EN COLERE !

source of photo: Agence France Press

"The revolutionary key to the situation in Europe and in the entire world is now above all in France!" - Leon Trotsky (1934)

two comments on the article by Jerome Metellus:

France: Battle over Pensions - Bring Economy to a Halt !
http://www.marxist.com/france-battle-over-pensionsbring-economy-to-a-halt.htm

J. Metellus wrote: "...After October 12, 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 19. Now, the central axis of the struggle has shifted onto open-ended strikes and pickets blockading different sectors of the economy..."

[this shift is a tactical response of the movement against the deployment of police and security forces to suppress the social revolt, which is in fact a convergence of social forces against the racist and anti-worker neo-Gaullist regime. the movement started out as a workers movement in opposition to the neo-liberal pension "reform", but as it developed it was joined by the immigrant community and by students; social forces that have their own set of grievances against the Sarkozy regime. the strategy of coordinated labour power withdrawal and blockade of strategic sectors of the economy is hitting the financial oligarchy and the neo-liberal political class right where it hurts them. the development of this movement vindicates the analysis of Karl Marx and Rosa Luxembourg that it is the intensification of class struggle by the working class that serves as primary motor of social revolutionary convergence of social forces against capital. note that it was at the point that the industrial workers paralysed the energy industry, that the movement radicalised into a generalised social revolt against the Sarkozy regime.]

J. Metellus wrote: "The development of an indefinite general strike should be accompanied by democratic centralisation and coordination of the movement. Sectors on strike should coordinate at local and national level, on the basis of delegates elected by General Assemblies, and with the right of recall. A national inter-professional coordination of such delegates could centralise information, circulate it, discuss the movement from day to day and take the necessary initiatives to strengthen the strike. The national "Intersyndical" [trade union alliance], many of whom speak about quitting the movement after the Senate vote, cannot play this role."

[just as the movement has developed as a convergence of social forces, this movement must begin to develop convergent forms of organisation and a convergent program that makes political demands. this is the only way that the specific demands of the workers, the immigrants and the students will come to be implemented. this coordination of sectors on strike at the local and national level culminating in the development of general assemblies could become the basis for the refoundation of france and the emergence of a post-capitalist sixth republic. indeed. assuming the emergence of a post-capitalist sixth republic, as i wrote elsewhere: such a development would tear appart the core of the Franco-German Imperialist Entente and bring down the edifice of the so-called "European Union" (a political and economic front for the Franco-German financial oligarchy). a succesful overthrow of the neo-Gaullist regime by a convergence of worker led social forces would have a direct impact on Spain, Greece, and Iceland. it would paralyse on its tracks the effort to impose the anti-worker neo-liberal economic agenda, it would reverse the overall european trend towards anti-immigrant anti-Roma xenophobic racism, it would empower students accross the continent to revolt against efforts to destroy public education and school democracy through privatisations. i add: it would also be a direct hit upon the entire structure of atlantism in decline and have major geo-political consequneces in favour of multipolarism. France would withdraw its contingent form the AFPAK war and the process of integrating France into NATO (imposed by Sarkozy) would be reversed; meaning that a post-capitalist French Sixth Republic would join the multipolar bloc and ally itself to the Shanghai Pact and ALBA/UNASUR. a post-capitalist French Sixth Republic would also likely utilise its veto in the UN security council to thwart efforts by Anglo-British imperialism to impose Washingtons unipolar dominionist agenda. France is a major developed political-economy and a member of the G8, it also has its own nuclear arsenal. an alliance of a post-capitalist French Sixth Republic with the National Democracies of the West Eurasian Core (Ukraine, Belarus and Russia) would place the final nails in the coffin of the moribund and obsolete NATO imperialist infrastructure./n2]

photos source: World Socialist Website

refs.

The strike wave in Europe and the decay of bourgeois democracy

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/pers-o20.shtml

"...The growing struggles of the working class in Europe and internationally against mass unemployment and government austerity policies are exposing the reality behind the façade of bourgeois democracy. In every country, the government, whether conservative or nominally “left,” is cutting jobs and wages and slashing social programs in complete disregard for the overwhelming opposition of the population. Elections, parliamentary debates have no effect on policy. The state does the bidding of the financial aristocracy, tearing up the living standards of the masses in the interests of the bankers who are responsible for the economic crisis. The financiers and corporate executives are making more money than ever by exploiting mass unemployment and growing social distress to slash wages and increase the exploitation of the working class. Where the best efforts of the trade unions do not suffice to hold the workers in check and struggles break out that challenge the plans of the capitalists, most prominently in France and Greece, the state uses its powers of repression to smash strikes and protests. In France, the Sarkozy government has deployed riot police to break up workers’ blockades of oil depots and attack protesting students with tear gas and rubber bullets, arresting hundreds across the country..."

