The Chris Moeller Archives

Greece gets the 'shock' treatment

Once you're familiar with Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine," you can see it in crystal clear operation across the globe. We discussed this concept back on April 23rd, and less than two weeks later, we have a new country, Greece, making headlines in connection with this exercise-- a nation being placed over the economic barrel by the international corporatists, and the people being forced to fight back-- this time with stones.

The Friedmanist thugs on Wall Street and at the International Monetary Fund, as has been their practice in now-almost-countless other locales (Argentina, Russia, Poland, South Africa, Japan, et al), threatened to withhold rescue loans from Greece unless lawmakers there agreed to radically cut social democratic programs-- pensions, services, and civil servants' pay, and the Parliament voted to do that Thursday touching off riots with more than 30,000 people in the streets of Athens and the killing of three people.

The very role of the IMF-- in theory-- is to provide stabilizing funds to prevent economic catastrophes, to act as a lifeline to nations in need. It has a mandate to keep countries afloat, peoples fed, clothed, and sheltered, and the rest of us safe from elements such as economic-based and religious-based terrorism. Now that aid is an offer. A Greece in a weakened state means that it can be opened up for greater (foreign) privatization and a rapid profit for a select few. If all goes according to plan, perhaps we can even get them to sell off some of their national assets. Real estate with a Parthenon, anyone?

Western Europe is the final frontier on the planet for the system of unrestrained capitalism (with due respect to Venezuela and Cuba). According to neoliberalism theory, President Truman fucked up royally during the aftermath of World War II by implementing the Marshall Plan, rescuing the left half of the European continent, allowing social programs to take root and nations to be rebuilt. Forget that these social programs created the highest standard of healthy living on Earth, the countries were also fortressed against corporatist exploitation, and that was a major missed opportunity for investors. Never again.

Greece can be the latest foothold. The plan: Let the country fall deeper and deeper into debt and inflation, then they're ripe for radical shock therapy-- an IMF rescue tied to massive concessions in the social safety net for the growing numbers of poor and disenfranchised. Now the multinational capitalist rapists sweep in and widen the gap further between the haves and have-nots as they have in other hot spots of supposed "democratic expansion" like Russia and South Africa, where the percentage of people living in poverty is now even larger than it was 20 years ago under (alternately) systems of authoritarian Communism and apartheid.

As is their role under the Shock Doctrine, traders on Wall Street went into a panic this afternoon as they watched protesters in Greece turn violent. A massive selloff, or just the threat of such, creates the panic necessary to force the concessions Wall Street requires to strengthen its grip, holding the Greek government hostage to the knee-jerk reactions of ratings agencies like Moody's and the S&P, and in this case, also reminding other vulnerable European states like Portugal and Spain that they'll have to play ball to get their loans if and when the time comes.

Let the big boys pay back the money. They're the ones that plundered it-- not the people of Greece. The Greeks have been victims of corruption by government officials and the same Goldman Sachs assholes we have to deal with, the financial group that helped Greek officials hide the country's debt. Now the people are set up to lose their state-run services and their living wages as agencies and assets get chopped up and sold to the highest foreign bidders. A nation's banks are looted, the people are told they're the ones responsible, and the kleptocracy gets legal and political cover. We're next.

posted by CM @ 4:56 PM