Varoufakis Back on His Bullshit

Yanis Varoufakis, the most famous veteran of the Syriza debacle, has taken a break from his prolific career as a male model to smugly host the 2020 Summit of the Progressive International, taking place, as everything else does lately, over Zoom and broadcast on YouTube.

Varoufakis, who dominated far too much of the Summit’s time with his self-important bullshit, spoke at great length about the importance of reforming capitalism maximally on its own terms, at a time when those terms are about to plunge us all into a global climate crisis the likes of which have yet to be seen.

Not content merely to take up so much of the actual audio and video time, he made sure that his pitiful, washed-up and frankly no longer relevant self was centred in discussion of the Summit in other news sources, even including extensive quotes from his prepared speech under that which he was expected to say.

Due to the Spatula’s perpetual commitment to combatting even the ghost of Nikita Khrushchev, Varoufakis’s hair-twin, we would remiss if we did not note that in a flagrant revisionism of class struggle, Varoufakis called for the problem of exploitation of workers to be addressed by converting each capitalist enterprise into “a corporation of all classes”.

Varoufakis also informed us that he personally does not shop on Amazon, and buys lots of fair trade coffee, or something.

The absolute highlight of the dismal Varoufakis Show where most of his guests were likewise held back by Keynesian cowardice from saying a single fucking thing of substance, was the appearance of Nick Estes, who is absolutely killing it on Twitter lately. In addition to a greatly Marxist call for land back to the Indigenous and a [planned?] economy for people and other such dank nugs, Estes heroically caused the one moment of tension by using the dreaded “s-word” which Varoufakis had clearly forbidden all guests from using.

“The name of the system we need to construct is socialism.” said Nick Estes, leaning forward for emphasis and staring into the camera. “Socialism. Socialism. Socialism.”

Varoufakis scrambled to regain control of the situation, lest he have to lose any sponsors for this unacceptably Stalinist turn of events: “Just so everyone out there knows, Progressive International doesn’t believe in any of that ‘actually existing socialism’, stuff, we’re just… we want to be beyond capitalism and critical of capitalism and contra-capitalist and everything else but allow me to emphasise that Mr. Estes is quite alone in his Enver Hoxha-esque call for ‘socialist construction’. No fucking way. No thank you.”

Before Estes or anyone else could interject any clarifying question or comment in response to this rant, Varoufakis nervously scratched his scalp and continued rambling: “I mean, if this were the Soviet Union, which thank God it’s not, I mean, that would be a really dystopic vision for the future, let me tell you, especially because I personally would be sent to GULAG. I mean I would. Me. Yanis Varoufakis. Imagine we’re in the Soviet Union now. I’d be the centre of attention then too, and Stalin couldn’t stand me getting all the attention, and so I’d have to go to GULAG. Is that what you want, Nick Estes? This is a fun game too, right?”

At time of press, [REDACTED] at the Worker’s Spatula Twitter was tweeting fantasies about an entirely different kind of summit with Varoufakis, if you catch my meaning, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Did you enjoy this piece, or anything else on Worker’s Spatula? Then consider donating as little as one imperialist Yankee dollar a month to supporting our work!

Pope Declares US Left “Opportunists”

PHILADELPHIA – Pope Francis, better known by his real name, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, continues to excite the toiling masses across the globe, including his compatriot Lionel Messi. Opinion polls have suggested that a new international led by the two Argentines would be embraced by the majority of the workers of the world. At present, Pope Francis is visiting the US to meet with the faithful, Roman Catholics and NAMBLA members alike. The first demonstration of his enormous influence and power came when John Boehner resigned as the Republican speaker for Congress as a result of the pope’s mere presence in Congress, his resignation letter accusing congress of having been transformed into a tool for “papists”.

Pope Francis, leader of one of the world’s most notoriously conservative and reactionary institutions, has spent much of his papacy attempting to maintain the relevance of the church in the increasingly left-leaning political status quo of Latin America today. A few critical statements about inequality and the obvious problems of capitalism, however, have caused him to be viewed as a modern day Che Guevara by the majority of US pundits. Indeed, even much of the US “left” is unable to cope with the ferocity of Pope Francis’s mild statements: A joint statement of Bernie Sanders, Cornel West, the CPUSA and the Working Families Party denounced the pope’s “ultra-leftism” and “adventurism”. The pope has responded to these accusations in an interview with Max Ajl published at Jacobin. He referred to the US left as “petty bourgeois hacks”, “opportunists”, “bleeding-heart liberals” and “objective agents of US imperialism.”

Additionally, Bernie Sanders went on record individually to state: “Given that he is the pope, of course I respect him. I respect all unelected heads of state, from China to Saudi Arabia. It is the elected communist dictators like Chavez that are the real evil today. But popes used to stand against such people, like during the Cold War. That’s the sort of Catholic Church the American people miss.”

