by
Robert Hunziker
Europe’s
Left has finally renounced the Syriza Party (acronym for Coalition of
the Radical Left), as Jean-Luc MĆ©lenchon of France Insoumise or
“Unsubmissive France” calls for Greece’s Syriza booted out of
the Alliance of Leftists. Greece’s PM Tsipras of the Syriza Party
faux Left is way too far Right!
In stark
contrast to Syriza’s Greek PM Alexis Tsipras, Monsieur MĆ©lenchon,
a Member of the European Parliament (“MEP”), calls for (a) an end
to “presidential monarchy in France,” (b) enhanced environmental
protections, (c) increased labor rights, and in harmony with his hard
left sympathies, lo and behold, (d) a 100% income tax on those
earning over €360,000 a year.
As for
Syriza, MĆ©lenchon says it has become “impossible to rub shoulders”
with Syriza and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras given attacks on
working people. Unfortunately for hard working Greeks, that may be a
gross understatement. It now appears they were sold a bill of goods
by PM Alexis Tsipras representing the Left since January 2015, as he
infamously serves to please, time and time again, whenever Wolfgang
SchƤuble (DE), the Eurozone’s notorious Hatch Man, frowns, oh so
frequently!
According
to SocialistWorker.org: “In January 2015, the Coalition of the
Radical Left, or SYRIZA, was swept into office on a huge tide of
votes in national elections. There was immense hope that the new
government led by a party that had remained uncompromising in its
opposition to austerity would finally stand up to the European Union
and defend working class living standards ravaged by the economic
crisis and the punishing Memorandums demanded by the lenders. Yet by
July of that year, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had capitulated,
signing up to a new Memorandum. The attacks on workers, the poor and
immigrants have continued unabated.”
After
years of being screwed over, Greece is so bloody exhausted from hard
right European Troika aka: European Commission, European Central Bank
and IMF screwing that the country resembles a haggard dark-eyed
nymphomaniac hard-core heroin addict at the first break of dawn,
squinting into blinding brightness, too hacked to sit up in bed. Now,
after years of raw naked brutality, Greece has morphed into a forlorn
soulless zombie with nothing more to lose.
In its
latest installment of “Robbing Greece Blind,” big bad Troika has
instituted (1) a new raft of privatizations and (2) benefit cuts,
including cuts to child care, as well as disability benefits, (3) the
sale of 14 additional public assets, and (4) stern measures to
facilitate repossession and sale of properties of families who fall
behind in payments. Oh yeah, also, (5) longer working hours for
teachers; thus, providing some kind of arrangement for kids when
their parents are evicted.
In order
to approximate the impact of Troika’s version of Panzer
Division-type-hybrid attacks, consider the following: Recently
pensions were cut once again for the 17th successive pension
reduction in seven years, which may be a new world record for
enforcement of austerity measures to satisfy neoliberal spirits.
Meantime, the Greek health system is crumbling under the weight of
“one of the greatest economic and social catastrophes in the whole
history of international capitalism.” (Source: Dimitris
Konstantakopoulos, member Secretariat of Syriza, The European Left
and the Greek Tragedy, Defend Democracy Press, May 22, 2017)
Not
only, Greece’s GDP has fallen by 27% as a result of a makeover
program that was strongly suggested, by Troika, to help the economy
grow, not fall apart, down and out for the final count.
Astonishingly, nowadays Greece mirrors the Great Depression of
1929-33, and it’s already embedded ten (10) years of continuous
recession, which sets another record. Evidently, somebody at Troika
forgot to push the “start button.”
Mysteriously,
but maybe not so mysterious, this particular Greek Tragedy does not
pass the sniff test. Something is rotten, somewhere. In order to get
to the bottom of it, according to Dimitris Konstantakopoulos, member
Secretariat of Syriza: “The Greek Reform Program was no mistake but
was and remains the premeditated assassination, by economic and
political means, of a European nation and its state, for reasons of
much wider significance than the significance of the country itself,”
Ibid.
Which
prompts: Why so brutally horribly dehumanizing?
According
to one analysis, Greece is the scapegoat for all European ills, thus
it represents a looming threat to all other abusers of neoliberal
dicta. The rationale: Other delinquent southern European countries
were spared the hatchet only because, if Troika brutalized them as
well, it risks alliances of like-minded protagonists and revolt all
across half of Europe. Which would exceed the wherewithal of the
grand neoliberal crusade and possibly blow its covert operations wide
open for all to see. As it happens, Greece was/is low hanging fruit
and a perfect whipping boy that hopefully knocks some sense into
spendthrift Mediterranean lefties, or so the Troika likely assumes.
Otherwise, why destroy Greece?
As it
happened, Troika misrepresented good intentions, and in fact lied by
publicly claiming Greece was receiving enormous amounts of financial
support from its European partners, whereas 95% of those funds
zip-zip right back to Deutsche Bank, PNB Paribas, and other U.S. and
European banks, bypassing Greece’s banks and citizens as quickly as
a finger click. But wait; of course, Greece keeps five percent.
In order
to receive Troika’s financial bailout, Greece has undergone a
massive transfer of public assets, all the best stuff, to
privatization interests, part of the hardcore hypothesis behind
neoliberalism, e.g., (1) 14 major regional airports sold to Germany’s
Fraport, (2) the Port of Piraeus, one of the largest ports in Europe
sold to China’s Cosco, (3) the Port of Thessaloniki, which is
Greece’s second largest city, sold to a German consortium, and (4)
privatization funds created, under Germany’s direction, for water
utility transfers to private hands, prompting the president of the
Greece water company trade union to forewarn that the for-profit
model often times raises prices for consumers and sometimes service
degrades. But then it’s too late to do much about it.
And,
come to think of it, why should water be a for-profit enterprise in
the first instance? And, why should ports, as old as the city of
Athens, be for-profit private enterprises? By longevity alone, it is
an iconic attachment to Greece, dating back centuries upon centuries.
Maybe some precious things in life should escape the dictates of
profit for the few in favor of the common interests of the many.
Regardless,
financial colonization is ripping Greece to shreds same as
19th-century European colonization of Africa, in harmony with the
Industrial Revolution, shredded natural resources. But, nowadays
Industrial Revolution is passƩ as the Internet revolutionizes
everything, other than the onslaught of neoliberalism’s
transnational elite special forces.
Postscript:
Close to chaos, because the market is not just, you’re far away
from the country which was your cradle.
What was
searched and found with one’s soul, is now considered to be as
worthless as scrap metal…
Booze at
last, drink! [European] Commissioners’ cheerleaders shout.
However,
Socrates gives you back the [hemlock poison] cup full to the brim.
Curse
you as a chorus, which is characteristic of you, will the gods, whose
Mount Olympus you want to steal.
You’ll
waste away mindlessly without the country, whose mind invented you,
Europe. A Poem (portions of) by GĆ¼nter Grass, 2012
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