ANONYMOUS POSTING FROM EUROPE:
The political target of the French strikes is the Maastricht
Treaty and the neoliberal government of Alain Juppe.
Everyone knows that. It's all over the news here; what do they
tell you in the US of A? Heaven knows what they get told in
Australia.
*Everyone* from shopkeepers to ghetto youth to bluecollar
no-hopers supports the strike. They all support it for their
different reasons and they are completely confused about
what's going on - but they know damn well that if Juppe wins,
they'll *all* be worse off, and the ones at the bottom of the
heap worst of all.
If what Bill [Mitchell] says were true, then the Rail workers
would have caved in as soon as Juppe offered them a special
private deal. A grand total of ONE railshop voted to return to
work.
Moreover the problem is nothing to do with the organisation or
goals of the strike, the problem is it has no political
leadership, because no serious political force in Europe
opposes Maastricht except the fascists. That is why the
unemployed feel so utterly betrayed and that is what is feeding
the right wing. What the left should be asking is
why is it that almost *no* serious force on the left has told the
truth about Maastricht; they are all so caught up in the joys of
European Union that they have completey failed to ask on what
basis the unification is being organised.
I'm not normally one to chant the virtues of blind militancy as a
source of political clarity but on this particular occasion the
left has a lot more to learn from the workers than vice versa.
Thank goodness that at last, and by no means in time, a mass
social movement against European neoliberalism (aka Maastricht)
has actually emerged and a curse on the socialists - particularly
the so-called 'left' who did everything possible to obstruct it.
All power to people who are willing to try and mobilise against
it.
What I might do sometime is put together a simple list of facts
about what the Maastricht Treaty actually *says* (like, eg, it's
illegal to try and control the central bank, to subsidise
services, etc etc).
Maastricht is *also* the imposition without vote, without
consent, without any democratic recourse, of a treaty law which
*outlaws* deficits. This is what the 'convergence conditions'
are all about. Monetary Union *means* that you can't even join
unless you have *already* balanced your budget. But worse than
that, because of the gross social inequalities in Europe, and
because of the complete inadequacy of the fiscal measures
needed to ameliorate this, and because monetary union means
everyone is hitched to the strongest currency in Europe (the
Mark), it means all the poorer countries have to balance their
budgets by austerity on the grand scale. No other government
measure is left.
Monetary policy is handed over to the European Central Bank
(read: the Bundesbank) and any government that makes provision
for needy citizens or attempts to boost industry that cannot
compete at DM-regulated exchange rates, is declared to be
acting illegally. This means complete social and economic
disaster is staring the majority of European workers and petty
commodity producers in the face.
It is an indication of what a disastrous state the left has got
itself into that on a 'progressive list' we get to the point
where a workers' movement against this can be labelled as
reactionary.
Incidentally if anyone in the US has the quaint notion that
Europe is a liberal social idea marred by a shortsighted economic
doctrone, I might also add a few choice extracts from
the Shengen accords (like, no blacks welcome here even if your
own country is so impoverished by the Lome accords that you'll be
tortured to death if you return there, and the police have the
right to enter any house or place of employment without
hindrance, arrest without rights anyone they suspect of being in
Europe illegally, detain them and throw
them out without appeal...)
It's as if the Antebellum South had written the US constitution.
Then where would the radicals be? Waffling on about the need for
an American ideal, I suppose. No doubt we would be treated to
lectures on how without a Social Charter the slaves would have no
defence.
Meanwhile collaborating with the Confederate Army to remove the
slaves most important real defence, namely the ability
to get the hell out to a free part of the country.
Whatever the debate about European Union, the Maastricht Treaty
is not just about dismantling boundaries; it's about imposing
universal Gingricth-Thatcherism by *treaty*, which means, you
can't throw it out: it's outside government control. I.e. it is
declaring neoliberalism to be the constitutional basis of Europe.
This is what needs to be explained.
Moi, j'accuse the socialist left of abandoning the fight against
Maastricht and thereby creating a mass basis for fascism for the
first time since Hitler.
[MM note: this is because since the only meaningful opposition
to Maastricht comes from the fascists (shades of Buchanan-Perot
opposing NAFTA and GATT!) the unemployed and those screwed by
neo-liberalism have only those people to turn to for alternative
solutions --- laying the "mass basis" for fascism --- you see it
in the legitimate complaints of the militia movements combined
with way out conspiracy theories fed by the extreme fascist right
wing --- complete with racism, scapegoating, etc.]
Moi, J'accuse the academic left of swamping this simple issue in
utopian piffle about the European Ideal.
A left alternative to Maastricht *is* beginning to emerge, none
too soon and *no* thanks to most of the New Left and most of
the academic left.
Moi, I would have hoped a certain distance from Europe would
allow at least some US intellectuals to pierce the smokescreen
and see what is going on.
Sometimes I think the only reason the US and UK bourgeoisies
don't lock up the radicals and throw away the key is, the
radicals do so much more for them outside.
[MM editorial --- this may be angry but there's a lot of
substance here!]
