Road to World revolution

road to world rev

Lagarde to earn $467,940 plus $83,760 benefits as IMF chief

By Jérôme E. Roos On July 6, 2011

While workers in ‘bailed out’ countries are having their wages cut, incoming IMF chief Christine Lagarde will receive a raise and earn more than Obama.In the midst of the greatest economic downturn since WWII and an embarrassing sexual assault scandal involving its previous managing director, the International Monetary Fund announced that it will give its new boss a raise.

Christine Lagarde, who took over the reigns at the IMF yesterday, will earn $467,940 per year plus a $83,760 allowance. Notably, this salary is up almost 6 percent from the $441,980 per year that former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn used to make — and significantly more than the $400,000 salary earnedby the U.S. President.

Ironically, the IMF justified Lagarde’s raise as “reflecting a rise in the cost of living.” Yet workers in countries ‘bailed out’ by the IMF have experienced vastly greater increases in their cost of living without any form of wage compensation.

Indeed, their living standards are rapidly plummeting as the IMF calls on countries like Greece, Portugal and Ireland to cut public sector wages across the board. Greek wages, for example, have already been slashed 15-20 percent.

Just to put this in contrast, the average Greek worker, say, a waiter in a restaurant, made some 727 euros net per month in 2008 on an average work week of 47+ hours (much less today, I just can’t find more recent figures). Excluding her benefits, Lagarde makes over 53 times that amount.

Also, while the IMF has forced these loan ‘beneficiaries’ to raise both income taxes and VAT, Lagarde herself will benefit from America’s negligible sales tax and won’t have to pay any income taxes over her salary.

Moreover, while the IMF has launched a head-on assault on so-called “overly generous” pension schemes in countries like Greece, Lagarde will receive benefits that most European or American workers couldn’t even dream of, including a generous pension arrangement and a lifelong annual retirement supplement.

All in all, this situation reveals a number of painful truths about our world today. First, it amply reveals the enormity of the chasm between the technocratic elitesin charge of economic policy and the average people affected by their decisions.

But secondly, and this is even more troublesome, it reveals the subsumed truth behind the global financial crisis that we are not all in this together. As David Harvey correctly pointed out in a recent interview, “the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer.”

Austerity, in other words, is not about everyone tightening their belts in order to collectively overcome the crisis we face. In truth, austerity is about siphoning wealth from the lower rungs of the social ladder to the top.

It’s the greatest bank heist of the century, and it’s the bankers who are doing the robbing — with their smiling and well-spoken accomplices in the finance ministries, central banks and IMF right by their side.

First Cairo Egypt And Now Washington DC: Tent City Occupation Begins Oct. 6, 2011

By Liam Fox

NEWS JUNKIE POST
Jun 17, 2011 at 3:06 pm

Finally, a large, and rapidly growing, coalition of left wing and progressive activists, and organizations, is coming together with a clear and united platform. Hundreds of thousands are expected to descend on DC this coming October, 111 days from now, not just to march in a permitted parade and then return home, but to stay and occupy Freedom Plaza indefinitely, until their demands have been met.

The Bonus Army, made up of WWI veterans, did precisely this in 1932 so that they could be paid the money that the government owed them for their service, performed more than a decade earlier, and be able to feed their families during the horrible early years of the Great Depression. They were met with violence from the police and two of the veterans latter died from their wounds. The army was also called in and the protest was finally put down after almost six weeks.

In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Junior was on his way to a permanent tent city being established on the Capitol grounds in Washington, called Resurrection City, as part of his ‘Poor Peoples’ campaign. He was murdered while in Memphis, on his way to the event. After his murder, the army was used to clear the demonstrators and their tent city.

Both of these prior events share fundamental principles with the October 2011 action. Illegal foreign wars, high unemployment, cuts to services and wages while increasing costs and taxes, and corporate influence over political institutions and policies are just as current today as they were at either of those times.

Wage disparity is worse than ever. Jobs are being lost, benefits cut, and homes foreclosed on while the financial elite are boasting record profits. The politicians they’ve paid for are busy stripping away any rules, regulations, and responsible taxation, in return for campaign donations and lucrative post-public-office positions. Plainly speaking, it’s the politician’s jobs to hold us down while Big-Finance, Big-Business, and any other well-heeled special interest with an army of lobbyists rapes us, robs us, and rolls us.

