Almost the same sh1t, different day

It is probably clear to most readers that my American friends get tired of me picking on the USA. Oh sure, they provide ample material, there's no doubt about that, and in reality, the only real complaint that I have is the hypocrisy of it all: claiming one thing and doing another. In this regard, I can assure you, the USA are not alone. The most recent developments here in Europe have shown that we have learned well from our mentor and we can be every bit as hypocritical as our big brothers across the pond can be. So, today, as a change of pace, I thought I'd let off a bit of steam for many of the same reasons, but with a different focus.

On more than one occasion, quite recently in fact, I have taken a very critical look at what the EU has done and is doing to Greece. (If you missed that or forgot, look here, here, and here.) What I did not do in those posts, and what has been bothering as long as it has been going on, is the role that Germany has played in all of this. Yes, the dismantling of representative democracy in Europe, the quasi-colonization of a (once) sovereign state, and the oppression of a whole people has taken place under the guise of a pan-European project, but, the truth of the matter is, it was a German-led action. And that bothers me to no end.

To be honest, I don't care what the motives are, nor am I all that concerned with the "reasons" or alleged "justifications". I don't care about the political rationalizations. What I have long maintained and what I never tire of saying: I don't care in the least what you say, I'm only concerned with what you do. Actions always speak louder than words, and that is the purest case for my problems with the USA these days, and it is the same reason that I've been ruminating over Germany for a while.

Most of you are not aware that everything that any of hears about the situation in Greece is propaganda. Over the past few days, as the Greek government "debated" the latest "emergency financial package" and "more quickly than expected" managed to "pass the appropriate legislation" to allow themselves to be "helped", I had to fight back the desire to "projectile regurgitate" on whatever media I was engaging at the moment. Seldom in my time on this planet have I been exposed to so much BS in such a short period of time.

It could very well be that the Germans were forced into the euro. It could very well be that so many mistakes were made in introducing the currency that there's no turning back now. It could very well be that political solutions to problems are always messy and always miss the point. It could also very well be that I'm seeing motives where there are only reactions. But, the fact of the matter remains that the Germans (Merkle in the background, coward that she is, and Schäuble in the foreground, power-addicted know-it-all that he is) believed it was their right to do what they did. But it wasn't. It never was, it never is, and it never will be.

The crisis is far from over, regardless of how the media try to spin it. The damage to be wrought will become more than obvious. The suffering of the people will become more than apparent. But the propaganda machine is running at full power here, just like it runs in America 24/7.

And, all of this is avoidable, if we would only stop talking and start listening, if we would only stop griping and start engaging, if we would only stop fighting amongst ourselves and realize that everyone who believes that they have even the least bit to say, is doing their best to ensure that we little folk don't ever, ever realize how much we're being manipulated. And that's all I have to say about that.

It's not all Greek to me

Most folks have not taken the time to read the tons of documentation that has been produced in regard to the Greek crisis. Tsipras is trying to buy some time to get through the next phase of the storm, but has anyone seriously asked themselves what he's doing and why? I don't know. I really don't know, but what I do know is that we're being fed an official line of distraction and confusion, and they're using every trick in the book to see that it stays that way.

The Greeks have been forced to put up all their public assets for sale. Just over a week ago, Warren Buffet took advantage of the sale and bought himself an island for a mere €15m. Not unsurprisingly, just this past week, it was -- quietly, subtly, almost unreportedly -- that the Americans are going to be given access to Greece's (not insubstantial) gas and oil reserves (just like they silently and forcibly moved in and took over the Ukraine's). In the meantime, just like in the USA where Social Security and Medicare are on the block for the upcoming elections, top priority was given to privatizing and gutting the pension system and the Value-Added-Tax, the most regressive of all taxes, was almost doubled.

The official line is that these "reforms" are necessary to get Greece back on its feet. When you call a program whose sole results is the destruction of what was there before a "reform", you have to be pretty damn cynical at heart. In the five years of the crisis, and here, in the last round, where it was do-or-die, the creditors (as if they should be given credit for something) demanded these changes, but not once in all that time have they demanded that a tax on the rich or super-rich be instituted, not once have they demanded that the government immediately clamp down on tax-evasion. Instead, the Greeks have been encouraged to "modernize" their administration (for example, by issuing very limited, but very lucrative IT-infrastructure tenders to be implemented whenever) and over all this time, the Greeks had submitted to continuous reviews, all of which were approved by those very parties who decided it was time for the Greeks to turn over their democratic sovereignty to extra-democratic institutions.

In light of the documentation, and in light of the actions of the Greek government in the last couple of weeks, I'd say they know what's what. At the very slightest indication of non-cooperation, I would be willing to bet that what has so-far been accomplished below the radar will simply burst to the surface. There will be a radical, perhaps even violent, change of government right here on the edge of Europe. Greece is being made an example of, but there is growing distrust of the current powers-that-be, not only in Greece, but elsewhere, and it is very likely that Greece will begin living its myths and become Pandora's Box.

Was what just happened in Europe a coup?

The recent Greek situation was as close to a coup as you can get without involving the military. Let us recall, that a coup d'etat is, most often, when a democratically elected government is ousted by the military (our most common 20th century experience) which then sets itself up as a junta. No, it doesn't have to be the military, which is why Greece is so interesting: for the first time in a long time, the coup came about not from within and not by the military, but from without, by civilians, namely technocrats and bankers.

