The new "rescue package" for Greece and the Eurozone is designed to prevent a financial crisis triggered by more European countries defaulting on their debts, but Greece will still default soon and in Europe "the ferocious attack on working people will only intensify."

In the US, the Republicans' insistence on outrageous cuts in exchange for agreeing to increase the federal government's debt limit has the effect of making a deal containing large but less extreme cuts to social programs and the elimination of a tax measure that helps working people look good. Watch an interview with US economist Michael Hudson, who calls what's happening in Greece a "dress rehearsal" for the US, here.

"What has been exposed is not a rogue corporation or some immoral individuals. It is nothing less than the ruthless maximisation of profit at almost any cost, even in a commercial field so highly sensitive to public opinion," argues Piers Mostyn. Read his whole article here.

Statement from the Revolutionary Socialists

Only a short while ago, the spokesman of the Military Council, Major General Fangari, saluted the martyrs of the revolution and melted Egyptians’ hearts with the memories of the days they spent chanting that the army and the people were “one hand”.

Today he delivered another kind of message to the revolutionaries: threats to “take all necessary measures to confront the threats which encircle the homeland unless this questioning of the ongoing process ceases… as do the rumours and misconceptions which lead to discord and rebellion and the promotion of the interests of a narrow minority over those of the country as a whole.”

He calls for honest citizens to work for the return of normal life for the children of “our great people”, and, brandishing his finger in the face of the people like Mubarak, insists that "the armed forces will not allow anyone to seize power or override legitimate authority, except within the framework of legal and constitutional legitimacy.”

Thus ended the speech, which came less than 24 hours after prime minister Essam Sharaf’s short announcement, and confirmed that the ministry Sharaf heads is nothing more than a mask designed to hide the ugly face of military rule. But over the last six months the people have grown wise to this division of roles between the “good cop” of the Prime Minister and the “bad cop” of the representative of the Military Council.

The revolutionaries’ position is that, this time, there will be no going back. We will occupy the streets until the demands of the revolution are met. This inevitably means justice for the martyrs who shed their blood in the squares of Egypt as the price of freedom. We will not settle for less than the fair and public trials of the criminals of Mubarak’s regime and the killers of the martyrs. We will not give up our demand social justice and human dignity through the implementation of a decent minimum wage, humane working conditions and an end to the slavery of fixed-term contracts.

We will defend our right to strike and occupy. These rights were not granted, but were won by the people through years of struggle in the street; years which had the bitter taste of arrests, torture and prosecutions. No law issued by the Military Council to criminalize strikes and occupations, and no punishments it imposes can take this right away from the free people.

The military tribunals which steal years from the lives of our young people should have been reserved first for the deposed president in his capacity as former head of the armed forces, rather than enjoying the luxury of a civilian trial. Instead he is protected by the Military Council, which one time postpones the court date under the pretence he is ill, and another spreads rumours of Mubarak’s impending death.

We are not “questioning the ongoing process”, rather we are announcing that the process is slow and compromised in order to protect the killer police officers from justice. We are telling the world that ten thousand of the children of this country are locked up in military prisons after suffering the worst tortures. We know that the system is making the maximum effort to stop the people from regaining the wealth which was looted from them over the decades. We know that only revolutionaries are brought before the military tribunals, while the killers enjoy trials in the civilian courts, with release on bail between sessions.

We are not “spreading false rumours” but spreading the truth that you are trying to hide; the truth that poverty and repression, torture and detention, are still everywhere after 25 January, just as they were before. We have only exchanged the state jails for military prisons, gained the military prosecutor in place of the state security prosecutor, swapped the military tribunals for the exceptional courts.

The Emergency Laws were not enough for our military rulers: they added new laws criminalising strikes and occupations in an attempt to clamp down on Egyptians’ freedoms. The budget which the government promised us would be fair turned out to consist of cuts in spending on health, education and old age in order to fund the Ministry of the Interior and the Army.

The people’s interests are not “narrow”. The demands for a loaf of bread, for health care, education, housing fit for human beings, freedom of expression, the right to work and the achievement of justice are at the heart of the demands of the revolution. They do not compare to the narrow self-interest of businessmen and their associates, who, not content with plundering the people’s wealth. These people are terrified by the falling stock market, but unmoved by the blood of 1,200 martyrs or the fact that half the population live below the poverty line… or that young people are losing years of their lives in prison. All they care about is that their bank accounts are still swelling and that they continue to drain the blood and sweat of the workers for as little pay as possible.

Finally, revolutionaries do not “seize power”: it is theirs by right. This country should be governed by those who shed their blood for it. If anyone has “seized power”, it is the Military Council and its supporters who were asked by no-one to rule the country, but whole stole – or tried to steal – the revolution by force, taking advantage of the people’s euphoria over the overthrow of the dictator.

It seems as if the one who is shaking his finger and threatening the revolutionaries does not think they understand what it means to lose their children, not on the field of battle with a foreign enemy, but on the soil of their homeland, at the hands of police officers whose salaries were paid by their own taxes.

He does not understand what happened on the 25th of January. On that day the people of Egypt rose up, determined never again to be enslaved, inherited or exploited. On the 25th of January the Egyptian people regained their sense of dignity and confidence that they could overthrow the symbols of dictatorship. The head fell, leaving the corrupt body behind. The people swore they would not stop before the downfall of the regime: if not today, then tomorrow.

