DiEM25 supports the green-left coalition in Croatia
Croatia will return to the polls on 5 July 2020 for early parliamentary elections.
In the midst of the economic crisis following the COVID-19 outbreak which will particularly affect the lower classes, but also because of the repeated acts of violence against migrants committed by the Croatian police, and the rise of an anti-Serb sentiment, we urge all members of DiEM25 to voice unified support for the green-left coalition in the coming election, which is crucial for the future of Croatia.
The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) conservatives hope to take advantage of their relatively good management of the coronavirus crisis, but the Social Democrats believe they have been on the rise since the election of their former leader Zoran Milanović as president of the Republic in early January.
Alternatives to the two leading parties, the Croatian Democratic Union HDZ composed of conservative Christian democrats and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) composed of center-left democrats, consist of the populist, eurosceptic trans-ideological party Human Shield (Živi zid), the liberal conservative party The Bridge of Independent Lists (Most), and the patriotic movement of singer Miroslav Škoro.
In this context, the green-left coalition consisting of the Workers’ Front, MOŽEMO, the Croatian Sustainable Development party, the New Left Party (Nova Ljevica), local Zagreb-based movements “For the City!” and “Zagreb is ours” embodies a new voice on the left in Croatia and the Balkans.
The coalition brings together a pro-European but critical left emphasizing social justice, the end of financial orthodoxy, and the launch of a vast investment program for ecological transition, in line with DiEM25’s principles of sustainable development, social equality, and constructive Euro-criticism. Indeed, we have already supported them at the European elections.
“Rhodes Must Fall”: a challenge to triumphant white history
“The concern here is not that we are judging history by present standards but that the history in question has always been tasked with justifying looting and slaughter.”
Over the past few months at the University of Oxford, I noticed a stark contrast between the university’s claim to be an inclusive place of learning and its deafening silence on the issues of inequality it actively perpetuated for centuries. The statue of Cecil Rhodes has been at the centre of this conflict for years, both as a symbol of the institution’s inability to truly listen to experiences of its Black students and as physical evidence of its tendency to abandon moral standpoints in the face of losing funding from wealthy donors.
In their defensive statements, the university’s officials express their fears about the erasure of history, a truly unfortunate defence for an institution that consistently defies all attempts to decolonise its curriculum and to provide a balanced debate about the colonial heritage upon which it stands. Now, with monuments dedicated to racists falling around the globe, it seems like Oxford is hitting the ‘end of the Rhode’. If it does, it is more crucial than ever to ensure that the gained momentum is used for a systemic change in how the university tackles racism, rather than the mere removal of heritage that stands as a reminder of its racist history.
Since 2016, the movement Rhodes Must Fall has demanded the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes from Oriel College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford. This was met with a shocking display of support for the legacy of this white supremacist and the architect of South African apartheid, helped by the threats of donors to withdraw £100 million in donations if the statue is removed. All while the protesting students were met with the chancellor Lord Patten’s suggestion that they ‘should think about being educated elsewhere’ if they are unable to embrace Rhodes: the man who said ‘I prefer land over niggers’ before he named two African countries after himself.
As someone coming from the post-socialist bloc, where falling monuments to communist oppressors were a defining moment for the renewal of democracy, I struggle to not feel anger at seeing Oxford’s denial to provide the same kind of justice to the black community.
Justice that is the acknowledgement of the history of colonial exploitation, murder and rape both in removing the glorified effigies of men who caused unimaginable hurt and in making sure that their legacy does not perpetuate further inequality. Looking at recent history makes it painfully obvious that we white people understand the importance of removing glorified depictions of evil men but only as long as we are the ones hurting.
This was the case in 1989 and also in 2012 when plaques dedicated to Jimmy Saville, a late British philanthropist found to be a child rapist, were removed. The extreme contention and resistance to removing statues of men like Cecil Rhodes in Oxford or Edward Colston in Bristol are not about seeing statues as part of history and education, as many argue. It is about resisting the truth that the men who created the Western world for us caused more suffering to black people and people of colour than the men we ourselves deem to be monsters caused to us. Falling statues are only controversial when the falling undermines our place in the world; when it undermines our ‘triumphant white history’ and the self-image we derive from it.
Enshrined high above the entrance to the college, Rhodes’ glorified effigy stands as a reminder of his generosity to some. To others, it is a reminder that the fortune he left to the college, accumulated from blood diamonds, means more than setting the record straight and correcting the history that erased the cost at which the University has thrived.
