I haven't been following events in Greece as I ought or might because, following the financial collapse of 2008 and the shock which enabled our bankster class to impose austerity for the double-fleecing of America--once with the numerous layers of massive fraud causing the crash and again with bail-outs, austerity, AKA "shared responsibility"--as I did in participating in Occupy, I am engaged in activities to help the vast majority of Americans who have not recovered from those establishment perpetrated and covered up heists, not simply in spite of but because of those who find it more important to trumpet economic "successes" of the 10% and their leaders than to publicly identify, expose, admit and treat the widespread shortcomings of the recovery evidenced in the conspicuous non-recovery of the 90%, at their expense.
I could be more informed about Greece but I'm working on an organization to develop the local grassroots for the political revolution for which Bernie Sanders has called, one which will deliver the news of the heists, expose the bad actors, and examine our choices and some real, fair remedies as opposed to incremental cover for ongoing bloodletting; hopefully this will help lift him into the White House, from where he can with honesty and without guile publicize and work on these issues and solutions, not only as a matter of his nature and understanding, but also as the result of intentionally not having engaged in massive public graft--thereby hand-cuffing himself from being able to say and do the right thing--in following a more Serious path to victory.
Naomi Klein thoroughly examined and deftly described what she called The Shock Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism back in 2005.
In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.
At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.
Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock – did not begin with September 11, 2001. The book traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today. New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, “shock and awe” warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.
The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas through our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998. - synopsis of The Shock Doctrine from Klein's website
It is uncanny how well this definition of the overarching theme of our times describes events leading up to and following the financial collapse, how the catastrophe that produces shock is used to manipulate the masses for tremendous political and financial gain. Moreover, in the case of the financial collapse, the catastrophe was created by the villains themselves, thus producing a subsequent opportunity to shakedown the 99%, in particular the 90%, especially the 47%.
Greece – What You are not Being Told by the Media describes, without reference to Klein, how the financial collapse was seized upon at home and abroad to apply once more just such economic shock therapy.
Greece did not fail on its own. It was made to fail.
In summary, the banks wrecked the Greek government and deliberately pushed it into unsustainable debt so that oligarchs and international corporations can profit from the ensuing chaos and misery.
If you are a fan of mafia movies, you know how the mafia would take over a popular restaurant. First, they would do something to disrupt the business – stage a murder at the restaurant or start a fire. When the business starts to suffer, the Godfather would generously offer some money as a token of friendship. In return, Greasy Thumb takes over the restaurant’s accounting, Big Joey is put in charge of procurement, and so on. Needless to say, it’s a journey down a spiral of misery for the owner who will soon be broke and, if lucky, alive.
In other words, classic racketeering. Mainstreamed.
The article goes on to describe this real life example of racketeering in four stages. The first stage involves the perpetration of the heist leading up to the financial collapse. The second stage was when the vulture banks preyed upon other banks which imploded, wherein enormous fortunes were "earned" from disaster. In the third stage, the banks colluded with their subject governments to force debts upon states and taxpayers, thereby "weakening the immune system." And then the fourth stage, the debt, the "need" for which is entirely fabricated in multiple stages and transferred from the perpetrators to the public--as if for its own protection, for the economy and jobs, and not for more opportunities to privatize profit while socializing risk--is thereby used to shame government and victims in order to impose austerity for the purpose of enabling the extraction of both public money and assets.
It's a perfect crime, really, especially when you have so many establishment members willing to endlessly repeat the fictitious narrative spun in slow motion, in plain sight, even to the extent of lauding the bankster villains--who presumably deserve the credit and thus should be showered with gratitude for ingeniously, beneficently creating jobs (with ever-declining wages and benefits)--for just doing their part; and blaming the victims. And then you have the establishment supporters so willing to accept the Serious narrative, being, as they are, a pack of damn fools, useful idiots, and pragmatic opportunists.
And under the cover of this broad resignation, acceptance and in some quarters approval, the narrative prescribes its various remedies in client/victim countries: "lay off public workers, cut minimum wage, cut pensions (same as our social security), cut public services, and raise taxes on things that would affect the 99% but not the 1%." When it doesn't work for the masses and payments are inadequate: wash, rinse and repeat. If there is pushback: shame and punish those who dare impugn the establishment and its Right of Pillage! And there we have our 90%, Greece, and other struggling nations, not just of the financial collapse, but of numerous disasters carefully and successfully played for ever-increasing income, wealth, opportunity and power.
If the bold-faced lie of a narrative we have were replaced with the truth--a truth which has been revealed and reported by numerous people by definition thus not conforming, dissenting, and therefore marginalized regardless of both their insight and the import of the truth--austerity would be exposed as the brutish, predatory con that it is. Not the fair, logical, responsible workings of a "free market" amongst noble creditors and debtors, but brazen, merciless pillaging thinly disguised as normal, unavoidable business practices.
It takes criminals, accomplices, deniers and saps--not a conspiracy, but a shared sense of the corruption that is normal--for such disasters to occur.
Racketeering isn't some immutable force of nature... It only looks that way when accept it and legitimize it by respecting corrupt leaders who participate in the rackets.
Since World War II, these predatory practices have been used countless times by the IMF and the World Bank in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
This is the essence of the New World Order — a world owned by a handful of corporations and banks; a world that is full of obedient, powerless debt serfs.
And
this is why I support Bernie Sanders and will work tirelessly for the man and whatever it is he can achieve. And this is why
I utterly reject Hillary Clinton, the latest Trojan horse of Wall Street In the shared culture of corruption, democracy is the price we pay for the protection of the oligarchy. Tragically, for many, the Democratic establishment and its supporters, that's good enough. More shock please.