasing economic inequality, spreading deflation, and an overall decline in living standards.

Reader Comments- Sports, NFL, Tax Subsidy; Unions Today; Domestic Worker Organizing; Students Against Sweatshops; Greece, Germany & the EU; TPP; Israel, Iran, Iraq; Keystone XL; Cuba; Ukraine; Selma; American Sniper; Resource: Where Do We Go from Here? Mass Incarceration and the Struggle for Civil Rights; After the Greek Elections New York forum- Feb 6 - new location Hold the Date- Fighting Corruption in America and Abroad - Fordham Law School - New York - Mar 6

Syriza will not easily sweep the policies of austerity aside, but there is a palpable feeling on the continent that a tide is turning. The victory of Greece's left-wing Syriza Party was, on one hand, a beacon for indebted countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland. It is also a gauntlet for Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, and the "troika" - the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund.

Voters reject EU austerity for radical alternative of far-left party. Upstarts fall two seats short of an overall majority. ‘Greece has turned a page,’ says 40-year-old leader Alexis Tsipras.

Significant recovery has not arrived in the eurozone, and when it does, it will have been so long delayed that it will, in effect, be recovery denied, with a legacy of economic and political darkness across the European Union.

Catalonia has decided to recast its planned November 9 referendum on independence as a nonbinding consultation.Why are so many Scots (45% in September's referendum) and Catalans (50% in recent polls) set on leaving now? The answer is surely a desperate search for sovereignty with longstanding resentments over discrimination by the power centers in their respective states. Like many other Europeans, they feel cheated by their governments' response to the Great Recession.

True, the neo-Nazis and immigrant bashers will make a lot of noise, but they offer nothing but hate as an economic solution. The left has a better one, and they are back.

The elections to the European Parliament (EP) in May 2014 will be marked by the capitalist crisis and its - regionally quite differentiated - political impact. By contrast to 2009 when the elections evidenced a shift to the right, this time they may result in a polarisation between a new bloc of right-wing populist parties and the left wing of the left.

Exposing troubling ties in the U.S. to overt Nazi and fascist protesters in Ukraine. White supremacist banners and Confederate flags were draped inside Kiev's occupied City Hall, and demonstrators have hoisted Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial to V.I. Lenin. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol have become an increasingly common site in Maidan Square, and neo-Nazi forces have established "autonomous zones" in and around Kiev.