The Troika's intransigence has led to Tsipras calling a referendum, to be held next Sunday, on the proposals. In reality a No will mean an exit from the Euro and from the EU. It is the right thing to do. The government has spent too long negotiating with the enemy, smiling in public while being humiliated behind closed doors. Now Greek working people have a choice: carry on with the anti austerity policies on which the government was elected, or capitulate to the bullying neoliberals who want to force poverty and misery on European workers as a whole.We ordinary working people under the heel of the Empire are all suffering from austerity policies, but people in Greece, Spain, and Portugal are feeling it the worst. To understand this, we must understand the natural trajectory of capitalism.
The rich elites that direct this capitalist Empire have gradually over the past several centuries consolidated their control over a large part of the global economy. Along with this consolidation has come the extreme concentration of wealth and power by a tiny powerful minority which is precisely the natural outcome of the system of capitalism. This is because capitalism is not really a social system, but a class serving system in the sense that the system is not designed to serve society, but only one part of society--those who "own" and control the economy.
What we are now observing in various parts of the world--especially in countries like Greece--to keep such a dysfunctional system going, they must lend their wealth either to us directly or indirectly by loaning it to our governments (which we in the end will have to pay back because the rich don't pay taxes) in order to keep the economy functioning. Hence, the current need for them to radically cut back all social safety nets. Such safety nets together with never-ending wars have kept the capitalist social systems fairly stable since the Great Depression, but now it appears that our masters have decided to count on military expenditures and imperial adventures to keep their boom and bust economy going.
People all over the Western world have been experiencing the effects of the 2007/2008 economic collapse: losing their homes, unemployment, massive debt among students and others, and widespread cutbacks in social safety nets. In addition to these direct impacts on many of our lives, the US government has been incurring debts at an accelerated pace. The last time I checked, government debt was at $18 trillion. What we are seeing in Greece may be the beginning stage of the unraveling of the US capitalist Empire.
Most terrifying of all the responses of the Empire directors to the instability of their system is now appearing as hyper-aggressive military actions: the use of military force or its threat in Europe and increasingly in the South China Sea, all backed by a huge propaganda effort which closely resembles its infamous predecessor--Nazi Germany. This, of course, risks a nuclear war with Russia and China. So, if climate destabilization doesn't rid the planet of humans, surely a nuclear conflagration will. The only solution to maintain our survival is revolution, and then to construct a peaceful, egalitarian, and sustainable social system.
