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Greeks' Choice — and Ours: Democracy or Finance?
Which do you trust more: democracy or financial markets?
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou decided in favor of democracy yesterday when he announced a national referendum on the draconian budget cuts Europe and the IMF are demanding from Greece in return for bailing it out.
If Greeks accept the bailout terms, unemployment will rise even further in Greece, public services will be cut more than they have already, the Greek economy will contract, and the standard of living of most Greeks will deteriorate further. (photo: Kristian Cee)
(Or, more accurately, the cuts Europe and the IMF are demanding for bailing out big European banks that have lent Greece lots of money and stand to lose big if Greece defaults on those loans – not to mention Wall Street banks that will also suffer because of their intertwined financial connections with European banks.)
If Greeks accept the bailout terms, unemployment will rise even further in Greece, public services will be cut more than they have already, the Greek economy will contract, and the standard of living of most Greeks will deteriorate further.
If Greeks reject the terms and the nation defaults, it will face far higher borrowing costs in the future. This may reduce the standard of living of most Greeks, too. But it doesn’t have to. Without the austerity measures the rest of Europe and the IMF are demanding, the Greek economy has a better chance of growing and more Greeks are likely to find jobs.
Shouldn’t Greeks be able to make this decision for themselves?
Of course, if Greek defaults on its loans, global investors (fearing that a default in Greece sets a dangerous precedent) may yank their money out of Italy. This would almost certainly bust several big European banks – and generate panic on Wall Street. That’s why Tim Geithner has been pressing Europe to bail out Greece.
We’ve been here before, remember? Here in the United States, at the end of 2008 and start of 2009. Wall Street had made lots of bad loans, and the question we faced then was whether to bail out the Street.
The difference is, we didn’t hold a referendum. Instead, the Bush administration told Congress the nation risked “economic Armageddon” if it didn’t immediately authorize a giant bailout of the Street – with no strings attached. Of course Congress hastily agreed. Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Tim Geithner (as head of the New York Fed) then doled out the money. And the Obama administration (with Geithner installed as Treasury Secretary) gave out more.
So instead of allowing the Street to live with the consequences of its negligence, we bailed it out – and allowed the Main Streets of America to suffer the consequences.
If Americans had been consulted about the bank bailout, I doubt it would have happened the way it did. At the very least, strict conditions would have been placed on the banks in return for the money. The banks would have had to eat the losses of the predatory mortgages they sold, and help homeowners reduce those mortgages. They’d be required to improve the capitalization of small banks in communities across the country. They’d be forced to accept stringent new regulations, including resurrection of Glass-Steagall.
But Americans weren’t really consulted. It was an inside job.
As a result, Wall Street has prospered but the rest of the nation hasn’t. One out of four homeowners is underwater, owing more on their homes than the homes are worth.
And with the worst economy since the Great Depression, we’re now embarking on fiscal austerity. Either Congress’s super-committee comes up with $1.2 trillion of federal budget cuts that Congress agrees to – going into effect a little over thirteen months from now – or $1.5 trillion of cuts are made across the board. Meanwhile, states and cities have been slashing public services for the past three years.
So which is it? Rule by democracy or by financial markets? Based on what’s happened in America, I’d choose the former.
Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; and his newest, an e-book, Beyond Outrage. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
65 Comments so far
Show AllSo Reich thinks that bank bailouts should be a subject for public referenda, but doesn't seem to feel the same way about "free trade agreements." Quelle f***ing surprise. And as for Papandreou, I doubt he'd be holding this little vote if the fix weren't already in.
I'm wondering what kind of voting machines and vote counting machines they use in Greece.
Greeks have been voting in the streets for months.
Precisely, Greeks will reject the austerity program in the referendum.
I don't think Reich is opposed to the massive bail out of the crooks on Wall St. He just wants us to think it was all the fault of the Republicans so we all line up and vote for Obama in spite of the fact that he has been a horrible President for the working people of this nation. Gotta keep up the false credo of voting for the lesser evil. Yeah, both corporate parties are evil and we need to not vote for either of the two bunches of scum.
The most important vote you make is for your Representative in Congress. These officials, if they were not corrupt to the core, could reinvigorate our democracy, end the wars, tax the rich, take care of the people and protect the environment---but they won't do it because they are bought and paid for by the top 1%. Kick out these officials with their pockets full of bribes and maybe we could have a government of the people, by the people and for the people---but if you vote D or R we will get more of the same and WORSE!
