 Hello, hello, hello and welcome to another coordinating call of DM 25, the movement for Europe featuring progressive ideas. You won't hear anywhere else. I'm Merron Kelly Lee and today we're looking in the rearview mirror at 2021. Here we are. Where are we compared to this time last year? Have we made any progress globally? We'll be taking inputs and contributions from our panel and also from you guys. If you have any thoughts, suggestions, vibes you want to send to us, please do so on the YouTube chat. This is live and we'll read them out to our panel here. Let's kick it off with Yanis. Thank you, Merron. 2021. A year that is going to be remembered, I fear, I hope it isn't, but I fear it's going to be remembered by a future historians as the year when the West wasted a monumental opportunity to turn the table some climate breakdown for humanity. COP26 in Glasgow is a major fiasco. It's going to darken our future. Remember these conferences happened infrequently and a lot of hope was bestowed upon it and it was a complete monumental catastrophe. President Biden arrived in Glasgow while his minions back in Washington DC were cutting a corrupt deal with the Democrats, his own party in Congress, effectively ditched the Green New Deal, effectively to ditch the Green New Deal to build more roads, more airports and stuff, and almost none of the green stuff. None of the green transition, good quality jobs program is going to be implemented. Meanwhile, the European Union has a green deal that it doesn't fund. And as we speak in Germany, new brown coal, lignite powered electricity stations are being built. France is doubling down on nuclear energy which is certainly not a solution to climate change. Climate zero is being used by the fossil fuel industry in order to continue pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere a little bit like the analogy I use is with Philip Morris, you remember, decades ago, when Philip Morris was trying to stop any discussion about smoking gas, they were doing a big song and dance about the importance of clean air in restaurants and bars and they were pushing for ventilation, so that people can keep smoking with clean air being provided by ventilation. This is the equivalent of net zero, right? Keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere but we'll have ventilation kind of offsets and, you know, we will plant genetically modified trees in areas God knows where, you know, places where they eradicate old forests, sentient forests. So COP26 is going to be remembered as 2021's negative contribution to the world. At the same time we have, you know, the politics is turning completely against any notion of progressivity. In 2020 we were at least happy that Trump was out. Well, Trumpism is back because Joe Biden's spectacular failure is solidifying the Trumpist basis in the United States. In Europe we have the same old. Europe is a fantastic example of how the establishment is prepared to change everything if this is the price they must pay to keep everything the same. So they will introduce recovery funds, they will print, you know, mountain ranges of money and so on, just to make sure that nothing changes, that nothing changes for the many. And also for the few who will continue to milk the many. We have a dystopic post-democracy in Europe. Italy is a brilliant example because you have the most accepted prime minister in the history of Europe. A man, Mario Draghi, that if he were to stand in an election tomorrow would not be elected. In Germany, the negotiations between the three parties that formed or are about to form the new administration, the new federal government, proves the point that we simply have oligarchy with periodic elections that change absolutely nothing. If elections could, you know, the moment elections or a referendum, threaten to change anything in their band. The reason for this is this, when you have a coalition government like you have in Germany now, between an older liberal Austrian part and formerly social democratic party that effectively runs the agenda of Gazprom and the fossil fuel industry and Volkswagen and Siemens and the green party that is prepared to govern with these other two parties from a position of minority and inferiority. Those three parts are going to cancel each other's basic, you know, the even the good things that each one of those party wants to do will be cancelled out by the other three parties. So, the more liberal social aspects of the FTP will be trumped by the SPD. The SPD is interested in more distribution of income is going to be trumped by the FTP. The FTP would trump any serious green transition by the Green Party, and so on and so forth. In the end, it's business as usual. It's like having, you know, government on automatic pilot. So it doesn't matter where you have elections, it doesn't matter which government is negotiated. You know, we have a very definitive, a very definite and concrete process of fragmentation of Europe fragmentation of societies of the manufacture of this content, which leads to fascism, which leads to populism to xenophobia, and you've got the democratic process where the demos is completely absent by design, both in the United States and in the European Union. Meanwhile, big tech Wall Street and the security services and agencies are trying very hard in the United States, but also in the United Kingdom, in the European Union and