With both Oriel College and the University failing to acknowledge and address this, both the statue and the legacy of Cecil Rhodes are alive and well — raising important questions about what being and belonging in Oxford mean for white and black students. It cannot mean the same thing when one admires the glamour of the University’s splendid buildings, while the other, looking at the same buildings, sees monuments dedicated to men who valued land over the lives of people with the same skin colour as them. To not decolonise our institutions is to deny the truth to the ones that are hurting, as well as to ourselves.
Photo of the “Rhodes Must Fall” protest at Oxford, England, by Em Hartova.
The ‘erasure of history’ seems to be the main concern of many.
Unfortunately, colonial history cannot be erased even if glorified effigies of racists in any way did provide a nuanced or useful account of it. On the contrary, such monuments in and of themselves obscure other histories, raising important questions about whose histories are being upheld and at what expense. The concern here is not that we are judging history by present standards but that the history in question has always been tasked with justifying looting and slaughter. While we cannot rewrite this past, we can be accomplices in a historic movement that aims to end celebrating the oppression that the British Empire and its leaders conceived.
As I was writing the final lines of this article, Oriel College announced the creation of an independent commission for enquiry into the key issues around the statue of Rhodes. While we might be hitting the ‘end of the Rhode’, we are only at the beginning of a much longer journey of decolonisation. We can either work on removing the barriers that give places different meanings depending on the colour of our skin, or we can continue to talk about the questionable greatness of heritage that has contributed in large part to today’s global inequality.
This article focused on Oxford and Cecil Rhodes but the pattern we are seeing here can be found all around us in the West. Changing our white-dominated institutions will not happen without white voices expressing solidarity with movements fighting for social justice and actively participating in dismantling systems of oppression. This is our problem to fix. As movements such as the Progressive International point out, solidarity must be more than a slogan; bearing witness to civil rights movements in a silent approval will not do. To echo Progressive International’s message: we must translate our solidarity into concrete action and see our institutions and history decolonised book by book, dollar by dollar, statue by statue.
A footnote.
I am a white man educated at elite British institutions who benefited greatly from the privilege of never having to think about his skin colour. I am anything but a spokesperson for PoC and Black communities. I was lucky to have my privilege challenged by amazing people along the way and for that, I am beyond grateful. My knowledge of the issues of race is partial and I will never be able to understand the lived experience of racial oppression and injustice. No white person can. What we can do, and what I attempted in writing this article, is to stand up and use our privilege to be allies and accomplices in a movement striving for justice. To whoever made it this far, I urge you to check out platforms like ‘Rhodes Must Fall Oxford’, ‘Black Lives Matter Oxford’, ‘Uncomfortable Oxford’ and ‘Progressive International’. These bring together grassroots voices and inspire and educate tirelessly. For that, I will never cease to be thankful.
Photography by Em Hartova.
Police force hospital staff to take off their white coats at anti-austerity protest
In Paris on 16 June 2020, the government rewards medical staff with teargas rather than resources
More than a year ago, on 18 March 2019, French hospital emergency staff took to the streets ringing the alarm bell that, due to a lack of financial resources and staff, public hospitals were collapsing and patients were, as a consequence, suffering or even dying.
In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, on 27 February 2020, Dr. François Salachas told Emmanuel Macron on visiting a hospital:
“Mr President, you see that you can count on us [the hospital staff]. You still have to prove that we can count on you.”
At the height of COVID-19, the government promised to listen to the demands of hospital staff and to improve the situation of hospitals. 30,000 deaths later, the government called for a broad consultation with the unions, who have now voiced their great disappointment at the government’s refusal to commit to the main demands of medical workers, being: salary increases for all hospital staff, more recruitment and increased investment in hospitals. In reply, the government merely indicated that the (already overworked) hospital staff may have to work more hours!
Nurses, doctors, carers and unions all called for a national demonstration held throughout the country yesterday, 16 June 2020
They asked the citizens who have clapped at their windows and balconies every evening at 8pm during the COVID-19 crisis to join on the streets in support.
Yesterday, despite the fact that the demonstration took place on a weekday, 220 demonstrations happened — spanning from Strasbourg to Fort-de-France (Martinique, French Antilles). These included 4,000 people in Montpellier, 1,000 in Clermont-Ferrand, 20,000 in Toulouse, 10,000 in Lyon and 5,000 in Strasbourg.
