Bears R Awesome

In other holiday news, Polish bears -- who have a long history of being awesome -- continue to be awesome (hat tip to SpecGhost).

Even The Stones Weep

In the final twilight of the Eurasian energy-rent neoliberalisms and petro-colonialisms, Syrian artist Nizar Ali Badr transforms the very stones into testimony.

Year of the Witcher: Yanis of Rivia Triumphs

We said before that 2015 is the Year of the Witcher -- the moment that three decades of pent-up anti-neoliberal resistance erupt, with tectonic force, into collective innovation.

In a referendum this Sunday, the people of Greece voted by a landslide 61% to 39% to reject neoliberal austerity.

Europe's neoliberal elites have preached the virtues of austerity for six long years. Their policies have failed. The  335 million citizens of the eurozone are now 3% poorer, on average, than they were in 2007. Rates of investment in the eurozone are crashing to all-time lows, while economic growth is nonexistent. Nowhere is the crisis worse than Greece, which has fallen into a catastrophic economic depression.

If this is success, one shudders to think of what failure is supposed to look like.

On Sunday, the ordinary people of Greece -- humble clerks and cashiers, drivers and cooks, students and teachers, farmers and civil servants -- proved wiser than Europe's elites. They voted against neoliberal austerity, but for European solidarity. To paraphrase the inimitable Yanis Varoufakis, their resounding NO to the financial despotism of the eurobanksters is a YES to the democratic union of all Europeans. Greece can and will pay back its loans, but first it needs debt restructuring and a return to growth.

After the vote, Varoufakis gracefully resigned his post as Finance Minister, a political gesture of goodwill towards the other finance ministers of the Eurogroup -- the folks who, after all is said and done, must sit down and work out an agreement with Greece. Varoufakis' stint very much a  real-life version of one of CD Projekt Red's witcher contracts -- the hunting and taking down of the Euro-Minotaur, that grievously wounded but still-dangerous beast which has devastated economy after economy. One must say, Yanis took down the beast with epic precision.

Now comes the time of Ciri-style mass insurrection, as the people of Europe battle against the White Frost of Neoliberalism.

The Eurozone Crisis: Three Charts, One Solution

The European Union's common currency, the euro, has been in trouble for years. The problem, in a nutshell, is that the euro is a financial union between 19 countries, but not yet a fiscal union between those countries.

Why does this matter? Here in the US, we have 50 states which share a single currency, the dollar. It works because wealthier states like California pay more to the Federal government than less wealthy states like Mississippi. That means Mississippi can pay for its schools, infrastructure and healthcare, enabling its children to grow up and get good-paying jobs at Apple and Google, so it all works out. When an economic downturn comes, the Federal government steps in with deficit spending, enabling the 50 states to pay their bills. Everyone shares the burdens, everyone reaps the rewards.

Not so in Europe's eurozone. Its 19 participating countries share a currency, but there's no European equivalent of the Federal government to backstop the economy. When a downturn comes, the result is that the richest European countries (Germany, Netherlands, Finland) have the resources to recover, while the poorest countries (Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece) lack the cash -- and subsequently fall apart.

Here's an index of per capita real GDP growth in the Eurozone, Greece, and the US from 2003 to 2014 (i.e. adjusted for population growth and inflation):

Greece grew a bit faster than the rest of Europe from 2003-2007. But when the crisis of 2008 hit, the Greek economy collapsed into a Depression -- a 26.6% decline in its real GDP.

But what's scariest about this chart is not what happened to Greece, but the trendline for the Eurozone. Six years after the crisis, real per capita GDP in the eurozone is still 3% below its 2007 peak, precisely where real per capita GDP in the US is now 4% above its peak.

That's right, here in 2015, the 335 million people in the eurozone are, on average, still poorer than they were in 2007. You'd think six years of spectacular economic failure would cause the eurozone countries to rethink their policies, but no -- the Eurogroup is now demanding fresh austerity from Greece.