in Australia to ferment a new Cold War, maybe a new hot war against China. And in the middle of all this, you have Mark Zuckerberg, who I admire this. He's a visionary dystopian mercenary. I mean, he comes out and what he says, okay, he's got Facebook and what he envisages is that he does the two billion strong Facebook into a 3D metaverse digital place where people meet work. They change, they trade, they play, they enjoy themselves, they, you know, they go to concerts together in 3D. What is this? This is a digital fiefdom, a realm belonging to one man where all economic, social and cultural activity moves and he controls it. And he comes out and says, yes, this is what I'm going to do. And, you know, Elon Musk promises to take us all to Mars, but this is all absolute bullshit. But Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse is around the corner. It's a matter of months or maybe a year before it is physical. And, you know, he's, and the beauty of it is that he also has a coin. Not only did he take meta or chance at the word meta, which is, you know, our cultural centers and, you know, research center, the Center for Post Capitalist Civilization In fact, not only did he take this word, which is very smart of him, maybe he didn't take it, maybe it was a coincidence, but we want meta in order to civilize post capitalism. He wants a meta capitalism, a post capitalism, which is feudal and belongs entirely to him and that it is the perfect dystopia. It is mind boggling. I really take my hat off to him. There is nothing in our so-called democracies that can stop him. The only thing that can stop him is movements like ours, the Progressive International, ways of challenging his right to own our data, his right to own the servers, his right to own meta, to own Facebook. But that requires a radicalization on our part. So our process of re-scripting the manifest of DM25 and making it far more radical and, you know, with laser precision attacking property rights like good old socialists used to. This is the only chance we have to ensure that the years following 2021 will not go down in history like 2021 did. 2021 was a major disaster for progress, for the environment, for the next generations. It was a year that we better forget very quickly and start building towards radical successors to 2021 in 2022 and beyond. Thanks, Janice, and now let me hand it over to a new member, Julia Moore from the UK, who is replacing Rosemary Beckler, who sadly passed away a couple of weeks ago. So it's a bittersweet to have you here, but welcome Julia. The floor is yours. Thank you, Mia, and thank you everybody. Yes, absolutely. Wonderful tributes to our colleague who's no longer with us, Rosemary Beckler from the DM25 team. And I think everything's been said there, but we miss her and we go forward with her spirit. And in that vein, I'll just keep my delivery short this evening because I'm the new kid on the block and I want to listen to everybody else. I'm just taking a couple of points from Janice's start here. We've recently in the UK just held People's Gathering and we were looking at taxation reform, and we were pleased to be joined by Guy Standing, obviously a colleague and an old academic colleague of Janice and everybody here knows of him. He delivered a 20, 25 minute talk and discussion on the overview of the precariat and spoke about the levy model of taxation reform, which is possible, something which can be implemented tomorrow. And he gave a positive view of the current situation specifically that we can see in the UK with the growing level of precariat insecurity and the amount of individuals and groups that have been affected by the pandemic recently, but by the growing economic as Janice's post feudal system. We are now at a critical point in the UK where the growing numbers of groups, vulnerable groups are now becoming a political profile in that other groups usually not aware of such groups are now demanding action. And in DM 25 UK over the last couple of weeks we've had a growth in membership and volunteers and people asking how they can get involved, disaffected with the two party state people as with France 12 million people as we know from the last election it did not vote because of their disaffection with the system. This is a tyranny of democracy, because it allows the Boris Johnson's of this world and the establishment that we are that we are witnessing in the UK to continue. But there is hope, specified in the UK that progressive groups are beginning to ask questions about how they can become effective, how they can become more organized and this is a phrase that we've heard Janice and others on the panel say at many talks. If disparate groups can act in concert with each other as long as specifically keeping with their own interests of their own groups of why they became active in mind but operate together in order to find a common cause of the structural problems. I think we're growing and I think DM 25 is now looking in the UK to be a different way for people to become active politically for those people who are completely disaffected, appalled and offended in many ways some of the quotes that we've been hearing by the two party system, because now so many people, so many groups, we've got a crisis in social care. If Simona was here this evening Antonella, we joined them for a health conference in Italy not so very long ago. We have a