The buzz word is “contagion”, the fear that
the financial crisis will spread. With the Irish economy on the brink of
collapse, the government has been forced to introduce even more
draconian cuts
to the tune of £20bn to pave the way for an EU/IMF bail-out package. All
eyes
are now turning to Portugal and even Spain as the speculators move from
one
country to another.
IRELAND: The four year plan has been announced, the
cuts have been declared and the working class, particularly the poorest
sections,
are in the firing line once again.
News that
the Coalition are in discussions with the EU and IMF won’t come as a
shock. Reports have been circulating for days now that the EU and the
Finance Ministry have been locked in discussions and some have even
claimed that the IMF have been briefing the heavyweight financial
bourgeois press internationally in an attempt to pressurise the
coalition and the opposition parties into seeking a deal.
IRELAND: The Soldiers of Destiny are floundering out to sea far from
the coast of Donegal; or at least they don’t seem to be in the same
place as the voters. A report in the Irish Times today
quotes a RedC poll carried out on behalf of Paddy Power which indicates
that FF support in Donegal South West has collapsed from 51% to around
19% since 2007.
The biggest crash in the history of
capitalism in 2008 has created a new “normality” across the planet. This
has led to vicious cuts and severe attacks upon the workers in most
countries. The welfare states in Europe and elsewhere are being
aggressively dismantled. After the failure of Keynesianism the
neo-liberal model of capitalism, known as trickle-down economics,
Thatcherism or Reaganomics, has been an even bigger disaster.
In the recent midterm elections, the
Republicans made a dramatic comeback after their electoral routing just
two years ago. They gained several governorships, seats in the Senate,
and took full control of the US House of Representatives. How was this
possible?
A contribution to the discussion on property and the tasks of the revolution.
The September elections in Venezuela have posed some
serious questions before the Bolivarian Revolution. The opposition has
organized a noisy campaign in the media to present themselves as
"winners", despite the fact that they lost. What is the purpose of this
campaign?
Comrades on holiday in France get a taste of the protests taking place there!
On Friday, October 22, finally the
French government managed to get the pensions reform passed through the
Senate. The increasingly unpopular government of Sarkozy, faced with an
unprecedented movement of strikes, demonstrations, road blockades, mass
pickets and general assemblies, hoped that this, together with the
beginning of the All Saints school holidays, would bring the mass
movement to a halt. This does not seem to be happening, however.
After October 12th, the movement against
the attack on pensions has reached a critical threshold. The great days
of action are no longer the centre of gravity, although they are still
massive and increasingly militant, as shown by October 19th. Now, the
central axis of the struggle has shifted onto open-ended strikes and
pickets blockading different sectors of the economy.
On Saturday, October 16, more than 3 million people took to the streets
of France in hundreds of demonstrations in cities and towns throughout
the country in the latest national day of action against the proposed
counter-reform of the pensions system. The number was on a similar scale
as October 2, the last time the trade unions called a day of action on a
Saturday but the movement has certainly developed further. The
demonstrations were another show of strength of this movement which has
lasted for months and seen 5 national days of action since the end of
the summer holidays.
The magnificent movement of the French
workers is an inspiration to the workers of all Europe. It shows the
real face of the French working class. Yesterday (Wednesday) strikers were
continuing their action for a second day running, following an
impressive day of action on Tuesday.