Noam Chomski:  “Troika wants to destroy you” 

He has been characterized as “Einstein of linguistics”, ‘Darwin of our times”, and “top intellectual of the world”. He is one of the most important activists for the human rights. His fundamental work Chomsky Hierarchy written in 1956 has established him as one of the most important linguists of all times. Having all those in your mind, when finally get to meet with the 83 year old Noam Chomsky turns out to be even more imposing and impressive than his fame.

Noam goes every day at his office in Philosophy and Linguistic department in MIT. That is where we went at 3:00 pm, fifteen minutes earlier than our appointment. Bev Stohl, his assistance, opened the door of the entrance hall of his office. She arranges everything about him in detail.  “In five minutes you‘ll enter his office, get prepared and the professor will be with you on time”

The office is full of books. At the massive bookcase, everything is placed in shelves; underneath there is a tag with the category in which they fall.  A category, although it has a tag, it is completely empty of books: “Intelligence”.  In a central place there is a huge picture of Bertrand Russell and underneath written the phrase with which his autobiography begins and apparently represents Chomsky himself: “Three passions, simple but overwhelming, enforce my life: the desire for love, the seek of knowledge, and the unbearable sorrow for the sufferings of mankind”. We sat in a table in the center of his office, Chomsky sat right next to us.  Thankfully because, besides it is fascinating to have him by your side, it is well known that he speaks very softly. Among other things, he is infamous for his tremendous memory; he remembers just everything, which is something that he doesn’t deny. ‘Yes, I remember many things, but sometimes that’s a little bit torturous because others usually don’t.” He can very easily move from one subject to another like he pulls within his mind drawers with knowledge and information. He was listening every question bended, looking down and when we were finishing he was rising up his look and was delivering his answer retaining a direct eye contact till the end.

Nevertheless, Chomsky asked the first question: Really, what’s the matter in Greece? Things are getting really tough”

We are about to destroy global economy. That’s what we are told. Greece is less than one thousandth of the global economy. Is it going to destroy the whole planet? Isn’t it hilarious?

I believe it is happening exactly the opposite. European Union, European Central Bank, and IMF are dealing with destroying Greece and there is a plan for this. Certainly, to be honest, Greece itself has many domestic problems. However, what troika offers makes those problems worse and impossible to solve. They plan and offer policies which do not lead to financial development and problem solution; that’s why for as long as those measures will be moving on, they will bring less hope and more desperation to people. 

What the so called “financial market” will gain from the catastrophe of Greece?  

You know, what it is named “markets” is not something indefinable. It is the big banks in world level.  German, French, and indirectly American banks. So, Banking community wants to be compensated. And they will do it at any cost.

Do you think they will make it at the end?

They have been being paid for many years already. They have been always taking what they want, still are doing it. But the final result may be the disaster of Greece. Situation is not parallel, but there are two country examples, Argentina and Iceland which did not obey and now are getting well.  However those two countries had their own currencies, could say we don’t accept the rules of the world financial system, had the potential to move differently. Greece cannot do exactly that since it doesn’t have its own currency.

Do you believe that a return to drachma would be devastating for the Greeks?

Yes, although it is a possible scenario. That is IMF pushes like that, because they know that Greece must not return to drachma and therefore they know they can push. Notice the fascism of the financial system. It is like you have lent me some money, with excessive interest rates, I have been paying you off, and when I can’t pay more you are telling me: “Fine, your friends and neighbors will pay for you. “ This is IMF. If an investor, let’s say a bank, has invested at a risk in a country, always with excessive interest rates, and at some point this country can’t pay any more, IMF comes and say that others are going to pay for you. Those are always the tax payers of other countries who never took the particular loan. Everything can happen, as long as banks will not lose and finally, in order practically not to have any risk!

Excuse me, how do you call this system?

It is the financial system “pure thievery”.

That’s a very descriptive name for a financial system….

It is not even a secret. They themselves admit it! Some years ago, a high executive of IMF called it “community of credit and imposition”. Just like Mafia! Exactly like Mafia members have the money to lend you but also the way to take it back.

Consequently, I guess your proposal is disobedience and not repayment of the debt.

Attention. Disobedience often requires calmness and patience. And mainly you have to find your own way to do it.

Isn’t it the same system here in the United States?

