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Ah, the #EuropeanParliamentElection knocks at the door! Let’s see who is #campaigning for what…In #Italy, a #rightwingcoalition calls for a #guaranteedincome, #largerpensions, and resistance to the heavy-handed #austerityprograms enforced by the #EuropeanUnion. 
In #France, some #rightwinggroups champion #fight against #climatechange, decry #exploitation of #foreignworkers, growing #economicinequality. What about the #centerright and #centerleft parties? #Polls show they will lose their #majority, and the Euroskeptics bag 30+% of seats.
However, #Euroskeptic, like #populist, is a term that obscures more than it reveals. #Spain’s leftist #Podemos isn’t likely to break bread with #Italy’s rightist #NorthernLeague-#M5S, but both are considered #Euroskeptic. Some are really #wolves but wear #sheepskins.
#Podemos, along with #Greece’s #Syriza, #Portugal’s three party #centerleftalliance, and #LaFranceInsoumise are critical of the #EU’s #economicpolicies, but they do not share an agenda with #xenophobic and #racist parties like the #M5S, France’s #NationalFront, and #AfD.
In #Italy, @MarioSalvini says the #EUelections will be fought between a #Europe “of the #elites, of #banks, of #finance and #immigration and precarious work,” and a “Europe of #people and #labor.” Take out #immigrants and the #demagogy of the #Right sounds a lot like #KarlMarx.
In #France, young #rightwingers put out an #environmentalmagazine, @Limite, which wars against #climatechange. @LePen rails against #individualism and #globaleconomy that ‘enslaves’ #foreignlabor and casts #Frenchworkers on the #scrapheap. She also trashes #immigrants and #Islam.
#Spain is a case in point of the ravages of #austerity. In #France, which still has a fairly robust network of #socialservices, #economicdisparity is on the rise. Scenario was different from 1950 to 1982 than after 1983 when #neoliberaleconontmics entered #Europe decreasing...
The recovery has come through #systematiclowering of #livingstandards rather than relying on cheap #foreignlabor in places where #tradeunions are absent or suppressed, and the #educated, #efficient home grown #laborforce forced to accept #lowerwages and fewer, if any, #benefits.
The #outcome is growing #impoverishment of the #middleclass, who are between 23-40% of EU households. For #youngpeople, the ‘#neweconomy’ has been a #catastrophe. More and more of them are forced to #emigrate or live at home to make ends meet, putting off #marriage and #children.
This #incomecrunch is adding to a #demographiccrisis. The countries that lead the #crusade against #immigrants, #Hungary, #Poland, #Italy, are in particular trouble. Hungary made #immigration a central issue for its #rightwinggovernment, is struggling with a major #laborshortage.
In #Italy, the #rightwing #NorthernLeague-#M5S coalition rode #antiimmigrant rhetoric to power but the country is losing the equivalent of the #population of the city of #Bologna every three years.
All one has to do to see where this ends is to look at #Japan, where an #agingpopulation has created such a #crisis that the normally #immigrationrestrictiveJapanese are #importing #healthcareworkers. #China has similar #demographicproblems.
Playing on #fears of a #migrant ‘#invasion’ alarms people, but is it an assured #votegetter? In recent #Germanelections, the #AfD ran strong #antiimmigrantcampaigns but ended up losing badly to the #Greens, who have a more welcoming posture vis-à-vis migrants than even the #SPD.
Much was made of recent #electoralgains by the #antiimmigrant, #neofascist #VoxParty in #Spain’s #Andalusia, but if it shuts down the flow of #migrants, it'll be in #difficulty, as the country’s pop has declined since 2012, and more than 1500 #smalltowns have been #abandoned!
Most ‘#liberals’ in the west associate the term with #freedom, #democracy, and #opensocieties, but people in EU experience #liberalism as #individualism that dismantled #socialservices, widened the gap between #rich and #poor, and enforced a system of draconian #austerity.
Of course #Orban, @marinelepen, @matteosalvinimi, and #AfD are interested in #power, not the #plight of the #EU’s 500 million #citizens. And for all its talk of resistance, the #NorthernLeague-#M5S government folded when the EU nixed its #guaranteedincome and higher #pensions.
Global #migration is on the #rise as #climatechange drowns #coastlines and #riverdeltas and #drought drives people out of #aridclimates in the #MiddleEast, #Africa, #SouthAsia, and #LatinAmerica, which argues that the #Left and #centerleft must have a #responsibility.
For the #Right, it's useful to recall some #history. The #NaziParty struck a #medal that read ‘#TagDerArbeit’ and featured a #Nazi eagle grasping a #swastika, each wing tip embracing a #hammer and a #sickle. But the first #victims of the #Nazis were #communists, #tradeunionists!
