"Politics in a Time of Crisis: Podemos and the Future of a Democratic Europe"

With Spain's national elections coming on Dec 20, this is imo an important book.

"Politics in a Time of Crisis: Podemos and the Future of a Democratic Europe by Pablo Iglesias"
review in London Review of Books by Dan Hancock, Dec 2015

excerpt:

Spain goes to the polls on 20 December in what will be a historic election. Since the 1980s, general elections in Spain have been two-way races between the conservative Partido Popular (the People’s Party, or PP) and the centre-left Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, or PSOE). The PP won the most recent election, in 2011, with 44.6 per cent of the vote; the PSOE gained 28.8 per cent. But in December the two parties’ combined share of the vote is unlikely to exceed 50 per cent. The two new contenders are Podemos and the centre-right populists Ciudadanos (Citizens). Ciudadanos have been doing better in the pre-election polls, but Podemos has been the big story since its formation and astonishing rise in 2014. Like Syriza, it has given organisational form to a new European left-wing populism. In the European elections of May 2014, with a tiny, crowd-funded budget and just four months of existence, it gained 1.2 million votes and five MEPs. By the end of the year it led the two establishment parties in the polls.

The roots of Podemos lie in the huge 2011 indignados protests against the Spanish political system in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008.

From the outset, Iglesias and his comrades understood that it was vital to know how to operate on hostile media and political terrain. They had to be realistic about the hegemonic strength of Spanish neoliberalism and the gap between what was being said in the streets and squares about the struggles of everyday life and what was making it into the mainstream media. Much has been made of the indignados’ exploration of digital democracy (they have used such platforms as Reddit to discuss policy proposals, and the online forum Plaza Podemos to vote on them), but Iglesias makes it clear that he believes TV remains ‘the great medium of our time’, the primary place for challenging establishment narratives and language. ‘When our adversaries use terms like la casta, revolving door, the “Berlusconisation” of politics, eviction, precarity,’ he writes, ‘they’re acknowledging the displacement of the fight onto a terrain that favours us.’

A large part of the book is devoted to a tour of Spain’s 20th century and its glaring precedents for the present: a succession of grim lessons concerning the use of crises by the strong to repress the weak, unnecessary compromises and the betrayal of mass movements. There are contemporary resonances everywhere: especially, given the likelihood of a coalition government after 20 December, in a passage about the subduing and incorporation of marginal parties in the 1910's to prop up national governments. One message is clear throughout: under capitalism, democracy is always incomplete, and always contingent.

Capitalism is rarely named explicitly as the enemy ideology, in part because attacking capitalism head-on is identified with the (failed) way of the old left, but perhaps also because it hardly needs spelling out. Fundamental to Podemos – as it was to the indignados – is the sense that Spanish democratic sovereignty has been usurped by the forces of global capitalism, represented recently in the form of the Troika, with the co-operation of the country’s own political and economic elites. As if to demonstrate this, in 2011 the PP and PSOE agreed to a constitutional reform that made it a legal obligation for Spain’s governing party to designate balancing the budget a priority over public spending and investment – in Iglesias’s words, formalising ‘the victory of a Hayekian Europe’.

Podemos aims its critique not just at European austerity, but also at the failures of Spain’s post-Franco settlement.

Protesters Disrupt Donald Trump Speech at NYC Luncheon

12/11 - About a dozen protesters disrupted Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's speech at a $1,000-a-plate New York City luncheon Friday, criticizing the billionaire businessman's recent anti-Islam rhetoric as security staff forcibly ejected some of them from the event.
Four protesters chanting "Trump is trying to bring us down, targeting people black and brown," tried to storm a side entrance into the speech at Manhattan's The Plaza Hotel as security staff pushed them away.
The protesters were affiliated with various Arab-American and Muslim-American groups, as well as groups for racial equality.
One of those protesters, Jorge Gonzalez, fell down a flight of stairs after a hotel security worker pushed him. He said he was uninjured. Another was thrown to the ground in the hotel lobby.
Two reporters from The Associated Press, Jake Pearson and Warren Levinson, were also forcibly removed from the lobby by hotel security. The event, sponsored by the Commonwealth Club, a Pennsylvania Republican group, was closed to the press.
Later in Trump's speech, about nine other protesters from various advocacy groups stood up to denounce his recent comments to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the U.S., protesters said.
"I'm really frightened by that kind of rhetoric," said Martha Acklesberg, 69, a member of the group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, who along with Judith Plaskow, 68, paid to hear Trump speech and then disrupted it in protest.

via "WWChat" which may be a Workers World site.

I went to DI to look around...

I didn't stay long, so my comment is by no means comprehensive, but I thot it was funny, that on this one thread people were all agog and atwitter with the idea that scores of du people would be bursting on to DI.

that was it. I was not tempted to go further.

Climate Justice Movement "Extremely Disappointed" in COP21 Draft's "Failure to Step Up"

We examine what is in the latest draft text—and what has been left out—with a roundtable of women: Chee Yoke Ling, a legal adviser to the Third World Network based in Malaysia; Ruth Nyambura, a Kenyan political ecologist; and Kandi Mossett, an indigenous activist from North Dakota and an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. "We want to get out of this sinking ship, but countries like the U.S. are holding the lifeboats," Nyambura says.

