QUOTE OF THE DAY: Tom Lehrer

In light of the EU-Nobel Peace Prize debacle, the following quote by American singer-songwriter and satirist Tom Lehrer seems particularly prescient:

"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."



This he famously quipped when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1973, i.e. as the heinous Vietnam War dragged on and in the same year in which Kissinger connived with the CIA to overthrow Salvador Allende and replace him with Augusto Pinochet in a violent coup in Chile.

How very fitting these words are nearly forty years later...

Do you get my point?

IT SAYS IT ALL: The EU Nabs Nobel

The EU being awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize continues to irk me...more so with each passing day it seems.

I went looking for cartoons online that I felt were the funniest, smartest and even arresting (sorry, an irresistible pun) in capturing the sheer hypocrisy of this Nobel debacle. Here are some of the best I found: 


Cartoon by mackaycartoons, courtesy of Toonpool



Cartoon by Rafa Senudo, courtesy of Public Service Europe



Photos from the Occupy movement, courtesy of Richard Brenneman

And perhaps my favourite thus far:


        Cartoon by Kianoush Ramezani, courtesy of Cartoon Movement

They really do say it all.

IT SAYS IT ALL: Nobel Da Paz?

I came across this terrific cartoon today which effectively and tellingly lampoons the ludicrous recent decision by the Nobel committee to award the Nobel Prize for Peace to the European Union:


Cartoon courtesy of Antero (Portugal), as cited at keeptalkinggreece.com

"Nobel da Paz?" is "Nobel for Peace" in Portuguese, and the bruised nations of Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are depicted. 

As the blog www.keeptalkingreece.com scathingly commented:

"This must be the joke in the history of Nobel Prize. Crisis-torn European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012,  ‘for its historic role in uniting the continent’. Unless the Nobel Prize committee members had a sudden attack of a cynicism, KTG would say that Barroso, Van Rompuy & Co deserve to win the prize for a single reason: Living peacefully in their bubbles while many European Citizens, especially those in the South, live in conditions that violate the EU human rights standards and conventions.

In Greece and Portugal, in Spain and Ireland in the North, where social cohesion is breaking apart, the social welfare is collapsing, the needy cannot cover basic needs and the poor with less than 6,000 euro annual income get taxed. But that’s history on the making and ‘social peace’ has nothing to do with the Nobel Prize standards."

Again, it has taken me this many days to finally summon the anger I have with this outrageous award to the EU.

For cartoon and commentary alike, it's a case of enough said.

RANT: The Nobel Prize for What?!

Yes, it has taken me almost a week to fully digest what must surely be one of the most astounding and most revolting pieces of news for the whole of 2012:

The European Union is awarded this year's Nobel Prize for Peace...


Image courtesy of Russia Today

Yes, I still can't believe it...

The EU wins a prize for PEACE?!!!

The European Union won the much-coveted peace prize for its efforts to promote peace and democracy in Europe. This, as we all know, whilst the EU is in the midst of its biggest crisis since the creation and establishment of the-then European Economic Community and earlier incarnations since the 1950s.

"The stabilizing part played by the EU has helped to transform most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace," according to the committee.

Uh-kay...

The evidence is here, folks, plain to see:

The world has indeed gone well and truly mad (suspected for some time now)...

Armageddon is indeed upon us (that's what you get for not hedging your bets, Vittorio)...

The Mayans were right after all (I didn't see that coming)...

Aliens are about to invade (thank goodness, at least that)...

After all, if the Nobel panel could see fit to award a prize for peace to a bloc of nations as collectively (some more than others, it should be noted) destructive and war-mongering as the European Union, then one can only assume that the end of the world is truly nigh. 

Not to mention that many of the world's top ten sellers of arms are comprised of EU nations (with Germany 3rd, France 4th, the United Kingdom 5th, Italy 7th and Sweden 9th, as ranked in sales of 2001-2012, as per stats given by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute).

"A continent of peace?" Are they for real?

How can one even begin to take such news seriously and somehow attempt to deconstruct it in a meaningful, sober manner? 

When something is so patently absurd, it deserves nothing but derision and ridicule.

However, this is, after all, the same Nobel committee that saw fit to award Barack Obama of all people the same prize back in 2009. And we all know what a champion for everlasting peace he has been for the world.

Nobel Peace Prize? This year, unfortunately, it's more like the Nobel Dreck Prize.