Why? Because when any national economy shrinks, governments have to run budget deficits (more money goes out than comes in). The problem is, when poorer countries in the eurozone have to pay the interest on their deficits, they have no fresh source of money to grow their economy. Austerity triggers more cuts, which trigger bigger government deficits, which trigger more austerity, in a never-ending spiral downward. This is what happened in the US during the Great Depression from 1929-1932 in the US, and the same thing has been happening in the eurozone. Here's the chart of national debt to GDP for Greece, the US, and the eurozone:

Blaming Greece for its debt is exactly like blaming a patient suffering from malaria for running a fever. The fever is the symptom, not the cause. The underlying problem is that the Depression has destroyed the viability of the Greek economy, preventing it from recovering. Here's the chart which explains why austerity has failed:

Investment (gross capital formation) is the motor of any modern economy. A country needs to invest at least 15% of its GDP just to maintain its basic capital stock, but needs to invest more if it wants to grow. US rates of investment took a hit during the recession, but recovered to respectable levels. But investment fell off a cliff in Greece. This is bad, because as long as its investment rate is this low, it will never, ever be able to pay its debts.

Regardless of what happens in Greece over the next week, this problem is not going away. In fact, it is going to get even worse (Joseph Stiglitz explains why). What's true for Greece is true for all the poorer eurozone countries, all of which are locked in a self-perpetuating cycle of austerity, stagnation, falling investment, and then more austerity. To borrow an apt metaphor from the field of nuclear fission, Greece's meltdown would trigger a chain reaction of defaults -- the meltdown of Portugal, then Spain, then Italy and Ireland, and ultimately the collapse of the entire eurozone economy.


Thankfully, there is a sensible alternative to catastrophe, an alternative has been proven to work in eighty years of US history.

Make the euro work for every eurozone citizen, just like the US dollar works for every US citizen.

The first step is investment. The EIB should immediately invest the equivalent of 3% of Greek GDP (just 7 billion EUR) in wind and solar energy, infrastructure, healthcare and education. Stabilize the Greek economy, enable it to recover, and then it will be able to pay its debts.

Next, extend this program to all the poorer nations of the eurozone. This will require an investment fund of about 150 billion EUR (that's about 3% of the roughly $5 trillion GDP of these countries).

This may sound like a lot of money. It isn't. The EIB has a rock-solid, triple A-rated balance sheet of 542 billion EUR, and 150 billion EUR is peanuts compared to the eurozone's $9.5 trillion economy. Remember, this isn't throwing good money after bad. This is putting idle savings to socially useful work, under the democratic supervision of the people of Europe. Get the eurozone growing again, and the euro will no be longer a deadly weapon of immiseration, but a benevolent engine of prosperity.

All in, nobody out.

It's as simple as that.

Seven Days In May...

...before the arrival of The Witcher 3.

The ground is shaking.

Light In the Neoliberal Darkness

MV Bill and Kamila CDD throw down in this epic track from 2014 (English subtitles available in SRT format). Where Putinism's ideology of imperial Russo-whiteness has devastated Russia's once-thriving hip hop scene, Brazil's anti-neoliberal resistance movements keep fighting.

Music From Mali

It is one of the central paradoxes of the early 21st century, that the lands most terribly scourged by neoliberalism have also been centers of the most extraordinary political resistance and cultural creativity.

Just listen to this gem by Malian artist Youssouf Karembe, called Ambaji (click here to support the artist). Also, shouts out to Baba Throbule for maintaining one of the finest music channels around.

53 Days...

...until The Witcher 3. The greatness: it manifests!

28 Years of Greatness: Here's To You, Hideo

Slorgzilla hereby serves notice of the extraordinary life and impending expiry of Metal Gear (born 1987, deceased December 2015), one of the greatest videogame franchises of all time.

Series mastermind Hideo Kojima, character artist Yoji Shinkawa, and a raft of other talented members of the Kojima Productions studio did more than almost single-handedly invent the stealth espionage genre while selling millions of copies to eight generations of finicky, discerning videogame fans.

