I am glad that someone important (besides me) is putting this obvious conclusion out in public. I would only add that the other major effect is that they are using the crisis to crush the last remnants of the welfare state, any powers of organized labor, and to set the situation back to the year 1900 when the common people were completely dominated by the power of big money and the rentier class.
Workers wages, safety, working conditions and public works to improve housing and sanitation for the mass of people are going to all be forgotten.
After WW II millions of people went home from the war with guns in their hands, and the ruling class had to give up some of their power to keep them satisfied. But that generation got prosperous, complacent and finally died off so that our masters can safely take us back to the ante-bellum situation.
and what is the connection between this story and your “spying on americans” one? private prisons baby!
Sooner or later they are going to have to coopt the power to count the votes because in extremis 1% can’t out poll 99%; and its going to be a far more dramatic move than the voter ID crap.
“Maybe economic growth wasn’t the goal of austerity.”
Hey, maybe not!
Americans have become so fucking lame, the “rentier class” might pull it off here. The beast will be starved, the social contract shredded. I agree with Pragmatic Realist, this couldn’t have happened a generation ago.
But I can’t see this happening in most of Europe, where “welfare state” and “social contract” aren’t terms of derision. The French, for example, will put up with only so much austerity. There will be a major backlash, and it won’t be pretty.
I am glad that someone important (besides me) is putting this obvious conclusion out in public. I would only add that the other major effect is that they are using the crisis to crush the last remnants of the welfare state, any powers of organized labor, and to set the situation back to the year 1900 when the common people were completely dominated by the power of big money and the rentier class.
Workers wages, safety, working conditions and public works to improve housing and sanitation for the mass of people are going to all be forgotten.
After WW II millions of people went home from the war with guns in their hands, and the ruling class had to give up some of their power to keep them satisfied. But that generation got prosperous, complacent and finally died off so that our masters can safely take us back to the ante-bellum situation.
and what is the connection between this story and your “spying on americans” one? private prisons baby!
Sooner or later they are going to have to coopt the power to count the votes because in extremis 1% can’t out poll 99%; and its going to be a far more dramatic move than the voter ID crap.
“Maybe economic growth wasn’t the goal of austerity.”
Hey, maybe not!
Americans have become so fucking lame, the “rentier class” might pull it off here. The beast will be starved, the social contract shredded. I agree with Pragmatic Realist, this couldn’t have happened a generation ago.
But I can’t see this happening in most of Europe, where “welfare state” and “social contract” aren’t terms of derision. The French, for example, will put up with only so much austerity. There will be a major backlash, and it won’t be pretty.