Reich does name Obama as one of the enablers of the bank bailouts, but still let's him off too easy. Obama made a special trip back to DC from the campaign trail to vote for TARP in the Senate.
This is progress for Reich, but he'll still stump for Lord Obama in 2012.
Obama's special trip back to DC to zealously champion TARP blew a golden opportunity for Obama to lend credence to his "hope and change" mantra.
At that point I knew Obama's first term would be Dubya's third term.
This article is actually the best I have seen from Reich in a long time. I hope he can break away from blaming Republicans for Obama's regressive actions.
Thomas Jefferson said, "the future of our nation would be bright if we could prevent the government from wasting the labors (i.e. taxes) of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." All democracies fail when the majority learn that they can vote themselves wealth by redistribution from the producers to those who are not productive. The tyranny of the majority is not the basis of our constitution. We are a Republic, which is governed by a representative democracy. Public referendums are hiding places for corrupt populists and their ill-informed mobs. Robert Reich's support for democracy is selective indeed. For Reich and Obama, the votes of our elected officials and the rule of constitutional law is only adequate, when things are progressing according to Reich. When the constitution and Republican government do not allow the waste to continue, Mr. Reich and his mob want a public referendum.
Because, of course, the minority controlling America did not vote themselves wealth. They all got their money through hard honest work. The Waltons, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, the Gates' and Jobs'. And all the corporations concentrating wealth got it because they produced awesome products. The Monsantos, the Exxons, the Eli Lillys, the Goldman Sachs', the Microsofts and the IBMs. Seriously, read up on this stuff. You can start with the History of the Standard Oil Company by Ida Tarbell and work your way from there.
But of course you can continue to be an intentionally ignorant true believer, it's your choice, just don't expect to be able to understand much of the world and history or be able to predict or interpret what happens.
Maybe what Jefferson and the Founders in general did was that they understood the behaviour of their own class and projected it to everyone else. They just used the common arguments of thieves and robbers, "it'll be stolen anyway, so rather us than them". Although actually this isn't completely true, some of them did understand and comment on the problems they caused themselves - when it was too late, of course.
Um, your ignorance of history is astounding and falsifies your premise. The majority of US citizens didn't get an opportunity to vote on anything until after the First World War--when women finally won the vote. But still, only about 75% of adults were allowed to vote as most recent immigrants, Blacks and Natives were disenfranchised. And of course you've swallowed whole the lie that the USA is a republic. But the big problem is your ignorance is representative of the great majority of US citizens, which is why the "natural aristocracy" still keeps control of the system it enacted to enrich itself.
Maybe I misread his post, but I think he actually understands this - and supports it. As far as I know, he is standing behind the original undemocratic intent of the Founders, which he interprets correctly afaik. But I'm not knowledgeable on this at all, so it's more probable that it's actually me who misunderstands his post.
The problem is with the false dangers: the majority "voting wealth for themselves", taking away from "producers" (I guess Goldman Sachs CEOs are in this group), and "the tyranny of the majority".
But whether my interpretation is correct or false, this sentence:
"All democracies fail when the majority learn that they can vote themselves wealth by redistribution from the producers to those who are not productive."
is typical bullshit demagogy. The actual difficulty of human self-governance is always in keeping untenable, system-distorting concentrations of power in check. There were political systems that started off by large scale more democratic redistributions of wealth, but this never lasted for long, and I don't think there ever was a democratic system in history that progressed towards this state (equitable distribution of material wealth) - there were occasional lurches towards it, always in emergency situations, but systemic progress, afaik, always pointed in the opposite direction, towards concentration of wealth and power.
The BS demagogy was a paraphrase from President James Madison. FYI, the reference to producers would obviously include all taxpayers. At the time of the constitutional drafting in 1791, the wealth was mostly from agriculture, and the taxes were mostly from the landowners.
There were indeed very wealthy landowners even then. For most of them, time and the perils of a free economy have depleted their wealth. The french expression for "the new rich" applied primarily to Americans. Today's 1% are likely well connected to Washington, Wall Street and the Banks. Tomorrows 1% will be a different group... hopefully entrepreneurs from middle America... but most likely government parasites from DC. It is likely that one of the very occupiers trashing Wall Street will one day become one of the 1%.
