By Ian Welsh, February 23

is not, in fact, pessimism. It is realism.

I find the “be happy” crowd odd. We have, in the past few years, seen millions of Americans and Europeans impoverished and lose their homes. We are seeing a wave of austerity in the 1st world which has and will impoverish many millions more. In the last quarter of 2011, Greece was on track for -7% annualized GDP growth. Civil liberties are under assault throughout the world, and the surveillance state is tightening its grasp. In the forseeable future, and one which is, now, almost unstoppable, we can expect to lose hundreds of millions of lives to climate change, and that, frankly, is the optimistic scenario, one which is almost certain not to occur. A billion is a good middling number, and it could easily go much higher. Many climate scientists believe we are beyond the point of no return.

None of what has happened, or which will happen, couldn’t have been stopped. For decades, with increasing stridency, prophets have warned of what would happen. Those prophets, in the grand Cassandric tradition, were ignored.

The left, virtually the world around, with the exception of Latin America, is in disarray and retreat, suffering defeat after defeat, from economic populist issues to civil liberties issues (other than gay rights). The forces of reaction, once aiming only at the edifices of mid 20th century liberalism, are now aiming to roll back the twentieth century en-masse, getting rid of socialized medicine (under assault even in England), child labor laws, reinstituting debtors prisons and celebrating inequality which exceeds even that of the gilded age. Gays may gain the right to marry, women may keep the franchise (and be allowed to vote between parties who will do the same thing at varying paces), but we will all be impoverished, largely powerless and watched 24 hours a day together.more at link