In Paris, around 50,000 people (according to the organisers, 18,000 according to the police) gathered near the Ministry of Health with leading representatives from unions, left-wing parties and associations like The Association pour la Taxation des Transactions financières et pour l’Action Citoyenne (ATTAC) and the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme, but also artists such as the celebrated theatre director Ariane Mnouchkine and her theatre troops. The majority of protesters were wearing their white coats or surgery outfits with slogans like “white coats, black anger,” “let’s save our common infrastructures,” “COVID-negative but rage and anger positive,” “our lives rather than their profits,” “funds for health not for the banks,” “the most dangerous virus is capitalism,” “masked but not muffled” and “save public services.”
The demonstration moved slowly and calmly and initially stopped at the end of the closed-off Rue de Varennes (location of the residence of the Prime Minister). The organisers of the demonstration had requested in advance that representatives of the protestors be invited to the Prime Minister’s office to discuss the points that they raised. They were refused. The protesters loudly referred to the sentence pronounced by the neurologist Dr. Salachas:
“Dear Prime Minister, you see that you could count on us [the hospital staff]. Can we count on you?”
The Minister of Interior Affairs had three main bridges over the Seine as well as numerous metro stations closed off. Thousands of “armoured” police forces — the so-called Robocops due to the amount of heavy protection they wear from head to toe — were positioned in the district and armed with teargas and sound grenade launchers, as well as flashball launchers.
The demonstrators arrived on the vast Esplanade des Invalides and slowly filled in its 1,5 sq kilometers, only to discover that all streets allowing them to exit had been cut off by police, their water cannons and their vehicles.
A few minutes later and without warning, police forces started to launch tear gas grenades amongst the demonstrators
Today, the Ministry asked official media to relay that this resulted as a response to the presence of hundred antifa protesters. Why then did they position several thousand policemen to close off the area and trap demonstrators in advance? Why launch teargas on tens of thousands of these demonstrators to “neutralise” the hundred-odd protestors whom the police labelled as disturbing?
This unjustified attack on those who have risked their own lives and those of their relatives during COVID-19 by fighting the virus in hospitals and saving our lives deeply shocked the demonstrators who witnessed this. They reacted by whistling and booing at the police.
Violence compelling further violence, demonstrators were suddenly separated into two groups in the middle of the Esplanade by the Brigades de repression de l’action violente motorisées (special troops created in 2019 to violently repress the Gilets Jaunes) wearing motorbike helmets. They ran through the crowd with weapons and blindly hit people. Street medics immediately took care of protestors lying injured on the ground or affected by teargas, while further grenades kept raining down on them. They chanted “Macron, démission!” (Macron, resign!).
Scandalised and pushed to their limit by such violence, and after months of unrecognised efforts against the virus, some hospital staff attempted to resist
One 51 year old nurse seen throwing a few stones at the fully armed police was violently arrested. A journalist managed to film her arrest. In it, we can see how policemen dragged a woman in a nurse’s whitecoat to the ground by her hair, forced her against a tree and took her away handcuffed and with a bloody head, while she was asking for her anti-asthma spray in vain. This evidence of one more brutal act of police violence has deeply moved the population and left-wing politicians have immediately condemned it.
Through loudspeakers, the police requested that demonstrators leave the Esplanade one by one through a single authorised exit. The final humiliation: hospital employees were requested to take off their whitecoats before being allowed to exit the square.
At this point in time the French government has responded only with violence to the demands of those who have offered up their energy, as well as their private life and their health to the country — long before the virus ever arrived in France. During the COVID-19 crisis, it also unfortunately cost some of them their own lives.
Public health both in France and in Europe will not survive without massive investments. Follow DiEM25’s proposal for recovery throughout Europe: check out the 3-Point Plan!
Facebook Walkouts: Open Letter to IT workers
Don’t quit. Reach out to other workers. Join a union. Organise.
Dear all,
We’ve read in the media about the stance taken by some of you with your virtual walkouts concerning Facebook’s handling of Trump’s violent statement against Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters.
Public opinion has recognised that this is an unprecedented stance from Facebook’s workers and an important sign of solidarity with those suffering as a result of racist oppression.
We understand that some of you don’t know what else could be done in this immensely complex moment and that there are voices calling for resignation from the company for not taking an ethical stance.
As members of a DiEM25 Spontaneous Collective in a country like Ireland, where the IT sector has a fundamental role in the local economy, we would like to share some thoughts with the workers in the industry.