Glory to the martyrs Victory to the revolution Power to the people

The Revolutionary Socialists
12 July 2011

From http://socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=25418

Todd Gordon and Jeff Webber have written a second article on the current situation in Honduras after the return of former president Zelaya, looking at the Canadian connection: "The Cartagena Accord: A Step Forward for Canada in Honduras." Read it here.

In their July 6 article, "From Cartagena to Tegucigalpa: Imperialism and the Future of the Honduran Resistance," they wrote "Just over a month ago, on May 22, 2011, the Cartagena Accord was signed by the Venezuelan, Colombian, and Honduran governments. The event facilitated the return of ousted Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya (also a signatory to the Accord), to Tegucigalpa on May 28, and the readmission of Honduras into the Organization of American States (OAS) on June 1...the Cartagena Accord is best understood as a blow to the Honduran Resistance, one that is likely to undermine efforts to continue building a grassroots movement genuinely capable of challenging political and economic power in the country. At the same time, there is no reason to believe that the accord will do anything to redress the systematic violations of human rights that have persisted since the coup. Even worse, it is likely to cast a democratic veneer over these atrocities, á la Colombia." Read the whole article here.

"Prosecutors will likely drop felony charges against DSK because they’re worried that the woman once described as an unassuming hardworking young Muslim widow will make a poor witness." Writing on the Colorlines website, Akiba Solomon looks at why the New York hotel worker who alleges that she was sexually assaulted by the former head of the IMF is supposedly no longer credible -- and what that says about who gets to be believed in a racist and sexist capitalist society.

Heather Mallick has also published an article in the Toronto Star which makes a similar argument and includes specific details about the evidence of rape in this case.

Two pieces worth reading about the Portuguese resistance against austerity:

1) The Dispirited Level by Luís Bernardo

2) Resistance in Portugal: Developments and Mobilisations by Helena Romão

Here is an article with the latest update on the Canadian boat in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/07/2011741529521330.html

Also for live up to the minute updates, follow these Twitter accounts:

@CanadaBoatGaza

@DylanPenner

@ibnezra

@Jleerankin

@kissmykishkas

Also be sure to keep track of the Twitter hashtag #flotilla2

Two useful websites where articles continue to appear in English:

Greek Left Review

Articles on Greece (many by members of the Greek socialist group DEA, part of the radical SYRIZA coalition) on socialistworker.org

Read an interview with Bertha Cáceres, General Coordinator of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (which is part the National Front of Popular Resistance formed by the mass movement in response to the Honduran coup of June 28, 2009), here.

by Gene McGuckin

Trade unionists across Canada should feel shame in the wake of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers' totally predictable crushing defeat by the jubilant Harpies ("The Conservative benches erupted in cheers and backslapping as the final vote was held Saturday night"--Winnipeg Free Press) .

And we should finally feel a cold shiver of fear.

Because, with tragic historical symmetry, the posties return to work signals not only a crippling setback for the union that was key to winning the right to strike for federal public sector workers--through defiance of unjust laws. It also signals the effective abolition of that right.

Provincial public sector workers are staring at their own short-term-to-medium-term futures.

Private sector workers will be close behind. The Harpies and their ilk have toyed for decades with the idea of using strike-breaking legislation in key industrial and resource-extraction sectors with the rationale that they are "essential" to the economy.

So, why are we in this situation?

If he were given the historical background, my five-year-old grandson would have known a year ago (or earlier) that a Harpy majority in Ottawa would mean all-out war on unions.

Months ago we all knew that CUPW was the first big battle (no offense to the equally abandoned CAW members). And we prepared by doing nothing.

CUPW, despite its heroic history, could not have won this battle by itself through defiance of Bill C-6. As its National Executive Board explained in their unanimous decision to capitulate, the $1,000-a-day fines to defiant members would have destroyed the union.

Much oohing and aahing was dutifully directed at the 58-hour filibuster of C-6 by the officially and loyally oppositional NDP. But even my unborn great-grandchildren would know that CUPW received absolutely zero game-changing reinforcement from this charming bit of parliamentary theatre masquerading as democracy.

So then, there was nothing we could do, right?

Unless we gave a moment's thought to why trade unions came into existence and how they achieved a durable existence, to the very meaning of "union": individual workers and small groups of working people organized to fight powerful enemies by joining together in bigger groups.

So, given our universal foreknowledge about the fight CUPW would face and the stakes involved, why did we trade unionists not unite across this country--and not just to send letters to the editor, cheer on the NDP, and take donuts and sentiments of solidarity to the posties' picket lines?

Why did we not prepare millions of union members across the continent with discussions in locals, labour councils, and labour federations? In news letters and at support rallies? Why did we not unite--as BC unionists did in 1982 to support telephone workers--by holding escalating regional general work stoppages across the continent?

What an impact the NDP filibuster would have had with that going on outside the hallowed halls of Harpyland.

Why were we not willing and able to carry the fight, if necessary, to the point of a national general strike?

And why do our labour leaders continue to ignore this option and quash any discussion of it when it arises among the members? Their alternative, their next-year-in-Jerusalem quest to elect the NDP to national government, is not going to happen. And the second-best elevation of the party (temporarily) to official, loyal opposition, has graphically demonstrated its shortcomings in this battle.

"Union" means nothing if we continue to avoid "uniting" to fight back against our attackers. It would be far better to change this pattern earlier rather than later--when it might no longer matter.

Gene McGuckin is a retired BC paperworker