Austerity did exactly what it was supposed to do

I write a lot about Europe despite being an American on my blog, but Europe is too important and interesting to ignore.

President Hollande said today that the EU should be scaled back given the large gains by what I would describe as fascist parties. I am convinced this is exactly what Merkel and Sarkozy intended. If you look at right win parties across the world there is consistently very little that distinguishes their policies from blatantly fascist parties apart from intensity. The same can not be said about center left parties which propose radically different means and proposed ends from full fledged communist parties, including a separate heritage of thought. The same can not be said about today's right wing across the world. The purpose of austerity was never to reduce the debt of Southern European countries and it has failed remarkably at making any improvement to the budgets of those governments as claimed. There is no history of austerity alone having such an effect on any economy without an expansion in the private sector which was unable to happen in these countries given heir policies. The policies that would have expanded the private sector were not part of the austerity measures. The economists who advise the EPP must have known this would happen and this was never meant to help these economies in the first place.

Then why spend so much political capital on this program? Because the goal was to damage the ability of liberals to implement social reform on a continent wide scale. The defection of millions of right wing voters this month shows the ultimate goal of these people which is to separate the union, end free travel, and implement nationalistic legislation that defines people by their nationality. Fortunately for these people the strong left wing leaders of the 1950s through 1970s are all but extinct with the exception of a few people in legislatures across the world. Reagan, Thatcher, and Kohl succeeded in this.  The rise of Clinton, Blair, and Schroeder who were Janus faced in their policies and sold the souls of their nations to fascists ended the liberal consensus that their predecessors worked hard to end. The fact that the CDU can block gay marriage while over 80% of Germans support it is proof. The fact that so many Americans still don't understand the Affordable Care Act is also important in how the fascists won.

A combination of poor leadership on the left and radicals on the right being treated as mainstream has furthered people's perception that all politicians are corrupt. This keeps people from remembering the great leaders of Attlee, Kennedy, Johnson, and Schmidt who expanded the liberty of their countries. The personality cult of Reagan and Thatcher which even some liberals buy into shows the power of this new narrative which the left has so far failed to counter on a cultural scale. This is a culture war, and freedom is losing. Equating economic liberty as social liberty is a powerful weapon while destroying our hard earned rights with such ease in the fascist arsenal which gains them votes.

How do we (liberals) win the war? First, we need to either recapture the existing formerly left wing parties to bring them back to our roots. We need to reembrace and spread the message of Locke, Mill, and other great philosophers. We need to demonstrate trade is superior to tariffs and division. Education needs to free people from assumptions and myths so science and compassion can remake the world's systems. We must be hard headed and soft hearted to raise people from the evils of poverty and division. Only through leadership can we free the world. We cannot continue to allow our leaders to surrender without putting up a fight. Only by fully loving the whole world will we have the strength to confront evil.

Let freedom ring. Let all people have the opportunity to live their lives to the fullest in peace.