Thu Mar 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

The myth of recovery and December 20th elections

 

 Rajoy finishes his mandate taking ahead a campaign about”economic recovery”. He stated if the PP does not win, the country will step back and abandon the road of economical growth and job creation. However, for millions of workers’ families who brutally felt the crisis’ bitter taste, the story of recovery is like the Lock Ness Monster legend: everybody has heard about it but nobody has seen it. Actually, to be more precise, some have already seen it: bankers and entrepreneurs, the Botín and the Ortega families.

 

By: Ángel Luis Parras – Senator Alternate Candidate for Popular Unity (Madrid)

 

Spanish State has experimented, over the last years, a double economic phenomenon: on one side, increasing poverty and decreasing wages and social rights. On the other, a strong increase of wealth concentration in only a few hands. This happened because Rajoy, and before him Zapatero, strictly implemented, from Brussels on, the policies imposed by the European Union and the Troika.

Any rigorous analysis of reality will deny the fallacy of recovery. The European Union grows less than 0,5%, according to forecasts for 2015. Our wages are still lower than in 2008, and temporary jobs and miserable wages have become generalized. Job creation Rajoy boasts of, is not only poor as it is also under extreme precarious conditions. The public debt has grown up to 100% of GDP. And EU and the Troika, headed by Angela Merkel and François Hollande, have already noted the new government to come after December 20th will have to implement further cuts without fail, as to achieve Brussels’ “deficit targets” and “structural reforms”.

The positive side of the story is, last seven years were marked by social struggles and popular movements going out to the streets to defend the rights they want to steal from us.

December 20th elections are of major importance. Since the beginning of the current electoral period, Corriente Roja supported a unitarian candidacy against the government of bankers and big businessmen of the Troika. Since the first day, we relied on debating a program to put working class on the center of the scene. This is why we joined forces with comrades from “Unionist for Popular Unity” [Sindicalistas por la Unidad Popular – TN]. Since the very first moment, we presented a workers’ program and candidatures to Popular Unity’s primary elections. The voting list was headed by Alberto Garzón, from United Left [Izquierda Unida, TN], yet it included several other groups on it. The final composition of this list is the closest to our efforts we could achieve, despite the fact it has some important limitations regarding its proposals. For example, it does not support the suspension of public debt’s payment, neither breaking with the EU’s straitjacket. Also, about Catalunia’s matter, one of the most burning and central issues to the monarchical regime’s crisis, they avoid to clearly stand for Catalan people’s right to decide with sovereignty, in face of Rajoy’s threats and authoritarianism, which is supported by Pedro Sánchez (PSOE) and Albert Rivera (Ciudadanos).

PSOE is no alternative to PP. They were the ones who began implementing cuts, privatizations and reforms responding to Troika’s orders, leading to the current catastrophic situation. About the essential matters, such as Catalunia’s matter or the submission to the EU, they are no different than PP. “Ciudadanos” is a transgenic copy of PP, misleading the population by appearing as a novelty, taking advantage of the fact they have not been stained with corruption yet. “Podemos”, in turn, has made a deep ‘turn to the right’: the debt is no further questioned, and all its economic and social policies are subjected to EU’s and Euro Zone’s rules. All international pacts, like NATO, are accepted by Podemos. And it supports a merely electoral way out to the crisis, when, in reality, no change will be possible if not coming from the streets, work and study places.

 

No to war

Europe lives a new moment in face of the brutal terrorist attacks in Paris. IS is an organization which grew thanks to the connivance, or even direct help, of North American and European imperialism, and Gulf’s regimes, which used it to fight the legitimate rebellion in Syria and Iraq. IS’ roots origins are in Iraq’s war and its occupation by the USA. European governments and Russia are using terrorist attacks as an excuse to bomb Syria and impose a growing authoritarianism in Europe, which mainly affects immigrant workers and refugees who arrive here. In face of this, we, from “Corriente Roja”, say: Not in our name! No to airstrikes! Stop the attack to democratic rights and liberties! Assist the refugees you have generated yourselves!

 

Notes:

1- Emilio Botín, president of Bank Santander.

2- Amancio Ortega, founder of Inditex, textile production and distribution multinational.

 

Originally published in Página Roja, segunda Época, N35, December, 2015.

Translation: Lvenck.

 

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