Prime minister Portugal steps down

[PhoenixAsh]

As it seems the parliament voted over a proposed budget cut package pur foreward by the government. There has been a lot of opposition to the package and the Prime Minister earlier declared that he would step down if he could not implement and the package would be rejected.

well...it was and he did. Mighty nice of him.

The budget cuts were supposed to mend the financial crisis in Portugal and repair the incredibly high national debt and there is a finance shortage of 7.3%. This debt is so high the country can only borrow money against incredibly high rates.

Part of the package was a national freeze on pensions. Cuts in health care, social care and infrastructure. It amounts to 0.8% of the total GDP.

The communist party (9.7% of all votes in 2009) thought the plans were too far reaching and would throw the national economy into another recession.


This means that Portugal would have to borrow money from teh emergency fund of the EU. Which will have big effects on the economies in the EU and will completely kick the ass of all the Dutch politicians who said it would never come this far :-)


I don't have other details but personally I think this is good news....though will probably mean another economic recession for the EU.

[Reznov]

Hopefully, this will lead other EU countries to revolt and resistance against horrible "Packages" like they did in Portugal.

[DDR]

Well then, Spain is the last of the PIGS remaining, so I hope it aso goes down soon. Let start with the domino effect!

[Delenda Carthago]

The communist party (9.7% of all votes in 2009) thought the plans were too far reaching and would throw the national economy into another recession.

Some communist party...

[jake williams]

Some communist party...
? You're preferring they advocate that the working class suffer, because then teh revolutionz would happen?

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

The Communist Party got something like 7.2% in the last election IN COALITION WITH the Green Party. The party that got 9.8% is the Left Bloc which was created by merging several ostensibly revolutionary leftist parties into one group and still actively advocates anti-capitalism and has a strong Trotskyist current within it.

[PhoenixAsh]

ok...thnx for the correction

[Luisrah]

The Communist Party got something like 7.2% in the last election IN COALITION WITH the Green Party. The party that got 9.8% is the Left Bloc which was created by merging several ostensibly revolutionary leftist parties into one group and still actively advocates anti-capitalism and has a strong Trotskyist current within it.

The Left Bloc is a bunch of fools. They are all pro-Europe. They don't call themselves communist even. Though they could still provide a sort of ally in difficult situations.

The Communist Party however always stood on the side of the workers. It fought against the semi(if not completely)fascist regime of Salazar and never gave up.

In fact, Portugal suffers from a lack of national production. Portugal is a victim of EU imperialism, if you could call it that.
The State pays our companies to leave, pays foreign investors to invest, and the profits go somewhere else. We have to import almost everything.
Cutting wages, firing people will only lead to another recession, since people lose money, they will stop buying. If they don't buy, the economy doesn't start running. It's as simple as that.
We only import, don't export, we don't consume what's ours since we don't even produce, and they want to reduce the ability of the people to consume. It will only make things worse, not to mention it is bad for the workers' living conditions.

[Dimmu]

Just great.. Politicians in Finland are already thinking of cutting the budget after the elections(17.4) and now they will give more money to Portugal. I said give because we know that no one will pay it back..

EU should have just remained a free-travel union. This economic "cooperation" is a disaster.

[Triple A]

The Left Bloc is a bunch of fools. They are all pro-Europe. They don't call themselves communist even. Though they could still provide a sort of ally in difficult situations.

The Communist Party however always stood on the side of the workers. It fought against the semi(if not completely)fascist regime of Salazar and never gave up.

In fact, Portugal suffers from a lack of national production. Portugal is a victim of EU imperialism, if you could call it that.
The State pays our companies to leave, pays foreign investors to invest, and the profits go somewhere else. We have to import almost everything.
Cutting wages, firing people will only lead to another recession, since people lose money, they will stop buying. If they don't buy, the economy doesn't start running. It's as simple as that.
We only import, don't export, we don't consume what's ours since we don't even produce, and they want to reduce the ability of the people to consume. It will only make things worse, not to mention it is bad for the workers' living conditions.




The left block can attract young people and they advocate modernity.
The comunist party in the other hand sticks to leninism and USSR what makes many portuguese vote socialist (wich is rightist, here).


Conclusion:
Left block: young people, trotzkysts, modernity.
Comunist party: old people from 1975 revolution, marxist-leninist, USSR nostalgic.
From an anarchist prespective I would vote left block.

[daleckian]

? You're preferring they advocate that the working class suffer, because then teh revolutionz would happen?

They have to start somewhere. no one said revolution would be painless.

[Luisrah]

The left block can attract young people and they advocate modernity.
The comunist party in the other hand sticks to leninism and USSR what makes many portuguese vote socialist (wich is rightist, here).


