Austerity

This Is The Age Of Dissent – Much More To Come

January 15, 2016 David J. Bailey, www.theconversation.com Resist! Austerity, Environment, Housing, Immigration, Protests, Racism, Students, Wages

By David J. Bailey for The Conversation - The year 2011 is widely viewed as the peak of protest and dissent in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the austerity agenda that followed it. It was the year of the Arab Spring, Occupy, UK Uncut, indignados, urban riots and anti-austerity and tuition fee protests – and in which Time magazine famously named “The Protester” as its person of the year. Yet in the UK, protests continue to occur at a rate rarely seen prior to the global economic crisis in 2008. Indeed, 2015 seems to have confirmed the suggestion, made at the beginning of the year, that 2011 was “really only just the beginning”.

The Great Forgetting

January 12, 2016 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com Educate! Arts, Austerity

Chris Hedges for Truth Dig - America’s refusal to fund and sustain its intellectual and cultural heritage means it has lost touch with its past, obliterated its understanding of the present, crushed its capacity to transform itself through self-reflection and self-criticism, and descended into a deadening provincialism. Ignorance and illiteracy come with a cost. The obsequious worship of technology, hedonism and power comes with a cost. The primacy of emotion and spectacle over wisdom and rational thought comes with a cost. And we are paying the bill. The decades-long assault on the arts, the humanities, journalism and civic literacy is largely complete. All the disciplines that once helped us interpret who we were as a people and our place in the world—history, theater, the study of foreign languages, music, journalism, philosophy, literature, religion and the arts—have been corrupted or relegated to the margins.

Reality Peeks Through In Ukraine

January 11, 2016 Robert Parry, www.consortiumnews.com Educate! Austerity, Corruption, Neoliberalism, Regime Change, Ukraine, US Empire

By Robert Parry for Consortium News - Nearly two years since U.S. officials helped foment a coup in Ukraine – partly justified by corruption allegations – the country continues to wallow in graft and cronyism as the living standards for average Ukrainians plummet, according to economic data and polls of public attitudes. Even the neocon-oriented Wall Street Journal took note of the worsening corruption in a Jan. 1, 2016 article observing that “most Ukrainians say the revolution’s promise to replace rule by thieves with the rule of law has fallen short and the government acknowledges that there is still much to be done.”

Social Movements Organize To Resist Macri’s Neoliberalism

January 11, 2016 Staff, www.telesurtv.net Resist! Argentina, Austerity, Neoliberalism

By Staff of Tele Sur - In one month, President Mauricio Macri signed more than 260 decrees to push through rapid neoliberal changes and started to roll back social programs. While Argentine President Mauricio Macri’s first month in office has given big business reasons to rejoice, thousands have taken to the streets to protest the rapid policy changes and many important social and political groups are organizing to resist the neoliberal trend.

Teacher Sickouts May Close 35 Detroit Schools Monday

January 11, 2016 David Jesse and Katrease Stafford, www.freep.com Resist! Austerity, Education, Strike

By David Jesse and Katrease Stafford for Detroit Free Press - A group of teachers called Detroit Strikes To Win spent more than 90 minutes meeting Sunday night at Gracious Saviour Evangelical Lutheran Church in Detroit to discuss the sick-outs and a possible district-wide strike. The group, led by ousted teacher union president Steve Conn, is upset with what they call the ruination of the school system by the state. When asked by the Detroit Free Press if 35 schools or more, about 1/3 of the district's schools, could be closed Monday, Conn said: "At this moment, that's what we believe."

Mass Movement Grows Against Austerity Across UK

October 21, 2015 Gabrielle Pickard, www.alternet.org Resist! Austerity

By Gabrielle Pickard for Occupy - As the Conservatives settled into their seats at the Manchester Central Convention Centre for the annual Conservative Party Conference earlier this month, up to 60,000 protesters gathered outside, collectively voicing outrage about government policies that include National Health Service reforms, spending and benefit cuts, and restrictions on trade unions. The People’s Assembly Against Austerity demonstration united opposition forces ranging from trade union groups to Jews for Palestine to disabled people operating wheelchairs and buggies.