TBH I have no clue what you are talking about and how it has any relevance to this discussion. I understood your reference to Madison (Chomsky mentions this quite often), but I do not see the relevance of your post to this discussion...or any coherence in it fwiw. For example:
"It is likely that one of the very occupiers trashing Wall Street will one day become one of the 1%."
Errr, yeah, maybe...so what? Is this supposed to have any effect on how people evaluate OWS? What exactly are you talking about?
Just say no to debt. World Wide Selective Default. The 1% will get the 'haircut' not the 99%. We the Peoples of the World need a fresh start. Hey, they stole the money from US over time anyway. Read Thomas Paine's "Agrarian Justice": http://www.ssa.gov/history/tpaine3.html
Reich's analogy with the US is welll-taken, but the analogy I see is more like that of the seemingly forgotten (by the post-Seattle generation) "structural adjustment" era of massive privatizations, benefit cuts, even minimum wage cuts that the World Bank/IMF imposed on poorer or distressed countries throughout the 1990s in order to recieve needed credit. Argentina suffered terribly under the privatizations, debt and conditions imposed on them by then the neoliberal right wing president Menem's dealings with these "big banks". Then, the popular leftist President Kirchner simply told the creditors to get lost, he would not pay them another centavo. A few hard years followed, but ultimately, a better decision has never been made for Argenitina's working class.
Let the stock markets scream. Greece should follow suit.
Argentina is a fine example of how to be terrified and pragmatic, simultaneously. Heros of the first order.
Austerity will create new living arrangements.The rich and the middle class move to the "country" looking for a better life. The inter cities then become slums. Now the process reverses. The new slums will be abandoned McMansions darkened by no power, stripped of plumbing, heat and air conditioning. The poor (unemployed) and homeless will be trucked out to these former luxury sub divisions, and left to their own devices, unable to get back to the city. These enclaves will become hell on earth, preyed upon by the elite, and other criminals. Welcome to the new world of possibilities, as HW Bush called it. Gives a new meaning to the phrase Gated Community.
Reich is an odd one to be promoting democracy given the aid he's provided to those determined to destroy it. Austerity needs to be called by its proper name--Financial Terrorism.
Coming from NAFTA-backing and promoting Robert Reich the above screed rings as hollow as a talk about integrity in public life Eliot Spitzer or the dangers of extremist religious cult membership from Mitt Romney.
Capitalism is a failed economic system and democracy is a failed method of governance and to expect either to be the solution to the other is asking for the impossible.
Small 'd' democracy cannot have failed since it was never tried. The 1787 constitution codified Aristocratic Rule, a form of rule whose obfuscation is the object of terms like democratic-republic and indoctrination attacks that begin as soon as children can read stuff like "I chopped down the cherry tree and thus never told a lie" and the greatness of those who enslaved us through their outstanding constitution, which must at all times be venerated along with its authors. The people of the USA continue to live a lie, an illusion, that's going on 224 years now and won't end until the 1787 constitution and its institutions are swept aside and replaced by a real democracy with wholy new institutions, a new political-economic philosophy, and a culture that promotes cooperation instead of competition. Radical, yes, but it will fit the needs of the future and somewhat solve the present problems.
Yes. The wealthy merchants, land owners and speculators and hustlers, and slave holders and large scale smugglers "saw which way the wind was blowing" - in the words of one South Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress - and that their best interests would be served by independence. The working class people were very quickly betrayed, marginalized and pushed to the side.
It has always seemed ironic to me that virtually all intellectuals in the US admire the work of fiction - "Animal Farm" - and see it as a story of the working class people betrayed, of a revolution gone wrong and then apply that to other countries rather than to the US. There is no more blatant case of a revolution betrayed, of hypocrisy by the usurpers and self-promoters, then the revolution of the colonial workers and tradespeople.
Projecting the evils of the US onto other peoples and other systems has always been a prime method for defending and promoting the interests of the ruling class here.
Spitzer was more combative than Reich.
Spitzer was sapped because he was getting in the way of the impending TARP deal.
Bush Jr put a lrage FBI detail on him and basically had a very productive fishing expedition.
But Spitzer has continued to play along. He didn't rattle any major skeletons and got himself a talking head gig.
A brilliant attack on the 'global Empire' by Papandreou!!
My comment to the NYT blog on this cover story:
"If Papandreou had played the 'put options' market before he made his surprise announcement, he could have made enough on the down-swing he created to save his country single-handed, and be the surprise hero re-elected for life by screwing the global Empire's money crooks and saving the Greek people."
Best luck and love to global Occupy in 'occupying' (and then excising) the disguised 'Vichy' global Empire,
Alan MacDonald
Liberty, democracy, justice, and the "Multitude"
over
violent/Vichy
empire
Yes, Robert Reich is correct in saying that it's a choice of democracy vs. financial capitalism (and the concentrated wealth that finance capitalism inexorably creates).
Reich might very well quote one of the truly great Supreme Court Justices, Louis Brandeis when he famously said, "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
Certainly, as Reich points out, concentrations of great wealth will always use the threat that basically, "we will make the people suffer if we don't get our way", as the financial power elite did in 2008 after their looting scheme caused great harm to the 99% and our country, and they threatened through Hank Paulson that the citizens of the US must fork over $700B or their economy would be destroyed.
Both of the "Vichy" parties, which are controlled by the disguised corporate/financial/militarist Empire which now fully controls our former country by hiding behind the facade of the Empire's bought and owned Vichy faux-government (of state power monopoly on violence), pretended to act for the good of the people but quickly collapsed (as scripted) to Empire's threat.
I would only add to Reich's comments, and partially fault him for naivete, for failing to apparently understand that the 99% of Occupy are not standing up to government in any real sense of a functional people's democracy, as Glen Greenwald makes perfectly clear in his new book, "With liberty and justice for some", but that what the Occupy movement is really standing up to (and should be "outing" very loudly and publicly) is that they are standing up to a disguised global Empire --- only posing as a government.
By focusing their charge "Against Empire", rather than allowing the deceitful corporatist media to call Occupy a movement confronting the role of a normal government (or even the economic system), the Occupy movement could dis-empower the combined opposition of the two phony/Vichy parties, the corporate-state's monopoly of power (including the monopoly power of state-violence), and the combined financial, legal, and media oligarchy.
By loudly, publicly, repeatedly, and rationally proving that the 1% reactionary, repressive, and violent forces of opposition to the Occupy movement constitute a disguised, camouflaged, and 'Vichy Empire', which controls our country, and is not a valid, legitimate government of 99% of the people, the Occupy movement will gain the support and endorsement of a far broader swath and vast majority of all the 99% that Occupy wants to represent.
For the very valid, empathetic, and democratic Occupy movement to successfully employ a non-violent judo move, that uses the opponent's weight against it, Occupy needs to reverse the corporatist media perception and propaganda that Occupy is "against government" (as the Tea Party, Ronald Reagan, and other nuts have been correctly tagged), but that Occupy is only confronting a non-democratic Empire and is focusing, exposing, and attacking an illegal combination of corporate/financial/militarist Empire.
If Occupy is foursquare "Against Empire" and projects its many occupation movements across our country as "Occupying Empire", then the perception of Occupy will be dramatically improved, the possibility of the Empire employing divide and conquer tactics (or worse violence) will be reduced, and the hidden Empire will be put on the defensive to try to prove that it is not an Empire --- which will be impossible for the Empire to do once a wide range of Empire-like characteristics are exposed and considered; such as Empire's characteristic use of military violence abroad, Empire's vast economic inequalities at home, Empire's destruction of the real world environment, Empire's police-state spying and lying, Empire's extra-judicial crimes, Empire's elitism and pyramid schemes, Empire's destruction of Republic and democratic functions, and most notably Empire's abuse of violence to keep the masses 99% of people down and 'controlled'.