Metal Gear bravely critiqued imperial wars, denounced power-mad plutocrats, and castigated the war machine of neoliberal consumerism during a time when most media franchises fell over themselves singing the praises of Wall Street banksters and Imperial warlords. Where other franchises shoveled out mediocre scriptwriting, sexist stereotypes, and slipshod game-play, Metal Gear gave us brilliant story-telling, strong and credible female characters, and exquisite game-play innovation. Where other franchises gloried in push-button mass murder, Metal Gear reveled in nonlethal takedowns. Where other franchises digitalized killing, Metal Gear digitalized mercy. Where other franchises told consumers what to think, Metal Gear told us to follow our own dreams.

But now this glorious tale has come to an end. Konami, the corporation which owns Metal Gear, has fired Kojima and his senior staff. The team will finish Metal Gear Solid 5 and release it this September, and then it's lights out.

As sad as it is to see an epoch close, Kojima and his crew are making the right move. Japanese neoliberalism, a.k.a. transnational capitalism, is as vicious, ruthless and self-destructive as any other capitalism. The main business of Konami, Kojima's employer, is operating casinos, and the firm has allowed its other videogame franchises to decline into obscurity and mediocrity.

It is high time for Kojima's crew to set sail on the seas of open source freedom. All the signs suggest MGS5 will be an extraordinary achievement in its own right, a worthy finale for one of the greatest aesthetic achievements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and Kojima will now have the creative freedom to go in entirely new directions.

Farewell, Kojima-san, we will never forget the fantastic stories you told...

...but hello, Captain KojiPro, dread scourge of neoliberal corporate drones, but stalwart scion to the digital commons! We, your loyal commonists, stand ready here in Outer Heaven, its digital girders torrented and minecrafted together from bits and pieces of 20th century media oligopolies and extinct one-party states. Onwards to the revolution of fan media!

Time for Europe to Get It Together

With a silver sword for the criminal Wall Street banksters, and a steel sword for the austerity-mad Minotaurists, Varoufakis of Rivia shows how its done.

68 Days...

...68 days, 23 hours, 10 minutes, 20 seconds... until The Witcher 3. You can already feel the waves of greatness begin to radiate throughout the universe.

The Nemtsovschina

Nemtsov has just been gunned down by a death squad literally meters from the Kremlin walls, in one of the most secure areas of Russia. He had ceased to be a significant political figure for decades, but Putinism has clearly decided to send a message.

Future historians will commemorate this as the beginning of the Nemtsovschina -- the application of open violence against anyone who dares to question the historic greatness of Russia's decrepit, failing petro-colonialism, a.k.a. the Huylo-garchy.

The professionals and intellectuals will begin to emigrate by the millions. Huylo will relaunch his war against Ukraine this spring. The Saudis will shrug their shoulders, and ensure that oil prices stay exactly where they are. The Russian economy will stagger on for another year, then implode completely once its foreign reserves run out (29% are gone already, and the punishing recession will quicken the drain). In the end, Russia will suffer a resounding military defeat at the hands of a retrained and reequipped Ukrainian army.

And then it's going to be 1917 all over again. Savor the geopolitical irony that Putin's fourth and final personal reinvention -- he transformed himself from KGB spook into Sobyak's bagman, to President of the oligarchs, to emperor of the Eurasian petro-colonialisms -- is going to be as Russia's Nicholas 2.0.

Alle Menschen Werden Brueder

That magic moment, when in the face of bloodshed, tears, the misery of neoliberal austerity and the wars of Eurasian neofascism, a different Europe, the people's Europe -- the Europe, in short, of the future -- at long last begins to unite. (Hat tip to Ukroblogger for the original link).

Victory for the People of Europe

It took all of Yanis Varoufakis' insight, shrewdness, and masterful media skills, it took all of Tsipras' political savvy and indomitable spirit, and it also took all of the Eurogroup's collective goodwill and understanding to compromise -- but a compromise was reached: the new Greek government has its bailout. The NY Times has the story here, and the Eurogroup statement is here.

