Defend Greece

I want to write this before the vote tomorrow Sunday. The govt. of Greece has asked its citizens to agree to the IMF/WB/EU Bailout package: Do you want to take it: YES or NO.

I had to go to Wikipedia to find what the vote was on because the top 50 links on a Google search for 'Greek Referendum' all say the same thing: NO MEANS YOU ARE OUT OF THE EURO.  NO = NO EURO. The first 50 websites all said this - it was a broad-spectrum broadcast. This is the voice of global capitalism speaking. It speaks through every news website from the Guardian, to WSJ to BBC to CNBC to  Al Jazeera (aka Qatari govt.) to GOOGLE. They are making it a vote on the EURO.

The EURO is the European Unions' common currency. Countries band their money together into collective single currency to fend off money speculators, bond traders and other marketplace predators. Greece does not want to leave the EURO, the EURO needs Greece. Why should re negotiating bankruptcy ostracize you from the European Union?

The Greek PM is telling people to vote NO because the bailout conditions are just more austerity strangulation to pay-off debt rather than keep people alive. The Western media is screaming 'NO means NO more EURO'. The world markets are shaking and banks are closing until the vote passes.

This is a vote is on the sanctity of debt, the question how much morality and honor should be attached to debt. I'm old-school: some debts I would freely give my life, but I don't consider debts incurred from interest to worth the life of an insect much less a human. The current 'debt crisis' is because greedy stock-traders created fantasy-worlds of $$$ that finally burst in 2008 and public bailouts re-inflated that same stupid bubble of $$$. To refuse this debt is an honor.

Defaults in Europe between the 19th Century and WWII:

Germany (Prussia) defaulted in 1807, 1813, 1932, and 1939.
Spain in 1809, 1820, 1831, 1834, 1851, 1867, 1872, 1882, 1936, 1937, 1938, and 1939.
Austria in 1868, 1914, and 1932.
Portugal in 1828, 1837, 1841, 1845, 1952, and 1890.
France in 1701, 1715, 1770, 1788, and 1812

There is plenty of crazy talk on the internet tonight - I do not know how the vote will go, there is talk of 'campaigns of fear'.

NO mean that the birthplace of democracy has voted to refuse the basic principal of austerity - that human lives must be sacrificed to sate the eternal Debt. It means refusal to kiss the banker's ring. It means public money to help the poor and the old and the sick amongst us.

Syriza, the governing party in Greece has not been perfect, but it has always refused to accept austerity as a sane or moral economic strategy. To watch Germany and Britain bully Greece into accepting economic servility has been disgrace - especially nice the Nazi occupation of Greece and the subsequent British Occupation that put the Nazis back in charge.  If the people of Greece must again defend themselves from murderous Anglo-Saxon insanity - and lack of social services kills as surely as bombs - than I support them - and I thank them.

I'm a philosopher by trade so to turn my back on Greece is unthinkable. I owe a professional debt to Greece. If there was any objective estimation of how much Germany and Britain OWED Greece in term of true value, true treasure - culture, literature, humanity, reason, civilization - than this monstrous vote would not be threatening Greece right now.

I have noticed that every article about the vote is either Euro or no Euro. And leaving the Euro would be bad for Greece. Thats all I have got from the news. I knew there was much more to this story and it is sad to think that this is the only version of the news that is readily available. 

I 100% agree that debt with interest isn't worth the life on one insect.

The European bankers are so committed to austerity, and so scared of letting anyone challenge it publicly, they rather kill Greece (and themselves by destroying the EURO) rather than say the sanctity of debt is not absolute.

I have not researched this story to its core, but I have been listening to weekly reports from an reporter in Athens for over a year (on Webster Tarpley's podcasts) and believe that SYRIZA has tried to negotiate a sane bailout agreement but Germany has acted like a thuggish banker and just demanded more and more cuts. The FUCKING Ukraine is just about to get a serious bailout and they are not even in the EU!

A NO vote doesn't mean anything about the EURO - except if other countries make it about the EURO.

In some ways this feels like another war - the Western bullies of the world have decided to destroy another country to make some profits and prop up their discredited ideologies. The country they are attacking is an EU country, so this very touchy. The Greeks must be cast as morally 'bad' in order to justify this.

For anyone who thinks that the Greeks are just lazy, I'm linking to a document called "Lazy Japanese and Thieving Germans" that documents how mistaken it is to judge people by their countries' economic performance. Economic performance is a game played by bankers, hard-working people are found worldwide. I've always like this paper for many years now and I figure it is a good time to share it.

Speaking of Germany, this week is the 60th anniversary on when European countries (including Greece) let post-Nazi Germany write-off 50% of all their debts so that the country could survive and rebuild.

The vote is in.

