Neoliberal Authoritarian Greece: A Nation for Sale & Death of Democracy

According to Henry A. Giroux (2005/6), 'neoliberal authoritarianism' is the process by which upper capitalist class interests reinvent the past, present, & future in the image of a crude exercise of power that unleashes unimaginable human suffering, in order to maximize wealth and influence in social, political & economic affairs at whatever social costs. From Truthout:

When the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) came to Greece's rescue in May 2010 with a 110 billion euro bailout loan in order to avoid the default of a euro-zone member state (a second bailout loan worth 130 billion euros was activated in March 2012), the intentions of the rescue plan were mult-ifold. First, the EU-IMF duo (with the IMF in the role of junior partner) wanted to protect the interests of the foreign banks and the financial institutions that had loaned Greece billions of euros. Greece's gross foreign debt amounted to over 410 billion euros by the end of 2009, so a default would have led to substantial losses for foreign banks and bondholders, but also to the collapse of the Greek banking system itself as the European Central Bank (ECB) would be obliged in such an event to refuse to fund Greek banks.

Read rest here.

Giroux, Henry A. 2005. “The Terror of Neoliberalism: Rethinking the Significance of Cultural Politics.” College Literature 32(1):1-19.

Giroux, Henry A., and Susan Searls Giroux. 2006. “Challenging Neoliberalism’s New World Order: The Promise of Critical Pedagogy.” Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 6(1):21–32.

Resource Curse - Natural Gas is What Detonated the Ukraine Crisis

Very few, if none at all, in the West are willing to address what really triggered the latest geopolitical ‘crisis’ in the Ukraine.

From Global Research Canada

Defending Moscow’s December 18, 2013 agreement to provide Ukraine with an aid package estimated at about $15 billion, and cheaper natural gas through discounts and “gas debt forgiveness” estimated as able to save Ukraine $7 bn in one year, Vladimir Putin said the decision to invest $15 bn in ‘brotherly slavic’ Ukraine, and grant the gas discount was “pragmatic and based on economic facts”. At the time, the “investment” in Ukraine was already conditional – not only on the political issue of Ukrainian loyalty to Moscow – but on Ukraine complying with previous longstanding, often revoked, modified or extended commitments to repay gas debts dating from as far back as the early 1990s.  In December, Russia’s Finance minister Anton Siluanov said payment of the “aid or investment” funds to Ukraine, in tranches of about $2 bn each, would need Ukraine making a serious response to end-2013 estimates, by Russia, of the minimum “monetized gas debt” Ukraine has to pay. Siluanov’s ministry said this was about $2.7 bn, itself a large downward revision on other published figures from Russian sources, extending well above $5 bn. His ministry also published statements suggesting that Ukraine’s non-payment of gas taken and consumed by the country, since 2010, ran at a yearly average as high as $2 – $2.25 bn. To be sure, events starting in February as the “Maidan movement” drew massive public support in the capital and western Ukraine to overthrowing the government-in-place. This was a repeat of Egypt’s anti-Morsi flash mob street revolution, followed by the Saudi-financed military coup against elected president Morsi. In Ukraine, however, the street magic stopped in the east, and especially in Crimea where 75%-85% of votes cast in the 2010 election were for Viktor Yanukovych. To be sure, this blood-colored version of the Orange Revolution aimed at aligning Ukraine with the European Union may have scarpered further bail out payments by Moscow. Any upping of the ante, as enacted and supplied by NATO and John Kerry, could lead to Russia also making a total shutdown of gas supply to Ukraine – Kiev’s Independence Square flash mob could hope that Global Warming will shorten the winter, ease heating needs, and give Ukraine a head start for becoming a debt wracked European Union associated country – but this is far from a sure thing. The national gas debt will surely feature in the round of proposals for “Ukraine bailout” being developed by the IMF, European Commission, EU member states on a bilateral basis, the US and potentially other actors, including the ECB and the UN ECE (the UN’s European economic agency), as well as private banks and energy companies. One thing is sure and certain, much higher gas prices for Ukraine are inevitable, under any scenario.

Read rest here.