We publish this unofficial translation of the Weekly editorial of A Nova Democracia published here.
Summary:
The US is facing a deep financial crisis due to its public debt, which is currently at 31 trillion dollars, equivalent to 121% of the country's GDP. Yankee imperialism maintains this level of debt through its financial and economic hegemony over the world, but the machinery of monopoly economics has its limits. The US economy is facing serious problems, and the prospects of the Biden administration are to negotiate with the Congress to extend the public debt limit. Meanwhile, in Spain, companies like "Desokupa" are part of the counter-revolutionary plan of the ideological offensive of the Spanish State, using illegal violence to combat and eliminate the organized force of the masses. In Germany, the police carried out house raids against climate activists of the organization "Last Generation" accusing them of supporting and forming a criminal organization, despite the fact that the organization is non-violent and demands decisions in the framework of bourgeois legality.
Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary in Joe Biden’s administration, met with dozens of CEOs of the largest Yankee banks on the 18th. The reason was the deep financial crisis of the imperialist state and the risk of insolvency of the public debt, which could trigger a world crisis of unprecedented magnitude.
Currently, the indebtedness of the single hegemonic superpower amounts to 31 trillion dollars, equivalent to 121% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product – by far the largest public debt in the world. Yankee imperialism maintains this exorbitant level of debt through “guarantees” to speculators that it will be repaid. The “guarantee”, of course, comes from its financial and economic hegemony over the whole world – it is the owner of the dollar machine, currency valid anywhere in the world and owner of the “most guaranteed” treasury securities – thanks to which it diverts the wealth and finances of its colonies and semi-colonies by imposing on them, through the World Bank/IMF, severe policies of financial adjustments and draconian attacks on labor rights, social security and generalized cuts in public services (This is why we are witnessing, now, in Brazil and all over the world, the privatization of education, public health, the destruction of the civil service).
Even so, the machinery of monopoly economics has its limits.
The US economy is facing serious problems. Since 2001, the Yankee government’s expenditures have exceeded its income; since then, the financial health of the imperialist state has depended on the sale of debt securities (when a government is a “lender”, with speculators, and guarantor of payment at a certain rate of interest).
However, in the pandemic (as a qualitative leap in the general crisis of imperialism) indebtedness reached levels higher than those seen in the Great Depression and the Second World War, granting enormous fiscal guarantees for its monopolies and crumbs of aid for American families, as an extreme measure to avoid the generalized bankruptcy of its economy. On the other hand, the participation of the Yankee GDP in the global economy only fell during the 1980s (it was 23% and now it is 15%); the rate of economic growth of the country has been in permanent decline since the 1970s, without respite and with the inexplicable phenomenon, for bourgeois economists, of the successive rises in interest rates and inflation. If the Yankee economy shows exhaustion, for how long will it be able to stay in debt?
The prospects of the Biden administration are to negotiate with the Congress – with a “Republican” majority – to extend, until June, the public debt limit. The political crisis is still an obstacle. There is no optimism that it will be easy to pass such a measure, even at the cost of the government cutting federal projects, which would affect Biden’s popularity and serve the electoral purposes of the evil “Republican”. First of all, the increase in the quantity and quality of the class struggles of the masses, from the bowels of Yankee imperialism for their rights which will necessarily be the object of reaction.
Yankee imperialism – as the head of the world imperialist system – is in decline and tormented by countless internal contradictions. From within, the masses exclaim their cry of protest against the maximum exploitation, mainly the blacks, against social oppression, against the hateful racism and systematic police violence that has degraded living conditions, a pretext that grows in the same proportion as the crisis. To counteract its irreversible tendency to stagnation, imperialism is using its finances for continuous wars of aggression against the oppressed nations, to reactivate the industrial capacity to take advantage of it in the war industry, as a guarantee of recovering the investment with the subsequent plundering of the invaded and devastated nation. They have reaped failures in Iraq, in Syria and, most humiliatingly, in Afghanistan, raising fierce enemies wherever their troops passed by. Their flag is the most hated in the world, with good reason. It is the perfect image of a dying pachydermic beast, surrounded by predators and mortally wounded. For the oppressed and exploited, all over the world, there is no more propitious moment than this to fight for their liberation, to bury the imperialist regime and rule a new social order of the proletariat.
We publish an unofficial translation of an article published in the newspaper from the Spanish State, Servir al Pueblo.
