In Tahrir Square in Cairo, there was a young Egyptian man with a sign stating: 'Egypt Supports Wisconsin Workers: One World, One Pain'. In Madison, Egypt's revolution has been frequently evoked. Two dollars a day in the colony, or $45,000 a year in the heart of the Empire: at both ends people are being pushed over the edge.
The war in Madison signals the onset of a new Republican onslaught on labour — with the implicit aim of destroying organised labour in America. The stakes are very high.
The Republican right wants to destroy middle, professional America.
It's a short step to what Cameron's doing here.
This is the reality of the right - seeking to destroy livelihoods to support the wealth of a few.
Wisconsin workers have to win. Or next they'll come for you.
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Michael Tomasky had a good comment piece about similar in The Guardian today, Richard (asd you probably already know). And Zoe William’s piece on the NHS Tory ‘lie’ is also good. On the latter I tend not to take the view that they have blundered into this. The ramifications of what’s being attempted were plain from the outset and so I think we must assume most outcoems are deliberate.
By the way, did you also pick up on the ‘free’ local authorities story? The last paragraph of the story is a cracker:
‘In an attempt to build momentum behind the change, Birmingham, Manchester and Westminster councils have together set up an independent commission into the future of council funding chaired by Sir Stuart Lipton, one of Britain’s leading property developers.’
That’s what you call an independent review!!!!
@Ivan Horrocks
Classic, isn’t it
And yes I do think more is deliberate than cock up
Which makes it more sinister still
Cameron is now extending to the middle class the treatment which Thatcher inflicted on the miners. By using the deception of there is no alternative because of the ‘structural deficit’, he uses his PR skills to consign tens of thousands to unemployment. The tragedy is that the Labour Opposition is unable to make a coherent case against this because it has no alternative economic narrative. We really are in the most appalling situation – increasing oil prices, food inflation, stagnant wages, service cuts etc – the perfect storm. Very little comment from the LibDems on all this. When will they wake up and realise that they have allowed the Tories to impose this appalling shock doctrine on us.
I think it indicates the lengths that they are going to, to obfuscate their real intent which is to privatise all public services …. and local people to pay for local services … the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The equalisation of central funding to councils resulting in 8% cuts to deprived areas and 1% to richer areas together with ‘freeing’ rich councils like Westminster is utilised to undermine the competence of Labour councils. The overturning of the convention of all party discussion of major constitutional changes. The forests debacle also succeeded burying Lansley’s and IDS’s health and welfare ‘reforms’.
The problem for me is that it all seems quite sophisticated a strategy but none of the leading government proponents seem clever enough to have conceived it (Cameron, Maude, Willetts, Letwin, Gove Osborne?) I wonder if these are tactics really emanate from the City or KPMG (given that Paul Kirby has moved into no. 10). Obviously, it would not be surprising but it is nevertheless the antithesis of the democratic process.