There is a nonviolence pledge that all participants are asked to sign even though it can be expected that the DC police, and the Federal Security Forces, are unlikely to have any such pledge of their own. Information and tips regarding peaceful civil disobedience, your rights, and your responsibilities, will be shared as the event approaches both at the main site as well as in regular updates here at News Junkie Post.

The left has been slow in their response to the loud rantings of the extreme right. A unified and focused effort that brings all those with shared fundamental principles together has taken some time to organize, but that time is here. In One Hundred Eleven days, on October 6, America will show up on the lawns of the Capitol and will not move until they have been heard, and the appropriate responses are forthcoming.

The October2011 site states;

“October 2011 is the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the 2012 federal austerity budget. It is time to light the spark that sets off a true democratic, nonviolent transition to a world in which people are freed to create just and sustainable solutions.”

The event beginning October 6 is endorsed by a growing list of participating organizations that include ANSWER, Backbone Campaign, FireDogLake, The Green Party USA, Progressive Democrats of America, Single Payer Action, Veterans for Peace, War is a Crime, Food Not Bombs, Ted Rall – author of The Anti-American Manifesto, Code Pink, World Can’t Wait, United National Antiwar Committee, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, and many more. In addition to these organizations, there are currently more than twenty media outlets besides NewsJunkiePost.com that will be covering and carrying this event and all related and relevant information.

Also from the October2011 site;

“Previous demonstrations were one-day events which were simple for the Administration and Congress to ignore” Margaret Flowers, another organizer, told me. “The large demonstrations usually happened on weekends when there was little going on in Washington. “This is different because it is an occupation that begins on a Thursday, a day of business, and will continue.”
They will keep the heat on. “We intend to stay and to have waves of nonviolent civil resistance. The time for symbolic actions has ended. Too many people are suffering and dying here and around the world because of the policies of this nation. The planet is suffering because of the policies of this nation. This government has demonstrated that it is incapable of acting in the best interests of the people and planet. We say that this is unacceptable and we will stay and resist until this changes,” Flowers said.

The goal of the protest can be found in this excerpt from the pledge found on the October2011 site;

“I pledge that if any U.S. troops, contractors, or mercenaries remain in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 6, 2011, as that occupation goes into its 11th year, I will commit to being in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C.,…where we will NONVIOLENTLY resist the corporate machine until our resources are invested in human needs and environmental protection instead of war and exploitation…”

The question of ‘if’ it’s going to happen is already settled; comprehensive planning by a large and committed coalition has ensured that. The goal is to sustain the action for as long as it takes. Pack small, pack smart, and pack to make it last. The action will begin during the beautiful low 70′s weather of early October in DC, but the hints of winter will only be a few weeks off. As a group, problem solving can be done as things develop, but, preparation can save a lot of frustration and strengthen the groups morale and resolve.

We have seen the response to such demonstrations in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria. One always hopes that their own government will be more civil, and more democratic, and, indeed, this is everyone’s hope. But, make your back-up plans, contact plans, bail contacts, emergency numbers, etc. Good planning and preparation are what will ensure success.

A volunteers list is already being organized through October2011.org to manage logistics and supplies. Transportation programs are also available at the October2011.org site. A method for receiving donations has already been established and, it too, can be accessed through the October2011 site. Bookmark their page and check back here for any further details as they are available.

Mark your calendars: October 6, 2011, 111 days from today. Arrange to have the time off; as much as possible but preferably for the duration. I’ll see everyone there.

‘Like’ October2011′s brand new Facebook Page and ‘Follow’ the Twitter Hashtag #October2011 !
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Protests in China are shaking global capitalism

http://www.wsws.org/es/articles/2011/jul2011/chsp-j04.shtml

By John Chan
July 4, 2011

The rash of protests by workers in Zengcheng has shaken the global financial circles, highlighting how dependent the global economy is the exploitation of the upper working class in China.

Both the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal have published articles that are concerned about the Chinese police state’s ability to contain any mass movement of the working class. An editorial in the Financial Times speculated on the number and intensity of protests in China and remarked: “The perception that local protests gain greater national coherence is slightly more threatening to the Chinese Communist Party.”

This picture is also threatening the international bourgeoisie. Even a social explosion in the town of Zengcheng, known as the “capital of Jeans,” has resonated throughout the world. The satellite city of Guangzhou produces one third of the jeans in the world to 60 different brands. Zengcheng is just one of many capitals “manufacturing”, each specializing in one commodity, mostly for export.

