 |
Troika Plan For
Greece - |
By
Stephen Lendman |
| Banker-controlled Troika officials intend using Greece
as a model for what's intended across Europe - devastating neoliberal
harshness creating a continental dystopian wasteland for ordinary people. Greece is being systematically raped and pillaged. It's economy contracted over 25% since crisis conditions erupted in 2008. More than a million jobs were lost. Overall unemployment exceeds 25% - for youths it's 60%. College educated and other young people have no futures in Greece. Its best and brightest are leaving en masse. Workers lucky to have jobs receive lower or frozen pay along with few or no benefits. Vitally needed social services are disappearing altogether. Pensions for many retirees are slashed by up to half since 2008. Troika bandits want stiffer cuts. They want Greeks starved to death so super-rich bankers can be wealthier than ever. Homelessness affects growing thousands. HIV Aids infections rose sharply. So have infant mortality, stillbirths and suicides. Malaria returned to Greece for the first time in 40 years, while spending for public healthcare was sharply reduced - cut in half for prescription drugs. Troika bandits turned Greece in a black hole of inequity. Around half the population has minimal or no access to healthcare. Last year, Oxford University Professor David Stuckler said "(t)he cost of austerity…being borne by ordinary Greek citizens (reflect) the largest cutbacks to the health sector seen across Europe in modern times" - a shocking indictment of a failed system. Thousands of teacher layoffs eroded public education en route to perhaps eliminating it altogether. Cambridge University Professor Alexander Kentikelenis said Athens "failed to protect (its citizens) at a time they needed support the most. What's happening to vulnerable (people) is quite shocking." Troika bandits pushed Greece to the edge of bankruptcy. Current crisis conditions are worse than five years ago. The nation is a deepening sinkhole of force-fed inequity - a testimony to neoliberal harshness viciousness. European authorities are telling Greeks do what we say or we'll make things worse than ever - the price for remaining trapped in the euro straightjacket, undermining the nation's sovereign rights. SYRIZA agreed to most of their demands - breaching its pledge to end austerity. It's not enough. Monied interests want more - endless cuts transforming Greece into a third world country. They want regime change. They want hardline rule reinstituted to loot the nation entirely. Weeks after SYRIZA's election, the ECB cut off Greek banks from their main credit line. It limited their amount of government lending. They may eliminate credit to Greece entirely - forcing a greater financial crisis than already to get ordinary people to demand snap elections for new governance. They want them to vote yes on Sunday's referendum - accepting harsh Troika bailout terms at the expense of their own welfare already hugely compromised. SYRIZA avoids choosing the only viable way back from the brink - leaving the Eurozone and its destructive straightjacket mandates, regaining sovereign independence rights, and beginning the long, painful road back to financial solvency and economic growth lifting all boats, not monied interests ones alone. SYRIZA shows intention of doing the right thing. Ordinary Greeks are on their own to institute revolutionary change. They won't get it from the nation's current political class. Nor will people across Europe, in America or in other nations force-feeding neoliberal harshness at the expense of beneficial social change. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. |
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