61.31% of the Greek people rejected almost the same package of austerity measures which then Alexis Tsipras suddenly accepted. And now an overwhelming majority of Greek MPs voted in favor of the reform package, with 229 voting ‘Yes,’ 64 voting ‘No’ and 6 abstaining. Since the 6 abstaining did not abide by the will of the people which clearly rejected these measures, I submit that 235 MPs voted ‘Yes’ and 64 voted ‘No’ (for a total of 299 MPs).
If my, admittedly rusty, math is correct, 235 is 78.59% of 299.
In other words – 61.31% of the Greek people voted ‘No’ and 78.59% of “their” “representatives” voted yes.
So much for the “democracy” myth.
The Saker
…and when the people care enough to get angry about it, they vote with Molotovs. As the 61% voting OXI! were disproportionately the young, this may be in Greece’s future.
If they hang a few MPs, well that’s not so bad, but if the shadow of the Generals passes over Athens, things could go south in a hurry for Greece.
Indeed, the US is warming up the Generals. The Junta will roll shortly if the protests grow large.
Meanwhile, they will hunt down the leaders and dispose of them. You know they will do this as surely as the sun rises over the Aegean.
There will be no People Power in Greece.
@ Red Ryder,
Q; Meanwhile, they will hunt down the leaders and dispose of them.
R; Any news on ‘Jade Helms 15’, Red?
Jade Helm in Texas is a scouting tactic. They want to see who forms and what moves they make in relation to the unconstitutional use of military against the citizens.
Smart resistors will lay low.
Really smart resistors will have insiders in the military.
Extremely smart resistors will be buddies with ex-spec ops who are nowhere in sight, but the ultimate resistance. The hills are alive with them.
hopefully the spec ops don’t blow themselves up by mistake. That’s my opinion now of all US military.
ah RR…I see you said ex-spec ops…they are the real resistance…well…that’s a nice thought.
Merkel is absolutely correct to oppose debt relief. It can turn out horribly.
Look what happened when we forgave 50% of Germany’s debt.
Who is “we”?
this does not need to be repeated that TSIPRAS and GREECE were threatened by the American CIA, and why because it means otherwise GREECE does a deal with RUSSIA and has a gas pipeline and their problems solved, and the American terrorist network cannot allow it, It is absolutely and BLATENTLY OBVIOUS in the eyes of the whole world that the American donkey the EU was used as the instrument, It Is now time for Europe to put the USA in their place, this abuse of Greece cannot be allowed to stand.
Europe put The US Hegemon in its place?
The slave revolt is in Spartacus, the movie.
Modern people are programmed to Baaa, like the sheep they are.
When was the last time you personally observed an act of defiance to authority?
Scotland collapsed. Catalonia? La Farge’s little uprising?
The stout-hearted are all on the Russian side.
Europe is like fondue. No muscle, no strong limbs, no brains, no courage.
America? Look at the margins. The resistance is tiny, generally ill-thought-of (branded racist, Christian, homophobic, armed, anti-authoritarian, Politically Incorrect).
Where are the people?
That was answered decades ago:
Gil Scott-Heron wrote It: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
That was a call to action. Watching history is not living it. It’s accepting it without a whimper.
Last night, in Athens, 12,500 showed up. A few dozen threw molotov cocktails.
The rest of the nation watched it on TV. So went Greece.
Yes I learned a long time ago that in the West the “left” was a “dilettante”. All talk and no action.Which is why there are no Revolutions against oppression.The excuse of course is, the oppressors are just “too strong”.I wonder on the question of strength what those that stormed the “Bastille” thought when faced by armed soldiers with cannon.And those storming the “Winter Palace” facing the armed supporters of the regime.And closer to our times,when Fidel and Che landed in Cuba into a trap.Lost all but 13 men,the killed all around them.Yet escaped with those 13,got to the mountains. And with that beginning, brought down an enemy regime with 50,000 soldiers,and supported by the US empire.While actually in our time,the Novorossian heroes.That refuse to kneel to the fascists. So,the answer is clear.If you have men (and women) of courage that are willing to fight back you can succeed.But if you are content to only talk,then,well …….you’d be Greece.
Shhhh… Don’t hurt the “anti-authoritarian” sensibilities of the prodigious Western Left, Uncle Bob 1.
The largest bushfires are always started by small sparks.
Almost identical post deleted. /Mod Z.L.
An Orthodox friend of mine sent me this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCs0LZil6Ac
He thinks that the politikia anomalia which is spoken of in this short movie has just happened in Greece.
Tsiparis has folded a hand in a card game. Big deal. He is far brighter than everyone thinks.
Smarter? Or just more corrupt?
In any case, now he’s just expendable. “The Moor has done his duty. The Moor can go”.
Schauble is Iago, Tsipras Othello, Greece Desdemona.
While I am a hesitant supporter of a Grexit for Greece’s sake (don’t care about the monstrous EU-Project one bit), I think your analysis is flawed here.
While there was a 61% anti-austerity vote, polls suggested that an even larger part, at the same time, was not prepared for getting out of the Eurozone (again: big mistake, I think).
Consequently the decision in Greek Parliament yesterday must be assessed with this in mind.
Best
Das Kommentariat
Stimmt gut.
The joke is at least as much on Syriza’s electorate. Forever in love with “Europe” up to and including the monstrous Euro they — just like the awesome Ukro-trash further to the east — got precisely what the EU had in store for them. Most likely, Tsipras and Syriza were secretly hoping for a “Yes”, in which case they could have squabbled a little (or a lot) with their EU and IMF patrons over harmless, irrelevant issues just to “make a difference”. The massive “No” ruined Syriza’s entire stunt mercilessly. Conversely, the Greek electorate’s wishful thinking has also been somewhat “corrected”, mind you.
As regards Western democracy, there seems to be something divine to it. Really works in strange and wondrous ways.
Most likely, Tsipras and Syriza were secretly hoping for a “Yes”
Varoufakis came almost as close as to admitting precisely that (with regard to Tsipras): listen to http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programitem/pgJE6gZygG
@Nussimen
Your post is beautifully written and perfectly summarizes the real attitudes of both the victimizer and the victim.
The ukro-idiots want to be “EU-ropean” because of their distorted identity-crisis, their inferiority complex, and their dirty intention to get something for nothing (EU welfare state). For the “privilege” of being associated with Europe, even if it means being a willing permanent second-class ‘citizen’ (i.e. a duped slave), they’ll sell their nation’s future out.
Unfortunately, you are right, the EU’s owners played on the inferiority complexes, insecurities and greed of significant pluralities within several nations in order to lure them into their con-job (Poland, Greece, etc). In due time, each of these nations will be “rendered” of their choicest parts (when they have been made ready for slaughter (aka re-structuring) by Brussel’s facistocrats and the EU’s financiers).
At least the Greeks didn’t have any clue what was being planned for them when they joined —> how stupid do the Ukro-idiots have to be, now, after seeing how Greece is being raped by the EU, that even then they still want to enter the lair of the rapist?
That’s Nussiminen :-)
Thank you, 3 Cents! With regard to the Ukros, you raised the very valid question “how stupid do the Ukro-idiots have to be, now, after seeing how Greece is being raped by the EU, that even then they still want to enter the lair of the rapist?”
Frankly, I believe Saker nailed it really beautifully almost a year ago:
“Far from being any kind of patriots or nationalists, the Ukie ‘nationalists’ are subservient puppets of the West, willing to service AngloZionist interests with less shame than an old prostitute services her clients. For all the ‘Glory to the Ukraine, to the Heroes Glory!’ slogans, the Ukies are the cheapest prostitutes on the planet with no self-respect whatsoever.”
Put bluntly, swine and scum such as the Ukros take pride in their own vileness. Unlike the poor Greeks who are suffering from unrequited love, the Ukros enjoy the stench and squalor of a pigsty. The Banderites are the EU’s well-deserved admirers.
Very clever name, flew right under the radar, I’ll try to get it right next time.
:)
@ 3 Cents
Excuse me, I am a little confused re some people’s many names, are you also Grunt2 ?
Nussiminen, the Banderistas will be dealt with differently from the Greeks. Debt relief, and less punitive policy is certain-to begin with at least. After all Greece was an enemy in WW2 and Banderastan an ally, and the German Reich, the Nazi successor regime, rewards loyalty (just ask the Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians and Balts), and punishes resistance (as the Serbs well know).
