Tag Archives: public services

A Better World is Needed, Activism, Canada, Class War, Conservatism, Consumerism, Corporations, Democracy, Economics, Labour Theory of Value, Neoliberal Economics, North American Union, Poverty, Privatization, Society, Unions, Work

Why You Don’t Know About the Uncut Movement

6 Comments

We all need to read up on the Uncut Movement. Canadians, Americans, British, Australians, whoever. But the first rhetorical question is why hasn’t the corporate media been promoting it as a significant populist movement?

Or maybe you like public spending cuts? You don’t think high quality public education and healthcare, and treated drinking water and sewage aren’t actually human rights for all, rich or poor?

You maybe think tax cuts and domestic tax havens and no BC tax on the first $500,000 of corporate revenue starting January 1, 2012 is good because you are winning the class war?

If so, we outnumber you. Significantly. And we’re mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore.

Deadbeat dads are increasingly vilified in our society. Why not deadbeat corporations? Technically, they aren’t deadbeat corporations because the cronies they fund who get elected set up the rules so that tax cuts are God’s Divine Plan[tm] and perfectly legal. And when you think about it, weak or unenforced laws create deadbeat dads too.

Then from tax cuts, we get crippled governments forced to cut public services.

The Uncut movement is my kind of tax revolt. It recognizes that society functions well when we have fair taxation that can provide basic human rights for everyone, rich or poor. It recognizes that things are cheaper and better when we buy them together as a society.

Why do you think people want a national pharmacare plan? It’s cheaper to buy things in bulk and if the nation bought our drugs collectively, we’d get a better deal. Why don’t we have it? Big Pharma and the politicians they fund to get elected don’t want to lose out on profits if we starting buying for 34,000,000 at a time.

That is also why the BC Liberal party cancelled UBC’s Therapeutic Initiatives program that independently examines drugs to see what works and what is a waste of money, in part because federal regulators have had their regulatory teeth pulled. The program costs $1,000,000 annually and saved $53,000,000 last year. Hello Big Pharma.

Deadbeat corporations. Deadbeat, greedy, tax-avoiding people. They’re becoming social pariahs. It’s about time.

So read up on the Uncut movement. It’s on fire in Twitter. You can see it in national movements for Canadians, Americans, British, and Australians.

And you can probably now understand why the mainstream corporate media is not showering you with the movement. This is a do-it-yourself movement, like democracy ought to be: by the people, for the people.

We see Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Libya and a host of repressive, anti-democratic middle eastern states awash in people’s democracy movements. We see regressive, anti-worker legislation in Republican dominated Wisconsin and Ohio. And we remember how Gordon Campbell was ahead of the curb in cancelling public sector worker collective bargaining rights 9 years ago despite it violating our Charter rights.

Now you’ll see that this is a class war: the rich and the corporation directors, who are looking to cut taxes and privatize public services to pad their profits, versus real working people who are having services, wages and benefits cut to pay for the bailouts for the irresponsible corporations.

And while we’ve been afraid of a North American Union that would be a corporate haven, we should actually be mobilizing for a North American Union whose principles are to unite for a better world for real human beings, especially the poor, and not those fake human beings called corporations.

It’s time to get Uncut!

Be an evangelist. The poorest 95% of our society needs us working together on this. But it demands solidarity!

Let’s make 2011 a massive re-democratizing year all around the world.

Class War, Neoliberal Economics, Poverty, Privatization, Society

Tax Cuts Are To Blame for Cities’ Bankruptcy Risks

1 Comment

Just days before Christmas, there are warnings that dozens of large cities and states in the industrialized world may be going broke next year. But it’s not just a ripple from the Great Recession. It comes from three decades of neoliberal tax cuts that have defunded public services and institutions.

Three days ago, the Guardian ran a short but damning piece about the civic vulnerabilities in North America and Europe: $2tn debt crisis threatens to bring down 100 US cities | Business | The Guardian.

Below are a number of descriptions of the conditions our public bodies are in. I would argue that the neoliberal motivations of the rich since the socio-economic purges beginning with Reagan/Thatcher/Mulroney have caused or largely contributed to each of these. We’re not talking complex logarithmic supply-demand curves here; we’re talking the basic arithmetic of collecting enough income to match expenses, something households do every day…or don’t, since so many of us are addicted to consumer debt to keep our unsustainable economy afloat.

But as you read what 2011 will look like for many sub-national governments, beware the neoliberal solution from the Citigroup zombie below: austerity and more spending cuts, not increasing taxes for necessary services; this will all pad the privatization agenda:

  1. New Jersey governor Chris Christie summarised the problem succinctly: “We spent too much on everything. We spent money we didn’t have. We borrowed money just crazily. The credit card’s maxed out, and it’s over. We now have to get to the business of climbing out of the hole. We’ve been digging it for a decade or more. We’ve got to climb now, and a climb is harder.”
  2. American cities and states have debts in total of as much as $2tn. In Europe, local and regional government borrowing is expected to reach a historical peak of nearly €1.3tn (£1.1tn) this year.
  3. Detroit is cutting police, lighting, road repairs and cleaning services affecting as much as 20% of the population.
  4. Illinois has spent twice as much money as it has collected and is about six months behind on creditor payments.
  5. California has raised state university tuition fees by 32%.
  6. Arizona has sold its state capitol and supreme court buildings to investors, and leases them back.
  7. Public sector indebtedness needs to be cut, it needs a lot of austerity, and it hit the central governments first, and now is hitting local bodies,” said Philip Brown, managing director at Citigroup in London.