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SAT DEC 14, 2013 AT 10:18 AM PST
How To Destroy An Entire Country
by Alan Grayson
From a recent 188-page report by the World Health Organization come these ghastly and appalling factoids:
http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/215196/Review-of-social-determinants-and-the-health-divide-in-the-WHO-European-Region-final-report-Eng.pdf
Suicide rates rose 40% in the first six months of 2011 alone.
Murder has doubled.
9,100 doctors in Greece, roughly one out of every seven, have been laid off.
Joining those doctors in joblessness are 27.6% of the entire Greek labor force. By comparison, in the depths of the Great Depression, unemployment in the United States peaked at a lower percentage than that. Among Greek young adults under 25 years old, unemployment reached an abominable 64.9% in May. (Yet the unemployment rate in Greece was as low as 7% as recently as 2008.)
I'm sure that my Tea Party friends will blame universal healthcare, paid sick leave and "generous" unemployment benefits for this catastrophe. "If we simply stopped helping people, then they wouldn't need our help," they would say. You can see where that "logic" leads. The dead need no help whatsoever, except possibly burial. Sort of like this: "The Republican healthcare plan: Don't Get Sick. And if you do get sick, Die Quickly."]
Maybe you think that I'm kidding about what my Tea Party friends would do. I'm not. A few years ago here in Florida, we had a children's health insurance program called KidCare, with a waiting list of over 100,000. The Tea Party Republicans didn't like that. So they eliminated the waiting list.
But back to Greece. A lot of people blame Greek government debt for the current suffering. According to the Central Intelligence Agency, that most authoritative of all conceivable sources, Greek government debt stands at 160% of GDP, which seems like a lot. But Japanese government debt stands at 215% of GDP, and the unemployment rate in Japan is only 4%.
Moreover, Spain's unemployment rate is virtually as high as Greece's, but Spain's government debt stands at only 85% of GDP. That's less debt than Singapore's, and Singapore's unemployment rate is 1.8%.
So we cannot properly attribute the catastrophe in Greece to labor protection, nor can we attribute it to government borrowing. What is the cause, then? The World Health Organization has the answer: austerity. "Austerity" is a bloodless term for gross economic mismanagement, animated by heartlessness. That robotic cut-cut-cut mentality that deprives us of jobs, of public services, of safety, of health, of infrastructure, of help for the needy, and ultimately -- of our economic equilibrium and the ability to survive. The mentality that ushers in, and welcomes, a vicious war of all against all. Austerity is destroying an entire country, right before our eyes.
Or, as the World Health Organization put it: "These adverse trends in Greece pose a warning to other countries undergoing significant fiscal austerity, including Spain, Ireland and Italy. It also suggests that ways need to be found for cash-strapped governments to consolidate finances without undermining much-needed investments in health."
In America, we have a rich and powerful lobby that has the same prescription for every economic malady: austerity. Cut-cut-cut. Cut Social Security and Medicare. Cut teacher and police and firefighter jobs. Cut health care. Cut pay and cut pensions. It all boils down to that one ugly word: austerity. And austerity always brings disarray, disaster, decay and death.
People often ask me my position on various issues. Well, I'm for certain things, and I'm against others. But on one issue, I'm very consistent. I'm against pain and suffering. Especially avoidable pain and suffering. And therefore, I'm against austerity. It begins with seemingly innocuous budget cuts. It then leads inexorably to the destruction of countless lives.
Why am I telling you about Greece? In 1935, Sinclair Lewis wrote a book called "It Can't Happen Here." But it can. And it's up to us to prevent it.
Courage,
Rep. Alan Grayson
"The horror! The horror!"
-- The last words of Col. Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899).
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/14/1262738/-How-To-Destroy-An-Entire-Country
iemitsu
(3,888 posts)you Representative Grayson for stating the obvious truth about austerity programs.
Nothing thrives when it is being starved.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Force them to live on a pittance of say, 3 or 4 million a year.
And don't allow them to hoard more than 5 times of that pittance.
WhaTHellsgoingonhere
(5,252 posts)words.
Dumb America only hears "I can win the lottery, too" when income is redistributed to the wealthy, and "socialism" and "class warfare" when money goes the other direction.
For some reason, Dems let them win all the marketing wars. Remember when Dems were too afraid to say "Liberal"?
Brigid
(17,621 posts)Are things going to have to.get this bad here before Americans hit the streets?
paleotn
(17,986 posts)...on how good the bread and circuses are. Americans are easily distracted.
Initech
(100,104 posts)WhaTHellsgoingonhere
(5,252 posts)johnnyreb
(915 posts)Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,771 posts)El_Johns
(1,805 posts)Chiquitita
(752 posts)We have to fight with more than just words, with more than just votes.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)xchrom
(108,903 posts)no more banksters
(395 posts)The Greek government, as an authentic representative of the neoliberal dictatorship in Greece, deliberately destruct public benefits and services
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2013/12/the-tactics-of-downgrading-and.html
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)There's 11 months to go till November. The GOP has painted a target on his back. Please pledge a monthly amount if you can. This gives Alan's campaign a predictable revenue stream. I'm in for $20.14 per month. Any amount is helpful. We can NOT afford to lose Alan. He is the best voice in the House we have.
https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/oneyearcounting?refcode=111113DU%%listtracking%%&amount=20.14&recurring=36
no more banksters
(395 posts)A secret deal between the Greek government and troika for unlimited massive layoffs!
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2013/12/latest-info-secret-deal-between-greek.html
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Very telling that.
mtasselin
(666 posts)Thank you Congressman, I know you have my back even though I live in the Upper Peninsula and you in Florida. Keep up the great work that you are doing on behalf of America.
Uncle Joe
(58,425 posts)Thanks for the thread, kpete.
no more banksters
(395 posts)daleanime
(17,796 posts)The Wizard
(12,549 posts)Pox propaganda has enough unwitting dupes convinced up is down and left is right. By getting the easily frightened and obtuse to vote against their own best interests it has become impossible to have an effective government that serves the the people as opposed to a government that serves the best interests of the wealthy elites who have perfected the art of gaming the system.
no more banksters
(395 posts)"We are now in a transition phase, where Nation-States self-deconstructed. This means that they use their legislative and what is left from their democratic power, with an ultimate goal to self-abolish. It is a fact that, the more the democracy decreases, as well as human rights in various levels (labor rights, atomic freedoms, personal data etc.), the more we are passing in a vicious circle, a non-returning point, which downgrades democracy and institutions. Neoliberalism is a transition phase to what the economic elites are dreaming: anarcho-capitalism."
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2013/07/maggies-ghost-what-is-haunting-europe.html