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You see this sequence of events happen repeatedly. Government tries to help people, investor class loses favoured status, takes toys and goes home, economy retracts and ideologues decry high taxes. Government lowers taxes on business, cuts social spending and the people are unhappy and elect someone to enhance their disenfranchisement.
It is happening in Hungary right now.
“A far-right party in Hungary is on the verge of winning second place in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, appealing to those hard hit by the economic crisis and angry about the presence of Gypsies in the country.”
Black shirts? How original.
Huh, hard economic times and the scapegoating of a section of the population coupled with the rise of a far-right political party? Nothing could go wrong there.
Must be those hard economic times and you know those damn Socialists simply cannot manage money.
“The Socialist government led by technocrat Gordon Bajnai had to make painful budget cuts to rein in the deficit under a financing deal led by the International Monetary Fund, which rescued Hungary from financial collapse in 2008.”
Ohhh, hello IMF. (Where was the mention of the meddling by the IMP in the CBC article? The quote in green is from Al Jazeera.) The IMF would certainly not impose conditions that make it hard on the government to actually run the country would they?
“In Hungary, under IMF tutelage, liberalized trade, tightened money supply and rapid and ill-considered privatization have led to greatly increased unemployment and a redirection of resources away from education and social services and to wealthy bond holders.
Carol Welch, International Policy Analyst at Friends of the Earth, said “The IMF has a consistent record of environmental and economic destruction and poverty exacerbation. We
have to expose this and stop the Fund’s attempt to establish a permanent austerity program for the poor countries.”
Ah yes, the old “We get Free Trade, you get Financial Austerity” ploy in action, it is nice to see the naked pillage of an economy and abuse of a sovereign nation all in the name of capitalism.
Shorter version: Hungary has hard times, IMF fraks things up even worse, people coerced into electing a proto-fascist capitalist dictatorship. Good Times!
It is nice to establish base definitions everyone once and awhile. With all the rambling going on in the blogosphere it seems that certain basic terminology needs a good going over. Socialism happens to be one of those terms as suddenly in the US healthcare debate it has been repeatedly mischaracterized as misanthropically evil. Socialism, like Capitalism, has its flaws but it is certainly not intrinsically evil. A system based on exploitation of another however might qualify….
I grabbed this definition from a ytube video that attempts to define what Socialism is. The video is a little bombastic, but gets the point across. Socialism is a political economic philosophy that is based on a democratically cooperative society in which the means of production and distribution are owned by the people.
Or see what dictionary.com has to say about Socialism:
so⋅cial⋅ism
| 1. | a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. |
| 2. | procedure or practice in accordance with this theory. |
| 3. | (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles. |
I’m with Mr.Broadbent on this one. Forget about changing the name. Spend the time and the effort to reach more Canadians with the NDP’s message. Let us focus on getting Harper out of power and a NDP/Liberal coalition in. The conservatives actively destroy Canada’s social programs, while the Liberals tend to do it piecemeal and quietly. We need to reestablish the idea that the government works for the People of Canada as a opposed to the just the corporate elite of Canada.
Surprisingly I found this on the global website. The full article is behind the link.
Ed Broadbent fires up NDP convention
Richard Foot, Canwest News Service: Friday, August 14, 2009
Former NDP Leader Ed Broadbent in a file picture.
Photo Credit: Brent Foster, Windsor Star
HALIFAX — Twenty years after he left the helm of the federal NDP, a greyer, more stooped, but no less feisty Ed Broadbent was back in front of his party on Friday, unleashing an angry attack on the Liberals and Conservatives and blaming them squarely for the current recession.
In an opening speech at the NDP’s national convention in Halifax, Broadbent said “the disastrous consequences” of two decades of budget cutting, tax cutting and of slashing social programs in Ottawa — accompanied by similar policies in other western countries — led directly to “last fall’s economic crisis.”
He also said Canadians should not delude themselves in perceiving a difference between the economic stewardship of recent Liberal or Conservative governments.
I always find it fascinating witnessing the demarkation between acceptable and unacceptable socialism. When we talk of saving an industry or encouraging business, the media quite happily falls in line and endorses said solution. When it comes to social programs – healthcare, social services – the public sector so to speak, only then does the questioning and dissent really begin.
Recently Alberta pork producers have been hit hard by a culmination of various market factors and global concerns. The Pork industry in Alberta has shrunk dramatically and the remaining producers are requesting help from the provincial government. The government of Alberta is in the process (over 6 years) of putting some 2.5 billion dollars into the pork industry. But hard times call for more public money; to save the industry so to speak.
Contrast this with the history of severe cut backs and chronic underfunding of Alberta’s Social Services system. The demands just to alleviate the crisis in social services is 240 million dollars as of May 2008. Have the needs of the poeple been addressed in our supposedly rich province? Of course not. Public spending is rarely on the agenda here in Alberta, calls for increased social support are dismissed as frivolous and gratuitous extra spending. When it comes to oil or pork though…watch out… that is,unsurprisingly, where the priorities lay.
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