Absolutely, since the Reagan  Administration till today, American citizens have been asked to pay bank capitals lost in investment risks that have taken by banks themselves in or out the States. That would not happen in a capitalistic system. But it happens in our own system simply because it is a criminal one. Noticeably, there is a term for this system (…). It is named “too big to fail”. That name actually describes the strategy of the American Government always to provide assurance. This strategy assures banks and financial institutions that when the system collapses and you won’t be able to get more money, we will give it from tax payers’ money. By the way, the system collapses often.

What is the role of credit rating agencies?

Credit rating agencies ideally complete the thievery system. Prior to any investment, they have assessed that if something goes wrong, local government will undertake the debt, i.e. tax-payers will pay. In other words, something which constitutes a scandal has been included to their estimations! That’s why, some people – very few indeed – are doing fine in the middle of this crisis. The role of credit rating agencies has been strengthening since 70s when the system skyrocketed and massive wealth was accumulated to very few people. Everybody knows that US is a country of inequalities, however maybe is not understandable that a great part of this inequality comes from the one thousandth of the population.

However, we citizens did not react at all; we accepted all these that determine our lives.

We haven’t accepted them! We had no other choice and no other alternative. Nobody asked us: “Do you like IMF?” Personally, I was not asked, were you? They just planned it and imposed it to us.

Is that the reason lets say Goldman Sachs which is a main responsible of the crisis still earns lots of profits?

Exactly. Although they are the major responsible and the architects of the crisis, they are doing fine with huge salaries and bonuses. This is happening because they just belong in the system I was referring. Goldman Sachs is now richer than ever before. But people do not focus in facts like this, because propaganda seeks and finds others to blame as responsible. During the crisis, one of the biggest mistakes is to target various social groups.   

But targets are set from both sides; from the state against others, but also from citizens themselves against others.  Isn’t that dangerous? Is it “good” sometimes to set targets?

Certainly not. Watch what happens. From state’s side we have some especially easy targets for instance teachers and education in general. On the other hand, from the population’s side we have the easy target which is the immigrants, and in Europe the phenomenon of immigration is expanding worryingly. In Hungary with the neo-fascist party Jobbik, in UK with British National Party and the English Defense League.  And if it sounds reassuring that in various European countries far-right, racist parties get below 10%, don’t forget that in 1928 in Germany, the Nazis’ party took less than 3%. Last year there was the publication of the book Germany Does Away with Itself in which its author Thilo Sarrazin states that immigrants are destroying the country. It sold million copies. Chancellor Merkel, although she condemned the book, stated that multiculturalism has finally failed. Turks and Arabs who were imported by them to do the dirty job have failed that is to become blond and blue-eyed, pure Aryans…

We have the paradox in times of prosperity and social stability people choose capitalism and remember of all bad things of socialism. But when the financial crisis comes then they blame capitalism and refer to socialism benefits. That’s a little bit stupid. How can be changed?

That’s the one and only message I have to deliver. It is not a recipe and everyone should make it on his own. Use common sense.

With what you are saying are trying to make world a better place?

I don’t want to make world a better place; I want people to make world a better place.

(...)

interviewer: Μάκης Προβατάς

published at BHMagazino, on 10/11/2011

The whole interview here http://www.koutipandoras.gr/?p=11109 

Oops, I am changing right now

Accidentally I found out that there are quite many other blogs with exactly the same name: “σκόρπιες σκέψεις”. I do apologize to all my fellow bloggers who use the same name. Those prior and those after this blog. Although for this blog those two words are more a description rather than a name or a title, I immediately retire the title and I am leaving the page anonymous, just like its publisher. So from now …

“the blog which was previously known as σκόρπιες σκέψεις”.  

The new financial authoritarianism

European and especially Greek leaders are playing with the fire. Every day they prove they are myopic dummies in the conscious or unconscious service of banks.  There is no other way to describe the constantly increasing madness of European and Greek politics, which is the most certain evidence of the coming major catastrophe.

The Eurogroup decisions- made with the participation of the Greek Government (both terms actually need quotation marks)- constitute an institutional coup, unprecedented in the history of the EU. The euro cabinet ordered an elected parliament what to vote.  This is a strict violation of the fundamental principles of the European Union against its political base, set of laws, and ideology.