Unsurprisingly, the dispute has provoked numerous responses from the US and abroad: Jeremy Corbyn, who was attending an anti-pig-fucking rally organised together with various animal rights groups and Muslim civil society organisations in the UK, gave a short speech in which he said: “People compare me to Sanders, you know. They’re all idiots. Obviously, I am not a big fan of the papacy, but I recognise when I am able to cooperate on certain issues. And if I were to come into conflict with him, I would hope it’s because the bloody pope was the opportunist, not me.”

The ISO published an editorial in Socialist Worker which concluded thus: “We really appreciate many things the pope has said. He is clearly more progressive on many issues than the majority of the US left. However, the fact that the Vatican is clearly a Stalinist state if ever there was one prevents us from any alliance with this bonapartist dictator.”

“Also, he speaks Spanish. That’s the language of Mercader.”

Bob Avakian reportedly enquired into a possible public debate with the pope on the topic of “People’s War and Revolution”, but a papal representative replied with a polite explanatory note stating that “the pope is not impressed with the New Synthesis”.

Alexis Tsipras, recently re-elected as Prime Minister of what remains of Greece, held a spontaneous speech at his local taverna in which he claimed: “If we were not an Orthodox country, I would immediately integrate our territory into the Vatican. Or at least appoint Pope Francis as my finance minister. Look at that, he just goes to the US congress and people there listen to him. Not like that bald traitor I appointed first, even I didn’t listen to him.”

Worker’s Spatula Endorses Donald Trump

TRUMP TOWER, NEW YORK – Worker’s Spatula held its first official press conference today at Trump Tower in New York City in order to announce its unconditional support for Republican candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 US Presidential Campaign. Our statement is also reproduced in full below:

We, the editorial staff of Worker’s Spatula, the most revolutionary publication in the world since Pravda under Stalin, would like to announce our unconditional support for Donald Trump – AKA ‘the Donald’ – in his campaign for presidency of the United States of America, the head of global imperialism and the single greatest threat to the international proletariat as a whole. Under the Donald’s guidance, we are confident that America will be a country that we can help reshape and make great. And by ‘make great’, we obviously mean establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat and beginning socialist construction. Donald Trump is the best man to get us there as quickly as possible.

Our analysis of the recent history of the United States has led us to the conclusion that any attempt at getting Americans to support third parties, or to push the Democrats in a left-wing direction, or even to get the Republicans to have a remotely circumspect foreign policy on populist grounds will not merely fail to push the American people towards revolutionary consciousness, but indeed will merely result in greater isolation of left-wing groups pursuing such tactics. On the basis of this conclusion, the only strategy we can think to apply in the US context is one of unabashed accelerationism, and the best man for that job is certainly Donald Trump.

Also, he’s got a corrupted German surname, which makes us all feel a bit closer to him, as we’re all basically corrupted Germans of one sort or another.

Lastly, seeing as the Trotskyites are all opposed to him, he can’t be all bad, right? As there are clearly no questions left unanswered, we will not be taking any. Thank you.

Reactions to our statement have been largely enthusiastic. Armed militants across the globe carried out celebratory attacks on their immediate enemies in order to welcome our statement and intensify their struggle against imperialism. In the Philippines, the New People’s Army stormed and took over a military outpost on the island of Samar, taking down the flag of the Philippines and replacing it with a red flag with a white spatula and sickle on it. A militant identified as “Ka Ernesto” released a short video in front of the flag in which he articulated his hopes that the national-democratic forces would defeat the Philippine government after Trump becomes president of the US:

“We are always in favour of whatever relations of forces strengthen our position and thus Trump is our choice for President of the imperialist United States. Donald, MABUHAY!”

In India, the Naxalites attacked a multinational corporation’s copper mine in the forest near Ghatshila, destroying scores of machines. They refused to give a clear statement on Trump, however, promising on the one hand not to attack Trump Tower in New York, but on the other hand warning Trump that any real estate he might erect in Odisha is a potential target. The EZLN, on the other hand, released a statement embracing Trump as “the gravedigger of US imperialism”, but was reluctant to stage an armed demonstration for undisclosed reasons, presumably related to Trump’s views on Mexicans.

In Turkey/North Kurdistan, TİKKO, the armed wing of the TKP/ML, attacked a police station in Dêrsim with rocket launchers, later publishing a declaration of their certainty that Trump would be on their side against the fascist AKP government. The DHKP-C, for its part, welcomed Worker’s Spatula’s endorsement of Trump by attacking the Trump Towers in Istanbul’s Şişli neighbourhood with a suicide bomber. This act was reportedly done to endorse Trump. Or condemn him. Their members have yet to decide.

Other reactions have been equally enthusiastic. Alexis Tsipras sent Trump a message enquiring about the possibility of a common internationalist platform: “We are both young and attractive men who take great pride in our hair. Varoufakis, who has been stabbing me in the back repeatedly ever since I removed him from his post as the Minister of Finance, takes no pride in his hair. Because he has none.” Sources inside Syriza say that Tsipras regards a deal with Trump as the “trump card” [no pun intended, Tsipras doesn’t know any English, –W.S.] for the crucial upcoming elections: “After Varoufakis and Tsalakatos failed to reach a satisfactory deal with the Germans, the only hope he has left is Trump,” a Tsipras aide informed us.

