The Digital Dispatch

From NOEBIE.net

Europe

Europe Is Up All Night

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If a suspected terrorist sneezes in Europe, we see security camera footage repeated day and night with endless speculation and commentary on CNN, but there has been a virtual mainstream media blackout here in the United States of news about the French working class rising up over the past two weeks.

On March 31, thousands of French activists gathered at the Place de la République to protest French President François Hollande’s labor reforms, and they’ve been staying “up all night” ever since. The “Nuit Debout” protests are now spreading to Belgium, Britain, Spain and Germany.

Read More: Sonali Kolhatkar: Two Weeks Into a Major Uprising, French Activists Still Staying ‘Up All Night’ – Truthdig

Popular Unity Arises in Greece

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Stathis Kouvelakis and Miri Davidson report that early this morning, 25 SYRIZA MPs left the parliamentary group of the party to create a new group under the name of “Popular Unity.” Most of these MPs are affiliated to the Left Platform, but some others also joined. They are now the third largest party in the Greek Parliament, ahead of Golden Dawn, the neonazi party. This means that in the next few days their leader, Panagiotis Lafazanis, will get a mandate to constitute a government.

Read More: Greece: “Popular Unity” is born! – VersoBooks.com

A Conversation With Chomsky

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Isabelle Kumar of Euronews interviews Noam Chomsky on a range of topics. On the subject of Greece’s debt (and that of Portugal and Spain and others) this is what he said.

Who incurred this debt? And who is the debt owed to? In part, the debt was incurred by dictators. So in Greece it was the fascist dictatorship, which the US supported, that incurred a large part of the debt. The debt I think was more brutal than the dictatorship, and that’s what’s called in international law, “odious debt” which need not be paid, and that’s a principal introduced into international law by the United States, when it was in their interest to do so. Much of the rest of the debt, what is called payments to Greece are in fact payments to banks, German and French banks, which had decided to make extremely risky loans with not very high interest and are now being faced with the fact that they can’t be paid back.

Read the Transcript: Chomsky says US is world’s biggest terrorist | euronews, the global conversation

Here’s the video.

Nativism on the Rise in Europe

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Giovanni Tiso describes a 50,000 strong racist march in Milan last fall. This is a harbinger of things to come, I fear.

Milan is the historic capital of the Italian bourgeoisie, and has long since harboured the racism of the well-off even as it drew upon – from the Italian south or overseas – the labour force ­it needed to be productive and grow. The appearance of the marchers reflect the folklore of the local racist: a narrow cross-section of the mid- to upper middle class, the embodiment of comfort and belonging.

Manufactured symbols, legends and traditions were also a hallmark of Fascism and a key to its popular appeal. Speaking of which, the march was notable for the scheduled, welcome participation of neofascist organization Forza Nuova and the Casa Pound social centres.

Read the article: The invention of racism | Overland literary journal.

SYRIZA’s Historic Win

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European politics has been plunged into a volatile new era following a historic victory in Greece’s general election by far-left radicals committed to ending years of austerity.

More than five years into the euro crisis that started in Greece in October 2009 and raised questions about the single currency’s survival, Greek voters roundly rejected the savage spending cuts and tax rises imposed by Europe which reduced the country to penury.

The Guardian reports: Syriza’s historic win puts Greece on collision course with Europe | World news | The Guardian.

All Eyes On Greece

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Alexis Tsipras, the person who looks destined to be the next Greek prime minister, speaks about history and prospects.

“While the mainstream parties led people on — rather brazenly, I might add — we were vehement that austerity would have severe negative consequences and lead to recession; these policies simply weren’t sustainable. We supported grassroots initiatives, including major demonstrations and the social solidarity movement. Lastly, our political emphasis has been on uniting the Left. This was critical — and it really resonated with people.”

Read the interview: A Historic Opportunity | Jacobin.

No Time For Austerity

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A nasty strain of austerity capitalism has taken over Europe, leaving broken lives in its wake. Researchers Servaas Storm and C.W.M. Naastepad, senior lecturers in economics at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, consider how things got so bad, what role economists and misguided policy-makers have played, and how to change course. According to them, most everybody is getting the story about Europe dead wrong.

via How Parasitic Capitalism and Flawed Economics Turned Europe into the Hunger Games | Alternet.