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Poisoned Fruits of Austerity
Editors
http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/4486Date Written: 2015-09-01 Publisher: Against the Current Year Published: 2015 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX21240 The most dramatic advance of the far right is that of the National Front in France. It is not unusual that such forces prosper, with some working-class support, in the absence of well-articulated progressive alternatives. Abstract: - Excerpt: Plenty of sober analysts - far from the wild-eyed far-left editors of the present periodical - feel that a Greek exit from the euro, orderly or otherwise, is ultimately almost inevitable, and that the future of the European Union itself is profoundly troubled. On the one hand, the lack of solidarity with Greece on the part of the mainstream "left" parties of Europe illustrates their transformation from traditional social democracy into parties of neoliberalism. Indeed most of them appear lined up behind the "Berlin consensus" - with the German Social Democratic Party even more vicious than Chancellor Merkel, while the French offer neoliberalism with a slightly more humanoid face - that all debts must be paid and that the Greek people need to be properly punished for daring to think that they might have a voice in the matter. On the other hand - with a few exceptions like insurgent left party Podemos in Spain, whose electoral fate may be deeply affected by developments in Greece - the political dynamism in much of Europe appears to lie with "Euroskeptic" parties of the right wing, featuring nasty anti-immigrant, overtly racist and especially Islamophobic messages as a demagogic and false "alternative" to austerity. Subject Headings |