Social deprivation following neoliberal austerity economics have fed the rise of the extreme right – a development which fascist elements in Germany are keen to exploit. The right-wing Afd won 15% of the union vote in the last elections.
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I have been reading about what follows when institutions that are supposed to moderate extremist, demagogic leaders default in their role. And how easily those institutions are swept aside, at best complicit in their own irrelevance, at worst full partners in the brazen agenda of the demagogue.
Jacobin’s Loren Balhorn sat down with German labor sociologist Klaus Dörre to find out more about the strike, what the workers really gained, and what it might say about the German labor movement’s future.
Voters can't tell the difference between the center left and the center right, and they don't want either. As the center-left accommodated itself to capital, it eroded its trade union base. Where center-left parties embraced unabashedly progressive policies, on the other hand, voters supported them
Only a handful of European states are currently governed by left-wing governments, and several of the traditionally largest left-wing parties, such as the Socialist Party in France, have experienced substantial drops in support. Jan Rovny argues that while many commentators have linked the left’s decline to the late-2000s financial crisis, the weakening of Europe’s left reflects deep structural and technological changes that have reshaped European society, leaving left-wing parties out in the cold.
Graves form part of a collective memory of socialism. They force an acknowledgement of the ideas those revolutionaries died to defend. Fascism's armies sought to bury those ideas forever, along with the people who held them, in the Nazis' "thousand-year Reich." Learning lessons from Germany for our struggle against those that fought against racism, slavery, the Confederacy and white supremacy.
Published by Viking Press in 1936, the release of Ferdinand came during the era of the Great Depression. That year also saw the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. In light of these events, Ferdinand started to take on a much greater significance. Ferdinand, the bull presented a Spanish character who stood out from society and refused to fight. Those who supported the violent uprising that was led by Francisco Franco viewed it as pacifist propaganda and they banned its publication.
The impasse in forming a government in Germany has dragged on since election day, September 24th – often like a traffic gridlock, hardly moving forward. But Germany is Europe’s main central power – and with no proper government! Angela Merkel still acts as boss, the old ruling cabinet holds on as caretakers, but it’s all on borrowed time, with no legitimacy.
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