November 14 witnessed unprecedented national strikes in six European countries, combined with continent-wide industrial action and protests. And more are planned, including on January 19, with a focus on the rise of fascism. At the end of January, other events in Europe will target the banking sector’s grip on life and the commons. Legal challenges also represent the evolving nature of continental resistance.

One example is German human rights lawyer Sarah Hassel-Reusing. She has brought charges to the International Criminal Court asserting that austerity enforced on Greece is a crime against humanity because it knowingly kills people by terminating their healthcare provisions and causing starvation. Those charged include leaders of the IMF, E.U. bodies and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Plainly put, austerity measures are an excuse to privatize public services, remove rights, deny welfare, lower pensions and cut public spending. The British government argues it must enact these measures due to “public debts.” However, these debts were created by the financial sector, not least by casino-style banking and destructive speculation.

The Office for National Statistics reports that Britain’s net public sector debt was $1.7 trillion by the end of October 2012. The bank bailout amounts to over 80% of this, at $1.36 trillion, which does not even take into account the destructive effect the bailout and austerity measures have caused on everyday lives.

The reality of how much government has given to bankers is phenomenal, almost too big to consider. Using last year’s government spending figures, the bailout total is worth eight times the spending on healthcare, or 15 years worth of education funds.

The Financial Times describes how hedge fund managers and speculators have “their fingerprints all over the Greek crisis.” Both short selling and financial schemes meant Greece’s debt increased monumentally. So far, Greece has been bailed out of $192 billion dollars. Over two-thirds of this has gone to paying interest, “restructuring loans” and the recapitalization of its banks.

In other words, the European Commission, IMF and European Bank, all groups headed by international bankers, have agreed to give money to other bankers in what The Financial Times has described as a “sweet deal” for creditors. It seems a few financiers’ sweet deals means the decimation of other people’s countries.

These “loans” come with stipulations on the Greek public: public spending cuts, tax hikes, less worker rights, lower pay and reduced pensions. It has led to a reduction in GDP by 25% over the last five years; unemployment now affects more than a quarter of the population, with youth unemployment more than half. The humanitarian crisis is escalating; homelessness, mental illness and suicide are endemic, while shanty towns grow around Athens.

But European activist convergences show further connected solidarity against the neoliberal agenda. In early November, hundreds met in Madrid for Agora 99, focusing on issues of debt, democracy and rights while sharing skills and working toward joint actions.

A week later, Florence staged the 10th European Social Forum, which combined activists with unions. One message gleaned from the thousands of participants was, “People cannot take any more of these harsh and one-sided austerity measures.”

Yet within the discussions at Agora 99, it was also recognized that the devastation caused by austerity has differed. Whereas it has ruined Greece, and severely damaged others, some European countries have managed to suffer less - so far. One activist described how the Spanish situation now reminded him of Greece a year previously. From a British perspective, with more than five times the current austerity cuts still planned, it seems the poverty, housing evictions and healthcare cuts experienced in Spain are now a warning of where Britain is heading as well.

In terms of healthcare cuts in particular, a similar process is happening already in both Britain and Greece. Free healthcare was previously a universal right in the two countries. In Greece it isn't anymore. A recent poll suggested only one in 10 Greeks can now afford access to medical care, and over 1 million people in the country have no medical provisions whatsoever, and the numbers are rising.

This means patients that cannot afford treatment get sicker or die, whereas before they had hope of recovery. While Britain’s National Health Service has not yet reached this dire a situation, planned austerity cuts threaten to lead it there.

Even now, medical privatization is having an impact in Britain, where cancer survival rates are falling. The Financial Times reports that budgets for frontline service will be slashed 8 percent over the next three years. Since David Cameron became Prime Minister, Britain has 6,000 fewer nurses, meaning reductions in patient care.

Within the last year alone, 43 hospital patients starved to death and 111 died from dehydration. The Telegraph reports how one in 10 accident and emergency departments have closed, or face closure, among other specialist wards and departments. Hospital privatization is already here; Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire was the first, and it alone has sacked 41 nurses.

With four-fifths of austerity still to come in this parliament -- and the government is alluding that more will be needed into the next -- austerity may finally kill the NHS as it is killing Greek health care. Our elected leaders say austerity will last at least until 2018, but one must wonder whether this is merely a tool to be used indefinitely until everything is privatized.

Another theme discussed last month at Agora 99 was people's simple awareness of the problem. Spanish activists explained how a majority of people in their country now realize austerity poses a massive threat to their future. In contrast, in countries were austerity measures have not yet been fully imposed, the public remains generally more oblivious to the implications.

So to focus public attention, activists decided to start organizing direct action coordinated under the banner of anti-austerity, with the further goal of experimenting with wider actions that are more accessible for wide participation. To begin with, on Deember 18, activists in Berlin, Madrid and London are organizing Capitalism’s Last Christmas Carol and inviting people globally to set up solidarity actions.

In London, carol singers will use verse to question austerity and the destructive path capitalism is forcing us down. Meeting in Central London, participants will visit the institutions responsible for so much of the financial crisis - which, of course, are the same ones benefiting from it too. The message: If this is not capitalism’s last Christmas, it might be the National Health Service’s last. So best not to miss it.