As part of the "deal", the Greeks must ask permission of the Troika (the current powers-that-be) even to discuss certain topics. If they want to pass a law, they must present it to the powers-that-be for their approval before it is debated. Think about it. The Greeks, for all intents and purposes, are no longer a sovereign nation. They cannot alone decide what is good for them, in their own interests, and they may not decide how they want to solve their problems. Others will now tell them what, how and why ... well, not why, for that would unmask the whole charade.

My American friends, no doubt, have trouble understanding the problem, I am sure. Oh, it's not as many of you think that they are somewhat ignorant and ill-informed. No, that's not it at all. They can't understand it because they've been living in Greece all along but never knew it. They have no national healthcare to speak of, they have private insurance that will soon take its revenge for the sins of Obamacare. They have no real unemployment or welfare benefits because they all know that whoever is out of work, for whatever reason, is solely responsible for his or her plight. If you had done better, you wouldn't be in that predicament. Americans have a rapacious tax agency, and point-of-purchase tax-collection agents (it's called sales tax for those not following). Americans are personally swamped by debt, lose their homes daily, "enjoy" (in the meantime) somewhat lenient bankruptcy laws (which are necessary when so many "citizens" have to take advantage of them), and Americans, even the Creationists among them, that social Darwinism is a mere fact of life.

That my American friends have been deceived, manipulated, cajoled, coerced, even brainwashed into believing that their oppressors are benevolent is clear to me and most people in Europe. You can't ever miss what you never had, whether it was a good idea or not. It turns out that social cohesion is a defining characteristic of humanity. Destroy that and you destroy humanity itself. And there we are at modern-day capitalism.

The "money" that Greece owes is a paper -- no, digital -- fiction. Every rule of economics as we were taught them in school has been violated to create the situation in Greece (and elsewhere, including simple American households). All the so-called "laws" have been twisted, contorted, bent and broken in order that a fortunate few can live in excess at the expense of the unfortunate many. And there is no dearth of die-hard cheerleaders, from all walks of life and from every social stratum, who are willing to praise these thieves, these merchants of death, these heartless, mindless, and senseless parasites as idols, heroes, demi-gods. If they could only get just a little slice of the pie.

At the moment, it doesn't matter. We need to pay attention. We need take heed of what is really happening. A modern, sovereign nation has been declared mentally incapacitated, but as Ken Kesey exposed over a half-a-century ago: it's the inmates who are running the asylum.

What just happened in Europe?

There has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth going on around Europe the past couple of days, as well there should be. What is playing out is something for the history books, to be sure, but I suspect it will be reported very differently than it actually went down.

We've known since 2008 and since the leaks around the TPP, TIPP, and TISA that the banks and big business has taken over. This is not a conspiracy theory, it is pure and simple fact. There's not a government in the western, industrialized world that has 10 cents to spare for a single humanitarian program, not even for its own citizens, but there are tons of cash, in the form of bailouts, tax breaks, and subsidies for the most wasteful of things. What is different about the past few days here in Europe, however, is the fact that we have now seen (a) just how much power they possess and (b) to what lengths they are willing to go to deal with opposition of any kind.

I would be the last to maintain that the Greeks need to reform their governmental apparatus, start collecting taxes, and try to reduce unnecessary expenditures. However, in contrast to the EC, the IMF, the ECB, and the Eurogroup, I'm not willing to maintain that these reforms should be obtained at any price. For those of you both inside and outside Europe: this is not about the EU; this is not about the euro, as currency, per se; this is about power and what it means for us everyday little people.

The person in the street will tell you right out that without a land registry office, without a functioning tax system and tax authority, you cannot expect to get a grasp on your national income. Since 2010, the Troika -- the big players in the field -- have been placing one requirement after the other on the Greeks. If you take the time to look at the Memoranda of Understanding that direct this process, one significant feature become conspicuous by its absence: the demand, specifically, to set up a necessary tax infrastructure. There is a whole list of things To-Do, no question about it, but if placed in order of priority, it almost seems as if it has been inverted. Not the most necessary things to do were placed at the top, but the easiest to do. All the necessary reforms, the ones that may, perhaps, if everything went perfectly well, were placed at the bottom of the list. They are still to come, but there is other business to be attended to in the meantime, like bludgeoning the defenseless, cutting pensions by 30%, eliminating healthcare for a third of the population, driving the poverty rate from 26% to almost 35%, increasing unemployment to 25% overall and over 50% among the youth of the country, shrinking the economy by 25% and increasing the debt by over 25% as well.

In contrast to what is floated as common wisdom, neither Ireland nor the Baltic states were in a comparable situation to Greece, so they are not the success stories that everyone would like to maintain. Estonia, for example, had as good as no debt when their crisis hit; Ireland had a functioning governmental infrastructure. When the smoke clears, it's obvious that, well, a lot of folks are simply blowing smoke.

No, Greece had the audacity to elect a leftist government. That will not be tolerated. They had the courage to throw out the Troika. That cannot be tolerated either. They demanded reforms that work. And that cannot be tolerated in a world in which you are to do as you are told or you'll be squashed like a bug. In the end, the entire population said "no", and, strangely enough, when asked to present a list of reforms, the Greek government laid on the table, more or less, the take-it-or-leave-it agreement that the EC had dictated. The result: go back and do your homework, such a list is simply unacceptable.

So now, the Greek parliament has approved the plan they've been given. They had three days to do so. Private institutions and non-elected technocrats have desovereigntized a country in the 21st century, right before our very eyes. And that, my friends, is the Europe of today. It is not the Europe I migrated to (yes, I am a mere immigrant here), and it's not the Europe that encouraged me to say.

The message is clear: hold all the referendums you want, cry democracy and the will of the people all you want. In the end, it's the money people who have all the say. It's the simple Golden Rule: he who has the gold, rules.