Guest Post by Jesse
“Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
Thomas Paine
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras seems to have folded precipitously, after apparently having taken all other options off the table including a Grexit, a movement toward the burgeoning China Development Bank, an impasse.
His strategy seemed a bit out of joint. I have heard that Victoria Nuland made him a personal offer he could not refuse, and he did not wish to offer a ‘principled resignation’ as did Varoufakis.
(Note: I am now mulling this and a few other things over in light of this new interview by Varoufakis.)
It could be that he was then taken aback and surprised by the sheer ferocity of the European (German) proposal, which was to essentially make Greek into a protectorate, and to visit a looting of national assets, given that the loans being granted are completely unpayable and the collateral will be forfeit.
He certainly is not the first Western leader to have capitulated when a ‘gun’ has been held to their head. There is a certain rhyme, and a sense of déjà vu in all this. We must do these things, because of the imperative of (pick one: destiny, our blood, they have given us no choice, it is in their nature to be ruled, to safeguard our freedom, and/or the logic of the market)
There was intraday commentary along these lines here.
There is certainly room for criticizing Syriza in this. I admit I was supportive of their efforts, and still am. I will try not to judge their efforts too harshly until all the facts are revealed. Since I am not eager to be a martyr, I rarely find it appropriate to insist on that path for anyone else. But I did think this characterization from John Pilger bears some merit.
The leaders of Syriza are revolutionaries of a kind – but their revolution is the perverse, familiar appropriation of social democratic and parliamentary movements by liberals groomed to comply with neo-liberal drivel and a social engineering whose authentic face is that of Wolfgang Schauble, Germany’s finance minister, an imperial thug.
Like the Labour Party in Britain and its equivalents among former social democratic parties such as the Labor Party in Australia, still describing themselves as ‘liberal’ or even ‘left’, Syriza is the product of an affluent, highly privileged, educated middle class, “schooled in postmodernism”, as Alex Lantier wrote.
For them, class is the unmentionable, let alone an enduring struggle, regardless of the reality of the lives of most human beings. Syriza’s luminaries are well-groomed; they lead not the resistance that ordinary people crave, as the Greek electorate has so bravely demonstrated, but “better terms” of a venal status quo that corrals and punishes the poor. When merged with “identity politics” and its insidious distractions, the consequence is not resistance, but subservience. “Mainstream” political life in Britain exemplifies this.
John Pilger, The Problem of Greece is not Only a Tragedy: It is a Lie
I wonder how much of Anglo-American political realities that Pilger is projecting on the Greeks. It is hard to me to judge.
But this is mere speculation and second guessing, and we have to focus on what is next. Certainly the Greek people will be foolish to accept the terms to which their Prime Minister has agreed. But what they will do about it, if anything, is another matter. One hopes that they will make a stand, if only to break the momentum of what James Galbraith has called ‘the neoliberal project’ in which the US in involved despite all its dissembling about it.
Those who complain about the abuse of power and financial repression in their own cases, as those in the precious metals are sometimes known to do, are foolish if they think that what is happening in Greece means nothing for them. The cause of freedom makes all free people brothers and sisters, and those who see themselves as standing proudly alone will fall, miserably and alone.
The global financial class is pleased that any pain to be visited from the bad behavior of, wait for it, the global financial class including some of the usual and almost omnipresent suspects, will be presumably visited upon the Greek public alone.
And there will be a feast of sorts for the vulture class.
This is the continuation of a financial strategy being pursued by the Western developed economies for some years now. It is not ‘ordoliberal’, which is a nice historical diversion, so much as neo-liberal, a fashion of political management that has swept the West thanks in great part to the economic and political influence of the US and the UK.
What makes it different in this case of Greece is that it is being done, not to a Third World country, but to a long established Western nation and a member of the European community. If there is any good to come out of this, at least the neo-liberal financial class has been revealed for who and what they truly are. And so we can no longer claim any illusions, no plausible excuse in our believing them once again.