Silicon Valley was founded on the illusion of the so-called Californian Ideology.
That Tech industry has introduced a new kind of capitalism. A capitalism with a green, human, diverse and inclusive face.
It is an industry in which collective bargaining has apparently been considered unnecessary. Where workers are apparently so well paid and treated that unions are superfluous and everybody can be on its own.
In recent years, it has gradually become clear that this was a fairytale. That is was not in fact a different kind of capitalism.
You have slowly begun to realise that despite the good salaries, the free food, the perks and the benefits (always reserved for a supposedly elite few), and despite all the corporate jargon tailored for removing this truth, you still are workers. And even privileged workers are in a weak position when alone.
So, in the last years you have seen that some in the industry have been sexually harassed and have been silenced. And that those who have raised their voice have been fired. That individual bargaining has led to salary inequality, especially for the most vulnerable. That those who tried to convince you that you are part of a big warm family have no issues when it comes to having you laid off when markets go bad. That the companies have no issues in doubling your amount of work and promoting harsh competition among workers, while reiterating that you should keep some time for yourself and respect work-life balance. The same companies that are saving huge money from shutting off offices during the pandemic, and still say that your salaries should be lowered because you are not commuting anymore.
You have also realized that you are part of an industry that has depicted itself as a world of creative free thinkers who worked for the greater good, and ended up being involved in surveillance plans, censored data engines, privacy scandals, and union busting.
The problem here goes far beyond how to deal with Trump’s violent messages.
The problem here is structural and is about an industry who discreetly supported Trump because progressives in governments are seen as an existential threat to their interests.
And with good reason. Progressives are obviously a threat to the common practice perpetrated by digital giants to use loopholes to avoid paying billions in taxes. They are obviously a threat for those who want to be free to run monopolies and oligopolies.
But big digital giants have to decide what side they are on. They cannot advocate for a more inclusive and open societies and then support those who make them more unjust and divided in order to defend their shareholders interests.
Now you are seeing the hypocrisy at the core of the silicon-valley ideology and you don’t want to be part of this game anymore.
But the solution is not merely in pushing for more philanthropy, or quitting individually.
You are in a position to have a perspective on the bigger picture.
You have the privilege of not being hunted by your rent. And you have the power that comes with your knowledge and skills.
Use it.
What you often don’t have is solidarity. Because it is being openly and intentionally diminished from the beginning. And because you are being made to believe that you live on a different planet from those in need.
Break this game.
Search for those like you that have already started to organize in your workplace:
Those who are not happy with the status quo and have already started to organise. Workers from big companies such as Amazon have united and challenged the status quo through groundbreaking grassroots movements in the past few months.
Start to interrogate yourself on the impact produced by the companies who buy your work. Reflect on the influence that it has on you and your family. But also on your neighborhood, on the environment, on larger social inequality, on the housing market of your city. How does your work impact our rights to privacy and agency, and our democracies?
We urge you to build solidarity both inside and outside the company. It is only by being united that we can become stronger. By being a part of a union, you can fight sexual harassment as well as other workplace issues that matter to you. Most importantly, you can protect whistleblowers and fight retaliation from above.
Join a union, and any grassroots movement that you identify with. Work with us to build a better equitable and sustainable future.
Live long, fight and prosper to all.
#BlackLivesMatters
#GoPolitical
#StickToTechIsNotEnough
French organisations support healthcare staff in calling for a demonstration on 16 June
“The ‘new normal’ or ‘post-COVID world’ can only be built if we rally behind an alternative to capitalism. This system crushes our livelihoods as it stifles the planet.”
In a unified statement, several political organisations are calling for everyone to join them on June 16th for a day of rallying for health causes including various gatherings and protests.
The ordeal that we are going through, which is health-care related, social, political and ecological all at once, has emerged not only from a global pandemic.
The destruction of our health system, with its layoffs, bed closures and reduction in hospital services as well as the never-ending assaults on health insurance — these have all amplified the issue. For several years, this government, like the ones before, has refused to listen to the demonstrations of those working in the health-care field, in care homes, in the health and social sectors or to psychiatric experts. A year ago, well before the COVID-19 pandemic, those working in A&E / ER had already sounded the alarm over the degradation of hospitals and over the paralysis of our health care system and its staff.
