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?

RAVE: Je Suis Grec Aussi!

Considering what the Greek people are going through with the ongoing financial terrorism being waged against them and their country, I found it quite moving that the French in particular have held rallies to show their solidarity with the Greek nation.

The slogan and poster below says it all, especially considering the French nation's own little revolution back in 1789:



Everyone everywhere should feel solidarity for the rape and pillage that is being endured by the Greeks. After all, today it's them, tomorrow it could be us...

Yes, indeed - I too am Greek!

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?

RANT: The Rape of Greece

Greece is being raped - again.

Its very sovereignty is hanging on a the merest thread as its own government contemplates selling it right down the line, as the acronymed vultures named EU and IMF hover hungrily.



Greece is on the verge of having to declare bankruptcy. The last round of bailouts simply didn't do the trick after speculators and other financial terrorists targeted the country's fragile economy and 'huge' public debt. There's a surprise. And I bet the IMF is so very surprised that Greece is poised to default on its debt obligations.

Just yesterday a rash of desperate, last minute talks by the EU (read: namely Germany and France, the Big Bloody F***ing Euro Bullies) on another bailout for Greece came to nothing. The big problem? They couldn't get Greece to commit to even more painful cuts to public spending.

Yeah, 'public spending' - that innocuous-sounding phrase that actually means slashed government spending on social welfare, healthcare, education, pensions, supporting arts and culture - you know, all the things that make (or, rather, made) Greece a modern European country. All poised to be slashed yet again - and yet again it is the poor and the middle class of Greece who will take the brunt of all these 'necessary' cuts to public spending.

As if people were having cuts made to their ability to get daily manicures and pedicures and other such luxuries, you know.

'Cuts' made in the name of bailing out scheister banks, propping up a failed experiment that is the euro and kowtowing to financial terrorists like the IMF.



Greece is being raped, pillaged and its very guts ripped out. No wonder the people are in the streets, raging with anger.

This will go down in history as a shameful chapter in European and world financial history. No doubt about that.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: The Greeks Who Shout OXI!

OXI, OXI, OXI! NO, NO, NO!

That has been the resounding shout by thousands of Greeks in their protests against massive public spending cuts by the Greek government. A massive rejection to the capitulation by the Greek government to both the IMF and the EU on a crisis that is very little the doing of Greek citizens themselves.

OXI! NO!

I have spent the last few days being shocked and angered by what the Greek people are being put through. But I have also been genuinely impressed by the sheer passion and the visceral outrage of ordinary Greek citizens in their streets. Impressed because less and less one sees this in the world, particularly in the West, and never before in recent history has there been a time when mass protest by citizens has been more necessary and more justified.

I admire the Greek people for their powerful vitriol, as well as for their clearly intelligent political discourse. Slogans on banners and signs show that the Greeks understand perfectly the evil incarnate that is the IMF. The Greeks understand perfectly how unfair and socially devastating the current globalized economic reality is for a European country like Greece. They understand perfectly how economically devastating Wall Street investment bankers and international speculators and other financial terrorists have been to their economy. They understand it all.

And they are totally on to the sell-out and the cop-out that is the Greek government's capitulation to the nefarious IMF (and, also, by the way, the shameful EU).

One of the most interesting and indeed commendable aspects of the general strike that hit Greece today was the fact that the entire private sector came out in support of the strike, even though the majority of the proposed cuts for this highly unpopular deal will be done on the public sector. All Greeks understand what is at stake here, even if it does not directly affect them...for now. That is the spirit of true community, that is the spirit of true nationhood and citizenship.

And I am duly impressed by that. A nation that is so politically savvy and so socio-economically passionate is one that is to admired and respected.

I mean, how can one not respect a people who saw fit to storm the Parthenon yesterday and allow all tourists free entry, so as to deny the state any money that day from the country's most iconic monument! It may have been the actions of the Greek Communists with their own 'anti-capitalist agenda' (whatever the hell that means in this day and age), but it was highly visual and effective drama. Brilliant!

Many Greeks seem ready to keep this fight with their government going. At least that is how it looks for now. May their pressure be unrelenting in their opposition to this IMF deal, a deal that will assuredly a very, very, very bad deal for most Greeks.

I can only wish them the very best of luck. And continued courage and belief in what they are doing.

For now, the Greek protesters in the streets of their country have my utmost respect and admiration. And support.

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: Greece for Sale

My rant for today has been brewing inside me for days, even weeks. I've touched on this issue in another post, with the Icelandic vote on March 6th being my touchstone for this rant as well (again, hurrah for Iceland for saying NO to the financial and political terrorists!).

In short, it's all about Greece.

