thebarricade

"On the barricades" — s02e51 #onthebarricades #otb #left #leftist #socialist #workingclass #liberlism #liberal #labourparty #ideology #socialism #europeanunion The Left's colossal failure in Europe and North America is undeniable. The weight of what is referred to these days as political debate is not between the Left and the Right, but rather between liberal elites and the majority of the population's neo-traditionalist backlash. While these circumstances are undoubtedly frustrating for serious leftist activists and authors, it must be stated unequivocally that the Left is solely to blame. It is not the overwhelming strength of far-right groups that has brought us to this point; it is the Left's complete ideological and strategic, and to some extent cognitive, plight. Worse, it appears that only a small portion of the Left is willing to critically reflect on itself and make significant changes. Despite the ongoing disaster, many on the left appear to be not only unwilling to revise their positions, but even doubling down! The outcomes are easily visible. Paul Embery, a British leftist activist, author, and campaigner, explains this process in class terms by referring to the shift in the British Labour Party over the last two decades. Working-class communities in the United Kingdom, which have been impoverished and shattered by the economic events of the last two decades, have been looked down on whenever they protested in a way that challenged cosmopolitan liberal views. Paul Embery provides a detailed dissection of the growing divide between leftist activists and political leaders and the working class in a two-part discussion hosted by The Barricade's Maria Cernat. He also makes some pointed criticisms of neoliberalism and the European Union.

"On the barricades" — s02e52 #onthebarricades #otb #left #leftist #socialist #workingclass #liberlism #liberal #labourparty #ideology #socialism #europeanunion The Left's colossal failure in Europe and North America is undeniable. The weight of what is referred to these days as political debate is not between the Left and the Right, but rather between liberal elites and the majority of the population's neo-traditionalist backlash. While these circumstances are undoubtedly frustrating for serious leftist activists and authors, it must be stated unequivocally that the Left is solely to blame. It is not the overwhelming strength of far-right groups that has brought us to this point; it is the Left's complete ideological and strategic, and to some extent cognitive, plight. Worse, it appears that only a small portion of the Left is willing to critically reflect on itself and make significant changes. Despite the ongoing disaster, many on the left appear to be not only unwilling to revise their positions, but even doubling down! The outcomes are easily visible. Paul Embery, a British leftist activist, author, and campaigner, explains this process in class terms by referring to the shift in the British Labour Party over the last two decades. Working-class communities in the United Kingdom, which have been impoverished and shattered by the economic events of the last two decades, have been looked down on whenever they protested in a way that challenged cosmopolitan liberal views. Paul Embery provides a detailed dissection of the growing divide between leftist activists and political leaders and the working class in a two-part discussion hosted by The Barricade's Maria Cernat. He also makes some pointed criticisms of neoliberalism and the European Union.

"On the barricades" — s02e50 #solidarity #patriarchy #class_struggle #sexism Maria Cernat continues the debate with Pat Byrne asking how, if possible, class solidarity can be built in a highly patriarchal society. One of the most challenging things the Left has to deal with is the conservatism of the working class. To solve the problem of class struggle, you have to be appealing to the masses of workers. How can you do that if they are very conservative? How do we rebuild the connection to the working class? How do we reconnect the progressive intellectuals to the laborers, especially after the Cia invested a lot in divorcing the Left and the working class? How do we rebuild the relationship with the working class?

"On the barricades" — s02e49 #solidarity #patriarchy #class_struggle #sexism Pat Byrne is a longstanding labor activist. He was on the executive board of large unions in Great Britain and had a passion for exploring the history of the leftist movements in his country and across the world. Pat Byrne is the editor of Socialistnetwork.org. The things we debate today are very complicated, and it is tricky to provide definitive answers to them. We are going to discuss the possibility of having class solidarity in a highly patriarchal society. Julie Bindel, a longstanding feminist, along with many other feminists who consider themselves leftist feminists, believe that it is absurd to say to women that sexism will be solved if and only if we fight capitalism. Others would argue that this is "class reductionism." And some may claim that the problem women face is more complicated. For example, Harriet Fraad argues that women have to fight capitalism in the public space and the feudalism that has survived in the domestic area. Pat Byrne is a longstanding leftist activist. I chose him to debate this because, while I am very interested in what feminists think, having only feminists debate may prove sectarian. For the sake of the discussion, I believe it is imperative to have leftist men express their points of view about it.

