Reflections on Jack Rasmus’s "Looting Greece: A New Financial Imperialism Emerges"

Reflections on Jack Rasmus’s book Looting Greece: A New Financial Imperialism Emerges.

By Kostas Pateras* / Source: Marxism Leninism Today.

Looting Greece: A New Financial Imperialism Emerges by Jack Rasmus. Atlanta, Georgia: Clarity Press, 2016. $24.95. 312 pp.

The prolonged capitalist crisis in Greece, the intense labour-people's struggles, the dramatic negotiations and contradictions around the Greek debt (for which the Greek people are not responsible), the rise of SYRIZA have all attracted the interest, and this is only natural, of analysts, commentators, journalists, and, of course, ordinary workers from all over the world.

In the last two years in particular, a plethora of books have been published that attempt to analyze these developments and draw conclusions. One such effort is Looting Greece: A New Financial Imperialism Emerges, a recent book by Jack Rasmus, a professor of economics and politics at St. Mary’s College in California, and a writer for Z Magazine and Counterpunch.

THEORETICAL ISSUES REGARDING THE PROGRAMME OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREECE (KKE)

Theoretical Issues regarding the Programme of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).

The struggle of the working class against the capitalist class in order to be complete, i.e. a struggle of class against class, must foremost be revolutionary.

The struggle should be against both individual capitalists and the capitalist class as a whole, and their power as well. The Communist Party, through its activity, organizes the workers and transforms the struggle against the exploiters into «whole class struggle, of a determined political party for definite political and socialist ideals»

Lenin argued: «….only the political party of the working class, the Communist Party can unite, educate and organize as the vanguard of the proletariat and the working class. This vanguard is capable alone to oppose the inevitable petty bourgeois' vacillations, the inevitable traditions and relapses of professional paucity or superstition within the proletariat and guide the action of the whole proletariat, namely to guide it politically and through the proletariat to lead the working masses»[1]

VIDEO: Large and militant rally by KKE in Athens honoring the 43rd anniversary of the Polytechnic Uprising

The demonstration in Athens was attended by the General Secretary of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumbas who made the following statements:

43 years since the 1973 Athens Polytechnic Uprising against the military Junta

Mass rallies have been scheduled for today in many Greek cities in order to commemorate and honour the 43rd anniversary of the students and workers uprising in Athens, which is historically known as the Polytechnic Uprising. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the Communist Youth (KNE) have organised a large demonstration-march to the U.S. embassy in downtown Athens, as well as other rallies in major cities, including Thessaloniki, Patra, Larisa, Iraklio etc. This year's anniversary of the 1973 Polytechnic Uprising against the military Junta coincides with the visit of U.S. President Obama (15-16 November) in Greece and the SYRIZA-ANEL policy which involves the country deeper in the imperialist plans. 

What follows is a brief historical review of the 1973 Polytechnic Uprising. 

On the night of the 20th to the 21st of April 1967, the reactionary military circles of the country, which were closely connected to the secret services of the USA and NATO, conducted a military coup. The operation of the surrender of power to the army had been developed at the staff of NATO, under the code name "Prometheus". Colonels G. Papadopoulos and N. Makarezos, who were actively involved in the preparation of the coup, became known as "the black colonels". 

Statements by KKE Gen. Secretary Dimitris Koutsoumbas after his meeting with the President of Cyprus N.Anastasiadis

After meeting the President of the Republic of Cyprus Nikos Anastasiadis, who is visiting Athens, the General Secretary of KKE Dimitris Koutsoumbas made the following statements:

"We expressed our big concern and, at the same time, our opposition to a dichotomous, confederal solution in the Cyprus Issue which will not unify but instead will divide the Cypriot people.

At the same time, we expressed the steady positions of the KKE for a just and viable solution in the Cyprus Issue, for a unified state, which means one and not two states, a common country of Greek-Cypriots, Turkish-Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians and Latins, without foreign military bases, neither British nor others, without guarantors and protectors, with a single sovereignty, a single citizenship, a single international personality, that actually means one state.

And from this point of view we expressed our solidarity to the Cypriot people in their just but difficult struggle they give this period, in order to become finally and actually the masters in their own place. 

OBAMA IN GREECE: Intensification of antipeople measures, deeper Greek involvement in NATO-EU imperialist plans

CONCLUSIONS OF A VISIT.

Comment on U.S. President Barack Obama's visit in Greece.

The bourgeois Greek media already celebrate the visit of Barack Obama in Greece, dedicating hymns to how- supposedly- valuable (for Greece) this visit was. The reality is different. The visit of Obama in Greece, during his last foreign trip as U.S. president, has two major conclusions: The first has to do about the continuation of the antipeople, antiworkers measures which the Greek government will continue imposing and the second is connected to Greece's deeper involvement in the dangerous US-NATO-EU warmongering plans in Eastern Mediterranean.

