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Month: November 2024

Irish Election 2024: A Preview

A Left Government may still be too elusive to be the final nail for Civil War politics


29/11/2024

With the 2024 election in the Republic of Ireland taking place this Friday, the insights of someone not living there and unable to vote are actually a testament to one of the prevailing features of Irish life – emigration. Even if the current waves of people leaving take on the distinct characteristics of the past, its causes still highlight some of the main issues at stake in this election. While before, young Irish people were leaving the island in search of work and prosperity, those leaving today are doing so more out of choice than desperation, although a certain amount of desperation still exists.

Irish young people are better educated and earn more than ever before, but their rates of home ownership are lower than any previous generation. With a very low number of apartments, and a high proportion of precarious rental arrangements, home ownership has historically been a goal for many young Irish people, even marking the full transition to adulthood. Many have joked that committing to a mortgage is a bigger decision than the commitment to marriage. This will be the third election in a row where housing is a key factor in voters’ calculations going into the polls. It seems as if land has become the leading social issue in Ireland once again.

With house and rent prices rising and not looking set to slow down any time soon, even the well-educated and those with good jobs find it difficult to pay these prices. Those earning between €50,000 and €100,000 cannot afford to buy a home.  Many who were living in Dublin decided that if they were going to pay London-level rents, they may as well be in London. Many others have moved to Australia or have committed to saving for their own place while still living at home with their parents. Emigration rose to 70,000 in 2024, the highest level since 2015. Almost half of these emigrants were between 25 and 44 years old, the age when people would normally be expected to buy their first home.

Every political party has their own plan for housing, although the reliability of their ambitions is still to be tested. The reliability of Fine Gael, a member of the ruling coalition, has however already been tested, seeing it struggle to provide an answer. A recent statement by leader Simon Harris said his government would commit €40 billion to build 300,000 homes. Some quick division shows that this means about €130,000 per house, at least €200,000 below the current national average house price, not even accounting for the higher prices in the areas where these houses need to be built.

While the previous depressing news that Fine Gael were doing well in the polls has subsided, it is remarkable how resilient the party is after being in power since 2011. This will warrant an in-depth post-election analysis. Their distinction from the other party in the ruling coalition, Fianna Fáil, has become so minor that even establishment politicians are starting to see their collaboration as a clever double act. Just as in 2016, after a term of government working in tandem, the two parties now try to make the election about how completely different they are from each other, while claiming that the main opposition party, Sinn Féin, can’t be trusted. At least one of these two parties has served in every government in Ireland since the founding of the state. But neither of the two “Civil War” parties are able to form a government on their own anymore, fuelling hope for those seeking progressive change, and possibly a left-wing government.

Since 2016, this beacon has been provided by Sinn Féin who, after an extended period in opposition, have increasingly been marketing themselves as a moderate centrist party to court middle-class voters. Far-right protestors are blaming them for a conflicting stance on immigration. This is what many analysts use to explain their poor performance in the last local elections. That said, it is potentially a good thing for the party that this reactionary element of their support base seems to have vacated it.

A common feature of past coalitions in Ireland is that the smallest party in government takes a severe beating in the next election. This was true for the Greens in 2011 and Labour in 2016 (just the most recent example of such a beating for them). This does not seem to be the case this time around, with the Green party still polling around 4% along with the other social democratic parties, Labour and the Social Democrats, whose differences are so small that it has often come up that they should merge.

Due to the quirks of the Irish electoral system, voters often express preferences between individuals. You can even vote for which candidate within a political party you prefer. This has often led to entertaining infighting from party members who share a constituency, but also produces independent candidates and small parties campaigning on local issues. About 20% of the Irish parliament is made up of these “Independents and Others”. While it may seem ridiculous for “parish politics” to have a national audience, given local government’s toothlessness, it does serve at least one purpose. It can lead to genuinely progressive views getting a place in the national legislature, for example in the form of People Before Profit. At the same time, it can also lead to embarrassing displays from millionaires cosplaying as local heroes fighting for the little man up in Dublin (see the Healy-Raes).

