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recession

15,000 Strong Demonstration in Montréal Against the Budget

Submitted by Flint on Sat, 04/03/2010 - 18:37

a report from Union Communiste Libertaire (UCL)

Against privatization and price increases: ONLY THE STRUGGLE PAYS!

On April 1st 2010, some 15,000 people descended on the business district in Montreal at the call of more than 95 unions, popular, feminist and student groups. Is this the first stage of a response against the Liberal budget? Only time will tell. In any case, it was a nice demonstration--a popular grand procession, very diverse and militant (at least in discourse).

We now know that the budget tabled on March 30th by Minister Bachand introduced a host of measures, each more regressive than the one before. The introduction of new fees for healthcare or the rapid growth of sales tax (QST) are examples. The rich will fare quite well, as usual. Nothing in this budget calls into question their privilege and their little schemes to stash their money in tax-free havens. Again, we are required to sacrifice for them. Enough!

Nature of the Period: Background and Perspectives

Submitted by Common Struggle on Mon, 03/29/2010 - 12:00

Social systems don't live forever. They have their own internal contradictions, which produce systemic crises. Capitalism is no different; someday it will end. The question we are addressing is whether it will be followed by barbarism, mass death, and barrenness, or by a better world. The current crisis is not only one of greatly increased attacks on the working class and oppressed people but is also a fundamental crisis of the system itself. We cannot predict the demise of the system, something in which the working class and oppressed people must also play a conscious part. We can, however, state that this is the most serious crisis of capitalism since the 1930's--and that one was only "solved" by World War II.

An understanding of today's world crisis must begin at the end of that previous crisis.

Socialism or Barbarism; Anarchism or Annihilation

Submitted by Flint on Mon, 03/29/2010 - 10:48

The Relationship Between Crisis and Consciousness
by Wayne Price

Considering the economic and social crisis we are facing, what are the relationships between the objective tendency of capitalism toward catastrophe and the subjective consciousness involved in class struggle? Is it "inevitable" that capitalism will crash and produce the socialist-anarchist revolution? Can we ignore or deny objective social laws in favor of focusing on the self-activity of the working class?

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