Massive rally against Obama's visit in Athens - People say a thunderous "NO" to US-NATO imperialist murderers

Under the slogans "Neither land nor water to the murderers of the people", "Get NATO out of the Aegean" and “The imperialists re-divide the world, they draw the borders with the blood of the peoples” thousands of people, workers, young men and women, participated in a massive rally in central Athens against the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama. The protesters condemn Obama's visit and the Greek government's participation in the Euroatlantic imperialist plans. 

Despotic and despicable decision by the SYRIZA government forbids demonstrations during Obama visit in Athens!

With a despicable decision which reminds authoritarian establishments, the Greek Police have banned demonstrations in Athens on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of security preparations for a visit to the Greek capital by outgoing US President Barack Obama. 

The despotic decision by the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government was slammed by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) which issued the following statement / Source: 902.gr, Translation: In Defense of Communism.

"With a despicable and despotic decision by the Police, the SYRIZA-ANEL government essentialy forbids any demonstration against the visit of the U.S. President Barack Obama, thus following the policy of the previous New Democracy-PASOK governments which SYRIZA, being in the opposition then, was denouncing.

"Neither land nor water to the murderers of the people"- Statement by the KKE about President Obama's visit in Greece

Regarding the upcoming visit of the U.S. President Barack Obama in Greece on Tuesday 15 November, the Press Office of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece issued the following statement.

Source: 902.gr, 

Translation: In Defense of Communism.

"Neither land nor water to the murderers of the people".

The KKE calls the working people, the youth, all Greek people to give a militant "welcome" to the outgoing President of the USA, Barack Obama, who visits our country in a period when the offensive plans of NATO-US-EU are intensified, with Greece's active participation and with huge dangers for the Greek and other people of the region. They (the people) must participate massively to the demonstrations organised by the EEDYE*, PAME and the other bodies of the popular-labour movement, of the youth.

Erdogan shuts down the Peace Association of Turkey- Solidarity with the Turkish people and Barış Derneği!

Police raid to the Peace Association of Turkey.

As the AKP government urges to take the advantage of the state of emergency that was declared following the coup attempt on 15th July, statutory decrees are being put into action in order to impose anti-democratic decisions to increase the political oppression.

A new statutory decree that has been approved by the parliament requires 370 associations and non-governmental organisations in 40 cities to be unlawfully shut down under the pretext of “relations with terrorist groups that are harmful to the national security”, including leftist organisations such as the Progressive Lawyers Association (ÇHD).

Donald Trump: A choice of the capitalist establishment

EDITORIAL

The result of the U.S Presidential elections highlights the deep intensification of the contradictions within the bourgeois system of the United States. The victory of Donald Trump has been presented by many as an "anti-establishment" message of the American voters. There is a whole mechanism of media, both in the United States as well as in Europe, which tries to present Trump as the "epitomy of the American dream", as the successfull non-professional politician who is willing to clash with the U.S political establishment. 

KKE: The role of the Communist Party in the struggle for the equality and contemporary needs of women

The role of the ΚΚΕ in the struggle for women's equality and their contemporary needs.

Source: inter.kke.gr.

In the struggle for women's equality and the contemporary needs of women, in the unrelenting class struggle, leading women communists emerged as cadres of the global revolutionary labour movement. They gained their impetus from their understanding and deep conviction in the goal of their struggle for the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.

Their example highlights the need to prepare a vanguard of communist women, utilizing the practical example of the communist women in social, political activity, in the workplaces, universities, in the family. It reflects the need of the CP and the Communist Youth Organization to act as a vanguard everyday in the struggle for the needs of women today, from young girls to the elderly, for equality and social liberation, for the strengthening of women's participation in the class struggle and their promotion in the organs of the labour-people's movement, in the mass organizations.

The Berlin Wall and the bourgeois lies

By Nikos Mottas*.

The 9^th of November consists a milestone for those who have turned anticommunist propaganda into profession. It is the day when, in 1989, the destruction of the so-called “Berlin Wall” began. 

Since then, every year, we observe smaller or larger fiestas about the "fall of the Wall" and the restoration of Capitalism in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In these fiestas, the winners of the Cold War employ their anticommunist imagination in order to celebrate the “big event”- for example, in 2014, during the 25^th anniversary, among the official guests in Berlin was the miserable puppet of international imperialism called Mikhail Gorbachev.

For more than 26 years, within the framework of slanders against the actual existed Socialism, the bourgeois historiography, the bourgeois media as well as various opportunists engage in a war of distortions regarding the history of the Berlin Wall. They deliberately vilify the German Democratic Republic and the achievements of the socialist construction while they attempt to manipulate the European and international public opinion with the known, anti-scientific and anti-historical equation between Communism and Fascism.