Given that most of the far-right tendencies are coming in the form of these independent candidates or small party groupings, there is no immediate cause for concern about a far-right takeover of the parliament. But recent riots and protests in Dublin still loom large, and the threat is not to be taken lightly.

There has been much discussion of a “left government” coalition, led by Sinn Féin and supported by the other left parties and left-leaning independents. Given Sinn Féin’s moves towards the centre, joining them would be a risky move for any leftwing party hoping to maintain its position in the parliament as a defender of radical alternatives. Voicing strong opposition and representing the activist left is a serious position held by parties like People Before Profit and independent candidates like Clare Daly, and should not be traded in lightly for a few junior ministries. A step into government to wage tireless battles with centrist politicians would risk undermining this.

Regardless of who comes out on top in the election, or who forms a coalition, the housing and cost of the living crisis is so dire and plans to solve it so ambitious that they would require a vast amount of external pressure for any government and bureaucracy to act accordingly. After the vote on Friday, those seeking change will need to stay active and demand what they voted for through direct action and public protest. These problems cannot wait another five years for your say. 

Austerity in Berlin: Fighter Jets Instead of Electric Busses

Austerity is going to hit us all like an SUV plowing into a pedestrian. The cuts serve to finance militarism.


27/11/2024

Austerity is going to hit us all like an SUV plowing into a pedestrian. Berlin’s government, the Senat formed by the conservative CDU and the social democratic SPD, has agreed to a budget for 2025 with three billion euros in cuts. As rbb reports, everything in the city is going to get worse:

  • the transportation budget will be cut by 660 million euros. Soon, a monthly train ticket will go from €29 to €71 — an increase of almost 250%. The “social ticket” for unemployed people will more than double in price, from €9 to €19.
  • this also means that big investments in public transport, like new tram lines and electric busses, will be cancelled. 
  • new bike lanes will also be cancelled — even though they barely cost anything.
  • another 350 million euros are being cut from education, youth, and family programs. This means schools will have fewer, and worse paid, teachers, as their facilities continue to crumble. Day care is already in crisis, and will only get worse.
  • some 40 percent will be cut from programs against gender-based violence, including women’s shelters.
  • the biggest protests so far have been in the cultural sector, where 130 million euros — 12 percent of the budget — are disappearing. Theaters and museums will have to reduce their offers. The Free Museum Sundays are over.  
  • and as rents explode, the government is cutting hundreds of millions of euros from affordable housing.

This is just a few highlights of what’s getting worse. Some line items are not getting cut, however:

  • the Polizei budger is set to go up by about 3 percent — all the repression against the Palestine solidarity movement is not cheap!
  • the government wants to keep building the inner-city highway A100 through Friedrichshain — which is projected to cost 1.8 billion euros for a few kilometers, making it the most expensive highway ever built in Germany.
  • there is also no shortage of money for deporting people to Afghanistan, which requires paying indirect bribes to the Taliban.

When politicians say there is no money, it’s fascinating how they completely ignore the 100 billion euro “special fund” for the military (on top of the military budget of over 50 billion each year). 

Another number: Germany’s billionaires pay very little in taxes. If they paid the same rate they owed just a few decades ago, the state could easily get 100 billion euros in extra revenue. When the corporate landlord Vonovia swallowed its competitor Deutsche Wohnen, it used a tax trick to avoid one billion euros in taxes. Generally, realty speculators pay almost no taxes in Berlin. In other words, the cuts to our standard of living will subsidize German oligarchs.

The worst part about austerity is its long-term effects. The ongoing crisis at the BVG is the result of austerity policies from 20 years ago, under the social democratic finance senator Thilo Sarrazin (who has since become Germany’s most shameless racist demagogue). Investments that get cancelled now will be felt for decades to come.

