German Official Warns
of Immediate ‘Revolution” if EU Adopts US Model.
Wolfgang Schauble, Germany’s finance minister, opined that a
US style economic model will spark a revolution “not tomorrow, but the same
day.”
Which begs the question: If the EU is so up-in-arms about
austerity, why is the US so quiet about our very own sequester? And if the US isn’t drinking the Kool Aid,
why aren’t we hearing about it from the mainstream media? Could it be that all our non-violent popular
resistance is just an indicator that the US political leadership suffers from a
terminal case of earwax? Or that our press has become a stenographer for the
government?
Here’s what Andy Piascik writes for Z magazine: “From the Arab
Spring to the ongoing and frequently massive demonstrations in England,
Portugal, Spain, Greece and other countries in Europe to -- perhaps most
significantly -- the Bolivarian Revolution sweeping Latin America, the dictates
of the business class have been met with extraordinary resistance.
Domestically, vibrant organizing in communities of color along with Occupy
Wall Street
and its hundreds of offshoots are leading the way.”
•Chicago teachers, students, and affected communities have
protested against Rahm Emmanuel’s forced closing of 54 Chicago Public Schools
in neighborhoods disproportionately affecting communities of color.
•Demonstrations against home foreclosures and against the
banks that have made theft a national pastime have been held throughout the
country.
•There have been so many anti-fracking demonstrations, and
so much non-violent civil disobedience energy corporations are calling the
movement “an insurgency.”
•Eleven elderly women in their 70s (except for three in
their 90s) keep getting arrested in Vernon Vermont calling for the shutdown of
Entergy’s decrepit GE Mark I boiling water reactor (the same model that failed
at Fukushima).
•This past weekend, anti-Monsanto/anti-GMO protests were
held in 248 American cities.
•Last year, to protest Governor Walker’s union busting, the
citizens of Wisconsin took over the State House and refused to leave.
•Numerous anti-Keystone Pipeline demonstrations have been
held from Washington to Wisconsin. People
have chained themselves to bulldozers. Hundreds have been arrested.
•Anti-war demonstrations against the United States chief
export (and most profitable) activity have been held from before 1969 to the present time.
So what makes their revolution better than ours?
©Cecile Pineda
May 29, 2013
The reports of this statement by Schaeuble confuse me. They say unemployment in Europe among young workers is, in some countries, half to two-thirds. Yet the so-called model cherished by Schaeuble is reportedly one that protects social welfare. So, it apparently isn't a model of guaranteed employment. Is it, then, a model of guaranteed long-term monetary assistance to the unemployed? If so, perhaps feeding and housing the unemployed is enough to keep them docile. But it would also seem to give them plenty of time for revolutionary activism.
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