Choice for Greeks: Rebel, Leave or Starve

by Stephen Lendman

Tsipras and likeminded SYRIZA officials proved they're like all the rest - masquerading as populists, governing like corporate tools, ready to unleash police state harshness against public anger over betrayal at its discretion.

The price for new bailout funding (mostly earmarked to pay bankers, not aid its crippled economy) is loss of Greek sovereignty - surrendering it to Troika bandits, a death blow to democracy's birthplace.

On Monday, modern Greece died. Troika coup d'etat rule replaced its elected government - serving monied interests exclusively at the expense of equity, justice and fundamental human rights.

Paying tribute to bankers alone matters - the same ones responsible for creating crisis conditions in the first place, for stealing multi-billions of dollars, euros and pounds with impunity, wrecking economies and public welfare for their bottom line interests, using money to make lots more of it, an insatiable lust to steal all they can complicit with corrupt government officials letting them.

Today we're all Greeks. Their fate is ours - victims of neoliberal harshness punishing all Western societies, former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact countries, as well as most others worldwide. 

Reality for billions of people is mass unemployment or underemployment for poverty or sub-poverty wages, eroded or lost social benefits, homelessness, hunger, untreated illnesses, malnutrition and for millions starvation.

The World Food Programme says around 800 million people worldwide haven't enough food to eat annually - one in nine ill-fed or without food.

Millions die annually from hunger and treatable diseases. Double the number of people die annually from hunger than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. 

Developing or underdeveloped countries are most affected. So are war zones. Growing numbers are in developed countries - devastated by force-fed austerity increasingly hardened with no letup. Greece is Exhibit A. Government neglect in inner-city Western societies is no better.

Inequality and human deprivation are appalling in America. Poverty is a growth industry. Unemployment, underemployment, increasing hunger and homelessness reflect the new normal - at a time vital social services are being cut or eliminated.

A race to the bottom defines official US policy - social injustice enriching its well-off at the expense of its most vulnerable.

On any given night, around 600,000 Americans are homeless - including in sub-freezing temperatures. Volunteer food banks can't keep up with growing demand.

Census data show around half the population living in poverty or bordering it - affecting nearly 60% of children. America has a higher percentage of working poor than any other industrialized country.

Its social contract is on the chopping block for elimination altogether. Depression conditions affect growing millions when monied interests never had it better.

Most Americans with jobs get by from paycheck to paycheck - one missed one away from homelessness, hunger and despair.

Feeding America says "(h)unger exists in every community of our country." One in six people "struggle to get enough to eat." Malnutrition is a national disease - devastating young children when proper nutrition is vital for development.

Over five million seniors aged 60 or older face hunger. Retired after a lifetime of work, they struggle with health issues and meager incomes. Many have to choose between food or medicine.

Blacks are more than twice as likely to be food insecure as whites. They're disproportionately affected by unemployment and poverty. 

Nearly one-fourth of Latino households face struggle to get enough food to eat - compared to one in ten whites.

What kind of societies treat their most needy this way - especially rich developed ones? Western ones march in lockstep against their most vulnerable - victims of appalling social injustice, increasing at a time of growing need.

SYRIZA's anti-austerity mandate was fraudulent - a Big Lie, a campaign ploy, a hoax to win hearts and minds, to be abandoned once elected.

So-called populists were corporate tools in disguise. The mask is off. Tsipras and likeminded SYRIZA officials are no different from their right-wing counterparts - stomping on their own people they pledged to serve responsibly, forcing them to pay more and get less, leaving them increasingly on their own sink or swim.

Tsipras returned to Athens on Monday - a Judas exposed, unable to paper over his betrayal no matter how hard he tries.

What next for beleaguered Greeks? Government they thought responsible turned out like previous hardline ones.

If snap elections loom as some believe, the alternative is fascist rule. Greeks have a choice - the same as others across Europe, in America and elsewhere suffering under force-fed austerity: rebel, leave or starve. 

The right solution is revolutionary change - ordinary people fighting for what everyone deserves, accepting no less. The alternative ia harder than ever hard times.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.