Le chaudron bosniaque avant l’explosion? 200 ouvriers de quatre entreprises de Tuzla en marche à la frontière...

 PAVLOVIC Radoslav

2015-01-04 04 Tuzla-workers-march Ces lignes, écrites ce dimanche 28 décembre 2014 à 9 heures, sont rédigées « à chaud », alors que se déroule sous haute tension la lutte des classes en Bosnie-Herzégovine, dont personne ne sait d’avance le dénouement.

200 ouvriers de quatre entreprises de Tuzla – Dita, Konjuh, Aida et Livnica (industries de lessive, de bois, de chaussures et une fonderie) - ont décidé il y a dix minutes à Orasje, à la frontière croate, qu’ils partent pour de bon pour quitter leur pays, et aller chercher n’importe où en Europe, un peu de travail et un morceau de pain. Ils ne savent même pas si l’on les laissera passer la frontière, mais ils savent qu’ils mènent le combat de toute une vie, combat du dernier espoir, combat politique au plus haut niveau, et qu’ils n’ont plus rien à perdre, ne pouvant dans ces jours de fête partout en Europe offrir même pas une confiserie bon marché à leurs enfants.

New social movements arise in Bosnia Herzegovina – grassroots, assemblies and unions...

MILAN Chiara

 2015-01-04 03 Milan-Chiara New grassroots movements, assemblies and unions are arising in Bosnia Herzegovina. Other post-Yugoslav countries experience similar returns of the left.

What’s going on in Bosnia Herzegovina ten months after the uprising? [1] Following the violent riots in February 2014 [2], the citizens of Bosnia have jointly channeled their rage into horizontal and self-organized assemblies called plenums, which mushroomed throughout the country and surfaced in as many as 24 cities and towns. Unfortunately, the flood that hit the country a few months later appears to have wiped out the new experiments of collective self-organization. But the protests, plenums and even the flood contributed to activate a solidarity chain that has now translated into an informal network calling for social justice.

Viviendo en Deudocracia: ¿Por qué el Financial Times es mal compañero de viaje de Podemos?

  por Sergi Cutillas*

2015-01-01 01 Cutillas Podemos ha aprobado recientemente una resolución que afirma querer reestructurar la deuda pública. También ha indicado que le gustaría hacerlo dentro del marco de un gran pacto Europeo.

 A pesar de las voces de la caverna española que en estos momentos critican a Podemos por cualquier razón, con independencia de lo que diga o haga, la resolución ha sido bien recibida desde las altas esferas financieras globales y globalistas. El lunes Wolfang Münchau, director adjunto del Financial Times y uno de las voces más influyentes a nivel mundial en el ámbito financiero, entre otras cosas por ser director del think tank Eurointelligence, especialmente dedicado y diseñado para promover la unificación con éxito de la UE y la Eurozona, decía que Podemos tiene razón en su posición respecto a la deuda.

¿Somos todos Podemos?

Manuel Garí

2014-12-26 01 gari-manuelEl pasado sábado día 20 de diciembre Alberto San Juan en una entrevista en el programa de la noche de La Sexta TV en conversación con el Gran Wyoming, afirmó que "todos somos Podemos", por lo que en vez de criticar debemos actuar. No puedo sino estar absolutamente de acuerdo con este mensaje. El problema es que es polisémico, por lo que hay varios significados y niveles de significación que es conveniente desentrañar.

Desde el punto de vista del militante –mi caso- o al menos del inscrito y votante virtual de Podemos, la afirmación de San Juan es una gran verdad. Nos apuntamos porque quisimos, algunos lo hicimos desde el momento cero y no tenemos intención de apuntarnos a la legión de "podemólogos" que se dedican a sacar punta sin ton ni son, pero tenemos opinión y vamos a actuar para que el partido proponga a la sociedad y se organice como creamos que es lo mejor para la mayoría social.

Debt, a weapon of mass destruction aimed at the people

by Pascal Franchet

2014-12-23 01 Franchet-Pascal To begin I will start with a statement by Warren Buffet, who, according to Forbes magazine, is one of the richest men in the world: "There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning (New York Times 26/11/2006).”

 This cynical statement has the merit of clarity. We are talking here of war, economic war that is not constrained by borders and does not bother about nationalities, only about the interests of one social class. This type of war is responsible for millions of deaths each year, it is comparable with armed conflict. As the capitalist economy has become global so, along with it, has economic warfare.