Yet nothing will happen without resistance. Culture workers have already organized demonstrations. The GEW union, which organizes teachers and daycare workers, has called for a one-day strike on December 5 (part of a long series of teachers’ strikes).

With Germany set to go to the polls on February 23, there is a surprising level of consensus among German parties. They want fighter jets instead of electric busses. They want us to be poorer so that a handful of Nazi billionaires can get even bigger yachts. Even the left party Die Linke offers no alternative: they have often been in government in Berlin, and they have carried out the exact same austerity programs as the SPD and the CDU.

When they demand more money from us each month to take the train, they are handing our cash straight to the arms industry. In order to defend our standard of living, and maybe even improve it a bit, we need to say: not one cent for militarism!

A Corrective to Transphobic Pseudoscience

Statement on Dr. Ingeborg Kraus’ public stance against trans healthcare by Dr. Lara Werkstetter


In my clinical work I have gotten to know many transgender people—that is, people who do not identify with their biological sex, but rather with the opposite sex in many cases, and in some other cases, neither sex (non-binary persons).

With great astonishment and a certain disbelief, I read Dr. Ingeborg Kraus’ article and listened to the associated TV interview. In the latter she mentioned having the authority to write corresponding appraisal letters. What she apparently was referring to are psychological letters of indication, a prerequisite for hormone therapy and gender-aligning surgical measures. This authority is one which every psychotherapist is entitled to. Per her own testimony, in her career up until this point she has treated just four transgender clients.

Dr. Kraus describes the Selbsbestimmungsgesetz [self-determination law] as ‘dangerous’. It has supposedly led to ‘misdiagnoses with devastating consequences’. It is important to emphasize here that the self-determination law only allows for a change of name and gender marker at the residency registration office [Einwohnermeldeamt] without a letter of confidence from a mental health professional.

This law does not make access to hormone therapy and surgery possible—these still require a thorough diagnosis, necessarily including a written confirmation from a psychotherapist. 

…she speaks of ‘very many’ patients who regret their decisions. She neglects to mention that she only has personal experience with four clients…Each individual who crosses the threshold of a psychotherapy practice for support in their gender identity has the right that the issue at hand as well as their psychological condition be regarded and understood individually—generalisations have no place in this subject.

As such, ‘devastating consequences’ could not,  from my perspective, be attributed to the new law. If a person realises after some months or years that they are not transgender after all, their first name and gender marker can be changed again. The earlier process which required two expert opinions was often costly and burdensome for those affected. Expert opinions from doctors and therapists involved in the individual’s treatment were generally not accepted, meaning that one had to present intimate information to an additional two strangers. In my opinion, this was not a reasonable approach, and I view its abolition as great relief for those concerned.

‘Schools oversimplify the matter,’ says Ms. Kraus regarding gender transition, supposedly ‘luring [them] toward the path of transexuality’. I consider education in schools (yes, including with regards to sexual orientation and gender identity) as presently of absolute necessity. I do not see how this form of education could be considered ‘luring’. After all, schools offer—rightly so—education on drug use.

‘In my practice, I pretty much only came across transexuals who were not happy with the results of their surgeries,’ claims Dr. Kraus. Regrettably, she speaks of ‘very many’ patients who regret their decisions. She neglects to mention that she only has personal experience with four clients.

That there are ‘very many’ who regret their decisions does not adhere to my experience. Nearly every person who I have accompanied in transition felt a weight had been lifted off them through hormone therapy, top surgery or genital surgery among other measures. Each individual who crosses the threshold of a psychotherapy practice for support in their gender identity has the right that the issue at hand as well as their psychological condition be regarded and understood individually—generalisations have no place in this subject.

Additionally, studies show that the risk of suicide among transgender people is extremely high. This shows the extent to which gender dysphoria (meaning the distress that arises from living with misattributed gender roles and a body incongruent with one’s experienced gender) can present as a massive stressor and and how great the need is to take this distress seriously. 

