Arno Kempynck

fan van o.a. @HARTBOVENHARD1, @Het_Bos en @mousadembele

[Pinar Akbas @AkbasPinar1980]

De strijders voor de vrijheid van meningsuiting zijn best wel een tikkeltje lichtgeraakt.

[Vijay Prashad @vijayprashad]

Gaza City, 1934.

[Natan Hertogen @natanhertogen]

VOKA kent niets van sociale geschiedenis.
3 van de 4 curves verbeteren pas echt na 1900.
Omdat pas dat de arbeidersbeweging sterk genoeg staat om sociale wetten en welvaart af te dwingen.
Niks geen weldaden van het kapitalisme ...

[Ive Marx @IveMarx]

Een persoon of familie die minstens 20 procent van de aandelen in een vennootschap heeft geniet een belastingvrije voet van 1 miljoen euro meerwaarde, in plaats van 10.000 (+ 5000) euro.

Een solidariteitsbijdrage op de sterkste schouders, behalve de allersterkste. Zoiets?

[Vijay Prashad @vijayprashad]

Vivas to @ZohranKMamdani, the next mayor of New York City. His middle name is Kwame, after Nkrumah - the great Pan-African. Son of the Indian filmmaker Mira Nair and Ugandan intellectual Mahmood Mamdani, Zohran is a democratic socialist who is committed to a programme of humanity. Onward!

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

"Netanyahu attacked Iran not to prevent a nuclear weapon but to prevent a nuclear agreement."

This statement - which is clearly correct - was just made by Carl Bildt, Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, and Former Prime Minister of Sweden

[Mohammad Alsaafin @malsaafin]

Next year, the FIFA World Cup will be hosted in a country where masked state agents kidnap people off the street and disappear them for opposing genocide.

[Ico Maly @IcoMaly]

Democratie is macht en tegenmacht zegt @JosDHaese op @deafspraaktv. Volgens @bartschols is dat een ‘opinie’. Zo erg is het dus gesteld met onze democratische cultuur. De meest evidente waarheid over democratie wordt vandaag op onze meerwaardezender gewoon zonder schaamte in vraag gesteld. Deprimerende tijden.

[Jan Busselen @JanBusselen]

Historisch! Het Brussels Parlement keurt onze PVDA-resolutie goed voor sancties tegen Israël, met de steun van de Vooruit en Groen. Einde van wapenvergunningen, stopzetting van economische missies en schrapping van subsidies voor bedrijven die medeplichtig zijn aan de kolonisatie

[Seppe De Meulder @SeppeDeMeulder]

“De geneigdheid om de rijken en machtigen te bewonderen en bijna te aanbidden en mensen in armoedige en nederige omstandigheden te verachten of op zijn minst te veronachtzamen vormt de grootste en algemeenste oorzaak van de ontaarding van onze morele gevoelens”

Adam Smith

[Peter Mertens MP @peter_mertens]

We moeten het hebben over de oorlog tegen de Democratische Republiek Congo. Een vuile oorlog om mineralen. Uitgevoerd door het M23-rebellenleger, gesteund door Rwanda, gesteund door Westerse machten. (1/4)

[Samantha Rose Hill @Samantharhill]

"Businessmen became politicians and were acclaimed as statesmen, while statesmen were taken seriously only if they talked the language of successful businessmen."

— Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

[Jan Busselen @JanBusselen]

Brussel zit echt met een gigantisch probleem. Steeds meer mensen moeten een enorm deel van hun loon afstaan voor hun huur. Betere regulering vd huurmarkt en meer publieke woningen zijn broodnodig. https://t.co/ZtSe2znD05

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Racism is not a strong enough word for this garbage. Openly saying there should be one rule for white people and another for the rest of the world is apartheid, pure and simple. We've had 500 years of this colonial ideology and it must be destroyed.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

All the takes are correct and yet they also miss the point.

Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it.  It is enraging that the Democrats are so smug and blind to this.

But these are all just symptoms.  The deeper reality is that liberalism has failed, liberalism is dead, and people urgently need to wake up to this fact and respond accordingly. It is a defunct ideology that cannot offer any meaningful solutions to our social and ecological crises and it must be abandoned.

Democrats have proven over and over again that they cannot accept even *basic* steps like public healthcare, affordable housing, and a public job guarantee - things that would dramatically improve the material, social and political conditions of the working classes. And they cannot accept a public finance strategy that would steer production away from fossil fuels and toward green transition to give us a shot at a liveable future.

Why? Because these things run against the objectives of capital accumulation. And for liberals capital is sacrosanct. They will do whatever it takes to ensure elite accumulation, it is their only consistent commitment.  At home, they suppress and demonize progressive and socialist tendencies. Abroad, they engage in endless wars and violence to suppress input prices in the global South and prevent any possibility of sovereign economic development.

The Democrats have done all this purposefully and knowingly, for my whole life, not as some kind of "mistake" but in full consciousness that it is in the interests of capital.

And because liberalism cannot address our crises, and because it crushes socialist alternatives, it inevitably paves the way for right-wing populism.  They know this pattern, and yet they risk it every time - this election being only the most recent example. They did it in 2016, when they actively crushed the Sanders campaign and sent Trump to the White House. They do it because ultimately they (and I mean the liberal ruling class here) don't really mind if fascists take power, so long as the latter too ensure the conditions for capital accumulation. They 100% prefer this to the possibility of a socialist alternative.

So, progressives have to face reality. The dream of "converting" the Democratic party is dead. This is now a fact and it must be accepted. The only option is to build a mass-based movement that can reclaim the working classes and mobilize a political vehicle that can integrate disparate progressive struggles into a unified and formidable political force and achieve substantive transformation. This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now.

[Loonis Logghe @LLogghe]

Oostende.
Sint-Truiden.
Zelzate.
Gent.

Overal plaatsen waar Vooruit initiatiefrecht had en een progressieve(re) coalitie kon vormen, maar kiest voor N-VA.

Zo lang @conner_rousseau voorzitter is, is een stem voor @vooruit_nu krak hetzelfde als één voor N-VA.