"On the barricades" — s02e48 #feminismonline #radical_feminism #liberal_feminism #gender_critical_feminism Maria Cernat continues the discussion with Vaishnavi Sundar, exploring the ideological differences in the Indian feminist movements. She tries to explain why most Indian feminism is liberal, very pro-sex-work, and what the implications are for the millions of women caught in the sex industry. Vaishnavi tries to explain why liberal feminism is no real threat to the patriarchy, especially in a very conservative country such as India. She recently wrote a well-documented article describing how the Covid pandemic left more than 30,000 children orphans and how these children often fall prey to the human trafficking networks. Liberal feminism in this context proves to be dangerous, and Vaishnavi explains why. She also describes the cruel reality of the hijras and how the West produced a glamorized story of a highly oppressed population in this context.

"On the barricades" — s02e47 #feminismonline #liberal_feminsim #gender_critical_feminism Vaishnavi Sundar is an Indian feminist and filmmaker. She joins this episode of On the Barricades to explore the faces of feminism in India. When they talk about India, people instinctively think of poverty, castes, and rape. But this is a very narrow perspective. India has vivid activist and socialist movements. It is a massive country with extremely diverse cultural, economic, and political backgrounds. A feminist I discovered recently is Vaishnavi Sundar. According to what she says, she is not a liberal feminist, even though she used to be one. Instead, she has become a "gender-critical feminist." I would like to present her views to you in an attempt to at least scratch the surface of what we call feminism in India.

"On the barricades" — s02e46 #cancel_culture #pathologies_of_the_powerless #online_fights Maria Cernat continues the discussion with Ben Burgis about his latest book: "Canceling Comedians While the World Burns. A Critique of the Contemporary Left." They explore questions related to the fact that most online cancellations occur because of issues related to sex, not to the economy. You can go ahead and publicly say you support the economist Milton Freedman, the father of the Chicago Economic School, which was responsible for some of the most dangerous economic experiments in recent history. Maria Cernat even challenges Ben Burgis and the viewers to do so as an experiment. But if someone dares to say online, "I support Butch Angel," a famous porn star and transman, we can expect a lot of controversy, a cancellation, and online hate.

"On the barricades" — s02e45 #cancel_culture #pathologies_of_the_powerless #online_fights Ben Burgis is widely known for his best-selling book "Give them an argument. Logic for the Left". He is also a contributor to the Jacobin magazine and a very nuanced intellectual. This year he published a book with a very catchy title, "Canceling Comedians While the World Burns. A Critique of the Contemporary Left." Maria Cernat wrote a review for his book, and now they meet to analyze further why the Left is constantly caught in what Burgis calls "pathologies of the powerless". Join us on the Barricades to learn more about a fascinating book that dares to challenge most of the themes leftists fight about.

"On the barricades" — s02e44 #academia #intellectual_laborers #censorship Maria Cernat continues the discussion with the Bulgarian-born US-based academic Arto Artinian, who will analyze the current trends in academia from initiatives such as Black Lives Matter to #Me too and their progressive potential. Our discussion also focuses on the commodification of academic research and the use of scientometrics to assess academic merits. You will be surprised to find out how much of academic life has become bureaucratic, even though the neoliberal promise was precisely the opposite: the de-bureaucratization of academia. All this and plenty more on this edition of "On the Barricades".

“On the barricades” — s02e43 #academia #intellectual_laborers #censorship Arto Artinian is a Bulgarian-born US academic teaching at the City University of New York. Maria Cernat invited Arto Artinian to On the Barricades to discuss his experiences as an intellectual laborer in the educational system in the United States. Arto has long experience of teaching in high school and college, so it is fascinating to hear him explain what it was like to become a high school teacher and what it means to be a teacher in college. Much of the academic experiences are glamorized, but, as our discussion will show, this is only a reflex of the era when college professors enjoyed a different social status. Nowadays, university is all about money and producing obedient workers. All this and plenty more on this edition of "On the Barricades".

On this Edition of “On the Barricades” we welcome back Paul Jay Canadian-American journalist, broadcaster, and filmmaker, the host of Analysis.News . With Paul we discuss the nature of the American empire, and how do the elites exert their influence compared to Russia. We discuss how serious one should take the endless squabbles between Russia and the US in respects to Ukraine, and what differentiates Russia’s role in the world compared to the US. We discuss the efforts of a New Cold War with China. Differences in assessment are expressed between co-host Boyan Stanislavski and Paul Jay is expressed. You won’t want to miss this, join us and share widely!

On this episode of “On the Barricades” we continue our discussion with our frequent guest Paul Jay, Canadian-American journalist, broadcaster and filmmaker back on the program. The founder and host of the Analysis.News responds to questions on Kamala Harris and what are the current state of affairs in the US in year two of the Biden Administration. We revisit a previous discussion on the efforts of Trump’s supporters in storming Capitol Hill and the characteristics between the two rival oligarch parties The Democrats and Republicans. All this and plenty more on this edition of “On the Barricades” please join us and share widely!