Conclusion:
Left block: young people, trotzkysts, modernity.
Comunist party: old people from 1975 revolution, marxist-leninist, USSR nostalgic.
From an anarchist prespective I would vote left block.

As I had told you, the Left Bloc doesn't even call itself communist. Heck, I never heard their people talk about marxism, trotksyism, or whatever. The young people you talk about mean that they get great results in some elections, and in the next, they get next to 0. The communist party grows slowly, but steadily.

The left bloc advocates for an even more federal EU. They want internationalism before it's time. Internationalism is supposed to come after the revolution, not before, atleast not in the way the EU is doing it.

Those that choose to vote socialist don't know what they are doing. The communist party doesn't make them vote on the ''socialist'' party, simply because those that don't vote on the communist party and vote on the socialist party, don't know what socialism is. As simple as that. The socialist party isn't socialist, it's not even leftist, (eventhough it claims to be, to pose as an alternative) so those who vote on it for being leftist or socialist, don't have a clue about what those two things mean.

[Luisrah]

They have to start somewhere. no one said revolution would be painless.

I hope you are joking.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

I hope you are joking.

He's not.

[Triple A]

As I had told you, the Left Bloc doesn't even call itself communist. Heck, I never heard their people talk about marxism, trotksyism, or whatever. The young people you talk about mean that they get great results in some elections, and in the next, they get next to 0. The communist party grows slowly, but steadily.

The left bloc advocates for an even more federal EU. They want internationalism before it's time. Internationalism is supposed to come after the revolution, not before, atleast not in the way the EU is doing it.

Those that choose to vote socialist don't know what they are doing. The communist party doesn't make them vote on the ''socialist'' party, simply because those that don't vote on the communist party and vote on the socialist party, don't know what socialism is. As simple as that. The socialist party isn't socialist, it's not even leftist, (eventhough it claims to be, to pose as an alternative) so those who vote on it for being leftist or socialist, don't have a clue about what those two things mean.

http://www.democraciasocialista.org.br/ds/images/stories/ds012/08louca_site.jpg

The leader of the left block. Aint trotzkyst?

If you look at left block results since their foundation you see that they gain votes in every election whilst the communist party is loosing voters since the 1976 elections.
I do not know about the left block opinions on the EU but of what I known they opposed the Lisbon Treaty.

[Luisrah]

http://www.democraciasocialista.org.br/ds/images/stories/ds012/08louca_site.jpg

The leader of the left block. Aint trotzkyst?

If you look at left block results since their foundation you see that they gain votes in every election whilst the communist party is loosing voters since the 1976 elections.
I do not know about the left block opinions on the EU but of what I known they opposed the Lisbon Treaty.

I didn't say the leader wasn't trotskyist, I'm saying the party doesn't assume itself as trotskyist. While the communist party assumes itself as communist, the left bloc doesn't even say it's communist. Not to mention, I think the photo is a little bit old.

Did you know that the left bloc was made out of a lot of parties, and one was trotskyist, and another was stalinist? They must be damn serious about their ideology.
For your information, the communist party is gaining voters. while it suffered a lot since the counter-revolution in Portugal, it is right now gaining voters. The thing is, percentage may change because it is a relative number, but the actual number of voters is growing.
On the left bloc, it's support is very unstable.

[Triple A]

I didn't say the leader wasn't trotskyist, I'm saying the party doesn't assume itself as trotskyist. While the communist party assumes itself as communist, the left bloc doesn't even say it's communist. Not to mention, I think the photo is a little bit old.

Did you know that the left bloc was made out of a lot of parties, and one was trotskyist, and another was stalinist? They must be damn serious about their ideology.
For your information, the communist party is gaining voters. while it suffered a lot since the counter-revolution in Portugal, it is right now gaining voters. The thing is, percentage may change because it is a relative number, but the actual number of voters is growing.
On the left bloc, it's support is very unstable.

The Left block is formed by people with many ideas not clones that follow the leader like sheeps. I think the PSR was clearly trotzkyst and it was the major supporter of the nowadays left block.

Knowing that the Left Block has more voters than the communist party I have hard time believing they are growing and I also think that the communist party will slowly die when the old people die.

[Luisrah]

The Left block is formed by people with many ideas not clones that follow the leader like sheeps. I think the PSR was clearly trotzkyst and it was the major supporter of the nowadays left block.

Knowing that the Left Block has more voters than the communist party I have hard time believing they are growing and I also think that the communist party will slowly die when the old people die.

It has existed since 1921, why would it die now?

As for the rest, it is useless to argue, we will get nowhere.

[FSL]

The Left Block recently gave its support to the socialist candidate for the presidency.
If I'm not mistaken, recently in the European Parliament it voted in favor of the military intervention in Libya/
It is in the Party of European Left. Anyone interested can have a look at their proposals for overcoming the crisis. Trully revolutionary.