‘In the [1967] coup d’état the choice of weapon used in order to bring down democracy then was the tanks. Well, this time it was the banks. The banks were used by foreign powers to take over the government. The difference is that this time they’re taking over all public property.’
Yanis Varoufakis
And so we see Hillary the populist railing about wages and Wall Street today, while riding on a tidal wave of big money, insider dealings, and soft payoffs from the moneyed interests. But it is all in the patter, the words, the quality of the performance, the identity politics, don’t ya know. This is a spectacle, a play on the national stage, and an act of political fiction. And so facts don’t matter, just the entertainment factor. How else could one account for at least half of the Republican candidates?
We are seeing the same thing being done on a much more local scale in the UK and the US surely, with certain locales being turned into virtual protectorates after being caught up in a web of corruption, financial fraud, and unpayable debts by officially sanctioned Banks.
Consider this not an anomaly, but an experiment in progress, with more to follow.
There is a solution to Greece (and others), but it will not happen.
by Jesse
Reaping the Whirlwind
“Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal.”
Frederick Douglass
The US Federal Reserve and Congress remind me very much of the Troika.
All of them are caught in a credibility trap of self-serving constraints and things-which-we-cannot-discuss-openly. And all of them are sowing the wind, to reap the whirlwind sometime later this year, maybe earlier next year. The timing of such sea change is difficult.
But no matter when it does come, they will not see it coming.
It is important to remember that there is a difference, especially in these days of upper classes and ruling elites, between the people of a nation and their governments.
So when I am hitting the criticism button hard on Germany or the US or the UK for example, I am referring to those who are ‘running the show’ so to speak. Oh I know very well that they will deny that they are running things, are just humble servants to the people, and so forth when any consequences or blame shows up. But moreso now than ever the ruling classes are running the show with much less reference to their own people than one might expect in normal times, which might be small enough at that.
And a people are diverse, and broadly so, except in crude stereotypes that crush out individuality. There are some cultural markers, some customs that tend to adhere perhaps, but even these can vary widely within a people. Southern Germans are not the same as northern Germans, anymore more than someone from New Mexico is like someone from Brooklyn, or someone from Manchester is like someone from the West End of London.
If anything, I think we are vastly underestimating the rise of the class system once again, with the historic gulf in economic equality. People still tend to remark ‘tribal’ lines more than they do socio-economic differences, but the class lines are clearly there now. The upper class knows and notes them, and will go to great lengths to get their children in the ‘right schools’ and with the ‘right crowd.’
The US economic numbers this morning sucked out loud. The Fed will still raise rates, because they have stopped caring about the real economy sometime ago. It enters into their calculation primarily as a potential food source for the Banks. There is no recovery, and most economists know it but will pretend otherwise until ‘something happens.’
Gold and silver are being capped, by the folks I have noted and for the reasons that are obvious. It is a competing currency that some jokers have decided is ‘bad’ for them. Oh yes they will make up rationales and stories, but at the end of the day they are being self-serving and corrupt.
There are some people who think that the system belongs to them and should serve their interests. And you are not one of them. You may like to think that you are, and a lot of people who are not do. They can point to someone ‘lower’ on the ladder and exult in their position. Let me assure you, to the real ruling class you are just working a different section of the fields.
It is almost funny sometimes, what people will do and say when they think they can get in with the in-crowd. Oh to be invited up into the big house! But if you show up on the doorstep of real power, it had better be with a serving towel over your arm, and a proper sense of your place.
And they will continue to distort economic and public policy to serve their own narrow interests until someone finally stops them. They will not stop it by themselves. After all, they are winning…
Thing is, this decision is not Tsipras to make. And if the politicians sitting in Parliament are any kind of representatives they will note Greeks voted “oxi”.
So what happens if Parliament votes oxi as well?
“I have heard that Victoria Nuland made him a personal offer he could not refuse,…” LMFAO!!!!! Imagine how that conversation would have gone (if it took place).
Tsipras; And why should I accept this offer?
Nuland; Have you noticed what has been happening in Ukraine? Oh, and did you know I have 10 Aircraft Carrier Battle Groups at my disposal?