In the context of this health crisis, nursing staff and all ‘front-line’ workers have carried out their duty and have continued to do so under difficult circumstances. Like many employees in recent months, they have had to work so that life may go on even though health safety measures have not been respected, even though there has not been enough personal protective equipment (PPE), and despite staff shortages, a lack of jobs, etc.
Thanks to the lifting of lockdown, hospitals have started to rally for better working conditions, a pay raise of up to 300 euros as well as more beds in hospitals, especially in intensive care.
And what does the government answer to this? They give us a never-ending dialogue which they call the “Ségur” from which nothing concrete emerges, and they want to give medals to reward ‘the heroes’!
During lockdown everyday we clapped for hospital staff, but that is no longer enough. Now we have to be by their side because their fight is ours too. By protecting public services and by rallying for pay rises, they are fighting for a more equal society, they are fighting to roll back the dominance of market society and of fiscal management, and for a different kind of redistribution.
Our political organisations are not deaf to these causes and they call on us all to join them on Tuesday June 16th to rally for health causes and to participate in different meetings and protests on this day, all while respecting social distancing measures.
We will be there to demand for answers to be finally given regarding this healthcare crisis: distribution of free masks; free and accessible testing; repurposing of factories and businesses so that they can produce masks and medical equipment; patenting of drugs and of the future vaccine against COVID-19 to be placed into global public ownership.
We also relay the demands of those rallying, their unions and their collectives.
On top of this, we demand an emergency plan for public hospitals: a massive recruitment drive for staff, starting with 100,000 recruitments under public service status; a pay rise of at least 300 euros; cancellation of plans to close sites or services; re-opening of 100,000 beds which have been removed over the past 20 years; scrapping of the pricing system of medical acts (T2A) which forces hospitals to operate like businesses; reassessment the 2009 ‘Bachelot’ law and of the powers of the Regional Health Agencies (ARS) so that there can be a democratic operation for public hospitalisation, bringing together medical staff, paramedics, service users and territories; cancellation of the hospital debt and increase of the hospital budgets.
We also need a public service for the elderly in need of care which would break away from the market in this sector and increase the number of staff working in care-homes and social care.
In terms of social security/health insurance, we demand the reimbursement of the scandalous exemptions, while increasing its resources and restoring democratic management.
The World After Coronavirus can only be built when we rally behind an alternative to capitalism. This system crushes our lives as it stifles the planet. On tuesday 16th June, this day for health and social protection cannot be overlooked.
Organisations :
DiEM25 ;
Ensemble ! ;
Gauche démocratique et sociale ;
Génération-s ;
La France insoumise ;
Nouveau parti anticapitaliste ;
Pour une écologie populaire et sociale ;
République et socialisme ;
Union communiste libertaire.
English translation of original publication by Dan Israel on the 21 Mars 2020 on Médiapart.
Spain passes “vital minimum wage” with no dissenting vote
Financial scarcity uncovered by the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted Spanish congress to approve the vital minimum wage on 10 June.
This is a significant step for a country with historically insufficient redistribution, and it was passed with no dissenting vote.
The severe poverty rate in Spain is twice the European average — at 12,4% of the total population. For instance, 120,000 households with children have no income at all. Without state-led financial measures to palliate this, child poverty is extremely likely to translate to adult poverty later on.
Current left-wing coalition government has accelerated the design and implementation of the vital minimum wage and mobilized around €3,000 million. It will be paid this month by Social Security to households who do not have financial means to cover mere survival and can prove they have been Spanish residents for over a year. 850,000 families at risk of social exclusion, representing over 2.3 million people, will benefit from it. In the words of the Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations Ministry, the vital minimum wage is a collective insurance to rescue people with severe financial shortcomings and push them towards social inclusion. The wage itself will range from €462 to €1,015, depending on each household’s particulars. 16% of beneficiaries will be mono-parental families, which are generally headed by single mothers.
This measure, proposed and led by left-wing coalition government PSOE and Unidas Podemos, gathered consensus throughout the political spectrum.
Center-right party Ciudadanos called this an “absolutely necessary” measure to “leave no one behind”, while the former right-wing governing party, PP, was also markedly in favour. Despite calling it “unpatriotic” for its alleged call effect on immigrants, far-right party Vox ultimately decided not to vote against vital minimum wage, or rather not to vote at all. Indeed, many beneficiaries will be Spanish-born. Unidas Podemos’ representative called this vital minimum wage the best vaccine against hate speech.