health crisis where care homes are being closed down with 10 hours notice for the most vulnerable people in society being asked to move to move on within the same day and many of these people do not have a family support system. So we're at tipping point and a critical points in many of our public services, and I think DM 25 and the progressive operations that we can help people at community level may well find leverage and purchase in 2022. So, forgive me, I know that was a respective of 21 but I hope it's going to be a positive one because I can see that we are well placed to be part of this new thinking and this new active move that people are beginning to demand. Thank you. Thank you, Julia. Well said. Thank you very much. Thanks, I will be brief because some of the points that I wanted to mention are kind of already being covered, but let me start with the national topic Montenegro to keep you updated because we are still Europe, even though we are not European Union, and we are not seem to get any closer to that in this year that's now in our backs. We elected a new government after 30 years practically, and we replaced neoliberal criminals with right wing populists and surprise surprise we learned that it doesn't work good. So only progressive forces can save Montenegro just like they can only save Europe and the world. But now to go on on to more continental issues, I need to mention two really important things. First of all, yes, this year was disaster for the environment. This year was disaster for the jobs and this year was disaster for the welfare distribution. The millionaires are getting more and more money of this pandemic during this pandemic, and no one's even mentioning it, and there aren't any initiatives to change that. On the other side, we have this devastating information since this year that Amazon rainforest now emits more CO2 than it absorbs. And floods, fires across the world, across the continent, and it's not likely that they are going to stop. They are only going to get worse, I think. But to end on a more brighter note, this year has been kind of successful when it comes to Green New Deal campaign of DM25. In the first part of this year, we had a tweet storm towards European Parliament and saying to them that their Green Deal is nowhere near what Green New Deal is, and we reached more than 15.6 million people then. And we had COP-OFF, which was our response to COP26. And my big suggestion for you, for our viewers, is not to watch COP26. There's nothing new there. There's nothing promising there. But go on YouTube, search for the playlist COP-OFF, and you will hear some progressive ideas that you won't hear anywhere else. In this new year, we have a lot of stuff to do and a lot of stuff coming, and I hope it's going to be more bright than this disastrous one. Thank you. Thank you, Dushan. And you mentioned COP-OFF there, I should say that one of our speakers at COP-OFF turns 93 today, our colleague Noam Chomsky, so happy birthday to him. Next, Beryl Madra. Thank you, Mehman. I will look to these two years of pandemic from global art and culture with all its creative, innovative and interdisciplinary productions, which is actually a neocapitalist industry. Like all productions, it has to be consumed mentally or financially. So during these two years, pandemic, this sector, with all its art and culture institutions, museum centers, galleries, had to face a very different work conditions and also a very different income. There are still unfolding consequences of another year ahead, probably. We are in the art world are always not optimistically that arts and culture will find a way to endure, adapt to these adversities and find creative strategies. In general, artists, galleries and museums have reacted with inspiring creations, performances, operas and ballet have shifted, theater have shifted from live to online. And big screens has been transferred to the small screens and music has become a form of therapy. So online was a resurrection for this sector. Awareness on climate change was a major team in many exhibitions and B&R topics were about the damage that humans have done to planet Earth. The visibility given to environmental issues by the artists, artworks, shows has left audiences in no doubt that the world is at breaking point. I think artists have been very effective in this issue. Valeries, art fairs and institutions had no choice but to embrace everything with digital programs or via art-made diverse digital techniques. And video art became more popular during these two years. Artists had to make an informal income via online via social media, online sales during this pandemic. And when you look to the statistics that it has become an international phenomenon generating millions in sales. In Turkey, artists residency programs were quite active. Many artists from five continents came to Istanbul to Turkey. I will mention these residencies for information. Goethe Institutes, Tarabia Culture Academy, Berlin Senate, Istanbul Scholarship, Gate 27 Artists Residency in Istanbul and Ayvalık, Barbara Residency in Ayvalık, Istanbul Rütsel Residency in Istanbul have hosted over 50 artists in 2021. Two controversial near future transformations in art and culture productions have emerged. NFT and metaverse, as Yanis mentioned just a few minutes ago. Both, to my opinion, both new strategies of neocapitalism to have the most profit