Beleaguered Greece writes down its massive debt 3/3

Beleaguered Greece writes down its massive debt 3/3 (Comment Whitehorse Star July 14, 2015)

Germany's agenda to strangle a trustworthy Greek government to extract pounds of flesh from Greece is not based on economics but on political domination. 

Alongside, the Greek people become collateral damage and their country is to be divided and divvied up into shreds. 

Alexis Tsipras and his colleagues fought with honour but lost this round. The involved EU countries’ people and their representatives have the next word on new ESM (European Stability Mechanism meaning bail out) conditions.

Not all is lost. A Grexit in unity may keep Greece in better shape than a Grexit in chaos or into serfdom. The resigned finance minister Yanis Varoufakis who so far had best anticipated this turn of events is still around as MP.

The core of the final dictate titled “Comments on the latest Greek proposals” was leaked already Saturday night, July 11, leaving as much negotiating space as an incoming cannon ball with a kidnapper’s ransom note tied to it. John Cassidy from the New Yorker traced the anonymous one page slip to the German finance ministry.

It already listed the two core points that appear certain as the shame summit conclusion is not yet published:

1. Expropriation and removal beyond Greek sovereignty of infrastructure assets worth 50 billion Euros. 

2. Politically, economically and inhumanely debilitating privatization so severe it would send disciplinary shockwaves throughout Europe.

The incredible speed of the Sunday night extortion operation is a deja vu of the 2008 trillion dollar handout to American, Canadian and British banks and the 480 billion euro bail out to German banks. 

This speed of another bank bail out crime is to shock people everywhere into obedience, and faster than a thought of fighting back. It is the opposite of any democratically paced process. A violation to be paid for of the EU foundation as a peace union.

It is hyper-aggressive towards the current Greek government, which is not even six months in power and very different to the previous EU Yes Man operations, of Samaras, Pikrammenos, Papademos, Papandreou and Karamanlis ruling during the trouble period since 2008. 

Contrary to Chancellor's Merkel’s and Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel’s claims Alexis Tsipras’ government never broke any trust and never negotiated a bail out.

Then, last Sunday afternoon European time, the Guardian and a few independent journalists obtained another anonymous leak.  A dog eared and hand annotated four page scribble surfaced, this time talking about in detail what the “eurogroup” wants. 

More than a deal it set down in stone a crime, ahead of Sunday Night’s summit outcome. 

The popular and well respected German weekly Der Spiegel online Sunday uses words to describe it like, "Humiliation for Greece" and "The Catalogue of Cruelties". 

On the paper slips drafted in the fashion of an unconditional surrender on the field of battle, one of the bullets on page 2 reads: 

“ • adopt more ambitious product market reforms with a clear timetable for implementation of all OECD toolkit 1 recommendations, …”

The OECD toolkit 1 is a neoliberal handbook with false free trade language that advises  for legislating powers to shift from parliaments to corporations and entrenches protectionism such as patent extensions in favour of Big Pharma. 

Under its point “9. Product Market” the Greek compromise proposal had already surrendered to the OECD toolkit 1 with the exception of retaining market based and vital pharmaceuticals affordability. 

Pharma profiteering is obviously one more German carpet bagger provision that harms the Greek people and economy, and is sure to drive up a poor country’s debt. Austerity is duplicity.

Next bullet on page 2 of the gangster deal:

“ • on energy markets, proceed with the privatisation of the electricity transmission network operator…” 

It is another direct stoppage or gutting out of the development oriented Greek proposal which had followed the very successful German industrial growth model of its 1999 Renewable Energy Source Law, also under point “9. Product Market”: 

”The [Greek] authorities will also continue the implementation of the roadmap to the EU target model, prepare a new framework for the support of renewable energies and for the implementation of energy efficiencies and review energy taxation; the authorities will strengthen the electricity regulator’s financial and operational independence.”

In fact, spearheaded by energy minister Panayotis Lafazanis feed in tariffs, community based wind and solar initiatives and other renewable energy cornerstones are or were on the move. 

Like the policy in Germany, the Tsipras government stays away from green washing carbon pricing systems because they incentivize emission increases.

Ironically, cynically the German proposal is quite intentional in opening Greece to the British government’s as well as oil corporations’ emphasis of corporatizing the climate crisis with carbon tax and trade finance derivatives. 

The now likely crushed renewable energy planning had been an area where last week’s Greek proposal had shown intelligent use of very small wiggle space.

