MARK TAYLOR—In politics, reciprocity has been scorched away. Watch the Breaking Points interview (fourth clip below) with Jim Zogby as he describes what things are like now inside the Democratic Party. The only role members of the party are expected to play is to be good little boys and girls, send in money and show up to vote for the candidates those in power have so considerately put in place. Your role, your voice mean nothing.
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EDITORS—This narrative of a “softening” does not stand up to analysis, masking police excess when faced with protesters. A freelance journalist was injured thus and had a testicle removed after being struck with a baton by a policeman during a protest on January 19 in Paris. Moreover, the apparent change in strategy after the appointment of Laurent Nuñez did not stop the unjustified beatings of a few dozen people protesting peacefully during police charges (January 19, January 31, and February 11).
In particular, from March 16 on, and after the government forced through its pension reform without a vote by using Article 49.3 of the Constitution, journalists and observers have documented widely how police forces have used physical violence against protesters. They have employed arbitrary arrest, and tactics of humiliation during the night-time marches (which unions didn’t declare) after the recourse to Article 49.3.
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THOMAS FAZI—More to the point, European elites have allowed themselves to be dragged by Washington into a disastrous proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, condemning their citizens to collapsing industry and rising prices. That’s even as the conflict in Eastern Europe exposes the continent to unprecedented military risks, including the genuine possibility of nuclear war. Yet despite all these sacrifices, all that eagerness to do the Pentagon’s bidding, Trump’s isolationist bent means it could ultimately all be for nothing.
For the past few years, the EU’s leaders have framed their entire foreign policy in American terms. Nato expansionism; economically decoupling from Russia; supporting Ukraine’s victory-at-all-costs strategy — each has been justified in the name of preserving the transatlantic alliance, even at the expense of Europe’s actual interests.
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KARL SANCHEZ—Professors Hudson and Wolff have discussed the upcoming US Election on several previous occasions with Nima, while this session specifically focuses on US political dynamics, issues foreign and domestic that are being completely ignored, and what the outcomes might be depending on who is declared the winner. And no, there’s no talk of the election being stolen by on side or the other or what the social response might be depending on who wins. The number of excellent ideas and insights are too many to list. Dr. Wolff carries the show because he has somewhat better insights and is able to articulate them better. Dr. Wolff provides one of the more interesting points that’s revealed at the 19:00 mark of the 80-minute podcast:
The Hegelian Moment of American Politics: Cold War Isolationism of the Other as the initial thesis has matured and become its antithesis: the isolation of the US as it’s now the Other compared with the Global Majority.
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EDITOR—Garland discusses the increasingly toxic relationship between the US empire and its vassals around the globe, disciplining the EU, for example, where Washington blatantly ordered the destruction of the Russo-German Nord Stream 2 pipelines, ordered a detachment and active hostility toward China, and has insured the economic and political subjugation of the continent using local and regional straps (Macron, Schultz, von der Leyen, etc.). Garland stresses that Washington has maintained a firm grip on Western Europe (including its “Eastern European” zones, such as Poland, the Baltics, etc.) despite the apparent surge of leaders and parties seeking political independence and sovereignty. Brexit, he reminds, was an effort for the Brits to regain their sovereignty from the EU machinery clearly dominated by the US, but now they see that the problem is much more serious and deeper, as things have significantly gotten worse after Brexit and the downfall of the Tories.