Shameful.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Greece, You Get What You Deserve

Did they blow it!

Greece had a chance - a chance to turn their second election this month into a middle finger at Brussels and the proto-capitalist fascist European Central Bank and to restore a bit of their national pride.

After the fiasco that was the first election, there was much hope that the smaller parties would rise and maybe become the dealmakers and dealbreakers that Greece so desperately needed.

The hope that the sell-outs of the traditional large parties like the centre-right New Democracy or play-play 'socialist' PASOK could no longer call the shots and sell Greece furthert down the river with more senseless 'bail-outs' and obscene 'austerity' measures.

Hope that all those mass demonstrations and encoraching despair and impoverishment of the Greek middle class would ferment enough anger to sweep anti-euro parties into power.

But, no, the Greeks screwed up their golden opportunity to really make a difference for themselves and for all of Europe.
So, knowing that their choice was this:


And instead of opting for this:



They instead opted for this:



They could have gone for the leftwing (and fervently anti-euro/ anti-bailout/ anti-austerity/ anti-kowtowing to the likes of Brussels and Merkel) Syriza party, but instead opted for the rightwing (and vehemently pro-euro/ pro-bail-out/ pro-austerity/ masochistic kowtowing to the likes of Brussels and Merkel) NDP.

As socialistrevolution.com put it: "Euro blackmail wins right-wing victory in Greece – what next?"

What next indeed.

And blackmail by the EU, ECB and Frankfurt financiers indeed.

The NDP will no doubt try to form some sort of pathetic 'national unity' coalition with PASOK, or the like, and back Greece will go, whimpering and cap in hand, willing whipping boy to the biggest financial Euro-Dominatrix of them all, Angela Merkel.

After all this time of me supporting the Greeks in their struggle against the decrepit and amoral euro juggernaut, it's time to say enough. After all that the likes of the NDP and PASOK have done to the Greeks, this is what they do when given a golden opportunity to shake up their own political and economic system, not to mention all of Europe?

All in the name of this delusion called 'stability' and this phantasmic 'dream' (really a nightmare) called the euro?

Pish.

I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again :

a people gets the government it deserves.

Do you get my point?

RANT: EUR Not Serious About Greece

First, this terrific image from The Telegraph for an article about the ongoing euro crisis:

I read a very interesting article online by the The Telegraph, and dated May 10th. The headline itself piqued my interest:

"It's too late for Germany to save the euro"

Oh, for that to indeed be true...

I was never a Telegraph reader when I lived in the UK, and it's certainly not the most liberal of British papers, but I found myself agreeing with much of what this article stated, and it's therefore worth quoting the said article here (with bold or underlined bold added by me for emphasis):

"Greece’s motorcycling Marxist, Alexis Tsipras, makes an unlikely champion, with his commuter leathers and largely unrealistic Left-wing views, but he seems to be about the best of a bad bunch right now. As far as I can see, he’s the only member of the Greek political class who makes any kind of sense, albeit only marginally so and with one rather important deficiency.

Rightly, he’s rejected Berlin’s austerity programme as “barbaric” and counter-productive (though, incongruously, he rides to parliament on a German-made BMW), but he’s not yet managed to reconcile himself to the logical corollary of this analysis – that Greece must take back control of its own destiny by leaving the euro. As it is, the economy is condemned only to permanent depression.

Youth unemployment in Greece was yesterday revealed to have overtaken even that of Spain, at an almost unbelievable 53.8 per cent. This for an economy which, if it sticks to the programme, has a further 150,000 public sector jobs still to shed. Those who think that, with the requisite degree of structural reform, the private sector will automatically move in and fill the gap can forget it.

The banking system is insolvent, credit is plummeting , the flight of capital continues unabated and businesses are going bust in record numbers."

It continues: "As long as Greece remains in the euro, there is no plausible path back to growth."

Very valid points indeed.

Time will yet be testamant to just how insane and downright ridiculous this entire Greek euro crisis really was.

And that's not even including Italy and Spain and Ireland and Portugal and Belgium and...

Do you get my point? 

RAVE: The Greeks Say Oxi, No, Nein!

The recent Greek election resulted in a substantial portion of the vote going to parties and candidates that oppose the outrageous and penurous bailout packages that have been imposed on the debt-stricken nation by Brussels (read: Berlin).

So much so that the Greek parties have been deadlocked for days on end in talks on how to set up a coalition or 'unity' government, all to no avail. The Greeks are set to return to the polls again.