Next bullet on page 2 of the draft attacks human rights U.S. Republican style:

“ • on labour markets, undertake rigorous reviews of collective bargaining.…”

It continues on page 2 with sloppy capitalization, overuse of parentheses and the rough typing and formatting speed of robbery:

“On top of that the Greek authorities shall take the following actions:

• to develop a significantly scaled up privatisation programme with improved governance….

OR

(Moreover, valuable Greek assets of (EUR 50 bn) shall be transferred to an existing external and independent fund like the Institution for Growth in Luxembourg to be privatized over time and decrease debt. …)”

German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble stands to personally benefit as a paid board member of this outfit that in the past was heavily involved with derivative speculators like Lehman Brothers.

The end of the robber document on page 4 reads:

“(In case no agreement could be reached, Greece should be offered swift negotiations on a time-out from the euro area, with possible debt restructuring.)”

John Cassidy titles his New Yorker online piece from July 12:

“Grexit: An Indecent Proposal From Germany”

Gwynne Dyer had explained well the red line of the Greek people for Greek government compromises. This is how economist Mark Weisbrot understands the unfolding events in a July 10 interview with Democracy Now host Juan González: 

“Well, the proposal is similar to what they had rejected previously. And, you know, you have to take into account that this is kind of a hostage situation.” 

Weisbrot about closing the banks: “And that’s very important because a lot of people don’t know that. You know, they think the government closed down the banking system, but it really was the European Central Bank doing something that probably no central bank has ever done before, which is to create a financial crisis in a country that’s under their jurisdiction.”

Weisbrot peers down deeper into the neoliberal rabbit hole:

“You know, this is the ironic thing about it, is that the European authorities have made this mess. The reason they need all this debt relief is because the economy has shrunk by more than 25 percent and greatly reduced their ability to pay. And now, the IMF is already saying—or the IMF has already acknowledged that the debt is unsustainable.”

Weisbrot further indicates the US want generally a more neoliberal Europe with less social dignity but certainly no trouble in Greece. I would add the US has strategic motivations to protect the Southern flank of NATO. 

A brutal humiliation or Grexit transformation could bring on memories of a big mistake in cutting the lifeline to the Cuban people after Castro and Guevara overthrew the U.S. puppet dictator Batista in 1959. 

Cuba’s trade had been part of the Americas. Naturally for Castro the Russian connection had been second choice, but the Cubans needed food and oil imports. Russian pipeline projects through Greece are at least being proposed. 

US concerns are understandable as a remotely potential NATO Grexit down the road would diminish total control of the Bosporus which bottles up Russia’s ice-free, year round shipping and naval operations.

The real dark underside Greek and German press, Dyer, Weisbrot and Cassidy don’t talk about, or don’t know how to talk about, is the role the Social Democratic Party leadership plays in Germany’s governing coalition, or in Brussels, for that matter.

One might think they would have tried to loosen up the square-headed deadlock. To the contrary, Germany’s vice-chancellor, foreign minister and Social Democratic Party leader Sigmar Gabriel is talking tougher than Merkel to oust or colonize Greece.     

This makes no sense, and it doesn’t to a lot of Germans and to a lot of international folks, until we do dig a little deeper. The divisiveness he and his executive colleagues  are living and breathing they have not invented.

Historic structures one is not aware of or in denial of can be very dominating.

The division in the German social democracy of 2015 is the one of 1915, of imperialism against realism, and it is relevant to us now as then.

I think Sahra Wagenknecht and others in the Left Party leadership correctly and refreshingly trace the split of the German social democratic movement to the First World War era. Then, in 1913, August Bebel died; as leader of the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany), he had stood for the iron-clad commitment of the party base and a majority of Germans overall, to general political strike against war.

The Left Party (Die Linke) was originally formed by East Germans, after the wall came down, who basically were disillusioned by West German robber economics during re-unification in which also parts of the SPD played a negative role. The long lasting wounds it cut really are quite reminiscent of Greece’s treatment now.

Since, prominent West German SPD figures also joined; like Oskar Lafontaine, former leader of the SPD and super popular former Minister President (Premier) of the Saarland. Die Linke has been or is successful in provincial coalition governments.

In divisive betrayal, after Bebel's death 1913, the SPD executive had gotten openly behind military escalation and also enforcing party discipline and votes in favour of financing war measures. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were forced to respond during the war by founding the USPD (Unabhängige, meaning independent, SPD).

Before Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered by early Nazi militias in 1919, of all politicians, Liebknecht had by far the strongest popular support throughout all sectors of German society, soldiers, workers, women, farmers.

An eerily identical situation exists today with a rift between SPD and the Left Party. The latter honourably with a strengthening voice supports the democratic Syriza and Podemos movements in Greece and Spain.