‘Democracy’ under Free Market capitalism is rule by the people-the people who count, that is.
polls suggested that an even larger part, at the same time, was not prepared for getting out of the Eurozone
Yeah, the very same poll who said that the ‘yes’ and the ‘no’ were practically equal. I don’t trust these polls one bit. Let the Greek people vote on a Grexit and then we will see what they think about it. But the polls in Greece are clearly clueless at best or totally manipulated.
Both clueless and manipulated.
Most populations are.
Don’t overrate people.
Look at Donbass. With their lives and homes and culture and destiny at stake, out of several million, a few thousand stood and fought.
Not even 1% of the young men joined the militia. Old men joined. There’s even one artillery group that is commanded by a +50 year old woman. The young men? Hiding from reality in Russia.
It is the human condition and the conditioning of humans. Once processed by media and weak education, the sheep takes over from the human.
You see there the results of 23 years of Western influence in Ukraine.A generation corrupted,and weakened.Luckily they aren’t all infected by the disease.
I don’t trust these polls one bit. Let the Greek people vote on a Grexit and then we will see what they think about it. But the polls in Greece are clearly clueless at best or totally manipulated.
You are totally right to be suspicious of the polls. In this case – and it deeply troubles me to think of it – they are probably not off the mark. In the last weeks, practically everyone of my relatives and friends in Greece was afraid that the referendum would lead them to Grexit, even if they voted OXI.
Unfortunately, according to my observations, it is like a mental blockade (or a spiritual aberration – think: Dance around the golden calf, errr.. Euro). For me it’s only a matter of time until the majority will internalize what they already know on a rational level. Namely, that they would be better off with getting rid of this imperial yoke, called Euro).
Syriza should prepare for this moment. If you have read (and listened to) the latest interviews with Varoufakis (http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/07/yanis-varoufakis-full-transcript-our-battle-save-greece and http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programitem/pgJE6gZygG ) it is obvious that it’s been an amateurish mistake not to have prepared contigency plans from the very first day of winning the elections.
As an aside, I wonder, what constructive role RF could play here….
It’s not just a matter of polls being rigged or skewed, but that people often do not say what they mean, or have even thought out their responses. Sometime they just lie for the heck of it or because they don’t want to be bothered, or tracked, or be involved.
Or there may be some thing that pushes them one way and they will change direction when that changes.
Survey to people in store:
Pollster: ‘Is it likely you will just leave your shopping cart in the aisle and leave the store?’
Almost no one.
Pollster: ‘BTW — the store is on fire’.
Is Greece on fire?
Makes you wonder if Ukrainians were tricked into voting for independence from the Soviet Union (Russia).
Doesn’t make me wonder. Russia had little to do with it. Crimeans were overwhelmingly for leaving, and Putin advise Novorossians to not vote.
But Soviet Union is long past, and Ukraininas didn’t get a chance to vote when Crimea was handed over by Khruschev.
That’s the problem,they didn’t. In the vote to stay in the USSR, or not ,71.48 % voted to stay in the Soviet Union. And then their “leaders” on their own broke away.The nationwide USSR total to stay in the Union was 77.8%.
Yes, I agree. It was not a mandate for Tsipras to leave the Eurozone and EU — it was not sold as that and not, I think, perceived as that by those who voted for it.
It was intended to shout opposition to the terms on the table and shout into Euro ears that the people were behind Tsipras in refusing those terms, but in the expectation that this would make some difference to the other side. Tsipras did not get anywhere close to a majority vote in the elections; this vote ratified his legitimacy.
The deaf ear to the will of the people was not Tsipras’s.
And it ain’t over.
What was the bargaining position?
Be nice to us? We are incompetent and naive people?
Greece had the extreme action of telling the EU and Germans to pound sand, F*ck Off!
Instead, the only other action was to be a “receiver” as the gays term it.
And now they find themselves, hands grasping ankles, getting it.
well, I’d like to believe that Greece will be better off for the bail out, but I doubt it long term….Going over to Russia was the way to go, but as a commenter up there said already, that would have been an honest move, and where are all the honest people now ? Especially in politics.
Here’s a couple of super good articles by James Petras who was advisor to the Greek President from 1981 – ’84 …. then Petras quit because of the lies of the leading politician….this drama has been played over and over again its seems, in Greece.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-rise-of-the-non-leftist-left-the-radical-reconfiguration-of-southern-european-politics/5457335
and
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-assassination-of-greece/5432699
Mr. Saker,
Warmest greetings to you and the finest website on the planet.
Here is a fine missive by Paul Craig Roberts. http://www.prisonplanet.com/greece-sound-and-fury-signifying-much.html
Democratic Republics consist of a “Rabble in Arms” Kenneth Roberts. This “Rabble” is armed, motivated, educated, conscious, alive, and above all, contentious. They form up, as at Lexington and Concord, at Donetz, Slaviansk, Crimea, Yorktown, Bunkers Hill, Playa Girón, Dien Bien Phu, before Madrid, Easter Sunday in Dublin, and the Paris Barricades, and fight for Constitutional Republics that will reflect the wishes of the “Rabble in Arms.”
Short cuts don’t work, but people will attempt them, again and again. That is human; that is natural. Occasionally, the people will understand that they must defend their democratically expressed wishes, when they are not honored by the existing authorities.
It is human to learn from experience. Democratic Republics require a “Rabble in Arms.” There are no short cuts. One goes with the other. One must not forget; the converse is just as true; the “Rabble in Arms” require the Democratic Republic, with all the Constitutional protections and respectful democratic practices it consists of.
A policeman of a Democratic Republic is respectful to, and a bit awed by the 80 year old grey haired grandmother who lectures him on some issue. The policeman would never think of entering her home without a direct invite, and he removes his hat upon entrance.
Oh the dreams, the hopes, the beautiful elvish women (& men?), the love; it’s all there!
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” Matthew
Poor Tsaripas,
Remember the 300. To the barricades!
For the Democratic Republics! Today, and Tomorrow!
The next generation begins with a clean slate!
For the VISION!
IMAGINE
Maybe the people are the problem. Tsipras is a cynical front man for somebody, it seems, but the people just want more cake and less weight.
It has been a standard saying in American politics that two-thirds of the public want lower taxes and two-thirds want more benefits. So most politics is a fight over the dishonest who want both. Of course, this was decades ago, and the game is much less open and fair now.
Dear Saker,
I see that you have created a new tag called “democracy myth”. May I kindly ask you to change that to “democracy misnomer”?
As I have explained in a previous comment, neither the comtemporary Greeks nor anyone else in the world lives today under democracy. Our election-based regime was well known to 6th century B.C. Athenians, who called it “aristocracy” meaning “government by the best”. If, instead of trying to elect “the best” (possibly when you realise with time that, in practice, you always end up electing the richest — or their minions), you simply decide that all people must be given an equal chance to political participation, then you get a brand new regime, called democracy by the ancient Athenians, in which MPs are alloted by sortition.
Following your example, if we randomly select 299 Greek citizens, the resulting parliament will, according to the law of large numbers, oppose the austerity measures by approximately 61%, that is 183 MPs. It could be only 182, as statistics are never an exact science, but certainly it would never be 64.
Now, this IS democracy, and not the pale ersatz we call that sacred name nowadays.
Well, well, well… put the Molotovs away, the ball is still in play:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-16/greece-may-not-get-bailout-grexit-better-way-schaeuble-says
Schaeuble said on Thursday: “This (temporary Grexit) would perhaps be the better way for Greece,” The 3rd deal is now recognized as inadequate and unsustainable, by both the IMF and the ECB, not to mention the Greeks. A “haircut” is illegal within the Eurozone, but even Schaeuble suggested one is possible if Greece is out, even if temporarily out.
I hope my head is facing forward when it stops spinning…
The Grexit was Schaüble’s plan. If you have followed Schaüble’s career, you know that he has always been against the EU in its current form. He was protesting it in 1994. He wants a new, improved EU 2.0. He wants a political union with Germany in the lead. A set of commons that Germany dominates, FinMin, social services, state budgetary concerns, unemployment insurance etc. A “Bundestag” that takes orders.
In a 2011 interview with the NYTimes, Schaüble laid out his plan to achieve a political union. It involved a “political” crisis. He thought he had that before the second bail-out. In the third bailout, it was green for go. The plan was for a Grexit, after which, Greece would be utterly destroyed as a lesson to other EU countries. You are either with us or on your own, and look at what will happen to you. And if you object or cause any trouble in the new order, we will force you out. Schaüble tried to sweeten the Grexit with a haircut, humanitarian aide, and support for the new drachma, but that was never baked into the Grexit.