 The agreement does three important things.

(1) It specifically acknowledges that austerity is no longer a policy option, by allowing Greece to run a much lower primary budget surplus in 2015 (the relevant quote: "The [European] institutions will, for the 2015 primary surplus target, take the [Greek] economic circumstances in 2015 into account. ") This removes the single biggest choke-point holding back the Greek economy.

(2) The document acknowledges that Greece will "...commit to refrain from any rollback of measures and unilateral changes to the policies and structural reforms that would negatively impact fiscal targets, economic recovery or financial stability, as assessed by the institutions." For the first time ever, economic recovery has been placed on an equal plane with fiscal and financial stability.

(3) Greece's restructuring will henceforth no longer be determined by dictates of the troika, but by the combined national governments of the EU, working in conjunction with the ECB, and with the direct input of the new Greek government itself. The institutions of Europe are going to start working for the 507 million people of Europe, instead of its wealthiest five hundred plutocrats.

As Varoufakis notes, Greece has finally been given the chance to take control of its own destiny. I have full confidence that he and his team will come up with a workable plan to turn Greece around -- a plan which will serve as an important blueprint for the larger project of transforming the euro from its current role as a deflationary quasi-gold standard, into a genuinely pro-growth, pro-innovation and pro-investment reserve currency.

It should be emphasized that Greece is NOT defaulting on any part of its debt. Quite the reverse: it is taking full responsibility for repaying that debt, and will work hard to root out the corruption and malfeasance of Greece's irresponsible oligarchic elites.

The geopolitical significance of this agreement cannot be overestimated. One of the most terrifying aspects of 2014 was watching the deflationary storm-winds unleashed by the eurocrisis begin to slam into the energy-dependent economies of northern Africa and Eurasia. The predictable result was a massive fall in oil prices, and a consequent rise in vicious, war-mongering Far Right political movements, ranging from Far Right parties inside the EU, to the transnational warlordism of the Daesh, to worrisome polarization inside Egypt and Yemen, all the way to the thuggish Russo-imperialism of Putinism.

What all of these extremist movements have in common is extreme self-destructiveness, combined with regressive, authoritarian fantasies of vanished national autarkies. Not one of these movements has a single credible solution to the challenges of our networked, interdependent 21st century. Rather than real solutions, their common goal is to spread enough bloodshed, chaos, and despair to justify the rule of their authoritarian leaders. The ultimate goal of these movements is nothing less than to transform the limited brushfire wars of Eurasia into apocalyptic, continent-devouring catastrophes.

The best antidote against this nightmare vision is not necessarily guns and bullets (though of course the Kurds of Syria and Iraq need military support, while eastern Ukraine needs a genuine and durable ceasefire -- a polite way of saying that if Putinism continues to shell and attack Ukraine, 10,000 TOW missiles and 30,000 radio handsets should be sent to Kiev posthaste), but the infinitely more powerful arsenal of peace, of democracy, and of hope.

Instead of continued disintegration, Europe has decided -- correctly -- that it needs further integration. Europe needs to grow together, to share its collective burdens, and to deepen and enrich its promising democracy.

Europe has decided, in short, on hope. That hope will translate into economic recovery, which will help stabilize Europe's geopolitical environs and prevent things from spiraling out of control.

This is just the first battle in what will be a long, slow process of transformation. But for the first time since the dawn of neoliberalism back in the mid-1970s, the human race can finally begin to dream of a world beyond austerity.

The Great Eurasian War Begins

Hundreds of soldiers have just died in and around Debaltsevo, a sleepy village in the Donbass of 2013. Most of them were Russians, sacrificed for a predatory Russo-imperialism which is now going to expand its colonial intervention into a full-scale war of continental conquest on all former Soviet territories. A much smaller number were Ukrainians, who were simply defending their homeland.