We must talk about the focus of mass media in the “okupa matter” [Translator’s note: an “okupa” is a person who enters a house to live there, and this house it is not his property. The literal translation for “okupa”, is squatter]. The State is immersed an ideological offensive against mass movements, and its battle horse is the matter of “okupations”. It doesn’t care about the type of movement: neighborhood unions and organizations for the right of housing, self-managed social centers, athenaeums or community spaces, anarchists centers, etc. All of them are the enemy of the State, and this offensive is against all of them. According to the specific moment of the class struggle, the specific focus of the State is a movement or a specific occupied center, but in perspective, all are enemies of the State.
The existence of companies as “Desokupa” are part of the counter-revolutionary plan of this ideological offensive of the Spanish State. They are the shock troops of the financial oligarchy. They recruit fascists and the most reactionary people of the old society, arm them, bring them judicial and media support, and send them as rabid dogs to combat against the mass movements. Now, they are in a an early situation and are focusing more against the individual “okupa”, but in perspective, they want to combat and eliminate the organized force of the masses, specially the leading forces. The recent case of Barcelona is a clear example of this [Translator’s note: this company called for a demonstration against the “okupas” this Thursday 25th May in Barcelona].
They are shock troops of the financial oligarchy and they use illegal violence. The State needs this kind of troops which operate on the margin of the State laws. We also saw this with the GAL [Translator’s note: Antiterrorist Groups of Liberation – Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación, paramilitary group organized by the President of the Spanish State between 1982 and 1996, Felipe González, used by the Spanish State to murder militants of the Basque group ETA and other people linked to the struggle of the Basque national movement], taking in account the differences. The continuous support of the media to these mercenaries of financial capital in the form of doing interviews and reportages on them, with the objective of normalizing the violence against the masses, even the illegal violence used by the State, ignoring its own rules.
The German police carried out house raids against climate activists of the organization ”Last Generation” in many different federal states of Germany, accusing the activists of supporting and forming a criminal organization on the basis of the paragraph 129 of the law of the Federal Republic of Germany. The raid was called for by the Center for Combating Terrorism and Extremism of Bayern. The Last Generation is a climate organization which uses methods of non-violent civil disobedience, like blocking roads, to demand the German federal parliament to take different measures to reduce CO2 emissions. A spokesperson of the organization described that 25 police officers carrying guns entered her apartment by breaking down the door on Thursday morning, and said that the measures taken were unproportionate. Seven activists are accused of making a campaign to gather money for criminal activities of the organization. Because this was done through the website of Last Generation, the website was also taken down. Two of the activists were also accused of trying to sabotage an oil pipeline.
The minister of interior Nancy Faeser of the social-democrats said that the house raids show that the ”legal state” or ”rule of law” (Rechtsstaat) does not let anyone make fun of it. The idea of a “Rechtsstaat” is an ideal of the bourgeois state in which the State is based on the supremacy of the constitution, both in that it protects the constitutional rights of the citizens but also that it does not let anyone attack the constitutional order. Also the federal chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the ”Rechtsstaat” cannot ignore multiple criminal offenses committed by the organization, but did not want to comment if the Last Generation itself should be declared a criminal organization, saying that the court has to decide this.
However, the Last Generation does not attack the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany, and is not one of the organizations observed by the ”Office for the Protection of the Constitution”, and in fact say they are “protecting the constitution”. They base themselves on the fundamental right guaranteed by the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz), the freedom of assembly. According to the law, all German citizens have the right to assemble freely unarmed and without prior notice. However, there is some limitations to “protect public order”. The organization has typically carried out frequent actions where activists glue themselves to the street, stopping the traffic. For these protests, the State has convicted activists for “coercion” – which means to coerce someone to do something or prevent someone of doing something by force or threat of “serious evil”, and resisting authorities. Now the State is using these “multiple criminal offenses” to set an example, to attack the right to protest.
The organization demands the politicians to carry out decisions in the framework of bourgeois legality like making a speed limit of 100km/h on the highways or providing the people with more affordable public transport. With a larger perspective, the organization demands to ”build the democracy so, that we as a society can participate better to it”, more concretely through citizens’ councils which would plan how to stop using fossil fuels until year 2030 alongside and in cooperation with the parliament. These demands are not in contradiction with the Basic Law.
Even though the organization causes the police the inconvenience of un-gluing the activists and dragging them to jail, they do not actively resist arrest or the police in any way. They are ”absolutely violence-free, in speech and in action” and are against using violence even when others use it against them. However, a representative of the CDU party Christoph de Vries claimed that the organization has planned multiple violent criminal actions and therefore should be monitored by intelligence service in protection of the constitution.