[Peace-discuss] Demonstrations against proposed fee hikes in Britain

[C. G. Estabrook]

If you'd like to see these Anglo-Saxon attitudes translated out of the basic 
Anglo-Saxon, below, see John Gray, "Progressive, like the 1980s" in the recent 
London Review of Books. (It's online but by subscription; write me if you want a 
copy.)

Gray describes how the principles of neoliberalism were established in the 
British government directly from Thatcher to Blair/Brown and Cameron/Clegg:

"Instead of the type of liberalism exemplified by Hobhouse and Keynes, which 
accepted that the market had to be curbed when it failed to benefit society, the 
party was sold a liberalism in which the market became the benchmark by which 
society would be judged. Rather than being assessed according to standards of 
freedom and equality, the market became the fundamental norm from which any 
departure would in future have to be justified."

This view characterizes the leaders of the industrialized democracies, from the 
Cat Food commission to this week's G20 posturings. The point is not the the 
attitudes of these particular grasping individuals - nasty climbers all (Clegg, 
Sarkozy, Merkel, Obama) - but the wealthy establishments they all shill for.  
Gray explains how their liberalism is of a sort that makes them fucking Tories too.

People are beginning to object in the UK, France, and Germany.  Perhaps here too 
soon.  --CGE

On 11/11/10 6:04 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> I love the chant against the Liberal Democrat leader in the British coalition
> government:
>
>       Nick Clegg
>       We know you.
>       You're a fucking Tory too.
>
> We should adapt it and adopt it as quickly as possible.
>