This Sunday, Your hosts of “On the Barricades” continues its thumbs up and thumbs down with Youri Smouter host of 1+1 topics included are Donald Tusk’s return to Polish politics, will he be able to mount a comeback and unseat the Law and Justice Party. Co-host Maria Cernat explains further the Romanian resistance to a Canadian mining project and co host Boyan Stanislavski updates us on the Bulgarian elections

On 31 July 2021 the hosts of “On the Barricades” welcomed back Youri Smouter of 1+1 for the monthly “Thumbs up and Thumbs down” review of the past month. Topics included are indigenous solidarity in Canada, Romanians of environmental and cultural concerns resisting a Canadian mining project, and Donald Tusk’s return to Polish politics.

The Barricade Analysis — s01e02 #authoritarianism #EU #EasternEurope #TheAnalysis #TheBarricade #Poland #Hungary #Russia #Kaczyński #Putin #Orban This is the second part of a two-part discussion on Europe's growing authoritarian tendencies, especially in Eastern Europe. We'll talk about the West's hypocritical and selective response to this phenomenon in this segment. The EU, in particular, appears to have gotten everything wrong in the summer and early fall of 2020. While people in Bulgaria were on the streets every day for nearly half a year, they received almost no support from any EU institutions, with the exception of a rather routine hearing in the European Parliament in such cases. However, in Belarus, which is not a member of the EU, European governments have invested heavily, and the mainstream media has been drumming up interventionist rhetoric 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They, of course, failed in the end. Why has the EU spent so much time and money supporting the regime change in Belarus, where they were bound to fail, but not helping the protesters in Bulgaria, where they could have made a real difference? In this panel featuring Maria Cernat, Malgorzata Kulbaczewska, Vladimir Mitev, and Boyan Stanislavski, learn more about authoritarianism in Europe from The Barricade and The Analysis.

The Barricade Analysis — s01e01 #authoritarianism #EU #EasternEurope #TheAnalysis #TheBarricade #Poland #Hungary #Russia #Kaczyński #Putin #Orban This is the first installment of a series of commentaries produced by The Barricade and The Analysis in collaboration. Journalists from Bulgarian, Romanian, and Polish left-wing media gather to discuss the situation in Eastern Europe and offer their opinions on the most important events. Leave your thoughts in the comments section. With the next panel, we'll be back with Paul Jay in September. This episodes features Maria Cernat, Malgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat, Vladimir Mitev and Boyan Stanislavski. The main topic of today's discussion is authoritarianism, particularly new authoritarian tendencies in Europe, the EU, and, most notably, Eastern Europe; and this is why all four of us here have been invited to speak on the subject because this is the region from which we all hail and with which we are most familiar. In recent years, some European leaders have expressed concern about democratic backsliding and creeping authoritarianism in some member states. As a result, in late 2020, the EU created a new mechanism that ties allotments of union funds to EU member states' adherence to the rule of law. The gradual autocratization of political regimes around the world, which is now widely recognized, poses a threat to the EU's founding values and foreign policy objectives. The EU has struggled for years to respond to the rise of autocracy in Europe, particularly in Hungary. Sending EU funds to governments that undermined democracy, human rights, and the rule of law exacerbated the problem. The new rule of law conditionality aims to improve the EU's toolkit and respond to these trends. However, for the time being, it does not appear to be going away; the EU remains a barking dog that does not bite. Is the EU, on the other hand, our only hope? Those who believe authoritarian reactionary tendencies pose a political threat. Especially in light of the EU's own authoritarianism, which is the silent partner. Instead, we're bombarded with anti-Russian and anti-Chinese rhetoric.

“On the barricades” — s02e40 #bulgaria #elections #borissov #trifonov #failedstate On July 11, 2021, Bulgarians voted for the second time this year for parliament, as representatives of the parties elected in the first vote on April 4, 2021, failed to form a coalition. Last year, Bulgarians protested for months against Boyko Borissov and his party, but only now on 11 July, the GERB party lost the first place in the vote. In this edition of the English-language podcast "On the Barricades," Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski invited political analyst Stefan Georgiev to discuss the past election. The figure of Slavi Trifonov, TV presenter and singer, is now in the spotlight. He leads the "There is such a nation" party and seems to be the new charismatic populist who has attracted the support of a large part of the Bulgarians. We talk about Trifonov's policy proposals and the reasons why people reject Borissov.

