thebarricade

“On the Barricades” s06e56 In this three-part release of this week’s “On the Barricades”, hosts Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski invite back Pat Byrne, the UK-born, Brazil-based political analyst, author, and historian of the European left who is currently writing a book, “Why China will lead the world and what it could look like.” Inspired by Maria’s article* on “Socialism with Romanian Characteristics”, a phrase lifted from China, Pat wanted to provide us with an understanding of China’s planned economy and how it works– in comparison to Romania and also Bulgaria, which we get to in part 2. How did Eastern European economies in the socialist republics balance between market and centralization pressures, and what can we learn from the experience and current reality of China? In Part 3, we get to the question of what is to be done now, to possibly bring back the advantages of the economic models of the socialist period and to not repeat the mistakes of the past? The hosts weigh in on what would be priorities for Eastern Europe in terms of fundamental change in structuring the energy sector, agriculture, the army, and in terms of geopolitical orientation? *https://thebarricade.substack.com/p/socialism-with-romanian-characteristics

“On the Barricades” s06e55 In this three-part release of this week’s “On the Barricades”, hosts Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski invite back Pat Byrne, the UK-born, Brazil-based political analyst, author, and historian of the European left who is currently writing a book, “Why China will lead the world and what it could look like.” Inspired by Maria’s article* on “Socialism with Romanian Characteristics”, a phrase lifted from China, Pat wanted to provide us with an understanding of China’s planned economy and how it works– in comparison to Romania and also Bulgaria, which we get to in part 2. How did Eastern European economies in the socialist republics balance between market and centralization pressures, and what can we learn from the experience and current reality of China? In Part 3, we get to the question of what is to be done now, to possibly bring back the advantages of the economic models of the socialist period and to not repeat the mistakes of the past? The hosts weigh in on what would be priorities for Eastern Europe in terms of fundamental change in structuring the energy sector, agriculture, the army, and in terms of geopolitical orientation? *https://thebarricade.substack.com/p/socialism-with-romanian-characteristics

“On the Barricades” s06e54 In this three-part release of this week’s “On the Barricades”, hosts Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski invite back Pat Byrne, the UK-born, Brazil-based political analyst, author, and historian of the European left who is currently writing a book, “Why China will lead the world and what it could look like.” Inspired by Maria’s article* on “Socialism with Romanian Characteristics”, a phrase lifted from China, Pat wanted to provide us with an understanding of China’s planned economy and how it works– in comparison to Romania and also Bulgaria, which we get to in part 2. How did Eastern European economies in the socialist republics balance between market and centralization pressures, and what can we learn from the experience and current reality of China? In Part 3, we get to the question of what is to be done now, to possibly bring back the advantages of the economic models of the socialist period and to not repeat the mistakes of the past? The hosts weigh in on what would be priorities for Eastern Europe in terms of fundamental change in structuring the energy sector, agriculture, the army, and in terms of geopolitical orientation? *https://thebarricade.substack.com/p/socialism-with-romanian-characteristics

“On the Barricades” s06e53 On this weekend’s release of “On the Barricade”, host Maria Cernat invites Joe Tripician, an American Emmy-award-winning filmmaker with very interesting Balkan connections. In 1997 Joe accepted a job to write the "official" biography of the president of Croatia, Franjo Tudjman. He had to decide whether to write what the Croatian government wanted and help the president escape a war crimes indictment, or to tell the truth and become an enemy of the State. He shares his personal experience of being a paid propagandist for a Balkan war criminal– which lends some insights and reflection on the workings of the Croatian state propaganda campaign after the break-up of Yugoslavia and a bloody fratricidal war. Joe wrote about his experiences in the book “Balkanized at Sunrise” which is soon to become a documentary, “I Was a Paid Propagandist”, linked below. Book: https://www.amazon.com/Balkanized-at-Sunrise-Joe-Tripician/dp/0557494516/ Documentary: https://www.thefilmcollaborative.org/fiscalsponsorship/projects/iwasapaidpropagandist Joe’s website https://joetripician.com

“On the Barricades” s06e50 On this second release of the weekend, the hosts of “On the Barricades”, Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski, turn to the political systems of Poland and Bulgaria. There is a major theme in Western coverage of the political process in these countries that operates on the premise that, yes, liberal democracy is not working as it’s supposed to here— take that Bulgaria just had its 5th round of parliamentary elections in 2 years in attempt to form an elected government — but also that somehow, the electorate of the countries is the problem in that they somehow consent to “authoritarian” or non-democratic rule. The threat of fascism is often brought up to depict the process taking place when the pro-capitalist liberal elites can’t keep their grasp on power or provide stable governance. The question is why the so-called “democracy” fails in these countries— due to underlying historical and systemic economic, institutional failure. Why does this convince many people that there’s no point in voting? And, how do authoritarian-branded political entities— like Borisov’s GERB regime in Bulgaria or Kaczyński’s Law and Justice party in Poland, or even the unelected technocratic governments Bulgaria has seen in the last years— enjoy the popular support they do? We can make sense of these questions given a party system where parties represent competing oligarchic interests completely divorced from the people they’re supposed to serve, where the opposition is in the hands of petty elites who seem to hate the majority of the voting base, and the so-called Left sells out time and time again. From this perspective, democracy in these countries looks like a rivalry between bad and worse imposed rule— and the attitude of the voter base reflects just this.

“On the Barricades” s06e49 Two recent incidents of teacher abuse in the Romanian school system— one on April 5 at an elite high school in Bucharest where a student stabbed a teacher who announced a test, and one on April 7 involving sexual harassment of a teacher in a rural school— are the basis of today’s discussion of structural causes for the breakdown of relations and lowering of learning conditions in the capitalist approach to public education. Hosts Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski discuss the philosophy and aims of the current education system compared to that of the socialist schooling system: protecting student “freedom” and hyper-individualism vs discipline; the status of students as clients in a per-student funding model, and the issue of including (formally, versus with real state investment) of students with special needs.