Then the stunner. Tsipras signed the agreement. Merkel was so unnerved that she stammered her way through the reading. Schaüble was stunned. For his plan to work, a Grexit is a necessary component. Destroying Greece once it is on its own is a lot different than destroying Greece when it is an EU member.
Now, the blowback. The assumption of Greek assets by the German government owned bank KfW whose chairman is none other than Schaüble popped open the eyes of what the Mockingbirds refer to as the “PIGS”. Italy and France have forged an alliance against German assumption of dominance in the EU. Austria, who went Islandic with their banking problems, has broken ranks with Germany and supports Greece. The 7.1 billion Euros that was transfered to Greece’s balance sheet stopped in England and Germany is for the first time being widely reported. Ten protests in German cities in support of help for Greece are planned. (This enraged Schaüble and he threatened a surtax on the German worker to pay for the Greek bailout.) Merkel and Schaüble are in a power struggle. Schaüble is still trying to force a Grexit and threatening to resign.
This is a very complex situation, and I will give you an analysis of what I would have done if I were Tsipras. I may be way off.
Realizing that the “negotiations” were a sham, I am presented with two courses of action. To Grexit or not to Grexit. If I voluntarily Grexit, the Mockingbirds will have a field day. I will have no say or friends in the EU. If I turn to the Russian Federation for help, can it provide the support I need before the German attack? Russia is under attack also in this new European war. Will my Grexit unite the EZ? My country is destroyed.
If I stay, if I sign, what is the possible outcome. I have sympathy from countries in the EZ. I have expressed a willingness to work with the Germans. I am a constant reminder that this will happen to you. The EZ will keep fracturing. Coalitions will form against the Germans. The Germans will force a Grexit, but it will be on them if I turn to Russia. I will keep my contacts in the south and east EZ. And when the attack comes, I will have allies.
I would have signed.
tsuki,
Many thanks for your very interesting reply. The idea that, by signing Tsipras turned the tables on the Germans has a lot of merit. Certainly, the barrage of bad publicity from all over S. Europe especially, and the UK as well, has blindsided them. They are in disorganized retreat, Schauble’s 180 degree volte-face looks like an amateurish attempt at a rearguard action. What the hell is a “Temporary Grexit” but an admission that he blew it on a grand scale.
I note that you didn’t mention the IMF’s series of timely “leaks”. These backed Greece’s arguments that the debts were unsustainable and, I think more importantly, showed that America was actively in the European game. Combined with other leaks, they undermined Germany’s hardline approach at critical moments. Of course, the USA’s interests would include both putting Germany (back) in its place, and keeping Greece in the West’s orbit. I think Washington’s hand was in up to its elbow in this.
And what about NATO? Greece is an important member in a critical part of Europe. “Destroying” Greece materially harms NATO. Is that part of Schauble’s program?
The 2nd problem I have with your analysis is that Tsipras doesn’t exhibit the kind of ice-cold, calculating toughness that it takes to play such a high stakes game of nerves for months on end.
I may be quite wrong about him, but the question arises if he had help. His connections to Soros, Brookings Institute etc are well documented, so is Tsipras an American Trojan Horse?
More recently, he has been reported to be in frequent communication with Putin, including visits to Moscow. Alexander Mercouris thinks Tsipras’ overtures to Moscow were disingenuous (and they sure looked that way), but Tsipras’ “stunner” is just the kind of judo move one would expect out of Putin.
Just before coming here, I came across this article at the Automatic Earth. http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/07/was-greece-set-up-to-fail/
“Greece’s 2009 deficit was retroactively manipulated upward through a collaboration of the EU, IMF, PASOK, Eurostat (EU statistics bureau) and Elstat (Greek statistics bureau). That is the only reason why interest rates on Greek sovereign bonds skyrocketed in the markets, which in turn made Greek debt levels skyrocket.”
A comment by GeorgeP below the article adds incriminating details to the fraud.
I did not mean to say this is what Tsipras did for these reasons. I tried to relay what I would do under the same circumstance. I have followed Schaüble for a long time. He seems to be a small subset of German politicians that think that Germany is the “natural” leader with a “manifest destiny” to rule over Europe.
Yes, the US is interfering in European politics. Most recently, after two small articles in Czech and Slovakian magazines expressing that perhaps the German economy is the problem, US economists, Bernake included, are giving interviews that perhaps Germany needs to take “temporary leave” from the EU and return to the DM so the rest of Europe can solve their problems. Mockingbird?
They would never be allowed to leave NATO, the US would have seen to that. You don’t have to be EU to be NATO.
Now, about Putin. Very complex. Right now, he reminds me of the guy having gone through the $5 all you can eat buffet and piled his plate high. He has The Krim, as my daughter in law call Crimea, which has cost the Russian Federation a fortune. Humanitarian and other support for the Donbass and Lugansk. He is facing probably 5 (or more) colour revolutions in Hungary, Macedonia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the ever vowel deficient Krygyzstan. He has a pipeline to China to build, the SCO, the AIIB, the new SWIFT system. He has Syria, the incursion of ISIS and the diversification of the Russian economy, the Ruble to defend and economic sanctions to contend with. How much more can Putin and the RF take on? Can they take on a country under economic attack? It is much easier to destroy than build.
The meetings between Tsipras and Putin were not well reported. I have no idea of what went on in them, but I find it very difficult to imagine a wet behind the ears, naive Tsipras playing Putin. Is Putin the type of leader that would mentor? One would not know. He is not like western leaders who flap, flap, flap their yap.
More blowback. Thousands of refugees from Syria and North Africa are leaving Greece and heading north through Macedonia. The Maastricht Treaty say the point of entry in the EU is where the refugees shall be held. Greece cannot afford to house or feed them. PM Renzi has attacked austerity as a disaster. (I like the German word, sparpolitik, because it is a political weapon.) Schaüble and Merkel are still mixing it up. Merkel told Schaüble to stop with the Grexit talk. It is over.
tsuki,
Thanks for another thoughtful reply. Fundamentally, we’re on the same page.
It seems Dr. Schauble will get what he wants without the drama of an actual Grexit, so Merkel was wise to shut him down.
On Sunday, Hollande published an opinion piece in Journal du Manche effectively calling for a United States of Europe for the Eurozone. Europe better move fast, before the Le Pens and Podemos can stop it.
(http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-19/france-s-hollande-proposes-creation-of-euro-zone-government)
Do they seriously think the peoples in those countries will accept that (without voting).I don’t see it,that would be the nationalist parties dreams come true. All those parties would be given a winning issue to campaign on, “La Patria/Le Patrie/Der Vaterland/The Nation endangered”.
It wasn’t just Greece, but all ‘southern’ Europe — Spain Italy, Portugal, Iceland, Ireland, even France — those countries which had trade deficits or weaker economies. It’s the result of the Euro and ECB, which removes sovereign currency and fiscal policy. Of course Greece falls into unpayable debt — it’s like an average worker in Upstate NY trying to afford the rent on a Park Avenue apartment. The EU is designed to transfer wealth from the south to the northern industrial countries, while lacking the necessary wealth distribution by the ECB (such as the US does by supporting poor states while taxing the richer ones).
See http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=14213 in two parts.
To exit the euro is “a big step’ that should have been prepared in advance. They did not, they did not want to, and when Tsipras went to talk with EU, he looked like a defenseless idiot.
I do not see the political will to do it, (I compare it with the determined will of Russian federation), and no one can do it for them. Now the 64 members and their supporters who wanted out, should watch their back, because retribution is just around the corner, unless they FINALLY smart up and start guerrilla tactics in a NATO country. That for sure willl upset both eu and us.
As far as I can determine, the mandate for Syriza has always been to reduce austerity AND stay in the Eurozone. There has never been a vote on leaving the Euro, and no mandate for it has yet appeared.
To solve the problem of Greece requires having a Grexit prepared at least as a real option. The Greek people haven’t said yet that this is something they’re prepared to do.
So this is where things stand currently. Until we see the change inside Greece, there won’t be a Grexit. Without a Grexit, Greece is tied to the Euro and all its strings. Greece can leave the Euro and still remain in EU and NATO. With a Grexit, Greece can print its own Drachma and rebuild its domestic economy, but at the risk of international currency exchange problems.
