". . . a republic, if you can keep it."
The French government has announced a package of austerity measures it says will save around $138bn (100 billion euros) as part of plans to eliminate the country’s budget deficit by 2016.
Officials said the plan, announced on Monday, would save about $9.6bn in 2012, followed by savings of about $16bn in 2013 as France seeks to protect its AAA credit rating and avoid the financial market pressure engulfing other major eurozone economies such as Italy and Greece.
(Read more aljazeera.com)
Italy’s new government contains no elected politicians;
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti to unveil his government’s agenda ahead of vote of confidence in the Italian Senate this afternoon
Italy’s newly appointed Prime Minister Mario Monti yesterday disclosed the list of ministers who will form his government. The new cabinet doesn’t include any politicians, with several key ministries assigned to academics. Monti opted to appoint himself as interim Economy Minister as well, although he said he would nominate four deputies soon. Monti will unveil his agenda this afternoon, ahead of a vote of confidence in the Italian Senate. According to La Stampa, Monti is expected to address several controversial issues, including further reform of the Italian pension system, a privatisation plan and concrete measures to liberalise Italy’s labour market. The vote of confidence in the lower house of the Italian parliament is scheduled for tomorrow. (Read more openeurope.org)
The vanguard group is ideologically more advanced than the mass; the latter is acquainted with the new values, but insufficiently. While in the former a qualitative change takes place which permits them to make sacrifices as a function of their vanguard character, the latter see only by halves and must be subjected to incentives and pressures of some intensity; it is the dictatorship of the proletariat being exercised not only upon the defeated class but also individually upon the victorious class.
–Che Guevara, Man and Socialism in Cuba (page 27)
Since the class-warfare message of the Occupy Wall Street protests started nearly two months ago, the two largest teachers unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have taken every chance possible to stand in solidarity with the group of mostly underemployed college students and left-leaning activists. With AFT President Randi Weingarten joining in protests and state affiliates taking part and organizing protests of their own, the teachers unions are quick to point out that “public education, teachers and unions have increasingly come under attack from the one percent,” as Leo Casey, spokesman for the AFT’s New York City local put it.
The union support is pouring in state after state. For example, in the union stronghold of California, California NEA affiliate President Dean Vogel called on the rich to pay more taxes. “It’s time to put Main Street before Wall Street, and for corporations to pay their fair share of taxes,” he said. Meanwhile, the union rank and file are resorting to taking the fight into the classroom with lesson plans titled “Who are the 99 percent? Ways to teach about Occupy Wall Street.”
As the protests continue and the union rhetoric becomes more radical, one can’t help but find the situation ironic. While the teachers unions claim they are being persecuted by the wealthiest Americans, clearly it is the unions and union bosses themselves that have benefited from a system that takes advantage of taxpayers at the expense of our students.
An examination of the staggering amount of money accumulated by the teachers unions puts the situation into perspective. The AFT collected $211 million in dues in 2010, while the even larger NEA pulled in $397 million. Taking into consideration affiliated state groups, the unions collectively take in about $1 billion, more than half of which is taken by force in states with compulsory unionism. If you take into account their vast budgets and revenue streams forcibly collected from teachers, the NEA and AFT numbers align nicely with those of the corporations they so vehemently criticize. (Read more from washingtontimes.com)