#Austerity and #Anarchy
With the displacement of Indigenous peoples worldwide, Fourth World refugees — like the Kurds in Europe — face increased hostility from both state police and fascist vigilantes. Left with a choice between enduring state repression in their homeland and suffering bigotry abroad, many of these refugees are finding common cause with anti-austerity, pro-democracy activists.
In Athens — poster child scapegoat of the EU — subMedia‘s Antonis Vradis reports on the efforts of anarchists to prevent a return of the fascist dictators supported by the US during the Cold War. Having endured the Nazi occupation and subsequent CIA-sponsored free market thugs, Greek anarchists are now fighting in the streets against neo-Nazis working in tandem with state police.
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From Ponzi Growth to #Ponzi #Austerity #EU #Crisis
Austerity is meant as a belt-tightening exercise the purpose of which is to reduce debt. Pure and simple. Of course, for austerity to work one of the following two conditions must hold.
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Yesterday I participated, as a ‘witness’, in an Intelligence Squared Debate where the motion under deliberation was the rather obvious ‘Austerity is not the solution’. The advocate in favour of the motion was Oliver Kamm, of The Times, while the advocate opposing it (presumably in the belief that austerity is the solution) was Martin Vander Weyer, of the Spectator. Interestingly, as it turns out, I was called to ‘testify’ not by Kamm but by the ‘austerian’ Mr Vander Weyer. It was clear that he wanted to paint me as a Greek extremist whose rejection of Greek austerity was evidence of austerity’s importance. Obviously, I deserved all I got, since accepting to be part of these facetious Oxford Union-type, utterly childish, debates is a risk one can only blame oneself for. Still, not having managed to kill off the child in me, I enjoy these charades (and this is why I agreed to participate).
During the 90 minutes of the debate (which is curiously not available on youtube, even though the event was sponsored by its owner, Google) I was asked two questions: One by the austerian side and one by the moderator. The first question was: “You are recommending to the Greek government to say No to the austerity package and try to argue that this is not blackmailing Greece’s European partners. But is this not precisely this? Is it not blackmail?” The second question, almost an hour later, came from the moderator, Emily Maltlis, who asked something similar: “Would you like to negotiate Greece’s bailout deal with the troika? And if so what would you say to them?”
In answering the first question, I argued that austerity (as fiscal conservatism) is a total misnomer for what is going on in the Eurozone. That what we have is a Ponzi Austerity which is, by definition, jeopardising not only the Eurozone and the European Union but the global economy as a whole. This is why I am recommending that the next Greek government issues a loud and clear No! to the powers-that-be at the ECB, the EU and the IMF: someone must break this death cycle. And since our richer European partners are too timid to do so, perhaps it is the task of the government of a distraught, destroyed and disillusioned nation to do it. We have reached the point where sticking to our ‘bailout’ terms and conditions is simply impossible (nb. the collapse in the tax intake due to the destruction of Greece’s social economy). We might as well say so!
The New #Depression: Waves of #Suicide in the Age of #Austerity
Suicide starts to seem a strangely rational measure of life’s cheapness in a monetized society—people’s logical response to a loss of control over their destinies.
April 29, 2012 | via @WhirlwindWisdom
The following article first appeared at Working In These Times, the labor blog of In These Times magazine. For more news and analysis like this, sign up to receive In These Times’ weekly updates.
The metaphor of suicide has been used to depict the downward spiral surrounding countries bludgeoned by the economic crisis—particularly U.S. and Eurozone communities plagued by epidemic joblessness and a rash of budget cuts. Now the term literally describes the psychological dimension of the crisis, according to studies on suicide rates.
Some symptoms of the social despair have been grimly spectacular. Greece was jolted one recent morning after aging pensioner Dimitris Christoulas put a pistol to his head in Athens’s main square. In 2010 Americans were shaken by the suicide-by-plane of Andrew Stack, whose anger at the political establishment propelled him into an Austin office complex. Poorer regions have flared with public self-immolations, particularly in thecommunities of the “Arab Spring” where many youth come to see life as a dead-end street. Underlying these more dramatic examples are statistical patterns that reflect society’s unraveling.