from human creativity and promote post-truth. Both will change the sense of art and culture in the near future. Yanis description fits into this sector too. Thank you. Thank you Boral and for anyone out there interested in our own contribution to this you can check out our online art and culture platform at voice.dm25.org. Let's move to Germany now. Your hand is fair. Go for it. Germany is muted. Go for it. Sorry. Still happening. It's still a little embarrassing, especially on the live stream. But anyway, zooming in a little bit on Germany as, yeah, this wasn't a year that had a lot of events. And unfortunately, yeah, after a lot of years of chancellor named Merkel, who now stepped down. If the country you would have imagined that after this time, maybe there would be some, you know, spirit, some new start, some atmosphere of change. But unfortunately, Merkel really has left us with this lead in this numb atmosphere where, yeah, the belief in change is really not something that I think is very, that seems possible for people, which is very unfortunate. I think you can especially see that in the pandemic. The state in Germany currently is really, and society we are in a lot of trouble there. The hospitals are full. There has been transports from patients from the south to the north to because actually the hospitals were not able to cope anymore. There is one, yeah, one sign for how hollow the state and the social state has been left after years of the conservatism in charge. Saying all that, I think also society and people really, you can see this in a quite frightening big part of society that is not wanting to get vaccinated, that set their personal freedom higher than solidarity with everyone else. And I think this is also not a personal issue of any of those people but rather a follow of the state and as a society not thinking and caring about each other enough. And yeah, unfortunately, it has already been mentioned the new government or a new chancellor. Many have said that Merkel hasn't, you know, search for successor in our own party successfully, but I think she has found one in a different party that is now actually following her, and nothing will change much. Speaking about all of that, I don't want to mention the small things that might, you know, change little things here and there that are positive in the coalition treaty. It's mostly what is not in there. For example, things that we demand with the party that we recently founded the electoral wing of the M25 in Germany, Mela 25. Everyone thinks like a four days week like guaranteed pension for all like universal basic dividend like a job guarantee. So things that actually would give people like a breathing space space to actually work on the transition that we need to fight climate change and so on. And this is actually also my outlook for 2022 that we need to work on this together because, yeah, there there's really not any other option for us to then stay hopeful and try to do it ourselves because I think we cannot expect any solutions and progressive changes from the current forces and power. Thanks. Thanks, you know, listen, you mentioned COVID policy here is a question from the chat how do we deal with center left parties that refuse to allow questioning of COVID policy isn't it dangerous to allow the right to seize this issue, albeit sometimes very in a very conspiratorial way. You did on Germany, or whatever you want. I think that this year has shown that the pandemic is not over until it is over everywhere until all the world has received vaccines. We thought in spring in summer that we had left the pandemic behind us and now it's back and worse than ever. And I think that we really need to have a think about how to reach out to those who are still not convinced, even knowing that it gets more and more involved all the time with them finding groups also via social media where they're getting more and more radicalized and victims to conspiracy theories. I want to also talk about Germany and I think Johannes has already said a lot of important things only I didn't agree with the idea that Germany is is numb now I think this year has actually been very exciting in German politics, because we've seen huge shifts. It's Lenin's quote still goes, a revolution in Germany that will never work if Germans wanted to storm a train station late first by a ticket. It still goes, but in terms of the rest, it has completely changed, because we've seen huge shifts in the individual percentages of parties which you used to budge, like 4% in one direction, 5% in the other. But instead, for example in April the in April the greens were 28%, which is huge and then for the election of course they went down to 15%. In April was at 13%, now they're back to 26%. So like within one year, the SPD went from 26 to 13 and back to 26. The greens went from 15 to 28 and back to 15. The FDP went from 6 to 12. So we're seeing huge shifts on a level that is not normal for Germany, maybe for other countries but not for Germany which used to be quite state. So I'm seeing a potential here and we just have to see about passing those hurdles that German law has put in place to borrow smaller parties from establishing themselves and becoming part of this game, but I am hopeful. And also hopeful because it's clear the AfD, the alternative for Germany has reached a ceiling, because for all those changes which involved the