Austerity

Nigerian President Enforced Violent Crackdown On Hunger Protests

December 3, 2024 Pavan Kulkarni, People's Dispatch. Educate! Austerity, Bola Tinubu, Hunger Strikes, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Nigeria, Police, police brutality, Repression, State Violence

Extrajudicial executions, mass arrests, custodial torture and charges of treason were among the methods used by the Nigerian government to crack down on protests this August against rising hunger and economic hardships. Nigerian civil society, demanding a reversal of President Bola Tinubu’s aggressive implementation of IMF policies that brought about this cost of living crisis on Africa’s largest population, led these protests for 10 days at the beginning of August. In a report released on November 28, titled “Bloody August,” Amnesty International (AI) documented 24 killings, while “scores of additional cases reported by activists and journalists” are yet to be verified.

Workers In Greece Mobilize Against Austerity

October 27, 2024 Ana Vračar, People's Dispatch. Resist! Austerity, Education, General Strike, Greece, New Democracy, Worker Rights and Jobs

Strikes swept through Greece in the week of October 21 as workers protested austerity measures imposed by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government. Workers demanded wage increases, strengthened collective agreements, and the reversal of public service reforms, especially in healthcare and education. Actions across sectors—including in hospitality, metalwork, transport, logistics, and education—built momentum for the November 20 general strike, anticipated to demonstrate the public’s frustration over deteriorating work and living conditions. Throughout the strikes, workers appealed to the community to support them.

Chris Hedges Report: The Secret History Of Neoliberalism

October 10, 2024 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Resistance Report Austerity, Capitalism, History, Neoliberalism, Privatization

Neoliberalism is a stealth ideology, one that at once dominates our lives, but exists in relative anonymity. Its effects have radically reconfigured western societies through deindustrialization, austerity, the privatization of utilities, postal services, schools, hospitals, prisons, intelligence gathering, police, parts of the military and railroads, along with spawning wage stagnation and debt peonage. It has deformed a tax system and gutted regulations to funnel wealth upwards, creating an income inequality that rivals pharaonic Egypt. Yet neoliberalism remains largely unmentioned and unexamined, especially by academia and a media that has been captured by a ruling class that profits from neoliberal doctrine.

The Left Wins Presidential Election In Sri Lanka

September 23, 2024 Atul Chandra and Vijay Prashad, People's Dispatch. Educate! Austerity, Elections, Finance and the Economy, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Marxism, Sri Lanka

On September 22, 2024, the Sri Lankan election authority announced that Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) alliance won the presidential election. Dissanayake, who has been the leader of the left-wing JVP since 2014, defeated thirty-seven other candidates, including the incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe of the United National Party (UNP) and his closest challenger Sajith Premadasa of the Samagi Jana Balawegava. The traditional parties that dominated Sri Lankan politics – such as the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the UNP – are now on the backfoot, although they dominate the Sri Lankan parliament (the SLPP has 105 out of 225 seats, while the UNP has 3 seats).

The Country Of The Rust Belt And The Broken Road

July 26, 2024 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Austerity, Economic collapse, Failed State, United States

In his inaugural presidential address on 20 January 2017, Donald Trump used a powerful phrase to describe the situation in the United States: ‘American carnage’. In 1941, seventy-six years before this speech, Henry Luce wrote an article in Life magazine about the ‘American century’ and the promise of US leadership to be ‘the dynamic centre of ever-widening spheres of enterprise’. During the period between these two proclamations, the United States went through an immense expansion known as the ‘Golden Age’ and then a remarkable decline. That theme of decline has returned in Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

How To Start Participatory Budgeting In Your City

July 23, 2024 Lerner Hadden, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Austerity, Democracy, New Economy, Participatory budgeting

Has your city been making cuts to schools, libraries, firefighters, and social services that you are not happy with? Think you could do a better job managing the budget? There is a way in which you can have that opportunity through a process called “participatory budgeting (PB).” Currently, residents of over 7,000 cities around the world are deciding how to spend their taxpayer dollars, and you could follow their lead by starting PB in your city. What Is Participatory Budgeting? In 1989, the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre developed a new model of democratic participation, which has become known internationally as participatory budgeting (PB). Through this process, community members directly decide how to spend a portion of a public budget.

How Kenya’s Youth, Middle Classes And Working Poor Joined Forces

July 10, 2024 Caroline Kimeu, Portside. Strategize! Austerity, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kenya, Ruto, Youth Activism

I remember Kenya’s June 25 protests like they were yesterday. The energy on the streets of Nairobi was frenetic, filled with the sound of whistles, motorcycle honks, vuvuzelas (long horns used to cheer in soccer games) and loud blasts of teargas. “We are tired,” chanted the thousands of demonstrators who had turned out to oppose government plans to introduce wide-ranging tax hikes, on what would become the bloodiest day of the protests. Hoisting up Kenyan flags, they marched through one of the city’s main avenues, which was colored pink from water cannon spray, dodging rounds of rubber bullets and teargas.