It's well-known that Greece is in a huge 'debt crisis'. Meaning that it owes billions of Euros by the end of May, money that it simply does not have. As quoted from James Jubak in the Huffington Post: "Greece needs to refinance about $27 billion in debt that matures in May, according to calculations by Bloomberg. Already investors are demanding a 3.48 percentage point premium over the benchmark German bonds before they'll buy Greek 10-year debt. That premium is four times the average premium of the last five years."

Which means Greece is in deep trouble. Hence the recent attempts by the Greek parliament to introduce austerity measures (read: slash public spending on civil servant salaries and other social benefit-related slashing). These measures have been met with mass strikes and protests in Athens and other Greek cities and towns.

The people of the Hellenic Republic are not pleased. It has been well recorded in various news media that the Greek people feel victimised and angry as a result. And why shouldn't they be bloody upset and bloody angry?

Consider the following:

1. Why did this Greek crisis occur so suddenly? Because it was a carefully orchestrated assassination of the Greek economy, and in particular Greek treasury bonds, by the financial and economic speculators (read: terrorists) from Wall Street and across Europe, especially that poster child for speculative terrorism on the world economy, JP Morgan. Greece was targeted, simple as that. Iceland, anyone?

2. Why must the Greek government be so ridiculed by other countries for its large public spending bill? As if countries like Germany, France and the UK don't have huge public spending bills themselves. Isn't the UK currently sitting with the biggest ratio of public (sovereign) debt to GDP in all of the EU? And why should the Greek people should be accused, as if they were petulant little brats, of wanting nothing more than decent health care, education for all and their pensions paid out after all their years of work and service? How totally unreasonable of the Greeks to expect the very same of their government that the French, the Germans and the other hypocrites in Europe expect of their governments.

3. Why shouldn't Germany and the rest of the Eurozone bail out Greece? Why not? What is the purpose of having a monetary zone like the Eurozone, one which was supposed to be for the benefit of all Europeans, and which was to unite all of Europe, when stronger partners are not willing to assist a partner in trouble? With friends like this, who the bloody hell needs enemies?

4. And, speaking of Herr Deutschland, Germany is the richest EU country with the biggest national surplus, largely thanks to the power of the Euro over the past decade. Why must Greece be made to pay for the fact that Germany is holding elections later this year, and that German voters may hold helping out Greece against that Grosse Deutsche Hausfrau, aka Angela Merkel? Why must Greece pay for the fact that Germany's reunification cost so much money? You Germans went all mushy and wanted to unify, that's your bloody problem. Now you're a member of a monetary zone that has been of most benefit to your economy, and you think you have the right to be damn stingy to help out a fellow European country in need?

5. And, by the way, Germany, don't you think it's time that you gave Greece back all those billions of dollars of gold bullion that your Nazi ancestors plundered from Greece during World War 2? I think that's overdue, you ungrateful and patronising prigs.

6. And if I see one more television footage of some pasty-faced, ugly German in some grey German city crinkling up their little Teutonic nose at the suggestion of helping out Greece, I'll scream! Or I'll get on a bloody flight (not on Lufthansa, by the way), land in Germany and just start slapping faces left and right! But let the German economy be in as much trouble as that of Greece, and that German begging bowl would be casting a huge shadow over all of Europe, no questions about it. You hypocrites.

7. I need to say it here: this Greek crisis has really brought out the ever-simmering contempt which many Northern Europeans have for their Southern European neighbours. It's there - always just below that very thin patina of northern European 'respect' for their fellow Europeans to the south. One can literally sense it when northern Europeans, smug and patronizing to the hilt, are asked their opinions on TV news and shows about the crisis. It's palpable.

Comments are made about the 'Club Med country' crisis, thereby reducing Greece, Spain and Portugal to nothing more than what many northern Europeans believe them to be - that is, nothing more than holiday destinations where the weather is better and the locals a darn sight cuter and more fun.

I wonder how Ireland feels, being that it's in the same crappy sovereign debt position, yet hardly a sunny Club Med destination...?

Endless commentaries are made about the 'recklessness' of how these countries have governed their finances, always with that undertone that southerners are somehow less 'restrained', less 'responsible'. Even the acronym 'PIGS' (which stands for Portugal Ireland Greece Spain) says it all. Italy is now out of that spotlight, even if only for now. The main subtext is simple: the southerners just can't get it right, even if one of those countries (Ireland) is not a so-called 'Club Med economy'.

As if the likes of the UK have done any better. It makes me bristle with anger, given my southern European ancestry.

Which is why I so appreciated this cartoon from the UK's Independent newspaper lampooning the musical 'Grease'. Says it all.

And the poor Greeks are now at the mercy of their northern partners. I pity them for that. Greece and citizens of Greece deserved better than to be held responsible for the devious and destructive machinations of the global financial system that saw fit to wreak havoc on their economy.

Do you get my point?