for a decent take on the Greek situation, go to you
tube and check out the “Debtocracy” video/documentary. 
it was recently put out by greek activists.  it
criticizes the banksters and then shows how rafael
corea handled ecuador’s debt situation.  if anyone
finds this doc a worth-while look-see, perhaps they
could post a link…or maybe even Truthig could put it
up in its ‘A/V Booth’ section

DavidByron, June 30 at 9:24 am Link to this comment

This is straight up right-wing propaganda on Truthdig.

Apparently they wont even sign their name to it.

Err, NYTimes article with the byline too:

By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: June 29, 2011

This is straight up right-wing propaganda on Truthdig.

Who the hell posted this?
Who is “BF”?

Apparently they wont even sign their name to it.

In Greece, “Fiscal Suicide” certainly was an option! Fiscal suicide according to
whom? “Global markets rallied…” Really? (It’s hard not to sink into sarcasm, the
lowest form of black humor.)

I had on CNBC all day (because oddly more tolerable than gossip at other cable
outlets. There’s less of Casey Anthony and campaigning—free of charge—for
Michelle Bachmann). CNBC’s Michelle Cabrera Caruso (arch-right-winger) was stationed
in Athens as observer, if not exactly as journalist. She too talked of the
necessity of voting for “austerity.” (Amazing the number of expert economists
on television. Reality is that semi-experts on finance have a tendency to
confuse themselves with experts on economics.)

It was long ago that European socialist/communist parties became something
slightly less than revolutionary. By now they’ve zero right to refer to themselves
as socialist, or communist if that’s the claim.

Why not the newer, more up-to-date Argentine model? Argentina defaulted
and then enjoyed a growth rate the U.S. (where per capita share of national
debt is greater than that in Greece) can only envy.

Latin America means it when they say they’re breaking off relations with the
IMF, and in some cases with the nations at the head of the IMF, in particular
the U.S. Wasn’t it Correa who just broke off formal relations with the U.S. And
Correa is a capitalist.

What this vote by the Greek Parliament really was was another bank bailout. All
these calls for “austerity” amount to bank bailouts. Banks and bankers never
undergo austerity, only have-nots undergo that. Everyone is sorry, but… “it was
necessary.”

For whom? Well, for global financial markets and ONLY for global financial
markets. The NYSE, NASDAQ and S&P, just to name the three main ones in the
U.S., are enjoying orgasmic surges. Was the vote ever really in doubt? Would
that it really had been, and then voted down. But markets are so chicken-shit a
Bernanke fart brings them crashing down—to the ruin once again of “retail”
investors who are mostly really 401(k) holders and not exactly investors.

Then the U.S. Gov wants to get rid of Social Security to replace it with private
savings accounts to be invested in the insane stock and bond markets, where
institutions rule even more ruthlessly than in the directly political sphere.

It IS a capitalist world, all too sadly, and as such it was probably extreme for
Greece to provide for, say, life-time tenure for government workers when that
couldn’t be paid for. Government does cost money and that money can only be
secured by way of taxation. (Not that those who could pay ever do pay—there
or in the U.S. or most anywhere else.) So sure, some changes probably had to
be made, but in no way, shape or form was it necessary for Greece to vote yea
for a collection of severe austerity measures as defined by the IMF.

The whole charade (with all too real consequences for the usual victims) was
yet another case of battle won by the global elite in its ongoing war on the
lower classes. Bankers never pay the price for their obscene profligacy as only
labor does that.

Bankers don’t have to laugh all the way to the bank, as they’re already at the
bank laughing all the time.

I’d like to see Greeks do as Tunisians and Egyptians, or Argentines, did—throw
out the bastards and start again, this time without “assistance” from the
ultimate gang of thugs we know by the name, International Monetary Fund. We
in the U.S. might do the same—per the Constitution when the government
ceases to see to the welfare of ALL the people and not just to those able to
afford bribery.

Greece averted Fiscal Suicide, but it was replaced by National Suicide if these “austerity measures” are implemented.
The only thing that these “austerity measures” will do is that it will make the Greek economy sink deeper and deeper into the hole with MORE DEBT and NO GROWTH and the Greek common people get poorer and poorer.
So according to the IMF and the European Central Bankers, the only way allowed to Greece to pay current debt is to get more additional debe and so on…
This is nothing but kicking the can down the road and postponing the inevitable which is DEFAULT!.

