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On January 16, the second thing: 18 former European presidents and prime ministers published a powerful letter calling for the European Commission, the executive arm of the 27 countries in the European Union (EU), to break up Google, directly targeting its heavily monopolized advertising business.
“The consolidation of power over vital tech platforms jeopardizes our independence and undermines efforts to enforce our laws,” the statement said. They recommend a breakup, plus a “European tech deal” to reclaim control over critical digital infrastructure on which we all depend.
Hundreds of millions of Europeans and Americans stand shoulder to shoulder in the same fight here against, in this case, Google. Indeed, US and European regulators have been collaborating closely in the last few years on taming Big Tech. The problem now, of course, is a wrecking ball called [new U.S. President Donald] Trump.
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The key is to reframe this fast-evolving story of economic conflict, not as a fight between “The United States” and “Europe”—or even between right and left. No, what is unfolding is a global conflict between ordinary people everywhere, standing shoulder to shoulder against the globalized billionaires and oligarchs.
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There has never been a Left in the USA. They have a right-wing neoliberal party serving the interests of corporations, and thenbthey have a right-wing neoliberal party serving the interests of corporations that is also quite racist.
People in Europe sometimes think they have a right wing and a left wing party, like the Conservatives and Labour in the UK, or the Conservatives and the Socialists in France, for example. It’s not like that at all. There is nothing in the middle and in the left in the USA. Decades of framing “taking care of normal people” as the same thing as literal Stalinism with Gulags have seen to that. They don’t even really have unions ffs