That is why many transgender people choose to transition, meaning adopting new gender roles (typically in tandem with a new name and the wish to be referred to using the coinciding honorifics and pronouns) and adjusting their outer expression (often, but not always, through hormones and surgery). My clinical practice has repeatedly evidenced how drastically suffering is reduced and quality of life increases through these interventions. Depressive symptoms and social anxiety or discomfort with other people also tend to decrease significantly. Transition regret and detransition—pursuing (limited) efforts to reverse the process—do arise, albeit in very few cases (I have yet to see a single such case in my work). A critical approach to one’s own gender identity and the choice to decision should therefore always first take place as part of a psychotherapeutic treatment, during which other factors that may falsely lead to someone believing they are transgender must be excluded.

According to her, one should not “respect trans activists false jargon”. Does she mean the terms that were adopted to replace earlier transphobic and discriminatory language?

This course of treatment is an essential part of the letter of indication without which there is no access to hormones or surgical measures. ‘The self-determination law’s manner (from a clinical point of view) of never questioning anything again” as Dr. Kraus writes, is non-existent. Critical, clinical examination remains requisite. 

In particular, the surgeries in question here are both highly invasive and complex. Before undergoing them, patients need to thoroughly examine scope and associated risk of these procedures. Patient education should also be provided to support the process. I see room for improvement in this area in some clinics, as the affected have the right to making a well-informed decision. Nothing here is changed by the self-determination law. Name and gender marker changes, however, will be less complicated thanks to this new law.

Furthermore, Dr. Kraus’ performance suggests that trans women and men aren’t ‘real’ women or men. According to her, one should not “respect trans activists false jargon”. Does she mean the terms that were adopted to replace earlier transphobic and discriminatory language?

In summation, I find my colleague’s testimony misleading and prejudicial. I hope that with this statement, I have shed more light on practical experience in treating trans people.’

Dortmund, 08.11.2024

Dr. Lara Werkstetter

Translation: Shav MacKay. Reproduced with permission

News From Berlin and Germany, 27th November 2024

Weekly news round-up from Berlin and Germany


NEWS FROM BERLIN

Nan Goldin opens exhibition with accusations against Israel and Germany

The artist Nan Goldin at the opening of her show at “Neue Nationalgalerie” began her speech with “This will not end well”, asking for a minute’s silence for the victims in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon. In front of dozens of pro-Palestinian activists, the Jewish photographer denounced Israel’s actions and Germany’s attitude in the Middle East conflict. An attempt at a ‘counter-speech’ by the director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, Klaus Biesenbach, was shouted down by chants. “I have decided to use this exhibition as a platform to express my moral outrage at the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon,” Goldin affirmed. Source: Spiegel

Rents in Berlin have risen the most in Germany

Prices for new lettings have risen more sharply in Berlin than in any other major German city. This is according to a response from the federal government to a request from MP Caren Lay (Die Linke”). The price per square metre for a newly rented flat in Berlin has doubled in ten years: from an average of €8.10 in 2014 to €16.35 in 2023. The federal government points out that the data is not representative: Low-priced flats, for example, tend to be brokered via notices or estate agents and therefore do not appear in the statistics. Lay nevertheless criticises the fact that the rent freeze introduced in 2015 has been ineffective. Source: rbb

Berlin Senate reaches agreement in dispute over payment card for refugees

After months of wrangling, Berlin’s governing parties (CDU and SPD) have agreed on a solution to the issues surrounding payment card for refugees. The cash limit is now 50 euros per month, for adults and children. After six months, the cash limit will be automatically removed. However, it is not yet clear when the payment card will be introduced in Berlin. The payment card is valid throughout Germany and should not include any restrictions such as online purchases. The Integration Senator Cansel Kiziltepe (SPD) told rbb that the payment card is not an instrument to control migration. Source: rbb

