Tag Archives | Austerity

Thatcher’s Legacy: Austerity and the Attack on the Poor and Vulnerable

By on April 11, 2013 in News 0

Mob

Via orwellwasright:

If there’s one thing the British government and its media mouthpieces can rely on it’s a general public who are quite happy to spread their propaganda for them – not since the riots of 2011 have I witnessed such a degree of slavish, unthinking  repetition of falsehoods and lies as can be seen on forums and social media networks in response to the recent wave of cuts to the welfare system. This feeling of despair at the gullibility of the general public was compounded by the response by many to the death of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher; the gushing eulogies and beautification of a woman who supported brutal dictators such as Pol Pot and Idonesia’s General Suharto, while decimating British industry. It’s as if people have lost the ability to think for themselves, finding comfort in a patently false narrative which blames the victims of savage austerity while simultaneously ignoring or excusing the crimes of the rich and powerful.… Read the rest

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Anti-Austerity March Hoped To Be The Biggest Protest In U.K. History

By on March 28, 2013 in News 0

Organizers of the largest protest in history to this point, the 2003 march against the invasion of Iraq, are among those hopping to orchestrate a watershed moment for the global movement against austerity, writes the Independent:

The new “People’s Assembly Against Austerity” will march through London on 22 June, and, with the help of the Stop The War Coalition, intends to break that group’s record for the largest public rally in the nation’s history. The group claims it will be “an alternative democratic forum to a Parliament that has failed the people it is supposed to represent.” It will be, they hope “the launch-pad for mass resistance to austerity”.

Green Party Member of Parliament Caroline Lucas, Labour’s Katy Clark, Director of Executive Policy at the Unite trade union Steve Turner, head of the National Union of Teachers Kevin Courtney, comedian and disabled activist Francesca Martinez, as well as Independent columnists Owen Jones and Mark Steel, are the figureheads of a group they hope will appeal to anyone against austerity, regardless of background.

… Read the rest

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The Military Industrial Complex Stimulus Program is Undeterred

By on March 20, 2013 in News 0

Is there a panic on the Potomac?  The Congress has turned into a wailing wall just to hear all the moans about threatened cuts in what is patriotically known as our Defense budget.

Never mind that many of the cuts were ordered from above because the people at the top know how much they have to slash given all the waste, planned obsolescence and other waste they can afford to trim before they cut the bone or some hostile force can bring us to our knees.

The people who experience the reality up close and personal know that the public is being defrauded on almost every level.

Listen to Sgt. 1st Class Robert Zlotow from Fort Riley, Kan. who had the guts to send this letter to Army Times.

“I nearly spit out my dinner when I read your headline “Fighting through austerity” (March 4).

Even with these “evil” and “scary” cuts factored in, the defense budget will still rise every year in the foreseeable future.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, the projected defense budget will still go from $593 billion in fiscal year 2014 to $702 billion in 2023, even if this sequester is allowed to stand.

… Read the rest

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The Global Austerity Resistance Continues

By on March 16, 2013 in News 25

Picture: Ggia (CC)

Allison Kilkenny writes at the Nation:

Tens of thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Spain and Greece this week in response to ongoing budget cuts and high unemployment. In Spain, unemployment has passed the 5 million mark for the first time since records began—attracting widespread criticism over the conservative government’s austerity plans. Similarly, Greece, which has served as a laboratory for austerity enthusiasts, has suffered mass poverty, unemployment and suicide since severe budget cuts were implemented by the government.

“Poverty, unemployment, suicides. Enough is enough,” was the slogan chanted on Syntagma square by some 1,500 Greek demonstrators non-affiliated with political parties who were mobilized through social media. The demonstration ended when police shot tear gas at protesters—a police tactic also used during the anti-austerity demonstrations in Athens when the debt crisis began in late 2009.

Earlier this month, three people in central Greece killed themselves on the same day, and analysts said there is a correlation between the rising rates and three years of pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions that have pushed many people into poverty.

… Read the rest

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Portland Protesters Pepper Sprayed

By on November 5, 2012 in News 7

Via Komo News:

Protesters associated with Occupy Portland and a group calling itself Portland Action Lab were pepper sprayed by riot gear-clad police during a Saturday march. Apparently the police felt that large wooden shields carried by the protesters posed a threat. Take a look in the video below and see what you think:

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“Reverse Brain-Drain” Benefits Brazil as Europeans and Expats Alike Set Their Sights on South America

By on October 22, 2012 in News 7

Picture: Klaus with K (CC)

As Europe continues to struggle with austerity, native Brazilians are returning to their homeland and bringing their European peers with them. Are we witnessing more signs of a shake-up in the global social order? Who is a “first world” country now?

Via the Christian Science Monitor:

Golden age migration is palpable, says Helion Póvoa Neto, a migration expert at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. “There is this sensation of Brazil as a new land of opportunity. There is something new happening.”

Today, Cariocas navigate subways and buses to a din of Greek- and Spanish-accented conversation; they plow into heaps of lunchtime beans and farofa in downtown Rio restaurants alongside Portuguese workers; and Rio hillside favelas (slums) are being gentrified by foreigners daunted by the pricier beachside enclaves.

Many foreign newcomers are just trying to get ahead in careers stalled at home. But their very presence is changing Brazil.

… Read the rest

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Nobel Mass Murder Prize, NDAA Plaintiff Speaks Out, Europe Riots

By on October 14, 2012 in News 2

On this episode of Breaking the Set, Abby Martin talks to the host of RT’s Capital Account, Lauren Lyster, about the austerity protests in Greece, and across Europe; Plaintiff and activist against the NDAA’s indefinite detention provision, Alexa O’brien, speaks out about her personal experience fighting the government against unlawful detention; BTS wraps up with a look at who Alfred Nobel was, and highlights a few of the most controversial Americans to have received the coveted Nobel Peace prize.

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The Euro And Austerity As A Powder Keg In Europe

By on October 10, 2012 in News 8

Via Critical Legal Thinking, excerpts from a translated interview with Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Syriza (the Coalition of the Radical Left), Greece’s new second largest political party:

I believe the European model has to be rebuilt from below. We can’t be sat­is­fied with what today is called Europe. The cur­rent crisis is not a European crisis but a global one. Europe today does not have the mech­an­isms to con­front it or con­trol the world­wide fin­an­cial attack against its peoples. Hence why Europe became a con­tin­ent where the attack of the global fin­an­cial sys­tem was fero­cious.

The [euro currency] has become a prison for the peoples of Europe, espe­cially the weak­est eco­nom­ies on the peri­phery going through the crisis. The con­tra­dic­tion is in the base on which the euro was built. The euro is a powder keg that is going to explode if we con­tinue in this dir­ec­tion.

Greece became an ultralib­eral exper­i­ment, a guinea pig.

… Read the rest

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