And hurrah to that. Even if thus far it has been little more than a squeak of democracy, rather than a roar thereof. A stall is still better than full speed ahead with this bailout madness.

It's not exactly the collapse of the Greek political and econo-casino system that I would have liked to see. An outright coup d'etat/ revolution and exit from the euro is really what Greence desperately needs. But it certainly beats having had the status quo continue with either an outright win by the 'centre-right' NDP or 'centre-left' PASOK parties.

As if there were such a thing as 'leftwing' and 'rightwing' in these days of lily-livered, self-interested and corrupt corporatist 'consensus' politics.

There were huge flappings and rumblings from Frau Donut Merkel in the European capi...ahem, German capital, Berlin. Flappings and warnings and cajolings about how Greece simply cannot renege on its bailout 'obligations' and how Greece leaving the Eurozone would be tantamount to the end of civilization as we know it.

Which is all nonsense, of course. Greece has been hijacked by European and American financial terrorists and their EU lackeys, not to mention Deutschland uber Alles, and all the 'debt' that has been repaid thus far has been to financiers and bankers and other such financial slimebags, and not a centime to the Greek national coffers itself. All this meaning that the 'inevitable' slashing of the Greek welfare state is taking place, leaving its populace ravished with less education, healthcare and pensions. And the Greek voters know that all too well.

So now the Greeks go back to the polls. It is my wish that they deliver the exact same message all over again - loud and clear to the powers-that-be in Athens, Brussels and, most of all, Berlin. Or even worse would be even better.

Muck and mayhem is what Brussels and Berlin deserve for what they have put the Greek people through. Even the collapse of the euro project would do very nicely, thank you very much.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Greece is Bankrupt for Crying Out Loud!

Today the leading headline from Reuters online read:

"Greece averts immediate default, markets skeptical"

It's seldom that I would say this, but I'm with the markets on this one. Greece should be defaulting, and the markets - carnivorous, predatory, hyper-panicked beasts that they are - are very correct to be "skeptical."

The article commences: "Greece averted the immediate threat of an uncontrolled default on Friday when a sufficient number of private creditors agreed on a bond swap deal that will cut the country's public debt and clear the way for a new bailout.

With euro zone ministers set to approve the 130 billion euro ($172 billion) rescue, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared the Greek problem had been settled - just as Germany said that any impression the crisis was over "would be a big mistake."

The crisis is not over, it is going to continue and continue until one day the ECB, the IMF and the Greek government are going to have to relent and allow Greece to default and to declare bankruptcy.

There are countless other blogs and websites online that will offer a far more adroit and technical assessment of the Greek crisis, and why bankruptcy is inevitable, and by people with far more nous than I when it comes to economic and financial matters than I.

But even I know that all of this is nothing more than a 'perfect' storm of three dangerous forces:
1. Financial terrorist speculators and bond buyers who continue to make a killing out of this decimation of Greece 
2. A European political 'dream' that is being pushed to the nth degree and has become an economic nightmare and,
3. Sadly, the paralysis of the Greek state

Money is being pumped into 'Greece', although next to nothing of it id going to the Greek public coffers or the Greek people. Money is being paid to interest loan sharks and other scheisters circling the bloody waters that is Greece at the moment.

Downright laughable is what all of this is, if it weren't so tragic and so disgusting what is being inflicted upon the people of Greece.

That's what it boils down to - a sick, cynical charade.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Buy Greek!

As Greece is forced to capitulate YET AGAIN to the Evil Troika that is the IMF, EU and ECB (or some devious variation thereof), so the country plunges even further into the abyss.

The latest 'bailout' of 130-billion euros is nothing of the sort - it's yet another wholesale pillage of public money by banking and financial terrorists under the guises of 'restructuring' and 'austerity measures' for a nation that is, essentially, bankrupt.

The only Greeks who continue to suffer are ordinary Greeks - now made to work longer hours than the Americans or Brits (as if that were a measure of 'productivity'), pay higher taxes than ever, take pay cuts of up to 30%, and still have all their social welfare programs slashed to almost nothing.

No wonder the Greeks are rioting in the streets and Athens looks perpetually bathed in the glow of angry fires.

For all these reasons and more, the only thing I can declare is:

BUY GREEK!!!!!