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The New Depression: Waves of Suicide in the Age of Austerity | AlterNet
#Europe workers denounce #austerity on #MayDay #M1 #1M #M1GS
May 1, MADRID, Spain
Banging drums and waving flags, tens of thousands of workers marked May Day in European cities Tuesday with a mix of anger and gloom over austerity measures imposed by leaders trying to contain the eurozone’s intractable debt crisis.
Taking the baton from Asia, where unions demanded wage increases as they transformed the day from one celebrating workers rights to one of international protest, workers turned out in droves in Greece, France and Spain, the latest focus of a debt nightmare that has already forced three eurozone countries to seek financial bailouts.
Under a gray, threatening Madrid sky that reflected the national mood, 25-year Adriana Jaime confided she turned out because she speaks three foreign languages and has a masters degree as a translator, but works for what she derided as peanuts and sees her future as grim at best.
“I am here because there is no future for the young people of this country,” she said as marchers walked up the city’s main north-south boulevard, protesting health care and education spending cuts and other austerity measures taken by the new conservative government. Many carried black and white placards, with the word NO and a pair of red scissors pictured inside the O.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is trying desperately to cut a bloated deficit, restore investor confidence in Spain’s public finances, lower the 24.4 jobless rate, and fend off fears it will join Greece, Ireland and Portugal in needing a bailout.
Ana Lopez, a 44-year-old civil servant, said May Day is sacred for her but this year in particular, arguing the government is doing nothing to help workers and that the economic crisis is benefiting banks.
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‘This is War!’ Italy museum burns art to protest deadly cuts
Art is the latest victim of the EU’s debt crisis. A director of an Italian museum is burning works from around the world in protest at the government’s harsh austerity measures. With the permission of the artists, he’s promised to destroy three pieces a week until the government listens to what he has to say. Patrick Young, Executive Director of investment firm DV Advisors says although Italy’s art protest should be treated as a joke, the problems it highlights are very serious.
(by RussiaToday)
Resistance growing in #Europe against cuts and austerity!
Together we stand strong, this time on ACTA, banksters, the corrupt European Parliament and corrupt MP’s, who want to make ACTA and TPPA (online censorship) law, they will try to pass it when people have holidays in June July 2012 in Europe, or, evil McDonald’s, who sells GM food, makes people sick, children get sick, get money from Ronal McDonald foundation, in fact it is greenwashing its evil image, psychopathic behaviour by this fast food giant. Boycott McDonald’s worldwide. The company McDonald’s is part of the evil food system from the USA! Just as bad as Walmart, Monsanto Dow Chemical Bayer. Demand GM labeling worldwide!
(by TheGroningenoccupy)
(via cultureofresistance)
Eurozone crisis live: Spanish general strike kicks off #M29
• Demonstrators and police clashed in Madrid this morning
• Reports of arrests and injuries
• Protests also seen in Malaga, and Valencia
This guardian.co.uk page will update automatically every minute
Spain braces for general strike #29M
Spanish unions hold their first general strike since 2010 on Thursday, and as with two years ago the reasons for downing tools are the same; the government’s austerity programme.
In the meantime that government has changed, with the right-wing - organised labour’s arch enemies - now in power.
Polls show only 30 percent of the population believe it is the right time to strike.
“There’s a lot of propaganda being used to put people to sleep, like saying ‘the strike won’t do anything’,” said Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, the General Secretary of Spain’s biggest trade union Comisiones Obreras (CCOO).
“We need the freedom, the right to safe employment, just as we need the right to exercise a general strike,” said the General Workers Union (UGT) leader Candido Mendez.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has already faced two strikes and scores of demonstrations involving tens of thousands of people since taking office, and has shown no sign of being willing to buckle under pressure. However it is the first general strike for the Popular Party to deal with since it regained power.
And while students and the young unemployed prepared their marching banners, officials in Brussels were getting ready to keep the closest possible eye on any Spanish backsliding from proposed extra spending cuts. It appears Rajoy has nowhere to retreat to, even if he wanted to.
Train, bus and air traffic are expected to be among the worst-hit sectors on Thursday.
