Seven steps to save Italy

03/10/2013
The acute governmental crisis and the forthcoming mobilisations
Popular Liberation Movement (MPL)
Not pure desperation, but a political calculation has guided Berlusconi’s attempt to let all his parliamentarians resign. What would have happened had he succeeded?

He had anticipated the electoral clash in order to vote with the current voting system still in place. The reason is simple: ungovernability had persisted and the “Berluscones”, given that the M5S (Five Star Movement) is not ready to make any accord with the ruling pro-euro clique, still held the key in hands for the formation of a new government.

As a matter of fact president Napolitano, in name of the dominant European and Italian classes, has done and will do everything in order to avoid elections on the basis of the current electoral law. For the time being they won the game – but for how long is another question.

Their bloc is economically dominant, but no more politically, because it doesn’t enjoy the necessary social consent to govern undisturbed.

Following the abbreviated declaration of the leadership of the Popular Liberation Movement (MPL) as of September 27, 2013:

Without the push of a strong social conflict the antagonist forces (ourselves included) are politically gasping and do not have a serious possibility to play an important role. This cannot, however, justify a position of indifference. We can wish many things but not the victory of the stabilizing forces around the PD [Democratic Party]. If it’s true that only a popular uprising can reverse the situation, realism is telling us that political and institutional instability is better than the stability longed for by the dominant classes.

In this contest some components of the radical social left have declared one week of struggle (12-19 of October) which will include the general strike of the base unions and will culminate in the “assault” on the Ministry for Economy and the Ministry for Infrastructure.

As MPL we support this week of fights as well as the national demonstration taking place on the 19th of October. Our national coordination will decide, taking into account our still limited forces, how we can participate. Certainly we hope that these actions will be a success and if not the burning fuse of a general conflict that they will at least help to come forth.

We will participate with conviction even if we cannot avoid denouncing the political limits of the platforms on the base of which the promoters are calling the people to struggle. Issues like adequate incomes, wages and pensions, the end of precariousness, the right to housing and health, the stop of privatization and the defense of common goods, are all correct anti-neo-liberal demands.

Nevertheless it doesn’t make us go further than a type of “social unionism”. It is not acceptable that nothing is said about the necessity to leave the Euro(pe) cage and that the great social and political measures necessary to fulfill the demands are not indicated. We will participate bringing our own platform which insists on the necessity of constructing a wide popular front that on the wave of a general uprising will give birth to a government of emergency which should apply seven essential measures, SEVEN BIG TRANSFORMATIONS:

1. Cancel the debt towards the big Italian and international speculative and bank finance.

2. Withdraw in a politically organized way from the euro and the European Union, in order to recover through the reintroduction of the Lira political and monetary sovereignty.

3. Devaluation of the new lira in an equilibrated way in order to reinvest in the industrial and agricultural sectors; imposition of appropriate duties on all imported products so as to have again an active balance of payments. Contextually, adoption of an integral sliding wage scale

4. Transformation and nationalization of the bank and assurance system in order to stop the banks playing in the international financial markets with the deposits and savings of the citizens

5. Adoption of a nationalization plan of the institutions operating in strategic national sectors: energy, water, transport, telecommunications.

6. Establishing a national plan for work/job, putting on the center of it the protection of the environment, landscape, artistical goods, health and education.

7. Starting with the original spirit of the Italian constitution, promotion of a national constituent assembly in order to recover an effective popular sovereignty.

From this point of view, the demonstration of the 12th of October called by the assembly held on the 8th of September in Rome by personalities like Landini, Rodotà etc. is even less convincing. The platform of this demonstration is based on one slogan: “to defend and apply the constitution”. For sure, it is necessary to defend the constitution from the assaults [of the dominant classes] but to reduce it to a sort of Bible does not convince us. But the point is that this demonstration has not been organized in order to call the working people to the fight. It has been organized in order to build a container, to appeal for engagement to many citizens of the left disillusioned after all the last defeats. Better than nothing you may argue? The problem is that, knowing the promoters, the container will act as the spare wheel of the Democratic Party which is actually the main danger to the constitution.