*      *      *      *      *      *
 It's genuinely painful to write these words, but all the evidence suggests this is just the beginning of a bloody and terrible imperial war by Russo-imperialism to reconstitute its lost empire, a war which will consume hundreds of thousands of lives. Unlike the US invasion of Iraq, which primarily damaged Iraq and only secondarily damaged the US economy (though the war's $3 trillion in costs is nothing to sneeze at), the consequences of this war will be most catastrophic for Russia itself.

However, there are two other casualties lying on the cold, snowy ground worth recording.

The first casualty is the EU's foreign policy. This foreign policy consists, in a nutshell, of the EU's commercial elites agreeing to overlook the thuggishness and criminality of the energy-rent kleptocracies of northern Africa and Eurasia, in exchange for the latters' adherence to neoliberal economic orthodoxy. The EU has consistently put its profits above the people of Eurasia, just as it has put its banksters above the people of Europe.

Well, the EU's neoliberal foreign policy has now officially expired. The reeking stench of its corpse needs to be buried, along with any illusions about the aggressive Eurasian fascisms -- the list ranges from the Daesh to Putinism -- Euroliberalism's avarice and cupidity helped spawn, in much the same way the avarice and stupidity of of early 20th century British and French imperialism (in particular, the genius move of pursuing austerity during a Depression) facilitated the various fascist regimes of Central Europe and Japan.

But that's just the first casualty. The second and more painful casualty, and one that needs to be buried not with contempt and loathing, but with reverence and dignity, is what might be called the beautiful myth of the Maidan. This is the notion that the People -- an amorphous group of individuals, with no other affiliation or identity -- can come together to create forms of solidarity which transcend economics and politics. This was also the central fiction of the Arab Spring mobilizations, every one of which showcased the self-expression of the People in new and creative ways. The People did indeed speak, and openly expressed their wish for political, economic and cultural democracy. But building that democracy means the hard work of constructing the commons. That requires energy, persistence, fortitude, and above all, the tools of critical historical and cultural thinking. The end of illusions is the beginning of the struggle for genuine freedom.

*      *      *      *      *      *

As for the military side of Debaltsevo, it should be noted that Ukraine has been mobilizing for six months, and had sufficient time and resources to defend its lines against not more than 5,000 attacking soldiers. There was no military defeat per se of Ukraine's forces, there was a political decision to accept Putinism's latest land-grab as the price of Minsk 2.

Alas, Minsk 2 will not bring peace, any more than Minsk 1 did. As usual, Putinism is already drawing all the wrong lessons from its costly victory (over the past month and a half, Russian units took six to eight times as many casualties as Ukraine, and Ukraine's infantry units fought well, despite the abysmally incompetent leadership of its top commanders, 99% of who need to be immediately pensioned off). But that's not the deeper problem. The deeper problem is that the neoliberal swine leading the European Union to economic and political disaster are not serious about helping Ukraine. Putin is not terribly bright, but he and Russia's ruling elites are entirely serious about reinstituting the Russian empire (foreign conquests = more resources for them to steal).

From an ideological standpoint, the war will continue because Putinism cannot comprehend that 43 million Ukrainians exist and do not want to be Russian citizens. Whenever Ukraine does anything Putinism doesn't like -- which is practically everything it does nowadays -- the war will begin anew.  There will be constant attacks, constant provocations, constant bloodshed. The Donbass will be slowly blasted into rubble, village by village, town by town. The only thing which would change this calculus is significant EU military assistance, which would raise the cost of Putinism's invasion to the point that cold peace becomes preferable to hot war. Barring such assistance, the killing and the slow annexation of Ukrainian territory will go on.

The people of Ukraine will now begin to realize they've been sold out like cattle, all because the banksters plunging Europe into ruination care more about charging the Russian plutocrats service fees for the hundreds of billions the latter launders every year than about safeguarding human life. This realization will trigger the wrath of ordinary Ukrainians, but it will also trigger an opportunity: the opportunity for a different Europe.