 This remark is intentionally general. I want to present a wide framework in which many different situations may exist. My presentation is not cover all situations and will not be giving lessons to anyone or talking in the place of anyone. Each country or group of countries has its own experience in terms of public debt and I come here, just as much, to learn about them; from you.

Carta abierta de la CUP a Pablo Iglesias (Podemos)

Bienvenido a Barcelona; bienvenido a Catalunya;
bienvenido en los Países Catalanes

2014-12-20 03 CUP Como el resto de pueblos del estado y de todo el sur europeo, hoy los Países Catalanes son víctima de graves injusticias que cristalizan en una mayoría social empobrecida por una oligarquía política y económica que opera al amparo del capitalismo senil. Una oligarquía que es la única beneficiaria del régimen constitucional, autonómico y económico pactado por las élites el final de la dictadura con el objetivo de blindar España. Empobrecimiento generalizado a cambio del enriquecimiento de una minoría. Impunidad para los delitos de corrupción contra el bien común. Y papel de súbditos para una ciudadanía que hasta hace muy poco se creía que gozaba de ciertos derechos democráticos.

"Black Lives Matter": A new civil rights movement is arising in the United States

LA BOTZ Dan

2014-12-20 01 La-Botz-Dan Across America from New York to California, in all of the major cities, there have been militant, disruptive demonstrations involving altogether tens of thousands in protests against the police killing of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and the failure of grand juries in either Missouri or New York to indict the police officers who killed them. Beginning in Ferguson, Missouri (near St. Louis) in August, the protests have continued throughout the fall, culminating in a massive movement for days in December. On December 13 hundreds of thousands of protestors marched New York City and Washington, D.C. and other cities. We may be at the beginning of something new, big, and important.

OPINIONES SOBRE LOS CAMBIOS QUE SE ESTÁN PRODUCIENDO EN PODEMOS

Javier Cordón (*)

2014-12-18 01 Podemos Podemos ha estado en permanente transformación desde su nacimiento, en enero pasado. Pero los cambios que se vienen sucediendo desde la Asamblea Ciudadana pareciera, al menos esa es mi opinión, que más que un desarrollo están suponiendo un cambio de modelo. ¿Es así? Y en caso afirmativo, ¿ese nuevo modelo ayuda o perjudica en la consecución de los objetivos por los que nació Podemos?

CAMBIAR LAS BASES FUNDACIONALES PARA GANAR LAS ELECCIONES

 En el Círculo de Sanidad de Madrid recientemente hemos tenido un debate ocasionado por la elección de “un grupo de apoyo” que ha hecho una persona perteneciente al Consejo Ciudadano (CC). A muchas nos causó malestar que tal nombramiento se hiciese al margen del círculo y “a dedo”. Pero bien mirado este era el método usado en la elección de esta persona y de las otras 61 que conforman el citado organismo.

La Chine, deuxième puissance mondiale

ROUSSET Pierre

2014-12-14 03 Rousset Pékin a été, mi-novembre, l’hôte du Forum de Coopération économique de l’Asie-Pacifique (APEC). Les événements « off » accompagnant sa tenue ont confirmé que le statut de la Chine comme deuxième puissance mondiale se voyait de plus en plus reconnu.

 Les Etats-Unis s’avèrent toujours – et de loin ! – la première puissance mondiale, mais son leadership est entamé par la crise de la présidence Obama ainsi que par son incapacité à répondre à l’ensemble de ses engagements internationaux. La constitution de l’UE n’a pas permis l’émergence d’un impérialisme européen unifié ; la France, la Grande-Bretagne et l’Allemagne ne pèsent plus que marginalement sur le plan géopolitique global. Le Japon ne s’est pas encore émancipé de la tutelle stratégique US ; politiquement incapable de se projeter militairement au-delà de son environnement immédiat, son poids se joue encore essentiellement sur le terrain économique, alors que son économie stagne.

Why the Portuguese public debt is not payable

by Vitor Lima

2014-12-11 09 Vitor-Lima There has been “not one historical incidence” where austerity policies have led a country to get out from under a heavy debt burden.

Ashoka  Mody,  former  IMF chief for mission to Ireland

 Summary

Conclusions

1 - The debt is an instrument of domination.

2 - A partnership between States and Capitalists

3 - Portugal - Scenarios for a continued debt payment

3.1 - Proactive and radical continuation (Hypothesis I)

3.2 - A proactive amortized continuation (Hypothesis II)

3.3 - A prolonged continuation (Hypothesis III) 4 - An evaluation of the debt installment not to be paid 5 - How to get out of this?

