IV450 - July 2012

IV 450 July 2012 PDF

If the various European Union Treaties do not specify the direct competence of EU institutions in the area of health protection, for around twenty years a challenge to social rights and benefits in this area has been observable in all member countries. These rights, in some countries such as France, are the result of the social relationship of forces which emerged from the Second World War. Thus the Constitution of the World Health Organisation (WHO) stipulates: “The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition". .Hence the protection of health largely escaped market relations.

People and governments across Latin America are rising up against foreign mining companies in a wave of revolt that is generating alarm among investors and their political operatives in the imperialist governments.

Victories, even partial, are rare in these times. LALIT would like to share with you an important new development in the class struggle and struggle for women’s emancipation in Mauritius: LALIT is the only political party that has, over the decades, campaigned for abortion decriminalization, and finally last month Parliament passed a new Abortion Law to replace the 1838 total ban on any abortion. Everyone in the country knows that this is a LALIT struggle, as our stand on abortion decriminalization had often been used “against” us. So, it is like getting accumulated “support”.

“The seeds of the patriarchy on which apartheid itself was anchored have all been swept away. But Africa has had her own malignant strain of patriarchy. This leaves the women of South Africa with only half the battle won. ” [This article was originally published in Sept 2009 by the South African magazine Amandla but remains relevant.]

1. In a previous resolution by the National Council, the proposals for a European response against speculation by the financial markets were defined. In these proposals a strategy for a partial pooling of the debt and to assure financing of the European economies was presented. Left Bloc maintains these guidelines. Spain’s financial collapse and the constant threat over Italy clearly show that the European Union needs a financing mechanism independent from the financial markets, and this mechanism is the issuing of Eurobonds and having the ECB as the entity financing in the last resort the European states.

At the end of June the Red Green Alliance reached new heights in opinion polls with 12-14%. At the same time the Social Democrats reached a historic low of 16-17%. This happened after the government decided to make a tax reform with right. This was just the latest development in a process that began even before the Social Democrats and Socialist People’s Party entered into government.

The anti-capitalist left in the United States and around the world faces a paradox. A mere five years ago, the world capitalist economy entered a new long period of falling profits, stagnant accumulation, and growing long-term un (and under-) employment. The 2007-8 financial crisis threatened a wave of bankruptcies across the capitalist world that seemed to herald a collapse of major sectors of industry and finance. The dominant economic orthodoxy—neo-liberalism—with its worship of unregulated and self-correcting markets appeared to be in ruins.

The demonstration which took place in Moscow on May 6, 2012 was one of the most massive and combative that has been seen since the beginning of this period of contestation. Tens of thousands of people invaded the capital, despite the pressure exerted by the authorities and the drop in morale that followed the "victory" of Vladimir Putin in the presidential elections in March. The action on May 6 showed that the wave of protest that began in December is not weakening. It is even experiencing a new beginning and taking a more radical and determined line.

On 22 June, the Paraguayan Senate removed centre-left President Fernando Lugo, following a procedure of "political judgment of destitution": a parliamentary manoeuvre that is admittedly provided for by the Constitution, but whose expeditious nature (done within 24 hours!) has been widely denounced by Paraguayan social organizations and by several governments of neighbouring countries. Evo Morales (Bolivia) denounced what he considered to be a "parliamentary coup".