Why Donald Trump Jr.'s Emails Change Everything. Neil Young | Children of Destiny. Capitalism Will Eat Democracy -- Unless We Speak Up | Yanis Varoufakis. Why Are We The Only Humans Left? Vladimir Putin Regime Marked By Graft And Corruption | On Assignment with Richard Engel.
The left has been in disarray since 1991 - it never fully recovered from the collapse of the Soviet Union, despite widespread opposition to Stalinism and -authoritarianism. In the past two decades, we have witnessed a major spasm of global capitalism that has triggered a long deflationary period across the United States and Europe. Just as the Great Depression did in the 1930s, this has created a breeding ground for xenophobia, racism and scapegoating.
What we are experiencing today is the natural repercussion of the implosion of centrist politics, owing to a crisis of global capitalism in which a financial crash led to a Great Recession and then to today’s Great Deflation. The right is simply repeating its old trick of drawing upon the righteous anger and frustrated aspirations of the victims to advance its own repugnant agenda.
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis revealed for the first time how days after he resigned, the Troika effectively abolished a unit he had set up to combat tax evasion. European Commission (EC) President Jean-Claude Junker led the efforts to prevent Greece from collecting taxes. Junker was Minister of Finance and later Prime Minister of Luxembourg from 1989 to 2013. Varoufakis called Luxembourg the largest tax haven in the world.
Across Europe, people are fed up with a monetary union that is inefficient because it is so profoundly undemocratic. This is why the battle for rescuing Greece has now turned into a battle for Europe’s integrity, soul, rationality and democracy by setting up a Pan-European political movement, inspired by the Athens Spring, that will work toward Europe’s democratization.
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Announcement: Rosa Luxemburg Conference - New Takes on a Longtime Classic - New York - August 21 - 22
(Moderator's Note - There will be no Tidbits for the next three weeks)
The Euro Summit statement (or Terms of Greece's Surrender - as it will go down in history) follows, annotated by yours truly. The original text is untouched with my notes confined to square brackets (and in red). Read and weep.
In his first interview since resigning, Greece's former Finance Minister says the Eurogroup is “completely and utterly” controlled by Germany, Greece was “set up” and last week’s referendum was wasted.
Democracy Now! speaks with Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis in Athens. The debt clock is ticking, and Greece refuses to implement more austerity.
What is at stake in Greece goes very far beyond merely financial questions. It goes beyond the question of the fate of a small and historically very badly governed country with weak institutions that has suffered abominably in the wake of the crisis over the last five years...It goes even beyond that very grave situation...It goes beyond that to the future of Europe and beyond that, to the meaning of the word democracy in our time.
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