there’s a meeting going on right now, as i type this, in new york city. it’s the first assembly meeting of the newly formed united front against austerity.
what is austerity? in this sense, it’s when the government tries to curb deficits and spending by cutting services and benefits. right now in spain, there are riots taking place on the heels of these measures. austerity is a school of economic thought right now that is in danger of prevailing in some places. and it’s likely to show it’s face here in the united states, too.
cuts made in the name of austerity aren’t often from the largest part of the pie, nor are they often the ones that make the most sense, societally. mostly, they are the simply the easiest ones to make. the people affected by them a great deal of the time are the lower classes, the elderly, the poor, the student class and the disenfranchised. they are the people whose voices often aren’t easily heard in the public discourse.
in the united states, men like paul ryan (currently running with mitt romney for vice president) have proposed these types of measure here.
initially, their measures will affect senior citizens the least, because in the united states, senior citizens are a huge voting block.
but what they will try to do by and by is simply convince older folks that the measures they endorse are something other than they are, so that the senior citizens will ultimately argue for what is actually against their own best interests.
it’ll be interesting to see what, if anything comes of this anti-austerity movement.
the event is streaming live here and i suppose all the videos will be saved on their ustream profile or posted to their youtube channel
below i have shared video of webster tarpley’s talk before the group today:
