Rage, Rage Against The Dying Of The LIght!

The die is cast, the cast are seen, the scene is set, so set a course!  It is to be hoped that this is not to be another Geek tragedy. Instead, "Let there be light!" and "Let light shine out of (this) darkness!"

As we are all now aware, Greece has just had a momentous election. The anti-austerity party, Syriza, has almost achieved an outright victory. The 'almost' may yet have its part to play. Let us hope not!
It's the labels, 'coalition' and 'right-wing populist,' that trouble me.

Yanis Varoufakis- tipped for Greece's next Minister of Finance- lit up the airwaves on Monday, with a short and buoyant, if slightly BBC-hostile, interview upon BBC Radio 4's 'Today Programme.' Although Yanis avoided talk of 'sides,' despite more than a little goading from Sarah Montague, it's vital that we observers keep abreast of where it is that the most positive sounds are coming from. That is to say that the major players are already aligned- bought and owned! But, much like the uncertain foot-soldiers in a flagging Medieval army, the waverers may yet chance their arms. We can but hope!


Perfect! Digital Collections, UIC...

What the Greek population has done is to reignite a flame of hope, a flame that appeared to have all but died. We must hope that there are others in Europe who might fan those flickering embers, so that they might soon engulf and devour the erected cities of the False Dawn. To clarify, that would be a dawn whereby the One Percenters bespeckle the beach, whilst the rest of us pretty much keep out of the damn way, whilst entirely footing the cocktail bill, the security bill, the hotel bill and pretty much any other bill that might happen to arise. And we'll be paying VAT, at 20%, to boot.

Yanis talked eloquently about the Euro-Zone recession, in a language that has long since been shelved in countries like the UK. He pointed out that it's not only Greece, but also the whole of the Euro-Zone that's paying back far too much, that Greece currently has 300,000 residents without access to electricity, that only 10% of the immense 240,000,000,000 Euros loan has actually reached the Greek economy, that the whole of Europe operates under a hideously low minimum-wage misconception, that welfare benefits- deemed disposable by the Euro-Zone bigwigs- are essential to life, dignity and any pretence at being a civilised society, amongst communities that are severely suffering through absolutely no fault of their own.


Andrew McCoubrey

Yanis could have chosen to contemplate the non-linear aspect of current Euro-politics. He might have alluded to a political misrepresentation that appears now to routinely accept the rule of millionaires over the minions. He might have questioned the tributes recently paid to the recently deceased despotic King Abdulla, by current World Leaders. Hell, he could have drawn attention to the blindingly obvious wealth of those actively seeking to tread the current pathways of austerity, in the light of recently highlighted research tying half of the globe's wealth and resources to a 'faceless' one percent.

What he did do was to point out, to those prepared to observe, that Europe's debt is not peculiar to nations, nor is it a debt owed by nations to nations. He talked of the 'creditors' in such a way as to imply, to those with ears to hear and accept, that the non-specific 'creditors' and the non-specific 'One Percenters,' might well transpire to be entirely one and the same. That's anyway what I chose to hear.

To oversimplify the truly immense Euro-Zone loan to Greece, of 240,000,000,000 Euros:
A staggering 216,000,000,000 Euros went directly to the 'creditors.'
Leaving 24,000,000,000 Euros for 'the nation.'
Continuing to oversimplify, because this is the only way to avoid the monetarists' numerical slight of hand that will otherwise blind one to the 'facts:'
This presents Greek One Percenters with a mouth-watering 1,911,504 Euros each! Which they probably will get and will be able to swiftly and considerably compound, care of the pseudo-recession.
Leaving the rest of the population with 2,145 Euros 'each.' Which almost all of them will never see, because the Euro-zone has decreed that it's 'their' debt commitment.

Currently Syriza is the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel. Should significant voices in Spain, Portugal and Italy choose to embrace the light we might all once again dare to hope. British, German, French and other Governments in Europe will be doing all that they can to quickly snuff the light.

Rage, rage against the snuffing of this light!