Large industrial unrest in China have huge ramifications for international corporations, ranging from German exports to the large mining machines in Australia and Brazil. General Motors currently produces more cars and trucks in China than in the U.S. And Walmart is dependent on China for most of their cheap consumer goods. The Apple iPhone and Cases are made in huge maquiladoras (a term originally used to describe the U.S. industry produced-ie, “makeup”-in Mexico) run by Foxconn. Subsidiaries directly managed by foreign companies employ 16 million Chinese workers, with millions more involved in complex supply chains for multinational corporations.

The angry protests of rural migrants in Zengcheng were caused by the harsh treatment of a pregnant woman by local security guards. Stressing the incident, however, were acute social tensions produced by the rising prices of food, shelter and other essential issues. The increase of wages earned by workers last year in a series of strikes beginning in a Honda plant was completely eroded by inflation.

Protests Zengcheng has been followed by industrial strikes. Last week, 2,000 workers at the plant in Dongguan Citizen Watch Japanese went on strike for several days to protest the long hours and low pay. This week, 4,000 workers at a factory that manufactured portfolios Korean high-end products in Guangzhou went on strike demanding higher wages and a halt to the abuses of the administration.

In response to protests Zengcheng, an editorial in the state newspaper the Global Times endeavored to deny that China was likely to the revolutionary upheavals of the Middle East and North Africa. “Many people may have specific complaints and appeals, but they have no interest in breaking with the existing social order and break social stability,” he said. “China is a nation where public discontent seeks to overthrow the existing order. It is time to discard this lie irrational.”

In fact, the regime of Chinese Communist Party (PCC) is still tormented by the uprisings of May and June of 1989 when millions of workers joined students in Beijing and other cities to demand decent living standards, democratic rights and a an end to official corruption, only to be brutally repressed.

None of the social contradictions that led to this explosion has been resolved. In contrast, the impressive growth of Chinese capitalism in the past two decades has been a growing social divide between rich and deep the poor. The number of urban workers has grown from 120 million in 1978 to over 500 million, including 210 million rural workers. The number of billionaires in U.S. dollars China has jumped from none in 2002 to 189, the largest increase outside the U.S.

In an online survey in March, the Global Times found that 94 percent of respondents considered themselves as “marginalized” by the current social order. Typical of those who voted yes was a person who said China was “a heaven of the rich while the poor bitter struggle for employment, a home and to survive.” One way or another, this seething social unrest in China will find its expression in a mass movement against the Stalinist regime in Beijing.

In Europe and the U.S., having rescued the banks and major corporations, governments are now imposing the huge debts incurred in the form of drastic austerity measures. Terrified at the prospect of growing unemployment and unrest, the Chinese regime has responded to the global financial crisis by providing massive stimulus packages and opening the floodgates of credit to keep the economy growing at a frenetic pace. These policies can not be sustainable in the long term. Beijing is already slowing credit growth will inevitably slow the rising unemployment and lead to greater unrest.

If there is any lesson that Chinese workers should learn from the protests in the Middle East, Europe and the U.S., is that no amount of pressure will force the regime in Beijing to make any fundamental change.

Chinese workers are quite aware that unions operate as state police officers for the regime. However, it also must reject the perspective of those as the founder of China Labour Bulletin Han Dongfang, who proposes that workers can defend their rights through the formation of unions “depoliticized” independent. He is using his reputation as a labor leader during the demonstrations of 1989 to deceive the workers to believe that strikes and protests will pressure the government for concessions.

Han Dongfang recently called for Beijing to implement a system in which workers’ demands can be resolved through “peaceful negotiations, equitable and constructive relations with the administration.” He continued: “If workers can achieve their goals through peaceful negotiation of an agreement in the long run there will be few strikes, workers are better paid and labor relations will be most improved.” In fact, Han Dongfang is offering its services to help stop any independent movement of the “bargaining agreement” of workers, even as the regime strengthens its police-state measures.

As in Europe, the U.S. and the Middle East, workers in China have to rely on their own strength and move independently on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program. His natural allies are the workers around the world who face the same transnational corporations scouts and the same system of capitalist oppression. The central task facing Chinese workers is to lead the downtrodden rural masses to overthrow the Stalinist regime in Beijing and take power into their hands. This means building a new revolutionary party as the China section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the world Trotskyist movement.

Independence day in Belarus: detained more than 100 people