Ecuadorians Call For An End To Noboa’s Austerity Measures

July 4, 2024 Pablo Meriguet, People's Dispatch. Resist! Austerity, Daniel Noboa, Ecuador, Mass Action

Ecuadorian trade union the Unitary Workers’ Front (FUT), has called for a national mobilization on July 4 against the increase in gasoline prices in the country. On June 26, through Executive Decree 308, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa ordered the elimination of gasoline subsidies in accordance with the provisions of the International Monetary Fund. The government has already reached agreements with some transportation unions to prevent them from joining future protests. According to the government, these unions will receive monthly compensation for the increase in gasoline costs. This agreement has been seen by some social leaders as an act of betrayal against the rest of the political and labor organizations.

Europe’s Shift To The Right Must Be Countered With Mass Mobilization

June 12, 2024 Giuliano Granato, People's Dispatch. Strategize! 2024 European Parliament elections, Austerity, Elections, Europe, European Parliament, European Union (EU), Rightwing Politics, Social Movements, The Left

The composition of the new European Parliament will more or less trace the outgoing one. Much ado about nothing? Not really. It’s not just a question of how many votes and seats you get—the conservative European People’s Party (EPP) increased their share by 10 seats, and the ultra-right parties Identity and Democracy and European Conservatives and Reformists by 13—but also where and how. The ultra-right is the leading force in two key countries such as France and Italy, where it won around 30% of votes (40% if we add the votes of Zemmours Reconquuête in France and Salvinis Lega in Italy).

Argentine Student Movement Erupts Against Milei’s Adjustment

April 25, 2024 People's Dispatch. Resist! Argentina, Austerity, Buenos Aires, Higher Education, Javier Milei, Neoliberalism, Student Activism

“We do not want them to take away our dreams. Our future does not belong to them,” said the president of the Argentine University Federation (FUA), Piera Fernández de Piccolini, to an overflowing Plaza de Mayo during the march in defense of public universities on April 23. The protest organized by student groups and educators unions was also supported by labor unions and left parties. At the Plaza, hundreds of thousands chanted: “The country is not for sale!” “Education is a fundamental human right because it reduces inequality,” added Piccolini, who read the closing declaration of the mobilization.

US Higher Education Is Being Gutted, But We Can Fight Back

February 29, 2024 Olivia Wood, Left Voice. Strategize! Austerity, Budget Cuts, Education, Florida, Higher Education

In January 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis overhauled the Board of Trustees of the New College of Florida, replacing several members with conservative activists, including Christopher Rufo. New College of Florida was known as a hippie college, a queer college, but Rufo aimed to change all that, saying, “We will be shutting down low-performing, ideologically-captured academic departments and hiring new faculty.” He added, “The student body will be recomposed over time: some current students will self-select out, others will graduate; we’ll recruit new students who are mission-aligned.”

Thousands Take To The Streets In Argentina

December 21, 2023 Gabriel Vera Lopes, People's Dispatch. Resist! Argentina, Austerity, Inflation, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Javier Milei, Mass Action, Repression

Thousands of Argentines demonstrated, this Wednesday December 20, “against the economic austerity measures” implemented by Javier Milei’s government. The day was marked by high tension early on, following a major police operation carried out at the main entrances to the city of Buenos Aires. The Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, announced that she would debut her “anti-picketing protocol”, presented last Friday December 15, and threatened that they would not allow the demonstration to take place. However, the call to mobilization managed to overcome the fear that the government tried to install.

Argentina: The Milei Moment Has Arrived

December 16, 2023 Luis Alberto Quevedo, Orinoco Tribune. Educate! Argentina, Austerity, Elections, Javier Milei, Neoliberalism, Rightwing Politics, State Repression

Yesterday, Javier Milei’s intense life as a panelist came to an end and his new life as president of the nation begins. Now his words and diagnoses will have to become government actions. For this reason, his first speech in front of the Legislative Assembly, at the very moment this mutation was taking place, aroused so much interest. The first surprise was that he did not address the deputies and senators who were constituted as representatives of the people: the two assembled chambers embody the always heterogeneous preferences of our society. Milei preferred instead the esplanade and to speak to his followers, not to the people as a whole but to his own close followers.

European Trade Unions March To Protest The EU-Imposed Austerity

December 15, 2023 People's Dispatch. Resist! Austerity, Belgium, Brussels, European Union (EU), Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

On December 12, trade unionists, political parties, and other working-class sections from around 30 countries participated in a major demonstration led by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) protesting the EU-imposed austerity in the region. The march was organized against the backdrop of the summit of EU leaders in Brussels on December 14 and 15 to find a consensus over a controversial reform of the EU’s economic governance rules called the ‘Stability and Growth Pact.’ Around 15,000 people marched in Brussels behind the banner Together Against Austerity sending a clear message to leaders that there must be no return to austerity.

Public Need Versus The Business Of War

September 16, 2023 Christian Sorenson, Substack. Educate! Austerity, Failed State, Pentagon Budget, Wars and Militarism

The American public is hurting. The bare necessities—clean water, nutritious food, and affordable housing—are hard to come by. Tap water is contaminated with lead, PFAS, and other pollutants. The water systems that serve cities and towns suffer additional stressors, including drought, overuse, and a failure to incorporate greywater systems. And, like many necessities, you have to pay for it in the United States: Water utility prices continue to go up and up. Hunger is a severe problem. Insufficient money and/or access means that millions of families regularly go hungry. Massive corporations dominate what is available in a grocery store, and much of what they produce is innutritious.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources