So now they do it. Now the IMF comes out
with a report that
says Greece needs hefty debt restructuring.
Mind you, their numbers are still way off the mark, in
the end it’s going to be easily double what they claim. Not even a Yanis
Varoufakis haircut will do the trick.
But at least they now have preliminary numbers out.
The reason why they have is inevitably linked to the press leak I wrote about
earlier this week in Troika Documents
Say Greece Needs Huge Debt Relief. If that hadn’t come out, I’m betting they would
still not have said a thing.
It’s even been clear for many years to the IMF that
debt restructuring for Greece is badly needed, but Lagarde and her troops have
come to the Athens talks with an agenda, and stonewalled their own researchers.
Which makes you wonder, why would any economist still want
to work at the Fund? What is it about your work being completely ignored by
your superiors that tickles your fancy? How about your conscience?
Why go through 5 months of ‘negotiations’ with Greece
in which you refuse any and all restructuring, only to come up with a paper
that says they desperately need restructuring, mere days after they explicitly
say they won’t sign any deal that doesn’t include debt restructuring?
By now I have to start channeling my anger about the
whole thing. This is getting beyond stupid. And I did too have an ouzo at the
foot of the Acropolis, but I’m not sure whether that channels my anger up or
down. The whole shebang is just getting too crazy.
For five whole months the troika refuses to talk debt
relief, and mere days after the talks break off they come with this? What then
was their intention going into the talks? Certainly not to negotiate, that much
is clear, or the IMF would have spoken up a long time ago.
At the very least, all Troika negotiators had access
to this IMF document prior to submitting the last proposal, which did not
include any debt restructuring, and which caused Syriza to say it was
unacceptable for that very reason.
Tsipras said yesterday he hadn’t seen it, but the
other side of the table had, up to and including all German MPs. This game
obviously carries a nasty odor.
Meanwhile, things are getting out of hand here. It’s not just the grandmas who can’t get to their
pensions anymore, rumor has it that within days all cash will be gone from
banks. And then what? Oh, that’s right, then there’s a referendum. Which will
now effectively be held in a warzone.
It’s insane to see even Greeks claim that this is
Alexis Tsipras’ fault, but given the unrelenting anti-Syriza ‘reporting’ in
western media as well as the utterly corrupted Greek press, we shouldn’t be
surprised.
The real picture is completely different. Tsipras
and Varoufakis are the vanguard of a last bastion of freedom fighters who
refuse to surrender their country to an occupation force called the Troika.
Which seeks to conquer Greece outright through financial oppression and media
propaganda.
Tsipras and Varoufakis should have everyone’s loud and
clear support for what they do. And not just in Greece. But where is the
support in Europe? Or the US, for that matter?
There’s no there there. Europeans are completely clueless about what’s
happening here in Athens. They can’t see to save their lives that their silence
protects and legitimizes a flat out war against a country that is, just like
their respective countries, a member of a union that now seeks to obliterate
it.
Europeans need to understand that the EU has no qualms
about declaring war on one of its own member states. And that it could be theirs next time around. Where
people die of hunger or preventable diseases. Or commit suicide. Or flee.
All Europeans on their TV screens can see the line-ups
at ATMs, and the fainting grandmas at the banks, the hunger, the despair. How
on earth can they see this as somehow normal, and somehow not connected to
their own lives?
They’re part of the same political and monetary union.
What happens to Greece happens to all of you. That’s the inevitable result of
being in a union together.
Don’t Europeans ever think that enough should be
enough when it comes to seeing people being forced into submission, in their
name? Or are they too fat and thick to understand that it’s in their name that
this happens?
The July 5 referendum here in Greece is not about
whether the country will remain in the EU, or the eurozone, no matter what any
talking head or politician tries to make of it. The narrow question is about whether Greeks want
their government to accept a June 26 Troika proposal that Tsipras felt he could
not sign because it fell outside his mandate.
That the Troika after the referendum was announced
then pulled a Lucy and Charlie Brown move on Syriza, and retracted the
proposal, is of less interest. Lucy always pulls away the football, and Charlie
Brown always kicks air. He should wisen up at some point and refuse to play ball.
However, at the same time, though it’s highly unfair
to burden the Greeks’ shoulders with this, the referendum has a far
broader significance. It is about what and who will rule Europe going forward,
and we’re talking decades here.
It will either be a union of functioning democracies,
or it will be a totalitarian regime in which all 28 nations surrender their
independence, their sovereignty, their votes and then their lives to Brussels
and Berlin.
Democracies are about one thing first and foremost:
the people decide. If
you can’t have that, than why would you have elections and referendums? Those
then become mere theater pieces. Like we already have in the US, where if
anyone can explain to me the difference between the Clintons and the
Kardashians, by all means give it a go.
Since it’s clear that Berlin is by far the strongest
voice in the three-headed monster the Troika has become, it’s no exaggeration
to say that what we see unfold before our eyes is yet another German occupation
of Greece. There are no tanks and boxcars involved yet, but wars can be fought
in many ways. And scorched earth can take up many different forms too. It’s the
result that counts.
In the meantime it has somehow become entirely
acceptable for politicians and media from foreign countries to tell the Greeks
what to do, who to vote for, and what to make sure happens after.
European Parliament chief Martin Schulz even dares
claim that Syriza should resign if the vote is yes, and it should be replaced
with a bunch of technocrats. It’s none of your business, Martin. Or yours,
Bloomberg writers, or Schäuble, or anyone else who’s not Greek. Shut up! You’re
all way out of -democratic- line.
It’s up to Greeks to decide what happens in their
country. It’s both a sovereign state and a democracy. The utmost respect for
this should be the very foundation of everything we do as free people, whose
ancestors fought so hard to make us free.
How come we moved so far away from that, so fast? What
happened to us? What have we become?
No comments:
Post a Comment