EuroBankPutz Draghi and Frau Merkel share a Moment
Shame on Europe for betraying Greece -- William Wall for the UK Guardian
Yes, shame on "Europe," indeed. But in this case, "Europe" has a face. There are people behind those private snickers and guffaws and those masks of indifference at the plight of The Peripheral Peoples.
Let them "rise up!" We care not, neither do we tremble. The People? Piffle. We have a good life! We're Europeans! Let them -- "The People" ick -- be satisfied with our leavings! Not that we'll leave them anything in the end... HawHawHawHaw! Cretins!"
And so it goes.
Europe's Shame with regard to Greece in particular and The Periphery in general is that if Europe's Rulership would do this to its Lesser Countries and their... ahem... Peoples, they'll do it to their own. Cheerfully, consciously, and with extreme malice aforethought.
The whole situation is strangely Stalinesque, but at least Stalin could display flashes of charm from time to time. And the Old Soviet Union actually did have 5 Year Plans, and actually did set forth in struggle for the advancement of the working classes. These people, the Rulership of Europe, have neither charm nor grace, nor even the least flicker of decency in their quest to fill the insatiable maw of The Banks. No long-term objective is discernible whatever. It's merely a matter of shoveling the ruins of The Periphery into the Gaping Maw -- right now. It's about nothing else at all.
In America, of course, there's no thought, no mention of the People at all in the media. The story is solely about governments and banks and the horserace. To the extent there even are "people" involved, they are recognized solely as "rioters" looting and burning with abandon in Athens, which obviously proves they deserve what they get. And what they are to get is fewer scraps from their Master's table, and a much heavier burden to carry to get to the castle where the table scraps might -- or might not -- be forthcoming.
Take it or leave it. No, you can't leave it. You will take it. You don't have any choice! HawHawHaw! Suckers!
All Europeans, even the most rigidly spiteful and temporarily comfortable Germans, should recognize this sort of Rulership as utterly illegitimate. No explanation is necessary. By their deeds we shall know them, and their deeds serve no one. Only The Maw. The Gaping Maw of Sacred Finance; and to that Maw the Rulers will sacrifice literally everything and dismiss the outcries of the suffering People as merely Some Noise Outside the Gates.
They fear not, neither do they doubt their own wisdom and glory as they stumble forward on their Path of Doom.
For that is what it is, the Path they have chosen. The Bourbons and the Romanovs,
Yet the Path the EuroRulers have chosen is the Path of their Doom. At some point, it will not be possible to turn back. They are close to that point now, but if they see the looming abyss, more likely they will try to forge a new path to their chosen destination rather than turn back toward something like sanity.
What's striking to witness from the outside is how much the Rulership seem to be relishing the task of destruction and plunder and the misery and despair they leave in their wake. They say they "deplore" the riots and property destruction in Athens, but clearly they do not; in fact, I suspect they love the scenes of the immolation of Athens and the running street battles in Thessaloniki. Entertainment on an otherwise dreary day.
Hmmm. What will the rioters come up with next? I really wish they'd try something new next time... I swear I shall perish from ennui if I see yet another firebomb consume yet another of those cute little policeman. Can't they think of anything else? Tiresome!
This bizarre nonsense, indeed complete madness at the top, has gone beyond the Class Struggle of the past; we're now in uncharted territories. The old answers to such blind cruelty and exploitation won't do, and the new ones haven't been formulated yet.
Word of the Day: Purgatory
Say a little prayer. Couldn't hurt, eh?
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NOTE: This post has been slightly (but repeatedly) edited for clarity, bumbling syntax, typos, and the usual misbegottenness that comes with the territory... If you've seen slight alterations pop up and then change, it was the author attempting to clean up some of the messiness in the original post. -- Ché. Carry on.
Hopefully Greece will take a lesson from Argentina and just default on their debt. Otherwise, it's as you say they will continue to feed the debt creation machine at the expense of the people.
ReplyDeleteThe government, such as it is, in Athens keeps trying to stave it off inexplicably. What's transpiring is a Show, but who, exactly it's being performed for is unclear.
ReplyDeleteI use the entertainment metaphor in the post, as if it were the EuroRulers being entertained, but they're the ones putting on the Show, too. So ultimately, it's puzzling who this all is for, or even what it's for.
I suspect "Argentina" is no longer a replicable example, or it would have been done by now. The grip of the stranglers is much more powerful these days. They've learned in the interim how to avoid such... unpleasantness.
They say Greek elections will be called in April. Papademos, one suspects, is no fool -- having come directly over from EU Bank Central Casting to sit in the Greek PM's chair -- and he knows full well The People will throw all the bums out. The so-called "irreversible" nature of the Austerity Agreement is nonsense on a stick, and everybody knows it.
The End Game is probably already sketched out. But it wouldn't surprise me if things don't go according to plan...
Let's hope they don't go according to the MOTU plan. Let's hope the people have decided to take back their country from the blood sucking leaches.
ReplyDeleteAlso nice article on Petr Kropotkin and anarchism here:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/154126/anarchism_is_not_what_you_think_it_is_--_and_there%27s_a_whole_lot_we_can_learn_from_it/?page=entire
Well, Che,
ReplyDeletePapademos was assigned the way Monti (Goldman, Sachs guy) was assigned to Italy and the Petroleum Institute guy (name escapes me right now) was assigned to Libya. They aren't hiding what they are doing; they are doing it right out in the open. Can you imagine if one day it was simply announced that Loyd Blankfein was going to rule in Obama's stead? Just temporarily, you understand, and only until elections, which we promise will happen in a couple of months.
Shit, in Greece, the couple of people in the Parliament who voted against the latest austerity measures were just thrown out by the PTB for their "mistaken" votes. How much more obvious can it be?
What will be interesting to see (eventually; it may take a year or two, but it will happen) will be how the Asian half of the globe - China, Russia, Iran, the 'stans, India, etc. do once they are all off the dollar as a trading mechanism. We'll be under the thumbs of Goldman, Monsanto, and Exxon and paying ever more extortion - they'll be doing business with each other and able to ignore the new third world.
Although, come to think of it, we (the NATO countries) have pretty much gotten to the point where we would rather steal outright than to trade fairly, and we have all the arms, which we are quite willing to use with gleeful abandon.
There are two things that hit me hard and frequently: how open the grifters are about taking all the stuff and how quickly this is all happening.
I used to think it was my age, although, damnit, 55 isn't that old, until one of my sons said to me that he felt things happened at an alarmingly accelerated pace now, too. We are way beyond the days when one issue would dominate discussions for days. Now there are about 5 new things every day.
What did we used to say? Stop the world, I want to get off!
-Teri
Pathman: There will be more on Kropotkin anon, as well as Emma Goldman and others of the Long Ago Disappeared. I'm still learning, still getting over my own conditioning ("Anarchists are eeeeevvvvvilllllll!!!") The "Carmen" below is set during the Spanish Civil War and is inseparable from... Anarchism. It's really quite amazing.
ReplyDeleteteri49: Yes, it is all happening right out in the open, and very quickly indeed. Nevertheless, the question I ask again and again is "Why?" We know the result of this sort of titanic misrule. So why are they doing it? It's madness. Their madness, too, is out in the open.
As for us, some wags have opined: "We are all Haiti; we are all Greece."
As for Papademos, there is at least a wan possibility that he will wind up turning the tables on them the way Papandreou did. They thought he was their boy, too, he was making all the right noises about What Had To Be Done, and then all of a sudden, he said, "You know the Greek People really should have a say in these matters, don't you think?" All holy hell broke loose in the Eurozone Palaces and he was... replaced... with someone more compliant... or so they think. Papademos is still Greek. And the Greeks have vays.... some of which they learned from their former German overlords. ;-)
As for our friends in Asia, I'm sure they find the spectacle of all this... ironic, to say the least.
Che,
ReplyDeleteHere is the US State Dept position on Greece, and, one assumes, the administration's. This is from yesterday's daily press briefing. Victoria Nuland (where DOES the State Dept find these horrid icy women?) is the official State Dept spokeswoman, BTW.
QUESTION: Ian Talley, Wall Street Journal-Dow Jones. Please forgive a slight preface. Greece is on the precipice of a default. Prime Minister Monti has said that a default would shoot foreign costs for Italy up, and economists around the world have said that that would trigger a cascade of other defaults in the Eurozone and a financial crisis. As you’re aware, many of the members in Europe are the funders for NATO, and Greece has long had a history of animosity to Turkey. Is there any concern with – does the State Department have any concern about the potential Greek default and as a failed state?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, we have been working with our European colleagues throughout the Eurozone crisis. We have been very supportive and we continue to be very supportive of the tough austerity measures taken by the Papademos government and their determination to move forward on economic reform. The new assistance package and the required reforms are going to demand very difficult sacrifices from the Greek people. They’re essential, though, to restoring the health of the Greek economy. We want to see that go forward and we’re certainly not going to be predicting the failure of that plan at this moment. It’s important for Greeks to implement what they’ve agreed to and for the Eurozone countries to all work together to address the crisis.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2012/02/183913.htm
teri49: Well. There you are then. It's Official. Not only do The People -- be they Greek or any other -- have no say in the matter, they have no existence except as sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteMethinks The Gods of Finance are more bloodthirsty than any Aztec divinity ever imagined being.