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Forum Post: Coordinated Anti-Austerity Protests Hit Southern Europe

Posted 11 years ago on Oct. 1, 2012, 10:19 p.m. EST by arturo (3169) from Shanghai, Shanghai
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Today tens of thousands of Spanish and Portuguese protesters, of all ages and from all walks of life, were back out in the streets again, protesting the "social genocide" which is being imposed upon them by the EU financial oligarchy.

Greater coordination has clearly been established between protestors across Southern Europe. The coordinating body of Spain's "Surround the Congress movement (dubbed 25S) posted a short "Call from the Countries of Southern Europe" in Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian on its website (http://coordinadora25s.wordpress.com/) this week, declaring:

"The politics of austerity affect all citizens of southern Europe. The dictates of the Troika are destroying the lives of millions of people in order to continue looting the common wealth through the mechanism of the debt. The governments complicit in the great fraud cannot keep us from fighting together for our lives and our future with all our force and intelligence. We will take to the streets on September 29 in Portugal, Italy and Spain, and we invite our Greek brothers to continue mobilizing jointly with us. We will surround the parliaments; we will take the streets; and we will tell our politicians to leave; that we are not going to continue tolerating the barbarity that the financial markets are imposing on us. We want a new democracy in Europe. The PIGS are rebelling; Screw the Troika. We don't owe; we won't pay."

In Portugal, signs reading "Go to hell Troika, we want our lives back," dominated the march in Lisbon called by the Portuguese CGTP trade union confederation for today. "A year ago the Prime Minister told us the solution to the country's problems was the agreement with the Troika... But we have already seen this film in Greece, this is a road without an exit, pushing us toward the precipice," CGTP head Armenio Carlos charged in his speech to the rally.

In Spain, thousands of protestors surrounded the parliament building for the third time this week. (Estimates given of attendees range from 4,500 to 60,000!) The statement read at the rally focused its fire how the Troika and the financial markets have "kidnapped popular sovereignity." We are accompanied on the streets by our Portuguese, Greek and Italian brothers, "surrounding their own parliaments. They are the PIGS; we are Southern Europe, and without the South, there is no possible Europe," it read. As for domestic politics, the leadership of the protestors declared that neither the currently ruling PP party and its predecessor, the PSOE, have listened. "Both have betrayed their own voters," and put through budgets which allocate much more money to pay an illegitimate debt than to the social needs which could help create a collective way out of the crisis."

The 25S movement promises to come back out in front of the parliament when the budget is discussed, and has called on Spaniards to organize coordinated protests across the country, not just in Madrid.

http://larouchepac.com/node/24074

14 Comments

14 Comments


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[-] -1 points by CitizenofAmerika (-71) 11 years ago

More LaRouche.....how wonderful.

[-] 1 points by arturo (3169) from Shanghai, Shanghai 11 years ago

Larouche has opposed Wall Street for decades, long before OWS ever existed. His voice belongs here.

[-] -1 points by CitizenofAmerika (-71) 11 years ago

Sigh.... Since you've been here for a long time I guess many here agree with you.

[-] 2 points by arturo (3169) from Shanghai, Shanghai 11 years ago

Yes, usually, when I post these I get one or two people saying "Thanks" or "Good post".

And what about you? As a CitizenofAmerika, did you know that Wall Street is and always has been a treasonous entity:

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2011/3842no_need_wall_st.html

[-] 0 points by CitizenofAmerika (-71) 11 years ago

I'm very well acquainted with the evils of wall street. That doesn't justify embracing a lunatic like LaRouche.

[-] 1 points by arturo (3169) from Shanghai, Shanghai 11 years ago

What you think is justified is irrelevant. I make my posts for the people who appreciate them.

[-] 1 points by hchc (3297) from Tampa, FL 11 years ago
[-] 1 points by arturo (3169) from Shanghai, Shanghai 11 years ago

Dongguan is a big manufacturing center about an hour south of where I live. Considering that China's main customer, the west, is committing economic suicide, its not surprising that the economy in a major Chinese manufacturing area would be badly hurt.

Will it recover? That depends a lot on whether the west recovers. If the west doesn't recover, it will probably drag all of Asia down with it through war, pestilence and famine.

[-] 1 points by hchc (3297) from Tampa, FL 11 years ago

How about the Japan vs China thing, is that being trumped up in the media, or is there a real threat of force there?

[-] 1 points by arturo (3169) from Shanghai, Shanghai 11 years ago

From what I've heard, Japan is in an increasingly desperate situation because of the ties between its banking system and those of the west. I hear that the issue over the Diaoyu islands is mostly intended to distract the Japanese people from other issues.

The western pro war axis is supposedly trying to use this to create further conflict. Its thought that some among the western oligarchy even want to promote nuclear world war. Here's some more on it:

Obama Launches Thermonuclear War Deployment against China

Time magazine has revealed that the Obama Administration has deployed two aircraft carrier battle groups plus a 2200 strong Marine air-ground assault task force into the region of the ongoing territorial dispute between Japan and China. Such a massive concentration of force over the three rocks in the East China Sea called the Senkaku Islands in Japan and the Diaoyu Islands in China, was compared by Lyndon LaRouche to the British deployments into the region in the 1890s, aimed at dragging Japan away from the U.S.-influenced Meiji Restoration policies, and into the British imperial outlook — in particular, to wage war on China, and later on Russia, as indeed they did.

The George Washington aircraft carrier group is in the East China Sea, the site of the China/Japan showdown over the uninhabited rocks (and the rich mineral resources around them). Just to the south, in the South China Sea, is the John D. Stennis carrier group, on its way from its Washington State base to the Persian Gulf. (The South China Sea is also the site of the parallel manufactured territorial conflict between China and the Philippines.) Each carrier group has 80 fighter aircraft, guided-missile cruisers and destroyers, submarines and supply ships.

To the east, in the Philippine Sea, is the Marine task force of three ships, including amphibious assault vehicles, light armored vehicles, artillery, helicopters and Harrier fighter jets.

All three groups have just finished exercises near Guam, together with Japanese forces, based on invading occupied islands.

The conflict was manufactured by the right-wing British asset in Japan, Tokyo mayor Shintaro Ishihara, who took measures to "buy" the rocks from another Japanese owner. The weak, lame-duck Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda then jumped on board, nationalizing the islands, thus turning an issue which has been conveniently ignored for many years into a showdown with China, which has always claimed the islands as Chinese territory.

LaRouche described the massive U.S. military operation as a "thermonuclear war deployment," not necessarily pre-determined to start a war, but prepared to do so, and thereby creating the real potentiality.

http://larouchepac.com/node/24085

[-] 0 points by hchc (3297) from Tampa, FL 11 years ago

Im going to assume you are teaching english over there?

[-] 1 points by arturo (3169) from Shanghai, Shanghai 11 years ago

Yes, I am, I'm also studying Chinese. Why do you ask? What are you doing there in Tampa?

[-] 1 points by hchc (3297) from Tampa, FL 11 years ago

I have a friend in Thailand who was traveling, and now is teaching English over there. Also, the girlfriend had a friend who was teaching English in Japan for a few years. Just wondering, I have to say, its great having someone in China to ask about things over there, its such a mysterious place to the everyone here in the US.

Number 2 economy in the world, and most people here dont kno who their "president" is.

[-] 1 points by arturo (3169) from Shanghai, Shanghai 11 years ago

Yes, I suppose it seems like a mystery but once you live here a while it gets to be just like any place.