General Strike Disrupts EU Summit

[REDWAVE]

Hot off the Reuters wire: the European Union (EU) summit in Spain was delayed by the general strike called by the unions. In these desperate times, American workers need to reacquaint themselves with such militant labor tactics as general strikes, political strikes, and (my favorite) "sit-down strikes" or plant occupations. These tactics were used extensively during the last Great Depression in the 1930's.

The EU is a very top-down, undemocratic institution. Its main accomplishment so far has been the adoption of a common currency, the euro. The "Maastricht criteria" attached to adoption of the euro are less well known. These impose a requirement of balanced budgets on member countries, and require anti-worker "austerity." They also give unprecedented power to the European Central Bank (ECB), a totally unelected, elitist institution, similar to our Federal Reserve Board (FRB).

The EU summit also has a reactionary agenda: scapegoating and attacking immigrants, "fighting" the extreme right by adopting its policies. Blair and Aznar (Spanish Prime Minister) are leading the charge on this. Amnesty International has criticized this attempt to build "Fortress Europe."

 

[Siren]

 

[Ice Cold]

Getting ready to disrupt Sirens first post streak!!!

 

[p_p_man]

The EU summit also has a reactionary agenda: scapegoating and attacking immigrants, "fighting" the extreme right by adopting its policies. Blair and Aznar (Spanish Prime Minister) are leading the charge on this. Amnesty International has criticized this attempt to build "Fortress Europe."

The debate over immigration is in fact led by the people. There has been an increasing opposition to unrestricted immigration over the past few years and separate domestic Governments have come under fire from their electorate for allowing things to get out of hand. Witness the recent elections in France.

The UK, Spain and The Netherlands are now beginning to introduce rule changes on the treatment of immigrants in their own countries. The European debate is on the much larger issue of controlling access into Europe through Spain (from Morocco) and Italy from the Balkan states.

 

[SINthysist]

I heard a conjecture put forth yesterday by one of the talkers that a brief moment in the history of mankind is about to fade away. And that is that having thrown off the shackles of oppressive over-bearing governments ruled by an elite of one sort or another and having established governments of the people, we then turn to re-creating the rule of government...