greens, the SPD, the FDP, even the CDU, the AfD has stayed stable around 10% throughout the year. So they have not been able to gain or lose from any of these big shifts going on. And it is said now that with the anti-vax movement being mainly like 50% voters for AfD in Germany, we may see a radicalization of this anti-vax movement which would help the AfD gain more votes in the long run. But that is to be seen. And I'm hopeful for our party to at least catch some people on the left now because it will become very clear very soon that the SPD and the greens are not here to make any kind of change. And finally, a quick look across the border to Austria, which we don't talk about basically ever, but I think it's worthwhile noting that they just had three chancellors in seven weeks. And there's a saying around the country, just three more chancellors until Christmas. Thank you, Judith. I disagree vigorously with some of those points that you that you may, but hopefully I'll let someone else make, make, well, say what I would have said. Next up, we have, let me check, oh, Eric, go for it. Eric Edmund. Lucas, you don't want to take your time. Sorry, my mistake, we swapped around, yes. Lucas first and then Eric, go for it because Lucas is going to speak on Germany. No problem. Thank you, man. I thought I'd take this chance to to leave a bit of a personal note on on Germany because I arrived in Germany, almost eight years ago, essentially as a low skilled immigrant labor less as many do. And then I found myself for several years performing that type of work. So I was delivering food and my bike for, you know, almost three years. And it's very fresh in my mind. What is like to to work in that sector and to have to worry about paying rent, you know, if you're going to be able to make rent at the end of the month. You don't have to worry about your bike breaking and you're not being able to work because you don't get any money to get it fixed. Even worse your phone breaking, which would be even more expensive to replace being in an accident and then, you know, not being able to work because of that in etc etc etc. And I'm not doing that anymore, luckily, but many still do. And some will spend their lives doing it here. Many of them immigrants like me. I think over seven million person seven seven million people in Germany are in precarious employment right now, which is over 20% of the workforce in the entire country. And you see them all around, you know, you might not notice it sometimes we do see them all around. They deliver our foods, our groceries, they stock our shelves, wait our tables in our buildings. And more and more you see them after the pandemic as well. And I thought that some of these people might be watching us today. And if they are, I wanted to tell them that Meta 25, our party in Germany was created for them, first and foremost, it's a party that serious about raising pay about to guaranteeing livable rents which is a massive issue in many German cities at the And more than that to me providing a universal basic dividends which will guarantee that people don't have to debase themselves and jobs with absolutely no insurances and guarantees in order to be able to just survive, you know. So if you are watching us. I would invite you to join us to go to Merit 25.de join Merit join dm and let's fight this fight. It's going to be a difficult fight, but I'm sure that it's one that we can win if we get together. Thank you. Thank you for that Lucas for bro view from the front line. Eric. Thanks. Thanks, everyone. Thanks. A review of 2021 for me would have to be quite personal because isolated as I was in a naval barracks doing my military service I'm probably not the best person to analyze the past political yeah probably missed a lot so what I was thinking of sharing with everyone is a bit of that experience of being uniquely outside my comfort zone and surrounded by people from all sorts of walks of life and outside my social circle and what that might help. How that might instruct our work a little bit and how my experience of viewing the world for a year 2021 for a year through those eyes. What has taught me and a lot of things were confirmed like the fact that we are totally out of touch with the working class as the left, we, we don't speak their language with the worst thing that could happen when having a political discussion with fellow sailors would be for a fellow leftist to come in using you know words like the proletariat or capitalism or your means of production whatever have you very well meaning, and he or she might be completely right in what they were saying but that would be completely relevant we would have forfeited the the discussion on that point. Because immediately people just glaze over either be their board or confused as to what we're talking about, or or it just puts us in a box and stigmatizes us and then people just think they know what we're going to save and before we say it. Either way, the language and the way we communicate really puts us in a corner vis a vis society in general and I saw that with my own eyes I experienced it you know it really go under my skin and it was really an uphill fight trying to destigmatize yourself simply because you were part of, of a left organization, which became very well known very quickly in my case, unfortunately. So, that's something that's it's a stigma that you carry through in