But, one does not simply walk into a Grexit. It takes preparation, and certainly a mandate. Let’s be clear that the Greek people only voted against austerity. But it now appears that, since the EU side is inflexible, they didn’t yet vote on a solution.
You make a sound argument.
However, the path to recovery is growth. Not less austerity.
The path to growth is out of the Eurozone. Reforms within the economy are necessary.
But new trade and investment and loan financing partners are needed.
China, Russia, now Iran, India, and others from the non-West were available.
If you stay in the cage, just because they stop beating you, does not mean you are free.
And the Germans still wield the whip, while the US owns the cage.
Actually preparation is nice, but not essential.
Let’s say Greece just up and leaves EU tomorrow.
First panic:’Emergency! Everybody to get from street’ (The Russians are coming.)
Then doubt and fears yields to survival actions as food is distributed and pleas and deals with BRICS, etc. are heard.
Difficult times for a while, but eventually everything starts to settle down as old problems fade away and new opportunities emerge.
Well — that’s what always happen in war when a place has been attacked and there is destruction — and this is certainly a war. But people survive, and then prosper.
It’s doable.
This business of having a mandate is reminding me of Bush’s claim to have a mandate his second term, when he proceeded in the attempt to privatize Social Security, and fortunately did not succeed. And it is rather unfortunate that Obama, who should have recognized he had a mandate to do other than what his predecessor had done, ignored any such obligation.Sometimes the only mandate is what is in the candidate’s head. Sometimes what needs to happen for the good of the people is the mandate.
This article is rabble-rousing. A referendum and an election are two totally different procedures.
And yes the Greeks are betrayed by their representatives in parliament.
There is no democracy in the “west”, that is just a myth to delude their populations into thinking they are in control, that they have a “choice” who to chose to “represent” them. Hearing the likes of David Cameron, hardly likely to be voted brain of Britain, saying :
“For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens ‘as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone’.”
ought to give people an inkling of what the future holds. Fascism, after 70 odd years of absence, is back with a vengeance. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts has written an article, “Greece: Sound and Fury Signifying Much” and I recommend people to read it here :
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42379.htm
The only way to stop the global mafia that calls itself the “west” is if people took en masse to the streets on a permanent basis and absolutely refuse to be ruled by these maniacs, a continent wide campaign of non-compliance, otherwise the peoples of Europe have only grinding poverty and serfdom to look forward to in their future.
This is something I have said all along, that governments in the west are enemies of the people, not their “representatives” or servants like they are supposed to be but real enemies out to exploit and subjugate their citizens and reduce them to the level of serfdom. Welcome to the new Dark ages.
After seeing the debacle and catastrophe that happened in Greece does anyone still truly believe we live in a democracy in Europe ?, Greece being the birthplace of modern democracy makes it particularly more poignant. Syriza and Tsipras were especially elected by the Greek people on an anti -Austerity ticket, to say no to Austerity. On top of which they then held a nationwide mandate where a resounding majority again voted No to Austerity, and the Greek government and parliament went and passed the most humiliating and intrusive Austerity measures ever on the Greek people. If the people of Greece stand peacefully for this then they only have themselves to blame.
What Western government is not totally corrupt?
From what I can understand, cash is usually offered, along with the notice of punishment should the offer be spurned. Most politicians choose the cash and the propaganda that accompanies it (e.g. 78.9%).
The West has become a democracy theme park, where the levers and pedals are not connected to anything. Who is ahead, Hillary or Jeb? No difference, no change will be permitted.
The compliant are rewarded with rigged markets to keep their portfolios intact, while camps have been constructed and bullets have been purchased, in anticipation of the protests that are sure to come when the system goes into complete collapse.
The austerity measures in that malevolent neo-versailles treaty are impossible to implement, and when the full spectrum implications of this ‘deal’ dawn on the Greek people, there will be a social catacylsm of such grim proportions that not even the Greek army, CIA or NATO will be able to control it, and the domino effect thereof could even cause a third continental European war. Those self satisfied moronic Germans and their Eurocrat vassals gloating now, have no idea what forces they have set in motion. Amazing how irrelevant history quickly becomes, as power lust and greed blind otherwise sane humans into not seeing a catastrophe in the making.
Well said. There is indeed no truer adage than the saying that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first drive insane, and the truth of this adage can be seen no clearer than in the antics of the EU donkeys.
Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
[21] Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight!
235 time 10 is 2,300 feet of rope.
$1,794.00 at http://www.knotandrope.com/Store/pc/viewCategories.asp?idcategory=3&idproduct=&atc=1 (78 cents per foot)
http://www.amazon.com/Tine-Pitchfork-Non-Splinter-Fiberglass-Shaft/dp/B001AZLOEA
pitchforks, $35.99 each, but maybe they already have some. Don’t need that many. Can use shovels or axes in a pinch.
Torches they can make themselves.
That should do it. Greeks can take up a collection. Crowd source it.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” – John F. Kennedy
“So much for the “democracy” myth.”
Yup. That’s about right, for Greece. Im not sure you can say that about Switzerland or other democratic countries: you have many instances in non-EU countries where the politicians had to respect the verdict of a referendum.
The EU is the worst example, where the fascists that run that place only respect the verdict of a referendum when it’s in line with their agenda: when a verdict goes the opposite of what they want they simply game the system and shamelessly engineer more referendums a few months later until they get the decision they want. In the case of Greece they dont have the time to do that, so they yank on the strings of their paid servants: Greek “parliamentarians”.
Gen Musharraf of Pakistan (a plain-spoken dictator and Junta leader) was right when he called the democracies of the West “sham-democracies” (it takes a crook to recognize the scams of other crooks).
From Zerohedge:
As seen on Germany’s Craigslist…
For sale are some recently acquired Greek assets for sale:
Acropolis € 4B OBO
Greek Parliament Building Syntagma Square + € 8.5B OBO
Greek Island Aegina € 10B OBO
Greek Island Mykonos € 13B OBO
Athens International Airport € 7B OBO
If interested, please contact:
Angela Merkel:: +49 (0) 30-220 70-0
Wolfgang Schäuble: +49 (0) 30 18 682-0
Serious buyers only please.
There is no democracy in the world.
The only exception is Switzerland which has some minor elements based on ancient Athenian Democracy with the citizens referendums and the local councils in some cantons.
True Democracy is the ancient Athens Democracy.
The political system of modern states is a mix of an oligarchy and a republic. Even that system has become obsolete in the era of neoliberal globalization and the decline of sovereignty of nation states. Decisions are now mostly made by transnational elites and euro-bureaucracy.
People confuse social liberalism with democracy. They think that they live in “democracies” because they have some minor pseudo-rights
Greece which is called the “cradle of democracy” is no democracy.
Since it gained independence from Ottoman empire, it’s always controlled by great powers who installed corrupt puppet governments, dictators, foreign kings, cleptocrats and oligarchs.
Greece is now a protectorate of EU-US and a degenerate pseudo-parliamentary dictatorship.
Even the greek electoral system is a fraud. The first party gets a bonus of 50 seats and parties with less than 3%, get excluded from getting any seats.
Therefore, Syriza got only 36% (of those who voted) but has 149 out of 300 seats because of the extra 50 seats…..
So, you are cheering for a slave state run by a slave-owners’ club?
We are already slaves in the present-day pseudo-“democratic” republics of the NWO
Yes, Switzerland holds referendums all the time. But important decisions such as spending taxpayers’ money to bail out banks are made in Zurich, on a federal level, without referendum at all. And the Swiss tax payer has had to bail out UBS twice.
It’s a nice country; but the impression I get is the banks effectively rule the country.
Your math is OK.
It said on Fort Russ or Russia Insider recently that KhazarJewOligarchs Mafia is working with Evil Empire to overthrought Vlad.
I’m not surpressed at all, neither you should you.
You haven’t explained at all WHY they call themselves “oligarchs”. It has important meaning and indicate they power within Russia as in 1917.
As I understood from several analysts, Tsipras agreed not for the same package of austerity measures, but for worse measures than those rejected by Greek people.
Yes, that seems to be the case actually. Tsipras has served the Greeks’ beloved “Europe” just marvellously. Of course the obnoxious Eurocrats knew full well that they were dealing with a spineless pathetic fraudster, further cultivating his sheeple with illusions in “EU without austerity”. One almost gets the impression that they took extreme delight in trashing Tsipras’s career along with the Greeks’ silly understanding of “belonging to Europe”.
