Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, with Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Link of the day:

April 21 2012

Let’s face it, the prophesied brutal global attack on the working class and unions (refer to previous items on David Harvey) is under way, and Canada is part of it, as James Cairns explains in an article  Democracy in the Age of Austerity: Beyond the Robocall Scandal published in SocialistProject • E-Bulletin No. 620. Gird your lions, readers, these Tory governments andthe wealth-owners who dominate them, are after their pound of flesh, and partof their attack is an onslaught on our civil liberties from which we may neverrecover. 

(“The aim of the robo-Conservative black-op was to obstruct anti-Tory voters from casting ballots. But it was also part of the broader agenda of Stephen Harper, Dalton McGuinty, and governments around the world, which is about a full frontal assault on popular power in all areas of life….In the age of austerity, governments around the world say they have no choice but to cut social assistance, pensions, public sector jobs, minimum wages and environmental

assessment programs. We're told that the masses are greedy and lazy and have been living beyond their means for too long. Now it's time to get real about what's affordable.

(“…politicians who serve the austerity agenda don't like even the limited version of capitalist democracy that exists today. It's why they're working hard to bring in new ways of ruling that allow them to erode the minimal democracy that's left within the official political system while leaving the official institutions in place. That's why in Greece, for example, the prime minister was forced to resign in late 2011 after merely raising the idea that unprecedented austerity policies be put to a national referendum. He was replaced by a non-elected technocratic leader who was given the freedom to impose the demands of European ruling classes without even the formal trappings of public accountability ….”)