WHY CAN'T AMERICAN WORKERS EVEN HINT AT DOING SOMETHING...JUST HINT

God forbid we would get mad

As workers take to the streets of Italy with a general strike against "austerity," workers in the USA pretty much sit on their ass, complain some, and then go out and vote for some capitalist to fix the economy for them...and call it day.  Sometimes I get it, and sometimes I don't.  Sometimes I blame it on the whole white skin privilege thing, and sometimes I just think Americans are just dopes.  Sometimes I think the left in the USA, (and I am talking about the real left, not a bunch of democrat pseudo liberals), are just a bunch of pathetic "thinkers"who have mistaken both the virtual world and the "left world" for the real world.  I dunno.  But just because no one declares the USA to have an austerity program doesn't mean there isn't one.  Me, I am 62, and a little old now to be jump starting the REVOLUTION...but then maybe that is just another excuse.  


The following is from the UK's Morning Star.

ITALIAN WORKERS UNITE TO REJECT AUSTERITY

Organised workers brought Italy to a halt today, piling pressure on Silvio Berlusconi's government to scrap its €45.5 billion (£40bn) package of public-spending cuts and attacks on workers' rights.

The eight-hour general strike organised by the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) was observed by millions of workers.

Production lines at Fiat plants across the country were idle and public transport ground to a halt.

Most government offices were closed for the day.

The key port of Genoa was completely blocked.

CGIL said that participation "averaged 58 per cent throughout Italy and in all sectors."

In Rome, tens of thousands of workers and their allies blocked traffic in the morning as they marched from the main Termini railway station to the Colosseum under a sea of red flags and union banners.

Elsewhere, over 10,000 took to the streets in Florence and Milan while smaller marches were staged in Genoa and other towns across the country.

Supporters of the main opposition Democratic Party marched alongside members of the Communist Refoundation and the centre-right Italy of Values, reflecting the range of opposition to the Berlusconi administration's regressive deficit reduction proposals which would make it easier for employers to fire workers and seek to raise the retirement age.

At the Colosseum CGIL general secretary Susanna Camusso told strikers that the draft austerity plan should be thrown out and substituted with a crackdown on tax evaders and the introduction of a progressive taxation system.

"The government has not been up to the task of handling this crisis and our country deserves better. This is an unfair and useless budget plan and totally irresponsible as it hits workers and pensioners the hardest," Ms Camusso declared.

The Senate took up the measures this afternoon with details still the subject of debate.

International financial institutions including the European Central Bank are putting intense pressure on Rome to pass the measures this month, and the Italian Senate is expected to do so tomorrow.

If so, the lower Chamber of Deputies will take up the austerity package in a couple of weeks.

An unusual alliance of trade unionists and Italy's main industrial lobby agree that the measures contain virtually nothing to stimulate Italy's flatlining economy.

But two unions refused to join the strike call, asserting that it sent the wrong message to investors.