By Richard Cottrell: Historians are likely to recall these interesting times as the tipping point of the fifty-year experiment to bring about a United Europe without firing a shot.
As is often the case with climatic disturbances, it is once again the affairs of a rather small country which bring greater powers into conflict.
In 1914, the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia put a match to the powder keg of World War I. In 1939, Hitler’s lunge at Poland incited the even bigger replay.
Now it appears that Greece has acquired the means to topple the walls of Jericho, meaning the entire fabric of the new world order. Or at any rate, that is what we are led to believe by all the great organs of globalism. Of course these wild claims are nothing but pure sky-is-falling exaggerated nonsense but I repeat them for good reason.
This is to expose the hysteria presently raging around the future of the European monetary system, and specifically of course, the euro, for what it really is. Namely, a state of contrived panic that has very little, if anything at all, to do with the affairs of a minor Balkan state on the fringes of Europe.
There is currently a great deal of very typical Athenian drama surrounding the sudden emergence of a smiling young political rock star Alexis Tsipras, strolling about in the warm sunshine, tieless and relaxed in plain dark suit and smart white shirt, already elevated to the exalted status of the ‘Gorbachev of Greece.’
And while it is true that there are some intriguing parallels with Mikhail Gorbachev’s parading of house-cleaning perestroika and glasnost and the situation in Greece right now, the analogy is not exactly water-tight.
Gorbachev was at heart – and indeed has always remained – a system politician. Alexis Tsipras, the telegenic leader of the leftish Syriza coalition, on the other hand, is anything but a machine man; he rather more resembles David taking aim with his sling at Goliath.
Gorbachev greatly unsettled the political castes in the Western Europe of his times because he inspired an audience of young Europeans everywhere with all his exciting talk of openness, transparency and most of all his pacifist-leaning condemnation of ossified Cold War barricades and boundaries.
The traditional political grey men, stuffy, dreary and pompous, stuck in the blind alley of NATO militarization and the Cold War, feared the infection would likely spread and thus upset the cozy accommodations of many years standing.
These included the absolute necessity for a large and well armed adversary to sustain grotesque perpetual war expenditure and the promotion of rapidly expanding European institutions intended to form the great reservoir of future European democracy.
So the parallels with glasnost and perestroika are in some respects quite apt, even if performed on the far smaller stage of Greece.
Tsipras is certainly regarded by many Greeks as a giant killer, boldly challenging the global colossus. But there the parallel with David in similar circumstances expires.
It is really the Greek people themselves who are standing up to a force they regard as tyrannical.
Syriza is the vehicle for what is quite close to – and may become, if permitted – a popular electoral rebellion. But here we need to make one very important qualification.
The Greek David is not aiming at the edifice of the European Union as such. Gorbachev, we remember, wanted to humanize the Soviet Union, not to tear it down.
Thus Tsipras and his friends want to humanize the European presence in Greece – and also domestic politics – by rejecting the hated austerity package. They do not intend to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
As a government, Syriza claims it would not seek to take Greece out of the EU and nor would it exit the euro and return to the former drachma. On both counts, Syriza stands for the status quo.
If you dip into those twin Pravdas of globalism, The Economist and Time, you would gain a quite contrary impression.
If you listen to the great Brezhnevs of the EU – the Kaiserene Angela Merkel, the pompous and seriously under-informed José Manuel Barroso, Portuguese head of the EU civil service, and particularly Jean-Claude Junker of the pocket handkerchief state of Luxembourg – then Syriza are hell bent on getting out of Europe altogether.
Of course distorting an opponent’s platform is a trusty trick of the hustings. Thus, Tsipras and his people are accused of beliefs they do not hold. That is why Barosso recently scrapped the election, so to speak, and turned it instead into a referendum on Greece staying in the EU.
I regard this as an initial soft assassination of the Boy Hero Tsipras. It may scare a few voters, it is true. But Greeks are not committing suicide in previously unknown numbers because they are afraid that Greece will quit the EU.
These tragic events occur because people are losing their jobs, their businesses, their self respect and the ability to support themselves and their families.
Which brings me to the real driving force behind Syriza: the austerity issue really being the symptom of a much deeper cancer which is eating away at the body politic of Greece.
More than anything else, Syriza is a popular phenomena aimed at the villainous self-serving crew plundering the nation over so many years.
Imitating the Mafia, three royal families exploited the state as a political closed shop and private fiefdom for their own interests. The Venizelos, Karamanlis and Papandreou clans operate vehicles which are in the specific sense purely nominal in their respective positions in the political spectrum.
Greek elections have traditionally functioned as no more than a means of legitimizing the transfer of power from one sticky-handed faction to another, allowing for the interlude of the NATO/US backed military junta between 1967 and 1974.
