Austerity

This is a little bleak for Christmas Eve, but I thought it was important to share anyway: The Three-Phase Austerity Plan for America

And, found via Digby, a related interview with journalist William Greider.

I take some issue with Greider's contention that journalists are over-educated or not doing enough to report what 'ordinary people' are thinking. This is how crazy tea party 'wisdom' finds its way into mainstream news narrative. Just because the 'common folk' are saying it doesn't mean it's right.

At the same time, it's obvious that the reporters and pundits whom Digby first named 'The Villagers' (after the isolated characters in M. Night Shyamalan's movie) report a set of locally-held assumptions as fact, and have become part of the political establishment, rather than watchdogs of it.

I personally don't see how this austerity program can survive without the government disenfranchising about a fourth of the electorate. I wonder how they plan to do it.