61% voted OXI (NO) to the austerity-style bailout. The majority of people in the birthplace of democracy have rejected austerity as irrational, non-functional and cruel. Who knows what the behind-the-scenes action is but the clear global symbolism was 'Democracy V. Austerity' and austerity lost.


This is just another round in Greece's battle the German vampires and European Zombie Banks and Austerity Ghouls who have laid siege to their country. It was those monsters that offered them the toxic bailout - and then turned the referendum into one about Greece remaining inside the European Union. The news of this victory is subdued compared to the fury of the news shouting "NO = Out of the EU".

A lot of uncertainty at this point about what happens next but my thanks to the brave Greek people.

Well that's a relief! The more I get into history the more it appalls and saddens me to see such Historically important and rich countries eaten away by the New World....

I have to admit then when it went to the referendum I thought for sure some political back dealing was going to be done and austerity would be pushed through. Some times it seems like the banking forces are just to strong. Hearing the verdict today was shocking and helped keep the hope alive that people can and will stand up to this powers. Thank you Greece!

Part of the reason I'm so pro-Greece is the brave and tragic history of country in the 20th Century where they desperately fought the Fascists only to be betrayed by Britain. If you want to get a sense of what occurred read the following two articles.

Behind the Greek Crisis

and

Athens 1944: Britain's Dirty Secret

Both articles give the official but little known history of modern Greece. The second article is one of the most powerful mainstream news articles I have read and I have to share some of it:

Athens 1944: Britain's Dirty Secret wrote:
He is Manolis Glezos, senior MEP for the leftist Syriza party of Greece.

Glezos is a man of humbling greatness. On 30 May 1941, he climbed the Acropolis with another partisan and tore down the swastika flag that had been hung there a month before. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942, was tortured and as a result suffered from tuberculosis.

[...]

“You haven’t asked: ‘Why do I go on? Why I am doing this when I am 92 years and two months old?’ he says, fixing us with his eyes. “I could, after all, be sitting on a sofa in slippers with my feet up,” he jests. “So why do I do this?”

He answers himself: “You think the man sitting opposite you is Manolis but you are wrong. I am not him. And I am not him because I have not forgotten that every time someone was about to be executed, they said: ‘Don’t forget me. When you say good morning, think of me. When you raise a glass, say my name.’ And that is what I am doing talking to you, or doing any of this. The man you see before you is all those people.

And all this is about not forgetting them.”

Well both  Austrian and Italian citizens of signed petitions to leave the European Union! And they're getting momentous support. Looks like the possibility of the EU kicking Greece out might actually be favorable for them.
http://anonhq.com/fracturing-union-austrians-petition-government-leave-eu/

Greece's ruling SYRIZA party has accepted some sort of austerity measures. I cannot say this is a complete surprise because having listened to weekly reports from Greece for over a year I got the sense that SYRIZA was trying to be an actual political party and were willing to compromise to keep the EU together.
To withstand the might of the Germany economic war-machine is no easy task

I'm sympathetic to Webster Tarpley's position that it is better for SYRIZA to stay in power and continue challenging austerity than to self-destruct.  Yet I also understand the feeling of nearly 1/2 the SYRIZA members who feel accepting any austerity is deep compromise.

SYRIZA has forced 'austerity' into the spotlight and it's legitimacy is the key question of this era - this is not what the Austerity Overlords want. Germany has now wasted all the post-WWII goodwill they accumulated and spent it on kicking Greece when she was down, this is a big geo-political change.  The above analysis of Germany's return to the 'bad guy' position (it should be noted the German military had already returned to killing civilians again in Afghanistan) is by Jurgen Habermas. I encountered Habermas in upper year philosophy and he was probably one of the best moral philosophers I read.

Jurgen Habermas wrote:“I fear that the German government, including its social democratic faction, have gambled away in one night all the political capital that a better Germany had accumulated in half a century”

By compromising SYRIZA has shown that it is the Austerity Ghoul Lords that are the insane ones not those challenging them. The Austerity Overlords are threatening to destroy the EU to make sure killer social cuts are imposed on poor countries so they can pay their debts to the Austerity Ghoul-Lords' banks. Understand that 90% of the bail-out given to Greece so far has never reached Greece it simply goes to paying off German, British and French banks. Banks that were bailed out a few years ago with massive public funds when they should have collapsed (i.e zombie banks).

Greece has been a one-country resistance force fighting austerity. There was little chance they could win out-right. But by making the 'austerity psychosis' of the Germany elites clear it has done a major global good. For those interested in history it is worth re-calling the last time German was in the grip of 'austerity psychosis' was right before Adolph Hitler came to power....

If Greece is forced out of the European Union than SYRIZA should nationalize/de-privatize their National Bank and prepare to withstand a withering German economic siege. Re-claiming National Banks so they act as public institutions rather than private firms is the single most important economic task for every country.