Catalan leftist party ERC regretted undocumented people in risk of exclusion or in extreme poverty will not be able to receive this vital minimum wage, as well as what it considers too long a period spent in poverty to be eligible as a beneficiary (1 year).
The particulars of how human trafficking victims might be eligible to benefit from the wage remain to be seen, after this possibility was publicly stated by Equality minister and later on by Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations minister. This, however, would have the virtue of targeting extremely vulnerable individuals, majoritarily women, and in parallel help gather sounder data on the scale and impact of this egregious crime.
A coalition pact signed in late 2019 stated that the minimum vital wage would address extreme poverty and progressively extend to other low-income families. This is likely not going to be the last step taken to reduce inequality in Spain.
Will universal income (finally) be generalized?
Severe poverty and social exclusion have deep and hardly-revertible effects on those who suffer it. Poverty isn’t a choice, it is caused by the design of our societies, and needs to be addressed. Even the ultra-liberal US economy has made history this year with the largest relief-package ever approved, including financial transfers to citizens in risk of exclusion. With societies that become more and more unequal, insufficiently redistributive tax systems and a new multi-level crisis revealed by COVID-19 pandemic, universal minimum incomes are an important part of the current political debate.
DiEM25 has always advocated for Universal Basic Dividend-like measures, as a step further towards redistribution. The difference with any other basic income or wage to date is that Universal Basic Dividend (UBD) should be financed by big corporations rather than individual taxpayers.
Because fiscal systems have not managed to tax higher-incomes enough and are less progressive than they were intended or designed for, a proportionally larger fiscal burden is currently put on low- and middle- income taxpayers. This negatively impacts overall redistributive capacity: most countries around the world are seeing their rich get richer and the poor get poorer, creating a divide wider than ever before. A situation that is, in the long run, nefarious for all socio-economic levels.
DiEM25’s UBD is called a “dividend” precisely because it would be paid as a share from annual corporate benefits by listed companies, after stock market transactions or IPOs, and pooled in a collective European fund. UBD would tax the wealthiest and act as a safety net against social exclusion at European level.
If nothing else, COVID-19’s sanitary and humanitarian crisis has proven the need for a state centered on individuals’ well being rather than financial growth.
Sustainable and humane living, require measures to reduce systemic inequalities. Neo-liberal economy has shown its limits in the face of this pandemic: no market was (or would have been) able to thrive in the absence of public spending tailored to respond to and respect human needs. Our interconnectedness means we need to think global.
Fighting poverty through truly redistributive means such as the Universal Basic Dividend and adjusting our way of living for sustainable production and consumption should be a priority in the aftermath of COVID-19.
Help us build a digital hub for activism!
A digital hub for DiEM25 2.0.
Our website is more than a place on the Internet, it’s our movement’s digital hub, a vital area for members to coordinate their activities.
And for a few days now, you’ll find our website has been supercharged. As well as a complete revamp of the design, there are now sections for volunteer recruitment and a financial transparency portal!
But we are just getting started and we have very ambitious plans to turn our website into the online tool our movement truly deserves.
Here is what we’ve already been able to do with our resources:
Website Redesign
A complete redesign of our site, that now offers a more user-friendly browsing experience, and makes it a lot easier to find useful information, including how to volunteer so more people get involved! Also, we’ve upgraded our servers.
Financial Transparency
We’ve included a financial transparency portal that offers the movement’s exact monthly financials through simple graphics. Its design has been modelled after that of the United Nations’, so you can review our monthly expenses by organising categories as you like, and even learn the money allocated to each area of the movement! And, you can still access the movement’s monthly budget and donations flow in real-time from your Members Area.
Members Area
All features inside the Members Area have been substantially improved. For example, organizing DiEM25 events and contacting people who have signed-up is now easier than ever. Local groups have new abilities to find more members and all groups now have private workspaces.
There certainly is a lot of work that still needs to be done. While DiEM25 is mostly powered by volunteers lending their skills and time to the movement, there are certain technical tasks that require us to invest money.
If you can spare 5 or 10 euros today, you’ll be making a significant difference for our movement in a world where our digital platform is more important every day. DiEM25 does not receive subsidies or donations from rich people, businesses or governments. If we want our site to be a powerful hub for the movement, we must fund this ourselves. Can you help?
Thanks and carpe DiEM25!
The violence of ‘kind policemen’: why zero arrests have been made in the case of Breonna Taylor
“Breonna Taylor was convicted for being a person of color.”
