Wine or beer? | 21 comments (21 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Wine or beer? (none / 0)

Then lets stop calling austerity and calling what it is: massive wealth transfer from the poor/middle class to the rich.

I happen to think that austerity is unavoidable (resource constraints ...). Can we please not confuse it with something as obnoxious as wealth transfer (in the wrong direction)?

by cagatacos on Mon Aug 15th, 2011 at 04:51:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wine or beer? (4.00 / 2)

No problem with that. Austerity is the marketing term for the latest phase of class war, as globalisation was a marketing term for the former phase of the class war. And the rich are still winning.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Tue Aug 16th, 2011 at 03:44:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]

And the rich are still winning (none / 1)

And the poor aren't even fighting since the demise of left wing parties in Europe and elsewhere...

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Sat Aug 27th, 2011 at 08:54:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: And the rich are still winning (4.00 / 2)

Was just reading this:

Slavoj Žižek · Shoplifters of the World Unite · LRB 19 August 2011

We are told again and again that we are living through a debt crisis, and that we all have to share the burden and tighten our belts. All, that is, except the (very) rich. The idea of taxing them more is taboo: if we did, the argument runs, the rich would have no incentive to invest, fewer jobs would be created and we would all suffer. The only way to save ourselves from hard times is for the poor to get poorer and the rich to get richer. What should the poor do? What can they do?
...
Opposition to the system can no longer articulate itself in the form of a realistic alternative, or even as a utopian project, but can only take the shape of a meaningless outburst. What is the point of our celebrated freedom of choice when the only choice is between playing by the rules and (self-)destructive violence?

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Sat Aug 27th, 2011 at 09:16:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wine or beer? (none / 1)

The inconvenient truth is that both are true. We are rapidly approaching any number of inevitable, unavoidable physical constraints that will affect all of us, even the very rich who still imagine themselves to be above all that.

At the same time, the current political buzzword austerity, which has nothing whatsoever to do with that physical reality, is, as a swedish kind of death says, nothing more than the latest marketing campaign in a class war that has been going on non-stop more or less forever.

The very people who are actively campaigning in every developed or developing nation to gut and destroy every social program that offers any sort of aid or support to the less fortunate, are also actively spending more than those programs cost to aggressively market the last of the world's oil, the last of the worlds arable land, the last of nearly every other critically scarce resource on the planet.

We all bleed the same color.

by budr on Sat Aug 27th, 2011 at 01:36:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Wine or beer? | 21 comments (21 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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