I know many Ukrainians will disagree with me here, but I don't buy the argument that the defeat should be blamed on President Poroshenko. All the evidence suggests Poroshenko is a genuine patriot and doing all he can to win victory. It is true that he did make one mistake, but it is a mistake millions of other Ukrainians made: he genuinely believed that the European Union was a transnational democracy willing to support other democracies, rather than the corrupt club of Eurorentiers, banksters, corporate lobbyists, and sado-monetarists it currently is.

That other, different Europe still needs to be constructed, through direct, people-to-people solidarity, through contact and dialogue, and through the complete and total rejection of neoliberal austerity. The struggle of the people of Greece against Euroliberalism is also the struggle of the people of Ukraine against Russo-imperialism and Ukraine's indigenous oligarchy, and the struggle of the people of Egypt against its military-tinged kleptocracy is also the struggle of the people of Germany against eurozone austerity.

Either we have a post-neoliberal Europe, united and at peace -- or a neofascist Europe in bloody pieces.

There is no third way.

Time to choose.

The Eurasian Revolutions: Daesh On the Run, Putinism Has Its First Military Defeat

The Kurds have been fighting like hell, freeing Kobane from the execrable Daesh and retaking about 160 Kurdish villages across northern Syria. Meanwhile the Assadists are on the ropes in Deraa province, as the FSA closes the vice-grip on Assad's ever-shrinking pool of Alawites and Shiites.

In other news, Putinism suffered its very first military defeat. For the past month, about 10,000 Russian soldiers without official insignia -- but armed with hundreds of official Russian tanks, APCs, artillery pieces and infinite amounts of ammunition -- assaulted Ukraine's ceasefire lines in Donbas.  These were the same ceasefire lines Russia had agreed to in the September 2014 Minsk agreement, and no, Ukraine didn't violate the ceasefire first. The Putinists really do believe in their own lunatic propaganda, and figured two divisions of soldiers could drive the Ukes (this is the racist term they use for Ukrainians, never mind the fact that Ukraine's Slavic culture is more Russian than petroleum-drunk-Russia itself these days) all the way to Kiev.

They got nowhere. The Ukrainians were ready, and counterattacked efficiently. Hundreds of Russian vehicles were destroyed, and at least a thousand Russian soldiers were killed and a couple thousand were wounded. Ukraine's losses were dozens of vehicles, three hundred dead and a thousand wounded. (This is data from the professional military analysts who have proved, over the course of the past year, that they genuinely know what they're talking about).

This is an astonishingly good performance for a Ukrainian army which did not exist a year ago. Since August 2014, Ukraine has been fighting smart, by avoiding the use of mass infantry against armored units, employing its own tank forces, using its own low-cost drones, and using its extremely capable artillery wisely.

Ukraine was so confident, it sent its Azov unit to recapture some villages in the south of the occupied region. These villages were on the Ukrainian side of the original ceasefire line, and were illegally occupied by Russian forces. The villages were quickly freed with almost no Ukrainian casualties, while the Russian occupiers got clobbered.

Now another ceasefire has been signed and seems to be holding, for the moment. The frontlines have not significantly changed since the first ceasefire, which means Putinism's offensive was completely and utterly futile.

Why did Putinism throw so many lives away? What on earth were they thinking? It's actually quite simple. Putinism is running out of oil money, time, and legitimacy. Their only hope was a series of quick, fast and cheap military victories -- a series of shocks to paper over the lack of awe. Ukraine, on the other hand, needs time -- time to fully reequip and retrain its army, which will be fully mobilized by this summer, time to resupply that army with effective military vehicles (the arms factories are working overtime), and time to crack down on the corruption strangling Ukraine's economy.

Putin himself revealed the truth, by commenting that Ukraine was being supported by a "NATO legion" in Donbass. No such legion exists, of course, but the lie reveals something true: Putin is completely unable to comprehend the strength of a free army of free citizens, fighting for their homeland.

I am extremely impressed by the ordinary Ukrainian soldiers who stepped up their game, and stopped Putinism's final desperate throw of the military dice cold. The officer corps still needs improvement, though to be fair they have to work with Soviet-era equipment and inferior logistics, and many of the new volunteer officers performed well. Ukraine's logistics and medical services have also drastically improved, with their helicopters now serving as true medevacs, significantly reducing the death count. 

