The European Socialists were meeting over the weekend in Brussels. They should be full of fire, with half a billion people facing brutal austerity and a lack of leadership in the EU. But no. I walked past one room where a group of serious people were seriously discussing the serious topic of “How can we unite the EU to fight climate change?”
But in times when the EU can’t unite to save itself, the debate was utterly pointless. As one delegate said to me, “if the euro is failing, all this,” pointing at the conference agenda, “is irrelevant. All of it.” In fact, the event deemed almost designed to avoid discussing the one important issue of the day. It’s the economy, stupid.
Can someone can explain why socialist groups that have been predicting the collapse of capitalism for years (with them then leaping into the breech to Smash Capitalism) are doing nothing now that their golden moment, a real life capitalist  crisis, is here? I have no explanation for the apparent resolute determination of the hard left to studiously ignore the ongoing financial crisis.
And in related news from here in the States, there has been much gnashing of teeth by collegiate more-radical-than-you types over the horribleness of calling the movement Occupy when it should be called Decolonize. Such types should immediately join the Spartacists, who specialize in invading leftie meetings, denouncing everyone except them as revionists then leaving before they have to do any actual work or organizing.