That they attract young people or that they have "a wealth of ideas" seems more like a joke to me rather than an argument.
We're not comparing malls. PR isn't important. Politics are.
And the Left Block is probably among the furthest to the right in a european effort to resurrect keynesianism, not communism.

Really, to the person that describes himself as an anarchist, it really comes as no surprise that you like them.

[Dire Helix]

The Left Bloc is basically a Portuguese version of the Greek Syriza(or vice versa). An amalgam of "a bit of everything" without a strong and unified political program. That they are members of the Party of European Left is indeed very telling. "Capitalism with a human face" and all that.


The comunist party in the other hand sticks to leninism and USSR what makes many portuguese vote socialist (wich is rightist, here).

Um, no. Most people vote for right-wing parties because they at large don`t support revolutionary ideas and are fine with capitalism. It may be unfortunate, but that`s how it is for now.

[Triple A]

The Left Bloc is basically a Portuguese version of the Greek Syriza(or vice versa). An amalgam of "a bit of everything" without a strong and unified political program. That they are members of the Party of European Left is indeed very telling. "Capitalism with a human face" and all that.



Um, no. Most people vote for right-wing parties because they at large don`t support revolutionary ideas and are fine with capitalism. It may be unfortunate, but that`s how it is for now.

Yea but the communist party is just old and they go to the point of supporting North Korea what makes leftists vote for the so called socialist party.


The Left Block recently gave its support to the socialist candidate for the presidency.
If I'm not mistaken, recently in the European Parliament it voted in favor of the military intervention in Libya/
It is in the Party of European Left. Anyone interested can have a look at their proposals for overcoming the crisis. Trully revolutionary.


That they attract young people or that they have "a wealth of ideas" seems more like a joke to me rather than an argument.
We're not comparing malls. PR isn't important. Politics are.
And the Left Block is probably among the furthest to the right in a european effort to resurrect keynesianism, not communism.

Really, to the person that describes himself as an anarchist, it really comes as no surprise that you like them.


I am not a fan of them I just think the left block is a more valid option than the communist party. I read their electoral preposals in 2008 and I think they were much better than the ones presented by the comunist party wich sticks to the old proletariat from 1917 that does not exist in a country with no industry like Portugal.

[Delenda Carthago]

? You're preferring they advocate that the working class suffer, because then teh revolutionz would happen?
They did not talked about the people, they did not talked about the working class, they talked about "the economy".Whats the difference between this and any bourgeois party?

[Delenda Carthago]

The Left Bloc is a bunch of fools. They are all pro-Europe. They don't call themselves communist even. Though they could still provide a sort of ally in difficult situations.

The Communist Party however always stood on the side of the workers. It fought against the semi(if not completely)fascist regime of Salazar and never gave up.

In fact, Portugal suffers from a lack of national production. Portugal is a victim of EU imperialism, if you could call it that.
The State pays our companies to leave, pays foreign investors to invest, and the profits go somewhere else. We have to import almost everything.
Cutting wages, firing people will only lead to another recession, since people lose money, they will stop buying. If they don't buy, the economy doesn't start running. It's as simple as that.
We only import, don't export, we don't consume what's ours since we don't even produce, and they want to reduce the ability of the people to consume. It will only make things worse, not to mention it is bad for the workers' living conditions.
If you change the name from "Portugal" to "Greece" you can get a pretty good description about whats going down here too.

[Luisrah]

Yea but the communist party is just old and they go to the point of supporting North Korea what makes leftists vote for the so called socialist party.




I am not a fan of them I just think the left block is a more valid option than the communist party. I read their electoral preposals in 2008 and I think they were much better than the ones presented by the comunist party wich sticks to the old proletariat from 1917 that does not exist in a country with no industry like Portugal.

They don't suport North Korea in the way you are saying. They don't even support the Nepalese maoists in the way you are describing. What they say is that they should be observed and at the maximum supported in their fight against imperialism.

And as I have told you, the socialist party isn't leftist, although it claims itselft to be, so all the ''leftists'' that vote on it aren't leftists, or don't know what they are doing.

[jake williams]

They did not talked about the people, they did not talked about the working class, they talked about "the economy".Whats the difference between this and any bourgeois party?
If they only ever talked about "the economy" and never did talk about the working class, you'd have an excellent point. But that's not the case.

And the state of the economy matters for the working class. It matters differently for the bourgeoisie - in this case, the international (and to a degree, national) bourgeoisie wants to attack the Portuguese economy because they want to attack an organized, militant part of the working class. I really shouldn't have to say that they're not demanding the restoration of profits to the national bourgeoisie.