Fight Against Austerity is Fight for 'Democracy's Legitimacy'

Published on Sunday, September 30, 2012 by Common Dreams

Anti-Austerity Fervor Rages in Spain and Portugal
Fight Against Austerity is Fight for 'Democracy's Legitimacy'

- Common Dreams staff


Riot police struggle with protesters during demonstrations in Madrid against austerity cutbacks. (Photograph: Chema Moya/EPA)Tens of thousands of Spaniards and Portuguese took to the streets in their respective countries on Saturday, showing the resilience of the anti-austerity sentiment in Europe and calling on their governments to end the destruction of budget-slashing economic policies.

The protests in Madrid was the the third large-scale protest in a week and followed directly on Friday's announcement by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the government's 2013 draft budget that will cut overall spending by $51.7 billion, freezing the salaries of public workers and cutting unemployment benefits.

Al-Jazeera reports from Madrid:



.......(snip).......

Writing about what's driving the popular movement in Europe—and to some extent in the US—professor of economics at Cambridge Ha-Joon Chang says it is a reaction to the rise of global capitalism that pushes an austerity agenda which he describes as "nothing short of a complete rewriting of the implicit social contracts that have existed since the end of the second world war." ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/30-1