I’m an old white man with no qualifications to speak about the experiences of black people in the United States, past or present. But I can write something about my early conditioning with the police, which is so different from what people of color must endure in this country.
I begin with the song below. We sang this song in elementary school in the 1950s, in East Meadow, New York — a completely white town on Long Island. Black people were forbidden to buy homes in our town and most of the surrounding towns due to segregation covenants. Hempstead, a town about fifteen miles from ours, was the ‘designated’ black area. As the song implies, the policeman was presented as our best friend and protector, who we were to rely on if lost or in trouble.
Remember your name and address
And telephone number, too
And if, someday, you lose your way
You know just what to do,
Walk up to the kind policeman
The very first one you meet
And simply say, “I’ve lost my way,
I cannot find my street,
But I know my name and address
And telephone number too.”
Then he’ll be kind
And help you to find
The dear ones who wait for you.
You can also listen to this song, sung by someone from the place I grew up in.
For a white kid in the 50’s who got lost, a policeman would probably be a great help getting me home. How would a black kid, living in Hempstead who got lost, feel about walking up to a white policeman? Would a black kid be taught such a song in their neighborhoods?
“Walk up to the kind policeman?”
Think about how insidious the conditioning is for us white folks. I learned that song when I was seven years old. I’m seventy-three now and can still sing it. How could a white man believe a policeman be anything but kind?
When I was in high school, I had a friend named Richard. His father was a policeman and their family moved from East Meadow to Queens. Mr. Smith (fake name, real guy), the cop, was stationed in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Coney Island today is an expensive, gentrified area, and mostly white, but back in the 60’s it was a decayed amusement park in a poor, run down section of Brooklyn, a mostly black neighborhood. Once, when I visited Richard, his father came home and expounded on how he hated blacks. They were the worst of humanity, dangerous, lazy and crooked. White cop, black neighborhood. This was in the early 60’s and those dangerous black folks wanted equal rights after centuries of slavery and suppression.
“Walk up to the kind policeman?”
Breonna Taylor was 27 years old. She graduated from Western High School and graduated from the University of Kentucky. She worked as an emergency medical technician for University of Louisville Health. She lived with her boyfriend Kenneth Walker and they both knew their names, addresses and telephone numbers. They were not lost and had no need of a ‘kind’ policeman to help them find their way. In all likelihood, being black, they had little or no experience with ‘kind’ policemen.
They were sleeping soundly and unsafely in their Louisville apartment when three policemen rammed down their door (they had a search warrant because it was predetermined, wrongly, that there were drugs in the apartment). It is assumed there are drugs wherever black people live,, and if there aren’t, after the police arrive there might be. The cops in plainclothes were within their ‘legal’ rights and because it was a no-knock warrant they did not have to notify the sleeping victims to ask for entry. The policemen claimed to have called out to whoever was inside. Neighbors testified that this was a lie.
Kenneth Walker, violated and attacked by intruders, fired his legally registered firearm, wounding one. How could he know ‘kind’ policemen were attacking them, eager to protect the citizens in the neighborhood?
“Walk up to the kind policeman?”
The policemen then shot twenty rounds, filling the apartment and Breonna Taylor with holes. Breonna was hit eight times, murdered in her home.
White people and people of color live in different Americas. The America of white people was built on the backs of black slaves, especially in places like Louisville, Kentucky. Breonna Taylor studied and worked to save the lives of her fellow Americans as an EMT.
“You can depend on the kind EMT.”
The three policemen, instead of serving those they are paid to serve, and those who actually pay them, murdered an innocent young woman.
Are these the same ‘kind’ policemen I was encouraged to trust my life with as a young white boy? To people of color these are not ‘kind’ policemen. They are the kinds of policemen who discriminate and judge them based on skin color. Brett Hankison is the kind of policeman who allegedly plants drugs so young black men can be arrested, and is currently being investigated for a sexual assault case. Brett Hankison, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Officer Myles Cosgrove are now on administrative leave while an internal investigation is underway on the shooting of Taylor. Detective Joshua Jaynes has been placed on administrative reassignment amid an investigation into how he secured the search warrant in the case.
None of the policemen have been charged and the four-page report lists little of what actually happened.
It is unlikely that these policemen will ever be convicted. They probably won’t even be charged. They were doing their jobs as ‘kind’ policemen. Breonna Taylor was convicted four hundred years ago for being a person of color.
For Breonna and all people of color in the United States of America, a different song applies to the children.
