Merkel sugar-coats program of social cuts

Why am I reminded of the Iron Lady through Blair, and Reagan through Bush2? Already begun in earnest by Schröder, the dismanteling of social support and freedom is being replaced by more corporate and government power. It can also be seen in the Netherlands and western Europe. The elite powers have given the governments their missions. And we're heading back to the past very, very quickly.

Before Merkel dealt with substantive issues in her one-and-a-half-hour speech, delivered November 30, she said that “irrespective of all party differences” she wanted “to personally thank Chancellor Schröder for the fact that he decisively and courageously pushed opened a door to reforms with his Agenda 2010” and implemented these policies “against all resistance.” Schröder had thereby “done our country a service.” Coming at the start of her speech, these remarks represented a rebuff to the millions who had participated last year in demonstrations and protests against the anti-welfare Hartz IV laws and Agenda 2010.

What followed was a form of “newspeak” that would have left George Orwell speechless. The freedom to which Merkel refers is the freedom of the market: i.e., the freedom of the wealthy from any sort of social responsibility, the liberation of entrepreneurs from any commitment to fixed wages or social security contributions, and the stripping away of any democratic control over the government—a process already evident in the manner in which this government came to power.

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