Whether it's Greek sardines or Greek olives or Greek shoes or Greek anything, we need to buy Greek, Greek, Greek. Hell, I even bought sesame honey sticks the other day just because I saw they were made in Greece! And very nice they were too.



We all need to show our solidarity with the people of Greece. It's the least one can do for an ancient and proud culture that's having it's very democracy and very dignity hacked to pieces as I write this.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Bravo, Polska!

In my last post I ranted about the four-letter words that are an assault to online freedom and exchange of ideas and creativity, namely SOPA, PIPA and ACTA.

The online campaign against these sinister attempts at censorship on the Internet have been enormous, sustained and very bruising to those pushing for these intellectual property 'protections.' On the streets the protests have been somewhat more muted and less widespread.

Except in one European Union country. A country where the loud street protests against ACTA in particular have numbered in the hundreds of thousands and where even the national government is said to be running scared. One EU country's population is taking a very visible stand.

Is it Germany?

France?

The Netherlands?

No, no, and no again.

It's Poland.



I've seen the footage on Russia Today since last week of Polish citizens in their thousands thronging the streets and squares of Warsaw in the freezing cold, all to make their outrage at ACTA very known to their government. No other European country's populace has come close in so visible and vocal a street opposition to ACTA.

I was taken by surprise. One tends to view Poland (rather patronizingly, I now realize) as quite conservative, staunchly Catholic and very pro-American and, therefore, hardly the country one would guess would be the land in which an almost anarchic revolt against state and corporate censorship would be so vocal and so huge.



It almost made me want to hop on a plane and join them and, heck, maybe even go live in Poland!

If this is what their people are willing to do in the middle of winter (and Polish winters must be no joke) in the name of freedom and against state censorship, then that is one country that must be wholly more vibrant and alive and tuned in than I previously would have thought. 

The Poles have put other Europeans to shame on this it would seem. And all power to them for that.

Bravo, Polska!

RAVE: Save The Euro - NOT!

This cartoon is simply priceless - and says it all...

RAVE: More Merkozy Images to Savour

I hate them so much, that finding delectable images that lampoon Merkozy is one of my favourite Internet pasttimes at the moment.

For the prosecution...

RANT: Merkozy - The Scourge of Europe

For all the many tyrants and shysters that have flooded the news in 2011, very few have made me as angry, even outraged, as have the sickening little Franco-German couple disparagingly known as Merkozy.

Merkel of Germany and Sarkozy of France are so despicable in their quest to ensure Franco-German hegeomony in Europe, they even make a weasel like Cameron of the UK look quite good.

Their cosy, even incestuous little relationship has so epitomized what is rotten to the core today in the EU and Eurozone, that they only serve as hideous cariciatures...

Which is exactly why I wish to reproduce these images below:







Humour aside, there are serious issues at stake with regard to the Eurozone and the very future of the EU, and to have these Bruti at the helm of Europe going into 2012 is both disconcerting and very dangerous.

She fights for what every German leader secretly orgasms over - ruling the whole of Europe, whilst he fights for what every French leader secretly orgasms over - salvaging France from total obscurity.

My wish is that at least one of this malevolent duo disappears in 2012 - with Sarkozy hopefully losing the French Presidential election or Merkel getting decapitated in a freak accident whilst haranguing the European Parliament. Either will do.

Herve and Gretel need to disappear into the political woods ASAP.

Do you get my point?

QUESTION: Where's The UK Domino?

I came across this interesting diagram today illustrating the ongoing eurozone crisis/ scandal.

The question is: where is the UK domino? Hell, but for its pound and Its City of London-inflated (bloated) economy, it should be right there as well - on the edge of bankruptcy.

Where is the Belgium domino for that matter?

I know which two dominoes I would LOVE to see standing there some day soon - those of Germany and France, the two big bullies on the euro block who keep strong-arming weaker economies into accepting 'bailout packages' and obscene 'austerity' measures, all to keep their Washington Consensus-inspired, corporatist single currency dream (read: nightmare) alive.

I've heard the French economy is hardly stellar at the moment. I've even heard rumblings that the German economy is not as 'hot' and 'robust' as once suggested...

Oh, can one dream?

RAVE: Whew for Portugal...

It came close, so very close...but at least Portugal was able to raise enough money on the sovereign bond markets to steer clear of having to take an EU/ IMF 'bail-out'...

That is, at least for now...

Who knows how much longer Portugal will be able to resist the incredible pressures no doubt being placed upon it by the Twin Vultures, the EU and IMF, to agree to take that toxic potion that is a 'bail-out'...

