Greeks clash with police as they resist "violent" IMF/EU imposed austerity measures

The Wall Street Journal has a picture today of youths in Greece in physical confrontations with the police.  There were "violent protests" against austerity measures the Journal reports.  All the capitalist controlled press will report events in this way.  Instead, the headline should read, "Greeks protest against violent austerity measures imposed on them by moneylenders"

The EU and the IMF representing the interests of international bankers will only provide money in exchange for the pound of flesh as the commentator pointed out in an earlier blog with regards to the $3 billion offered to Egypt.  The coupon clippers don't bail out whole economies without a price.  The Greek debt amounts to around $44,000 per person and they want that paid in one way or another.

Due to resistance against capitalist violence in the form of austerity measures from Ireland to Greece, Spain and possible strikes in Britain investors are refusing to lend money for fear of not being able to get richer through this process. 

The situation is becoming more unstable as a Greek default may well be followed by similar actions in Portugal and Ireland.  With the  world economy more integrated than at any time in history, no nation state can avoid the effects of a global economic tsunami that might originate in a small nation like Greece or Iceland.  If Greece defaults, this will have an effect on French banks for example that hold considerable amounts of Greek debt.  But the French banks also owe about $91 billion they borrowed from US  money market funds.

There is a longer video here that gives a more detailed report on the situation in Greece but a number of alternatives from a worker's point of view have to be taken up.  Like many Americans have done in the present economic crisis with regard to their home mortgages, workers and the middle class in any country should simply walk away from this debt, should refuse to pay it as Iceland did.

And as we weave our way through the massive propaganda thrown at us by the media that the very same moneylenders control we see that if they can report that investors are refusing to lend or demanding extremely high interest rates to do so, or the fact that they demand austerity measures as they are in return for capital, it is evidence that capital is there, that there is no shortage of money; they are blackmailing us in other words.

The protests in Greece and throughout the world are inspiring and a very positive development.  But what is lacking is the leadership and structure to bring all these movements together. The bankers and investors are internationalists.  The governments of the nation states meet in international gatherings in order to develop an efficient and fluent strategy for plundering the wealth that the workers of the world create.  Yes, there are differences between them, but their intended goal is a safe and stable environment for capital accumulation, for the further exploitation of workers.  This is paramount and they use the most violent methods to accomplish that.  In fact, there is a picture on the front of today's Wall Street Journal of youths defending themselves against riot police with sticks. If that was the US they'd be shot.  In the US, the police have tremendous power to kill citizens, particularly the poor and young black men in particular; and they get away with it.

Along with workers building links across national lines, the issue of the ownership of capital and its allocation has to be challenged.  Capital is a social product.  Its accumulation has its source in the unpaid Labor of the working class stolen in the Labor process.  We must not be limited to simply calling on capitalist states to nationalize the banks and financial institutions.  Society's wealth that is the product of past Labor must be taken out of private hands and placed under democratic workers control and management, we produce it, we must collectively own it and determine how it should be allocated.  This is a step toward a democratic socialist planned economic system and we cannot achieve this liberation within the framework of one nation.