Yes, Greece averted Fiscal Suicide, but it was replaced by National Suicide if these “austerity measures” are implemented.
The only thing that these “austerity measures” will do is that it will make the Greek economy sink deeper and deeper into the hole with MORE DEBT and NO GROWTH and the Greek common people get poorer and poorer.
So according to the IMF and the European Central Bankers, the only way allowed to Greece to pay current debt is to get more additional debe and so on…
This is nothing but kicking the can down the road and postponing the inevitable which is DEFAULT.

Slavery, called by any other name is still slavery.  The Greek people have been put into
chains. Instead they should form an alliance with Iceland, creating an anti common
market common market. Those two countries should then, seek alliance with Portugal,
Ireland, and Spain. Then they should declare the bankers enemies of the state, and
issue warrants, for the arrest of all those that attempted to turn the people into debt
slaves.

A slanted and partisan article , in my opinion at least. Was there no better coverage available?

This paragraph about sums it up, I think:

The measures approved on Wednesday will at least on paper lead to the dismantling of a big part of the economy’s state-run sector. They call for the privatization of 50 billion euros, or about $72 billion, in state assets, including ports, telecommunications concerns, real estate and stakes in the public power corporation.

Considering that the problems with Greece’s economy are due, not to state owned assets , but to the influence of rapine capitalism as we have seen in Iceland and in the USA, it seems more than a bit odd that forcing more such privatizations on Greece would be proffered as solution.

I can see the entire house of cards that is the European Common Market tumbling down, leaving a few dozen very wealthy folks and millions of poor and destitute in its wake, sort of like what is going to happen here as well.

Where is Lenin when we need him?!

Well, Ozark Michael, the people of Iceland threw their government out and refused to pay the debt and as far as I know the sky hasn’t fallen in over Iceland. The whole thing’s being driven by France and Germany: France under the guidance of the neo con Sarkozy and Germany under the guidance of the neo con Angela Merkel. There were massive swings against Merkel’s party in recent German by-elections and Sarkozy is genuinely hated in large sections of the French population, so this is in the nature of a ‘last hurrah’ for both of them. The damage they’re doing, even to the banking system they pretend to be protecting, is substantial and will last a long time.

This is quote a story. I wonder about what would happen if the Greek government didnt agree to these measures(raised taxes, cutting costs, selling off assets)?

I know the kids in the street would be happier but what would have happened?

This smacks and emulates the Republican ideals in the destruction of the working peoples class, ...I suspect the targeting of the power companies in Greece as a target is just like Sociable Security and Medicare is a main targets here in the USA by the Republicans and their benefactors (possibly the same folkers) for the same reasons, to enhance the same privet sector and the pure ideals of capitalism in the name of the capitalist god…profit.

Geeze even the tax brackets seem the same, the wealthy do not pay taxes?

Public ownership is “fiscal suicide”.  Get it?

Do you even understand that 70% of the most affluent people in Greece do not pay ANY TAX AT ALL? A Greek politician admitted to a journalist that this was ‘about accurate’. The ordinary people who cannot avoid paying their taxes are now being expected to bear all the pain of fixing what the rich have done to them. Are they angry? You bet they are. And this government will fall. Take it from me. The simmering rage of ordinary Greeks is not going to go away. The same bastards who did this to Americans, Irish, Icelanders and the British also did it to the Greeks. The whole Greek system is riddled with injustice and corruption and the ordinary Greeks have had enough. From their perspective all the ‘deal’ does is send them back to the poverty they thought they had left behind with cuts in wages of 15% and the goods and services tax rising overnight and adding another 13% to just about everything, including a cup of coffee. Plus 150,000 jobs will go in the public service. What a victory for commonsense it all is! The Greek voters will never forgive this government and even though strictly speaking it was the conservatives that allowed it all to happen none of the political class are innocent since they have all supported the status quo for decades. Once the pain sets in there will be riots and a ‘Greek spring’.

Thanks to Democracy Now today we get a different view of the Greece protesters.  Contrary to the New York Times: “But thousands of Greeks took to the streets in protest, and some clashed violently with police officers, who responded with tear gas.” According to photograpic evidence, group leadership is shown deliberately discouraging and preventing outbreaks among protesters and defusing police aggression.  From the two accounts you wouldn’t know they are reporting the same event.  Looks like non-violent resistance is becoming widely understood among the world’s young people,  and practice will prove a learning experience and hone skills for everybody concerned.
  Protesting is only one step toward reformation, however, and knowledge of succeeding steps is vital if successes in the street are to achieve broader and deeper gains.  But beginnings are definitely being made.