You've heard the Greek people are rioting. You've heard they're pissed off over the economic austerity measures Germany, the European Union (EU), and the IMF are forcing on the people of Greece. But do you know why they took to the streets over all this?
In a nutshell Greece, Portugal, and Ireland, are the economic 'weaklings' of the EU. They don't manufacture much, especially Greece, and they have all amassed huge debt over the years while the rest of Europe was making and exporting the hell out of stuff. Greece, Ireland, and Portugal then relied mainly on tourism and their government spent a lot of their budgets on social welfare programs and on paying government employees.
When you hear the words 'economic austerity measures' and 'the IMF' in the same sentence what that means is a country is about to get screwed. Well actually, the poor, the working poor, and, anyone who isn't outrageously wealthy is about to be screwed. What the IMF means by economic austerity is that government employees get their pay slashed, the budgets of any social welfare programs get drastically cut or cut out all together, utilities get privatized and sold off, and public pension accounts get raided to pay the debt. It means that the people who did nothing to get their country in sad economic shape must pay off the debt amassed by idiot politicians and their corporate cronies. It also means that food, utility, fuel, and housing prices skyrocket and that workers lose their retirement that they've paid into all their lives and they lose any job security they have.
If I was about to be screwed like that I'd take to the streets and burn down banks too.
This 'economic austerity measures' tactic has been used by the IMF for years now. They screwed all of the countries of South America with it, the fucked over most all of the countries in Africa with it, and they used it to bone the people of Asia too. It's nothing more than the take over of a country's economy by corporate interests. And what makes the Greek case so appalling is it's being led by Germany, a country that was allowed to use the socialist economic model to grow and to prosper after the the second world war but which won't allow Greece to do the same now, alongside the IMF. The IMF, the EU, and Angela Merkel's conservative government in Germany want to force Greece to through the kind of economic hell that Chile, Argentina, and Brazil had to endure in the 1970's and early '80's.
What they will find out sooner rather than later is that the only way for Greece to get out of it's economic mess is for it's government to take over it's economy like Chile did and like FDR did here in the USA during the Depression. Government intervention coupled with a progressive tax that is paid by both individuals and by businesses, especially by multi national corporations, is the only fair way for Greece to get out of it's economic morass. When companies like Microsoft, IBM, Pepsi, Coke, Ford, and all other multi nationals are forced to pony up their fair share of taxes then the burden of balancing the books will come off the working classes. But I'm not going to ever hold my breath while I wait for that to happen. Especially not when the corporate thugs and the IMF bullies run things.
I'm 100% behind the Greeks who are protesting and rioting. I'm all for them storming Wal Marts, or what ever the multi national equivalent in Greece is, and taking food, clothes, and other necessities. If Wal Mart, Microsoft, and Coke are going to dominate the market and not pay their fair share of taxes, then it's perfectly fine for the Greek working class to appropriate whatever they can while they can. After all, they're about to be fucked royally, so why not fuck the corporations back?