Syriza’s greatest achievement is to break into this enchanted circle of corruption and bribery. This is why Greeks are applauding in vast numbers. It is also why the Titans are shaking in their shoes.
If Gorba the Greek really does become premier at the forthcoming election (assuming, as I have questioned, that it actually takes place) then he undoubtedly will act as a beacon to other countries which are in a similar plight to the austerity-hammered Greeks.
Hence the same contagion fright inspired by Gorbachev.
Two weeks ago Italian voters tossed establishment parties to the sidelines in the local government elections. Non-party grass-rooters and satirist Beppe Grillo’s 5 Star Movement shot to the fore.
Never forget that Alexis Tsipras already has one impressive scalp hanging on his belt: that of the quisling ex-techno-dictator Lukas Papademos, ejected from his non-elected office by the popular upsurge swelling around Syriza.
Italian techno-premier Monte Monti certainly realizes that his head will be next, once the scheduled general election comes around next year.
That sucking sound of the tide strongly indicates that austerity is indeed in retreat.
I am indebted to Michael Shedlock’s Global Economy Analysis, which has just published some very revealing figures produced by Barclays Bank concerning the horrific hole in Europe’s finances because of money lent to the Greeks.
Of course the outgoing French Finance Minister, François Baroin, was beating the panic drum by releasing figures claiming that a Greek exit from the euro area “would cost France €50bn net, in addition to the securities held by banks and insurers in their portfolios.”
Similarly an unceremonious Greek departure would cost Germany approximately €80bn.
No doubt these figures are probably correct. Note carefully, however, that these statements take it as an absolute certainty that a Syriza poll victory would automatically result in Greece leaving the eurozone.
This is part and parcel of the blame game business to paint Syriza as an irresponsible force whose actions would be sure to wreck the eurozone.
The truth, as we see from the perfect storm figures quoted above, is that the eurozone is quite capably wrecking itself.
In short, the snake is eating its own tail.
And always remember it was those same governing cliques who now go about displaying their spotlessly clean hands who ran up all the monstrous debts in the first place.
The Greek people not only realize this but have already enacted one bitter round of revenge. There is no reason not to expect another.
The Greek crisis – coupled with those in Italy and Spain – demonstrates the essential in-built weakness of the euro project.
Namely, it is a federation and not a fiscal union. It was always absurd in any event to expect that convergence would allow the Greeks, the Italians and the Spanish to party on forever like Germans.
It was equally absurd to reckon that the mere circulation of the single currency would of itself lead to a common economic performance across the zone, like some magical healing and equalizing process.
If this has not happened in the United States with the dollar as the single currency, there are scant hopes for Europe.
This underlying fear was of course the reason for the much-touted Merkel-Sarkozy-Monti so-called fiscal treaty. Should this bastard creature ever see the light of day, the net effect would be to legitimatize even larger bail-outs of back-sliding states and thus provide the last handful of nails for the euro coffin.
The unspoken truth is that the European Union is afflicted with the consequences of reach-too-far syndrome.
A monetary system built on the foundations of fool’s gold is not going to last. This is really the message coming from Greece, from Spain, from Ireland and Italy, and inevitably a lengthening queue of prospective defaulters.
No such admission can be made, of course, which leads me back to my original conclusion aired in these columns that all means will be sought to stop the Syriza bandwagon in its tracks.
We are largely in the soft stages of that process at the moment, although the car belonging to the head of the bail-out team in Athens was recently torched by unidentified ‘right wing extremists.’ Such tactics are designed to frighten support away from the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn front and back into the fold of ‘legitimate conservatives.’
There you have it, pure ‘strategy of tension’, straight from the Gladio playbook.
Editor’s note: If you are unfamiliar with the aforementioned strategy of tension or Gladio in general, there is no better resource than Richard’s book linked below. I can personally attest to its comprehensiveness on this subject.
The establishment kleptocrats have never previously encountered a figure such as Alexis Tsipras. He defies standard Greek stereotypes by appealing across all class and age boundaries. One is reminded of figures in the JFK or Olof Palme mould.
He is dangerously charismatic, cordial, witty and ineffably cool – in more ways than one – so his opponents will not be able to count on reckless language and still less, threats.
In contrast the more his opponents bluster and bawl – typified by the behavior of the Pasok boss Evangelos Venizelos, a giant bull frog of a man who has clearly enjoyed rather too many good dinners – the more it makes Tsipras looks calm, collected, and electable.
Whether he will be allowed to keep his date with destiny now depends entirely on the actions of the formidable coalition raised against him.
So then, will it be the triumph of Greek Glasnost? Or the funeral pyre of Greek democracy?
Somehow the words ‘state of emergency’ persistently jump to mind.
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