Two years ago, when the world’s ails were all being placed squarely on the shoulders of the lazy, deadbeat Greeks, we wrote that the plight of the common Greek was not dissimilar to the plight of the average person anywhere else in the world. We drew many parallels to other Western countries, in particular my beloved Canada. While some commenters were appalled that I dared to compare Canada to Greece, even in the best of the G7 nations the similarities are becoming discernable. With all that has changed in the world, I encourage the reader to go back to the post and see if it has a stronger resonance for you than it may have had last year.
It definitely does for me. Although the media continues to attempt to trumpet the ‘Blame Greece’ theme, it no longer rings as true for many people. For those Greeks that I encounter here in Canada who have adopted a timid and apologetic tone, I invite you to read the wonderful article published here:Link. In it, the author details the money flow and that those being both blamed and charged for the indiscretions of a profligate society, are not the culprits. Every Greek should read that article to be able to educate all those who continue to remain blind and who parrot the negative bull.
Hold your head high, as it is the Greeks that have been leading the charge, and whose Olympian torch is now sparking the ‘Occupy’ movement. In a previous post, we listed the benefactors of the Greek National debt and proffered the list of those who were being asked to pay for it, in order. The injustice of who made the money and who was left to pay was as obvious then as it is now, yet we still encounter the mass ignorance of the Tea Party, their followers, and those who rely on headlines and media sound bites to understand the world we live in.
It was just over two years ago that the fear started raging about Greece’s economy. A country whose GDP was just 2% of Europe’s was going to singlehandedly take down the E.U., and with it the world, if draconian austerity measures were not immediately adopted. All Prime Minister Papandreou could offer was, “If we do not adopt these changes it will be catastrophic”. They were forcibly adopted and the results have been catastrophic. Greece’s GDP grew in 2008, all be it modestly, at a rate of 2%. Since the magical cure-all of austerity was rammed down the throats of the Greek commoner, the Greek economy has shrunk at an increasingly alarming rate (2009/-3% 2010/-4%) and unemployment has reached the absurd (2011/14.85% 2011 est.).
Remember that austerity was preached as the solution to Greece’s economic ills, and that the financial spin doctors had forecasted that growth would inevitably follow austerity. Combined with lowered spending and the sale of state assets, this strict fiscal diet was the cure-all that would bring Greece back from the brink and save the modern world. It’s also not a coincidence that it was these same financial wizards who cooked the books to allow Greece entry into the Euro in the first place, and who stood to lose the most from the logical path of a structured default. Austerity was never going to work, as we had already learned from Argentina’s case and so many others. Austerity was always going to lead to further ruin, but the banks would be able to collect their due for a little while longer.
Just over a month ago, a small group of the disenfranchised – aka the ‘99%’- began a peaceful protest that was quickly dubbed “Occupy Wall Street”. While it is primarily a U.S. movement, its roots can be traced back to the fight that the Greek people have been waging for over two years, the same anger and frustration at an unjust global system that inspired the Arab Spring. The Greek protests were dismissed by the media and European elites as anger from a lazy people being deprived of their cushy welfare state – never mind that the indolent Greeks work more hours per year than the Germans. In the Arab world, the protests were spun as a simple plea for Western-supported democracy. Neither explanation was correct – the roots of the protests were about something much larger, and deeper.
When you ask people what Occupy Wall Street is all about, you get few concrete answers in return. Who are their leaders and what are their demands? It seems to be about nothing, the media complains, perplexed at how to explain the movement. Is it about political corruption and lobbying? Is it about greedy bankers and their golden parachutes? Is it about unemployment, and the growing inequality and income disparity in America? Is it about the iron grips of Big Oil and Big Pharma? It is about the loss of civil liberties and the multi-billion dollar surveillance state?
There are no easy answers. The movement has no one single leader and no single demand. But it would be a dangerous mistake to dismiss the protests as ‘about nothing’, especially as they have found a deep resonance, and spread like wildfire throughout the globe. If it was truly about nothing, would more and more people be joining daily, pitching tents, sending money, and, at least in New York, even ordering pizzas for the campers? The answer is simple yet wholly intangible; it is the global collective consciousness finally being awakened from slumber, throwing off the torpor induced by fear and lies and the distractions of the media. And as it awakens, it begins to see the world with crystal clarity, like a child who simply knows right from wrong.
In 2008, the whole world nearly collapsed and the prescribed tonic was just more of the same with a sprinkling of tax on the poor (directly or through increased deficits). Good people lost their jobs, the world’s youth has been robbed of its hope and all the while the rich just seem to get richer and continue to be rewarded for the carnage they have created. The movement is like a child that does not know what is wrong; it just knows that something is very wrong. It will cry until it gets what it wants, though it does not necessarily know what that is. Now picture a child that is 300 feet tall and weighs 500 tons…what happens when that child doesn’t get what it wants? Anger is usually not far behind the crying, so someone better figure out what the pacifier is, fast. It is everywhere and in front of us and it surely isn’t the same old thing.
And so, just as the Greeks, as the pioneers of this movement, have been screaming enough for over two years, the world is now saying it as well. ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH!
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