Bust luck and love to Occupy
Alan MacDonald
Liberty, democracy, justice, and the "Multitude"
over
violent/Vichy
empire
And one of those cuts the Super Committee will make will be the mortgage interest deduction: count on it. That alone will severely impact the remaining homeowners - both those above water and below - in the "99%" who are barely making ends meet. Taking away that deduction will mean the difference between many of us owing $ when we file our taxes, and actually having a few meager bucks to put into savings. The difference between being able to stay above water or starting to sink. And for those barely holding onto their homes, that will be the straw that breaks the camel's back in many cases. And will we be consulted on this cut? Of course not.
well put demonstorm,and before those 12 nazis do that we must&will occupy congress and shut those idiots and their evil gov, down ,once&for all,and not allow them to shut down the the mortgage deduction,s s &medicare or anything else the 99% need!!!! we can't sit back a second with these scumbags,we need to find the numbers of occupy minded folks to move to washington NOW,because they will e voting before nov.15th to do their evil damage(hoping to do that while we are occupying else where¬ paying attention to their evil deeds)---LETS GET THE IDIOTS BEFORE THEY DESTROY THIS COUNTRY!!!!!!! HO KA HEY/IT IS A GOOD TIME TO LIVE
Oh, Keeper, if I thought that the only hope were the actions you advocate I would be in despair.
I often wonder whether these calls for wildl actions are actually posted by FBI/CIA or other provocateurs.
I agree Keeper, we need to move it to DC asap and get these traitors out, the trade deal legislation is yet another huge slap in the face, these clowns gotta go now. then a constitutional convention...
Let's see I set up a tax code, Then I give deductions to different groups for political consideration. I thought only the fat cats got sweetheart deals. I guess all of us renters just don't count.
A good point, iwonder. I don't mean to belittle those who rent, rather than own homes. Lord knows, the number of renters in this country is skyrocketing as the foreclosures escalate. I see a day when only the Elite will own homes - everyone else will rent (or own some shit-hole house that is falling apart).
" I see a day when only the Elite will own homes - everyone else will rent (or own some shit-hole house that is falling apart)."
..... yes, and elite will own these hole-houses too.
Here's a petition calling for support of the bill Kucinich introduced about a month ago which would replace the Fed and corresponding monetary policy with a public entity. http://chn.ge/sgXLuO
The bill is H.R. 2990 - The National Emergency Employment Defense (NEED) Act of 2011. You can check it out here: http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/NEED_Act_FINAL_112th.pdf
The fact sheet for the bill is here:
http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/NEED_Act_Fact_Sheet_09232011.pdf
I have to admit, it is fun to watch global finance's very public plutocracy-over-democracy struggle. Free markets work just great, as long as you repress the people.
Free markets indeed , as long as your the ones making the rules. We need a real Revolution to stop this shit. Ted Rall was right.
'Democracy' applies only to the facade of the political theater that the corporate/financial/militarist Empire controls.
Within the sphere of the political economy that rules our lives only the hidden Empire projects real power.
Best luck and love to Occupy.
Liberty, democracy, justice and the "Multitude"
over
violent/Vichy
empire,
Alan MacDonald
Reich's past sins of shilling for the Dems are well known, but this article is not bad at all.
Which is precisely why it should be condemned. Unless he's willing to fess up for being a willing tool in our own economic demise, then he's just trying to coopt and neutralize a necessary movement in an attempt to herd it back into the veal pen.
Understood. All I said was that this article is not bad. It is a departure from past articles by Reich. Applaud what is worthy and condemn what isn't, rather than focusing on personalities. That may be the more useful and powerful approach.
How could he co-opt and neutralize anything with this article? Should he turn what he is saying here into a pitch for the Dems in the future, I will be the first to condemn him for that.
I really can't see the argument against your position, Two Americas - in any event, it's not been made on this site.
I agree with focusing on arguments, but one can't lose sight of the personalities, for it's the personalities who sway public opinion, not their arguments.
Iceland found a way out with out selling out it's citizens and national interests.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/241014-should-sovereign-nations-pursue-the-iceland-solution-or-the-irish-solution
Strange thing is we don't hear much about Ireland today. Why is that? A media black out in support of their financial friends?
"One is the failure to ask some of the most profitable multinational companies in the world to share in a small way the huge burden of increased taxes now being placed on low- and average-income taxpayers in Ireland. This is the moral argument on which there is total silence in Ireland."
http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/rielcano_eng/Content?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/elcano/elcano_in/zonas_in/ari178-2010
While the citizens of Ireland face austerity Microsoft, Google etc. still come away tax free.
I have to side with Democracy as well. We have served the Banksters long enough. It may be a tough ride, but we will come out of the tunnel in better shape. Democracy is what we must have. We MUST unite. Power to the World's People. Social Democracy! We live in historic times.