[the racist, anti-worker neo-Gaullist regime in France has unleashed the full power of its security forces to suppress the convergence of social forces aligned against the now discredited and desperate government: ]

French President Sarkozy moves to break strikes against austerity measures

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/fran-o21.shtml

"...President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to break strikes against his government’s pension cuts and social austerity policies yesterday, sending riot police and army civil service units to disperse picket lines and end oil depot occupations. Workers and students have mounted mass strikes for more than a week while debate in the Senate has continued over provisions of the pension “reform” bill. A final vote on the bill is expected by early next week..."

[Capitalism is political economy premised upon private ownership of the means of production and on the basis of private ownership of the said means, "the accumulation of (surplus) value by means of the exploitation of wage labor in the process of mass production of commodities". Rosa Luxembourg and the Venezuelan Communists would add that Capitalism also involves systematic police state repression in order to ensure private capital preservation and suppression of working class resistance. The actions of the Neo-Gaullist regime vindicate these analyses:]

How riot police broke the occupation of the Marseille oil depots

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/mars-o21.shtml

"...The French government gave the order Friday morning, October 15, to send in the CRS riot police to unblock the Fos oil depot occupied by workers near Marseille in southern France. The workers were blocking the site to protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s pension cuts and the partial privatisation of the French ports. The CGT (General Confederation of Labour) called upon workers not to show any resistance to the police..."

Workers face a struggle for power in France

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/pers-o22.shtml

"...Police action to break strikes and blockades in the oil sector has not ended France’s fuel shortage or curtailed strikes and protests by workers and students against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s deeply unpopular pension cuts. The French strike wave is the most developed expression of growing working class resistance to the drive by European governments to impose austerity measures in the face of overwhelming popular opposition. The refusal of the unions to organize broader strikes or protests against the police attacks on oil blockades must be taken as a serious warning. These organizations will mount no struggle to defend workers from state violence. On the contrary, they are sending Sarkozy a signal that he can employ even greater police violence with their tacit support..."

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PATRIA GRANDE !

Evo, Rafa and Hugo - The Leadership of The Second Independence.

Grounding the fifth international on the existing process of Latin American Second Independence as a model would give the Fifth International an objective and concrete basis in an existing process of class struggles that project themselves geo-politically and geo-economically. From this basis, the development of a new anti-imperialist, anti-colonial internationalism could be premised upon intercontinental and interegional multipolar networks that incorporate autochthonous anti-capitalist struggles in north america, western europe, asia and africa. The convergence of the PSUV with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) is a perfect foundation for the V International, a first step already taken. The Sandinista Revolution of 1979-1990 is the direct precursor to the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution, the Ecuadoran Revolucion Ciudadana and the Indigenista Revolution in Bolivia. The Nicaraguan Sandinistas where the first to base their operational model on the premise of a "civic-military alliance" that seeks to construct an ''armed democratic socialism'' in defiance to USA/Atlantist imperialism. The proliferation, in context of multipolarism, of national spaces of “armed democratic socialism” that seek simulatenously to (1) transition from neo-colonial dependence to revolutionary democracy as the precursor for the emergence of existing socialism, and that (2) foster regional integration on the model of ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) and UNASUR; would progressively undermine the hegemony of North Atlantism over the globalisation process.

Multipolarism as the new Internationalist Anti-Imperialism:

According to El Economista de Cuba (The Cuban Economic Review):

“América Latina padece todos los males de la globalización y la postmodernidad y ninguna de las ventajas prometidas: el crecimiento económico sin empleo; la concentración del saber en el Norte, deja fuera a nuestros pueblos de las tecnologías de punta, de la creación y desarrollo de centros de investigación científica; la destrucción del medio ambiente —envenenamiento de las fuentes de agua potable, tala de los bosques—, etc.; el desarrollo del modelo de crecimiento basado en las exportaciones a todo trance, la privatización de las empresas estatales y servicios de correos, salud, educación, seguridad social, originando un crecimiento sustancial de la pobreza; la apertura de las fronteras para el flujo libre de capitales, de flujos financieros y de mercancías provenientes del Norte, arruinando de este modo las economías nacionales, y no así el flujo libre de personas del Sur para el Norte; reducción del salario real; dependencia alimentaria del exterior; incremento de la Deuda Externa; etc.”

[“Latin America is a showcase for all the evils of globalisation and postmodernity without any of its promised advantages: economic growth without employment growth, the concentrtation of knowledge in the north, it leaves our peoples outside the circuit of advanced technologies, it prevents the development of scientific research centres, it destroys the natural environment – poisoning aquifiers, clearcutting the forests – etc. ; the model of development and growth based on exports at all costs, the privatisation of state enterprises and of postal, healthcare, educational, social security have resulted in the substantial growth of poverty; the opening of borders for the unrestricted flow of capital and of financial transactions, and for branded products from the north has bankrupted national economies , but not the migration of people from the south to the north; the reduction of real wages, food dependence of foreign dources, the increase of external debt obligations…”]

