Thom Hartmann: Massive strike shuts down UK - Winter of Discontent?

[thomhartmann]

Run time: 07:54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oTtdhjn0_A   Posted on YouTube: December 01, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 135   Posted on DU: December 01, 2011 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 650

 
Ari Berman, The Nation Magazine, joins Thom Hartmann. Massive labor strikes rocked the U.K. today - as public workers took to the streets to protest ongoing austerity measures. Last year - the Conservative government passed a slew of austerity measures - laying off public workers - cutting back on pensions - and ending social welfare programs - claiming it was what needed to happen to get the British economy back on track. A year later - the British economy still hasn't grown - and now the government is calling for more austerity. In response - over two million civil servants are protesting. Schools, hospitals, airports, courts, and government buildings are all being affected by the strike - which is the largest in over a generation in the U.K. since the "Winter of Discontent." According to the Guardian - 19,000 out of 21,700 schools in England and Wales are closed or partially closed - and roughly 6,000 non-urgent operations have been cancelled. The Occupy London movement made their voice heard today too - storming the offices of mining company Xstrata - and targeting the highest paid CEO in the U.K. They made it all the way to the road of the building and hung a banner that read "All power to the 99 percent" before police regained control. So where did the British government go wrong - and where is this sort of social unrest that we're seeing spring up all around the world taking us?

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[sabrina 1]

1. That needs to happen here also. Two million!

Another perfect example of how not just our government, but governments around the world, have been co-opted. Cameron doesn't care what the people want, he works for the Bankers.

And now they are planning to bring their Austerity 'solutions' which are really a way to make the people pay for the crimes of the Bankers, to the US. That is the reason for the Catfood Commission and the Super Committee and the firing of public workers etc.

We have no representation in government, as the Europeans are finding out, hopefully not too late.