My Greek friends write today to say that as they see it, Papandreou's move to a referendum was above all calculated to disperse and transfer "blame" away from himself and his party to ALL Greek parties and most of all to the people themselves for whatever happens next. What they most want is an ELECTION. Well, in the meantime, DON'T take the "half" offer, Greece! That's the sign that in fact the banks know they're going to lose if you stand together with courage for your own future. The banks were even more predatory in Greece than in the U.S. and deserve every bit of ceiling-glass that's going to fall on their heads.
Check out this proposal for direct worldwide action based in the only real value we have left---our daily labor! WE THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD WALK OUT ON PROFIT, at jackdempseywriter.wordpress.com
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/nov2011/gree-n02.shtml
Wsws is pretty reliable :-)
I firmly believe that until we stop allowing our Government to be purchased, not much will change. It will take time, but we need to move in the direction of limiting money in politics, and eliminating business and Government being bedmates. I doubt that trying to oust the entire Congress would help. It would simply be a matter of time until the replacements were purchased too. www.getmoneyout.com
So Reich now jumps on the bandwagon, way after the fact..
I think that the tendency to criticize rather than embrace those who "jump on the bandwagon way after the fact" is a luxury that we cannot afford.
Reich "now" states that we should have held a referendum during the Bush years. The bandwagen against the legislation was drowned out in those years and the money was given to the financial institutions. To now say, oh we should have had a referendum is too late because the money was already given away. For Reich, jumping on that old bandwagen is current political safe and meaningless commentary to make. Your comment makes it sound like we can go back and not give the money to the Finanical Institutions. Too late. AIG still owes US taxpayers $50 billion and a referendum now won't get us the money back.
If Greece votes no to the financial terrorists, and struggles mightily, but rights itself and shows the rest of the world a path away from/around this shit of the IMF/World Bank bailout device for enslavement of entire nations, then well and good. But if this and nothing else works, REAL GODDAMN QUICK, then you do all realize, don't you, that it'll be time for a gloves off, rubber-meets-the-road solution to this global feudalization, and it'll be a feudal-type solution. OCCUPY THE FEDERAL RESERVE (assuming, of course, you can get near the shithole), but this time, be armed to the teeth. And while you're at it, OCCUPY CAPITOL HILL IN WASHINGTON AND PARLIAMENT IN LONDON, armed to the teeth, of course, with pitchforks, axes, guns, gasoline-soaked torches and anything else you can lay your hands on. Build sets of stocks outside the Federal reserve, and keep rotating a rogue's gallery of whores through them, naked and covered with tar, or better still, their own excrement - Bernanke, Greenspan, Geithner, Paulsen, et. al. And send vigilante groups out by foot, helicopter, horseback and fighter jet to capture and bring back alive the Big Cocksuckers - Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, Bremmer, et. al., and put these whores in solitary confinement, with a taste of the lash every half hour until you get the cockroaches into court. (Torture? Sure. After all, you'd only be using it against the very mob who said it was A-Okay.) And if it takes Citizens' Arrests or something way more effective on the sub-human garbage that call themselves 'Supreme Court Justices' in order to open up the courts to real justice, then hurry the fuck up and nail that bunch of gangsters. And just crucify, Roman-style, the pig Kissinger and every last one of the neo-con-sympathising right-wing pundits like Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, along with the Cock Brothers, Scott Walker, that philistine pig in Maine, LePage, et. al. Don't even bother with a trial. Absolute waste of time and money. Particularly in Kissinger's case. And if you can find any living Rockefellers, run them the fuck over in the street with an SUV.
The point is merely that the people of the world shouldn't stand for another year of this stinking contempt for humanity represented by all the politicians and bankers who think that the financial tom-fuckery they call a 'system' should be eternally lubricated with the blood of the 99%. If it takes massive violence to deal with this, so bne it, though it would BE AWFULLY GODDAMN NICE IF IT DIDN'T. It's just that it's increasingly hard to see how we're going to succeed with a democracy and humanity-saving paradigm shift with a cabal that's determined to bleed us dry and kill us for their sport. It may be necessary that World War III (or is that XVIII? I keep losing count...) be waged against the forces of Evil Globalization, Evil Banking, Evil Neo-liberalism, and anyone else who supports the 'privatize gains, socialize losses' way of running the world. Fuck that. And fuck them.