The vultures that are the EU and IMF is so aptly illustrated in this poster for an Irish anti-bail-out demo last year...

'Bail-out'...what an innocuous-sounding, even glowing spin on such a heinous, crippling form of financial terrorism for EU countries, all orchestrated out of Washington D.C., with the full acquiescence of Brussels (make that Berlin and Paris)...

Still, for now, Portugal has resisted... VIVA PORTUGAL WITHOUT EU/IMF ENSLAVEMENT!!!

Y ahora...Espana?

Do you get my point?

RANT: Leave Portugal Alone, Merkozy!

The year has barely started and already an EU member state is under enormous pressure from the Twin Towers of Financial Terror (aka the EU and IMF) to accept a bail-out due to 'sovereign debt' issues...

Last year it was Greece and Ireland that were forced to whore out their economies to EU-IMF bailouts (aka How-To-Impoverish-Your-Country-And-Enslave-Your-Citizens-And-Make-It-Look-So-Inevitable) - in the past few days it's Portugal that is coming under huge strain.

It's that bloody Eurotrash couple at it again - Merkel and Sarkozy, or as I like to dub them, 'Merkozy'.

Portugal's Prime Minister Jose Socrates has been making repeated and urgent assertions that Portugal does NOT require the bail-out and does not wish to take on such a loan. Hmmm, where have I heard that type of talk before?

What's that? Yet another European Prime Minister desperately declaring their country's ability to avoid a bail-out on the eve of being forced to take one. Sound familiar? Ireland, anyone?

What the hell is Portugal, a beautiful and small country with a proud history, doing in the illogical and inequitable monstrosity that is the Euro?  A club that was only meant for the likes of Germany and France - the richer, hypocritical lands of Merkozy.

Even Belgium can't afford being in the Eurozone...how ironic is that?

I can only hope that Portugal will somehow be able to avoid this festering trap that is an EU/IMF loan - but, alas, I very much doubt it.

The country can ill afford having further slashing of its social services and pensions - it's madness.

Get your Franco-German hands off Portugal, Merkozy!

Do you get my point?

RANT: Athens is Burning

Athens is burning. Protesters are going out into the streets of the capital in their thousands to demontsrate their outright anger at the proposed austerity cuts by the Greek government. Petrol bombs have gone off in the Greek capital and three people have died when a petrol bom was thrown inside a bank in the downtown area. How totally tragic.

The Greek people are showing just how much anger they have at the news that these austerity measures are going to include massive cuts to public worker pay, cuts in health and education spending, and many other public spending cuts. I was stunned yesterday to learn that Greek public school teachers have been told that their monthly salaries will be slashed to just 540 Euros - yes, a month. 540 Euros a month?! Who the hell can live on that in a modern European country?

And who do we to thank for all of this? Three little (ghastly) letters - IMF.

The International Mafia Fund has insisted that the multi-billion euro loan it is giving Greece is absolutely contingent on massive public spending cuts by the Greek government. No surprises there at all - this has been the modus operandi sine qua non for this legal Mafiosi financial cartel run out of Washington D.C. for years now. It's blandly referred to as 'structural adjustment' of a national economy. Typical unthreatening econospeak. It's nothing less than the rape, pillage and eventual evisceration of a nation's social welfare systems, social protections and public spending.

Goodbye public health, public education, the protection of workers' and labour rights. Hello privatization, slashed public spending and the whoring of your economy to the sharks that are international investors and banking. That's what you get when you allow the predator, the financial vampire that is the IMF into your country's finances.

Guatemala has been there. Argentina has been there. Countless other countries, nearly all in the developing world, have been there in one way or another since the 1970s. Now it's the turn of Greece.

The poor Greeks. This is what they get for having the corrupt governments they've had for nearly 30 years now. This is what they get for believing in the EU. This is what they get for becoming a member of the eurozone. This is what they get done to their hard-fought social welfare system and labour protections.

Greece has been sold right down the line. By its own governments, by the EU, by the European Central
Bank, by that greatest villain of all, the IMF. And the Greek people know it. Oh boy, do they know it.

There are reports from some Greek citizens that the riots are being 'overblown' by the media and that the protests are largely 'peaceful'. That may have been the case until today and, who knows, may yet be mainly the case...but I do have my doubts. The images on TV, as 'over-manipulated' as they might be by international news stations are nevertheless very disturbing when one remembers that this is a capital city in the EU that one is seeing before one's eyes. And it looks bad enough.

