Eurocrisis and Bankster Government: Diminishing the Free WorldDuring the 1980s, if Soviet tanks had rolled in to Greece and Italy, the Soviet Union would have been met with kinetic opposition led by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan (with allies such as Britain's Margaret Thatcher).
Reagan believed in "leadership of the free world" – a concept that has gone dormant in the years since 1989, when Chinese tanks rolled in to Tiananmen Square and that action got a nod and a wink from former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.
From 1989 to the present, the free world has seen nothing like the leadership that Ronald Reagan offered. (He pronounced the Soviet Union "an evil empire" and famously said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" – referring to the Soviet leader and the Berlin Wall, which was subsequently torn down in 1989.)
In 2008, upon the bursting of the U.S. subprime mortgage bubble, several things became evident: (a.) a financial crisis; (b.) bankster government; and (c.) absurdist ersatz "economic policies" that I have termed Looternomics.
Banksters took advantage of their privileged position in the establishment; they considered themselves too big to fail, and essential cogs in the system, such that they would be backstopped by government. The government backstop appeared in the form of bank bailouts, and it thereby socialized the losses of banksters. (If the banksters had made a profit, the profit would have been privatized; but upon making losses, the losses became socialized – placed on the backs of taxpayers, through their support of the public sector.)
Banksters revealed abuse of privilege, and governments (which were bought off by – take one guess – the banksters) revealed abuse of power. It's enough to make one think that banks and governments are merely two arms of one evil creature.
Looternomics is a series of policies that allow banksters to punish governments, demand austerity measures, and charge interest on government debt – even if that debt was incurred in order to bail out the banksters! In other words, the public sector saved the necks of the banksters, and now it is being charged a "neck saver fee" – interest on the multi-trillion-dollar bailout.
Through austerity measures, good old stand-bys like public pensions and social safety nets are being crowded out by bankster greed. Looternomics believes in funding the greed first, and public goods only second, if at all.
The situation just described has brought many protesters out to the streets – not only in Greece and Italy, but also in the U.K., the U.S., and in many other places where they have held sympathy protests in support of (e.g.) Occupy Wall Street.
In the news of early November, 2011, the Prime Ministers of Greece and Italy have resigned and been replaced with technocrats who are "correctly" in line with Looternomics; bankster government; and, allowing the IMF (the International Monetary Fund) to call the shots.
At this time, Greece and Italy have new leaders: unelected leaders. We used to think of Greece and Italy as being a part of the free world. It is no longer accurate to think so. A brand new iron curtain has begun to descend across Europe. The subjugated peoples of Greece and Italy were given no choice about whether to accept Looternomics and its austerity measures. And, they were given no choice about who would be the new Prime Ministers.
What Ronald Reagan would not accept from the Soviet Union – subjugation of free world allies – the present day U.S. President will accept, if the subjugation is coming from the banksters and the IMF.
We must begin to think of Greece and Italy as we used to think of East Germany: occupied by a marauding, evil, sociopathic force. We must deplore the situation, respond as best we can, and look forward to the day when Greece and Italy will be liberated and will again rejoin the free world.
[This is my latest column, out today at NolanChart.com. Hence, it's an overview for people "beyond the choir." Reposted for COTO.]
