IV408 - January 2009

January 2009’s articles from International Viewpoint can be downloaded in PDF format. Click on the icon below to get that file.

Instability, price hikes, growing unemployment and rising debts are the hallmarks of the first nine months of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government. There are daily demonstrations across Pakistan around one or another of these issues.

WHEN GENERAL MOTORS and Chrysler received pre-Christmas bridge loans of $17.4 billion, President Bush specified that the unionized work force had to become “competitive” with non-unionized workers in wages, benefits and work rules. This blatant attempt to destroy an already weakened United Auto Workers (UAW) illustrates how, in the midst of an economic crisis, U.S. capital is bailed out as working people are fleeced.

THE UNITED STATES changed forever on November 4, 2008. It will undoubtedly change even more during the next four years — although just how remains to be determined. There has never been such a convergence of yawning crises facing an incoming U.S. government, including a collapsing credit system and the near-death spiral of the North American auto industry. It’s an entirely open question whether the sheer scale of the objective emergency might impose serious structural changes on the way capitalism is administered in this country.

The World Social Forum (WSF) held in Belem is a very significant one. It’s the first WSF held after the outburst of the 2008 economic crisis. This crisis made evident the total failure of neo-liberalism and the destructive character of global capitalism. Besides, Brazilian Amazon is a privileged place to highlight the link between social and ecological crisis.

THERE WAS EUPHORIA in every Black community household November 4. High fives and tears of joy. No one could believe it. It didn’t matter Obama’s politics. A Black man had won! The election of the first Black president of the United States has a dual meaning: social and political.

Last Friday Com. Chamil Jayaneththi,the organizing secretary of the Nava Samasamaja party had been informed to summon the magistrate Court on 2nd of February.

Even though it dates from a month ago, this document of the Greek section of the Fourth International remains very topical: first of all, because it gives an eye-witness description of the formidable Greek youth movement, adding a political analysis that is essential if we do not want to remain about at the stage of the “youthism” that we have seen in quite a few publications over the last few weeks; then, because in this mid-January, the movement, which no longer takes the form it did during its first week, is starting up again, with demonstrations over education and also in solidarity with the Palestinian people, although we can obviously not foresee how it will evolve.

The revolt of Greek youth (see the document of the Central Committee of the OKDE-Spartakos, Greek section of the Fourth International,) upset political routine, which tended to relegate to the background the contradictions of a capitalism in crisis, in a sadly politicking spectacle, made up of scandals and corruption, of battles between apparatuses without any meaning for people’s lives, which get worse every day.

The horror in Gaza is not some kind of accident or unexpected disaster. It is a result of events and decisions years in the making. It cannot be understood apart from years of United States policy in the Middle East. And it is most definitely not an act of “legitimate Israeli defense against unprovoked Hamas rockets.”