society unfortunately right now and it means that people will not hear what you are saying, regardless of whether you're right or wrong so I think that's something that with this new strategy looking at the past year how it's gone for us and looking into the future. We really just start thinking that people aren't only necessarily looking for solutions to their problems the way they understand their problems. They're looking for people who they believe are serious about the solutions to their problems. So it's not so much that they're looking to find the best solution in the political market if you like they're listening to everyone and I'm making a rational choice based on you know, an assessment of everybody out there but they want to be persuaded they want to be convinced that we're different to everybody else. And that's very much about how you you communicate to these people and how you make them feel comfortable when you speak to them you don't speak at them but you speak with them and you listen to what they have to say and you're empathetic. And this probably brings me to something of an unpopular opinion if you like, which is that I don't think, let's take the French Revolution for example I don't think we I think we still have monarchies in Europe. If the French were waiting for the people to rise up for Liberté, Galité, fraternité, you know people rise up because they rise up there is something that instructs them that gives momentum in any given time and in place for some kind of space to open up through which real radical change can happen. And sometimes we in the left were a bit clinical in how we view those opportunities were like I know I don't feel comfortable with that topic. I'm not sure that is something that we can say, I'm not sure I agree with all of that you know what people are saying, instead of like taking that wind if you allow a nautical metaphor take that wind and steer the ship in that they're using that wind the direction that you want the ship to go. So I think we need to be a bit braver take up some more risks. And so being so clinical and so picky with with all the things that we get engaged in because every time we don't engage in a in a social sort of topic. And I'm thinking of for example with the whole vaccination question and you know how people are viewing the vaccine and anti-vaxxers etc. What I saw from my perspective was a lot of people who were opposing the vaccine because essentially they were opposing capitalism. They just weren't framing it in that in those terms. They did they instinctively or they could reason that there was something going on between big pharma and governments there was a lot of money being exchanged hands. But they were turning to conspiracy theories to try and understand that rather than to, you know, Marx if you like. So there are people who would agree with us if only we could communicate with them in a way that they would actually listen. So I think we need to really rethink that part of our engagement and be much more empathetic and not write off a lot of topics which at first glance might seem not our natural habitat. Because every time we can see that space somebody else takes it up. Thanks, Eric a comment on the chat on this the left patronizes and infantilizes the working class left is too fragile with the working class treat them like adults, the right did, and that's why they vote for the right. Yes, thanks. I wanted to start with two things that one that I missed the most in 2020 and 2021 and that's the theater theater is branch of the art that is not going well with the pandemic and it cannot really go online. And this is something for our platforms voice and met to explore and discover how the theater is going to look like in the future. In my mind, it's more like the ancient theater outdoors big spaces, and it's doable easy. And the, the other thing is something that Eric was just talking about and that's my main impression of yet another division in societies. And that's between vexers and anti vexers and only these terms are enough to to set the tone of the conversation, or a debate or a fight rather because it's more likely to be a fight and very restrictive point of view from both sides. I also met you know it's another assumption or prejudice that that working class is more of anti vexers side, and I've met lawyers and medical stuff that refuses to get vaccinated and as Eric said it's also about opposing the government, but it's about lack of trust, both in our governments and in the world health organization, and so on. Thank you, Ivana. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. Thank you. If I can just add my own two cents there because there's some debate on the chat about this it seems that the word anti vaxa has triggered quite a few people here I mean I also personally dislike using this to lumping lots of people who are hesitant about the taking the vaccines into a time box. I believe in vaccines as a tool to fight covid I'm vaccinated, but I recognize that inside that group anti vaxa in anti vaxa for covid at least there are people for many different reasons that are hesitant and I think the governments need to do a much better than persuading people. And what you just said there Ivana in terms of trust in institutions that's something that mandates further damage, especially in Austria now so it frustrates the fight against the pandemic. And it