“On the barricades” — s02e39 #moldova #maiasandu #reform #anticorruption #elections On July eleventh, both Bulgaria and Moldova held parliamentary elections. In this edition of our show, we shall discuss the landslide victory of the Party of Action and Solidarity. This is the political party of Maia Sandu, the first woman President of Moldova, which won more than 52% of the votes and gave Maia Sandu unprecedented political power. Joining us On the Barricades is Vitalie Sprânceană, a renowned Moldovan activist, journalist and scholar who’s been closely watching the evolution of recent political events. Sandu's victory has been regarded by many political commentators and Moldovan citizens with great enthusiasm, but analysts warn that Moldova has been repeatedly saved by politicians who carry with them a ray of hope for the incredibly poor and disenfranchised citizens. On occasion, politicians that seemed to offer a chance for a better life were elected and, instead, looted the country. Let us not forget that Moldova became famous in 2014 for the theft of one billion euros, roughly 10% of the country’s GDP, by local elites. This is the reason we invited Vitalie Sprînceană to discuss whether we have good reason to rejoice this unprecedented victory of a female politician or whether this is just another political figure in a long line of Moldova saviors who will leave the population even more depressed and hopeless after her term ends.

The idea of being forced by the neo-Marxist European and US forces to be politically correct is haunting the minds of Eastern European politicians. Their public display of fears and anxieties generated by this Apocalyptic fear holds them hostage to the most hilarious scenarios possible – such as the one where you could become gay just by seeing gay people. This is something beyond compare. If the debate about the woke culture in Western universities has a point, in countries like Romania, Bulgaria, or Poland, where all truly progressive intellectuals represent only an incredibly tiny minority, the fear of these brave intellectual conservative warriors trying to defend their allegedly besieged fortress of “normality” looks a lot like… well, a mad house! Maria Cernat, Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat, and Boyan Stanislavski debated the situation of conservative intellectuals in Romania and Poland that fear the “sexo-Marxist” demons, who are situated mainly in their deranged minds. The discussion comes at a time when not the alleged “sexo-Marxist agents” are aiming to destroy the spiritual well-being of the young Romanians and Poles, but when the Orthodox and Catholic churches are trying to take the taxpayers' money to finance their own academic institutions and influence the public agenda.

Viktor Orbán, Hungary's prime minister, who has earned the reputation of being the EU's black sheep as a right-wing authoritarian, is now taking yet another step to reaffirm his government's ultra-conservative stance. This time, he has chosen to target the LGBT community, attempting to criminalize LGBT information in the public domain by prohibiting "exposure of homosexual propaganda to kids," which on its face appears absurd. Even if there is no clear definition of "gay propaganda," how would it be able to remove everything that even closely resembles LGBT symbolic elements from all forms of media, including the internet? It appears to be an implausible and bizarre concept. Why pursue it if the only outcome will be further pressure on Budapest and increased outrage? What kind of political gains does Orbán expect? With such conservative excesses, what does he hope to achieve? What is the general public's reaction in Hungary? What impact will this decision have on the LGBT community in that country? Emese Szilágyi, a Hungarian human-rights lawyer and Junior Research Fellow of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, who is also the editor of the Institute for Legal Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Arts' blogsite, has been invited to address this and more, including the general backdrop.

Boyan Stanislavski discusses public services with Pat Byrne in this episode of "Divided We Fall." What they are presently, and how should they be run in order to benefit society? Prepare for a lot of myth-busting, such as a critique of the Left's erroneous positions on unemployment benefits. Pat also talks about alienation and how crucial it is to overcome it. When it comes to transitioning to socialism, public services are also a great foundation to build on, and labor unions could already be launching initiatives that involve customers and consumers, laying the groundwork for socializing control over healthcare, education, and other critical sectors for society's functioning and development. Pat and Boyan, as usual, bring up some historical instances and debate the faults made in the former Eastern Bloc when it came to handling public services. Because we're trying to keep the segments of the show as short as possible, Pat and Boyan will not be taking any questions from the audience right away. A separate live segment will be organized for this purpose only. If you wish to submit a question prior to the program, please send it to b.stanislavski@baricada.org.

“On the barricades” — s02e36 #BidenPutin #G7 #UE #USA #EasternEurope #1plus1 The G7 summit, the Biden-Putin summit, the EU-US summit... Isn't that a lot of summits for just a week or so? What does Eastern Europe stand to gain? Is it going to have an impact on the Ukraine issue, which was sparked by the West? What impact might it have on the area? Is there a risk that the political elites in Eastern Europe, which is so significant in terms of global politics, will take advantage of this situation? Is America's hold on Europe slipping a little? Get all of this and more in the second installment of our June thumbs-ups and thumbs-downs, which features Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski, as well as Youri Smouter.