Greek members of the parliament are blackmailed to vote against the will of the Greek people but according to the desires of banks. Those desires have been disguised by the EU and the Greek administration into a “lending” to Greece. The Union is revealed as - not being a union of the European nations but - a mechanism of implementing the Market dictatorship to the European nations. That is happening with the contribution of Germany, the European Commission, and the Central European Bank.  The worst is that none in Greece or in Europe seems to realize and refer to the meaning and the implications of what is happening.

The endless lending and the new extreme austerity measures will lead to the collapse of the system. The Greek people in order to survive and defend their country have no other way but to reject this policy. Even if Greeks do not do that, it is obvious that at some point in time the revenue to the state will stop and even the elementary state operations will collapse.  That will lead the country in an anarchy bankruptcy and chaotic conditions.

Apparently, it would be a lot better if we could find the political forces capable of leading the nation during those crucial moments.  It would be a lot better if we had a front against the Memorandum for the salvation of Greece with a reliable leadership, democratic internal organization, and effective ideas. However, confronting the Memorandum and the group of the austerity measures which are a combined program of economic, social, and national disaster, we just can’t wait.

Banks as a means of authoritarianism.

There is another aspect beyond the democratic essence which is severely hurt by the Eurogroup decisions and blackmail. Why do European and Greek politicians blackmail the Greek people? For the acceptance of a program that everybody believes will lead Greece fast, not to any kind of salvation, but into a complete bankruptcy.

They treat a whole country – member of the EU in the same way a lending bank treats a firm which is about to go bankrupt. Place of commissioners; mortgage of the buildings; reduction of the operational costs with redundancies and salary cuts; liquidation of assets; and finally the company’s closing down.

Why do they do that? Not because it is necessary for the right EU’s interests, not even the interests of the richest country-members.  Not because they can’t realize the deadlock.  The answer is because it is impossible to harm in any way the interests of the international financial status.  Financial institutions which act as a State behind the States.  In that way, they bring Europe to the biggest crisis in its history after World War II.  They risk the chance all these mistakes to explode against all of us. This time the war is not going to be military but financial - at least at the beginning - but with the same devastating results.

Today, Hitler’s role as a world devastating power is played by the international financial capitalistic system.  If we keep on going where they want us to go, the whole postwar European paradigm will be threatened with a collapse and the world economy may face a crisis much more severe than that of 1929. Because contemporary economies are a lot more financialized than the ones before the War.

EU dismantle scenario

It may sounds as exaggerated. Truly, it would be stupid if someone tries to accurately foresee the progress of three simultaneous profound crises. I.e.  the world financial crisis, the crisis of the Western leadership, and the crisis in the EU. However, it is ten times more times more stupid, anyone who denies realizing the true aftermath.  It is better to act even “excessively” against existing threats, rather than to be relieved with the false confidence of a world (which in fact collapses). The world of Happy Globalization and liberalism has collapsed in October 2008.

The European Union is threatened with a collapse similar with that of the Soviet Union twenty years ago.  Neither its political leadership, nor its institutions are made to satisfactorily serve and act for the benefit of general Europe or European countries. 

Its structure has been mainly formed to provide a strong back up to the value and the outcome of money. Simultaneously, it does not take into consideration the interests of nations and societies. This structural “shortage” makes more important the role of the national governments, which have become the only ones that can defend the vital benefits of their people.

Greece as a catastrophe factor

The Papandreou administration - by not defending its nation and acting as a colonial management placed by troika – definitely contributes to the disaster of Greece and a chaos in Europe.

In order to get out from that situation, Greece needs to utilize a big argument – weapon. It can aggressively negotiate and threaten with a bankruptcy and the following political crisis in the EU.

The uprising

Unfortunately, a huge part of the active Greek citizens or the current political leaders (of the opposition) are still locally focused and just can’t think in international terms. Their psychological background is affected by conservatism (Europe doesn’t change) and a national underestimation.  We should try to correlate the fight of the Greek people against the coming financial authoritarianism with the problems and the consciousness of the European people. We should try - as much as we can- our demands to build the necessary international alliances.  So far very few have been done towards that direction and the time is ticking away. Tomorrow we can have an uprising in Greece but almost no one in the world will be able to understand what the rebels are proposing.