• 5318008@lemmy.ml
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      5 hours ago

      As I mentioned, cutting defense spending or increasing corporate taxes are also austerity measures. Presumably you’re not opposed to those.

      Some austerity measures kill people. Those are the ones you’re opposed to. That does not mean you are opposed to austerity policies; it means you are opposed to those specific policies.

      And regardless of my personal opinion on what “austerity” means, the point stands that a skilled propagandist would want the general public to believe these protesters are irrationally opposed to responsible money management, and calling it a “rebellion against austerity” is an effective way to do that. This is because most people treat “austerity” and “fiscally responsible” as synonyms, whether we like it or not.

      • XiJinpingStanAccount@lemmy.ml
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        5 hours ago

        “Um, Akshually the textbook definition of Austerity is…” We both know that the word is used by liberals in government to justify cutting very SPECIFIC things. And regardless it means to reduce overall government spending right? In a nation that has income inequality of any kind this means that the ones who have the means will simply look out for themselves, and the ones who do not will suffer or die. No matter WHERE you remove money from the economy it will always reduce the overall money supply moving around, and this will always hit the poor before it hits anyone else.

        • 5318008@lemmy.ml
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          6 minutes ago

          We both know that the word is used by liberals in government to justify cutting very SPECIFIC things.

          That’s true. Why do they do that? Why do they use a very general word, which could mean a variety of good or bad things, and then exclusively do bad things with it?

          … is it because it’s in their best interest to cover up their evil intentions with a term that might convince the general public that it’s a good idea?

          And… if that were the case… should we be playing along with it by framing our opposition to a very specific budget cut, as an opposition to a very general thing that the general public might believe is a good thing?

          My position is that framing education budget cuts as “austerity measures” is giving them the benefit of the doubt, and allowing them to strip away even the crumbs allocated to the poor, while maintaining plausible deniability that it was all in the name of saving the budget. I reject that framing. I reject the headline.