{"id":15435,"date":"2010-11-18T05:31:04","date_gmt":"2010-11-18T11:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=15435"},"modified":"2010-11-18T05:35:58","modified_gmt":"2010-11-18T11:35:58","slug":"potemkin-outrage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=15435","title":{"rendered":"Chanting Points Memo: Potemkin Outrage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The smaller story (from my admittedly and temporarily parochial perspective): lefty protests in Europe\u00a0have much moo, little political cow<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Throw your Euro stereotypes out the window: Last weekend, a Greek government that has cut public-sector pay and lowered pensions won a clear victory in local elections. Despite strikes and violence, despite the fact that Greece’s debt is still growing and more cuts are coming, there will be a Socialist mayor of Athens for the first time in 24 years. (And, yes, in Greece, the Socialists favor budget cuts, and the conservatives oppose them.)<\/p>\n

Nor are the Greeks alone. Last month, voters re-elected a Latvian government that cut public-sector workers’ pay by 50 percent. The British government coalition, which is also trying to eliminate benefits and cut spending, remains strangely popular, too. Although\u2014contrary to my previous observation\u2014London witnessed its first Continental-style, anti-austerity riot last week, there wasn’t much general enthusiasm for the protesters. Some of their leaders wound up denouncing the riots, and they haven’t hurt the government’s poll numbers yet, either.<\/p>\n

It’s saying too much to call it a pattern, and it may well not be a permanent change: I’m sure there are plenty of European politicians who won’t survive their next encounter with the voters. But there is something in the air. It almost seems as if at least a few Europeans have actually drawn some lessons from the recent recession and accompanying turbulence in the bond markets. They have realized, or are about to realize, that their state sectors are too big.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the takeaway: despite the left’s sturm und drang <\/em>and immense fury, the people support conservative (by Eurozone standards) reforms.<\/p>\n

I say that to set up what is (by my, again, parochial and situational standards) the big story; Target Corporation – the, er, “target” of an astroturf smear campaign over the summer after donating money to MNForward, a pro-business PAC – has seen\u00a0same-store sales rise<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The left’s astroturf campaign – the boycotts, \u00a0the ofay little videos of planted DFL harpies cutting up their Target cards, the “flash mobs” of smug \u00a0jagoffs – all of it was a flop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The smaller story (from my admittedly and temporarily parochial perspective): lefty protests in Europe\u00a0have much moo, little political cow: Throw your Euro stereotypes out the window: Last weekend, a Greek government that has cut public-sector pay and lowered pensions won a clear victory in local elections. Despite strikes and violence, despite the fact that Greece’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-10","category-chanting-points-memo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15435"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15503,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15435\/revisions\/15503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}