Greece in Chaos; KKE to Fix Everything

ATHENS – After the total defeat of Syriza, the situation in Greece has descended into a chaotic mire which is difficult to penetrate at first glance. The Syriza leadership has driven the party to a split through unwavering belief in its strategy of having polite and productive discussions over a cup of tea with the people who intend to crush you. Former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is reportedly still confused as to why his plans were unsuccessful. An unnamed source close to Tsipras claims to have seen him in fierce discussion with Euclid Tsakalatos, former Minister of Finance and successor to Yanis Varoufakis, named “sexiest Greek alive” and “sexiest motorcyclist alive” by People Magazine Ellas. Tsipras was reported to have desperately shouted “why did we not serve them coffee and some sweets too? Should we have brought more olive oil and feta cheese for Schäuble? Should I have changed my name in Tsopanis, so Hamdi Ulukaya could have helped us out like he did Kobanê?”

The international response to developments has been mixed. On the one hand, proven revolutionaries like Leo Panitch, whose credentials of training revolutionaries how to use AK-47s in his Toronto basement are well known and widely admired, were still trying to blame everyone but the Syriza leadership for Syriza’s failed politics, and the most “movementist” components of the organized German Left such as Interventionistische Linke and the Blockupy alliance were supporting the political line of the Syriza leadership using the most statist and bureaucratic logic available to them, thus proving they were more Marxist than everyone else, as one must “dive into the manure of contradictions whilst engaging with realpolitik.”

On the other hand, CWI affiliates around the world continue to praise their Greek section Xekinima for its bold decision to leave Syriza and then cry about how Syriza leadership fails to reflect their views.

Additionally, Stefan Engel, chairman of the MLPD and winner of “most fuckable flabby white guy” at the International Communist Awards five years running (since he dethroned Slavoj Žižek after the formation of ICOR) convened a press conference in Berlin, at which he stated “KOE. I will not be taking any questions”, and promptly left.

Since the left wing of Syriza finally broke away from the party to form Popular Unity, Greek affairs have grown more complex still. Thankfully, the KKE came to the rescue: Dimitris Koutsoumpas, General Secretary of the Central Committee, spoke at a press conference, referencing Ancient Greek philosophy: “We Greeks invented dialectics and so we understand it better than anyone. We are the most dialectical, on racial grounds.” He quoted Heraclitus’s famous dictum that “you cannot step twice into the same river” and added, that “unfortunately, too many Greeks today have been de-Hellenised by EU colonialism and are thus too stupid to understand that. These are the ones who will vote for Popular Unity.” When our reporter at the press conference noted that Heraclitus’s saying may indicate almost the exact opposite conclusion to the one proposed by Koutsoumpas, he responded: “Well, that’s just more proof that you cannot trust petty bourgeois individualist enemies of the people like Heraclitus.”

However, as the average Greek on the street will readily tell you, the KKE’s unparallelled insights put them head and shoulders above all political competition, and they needn’t stoop to “pointless discussion of such moronic concepts as philosophy”. To shed light on the latest confusion. Koutsoumpas declared that the party will release a scale of “different forms and levels of deceitful and obfuscationist anti-people factions.” This scale is supposed to provide the party and the people which it so self-evidently leads orientation in these dark times. “It’s actually quite simple,” Koutsoumpas explained, “everyone but us is an enemy of the people. Syriza and now Popular Unity are just the ‘left’ reserve of the system. There is no difference between any of them, they just dress up in different clothes.” Asked how the people could make use of this scale, he responded: “If you’re curious about a given faction of the Greek left outside of KKE, check our scale, and you’ll see that they are indeed enemies of the people. They just differ in degree of deception of the people. Being on the scale makes something true, so we put true things on the scale.”

“There’s your goddamned dialectics.”

Asked how the KKE intended to concretely engage the current dynamics, Koutsoumpas was visibly stunned. “Isn’t that obvious? We have to strengthen our movement and in order to do that we will form anti-monopolistic and pro-people alliances. We will soon release a catalogue of criteria of political positions that qualify for such an alliance. It is a little bit more complicated than the scale I told you about before.”

After repeated attempts by reporters to glean some cursory summary of what kind of criteria the KKE was looking for, Koutsoumpas gave in and stated: “Alright, if you must know, I can say this much: It would be really helpful if everyone seeking an alliance with us agrees with our party line on every major issue, including our predetermined role as sole saviours of the Greek nation. This is because our party line is quite simply correct on every major issue. And, you know, it’s like Marx said: Die Partei, die Partei, die hat immer recht.” He concluded the press conference by taking a shoe that he had kept on the table throughout the press conference and placing it on his bare foot, thus demonstrating his absolute lack of revisionism.