Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the new class tosses words around like bombs, they are intended to blow up, terrorize and distort the perceptions of people, tricking us into believing a thing is bad, when it is in fact good. There is no end to the examples, but I want to focus in on the term, “austerity.” Most people had never heard the word, austerity, five or ten years ago. That is one of the advantages of using it as a political bomb, the usage and meaning are fluid in the minds of those who have never heard it. Since we use context to understand words we don’t know the meaning of, and in that context we assign them a definition in our own mind, we can be manipulated by them. Often that definition is based on a false premise. These properties of human language are exploited by the new class to motivate us into doing damage to our own self interests while advantaging them. Your self interest and that of your children are profoundly effected by such chicanery.
Governments, from time immemorial, have over spent. It is the nature of government. The reason is that those who get to spend the money are never the ones who had to work for it. They take it, often at gunpoint, and spend it to enrich themselves, their cronies and expand their power over the people. Such a situation works fine for awhile, but eventually the economy that supports the spending must become hollowed out and collapses. As the economy gets closer to the eventual fall, the elite become panicked that their gravy train might not pull into the station tomorrow, and use every trick in the book to make sure it does. They sock as much money away as possible, to protect themselves from the calamity they created, while gutting the people they are supposed to serve. To do that they have to manipulate us into allowing them to continue the spending until the whole thing collapses.
So, what does “austerity,” really mean? It has basically two meanings, the first and the one most people today assign to it is; “sternness or severity of manner or attitude,” the second and the one that makes the most sense in usage as it pertains to government is, “extreme plainness and simplicity of style or appearance,” and the third which is related to the first is, “conditions characterized by severity, sternness, or asceticism.” You see, what the elite are trying to make you believe by using the term austerity, is that severe, hard, and by association, mean… measures are being taken by government, for no reason other than to make poor people suffer. The reality is far different however.
Using words with a negative connotation like austerity is a way of fooling us into going along with the elite’s wants. Notice how whenever the word austerity is used… it is aimed at our interests? Moreover, when austerity is actually implemented, it is always tax increases and never meaningful spending cuts? The elite, who don’t have to pay taxes but do get the primary benefit of spending, always fall on the side of tax increases. When those tax increases lower Gross Domestic Product, they point to that evil austerity as the reason, never at the spending, it’s pernicious incentives or the negative effects of taxing an economy to death. Remember, tax is synonymous with friction and burden. They want to keep the gravy train rolling so they terrorize us with words.
Real austerity, austerity that is of the second definition, “living in a Spartan like manner, austere, eschewing comfort, living simply, etc…” would be cutting spending. That is never the way it is used though, is it? The word is tossed out like a mad anarchist bomber throws an explosive into a crowd. It is used to terrorize and disperse people. Real austerity in Greece, Argentina, Venezuela, Spain, Italy, the US and elsewhere, would be to cut spending. That spending will eventually have to be cut, because sooner or later there will be no one left, stupid enough or rich enough, to cover it. The people will become impoverished, the banks will go belly up and those elite who have made the most, will have their money in an ivory tower… guarded by people who’s allegiance is guaranteed by the fact they would die if they were thrown back into the burning building that will be our economy. Until then, austerity will be a dirty word, after that, real austerity, cutting spending, would have been the only thing that could have averted disaster.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