will, for my, in my view, it will create awful divisions afterwards in terms of social cohesion and will create unfortunately more political polarization if anyone's interested there's a piece that I've written so I'm plugging it. On the front page of dm25.org now about how governments could potentially persuade their people to get vaccinated by using a more nurturing parent approach as opposed to the strict father one. Okay I've had my rant Johannes has got his hand up go for it Johannes. I wanted to say one thing also regarding this, you know, anti vaxxas vaxxas. I think it's completely wrong of course to put everyone in the same box and individually pick at people that don't want to get the vaccination I think that's the society problem, it's not something that you can put on individuals. Of course in every society there might be a small portion of people that think like that and that don't trust the state. And we all have to say I think that, rightfully we can understand people not trusting the state anymore if the state has fucked you over for many years. There is then sometimes the distinction because people like myself I also don't trust the state very much but I trust scientists and, but I think many, many people don't differentiate anymore. And of course there are also links between scientists and industry and so on that are very questionable and need to be criticized and science needs to become more independent to be also trusted again. This responsibility of course lies with the state. And I think I see a little bit of a different approach for example in Germany and in Portugal where my partner is from and where I actually am at the moment. Where the government has actually communicated much better with the population explained much better that vaccine actually helps them fight the virus and be in lower risk of when getting infected. There was a much closer communication here we are often comparing that. And I think this is the key for government work but also for political work in more general for us. I think that political work often is also relationship work so to get a connection to someone that you built and you explain and you get much better and also understanding the reasons for someone to maybe sometimes disagree or don't trust. But the most important thing of course being that's the service of the social state and so on actually needs to provide and be close to communities and explain. And then they, I think it's natural that there will be also much better responses to whatever you propose to people. And then one small remark regarding something you said about the German, the ups and downs in the polls in Germany before the election. I think it definitely shows that between those parties I would say there's not that much of a difference but it shows that people whenever there's a little bit of a glimpse of you know, oh that there could be something changing. And I think there's the big, you know, there's big potential for that, of course, and definitely also and that's in that notion I agree that you can see that I think it hasn't been there. No one had nobody, you know, from the real progressive side has profiting from it but the potential is there. That's just what I wanted to reply to that. Thanks. Thanks, Janis. Now the Greek parliament and addressing the Prime Minister I said that the greatest enemy of the vaccination campaign is people like you said to the Prime Minister and the anti-vaxxers, people who solidify the skepticism of those who vaccinated themselves and their near and dear ones by calling them anti-vaxxers and by putting them in a box and by demonizing them, treating them in exactly the same way that Hillary Clinton treated Donald Trump supporters and calling them deplorables. It's exactly the same thing. It's an attempt to dehumanize a part of society. The part of society that you want to convince to get vaccinated, you demonize them and you dehumanize them. Now, the tragedy is that this is not the result of stupidity. It's the result of design. The powers that be those in government, like the Greek Prime Minister, they don't care about the success of the vaccination drive. They care about solidifying their own authority in the context of the pandemic. So if 80% are in favor of vaccinations and these have been turned against the 20% who have not vaccinated and treat them as deplorables. And you are the Prime Minister who is treating them as deplorables too and you put fines upon them, you demonize them, you send the riot squads against them to beat them up, then immediately you have completely solidified your dominance amongst the 80%. And who cares about the vaccination rates? This is what we're facing. It's a regime failure by design, not by accident, not by stupidity, not because they're not good at communicating. It is not a failure to communicate. It is a success story for communicating that which they want to communicate amongst those that they are treating as the silent majority. But finally, Eric, look, yes, you're right. Those who are refusing to vaccinate and the ones who are skeptical and so on, they are doubting capitalism. That doesn't make them progressive because since the 1920s we have known it that there are two kinds of challenges to the system of capitalism as a natural system. One is a left wing and the other is a fascist one. The problem with, I mean, the left has today we have two major problems