1.5 million protest austerity in Portugal T Power to the People!” gathered 1.5 mil­

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A WORKERS’ ACTION PROGRAM TO FIGHT THE CRISIS 5) Reduce the workweek to 30 hours with no cut in pay, and cut the retirement age to 55. Provide unemployment and retirement payments at We propose an EMERGENCY CONGRESS OF LABOR to discuss and 6) To combat inflation: A sliding scale of wages and pensions that match­ 1) Bail out the people, not the bankers! Open the account books of the es the rises in comsumer prices. To combat high medical costs: A free, banks to full public inspection. Nationalize the banks to be supervised by 7) Immediate citizenship for all undocumented workers. No job discrimi­ 2) No foreclosures! No forced evictions! Cancel usurious debt payments, nation; equal pay for equal work — regardless of gender, sexual orienta­ and reduce mortgage payments in proportion to their capitalist-caused 8) Nationalize manufacturing, big agribusiness, energy, and transporta­ 3) Full employment at union wages! An emergency public works program tion corporations and place them under the control of elected committees to employ all jobless workers and youth! Employ people to build what we need — low-cost quality housing, efficient mass transportation, cheap and 9) To mobilize support for the demands it adopts, the EMERGENCY renewable sources of power, schools, clinics — and to conserve our water, CONGRESS should organize ACTION COMMITTEES in every workplace and neighborhood threatened by the crisis. These committees can draw up 4) Immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and mercenaries from Iraq & Afghanistan! No war on Iran! Close all U.S. bases abroad! No money for 10) To put all these measures into effect, we need a LABOR PARTY — the military — use funds instead for public works! Convert the war indus­ based on a fighting union movement and all people who are oppressed tries to making products for people’s needs and to combat global warming.

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The demonstration “Screw the Troika! lion people in dozens of Portuguese cities on March 2. The main demand was the resigna­ tion of the government and the immediate halt of the austerity measures that drove Portugal into a deep recession.

Few people would think that the huge dem­ onstrations on Sept. 15, called by the citizens’ group Screw the Troika, could be surpassed in number. One million people then filled the streets and led to the government’s withdrawal of the Sole Social Tax amendment, which would increase the workers’ contributions to Social Secu­ rity while decreasing the bosses’ contributions. This time, the government acted differently and decided to postpone the announcement of the welfare cuts— the initial intention is to cut more than 4000-million euros—to next week, thinking it would keep many people out of the protest.

But their plans failed completely. On March 2 even more people came onto the streets and made the big­ gest mass demonstrations ever in the country. For most of them, it was the first time they actually came into the streets to demonstrate and protest, mostly asking for the government to resign.

The demonstrations ended with the people sing­ ing, “Grandola Vila Morena,” the Portugese Revolu­ tion anthem that has resurged in the last weeks, with groups of people singing it to interrupt public speech­ es of members of government all over the coutry. Even the prime minister got “grandolated” (a new ex­ pression for future Portuguese language dictionaries) during his speech in the parliament last month.

Unlike the September demonstration, now there was an organized sectorial presence, inspired by the take steps to implement the following demands — workers’ committees.

decline in value.

forests, farmland, and open space.

SOCIALIST ACTION Closing news date: March 6, 2013 Editor: Michael Schreiber Canada Editor: Barry Weisleder designed, and laid out entirely by volunteer labor.

­— $37 for two years Name City State Phone E-mail 2 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2013 Bloco de esquerda Spanish “waves”—the “health wave” gathered nurses and doctors, the “education wave” with teachers and students, and the “retired wave” with retired work­ ers and pensioners, one of the social groups most af­ fected by the tax increase on their pensions. This huge protest took place at the middle of the 7th evaluation of the troika memorandum, with the IMF, ECB, and EU staff in Lisbon preparing the most savage cuts in education, health, and on the welfare state as a whole. The unemployment rate remains out of control (almost half of all young people have no jobs), and the emigration numbers can only be com­ pared with the late 1960s, when people fled the war, misery, and dictatorship.

The indignation of the Portuguese people is an ex­ ample to all European countries that are suffering from the consequences of the troika’s brutal neolib­ eral programme and the new dictatorship of the debt. Of course, the protests will go on after the an­ nouncement of the new cuts, but the power of this mobilization also brings the urge for an international agenda of protests against the common enemies that are destroying the peripherical economies of the eu­ rozone. From International Viewpoint.

of workers.

Address Zip • Ashland, Ore.: [email protected] • Boston: [email protected] (781) 630-0250 • Carrboro, N.C.: (919) 967-2866, [email protected] • Chicago: P.O. Box 578428 Chicago, IL 60657, [email protected] • Connecticut: (860) 478-5300 • Duluth, Minn.: [email protected]. www.thenorthernworker.blogspot.com • Kansas City: [email protected] (816) 221-3638 • LOUISVILLE, KY.: [email protected], (502) 451-2193 • Madison, Wis.:

[email protected] • Mankato, Minn.:

[email protected] • Minneapolis/St. Paul: (612) 802-1482, [email protected] • New York City: (212) 781-5157 O istration under President Barack Hussein Obama One day, one day relatively quite soon, the admin­ will come to an end, and enter the realm of history. Eight years will have passed, true. But it will pass with a swiftness that is difficult to articulate.

Barack Obama, son of a Kenyan goatherd and unsuccess­ ful civil servant, this most unlikely of candidates, will yield his place to another. And while history will have certainly been made, the stuff of books, museums and presidential trivia, another kind of history, a quieter kind, will also have been made.

The history of Black America, written more in song than on paper, will record not the best of times but, far too often, the worst of times. Unemployment, dropout rates, foreclo­ sures, mass incarceration levels—each and all of these will show significant gains, and paradoxically, the worsening state of the national Black community.

Eight years will have passed, and by every measure, Black life will have become more unsteady, more chal­ lenging, more raucous—and more brutal. Some will say that the concerns of Black America shouldn’t be his, for he is President of all America. But, before all others, Black Americans have been his most loyal constituency—of all constituencies, why should those who are the most support­ ive get the least of everything else?

What kind of political logic is that? Moreover, what other constituency would accept it? “I’m voting for you, man— but I don’t want nothing! No better schools! I want more police terrorism! I want judges to spit on me more! I don’t want no jobs for nobody in the ’hood!?”

Africans in America have had a long and tortured history of loyalty to institutions that do not return those loyalties. Colonial governments. Political parties. The Army. State governments. And yes, presidents—even Black ones. Symbols are powerful things (and the essence of politics is symbol); but when they are empty of substance, they be­ come hollow. © Copyright 2013 Mumia Abu-Jamal For info about Socialist Action and how to join: Socialist Action National Office, P.O.

Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610, (510) 2689429, [email protected].

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the level of union wages and benefits. universal, public health-care system. tion, skin color, or national origin. more concrete demands than the ones outlined above. and exploited. For a workers’ government!

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