European Left Debates A ‘Plan B’ Against Austerity

October 18, 2015 Liam Flenady, www.greenleft.org Resist! Austerity, Europe, European Union (EU)

By Liam Flenady for Green Left - Five key figures of the European left have launched a new initiative “for a Plan B in Europe”. A statement was jointly published on September 11 by former Die Linke (Left Party) leader Oskar Lafontaine from Germany; Italian deputy and economist Stefano Fassina, leader of France's Left Party Jean-Luc Melenchon, and former deputy and parliamentary speaker Zoe Kostantopoulou and ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis from Greece — both former members of SYRIZA who resigned after the left-wing party accepted harsh austerity measures in July. The statement calls for a summit to be held by the end of the year to develop a new common plan for the left in Europe. The signatories say the European left's “Plan A” is to build the fight in each country and across Europe to renegotiate the founding European treaties. These lock the European Union into a neoliberal paradigm. The aim is to open the path to a socially just European model of development. But the statement says this plan, while needed, is insufficient. Europe's left needs a Plan B at its disposal, which will allow any future left government in Europe to face down the blackmail from the European establishment — including threats of expulsion from the eurozone.

Montreal’s Francophone Teachers Strike Against Austerity

October 10, 2015 Ashoka Jegroo, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Austerity, Montreal, Strike

By Ashoka Jegroo for Waging Nonviolence, Thousands of Francophone teachers, along with students, parents, and other supporters, flooded Montreal’s streets for a one-day strike on September 30. The strike is the first of six planned by the Federation Autonome de l’Enseignement, or FAE, a coalition of eight of Quebec’s French-speaking teachers unions, as part of their negotiations with the provincial government over proposed cuts to education. “We are taking the streets today to tell the population and the parents that we are with them, and that their schools, teachers and their students, deserve more,” Nathalie Morel, vice president of the FAE, told CTV Montreal. “We deserve better.” Sylvain Mallette, head of the FAE, first announced the strike on September 8, and on Wednesday, around 34,000 French-language teachers walked off the job and marched on the streets of Montreal.

Here’s How We Free U.S. Cities From Wall Street Control

September 24, 2015 Saqib Bhatti, www.occupy.com Resist! Austerity, Finance and the Economy, Los Angeles

By Saqib Bhatti in Occupy - To try to balance its budget, Los Angeles had enacted hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts over the previous five years. City jobs had been slashed by 10 percent, flood control procedures had been cut back, crumbling sidewalks were not repaired and alleys were rarely cleared of debris. Sewer inspections ceased entirely; the number of sewer overflows doubled from 2008 to 2013. The campaign slogan wrote itself: “Invest in our streets, not Wall Street!” At the city council debate, Timothy Butcher, a worker with the Bureau of Street Services, got up and said, “I don’t know a whole lot about high finance. I’m just a truck driver. But I do know, if I go to a bank and they give me a bad deal, I don’t deal with that bank any more. And I don’t understand why the city can’t use the same kind of concept on some of these big banks, saying, ‘Hey, help us out or, you know, we’re not going to deal with you any more.’ ” The City Council approved the resolution unanimously.

Illumination Project Asks Where The Money Went

September 20, 2015 Tom Tresser, www.tifreports.com Organize! Austerity, Chicago, Taxes, Transparency

By Tom Tresser for TIF Illumination Project. Chicago, IL - What a night at Malcolm X College. About 300 people showed up for the first 2016 Budget Town Hall presided over by Mayor Emanuel and attended by all his department heads on September 1. Dozens of folks got one minute to ask a question or make a statement. The room was filled with supporters of the Dyett High School hunger strikers. People young and old expressed their anger and aspirations, stepping up to the mike and demanding that the mayor first meet with the hunger strikers and accept the community-development proposal to transform Dyett into a global leadership and green technology academy.

