We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, September 25, 2011

How to Kill a Country--and the Euro

Click here to access article from Research Institute for European and American Studies.

The most extreme consequences of neo-liberal policies are now being played out in Europe with several countries deeply in debt to international capitalists. 

The use of debt to exploit people may in the end threaten the very foundations of capitalist rule. In other words, the international class of capitalists have, in their greed, pursued policies that are resulting in the perpetual servitude of major populations to this class; and the consequences of these policies, in turn, threaten their beloved system. This class of exploiters both want their debts paid off and want their system to continue. That is, "they want their cake and eat it, too." As people wake up and realize what is happening, they refuse to be placed into indefinite servitude--humans just did not evolve that way--and it is unlikely that capitalists can have both.
It’s official. The Europeans have lost it completely concerning the sovereign debt crisis and what to do about it. Herr Schäuble, in charge of the EU kommandantur [headquarters], is now hinting that the agreement about a second Greek bailout, reached on July 21st, may not go ahead as planned. Greece is already being put through the hoop by the creditors over the first bailout, agreed in 2010, since the Papandreou regime has disastrously failed in everything it promised to do, while the country is disintegrating thanks to a catastrophic depression caused directly by the Troika-imposed insane austerity that turned, not unexpectedly, into a poisoned chalice which is killing millions of Greek families.