in Greece, in Germany, in Portugal everywhere, vaccinations and migration. On both counts, the rejection of the liberal center centrist position of those who are turning against vaccines and against migration from an ultra right wing perspective. At the root of it, you're quite right. They are not happy with capitalism. Remember that the Nazi party started life as a major challenge to financialized capitalism in the 1920s. That does not mean that we have a safe course that we can navigate so as to be able to talk to these people and caress them and you're quite right about the need to discard the wooden language of the left when we're talking to them. It does not mean however that there is an easy route to relating to them. We can relate to them, but they can easily co-opt us. You can have, I've had many experiences, I remember back in my army days, Greek army days, decades ago, having a discussion with somebody who was extremely critical of capitalism with the bankers and so on. We agree on everything until he started talking about the Jews and the importance of killing them. Bloody hell, you know. Suddenly you realize you're not talking to a comrade, you're not talking to somebody who's seeing I and why. And at that point he has coped with you, you have not coped with him. So remember, we do not have an easy solution to this. Thanks Janice, Julia. Thank you. Yeah. As winding up for tonight as the new kid on the block, I'd like us as the lead progressive movement to have a very clear steer on our own understanding by what we mean by working class across our movement across our countries. It's a phrase that many people would not identify either themselves in that category or be able to identify other groups in those categories. And I think if we are mobilizing change, if we're wanting people to adopt a progressive improvement in our countries and as a movement, I think we have to very be very clear about what we mean by working class when we use that phrase or even prefer to use a replacement phase. And that's a nod, I guess, today to Noam Chomsky, who would, I'm sure, get involved in a debate, good debate on linguistics and change the phrase and you change people's behavior. So maybe a discussion for the future. Thank you, Miram. Thanks, Julia. Eric. Thank you. Just an opportunity to respond to some things that have been said. And to go back to since I used it now to do the example of the French Revolution, the people that rose up in 1789, they all hated Louis the 16th, they wanted to get rid of them that didn't mean that they all wanted the Republic. They didn't mean that they all wanted the things that the French Enlightenment was representing, but they all agreed on the fact that they needed the system change. So the point is to take that momentum and try and use it because that's the momentum that we can all agree on. The whole trick of the situation is to make sure that you come out on top at the end and not as a loser because it can go either way. History has proven that again and again. But it will definitely not go your way if you don't get engaged at all, because you're afraid of how dangerous that situation is. So my point here is not so much that I think everybody who is demonstrating against the vaccination, demonstrating against the government and big pharma or whatever have you is a comrade far from it. My goodness, I've seen that with my own eyes. But my point here is that we should not be so afraid of being involved in this in the zeitgeist. And to be part of that conversation instead try and steer that conversation without being patronizing without telling people like Jan has already said that they are wrong. But to explain through, you know, this kind of political and social context, how all of this that people are demonstrating against where the roots actually lie and what the future can actually look like. Because otherwise it's essentially we stay at our universities and don't storm the Bastille because there are a lot of people there who would like to just see a new king and throne or a tyrant, and we're afraid of them winning over us. So we should be a bit more ambitious and take more risks I think and be more involved in this discussion. Any other last comments. Amir, this is something you'd like to add. Absolutely with pleasure. Yes, and this is such an engaging discussion and I'm really a lot of fruits for us to reach for being brought to a surface here and to our viewers out there we something that we are revamping and rebooting some of our thematic and policy work at the moment members and subscribers have received an email around joining and being able to get on board next year in terms of some of our thematic work. And one of them is building up our post capitalist ideas and our policies, etc. So as always, a plug for policy and for involvement from folks out there. There will be a link coming on the YouTube chat in a second and please click on there and go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Amir. And that's dm25.org slash join in case you can't see the YouTube chat for some reason if you want to join in and feed into those policy pillars that Amir just mentioned. And with that if there are no more comments I think we're at the top of the will close thank you to the panel thank you to all of you out there. And for your comments, we'll be back in two weeks same time same place with a with a lighter edition of