Actually this whole story of the OXI vote and the acceptance of the austerity disregarding this vote could be the base of declaring the whole bailout an “odious debt”, because it proves beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever that the debt has been accepted against the will of the people.
Or am I missing something?
Could Tsipras be THAT clever (I personally doubt it)
Hahaha great comment!!
Which comment are you replying too? Next time, may I suggest you use the ‘Reply’ function when commenting on a comment. Also, please try to add more content to your own comment. /Mod. Z.L.
The problem with this democratic challenge is that the Greeks themselves are divided and inconsistent and self-contradictory, and probably for good reasons of surviveability under great duress. Much as a small, cornered octopus injects a cloud of black ink around itself, in order to buy time to escape the predator or allow other situations elsewhere to pop up and distract the enormous grouper or shark, confusion is liberally injected into the environment.
According to Tarpley’s free morning briefing today, “”Public opinion polls show that about 70% of Greeks support the deal that Tsipras has brought home form Brussels. Obviously , these economic provisions are indeed brutal austerity……….”
Now, you could say that such a poll includes the 40% that voted YES July 5th and half of those that voted NO. Utter confusion.
Elsewhere, Tarpley advises Greece and Tsipras to “temporize, renege, and prevaricate” (delay, break promises to creditors and lie) in political guerilla warfare mode until the Merkel coalition government fractures, the Ukraine bankruptcy is front and center, the IMF leaked report of the unworkability of the EU’s deal sinks in etc, etc. IE until Greece is no longer cornered and has more allies.
Today’s briefing starts with a link to PRESS TV featuring Tarpley debating (more like dissecting, demolishing, calmy) a war monger from London on the Iran nuclear deal.
Agree, or disagree, no visitor to Tarpley’s TAX WALL ST PARTY free morning briefing can fail to gain greater historical literacy and an expanded vocabulary in a number of different languages. Today’s history lesson involves the Social Democratic government of Hermann Muller in the 1931 Weimar Republic, and an admonishing of Tsipras to avoid that example of giving up power, followed by two years of ungovernability, executive decrees, and finally a fascist dictatorship and war.
“Elsewhere, Tarpley advises Greece and Tsipras to ‘temporize, renege, and prevaricate’ (delay, break promises to creditors and lie) in political guerilla warfare mode…”
Doesn’t this assume that Tsipras is not a bankster sell out like Muller was? Guerrilla warfare is warfare, regardless, so what keeps the “blackmail” Tsipras mentions from being dropped anyway?
Poppadop: No, it presumes that neither he, nor you nor I nor countless millions born or yet unborn are fixed and that great historical tides can either sink us or raise us up. What will we do, what will he do? It is looking very dire and we can condemn him and many others already crushed or soon to be crushed under the weight of the Wall of Shit (bad private speculative debt, foisted on the public both within Greece, and all the way across the Atlantic, clear to California) sweeping like a tsunami over the western world. For him specifically, fortuitous developments from outside of Greece which might appear and more probably won’t, in time, are the only chance. Sometimes you’re dealt a 1 in a 100 shot and that’s all you have. We have a little more time. But not that much more. Clarity is of the utmost importance. Restore Glass-Steagall. Bankrupt Wall St and London. That’s not enough, by itself, but it is the essential precondition for saving Greece, and wherever you’re from, AND the Big Greece, , the USA. Yes, it’s very late, but the bills to do exactly that are in both the House and the Senate. Need a guarantee? There are none. Levers to survive and end the financial fraud?Still one of those left. Pull it.
For him specifically, fortuitous developments from outside of Greece which might appear and more probably won’t, in time, are the only chance.
I’m confused, M&S. Why was creating the drachma debt-free and using it to put Greeks back to country-building work such a doomed plan, exactly?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecJ7sRKV6qs
The polls are rigged. Only a minority supports Tsipras new austerity measures.
There were many polls that the referendum vote will be split 50%-50%. But NO prevailed with 62%, even though there was propaganda.
Stalin brilliantly characterised Social Democracy as “the moderate wing of fascism”. As matters stand, Tsipras’s government might feel disposed to contemplate unrestrained police violence to appease the Troika. If not, then NATO along with its loyal quislings within the Greek armed forces might overthrow the government, turning Greece into another Ukraine — to wit, an inferno of fascist mayhem or, in Western parlance, ‘European values’.
“… the Greek armed forces might overthrow the government, turning Greece into another Ukraine…”
At which point the new government will keep the banksters’ slave money and Orwellian policies like austerity… -_-
Greece is not Ukraine. The destructive nature of the debt racket is largely in the public consciousness, hence why “No” won the referendum. Why would the Greeks, never mind the military, sit back and let the Empire win again so blatantly?
“Why would the Greeks, never mind the military, sit back and let the Empire win again so blatantly?”
Pretty please: the implication here clearly is that the Greeks, if they rebel, will have to be dealt with accordingly by the Zionazis. The corollary question to your post is the exact opposite: Why would the Troika, never mind NATO, sit back and let the people off the hook after having swallowed Syriza’s bait so easily?
“… the Greeks, if they rebel, will have to be dealt with accordingly by the Zionazis.”
Don’t get me wrong: I was disagreeing that the situation would turn out like Ukraine in terms of force distribution. More Greeks are likely to side against the banksters and their austerity rather than with them.
Of course the Empire will send people to straighten Greece out, yet unlike Ukraine, I doubt mercenaries and “advisers” will be enough.
http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/16-07-2015/131359-turkey_greece_fighters_airspace-0/
Actually, here are the results of the Greek referendum (does not change that democracy is a myth):
-No: 36.1%
-Yes: 22.8%
-Absention + blank votes: 41.1%.
This is particularly significant because voting is mandatory in Greece. It simply shows the majority of Greek voters knew this was all a sham.
Wait, if voting is mandatory is Greece, what happened to the 41.1% that did not vote? A law that is not enforced is just a suggestion.
Attendance at the polling station is compulsory, getting a ballot is compulsory, making a valid vote is your choice. At least that is how it works in Australia.
RI has this one from Starikov:
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/nikolai-starikov-how-escape-western-economic-system/ri8781
Eng. Subs on Gold Ruble, and why leaving the unipolar system takes time for Russian and for China.
It’s kind of hard to know what the Greeks themselves really think, without a Grexit poll. It does seem the majority simply are too afraid to do a Grexit. If so, then what can I say, except that
the Greeks deserve whatever they get…, to be debt Zombies, with no dignity or sovereignty. But seems to me the majority of the Greeks are still avoiding the tough medicine themselves, hoping EU will give them the tough medicine that they deserved ( and bail out EU debt enslaving policies at the same time).
I do not agree with those that say, “hey, the Greeks are simply not capable of fixing this mess themselves via Grexit, because of … “. To me that sounds like excuses for colonization, if there ever was one. Fact is even if the Greeks are useless, it’s up to them to fix it. That’s what Sovereignty means. If a country is useless, then obviously the country is in a bad state, but it’s not an excuse for other countries to take over or rule over it. If it is, why even bother to have respect for any country’s sovereignty, let’s just have the strong/good take over the weak/bad everywhere. Of course, all the strong would say they are “good”, and the weak, “bad”….
That is a recipie for World Chaos….
@alan
Very well put. Great post.
democracy myth: Oh this story is just beginning not ending. The youth will either emigrate or change things. If they emigrate all those Yes folks, older ones with “good” pensions, will find that without an upcoming generation to support them, they will be FFFF or F4 ( fooked by the fickle finger of fate) and then what will they do? This is a culture that has a social life, a town plaze and worker’s organizations (supposedly). After all, there is only so much TV you can watch and, without the calories of junk food with which you can eat yourself into obese oblivion, sooner or later you have to do something.
Mean shile we will be Watching Ukraine and then Greece fall apart and they say it couldn’t happen here?
@solon 4:58
You are probably pointing out in a right direction. The old is dying out, these monster idiots who wants to own the all world are pretty soon will die and the new generation thanks god is heading in the right path.
Globalists are still trying to hold the grip of their psychopathic plan and if they can’t have it just put everything on fire and destroy everything. This is very clear right now ,look at the visit in Kiev from |Mrs. fu…….the Europe intellectual??????? anyway here is another look for another possibility
—————————————————————————–
July 14, 2015
Yangon, Burma
When I first came to Burma (Myanmar) several years ago, there was scarcely an ATM to be found anywhere.
It was primitive. And frustrating.
After all, most people coming from the West tend to think their banking system is robust and highly advanced.
