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As the big day approaches, the hysteria builds up to a crescendo. The
21st December 2012 is seen as being the next date of the ‘end of the
world’, according to the ancient Mayan calendar. Yes, this time the
world is really supposed to end, we are told, and apologies for all the
previous false alarms.
Last week Angela Merkel was warning
that peace in Europe could be endangered if an agreement was not
reached at the EU summit on how to manage the crisis that has engulfed
the euro and the whole of the EU economy. Speaking to the German
parliament she said, “No one should think that a further half century of
peace and prosperity is assured. It isn’t. And that’s why I say if the
euro fails, Europe will fail, and that mustn’t happen." Some of the more
serious strategists of capital have even raised the prospect that the
euro could break up. The 27 EU leaders on Wednesday night, however,
finally produced a three part deal.
USA: The mainstream media has made much ado
about the fact that #OccupyWallStreet does not have a unified, cohesive
message. In trying to belittle it, they smugly point out that the
occupy movement is an amorphous and heterogeneous mix of people. Every
shade of political opinion and ideology is present: Makhno anarchists
and Ron Paul libertarians; Trotskyist socialists and New Age
neo-hippies; Anonymous and Zeitgeist; atheists and hard core believers;
the homeless and those who have quit their jobs to become full time
protesters against unemployment.
The Ashes & Diamonds exhibition will be on show at Wortley Hall, see www.wortleyhall.org.uk from November
7th – 12th.
On Thursday in Athens during the mass
workers’ protests we saw the state collaborating with hooligans and
provocateurs against the labour movement. What is now required is a
political general strike! Here we publish a statement by the Greek
Marxists of Marxistiki Foni.
The death of Gaddafi and the final collapse of his regime closes one chapter. However, this merely marks one turning point in the situation. Now that the old regime is finally gone, a struggle will open up over the future of Libya. In this struggle we will see the forces of both revolution and counter-revolution trying to get the upper hand. Here we publish an analysis of the situation by Alan Woods.
A new International Labour Organisation reports says that as much as 50%
of youth are now unemployed in many countries. Capitalist crisis has
meant soaring unemployment especially amongst the young. The report
warns of difficult years ahead where young people may resort to violence
to vent their anger at governments worldwide.
As the Coalition intensifies its attacks on working people, it
clearly reveals itself as a government completely in the pockets of big
business. In fact it is a government of the stinking rich, for the
stinking rich, by the stinking rich.
Today
(October 19), the first day of the 48-hour general strike in Greece was
sensational. Apart from the government and public utilities workers that
participated in the strike massively, hundreds of thousands of workers
from the private sector came out on strike for the first time, and also
joining the millions of striking workers were tens of thousands of small
businesspeople and shopkeepers who closed the shutters to their shops
in solidarity.
As
Portugal’s right-wing government announced the harshest austerity cuts
in the country’s history, economic forecasts were revised down and the
main trade union confederations CGTP and UGT announced the calling of a
general strike.
On October
15, Rome saw one of the biggest demonstrations of the last few years in
Italy. Up to half a million people flooded the streets of the capital.
Not only was this a huge demonstration in terms of the numbers taking
part, but even more significantly you could hear the most radical
slogans of the last decade. The masses, inspired by Athens, Madrid and
New York, chanted “we don’t want to pay the debt”, “No to austerity”,
“No to the dictatorship of the ECB and the banks”, etc.
The decision of the Secretary Of
State to revoke Marian Price’s release from prison has been met with
widespread opposition from the Republican movement. The justification
given was that the threat that she poses has “significantly increased”
and that she had been encouraging support for an illegal organisation
based on her involvement in an Easter comm