Can anyone really blame ordinary Greek citizens for their outraged anger and need to vent in the streets of their ancient capital?

And so parts of Athens burn. At least for now. I find it tragic to watch on TV. And it makes me so angry.

Just how much worse this crisis will become for Greece only time will tell. Sometimes time does not heal - sometimes time can be downright frightening.

Do you get my point?

RANT: (Bad) Luck of the Irish

My rant for today is a follow-on from earlier my rants on the financial crises that have afflicted Iceland and Greece of late. Now it's the turn of Ireland.

The Irish, it would seem from the actions of their government, are not that lucky after all.

Last Tuesday, March 30th, was known as 'Bailout Tuesday' in Ireland. Yet again, the Irish government saw fit to bail out the five biggest banks in that country from their 'financial predicaments', i.e. mountains of bad, bad, bad debt. So, once again, taxpayers in a country are having to bail out the bad (read: greedy and reckless) actions of private financial institutions with public (taxpayer) money. Actions that have basically sunk the Irish economy.

So, yet again, the poor and the middle classes are having to bail out the (stinking) rich. Whoever said that robber capitalism wasn't alive and well?

And to what tune is this bailout? Well, no less than an estimated 81 BILLION EUROS is what the Irish government is expected to buy back in bad debt via its own artificially created 'bad bank' known as the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA - or "VietNAMA" as Max Keiser hilariously referred to it on his most recent show!).

That is a hell of a lot of money in public expenditure that was not exactly budgeted for. Especially when one considers that Ireland's total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 167 billion euros in 2008. So, in effect, the Irish government is buying bad debt created by banks that is worth nearly one-half of the country's entire GDP! Where's a friendly leprechaun when you need one?

Even the man who set up NAMA, Peter Bacon, has likened the actual debt of the bank in biggest trouble, Anglo Irish Bank, to that of "an Irish Chernobyl". Such is the amount of as yet undeclared debt that some of these banks are still hiding for now. Very reassuring indeed.

As was stated in an editorial in the Irish newspaper, the Limerick Post, "No matter what spin the government ministers attempt to put on NAMA and its decision to prop up Anglo Irish Bank, the Irish economy is in tatters...Well in excess of 20 billion Euros is to be pipelined into Anglo, a bank that contributed more than its share in bringing down the Irish economy...This is the very bank that loaned monopoly money to developers, builders and speculators, with no questions asked. The very people facilitated, and the bank's hierarchy, will, unlike the ordinary Joe Soap, see little impact on their personal lives."

The Limerick Post article concludes, "How much more can the public take?"

How much indeed. Quite a lot it would seem, given that the Irish government is set to prop up these banks (yet again) using public money...and no one seems set to stop them doing just that.

Is this a system of capitalism even worth preserving? Is this robber capitalism, masquerading as 'the free market", really what the Irish and most of us in the world must be content with?

Max Keiser has made the statement that, with this latest bank bail-out, the Irish people are for all intents and purposes currently being "occupied" by investment bankers and financial robber barons. Their economy and their political system has been hijacked by the very economic terrorists who got them into this entire mess in the first place. It is indeed an occupation by a hostile force. And because of it Ireland is in the toilet, demoralized, defeated for now. Kaput, essentially.

One can only hope that the Irish will see fit to eventually overhaul their entire banking system and the financial-political Mafia that is currently strangling their economy.

There has been talk of a 'Revolution Sunday' looming in Sunday. Who knows. But change is definitely needed in Ireland. Without that, it is doubtful if their luck will turn around any time soon.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Cuidado Portugal y España, Careful Ireland

My rant for today is essentially three words: Portugal, Ireland, Spain.

It's very simple - if the European Union saw fit to literally throw Greece to the proverbial wolves (i.e. the detestable IMF), then what is stopping it happening to these three countries?

The cartoon here by the brilliant Brazilian Latuff says it all...

The plates to be broken here are those of Portugal, Spain and Italy. However, although Italy was cited as being 'in trouble' a few weeks back, to my understanding it really is Ireland that is the actual 'I' in 'PIGS'...at least for now.