And that’s true to a degree. Internet banking and ATMs are certainly nice modern conveniences.
But if we go back in time and look at traditional banking as far back as the Middle Ages, there’s actually very little about the industry that has changed.
It’s all still quite primitive.
Centuries ago, banks would receive deposits from their customers. And in exchange, they would issue a receipt, or ‘bank note’. Pretty simple.
Whoever had possession of the bank note was entitled to withdraw that money from the bank. So naturally those notes eventually became a form of currency.
If you owed a debt to someone, and presuming s/he had confidence in the bank, you could settle your debt with the bank note instead of actual money.
Banks did the same thing with one another, using a series of notes and credit letters to trade, transact, and settle debts with one another.
And out of this system grew a vast, complex network of interbank credit.
In a typical deal between two banks, for example, there would often be no actual money changing hands.
Instead, they would merely make an entry in their books indicating that one bank owed money to the other.
So instead of passing around cash or gold, banks would settle deals with accounting entries and promises to pay.
Today the practice is almost identical, it just happens electronically instead of on paper.
Central bank balances are credited in favor of one bank or another, but there’s still no money that changes hands.
Again, ATMs and Internet Banking are modern conveniences. But they have done nothing to truly disrupt the centuries-old banking model.
That is now changing. Quickly.
Tech companies are starting to figure out how to make every traditional banking function faster, cheaper, and better, all while eliminating the middle man.
Companies like Revolut, Transferwise, and Dwolla, for example, are online money transfer services that can send funds cheaper and faster than banks.
KlickEx is a currency service that provides a peer-to-peer market for foreign exchange, eliminating the need to use a bank.
Countless crowdfunding platforms exist to obtain startup capital for a new businesses. So no one needs to go to the bank with hat in hand anymore.
And there’s a multitude of peer-to-peer lending platforms where you can borrow money for just about anything– from a home mortgage to a new car, all without a bank.
Companies like Square and Stripe are rapidly taking over credit card processing, yet another industry that used to be dominated by banks.
And even the most basic practice of taking deposits is now on tech companies’ radars.
Google revamped ‘Wallet’ service, for example, allows consumers to effectively park their savings with Google instead of a bank.
So rather than holding your cash at some illiquid, poorly capitalized bank, consumers can choose one of the most profitable companies in the history of the world to be their direct financial counterparty.
Now, I’m not suggesting you rush out and do this; I’m merely pointing out that this is a rather large nail in the coffin of the financial industry.
Deposits. Lending. Funds transfers. Credit Card Processing. Foreign Exchange… can all be done now better, faster, and cheaper outside of the banking system.
This isn’t some wild conspiracy theory. This is a fact; all of these tools ALREADY exist. It’s just a question of how quickly they’ll be adopted.
And if you look at the last great trends in consumer technology (the Internet, smart phones, etc.) the time frame was ten years or less to achieve global scale.
Banks’ days are numbered. And in a decade’s time, we won’t even recognize the financial system.
We’ll be doing everything online, global, and without the constant nuisance and central control of governments and banks.
Join me for today’s Podcast as I dive much more deeply into this topic, including the obvious implications for your money, and the future of cryptocurrency.
Click here to listen in:
http://www.sovereignman.com/podcast/banking-as-we-know-it-will-not-exist-in-10-years-17259/#podcast
Until tomorrow,
Simon Black
Founder, SovereignMan.com
“The best way to control the opposition, is to lead it” – Lenin
I am honestly staggered there was even any doubt whatsoever that Syriza were in on the whole thing. They were fakes from the beginning, now revealed truly for what they are.
Democracy has always had its fatal flaws. Its not only the oxi vote but the entire farce of democracy in Greece.
Greece does not need a democracy, its toxic with so many splinter groups promisings things they cant deliver or giving away the house in exchange for votes. For example SYRIZA and KKE are both communist parties of Greece yet they hate each other with a passion, they say “Im a trotskyist, they are stalinists” Nationalist parties are either neo nazis or facists. Leftist parties are labeled as anarchists.
Greece at this time requires an autocratic ruler that is a visionary much like Lee Kuan Yew and Putin himself. What St Gregory of Nazianzen said about democratic style rule has been full filled in Greece 2015
I’ve never heard of Jacobin before, but they have published a splendid interview on the entire Greek crisis, the people, the policies, the debates, the events, the folly, the demographics, from the leader of the left wing of Syrza.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-varoufakis-kouvelakis-syriza-euro-debt/
So much for the “democracy” myth.
For some odd reason that myth never includes a description of the ubiquitous “AIPACs” and their toxic role.
Meanwhile, it appears Syriza may be splitting:
Bailout of Discord: Greek Ruling Syriza Party in ‘Huge Division’
Greece’s ruling left-wing Syriza party is struggling to preserve unity following Wednesday’s parliamentary vote on a new package of bailout measures which nearly 40 of its members opposed, President of Metron Analysis Stratos Fanaras told Sputnik Thursday.
“Around 76% of the Parliament voted in favor of the agreement, but this is only the first side. The other side is that there is a huge division in his [Tsipras’] Syriza party, because a huge minority- of course, it is a minority- of its members disagree, and so the party is in an unstable position,” Fanaras said.
So of those 64 politicians who voted no, 40 were Syriza.
today I was told by a government representative to call a phone # for “Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation”…. its a crown corporation…in other words funded by tax payers money. Tuns out that its an insurance company protecting banks from the likes of me…
This crown corporation wouldn’t even talk to me as that would be ‘conflict of interest’….so yes Saker, democracy is dead.
The following articles by Takis Fotopoulos are very useful in order to understand the fraud of Tsipras and Syriza. The cause of the present crisis is not the austerity policies but neoliberal globalization itself
1) The bankruptcy of SYRIZA and of the globalist “Left”
http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/vol11/vol11_no1_The_bankruptcy_of_Syriza_and_of_the_globalist_Left.html
2) Are austerity policies the problem or is it Neoliberal globalization?
http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/vol11/vol11_no1_Are_austerity_policies_the_problem_or_is_it_Neoliberal_globalization.html
Saker, a much better example was when 90% of Serbian MPs voted all in favor of the Bruessels Agreement with Pristina admin and yet the Serbian constitution strictly deliniates Kosovo as an itegral part of Serbia. And yes if you read the former greek finance ministers blog you ll be aware that from the very begining the Eurogroup wanted to punish greece and make an example of it for other debtor nations in europe so that all pay their debts to the germanic menace.
“Dr Schäuble’s Plan for Europe: Do Europeans approve? – English version of my article in Die Zeit” by Yanis varoufakis:
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/17/dr-schaubles-plan-for-europe-do-europeans-approve-english-version-of-my-article-in-die-zeit/
Democracy and capitalism are the two most antithetical concepts in the omniverse. Under capitalism you must have rule by the capitalists, no ifs and or buts. Under the most malignant form of the capitalist cancer, that is consuming Life on this planet, ‘Free Market’ neo-liberal capitalism, the situation approximates to neo-feudalism, with a tiny elite of barons (and their Jewish money-lenders, as under good old-fashioned European feudalism, but immensely more powerful this time)ruling over and terrorising billions of villeins and serfs, who they are grinding into the dust with ferocious relish.
Greece is being made an example of, by Rightwing psychopaths, the Germans, heirs of the Nazis as members of the German ruling elite, plainly as bent on vengeance for WW2 as they were in support over the years of their war-time fascist allies in Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, the Baltics and Ukraine. No doubt Greek demands for reparations would have driven neo-fascists like Schauble to fury. The Western parasite elite undoubtedly feel invulnerable now, and we can see their true features, pitiless, cruel, destructive, vengeful, insanely greedy and utterly contemptuous of the serfs. And, until they are stopped, the terror will only ever grow worse, to the destruction of mankind, because these are evil fiends without mercy, human empathy or compassion.
In connection especially with Mumblebrain’s commentary about the ferocity of elite persons, consider this speculative story, in screenplay form, which seems to be less speculative than one would think, and maybe becoming the reality sooner than expected, the story of the “sunshinevilles” and the “guttervilles”, as homage to the cyberpunk genre of science fiction:—
Imagine an age centuries into the future… As most people became too impoverished
to buy any manufactured products, even on credit, the consumer-driven free enterprise
of the 20th century collapsed. Pollution and heat destroyed most of the planetary surface.
Uncontrolled war in the Middle East had exploded in a chemical Armageddon,
but there was no Second Coming of God. The inhabitants simply perished or migrated out.
