Most progressive periodicals emphasize words over images. Not Souciant. Randomizer is a column devoted to our love for political visuals. Collectively-authored by Souciant’s editorial staff, wherever they are. Including the kitchen.
Flags were flying everywhere. Kurdish, Turkish, Syrian, Palestinian. If you wanted to take inventory of where this neighborhood comes from, this would be the place to start. Police in riot gear milled through the crowd, taking stock of the situation, looking to be in place if things got out of hand. You could see the worry in their eyes. (More…)
Anti-Semitism in Europe has been growing for some time, most prominently in France, which not coincidentally has the continent’s largest Jewish population by a wide margin. Emigration to Israel is rising. But Germany is a notable exception, having become a destination for Jews in recent years. While there are several reasons for this, it’s hard to argue with the conclusion that education has played a key role. (More…)
The complaints are always the same. They commit crimes. They’re a strain on social services. They’ve come for economic reasons. They’re Muslims. The negatives are predictable, and unfortunately, convincing. The more they come, the more Europeans find themselves uncomfortable. (More…)
The Left has confronted the same problem since it acquired that name, over 225 years ago: how to strike a balance between pragmatism and idealism, pursuing what people need to live better now without forgetting what they might want in a world less needy. It’s remarkable how little progress has been made towards achieving this goal. (More…)
Squatters busted by the cops. Defiant asylum seekers sticking it to the man. Denunciations of capitalism, imperialism, and the bourgeoisie. In Italy, of course. It’s so dated-sounding, Hugo Chavez might as well have scripted it. Typically provincial leftists, still stuck in 20th century. At the very least, they could be blogging this stuff. Someone call Russia Today. (More…)
Watching the major powers in the Middle East maneuver has become increasingly painful for anyone who still believes that politics can sustain our better natures. Cynically self-serving, with callous disregard for the dignity of human life, their moves have helped to revive every conspiracy theory in the book and inspire plenty of new ones. This is a major problem, especially for the Left. (More…)
It’s hard to believe that the American armed forces were once thought of as glorified vocational schools for men and women who had either finished high school or were finished with high school. Yet from the end of the Vietnam War until 9/11, the vast majority of volunteers could look forward to years of educational tedium, rather than armed struggle. This remains the case in Germany. (More…)
It’s wise to be wary when politicians speak of children and imperative when they purport to speak for them. Invoking the innocent lives that need to be protected from harm, particularly from themselves, may be the most clichéd move in the playbook, but it also remains one of the most effective. Who better to represent than those who are not permitted to represent themselves? (More…)
Wheelchairs and rainbow flags blocked Berlin’s Kotbusser Damm. Equal parts pride parade and disabled rights protest, the pairing made sense. This was an in-gathering of the margins, not normally linked at this level, considering the degree of recognition accorded gays and lesbians today. Their equalization was a strong reminder of the shared discrimination both communities could once claim in the Nazi era. (More…)
From Brussels to Turin, the flyers read the same. The 2008 economic crisis continues on, slowly but surely transforming the European Union’s weakest member states into Third World countries in all but name, quasi-colonial holdings of their wealthier neighbors, and the banks bailing them out. (More…)
Few European capitals are as loathed as Brussels. Whether it be on the right, as the scapegoat for everything wrong with national political policies, or on the left, as the enforcer of American-style neoliberal reforms, the EU’s lead city has definitely seen better days. No one will argue that the economic crisis has damaged the prospects of further European integration. (More…)
If you’re someone whose social media feed inclines towards progressive politics, there’s a good chance you’ve seen someone making fun of Women Against Feminism. But if you haven’t bothered to visit that popular tumblr yourself, you may be in for a surprise. Because, while there are certainly posts of an explicitly conservative nature and plenty that seem ill-informed, others are harder to dismiss on principle. (More…)