In addition to recent US labor struggles, including here in North Carolina, there will be mobilizations against US government militarism and it's costs, here and abroad, Saturday, March 18th at 1pm across from the White House and in some other cities across the country, supported by over 200 groups, including the GPUS (there is a press release at: www.gp.org/peace_in_ukraine_rally_stop_the_endless_wars ). For the NCGP carpool see: www.ncgreenparty.org/dc_carpool_march_18 UNAC is calling for further anti-war actions April 15 – 22.
A few NATO war anniversaries are coming up soon, including the 20th anniversary of the 2003 attack on Iraq. The BBC has been looking back every day this week, but hides the UK's role and whitewashes the events it highlights. It doesn't make connections with the war in Ukraine. In talking about the Blackwater's massacre of Iraqi civilians the company was called something like a private security contractor, while the Russian Wagner Group is portrayed as a group of brutal mercenaries, and I think the staff literally calls them mercenaries. It was highlighted that Trump pardoned the four American mercenaries convicted of crimes in Iraq. I haven't heard any blame being given to George W Bush or Tony Blair yet or mention of the lies or allegedly inaccurate intelligence used to justify the war (no mention of the Downing Street memos or Biden's role in Congress and during the Obama administration). Another story covered the US capture of Saddam Hussein near Tikrit and how he was treated. There is no talk of the Bush administration's claim to have won the war, followed by years of guerrilla war against the occupation and inter-communal violence. I remember a Triangle Free Press article about the UK sending a tank or tanks to break someone out of jail in the south of Iraq during the occupation, similar to how the US kept an American asset out of British custody after she hit someone with a car a few years ago. A Brown University study is claiming that the war resulted in at most 306,000 civilian deaths, including killings by the Iraqi government and armed groups. I haven't heard much coverage in the US mainstream media, though I might have missed some segments. The mainstream media is still doing US propaganda work, marching to the tune of proxy war with Russia and intentionally creating conflict with China. Maybe this is what it was like when the US and UK worked to stir up the original Cold War in the 40's.
It is headline news if Putin, almost the only Russian official ever referred to by name, is accused of war crimes by an international body, under a judge from US-allied Norway, the US and Norway accused of being partners in the operation that destroyed the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, but similar proceedings against the top American leadership only appear in the margins if at all.
En Marcha #2040 from March 15 to 21, 2023
Central Organ of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador
Workers mobilize in Europe
The international situation in recent months has been characterized by a deepening of the contradiction between capital and labor. Millions of workers in cities and the countryside have taken to the streets around the world to fight for better living conditions.
Among the territories in which this development of the workers' struggle is evident is the European continent. Thousands of workers are mobilizing against the budget cuts and anti-people measures taken by the present governments, which intend to put on the shoulders of their peoples the crisis that is developing due to the impacts of the war in Ukraine.
In recent days, France had a day of mobilizations that took place in the main cities and that had as its main element the rejection of the project of social security reform proposed by the right-wing government of Macron. In several sectors there have been strikes with road blockades, as in the case of refineries. In Greece, important mobilizations took place to demand the sanction of those responsible for the neglect of the railway network, product of the lack of maintenance due to scarcity of economic resources. In Spain, there have been several mobilizations against the dismantling of public health led by the state governments of the PP and Vox. In Portugal, teachers are rebelling over the reduction of salaries and the dismantling of the teaching career. In Germany, commuter trains in seven German federal states, including the two most populous, North Rhine-Westphalia (west) and Bavaria (south) were paralyzed because of the employers' refusal to carry out a wage increase for bus, airport and train workers. In February Great Britain saw its first day of strike, coordinated between several sectors and of a magnitude not recorded in more than a decade.
As we said, the European economy is not going through its best moments. The economic growth forecasts for the year 2023 are not encouraging, barely 0.8% for the European Union, which speaks of not improving living conditions, in the context of the market economy. To the low growth rate is added the problem of inflation, which reached 10.5% in Great Britain, while in all Europe it was at 8.5%; however, wage increases are not enough to cover the reduction in the purchasing power of European workers. The authorities justify not increasing wages beyond a certain level in order to control inflation, which leaves wage earners as victims of these measures.
A study conducted by a French organization found that aid from European governments to transnationals between 2008 and 2018 grew at an average annual rate of 7.5%, while resources for pensions barely grew at 2.5%.
The struggle for demands led by the European working class confronts neoliberal measures that try to put the economic crisis on the shoulders of the workers. The massiveness of the protest puts governments in trouble, which are constantly entering into crisis due to the loss of representativeness.
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