As corporate megaplexes had risen, named merely by numbers, the names and
memories of continents and countries faded away.
As the people who really mattered had become fewer and fewer, there was no longer
need for elaborate forms of government, for republics or for kings…
Some marvels of genetic engineering included restoration of extinct species like the
spectacular American passenger pigeons with their multi-million member flocks, but some
genes got transfered among species to produce some creepy-dangerous side effects, including
some animals with enhanced intelligence and aggressiveness, like certain dogs, and bears,
and cockroaches, and beetles species, and dragonflies of magnified dimensions…
TURNING AROUND
WGA Registration No. 839488
Genre: An homage to the so-called cyberpunk science fiction.
Concept: Earth around the year 2616 A.D. has few remaining habitable areas,
walled-off enclaves of elite persons living in communal luxury, surrounded by gutter-people, living in abject and desperate squalor. For all humanity stagnation and decay prevail.
Story: Beginning in the late 21st century, a worldwide collapse of governments
and economies occurs, as the majority of people become too poor to be consumers and can no longer afford to sustain consumer-driven free enterprise. Corporate elites isolate themselves in fortified enclaves, while they facilitate victory for the culture of gangs and drugs everywhere else.—The holy sites in the Middle East become desolate and deadly for humans, yet there is no Second Coming of the Lord, no Messiah.—The Age of Druglords and Gangs lasts centuries, bringing craziness and mass murder, and the downfall of all science, schooling and civilization everywhere except in the elite enclaves. These elite bastions are led by some very wicked leaders, especially in what used to be Western Europe and North America. Their example is basically followed by remaining power centres in northern Eurasia, Africa and eastern Asia.—Given the crisis in any faith, a movement of Satanism sweeps the world, simply butchering almost all still-believing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus or others of age-old faiths.—The wicked elite of Europe then prepares to exterminate all the rest of humanity, leaving the whole planet to no more than several hundred thousand genetically-chosen eliters and their attendants, selected cloned people. As they try to persuade the Slavonic, Chinese and African elites to participate in this project, the unexpected happens. The supreme ruler of Europe, while seeking to emulate ancient Rome, falls spellbound to a splendid courtesan and her very lascivious charms. The elitress Meghan-Mae, called “Lucifer’s shining star”, is offered anything she wishes. Being totally dedicated to pleasure, not death, she asks that the extermination be called off, manipulating the ruler through his own feelings of pride and lust. Thus all humanity beyond the elite enclaves is given to her oversight and disposal.
THE RAIDERS OF SUNSHINEVILLE
WGA Registration No. 773474
Genre: An homage to the so-called cyberpunk science fiction.
Concept: Earth around 2660 A.D. is divided into “sunshinevilles” as enclaves of the elite and “guttervilles” as regions of desperate squalor.
Story: The elitress-courtesan Meghan-Mae establishes the persona of Queen Sunshine, using mass media to titillate non-elite masses, fascinate them, teach them, and make sport
of them: as she invents the unified values doctrine: there is no right, no wrong, no lawfulness, no crime, no virtue, no vice, no good, no evil, just the action of a higher-self, that governs everything the proper way and acts through one’s instincts.—Then in one of the megaplexes, Kmala, one of Sunshine’s most ardent fans, is led to believe that she has been terribly betrayed. And so she relentlessly pursues vengeance against Queen Sunshine, until she realizes that still other wicked persons, including one of Meghan-Mae’s own sons, are manipulating her as well, to procure Meghan-Mae’s death and then re-launch the evil so-called “Paradise Plan” where most of humankind would be destroyed, leaving the whole planet as a “paradise playground” for only some several hundred thousand elite persons with their attendants.—The rightful God, the whole truth in which everyone and everything lives and moves and has continuity, works with both these utterly opposite type women to bring about another, rather better turn for humankind after all. Kmala, from the “gutterville” society and the intriguing eccentric Preacher Man who is her assistant, and the superbly persuasive Meghan-Mae, from the “sunshineville” society, begin forging a worldwide government which is called the “thousand year rule of saints”, where there is to be no single ruler, but rather ranks of honest judges and humble peacemakers shall come and go as needed: to stop all escalating strife, and to facilitate a human society based on creativity in liberty and peace.
The story begins with something like the Biblical story of Salome the enchantress and the tyrant, but here the enchantress tricks the tyrant into granting her wish to spare [the world population] rather than kill [the prophet John the Baptist]. The attempted ultimate solution uses more Biblical patterns: Queen Sunshine is like the “whore of Babylon” who eventually in a very brief intense moment becomes destroyed not by being killed but by undergoing a radical change, and facilitating establishment of the “thousand year rule of the saints” over the Earth planet.
But the foundational premise is that consumer-driven capitalism falls, and in its place rises not even neo-feudalism but rather a system of totally self-sufficient enclaves of communal luxury, with the rest of the world in dependent degradation and squalor. Think of that sort of possibility…
This is where my rant is coming from:
“We are Going to Collapse your Banks”: Greek Government Insider Lifts the Lid on Five Months of Financial Blackmail
[..] So, from March, April onwards, we started economizing from the state, pulling together all the cash reserves from different branches, agencies, local authorities, things like that, in order to manage to pay the IMF [International Monetary Fund]. We paid once, we paid twice, and [we had] to pay wages as well. We paid wages from earnings, from tax receipts. But it’s not enough to pay the IMF. We have a problem with the primary surplus, we couldn’t pay the IMF, so we had to scrape around.
So basically this has created a domestic shortage of liquidity, liquidity in cash. Banks, export companies, good companies, could not borrow, people could not pay back their debts, they couldn’t get any extensions to their credits and basically the credit system started to disintegrate, to not function.”
More at the Link> http://www.globalresearch.ca/we-are-going-to-collapse-your-banks-greek-government-insider-lifts-the-lid-on-five-months-of-financial-blackmail/5463127
* Btw; I will strongly suggest you to read this Anonymous interview and contrast it with Varoufakis’ one: Dealing with monsters: Yanis Varoufakis on the impossible battle for Greece (interview)
http://www.sott.net/article/298986-Dealing-with-monsters-Yanis-Varoufakis-on-the-impossible-battle-for-Greece-interview
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I don’t understand this worldwide obsession with getting ‘credit’ [i.e. loans/debt] or having “access to international credit.”
I can see it when a country is running a shortfall or a deficit, to temporary borrow some emergency funds to pay wages and pensions… but not as a long term ‘solution,’ let alone viewing it as the one and only way to ‘run a country.’ [BTW this: no access to credit ‘downside’ canard was also being thrown around when sanctions against Russia kicked in…]
I come from a country that was (and still is in some ways) terminally broke, and as a result of that, the government under-funded most of the social services they’re supposed to provide the populous with.
So, if you went to a hospital and they had no medical supplies, as a patient, you had to buy your own stuff before the doctor could even treat you.
You went to a school – and besides it getting a good cleaning every now and then – there weren’t state funds for much else… to the point teachers had to buy their own chalk-sticks. And I can go on… giving you more examples like these, but I’m confident you guys get the picture.
My question is: how come, when a country is running at this level of frugality (nowadays we would call it ‘austerity’ on steroids) is still short of funds and it never seems to recover, despite the fact that is still collecting taxes?
The only possible answer is that the tax collected is either a) stolen by crooked officials and stashed away in offshore bank accounts, b) most – if not all of the taxes/money is going to service sovereign debts to foreign creditors (mainly servicing the interests, but not the principal) and therefore this is precious capital leaving the country on a regular basis, or c) a combination of both.
I’m keen to study Greece’s case because it gives me a glimpse to the past of my own country… to the time when these unpayable debts were first acquired.
And we never got an answer about when, why nor who acquired these debts that must be re-paid no matter what.
These fuckers robbed me, my generation and the generations that followed mine; of a life and a future. I will NEVER forget nor forgive that.
As far as I can tell; Greece is undergoing a similar financial takeover-process my country suffered 30 plus years ago… and this is why the Greece case matters. There are plenty of ‘precedents’ about this ‘economic hitmen’ type chicanery that happened all over the now re-branded as: global south. But! Because ‘western’ peeps didn’t hear it at the time on Fox news, it never happened :/
To them; Greece it’s like a head-scratcher: “How can this happen to a European country out of the blue? Oh… it must be because them; lazy Greeks, don‘t like to pay taxes or work as hard we do!…”
^ Don’t get me started…
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-TL2Q
There is a third cause too I think.Your “government” wasn’t taxing the “right” people enough.In the US when the rich paid taxes (in the “dark ages”).The nation actually “worked” for the common people (at least better than now).There were still plenty of rich people around.But the middle classes were growing.And the lower classes actually were improving their lives.But once the wealthy seized most control over Congress,all that changed.They paid much less (and many times nothing) in taxes.The middle class is slowing fading away.And the lower classes skyrocketing in size.