Remember your name and address
And telephone number, too
And if, someday, you lose your way
You know just what to do,
Stay away from all policemen
Avoid them like the plague.
They assume you’ve done something wrong
Just because of the way you look.
NEVER walk up to the kind of policeman
Who assumes if you’re black you’re a crook.
The towns on Long Island where I grew up are mostly white today. Black people are still discouraged from living there despite the Fair Housing Act passed by President Johnson back in 1968. Shame on us!
Say her name! Justice for Breonna.
Since the police shooting, the name of Breonna Taylor has joined that of George Floyd in cries for justice in protests across the US and abroad, Since then, Louisville has moved towards banning the No-Knock Raids that allowed for police officers to walk into her home without notice and surprise her in her home as she was sleeping. It is being termed ‘Breonna’s law’. Similar legislation is being put on the table in other states. No justice has however been served when it comes to the officers involved in her case.
Photo from Twitter user Rebecca Rambar.
Julian Assange just called. To talk about the pandemic’s effect on capitalism & politics!
Julian called me a little earlier, at 14.22 London time from Belmarsh High Security Prison of course.
This is not the first time but, as you can imagine, every time I hear his voice I feel honoured and moved that he should dial my number when he has such few and far between opportunities to place calls.
“I want a perspective on world developments out there — I have none in here”, he said. Which, of course, placed a considerable burden on me to articulate thoughts on capitalism’s fate during this pandemic and the repercussions of it all on politics, geopolitics etc. The knowledge that Her Majesty’s Prison authorities would discontinue our discussion at any moment made the task harder.
In a feeble attempt to paint a picture for him on as broad a canvass as possible, I shared with Julian my main thought of the last weeks:
Never before has the world of money (i.e. the money markets, that include the share markets) been so decoupled from the world of real people, real stuff — from the real economy.
We watch in awe as GDP, personal incomes, wages, company revenues, businesses small and large, collapse while the stock market is staying relatively unscathed. The other day, Hertz declared bankruptcy. When a company does this, its share price goes to zero. Not now. In fact, Hertz is about to issue $1 billion worth of new shares. Why would anyone buy shares of an officially bankrupt company? The answer is: Because central banks print mountain ranges of money and give it for almost free to financiers to buy any piece of junk floating around the stock exchange.
“Complete zombification of the corporations”, is how I put it to Julian. Julian commented that this proves that governments and central banks can keep corporations afloat even when they sell next to nothing at the marketplace. I agreed. But, I also pointed out a major conundrum that capitalism faces for the first time. It is this:
Central bank money printing keeps asset prices very high while the price of ‘stuff’ and wages fall. This disconnect can go on growing. But, when Hertz, British Airways etc. can survive in this manner, they have no reason not to fire half the workforce and to cut the wages of the other half. This creates more deflation/depression in the real economy. Which means that the Central Banks must print more and more to keep asset and share prices high. At some point, the masses out there will rebel and governments will be under pressure to divert some income to them. But this will deflate asset prices. At that point, because these assets are used by corporations as collateral for all the loans they take out to stay afloat, they will lose access to liquidity. A sequence of corporate failures will commence under circumstances of stagnation. “I don’t think capitalism can easily survive, at least not without huge social and geopolitical conflicts, this conundrum”, was my conclusion.
Julian thought about this for a moment and asked me: “How important is consumption to capitalism? What percentage of GDP is at stake if consumption does not recover? Do the corporations need workers or customers?” I answered that it was high enough to make this conundrum real. Yes, Central Banks and robots can keep the corporations going without customers or workers. But, robots cannot buy the stuff they produce. So, this is not a stable equilibrium. The losses in people’s incomes will accelerate, thus generating pivotal discontent.
Julian then said something along the lines of: That will benefit Trump who knows how to feed off the anger of the multitudes toward the educated, upper middle-class elites. I agreed, saying that DiEM25 has been warning since 2016 that socialism for the oligarchy and austerity for the many, in the end, feeds the racist ultra-right. That we are experiencing again what happened in the 1920s in Italy with the rise of Mussolini.
Julian agreed entirely and said: Yes, like then, there is an alliance forming between rich people and the discontented working class. He then added that most of the prisoners and the prison officers in Belmarsh support… Trump. At that point the connection was cut off.
Our conversation lasted 9’47’’. It was more substantive, and of course moving, than any conversation I have had in a while.
Read more of Yanis Varoufakis’ thoughts on his personal blog.