The emergence of ALBA, MERCOSUR and UNASUR as forums independent from the OAS has created a “multipolarisation effect” in Latin America. The United States has lost control of South America. The emergence of the Argentino-Brasilian geo-economic entente and of UNASUR have broken the power and influence of the State Department controlled OAS. The SUCRE monetary system is making inroads into commercial spaces formerly dominated by transactions in USA Dollars. BOLIVARIANISM emerges as the most radicalised expression of the overall political and social movement for the Second Independence of Latin America from the status of neo-colonial domination imposed by USA/North Atlantist imperialism in the mid 19th century (when the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed). The Second Independence calls both for the development of a self referential and autonomous post-capitalist models of political-economy for sovereign Latin American nations, for PLURINATIONALISM and for the subsequent voluntary and democratic integration of sovereign peoples into the Latin American "patria grande" (greater fatherland). The Bolivarian Revolutionary government states that its goal in Venezuela is the construction of an "armed democratic socialism" (the Bolivarian concept of Revolutionary Democracy) based on participatory democracy, civic-military alliance, nationalisation of natural resources and planned infrastructural development; where poverty is to be eliminated by empowering the poor politically and economically - i.e organising the poor politically around communal councils and allocating economic resources and targeted social services to the politically organised poor in a decentral manner so that they can solve their own problems in situ.

Bolivarianism is one of the several new global south politics that have emerged in reaction to and against North Atlantist/Imperialist hegemony, the imposition of western political values and economic ideologies (such as neo-liberalism) which seek to rationalise the exploitation and looting of global south peoples and their natural resources to sustain an objectively, socially and ecologically, unsustainable hyper-consumeristic economic model in the nations that conform the North Atlantist Core (North America, Western Europe) . Bolivarianism calls for the creation of “a multipolar world where many worlds are possible, inclusive 21st century socialist ones".

The "Bolivarian-Zapatista" Organising Model as an effective form of social and class struggle:

Elsewhere, I have cited as a model for organising against the proto-fascist right, the ORANISING and CAMPAIGN models of the Venezuelan PSUV patrullas/ “Maquinaria Roja” of 2010 and the Zapatista "Otra Campaña" of 2006, specifically as they pertain basing campaign activity on existing social movements and existing social organisations ('las bases'); because these are successful examples of grassroots organising that do not operate on the premises of neo-liberal individuation and marketisation of political activity and discourse. a political program is not a brand, and marketing does not define culture. "one man one vote" is not democracy, only the first step towards democracy. the organising model of the PSUV has delivered victory after victory to the Venezuelan transition government, while the Zapatista "otra campaña" (which was global) was a direct influence upon the victory of Lopez Obrador / PRD and the formation of the parallel APPO government in Oaxaca. The reason the United States Embassy in Mexico ordered the PAN government to fix the election in 2006 was precisely because of the success of the organising model of the ''Otra Campaña''. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Bolivian MAS also based their campaigns on this "Bolivarian-Zapatista model" in 2006 and 2009 respectively; the result was two major victories for the Segunda Independencia / Second Independence. In the Nicaraguan case the FSLN returned to power, in the Bolivian sense the Indigenista Plurinational Constitution was ratified in a referendum - the first indigenous peoples' constitution in the Americas -north, centre and south. Bolivia became the first Indigenous People’s Republic in the Americas, a polity where indigenous majority rule was achieved on the basis of the political marginalisation of the hispano-criollo comprador bourgeoisie and its North American transnational patrons.

The humble origins of 21st century socialism where the “Caracazo” food riots in Venezuela against neo-liberal adjustment policies in February 1989 and the Zapatista uprising against NAFTA in Chiapas, Mexico in 1994. They chanted QUEREMOS COMER ! ( we want to eat) and YA BASTA ! (enough is enough). Their call was taken up by the anti-globalisation demonstrators who gathered in Seattle in December 1999, the PIQUETEROS in Argentina who deposed a corrupt neo-liberal regime in December 2002, and latter by those who participated in the massive global anti-war movilisations against the imperialist invasion of Iraq in February 2003. They chanted FREE TRADE IS WAR ! and FREEDOM FRIES WHILE BAGDAD BURNS ! The Fifth International must recapture this spirit, and develop it further; as it works to establish spaces of eco-social construction and democratic empowerment for marginalised social actors, in a multi-polar context free of imperialist entities and globalised transnational oligarchies dedicated to the pursuit of unipolarist domination agendas. It must impart new dynamism to the class based struggles of trade unionists in Western Europe fighting against the destructive social effects of the financial bailout; of peace activists in the United States facing repression at the hands of the FBI and Homeland Security Gestapo; and the struggle of migrant populations against systematic police repression, of the foreclosed and the homeless for housing and dignity, of the landless and those displaced by the wars of capitalism in Colombia and Afghanistan. The Fifth International must be an international of hope for those who find themselves in the losing end of global capitalism, not a talk shop for ideologues or a forum for the restatement of failed political theories from the past. /n2

 

 

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(CC) Material on this Weblog is licensed by Miguel Angel Torres, under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [6] license, except for links to articles that are posted with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed and credited to their author(s), inclusive Miguel Angel Torres.