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Yes, PASOK is hardly even socdem nowadays, and Syriza was the embodiment of eurocommunists: fucking up left possibilities in Europe since forever. I was just replying mostly to the question of how the Syriza government evolved. And unfortunately, the debacle of Syriza has costed the left in Greece dearly. Which is my problem with KKE, I think they are not bold enough. There were many opportunities during the 2010 crisis that they failed to grasp, so I assign (some) responsibility to them also for the debacle. But I agree, I am always impressed with the great work they do with the unions, and I am happy to see them rising. There will be opportunities in the near future for them. I hope next time they can grasp them.

To be honest I think European leaders are physiologically incapable at being nice with the global south.

Current syriza leader is a former banker from goldman sachs or some shit like that

The rest of Syriza eventually threw him out. He started his own party, but doesn't seem to be doing very well. That guy's rise and fall from the head of Syriza is probably the saddest and most hilarious shit of modern Greek politics I have witnessed.

Politics in Greece are unfortunately more or less dead. After Syriza's capitulation in 2015, they were in government for one term, they lost the next election but they were a close second to the conservative party. The election after that we have a surge of extreme right wing parties (I think since the restoration of democracy in Greece it was the first time that the right wing parties all together get more than 50% of the vote) and the collapse of Syriza. After that Tsipras resigned from its head and then Syriza splits into 2 parties both of which collapsed in the polls even further. Right now, the polls show a very weak conservative party at ~25%, and then 5-6 parties around 6-10%, some of them being far-right, christian fundamentalist and the others center left and left. On a bright side, the communist party is making some gains, even though not sure how much faith to put in them.

2 years ago a horrible train crash happened (head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight train). The result was the death of 57 people, many of them university students returning after a holiday to Thessaloniki where they were studying. The train company (used to be public but privatized during the economic crisis) had dismantled many of the security measures, so the accident has a political dimension and caused a shock in Greek society. Furthermore, there seems that the government tried to botch the investigations on the accident, there is a theory that one of the trains was carrying illegally some flammable substance which is used to adulterate gasoline that made the fire that was caused by the crash even worse, and this is why the government is trying to hide what happened. Last Friday was the 2 year anniversary of the accident, and a general strike was called that was joined by most sectors, and lead to the biggest demonstration in Greece at least in the last 40 years (some estimates puts the number of Greeks attending throughout Greece at more than 1 million people). I was quite surprised by this, and shows some fighting spirit back in the Greeks which had disappeared after the capitulation of Syriza. Unfortunately, I don't think there is any political party leadership who can use this discontent and push for real left change in the country, but we will see.

Yes, politically the era of "liberal democracies" is over. Actually it ended in 2016, and the Biden presidency was a grotesque attempt to keep the corpse alive (Biden was the perfect embodiment of this, history has a good sense of humour). Hopefully we witness the beginning of the end of the North domination over the South and something better can emerge. Good luck comrades!

Vincent Bevins (the author of Jakarta method and If we burn) wrote a short "review" about it if you are curious:

https://www.northsouthnotes.org/p/im-still-here

Not exactly news, but the Progressive International is organizing a kind of school: The people's academy. It will include bimonthly online lectures and a reading list, starting from April and going on until the end of the year. During last summer they tried a summer school (which had some registration fees, unclear what fees this one might have) that I was checking out and I think ti was quite good. The new one looks also very interesting from the "faculty" involved, and I think the PI is pretty good. @SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net also maybe interesting in relation to the reading list that hexbear has organized as well as the imperialism reading group that has started. Not sure who else to tag, to help people who might be interested on hexbear aware of this.

I agree, I also don't think they will be able to solidify a sphere of influence. Seems to me more of a fool's errant, but it could lead to hot (and maybe nuclear) wars.

It means it's not strong enough anymore and they need the hammer. This seems to be the direction Trump presidency. The american empire has been slowly losing its ability to exert control over other countries indirectly and now needs to do it directly. Most of the color revolutions of the last few years have failed, most of the attempts to covertly overthrow governments or push for the benefit of american capital have been unsuccessful. Even successful ones seem unable to push countries under the total influence of the USA (for example Peru is still going through with huge infrastructure projects funded by China). It seems Trump's presidency will be about trying to solidify a definite sphere of influence in more direct terms and resurrect the american industrial base.

I was talking to my friend about music, mentioned an artist (that she didn't know about) and showed her a song on my computer. 5 minutes later her video app on her phone was suggesting songs from that artist. It's completely ubiquitous, I operate under the assumption that I am always listened to.

I don't think the dems thought they could win the election. They just picked a bad candidate who would not hurt them as bad as Biden down-ballot. Biden had to take away the covid measures, withdraw from Afghanistan, and be involved in 2 major wars one of which is a genocidal war. They could not win this election, they just picked a candidate who they consider bad so they can burn her.

I think it would become more difficult for Hezbollah but at least to my ignorant mind the idea that they will be completely cut off from any access to weapons sounds too pessimistic. Some people here are already spelling the end of Hezbollah is a bit too premature.

I want to read The Origins of Capitalism by Ellen Meiksins Wood one day, heard it's good.

I read it very recently and I would say it's really excellent and a must-read. It's also easy to read I think.

Here Jeremy Scahill says he is no longer a member of Hamas: https://twitter.com/jeremyscahill/status/1864000895752589504

Thank you! If you also have some article/source I would appreciate (but I can search also things myself, based on your information).

Do you have any sources on Sudan? I am interested to read more, especially related to US/western involvement but can't find much information.

An update on the dutch education protests (mentioned here by @Beetle@hexbear.net ): In the end student unions and the youth wings of the socialist party and the communist party said they would go anyway to the protest. The police (that yesterday said they couldn't guarantee the safety) said today that they will facilitate the protest so there was no ban. The labor unions still asked people not to go. In the end around 3-4k people gathered (mostly students and some university employees), which I think was very good given the circumstances. Some universities decided to host local protest on campuses (but as far as I can tell those were small). The university staff and unions are calling for another protest on the 25th of November.

https://nos.nl/artikel/2544475-toch-studentenprotest-in-utrecht-ondanks-oproep-van-de-gemeente-om-weg-te-blijven

Yes the budget cuts are massive, for context (for people not in the Netherlands) the cuts amounts to about the total budget of 1-1.5 big dutch universities (the country has in total 20 universities). The police of course waited for the last moment to not let any organizing party any leeway to plan something else. The unions are completely pathetic, immediately rolled over.

Comrade, as the others said, I have never been more certain that we will win. Be strong and be well!