“On the barricades” — s02e35 #Roma #schools #poverty #EasternEurope #1plus1 “On the barricades” and 1+1 invite you to an interesting discussion on the law that would introduce sexual education in Romanian schools. We, Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski, are happy to announce that from now on we are going to have Youri Smouter as the host of our thumbs-up and thumbs-down edition of On the Barricades. Youri Smouter is an activist and YouTuber, the host of 1+1, a place for inconvenient truths and myth-busting! On June 23 the Romanian Minister of Education announced that the institution he is managing will advance a law that would make sexual education available for Romanian students. This is one day after the Romanian parliament voted in a law saying that sexual education should be done only with the explicit approval of the parents. According to Sorin Câmpeanu, the current Minister of Education in Romania, students could opt out and skip the classes on sexual education if their parents make a written demand asking for it. Maria Cernat explained why is it so difficult to have a law on sexual education in Romania and why is it important to bear in mind that there are external religious extremist organizations trying to roll back reproductive rights in Europe. Romania ranked number one in Europe in terms of underaged girls becoming mothers but also in terms of women and girls being trafficked for sexual exploitation in the EU. The economic model exported by the EU has made the Romanian state weaker, and unfortunately, it has contributed to the social and economic decay of the country. Yet the West is constantly lecturing Romanians about their retrograde mentality. Maria Cernat, Youri Smouter, and Boyan Stanislavski tried to explain that it is very difficult to have a progressive country in terms of sexual and reproductive rights when its economy lies in ruins. We confronted this racist perspective head-on and explained why it is so convenient for the right-wingers to reduce complex phenomena to cultural differences.

"On the barricades" — s02e35 #socialistart #art #socialistrealism #socialistmodernism #coldrevolution #EasternBloc #USSR #Sovietart #EasternEurope #1989 #socialism #communism More than 30 years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Anti-communism became a religion, and we were strongly discouraged from discussing anything related to the period prior to 1989, including the art of the time. The then-dominant trend, socialist realism, was branded as the apex of aesthetic evil, the result of authoritarian political leaders attempting to impose their vision and dictate what painters, musicians, playwrights, and artists in general should do. Of course, art created in the Western world was ultimately regarded as "good." This is not only an intentionally simplistic viewpoint, but it is also deceptive. "The Barricade," on the other hand, is a place where one can freely discuss art, though we are not primarily a cultural outlet. However, we'd like to draw your attention to a very interesting exhibition called "The Cold Revolution," which was presented in Poland and deals with the topic of art in Eastern Europe during the so-called "communist era." Joanna Kordjak and Jérôme Bazin conceived of displaying over 400 works from six former Eastern Bloc countries in Warsaw: Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary. The curators stated that the exhibition's goal was to look at the changes that occurred in these countries during the 1950s through the lenses of painting, photography, film, design, and architecture. Jérôme Bazin, one of the exhibition's curators, was invited to a discussion about socialist realism and how difficult it is to combat mentalities that view complex phenomena like art through a very narrow lens by Maria Cernat and Frank Myonk. Jérôme Bazin works as a senior researcher at the European Comparative History Research Center. He holds a PhD in art history from the University of Amiens and a BA in history from the University of Geneva. He published numerous articles as well as a book on the social history of art. We talk to Jérôme about the exhibition and how socialist realism claimed to provide artists with the opportunity to create art for the general public and to make art as inclusive as possible, but how it wasn't always able to anticipate the public's needs and desires. We also tried to answer the question of how consumer-oriented societies created or conveyed the illusion of inclusiveness. We also discussed the stark contrast in gender and race between the visual language of US advertising and socialist realism, among other things.

Divided we fall or what is wrong with the Left? #dividedwefall #whatswrongwiththeLeft #thebarricade #socialism #Left #socialdemocracy #USSR #China #ownership #democracy #posession #economy This is the fifth episode of our podcast series "Divided We Fall," in which Boyan Stanislavski, the Barricade's senior editor, and Pat Byrne, a historian and longtime socialist activist, discuss the plight of the contemporary Left and how to break out of the current rut. They've mentioned some of the fundamental issues in the first two episodes, the most fundamental of which is ideological weakness. The Left has largely abandoned its core values and distanced itself from historical events in which it played a pivotal role. Furthermore, it never went to the trouble of analyzing what was good and what was dysfunctional and downright stupid about the Soviet system or Western social-democratic trends. Pat and Boyan discussed suggestions for the Left's economic agenda as well as the issue of democratic public planning in the previous edition. In the following episode, they will discuss ownership, socialization, and democratic public management.