Why We Shouldn't Give A Flyin' &%$# About The Deficit

Those of us who were around in 1994 will remember the " Debt Wall Crisis" that was used as justification for the huge cuts to Canada's social safety net, cuts that we have never recovered from.The problem with the whole debt wall meme, is that it was pure fiction, like today we had one of the best debt ratios in the industrialized world.

In her book,Shooting The Hippo,Linda McQuaig tells of interviewing Vincent Truglia the feared bond rater for Moodys, who instead of lecturing her on our debt problem, railed against"members of Canada's investment community for over blowing Canada's debt problems". Much the same is happening today. It doesn't help that many progressives are using the deficit to hammer Harper over the head, all they are accomplishing is to further the corporate meme that we are overextended and can't afford to take care of each other.

Our governments know exactly what they are doing and the consequences of their austerity agendas. After each of the great market crashes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries(the great depression of the 30s being the most well known), governments embarked on similar austerity programs to what is being called for today, the end results of which were massive unemployment and increased poverty, each and every time. This time will be no different.

People the world over are starting to catch on to this game and that is why we see such massive protests all over the world,just this past Saturday in Britain, A half a million Brits took to the streets to show their displeasure with their governments actions.

Here at home we see record amounts of poverty, with food bank usage among those with jobs rapidly increasing and an even worse situation for those who don't , we see more than a million of our fellow Canadians out of work ,with many more underemployed. Our municipalities are facing massive unfunded infrastructure costs. Our health care system is breaking under the strain of an aging population and corporate greed.

So we have a choice to make, do we buy into the corporate propaganda that says that we must suffer, so that they can prosper.Or do we tell them that we are on to them and that they should go get stuffed,that it is our turn to reap the benefits of our labour. What do we have to lose, we have given them everything they have demanded from us and yet here we are barely managing to survive.