100 years ago today: When Karl Liebknecht said ‘no’ to world war

A historic call gives new impetus to socialist antiwar currents

Presentation

2014-12-09 01 Liebknecht3 During the first four months of the First World War, no statement from German socialists appeared denouncing the war. Government repression and the bonds of Social Democratic Party discipline prevented antiwar voices, such as those of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, from gaining a hearing.

 This changed 100 years ago today—on December 2, 1914. Liebknecht took a bold stand against the slaughter as the first deputy to vote in the German parliament (Reichstag) against allocating funds for war spending. His protest resounded across Europe and gave new hope and energy to socialist antiwar currents.

Balkans for the peoples of the Balkans

by MATIJA MEDENICA, ANDREJA ŽIVKOVIĆ

2014-11-28 01 Medenica-Zivkovic The Balkans struggles under a triple crisis of foreign debt, mass unemployment, and the productive sector. In reality this is a crisis of dependency on European capital. Economic life is completely dependent on importing expensive European capital to cover the yawning trade and budget deficits, representing a vast plunder of national wealth to the European bankers. With the crisis, the foreign bankers who control the financial system of the region stopped lending and the debt pyramid collapsed. Since then Greece, Slovenia, Serbia, Romania and Bosnia have been under the receivership of the Troika (IMF, EU, ECB), which has imposed, with the connivance of the official political class, austerity programs so savage as to provoke a humanitarian disaster. A new European war rages. Its aim is to make the Balkans and the rest of peripheral Europe pay for the debts of the Northern European banks.

Debt and the international context in the South and in the North from 2000 to 2014

   by Eric Toussaint

2014-11-25 00 Dette-Devons-rien-payons-rien This article reviews a number of developments that occurred between 2000 and 2014 related to the debt issue, various aspects of the international crisis |1|, international financial institutions, the scope of attacks against social and economic rights, and CADTM priorities.

Several changes have occurred since the end of the 1990s.

1. Several countries in the South have moved away from neoliberal policies

 After over twenty years of neoliberal policies and multiple forms of resistance, towards the end of the 1990s and at the beginning of the new millennium, several Latin American nations disposed of their neoliberal presidents thanks to massive social mobilisations and elected heads of state who implemented policies that meet the people’s interests. The people of those countries wanted to free themselves from measures derived from the ‘Washington consensus,’ as imposed by the IMF and the World Bank (privatisations, cuts in public services, ‘liberalisation’ of trade that deprives small local producers of any protection, enforced commodification, destruction of decent jobs, cancellation of subsidies for food staples and services such as water, electricity, gas, and transport). These policies were implemented on the pretence of repaying their public debts, much of which was illegitimate or illegal, as was the case in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia… |2| Ecuador’s government took a remarkable initiative in 2007-2008 when it carried out a complete audit of its debt with the active participation of representatives from social movements |3|. On the basis of this audit, it then suspended repayment of the part of the external debt identified as illegitimate, and imposed a significant reduction of the debt to its creditors |4|. This made it possible to increase social spending. Unfortunately, this initiative did not snowball as had been hoped, since other countries in the area did not follow suit.

Review of “Insurgency Trap”:

Behind China’s Wildcat Strike Wave

SLAUGHTER Jane

2014-11-19 00 China-Wildcat strikes Review: Insurgency Trap: Labor Politics in Postsocialist China, by Eli Friedman. Cornell University Press/ILR Press, 2014 [1].

 When Honda workers in China went on strike for higher wages, their union sent thugs to convince them to return to work. Eli Friedman’s new book Insurgency Trap shows why the rising wave of protests sometimes wins concrete gains, but stops short of forming lasting organizations that could alter the balance of power.

 China is the world center of wildcat strikes—given that no strike in China is officially allowed under the law. The government doesn’t issue statistics, but one source found 1,171 strikes and worker protests from June 2011 through 2013 [2].

Brussels: huge success of the national demonstration called by the the common trade union front

120,000 demonstrators against Michel 1!

ROUSSET Pierre

2014-11-16 02 Bruxelles -120.000 The national demonstration in Brussels, the beginning of the plan of action of the common trade union against the Michel 1 plans (and the cuts at the regional level) was a huge success. With 120,000 participants, all expectations were broadly met. Contrary to what was feared at one time, the mobilization was a great success in Flanders also: there were thus 20,000 participants from the province of Antwerp, close to 9,000 from Eastern Flanders and so on. The fear created by some that the CSC and the liberal CGSLB union would only mobilize verbally also proved unfounded.