Report From Chicago: Dyett Hunger Strike Ends

September 20, 2015 Michelle Strater Gunderson, www.livingindialogue.com Resist! Austerity, Education, Neoliberalism, Privatization

By Michelle Strater Gunderson for Living in Dialogue. Chicago, IL - September 19, 2015. The hunger strike for Dyett High School ended this morning on day 34. Once again I headed to the south side to be with my friends and fellow education fighters known as the Dyett Twelve. Education activists had been told that the hunger strikers would have an announcement this morning, and many of us converged at the Rainbow Push Coalition broadcast to be there in support. I sit in the pews behind Cathy Dale and Jeanette Taylor-Ramann – two women who I have come to love and respect through this struggle. After 34 days of fasting the hunger strikers have an other-worldly presence. They seem so strong and focused, yet vulnerable at the same time.

Puerto Rico Proposes Harsh Austerity To Solve Debt Crisis

September 10, 2015 Alice Ollstein, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! Austerity, Debt, Puerto Rico

By Alice Ollstein in Think Progress - The government of Puerto Rico put forward an official plan on Wednesday to tackle its looming $72 billion debt crisis. In exchange for demanding some concessions from the island’s hedge fund creditors, the government is promising to pay workers less than the minimum wage, slash retirement benefits, limit collective bargaining, cut funding to universities, and shut down more K-12 schools. In a speech Wednesday, Puerto Rico’s Governor García Padilla said the hedge funds and other creditors had a moral obligation to meet them halfway, otherwise the island will run out of money next summer. “That path…will result in years of litigation and defaults and a major humanitarian crisis,” he said. “It will force us to choose between paying a creditor, a teacher, a policeman or a nurse.”

BLM Opposes DC Mayor’s Increase In Policing

August 28, 2015 Eugene Puryear & Sean Blackman, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Austerity, Community, DC, Police abuse, Racism, Washington

By Eugene Puryear & Sean Blackman for Stop Police Terror - Mayor Muriel Bowser has released her plan addressing the spike in crime. Stop Police Terror and many others, have stated, she is headed in the wrong direction. In her framing she states the plan is “comprehensive.” Translated from politician-speak that means it contains “something for everyone.” Stop Police Terror has some serious concerns particularly about the massive increase in police presence and expansion of police powers. Much of what Bowser proposes is based on spurious information. Tougher penalties for crimes on public transit is a strategy that simply will not work. One of the principal studies on the effect of more severe penalties concluded: “the studies reviewed do not provide a basis for inferring that increasing the severity of sentences generally is capable of enhancing deterrent effects.” Stop Police Terror rejects this mass incarceration approach to criminal justice that has been proven by the academic and anecdotal evidence to be unsound.

Greece Is For Sale – And Everything Must Go

August 22, 2015 Nick Dearden, www.globaljustice.org.uk Educate! Austerity, Europe, Greece, Privatization

By Nick Dearden in Global Justice - I've just had sight of the latest privatisation plan for Greece. It's been issued by something called the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund – the vehicle supervised by the European institutions, which has been tasked with selling off an eye-watering €50 billion of Greece's ‘valuable assets’. The fund was a real sticking point because the European institutions wanted to move it to Luxembourg, where they could keep a better eye on it. Anyhow, it's still in Athens, and this document, dated 30 July, details the goodies on sale to international investors who fancy buying up some of the country. We've attached it to this blog to give a flavour of what’s up for grabs at the moment.

Germans To Run Greek Airports In Wave Of Bailout Privatisations

August 19, 2015 Associated Press, www.AP.org Educate! Austerity, Germany, Greece, Privatization

By Associated Press in The Guardian - Greece has agreed to sell to a German company the rights to operate 14 regional airports. The deal is the first in a wave of privatisations the government had until recently opposed but must make to qualify for bailout loans. The decision, published in the government gazette on Monday night would hand over the airports including several on popular tourist island destinations to Fraport AG, which runs Frankfurt Airport, among others across the world. The deal, worth €1.23bn euros (£0.9bn/$1.37bn), is the first privatisation decision taken by the government of Alexis Tsipras, who was elected prime minister in January on promises to repeal the conditions of Greece’s previous two bailouts. The government initially vowed to cancel the country’s privatisation programme but Tsipras caved in to win a deal on a third international bailout for Greece, worth €86bn.

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