The Berlin Senate’s savings list

The Berlin Senate wants to save three billion euros – from the around 40 billion euro’s city budget. The ruling parties, CDU and SPD, announced where they want to cut spending: primarily in transport, but other areas such as culture and environment are also subject to cuts. With this cut, the 29-euro ticket for public transport, which has only been in circulation since July, will be completely cancelled again, but probably not until 2025. The ruling coalition parties agree in principle that an improvement in revenue is also necessary to close the gap in Berlin’s budget. Source: rbb

 

NEWS FROM GERMANY

VW: German union demands a deal before Christmas

IG Metall and the Volkswagen (VW) workers’ council are calling for VW to strike a deal with workers before Christmas. VW is Europe’s largest car manufacturer and has threatened plant closures and layoffs in a bid to reduce labor costs. IG Metall’s chief negotiator, Thorsten Gröger, accused VW management of wasting time in discussions so far. The chairwoman of the company’s workers’ council, Daniela Cavallo, described the threat of mass layoffs and plant closures as “maximum provocation”. A mandated moratorium on industrial action during initial talks is due to expire at the end of November, meaning that warning strikes are possible starting from December 1. Source: dw

Inveterate Holocaust denier Haverbeck dies at 96

Ursula Haverbeck, a notorious Holocaust denier, has died at the age of 96. She previously served two years in prison for Holocaust denial and was appealing another prison sentence of a year and four months handed down by the court in Hamburg when her she passed away. Among her repeated claims, made on television and in courts, was that the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was not an extermination camp. German government records show that at least 1.1 million people were murdered there alone. Her comments made her a favorite with far-right extremists. Source: dw

What do Germany’s hospital reforms mean for patients?

Germany’s hospital reform will become law on January 1, 2025. Under these reforms, the government will reorganise how federal funding is distributed to hospitals to improve treatments and reduce financial pressure on clinics. The changes will be gradually implemented in Germany’s 1,700 hospitals until 2029. Clinics will not be financed based on the number of patients they treat but on the number of services offered, such as staff numbers, emergency services or specific medical equipment available on site. It is expected that the new law will also spell hospital closures, but Karl Lauterbach (SPD) affirms these closures will be in areas where hospitals are “overabundant”. Source: i am expat

International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

International organization of Jewish people committed to the liberation of Palestine


The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) is an international network of Jews who are uncompromisingly committed to struggles for human survival and emancipation, of which the liberation of the Palestinian people and land is an indispensable part. We are committed to the right of return for Palestinian refugees and to ending Israeli colonization of historic Palestine, which is reinforced by US economic and military power. We support full Palestinian self-determination and the right to resist occupation. We look to the Palestinian grassroots and Palestinian-led organizations as our primary points of reference in this struggle.

The State of Israel betrays the long histories of Jewish struggles for liberation and traditions of participation in collective struggles for liberation more broadly. We protest Zionism’s exploitation and debasement of histories of Jewish persecution and genocide to justify the unjustifiable – the colonization of Palestine and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the theft of their land and destruction of their families, communities and way of life.

IJAN is part of the international movement against Zionist militarism and repression. We have active chapters in the United States, Argentina, the UK, Spain, Canada, and France. We also organize by sector, and currently maintain labor and campus sectors. Our work is funded largely through the contributions and volunteer labor of our members and through grassroots supporters.

IJAN organizes from a Jewish location, which we understand as social and historical, but our members hold a range of relationships to the religious, spiritual, and cultural expressions of Judaism. IJAN’s members come from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and cultural lineages (including Ashkenazi, Mizrahi and Sephardic).  We view “Jewish Anti-Zionism” as a political orientation rather than an identity, a politics which acquires meaning through practical organizing.

A core tenet of the way IJAN organizes is joint struggle — recognizing the particular stakes of different communities and sectors in the general struggle against Zionist repression, militarism, and imperialism. The stake of each movement is specific, but we share a commitment to principles of universal liberation, justice, equity, never sacrificing any aspect of one community or movement’s struggle for freedom for the sake of advancing another’s. We recognize that our struggles are bound together, and that we must find ways of organizing together that strengthen all of our movements.