In the long term, Putinism has hopelessly screwed itself. The war remains deeply unpopular with ordinary Russians, who do NOT want to die for Putin's crazed and idiotic Novorossiya. Putinism could not even dent the frontlines of a partly-mobilized Ukraine with 30,000 of Russia's best-trained soldiers, and Russia has only 70,000 additional such trained soldiers in its entire arsenal. (Russian conscripts can't be used. They would desert en masse, 1917-style.)

Nor can Russia easily use its only ace card, namely its air force -- the EU has finally had it with Putinism's antics, and has made it clear that an open Russian invasion will trigger a devastating trade embargo, sanctions, military assistance, and an immediate US-EU no-fly zone.

Game over, Putin.

Two Videos

What all human beings must fight for: heroic pilot Nadiya Savchenko (make sure subtitles are on), a Ukrainian soldier kidnapped inside Ukraine and then jailed in Russia on bogus charges by sleazoid mass-murdering Kremlin gangsters, speaks the truth.

What all human beings must fight against: Putinism's latest excrescence (make sure subtitles are on). This little gem is entirely typical of prime-time Russian television these days, and accurately expresses what Putinism truly is: the open war of the plutocrats on 7.2 billion human beings.

Year of the Witcher: We Weren't Kidding

My photoshop/Gimp skills are nonexistent, so if there's someone out there who can do a better version, by all means do so. But here's my take on Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's new Minister of Economics:

Eating Well In the Year of the Witcher

Amidst their epic quest to defeat the minions of Neoliberalism, two of our fearless-but-far-from-solvent adventurers, Chimpu (a recent graduate of primate studies at the Miami Zoo) and Babykuma (fourteenth second cousin of Monokuma), took the time to decorate a melon with ancient magical glyphs of stunning power:

After dispatching the melon, it was on to partake of this luscious waterfowl, baked to holiday perfection:

Onwards to yum!

From Neoliberal Despair to Transnational Hope

After five long years of torment in the Hades of neoliberalism, the long-suffering people of Greece have gone Kratos on the Greek oligarchy. On Sunday, Syriza won a smashing election victory, forever transforming the field of political possibility.

Plutocracy, austerity and the Minotaurism of the billionaires lost. Democracy, solidarity and the 510 million people of Europe won.

I've never mentioned this in public before, because I didn't want to jinx anything, but now I can tell y'all that since February 2014 I've been deeply worried about the fallout of Minotaurism (the EU's neoliberal austerity policies) on the countries of northern Africa and Eurasia. Both regions are in a massive economic crisis, due to their dependence on an obsolete energy-rent model of accumulation, and another year of EU austerity might well have sparked a regional regression into outright fascism. The canary in the mine was the speed with which Putinism degenerated from the ideology of petro-neoliberalism into a lunatic regional imperialism which is killing thousands of people. Now just imagine the carnage if ten other countries across Eurasia all went mini-Huylo, all at once. It's a prospect too horrible to contemplate.

To make a long story short, Syriza's victory gives the antineoliberal social movements of northern African and Eurasia the crucial economic and political breathing-space they need to combat their own indigenous revanchisms and neo-imperialisms. If there's one thing to be learned from history, it's that the biggest of social outcomes can flow from the tiniest of political margins. The people of Greece have given the social movements of the EU, Eurasia and Africa that additional margin.

The Year of the Witcher: January

The first twenty days of this epic year are already epic.

Syriza is rocking the Eurozone.

On January 11, the EU had some of the biggest citizen demonstrations in its history.

Ukrodemocracy continues to thrash Putinism.

Kurdistan is crushing the Daesh.

Even Obama has noticed the trend, with a spate of leaks indicating that his 2015 State of the Union address will call for taxing the 0.1% and spending on us hard-working middle-class citizens.

You. Ain't. Seen. Nothing. Yet.