You are absolutely correct. I was just reading an article saying that in the US, corporate tax went from 45% down to 25% and now it’s something like 15% – if that. And I would imagine tax on Banks is ridiculously low, and that’s if they’re being taxed at all!
Here’s a very illuminating piece on the subject of the Greek Crisis;
Quote: “[..] during all the years of Karamanlis’s government—rich people, the capitalists, the big enterprises, and the banks weren’t paying taxes at all. They were keeping the money—and not only from their taxes, but also the taxes they were collecting from workers in their enterprises. So you can see that the public finances of Greece depend only on taxes on salaries [i.e., workers], which [especially if a large proportion of that take isn’t even going to the government] isn’t enough [to avoid huge government deficits].”
“[..] So: Greek workers were having taxes deducted from their paychecks, but their employers weren’t transferring all of those withholdings to the government. It was a conservative government, which believed in trickle-down, and which therefore was determined to please its financial backers, who owned the corporations, which were rampantly evading taxes (like many U.S. corporations also do). Any conservative government serves the power-elite, not the public, and Greece had a conservative government. Conservatism exists to exploit the public, not to serve it.”
Link> http://www.globalresearch.ca/agency-to-enslave-greeks-is-established/5463061
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So there you have it, that’s precisely what you were saying, Uncle Bob.
Meanwhile, it’s the “lazy” Greek workers and the impoverished retirees the ones getting all the blame for Greece’s debt. Oh, and according to way too many posters in the comment section at places like ZeroHedge [you would think they should know better…] it’s all the fault of “Socialism.” (!?)
It was under a conservative government that most of the Greek debt was incurred, but nope, it’s socialism’s fault. If I had a buck for each time I had to read ‘The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money,’ in an article in relation to Greece or any other country in financial melt down. No doubt they were saying that about Iceland too…
Mind you, these type of people are the same kind of useless pond-life who think Obama is a Marxist… *eye-roll*
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-TL2Q
True! The way the wealthy classes survive is to divide the the middle and lower classes.To make people believe the problems are “those peoples fault ,not mine”.In human nature we have “envy and jealousy” they work on as well.I see comments all the time from people bemoaning a raise in the minimum wage.Saying people don’t “deserve” to make that much money for those jobs.Really? How about the wealthy that make millions or even billions a year for doing “nothing”.Do they “deserve” that money more than a poor person.We also see that one of the worst “sins” in society is the “belief” that they themselves will become wealthy.So they actually oppose taxing the wealthy,because they expect to be wealthy themselves in the future.A person in our society has a far better chance of “winning the lotto” than becoming a “Bill Gates”.But they will subject themselves,their children,my children,your children,to living all their lives in poverty.Seeing the country and our people collapsing around them. While waiting for the “dream” of their becoming wealthy.As I said before,under the old system,there were plenty of rich people around.All the achievements that built the US economy took place in that period.Since then the US has become a “rentier” society.With a regressive social system.The wealthy have lost any of the little feeling they ever had for their own nation (much like Ukraine’s oligarchs). And have joined in the looting of the US along with their looting of the rest of the World.It isn’t that this problem is “unique” to the US.Its Worldwide,in Russia and China ,as well.But the difference is that the Russians and Chinese,seem to “recognize” it exists.And more importantly,are attempting to do something about it.If they succeed,it might help the rest of the World (including the US),to have the courage to solve their problems as well.
Some proletarian culture:
Marx and public debt
https://culturaproletaria.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/marx-y-la-deuda-publica/
(…) Excessive tax burden is not a passing episode, but rather a beginning. So in the Netherlands, the first country that was implemented this system, the great patriot De Witt extols in his Maxims (3) as the best imaginable system to the submissive labor, frugal, applied and … overworked. But here we are not interested so in stunting effects of this system in terms of the situation of salaried workers as the violent expropriation posed to the farmer, the craftsman, in a word, to all sectors of the small middle class.(…)
(…)The so large a part that touches the public debt and the corresponding tax system in the capitalization of wealth and the expropriation of the masses, has led many authors, like Cobbett, Doubleday and others, look here, without reason, main cause of the misery of the modern peoples.(…)
(…) European states played the patent of this invention, and once in the service of the storage of surplus, overwhelmed their own people and strangers, for that purpose, with the indirect burden of protective tariffs, with direct burden export premiums, etc.In neighboring dependent countries was violently exterminated the entire industry, such as England made with woolen manufacturing in Ireland.(…)
“That decision has to be challenged. And this must be done before a final binding agreement with the creditors is reached.”
It would be better, of course, but is it even possible to have a ‘binding’ agreement if the parliament and the their decision is illegitimate and illegal? And if a new government is elected or installed what is to stop it (or the people) from simply ignoring the agreement on the grounds that it was invalid and ‘odious’?
There is much talk about what is legal or not, but now that law has been tossed out the window it comes down to action and power. The US, Israel, and the empire has established this by doing numerous illegal things.
Russia argues for the rule of law, but law is essentially a sham now, with no one to enforce it except the pwoers which ignore it whenever they want to. We got ‘real politicks’ now for a while, and that’s just raw power and coercion, and everything is a matter of that now, so ‘law’ has become just another tactic of propaganda which is mostly meaningless. That’s the way of the chaos and ‘anarchy’ of the world the empire has established, so let’s stop pretending otherwise and clinging to old forms. .
http://nsnbc.me/2015/07/21/can-the-greek-parliament-legally-override-the-no-vote-in-the-referendum/
Can the Greek Parliament legally override the NO Vote in the Referendum?
Michel Chossudovsky (CRG) : On Sunday July 5, the Greek people voted in a historic referendum to refuse the Troika’s draft agreement. The Referendum was an outright ”ritual of democracy”. The Greek people were betrayed. On Monday morning, July 6, on the day following the referendum, Prime minister Tsipras put forth a 13 page draft proposal which included most of the demands of the creditors.
OXO_NO_Greece_referendum_CRGThis proposal,which was drafted before the referendum in close consultation with the creditors was essentially intended to lead towards the acceptance of the creditors’ demands, namely to support the YES vote which was defeated in the July 5 Referendum.
This about-turn had been carefully engineered. The Greek people were misled and deceived. PM Tsipras was in bed with creditors while supporting the No Campaign. He had made a deal with the creditors, he was in favor of accepting the demands of the creditors all along. The NO mandate of the Greek people was meant to be ignored. And that decision was taken BEFORE the referendum.
The July 6 post referendum document put forth by PM Tsipras on Monday 6 July was accepted in substance by the Troika. It was then endorsed by the Greek Parliament.
The important question for the Greek people.
Does the vote of acceptance by the Greek parliament provide a legally binding green-light to the government to finalize debt negotiations AGAINST the Greek people, overriding the NO Vote in the Referendum.
What is the role of a referendum under Greece’s constitution?
While the result of a referendum is not always legally binding, it nonetheless provides an explicit political mandate to the government which has to be followed.
A referendum cannot be based on a priori deception. The results cannot be ignored in a democracy.
The referendum was held while the Tsipras government had already decided to cave in to the creditors.
Neither the Parliament nor the government can rescind the VOTE of the Greek people on the July 5 2015.
Under a democracy, the government has a responsibility to implement the NO vote in the Referendum, which was sponsored by the Syriza government in the first place.
If it is not willing to respond to the demands of the Greek people it must resign.
It is important at this stage that the Greek people question the legality of the parliamentary decision. It is worth noting that the Supreme Special Court (Ανώτατο Ειδικό Δικαστήριο) endorsed the holding of the Referendum.
What must now be established is the constitutionality of the parliament’s denial of the Referendum procedure and its de facto endorsement of the YES Vote. That decision has to be challenged. And this must be done before a final binding agreement with the creditors is reached.
Michel Chossudovsky, Centre for Research on Globalisation
Communism: Yes, your life is miserable, but your life will improve after the revolution.
Catholics: Yes, your life is miserable, but your life will improve after you’ve died.
Democracy: Yes, your life is miserable, but your life will improve after the elections.