In solidarity with the Greek people, against illegitimate debts and austerity measures, let us mobilize!

The response to the financial and economic crisis is the same everywhere: cuts in expenditure and austerity measures under the pretext of reducing deficits and the repayment of a public debt which is the direct outcome of 20 years of neoliberal policies. Governments in the service of finance and big European capital are actually using this pretext to further reduce social spending, lower wages and pensions, privatize health care, dismantle social benefits and deregulate labour laws, increase taxes on the majority while social and tax giveaways are generalized for the big companies and the highest net worth households.

Greek hospitals tighten payment rules

By Chloe Hadjimatheou BBC World Service, Athens

Funding shortages appear to be leading Greek hospitals to get tough with patients who are not entitled to free healthcare - but when patients are broke there is no easy solution. One new mother says she was told she wouldn't be allowed to take her baby home after giving birth.

When the Athens maternity hospital where Anna gave birth asked her to pay for the costs of her Caesarean section, she told them she did not have the 1,200 euros (£970, $1,500) they wanted.

They responded, she says, by threatening to keep hold of her baby until she paid the full amount.

Résister avec le peuple grec

par CADTM Europe

29 mai 2012

Lors des élections du 6 mai dernier, les électeurs grecs ont sanctionné les forces de la coalition qui ont appliqué les plans d’austérité et se sont soumis aux diktats de la Troïka (FMI, BCE et Commission européenne). La Nouvelle Démocratie et le PASOK ont payé le prix de leur totale soumission aux créanciers de la Grèce. Le LAOS, parti d’extrême droite et membre de la coalition précédemment au pouvoir, a quasiment disparu de la scène publique.

| Español | Português | 

Resisting with the Greeks

by CADTM Europe

30 May 2012

In the recent elections on May 6, Greek voters sanctioned the coalition forces which had applied austerity plans and surrendered to the dictates of the Troika (the IMF, the ECB and the European Commission). New Democracy and the PASOK (Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement) have thus paid the price of their total submission to Greece’s creditors. The far right party, LAOS, a member of the coalition previously in power, has practically disappeared from the political scene.

The future of the workers of Europe is being decided in Greece

Statement of the Fourth International
 

For two years the Greek people have fought against the austerity imposed by the Troika (the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank). After seventeen one-day general strikes, after mass demonstrations and the occupations of squares by the aganaktismeni (the indignant), after occupations of workplaces, in the elections held on May 6 it rejected the parties which had accepted the memoranda imposed on Greece by more than 60 per cent of the votes cast, and gave 37 per cent to parties to the left of the antisocial liberalism of PASOK.

SYRIZA ou la percée magistrale d’une expérience unitaire unique et originale

Yorgos Mitralias

Athènes, 19 mai 2012

Epouvantail pour « ceux d’en haut », espoir pour « ceux d’en bas »,  SYRIZA fait une entrée fracassante sur la scène politique de cette Europe en crise profonde. Apres avoir quadruplée sa force électorale le 6 mai, SYRIZA ambitionne maintenant non seulement de devenir le premier parti de Grèce aux élections du 17 juin, mais surtout de pouvoir former un gouvernement de gauche qui abrogera les mesures d’austérité, répudiera la dette et chassera la Troïka du pays.   Ce n’est donc pas une surprise si SYRIZA intrigue fortement au delà de la Grèce, et si pratiquement tout le monde s’interroge sur son origine et sa vraie nature, ses objectifs et ses ambitions.

SYRIZA, the Communist Party and the desperate need for a united front

 KARADJIS Michael

A united front of the left and sustained mass mobilisation are desperately needed in Greece

May 16, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — This article does not aim to give a full account of the current Greek political crisis. Rather, the crisis will be discussed with a focus on the failure of the Greek left to form a united front in the hour of need of the masses, with a historical look at the nature of the Greek left and the parties involved in it.

Why Europe needs Greece

Syriza's electoral success marks the start of the first major battle against austerity. The whole continent should will them to win

by Costas Lapavitsas

The clear winner of the recent Greek elections is Syriza, a coalition of leftwing organisations active for several years. The fascist Golden Dawn party has also made stunning gains but its rise, disturbing as it might be, is neither the main outcome of the elections, nor yet a major threat to Greek society. Political momentum belongs to Syriza. If it gets its act together, it could help resolve the crisis and give a boost to the European anti-austerity movement.

Citizen Debt Audit Platform "We don’t owe! We won’t pay!" Spain, Barcelona

14 May 2012

Citizens, 15M/Indignados assemblies and various social networks and organizations around the country are building the Citizen Debt Audit Platform to demonstrate the illegitimacy of debt, identify those responsible of the crisis and demand not to pay an illegitimate debt.

Drop Egypt’s Debt letter to IMF around Spring meetings requesting transparency!

by Popular Campaign to Drop Egypt’s Debt

Soixante sept ans après la fin de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale et le procès de Nuremberg, nous voici donc en pleine République de Weimar à la grecque…

Yorgos Mitralias

Athènes, 3 mai 2012

Dépourvue de traditions et des pratiques antifascistes, la gauche grecque, pratiquement toutes tendances confondues, assiste impuissante et désemparée à la répétition dans son pays du drame de la République de Weimar non pas comme une farce mais très probablement comme une tragédie annonciatrice de grands malheurs européens. Les faits récents en témoignent : après avoir investi, pendant ces derniers mois,  ses espoirs dans cette gauche se situant à la gauche de la social-démocratie néolibérale (PASOK), la petite bourgeoisie grecque ruinée et aux abois s’en détourne en un temps record et est maintenant en train de chercher a l’autre extrémité de l’échiquier politique les solutions radicales à ses problèmes historiques et cataclysmiques…

En souvenir d'Ahmed Ben Bella, 1er président de l'Algérie indépendante, décédé le 11 avril 2012 à l'âge de 96 ans

par Eric Toussaint

Ahmed Ben Bella a passé 18 ans de sa vie en captivité, 6 ans dans les geôles française (1956-1962) et 12 ans en Algérie après son renversement le 19 juin 1965 par un coup d'Etat militaire  dirigé par le colonel Houari Boumedienne.
Je voudrais, sans recul, très  rapidement mentionner quelques souvenirs personnels. A plusieurs reprises, j'ai rencontré Ahmed Ben Bella entre 1994 et 2005.

Do we need a public debt?

MILLET Damien, TOUSSAINT Eric

Do we need a public debt?

The answer is yes. A State must be able to contract loans in order to improve its population’s living standards, for instance when it carries out major work of public utility and invests in renewable energies. These public loans could be used to move from an economy geared to the needs of car drivers to one that gives priority to public transport, to shut down nuclear plants and replace them with renewable sources of energy, to renovate, upgrade or build from scratch public buildings and social housing that would require less energy and be equipped with state-of-the-art facilities.

The Rise of the Working Class and the Future of the Chinese Revolution

by LI Minqi

Minqi Li (minqi.li [at] economics.utah.edu) has taught economics at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, since 2006. He was a political prisoner in China from 1990 to 1992. His book, The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy, was published by Pluto Press and Monthly Review Press in 2009.

Una multitud efervescente toma las calles el 29M

La jornada de huelga se ha desarrollado en plena efervescencia, las calles de muchas ciudades y pueblos han sido tomadas por miles de personas y multitud de piquetes, acciones y concentraciones. Por la tarde, el corazón de las urbes se ha bloqueado por las diferentes manifestaciones que marchaban contra la reforma laboral por todo el Estado.