'PIGS' is the frankly disgusting acronym given to these four Eurozone countries, all in apparent trouble with their so-called 'sovereign debt'. Greece was in the worst trouble, hence it being sold down the river last week. But the public coffers in Portugal look pretty bad too, as is the case for Ireland. And Spain, the fourth biggest economy in the Eurozone, is said to be in very bad shape too.

So, will the EU allow three more countries to go the way of Greece? Certainly, Portugal and Ireland look quite expendable, for want of a better word. Portugal never seemed to ride very well on the EU bandwagon (must be that 'Club Med-southern European thing', methinks). But it's quite ironic that Ireland is in the 'PIGS club' given that it was a shining beacon of free market, neo-liberal economics until just recently. Ireland was the place to be in the EU, a true 'success story' it seemed - especially for those in IT, direct marketing, business or anyone with a bit of cash or an entrepreneurial streak.

How the tables have turned. Now Ireland is just another basket case. Hmmmm, yet another strike for neo-liberal Friedmanite economics.

And what of Spain? Can the EU really afford to let a country of that size and importance falter and possibly even be in danger of defaulting on its debt obligations? What then? And what will be of the Euro?

How much longer can this madness go on? Are Germany and France going to snub these countries too? Will the IMF simply become the de facto bank for the Eurozone?

For now, I am very worried for these three countries - not to mention all of the European Union.

I am half-Portuguese, a heritage of which I am proud, and I lived in Lisbon for a few years, a city in which I finished my schooling and which I visited every opportunity I had during my university vacations, it being a city I love and know so well. I do not want to see that beautiful country thrown to the dogs.

When will this European club ever finally come together and be united and there for all its members?

After all, is the second word in the letters 'EU' not union? Where is the union in this band of misfits?

Do you get my point?

RANT: Greece - Sold (Out)

My second rant for today is a follow-up to my first rant. It's all about the Greeks again.

So what happened yesterday at the frantic EU conference in Brussels, of which the Greek financial crisis was top of the agenda?

Well, Greece got sold out of course.

And we have Germany and France in particular to thank for that. The 'deal' for Greece (read: sell-out of Greece) is that there will be a bail-out (of sorts) at the behest of both the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Or rather, very much under the control of the IMF.

Talk about shockingly bad news. Consider this:

1. The IMF is the Satan of international finance. It's that simple. This horrific organization, along with its evil twin, the World Bank, has single-handedly wreaked more havoc on the economies of the world than any other multilateral entity on the planet. The IMF is the 'world arm' of Wall Street and international banking and finance. Have any doubts? Think I'm being overly melodramatic? Then please do take the time to read "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein. And get real.

2. It is de facto guaranteed that an IMF bail-out means that a country must slash all public spending. So, bye bye to spending on education, health, pensions and other social welfare programs for the Greeks.

3. It is de facto guaranteed that an IMF bail-out means that a country must privatize more of its public entities, and that could include for energy, transport and even water. Yeah, and we all know what a huge success privatized electricity is (California and the UK, anyone?), not to mention privatized water (Bolivia, anyone?).

4. It is de facto guaranteed that an IMF bail-out means that a country must 'open' up its economy even more to foreign bankers, foreign creditors, foreign anything-that-can-rip-your-economy-off-in-the-name-of-'free-trade'. Yeah, like that's just what Greece needs right now: to be even more exposed, legs flayed wide open, to the very financial and economic terrorists that destroyed their economy in the first place. For sure.

What surprises me is that the Greek Prime Minister, who at the beginning of this crisis so virulently attacked the global financial sharks for artificially creating the crisis in his country, is now quoted as saying that he sees this 'deal' as a "big step forward". Yes, a big step forward into the abyss for Greece and for the Greek people. When was he taken away by the aliens and a Stepford Prime Minister put in his place?

Did Papandreou really need to kiss Angela's feet quite to that extent?

Look at the talons on those feet. Snicker.

Why do countries always feel so obliged to sell themselves so down the river when they are in a 'crisis'? It's the international relations equivalent of battered wife syndrome - the more battered you are, the more you go back to the aggressors for more. Just ask Argentina, circa the early 2000s.

This deal will definitely mean less sovereignty for Greece as a nation and untold more suffering and hardship for most Greek citizens, very probably for years to come. How can this be ever be a good deal?

And all of this thanks to the pressure of fellow European countries, starting with that Uber-Meister of the EU, Germany, and given greater impetus with that inimitable French je ne sais quoi.

With friends like these, what the hell does Greece need enemies for?

Do you get my point?