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/12/11/climate_justice_movement_extremely_disappointed_in

I thot I was watching CNN...

and seeing that Palestinian deaths were reported I thot - well it must be a blue moon...
Noo.. I was watching Euronews.

I had been watching cnn, altho I almost never watch cnn..

but I was curious to see the latest on the San Bernandino investigation.
I'm too late. That has been replaced by false news on climate change talks.

Republican Senator Jeff Flake Visits Arizona Mosque

Source: NBC news

Republican Senator Jeff Flake visited a mosque in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Friday in an effort to promote unity in the midst of the anti-Muslim rhetoric seen in the wake of recent ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks across the world, and last week's terror attack in San Bernardino, California.

Flake, who said he had never visited a mosque before, spoke for nearly 10 minutes to the crowd of over 300 attendees, giving what he called "a message of solidarity and appreciation for the contributions of the Muslim American community," and working to put some distance between himself and the proposal by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump which would temporarily bar Muslims from entering the United States.

"This was a difficult week in Washington — it wasn't so much the legislative calendar as it was the rhetoric that came forth mostly from the presidential campaign," Flake said to the congregation. "That is not in keeping with the values and ideals that have made this country the shining city on the hill that it is."

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/republican-senator-jeff-flake-visits-arizona-mosque-n478856

woman dresses as favorite celebrity, Malala Yousafzai, and experiences Islamophobia on way to class

My professor asked us to go to class today dressed as our favorite celebrity. So today I attended my college class dressed like this. I wore a Hijab and covered every inch of my body (I had a long sleeve T over this). As soon as my parents saw how I was dressed, they were terrified for my safety. I dismissed their concerns and continued to class dressed this way.

I was representing Malala Yousafzai, an 18 year old Muslim woman who was shot in the face by Taliban gunmen at the age of 15 for being a female attending school. She is now the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner and a Women's Rights Activist, Children's Rights Activist, and an activist for education.

It breaks my heart to say this, but on my way to school today I experienced first-hand the fear & hatred against Islam. As I was driving, I have more than a few people roll their windows down to stick their middle fingers at me, near the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru a young white male threw his coffee at my car, and 2 F-250 trucks chanced me down on Jog Rd and tried to crash into my tiny Toyota Camry...

In just a 20 minute drive to class, I felt that my life was threatened. But this only made my eyes open wider. The message is like for you to take from this is: terrorism is not a fair representation of Islam. Someone wearing a Hijab is simply a symbol of the Islam religion, but not of terrorist attacks.

We can't judge a book by the cover like many did to me today... Maybe people thought that because I was wearing a Hijab, I was responsible for the ISIS attacks that happened just recently.

As I drove in tears and arrived to class in tears, my respect for TRUE Muslims and my desire for peace only grew stronger. We don't realize how often stereotyping happens and how often it puts people in danger.

Edit: People are telling me that I'm brave... I'm not brave... I just need everyone to realize what discrimination is doing to society. There are people who deal with this prejudicing/stereotyping constantly and continue to be proud of who they are... THEY are brave, NOT ME.

Anonymous Just Declared War Against Donald Trump

12/11 - Anonymous, the non-hierarchical, worldwide hacker collective, has selected Donald Trump as their latest target by initiating #OpTrump, citing his recent call to ban all Muslim immigration as the reason for their offensive.

In a YouTube video, the symbolic Guy Fawkes mask is worn by a figure who speaks to the camera with a heavily modified and computerized voice to mask the speaker’s identity.



http://usuncut.com/resistance/anonymous-begins-optrump/

CEO of CBS News Caught Celebrating Trump’s Bigotry: He’s Making Us ‘Phenomenal’ Profits

At a recent investors’ presentation, CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves revealed his hand: Donald Trump’s bigotry is “phenomenal” for the company’s profits and ratings, and he hopes the Donald keeps escalating.

“Go Donald! Keep getting out there!” Moonves said at the UBS Bank-sponsored event.

The CBS chief went on to laud the ever-increasing flow of cash into political advertising campaigns as great for business, saying, “The more they spend, the better it is for us.”

“We’re looking forward to a very exciting political year in ’16,” Moonves said to investors. The Intercept noted that these remarks came before Trump’s call to ban all Muslims from the US, although Moonves still likely saw a boost in ratings from Trump’s outlandish proposals to register all US Muslims in a database and require practitioners of Islam to publicly identify their religious affiliation, along with Trump’s racist comments toward Mexican immigrants when he first announced his presidential campaign.


http://usuncut.com/politics/cbs-chief/

'Daaafish': Iraqi cartoonists target IS

A group of Iraqi activists are fighting the Islamic State and perceived political corruption through comics published on Facebook -


See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/daaafish-iraqi-cartoonists-target-isis-486329401#sthash.OZpm75K0.dpuf