{"id":21177,"date":"2015-07-06T16:38:59","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T20:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=21177"},"modified":"2015-07-06T16:38:59","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T20:38:59","slug":"greece-proves-again-why-democracy-is-the-criminal-classes-great-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2015\/07\/06\/greece-proves-again-why-democracy-is-the-criminal-classes-great-fear\/","title":{"rendered":"Greece Proves Again Why Democracy is the Criminal Classes\u2019 Great Fear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>New Economic Perspectives<\/em> has the article <a href=\"http:\/\/neweconomicperspectives.org\/2015\/07\/greece-proves-again-why-democracy-is-the-criminal-classes-great-fear.html\" target=\"_blank\">Greece Proves Again Why Democracy is the Criminal Classes\u2019 Great Fear by William Black<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nSo, the new Greek government was right on both of its key policies \u2013 as even the <em>troika\u2019s <\/em>historic \u201cdeficit hawk\u201d (the IMF) now admits it has known for years. That means that the <em>troika <\/em>has knowingly insisted on economically illiterate and self-destructive policies and caused immense human misery for no (desirable) reason. What is going on? The answer is the <em>troika\u2019s<\/em> oxymoronic definition of \u201creforms.\u201d When the <em>troika <\/em>uses the word the \u201creforms\u201d it means three anti-reforms \u2013 reduced wages and rights for workers, destroying the safety net, and selling public assets to private buyers. The <em>troika <\/em>is deliberately, with the aid of the major media, generating a \u201crace to the bottom\u201d throughout the EU. The <em>New York Times <\/em>provided a reprehensible example of how the media aids and abets this assault on workers and those who need the safety net in a June 29, 2015 <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/06\/30\/world\/europe\/greeces-troubles-attract-little-sympathy-from-poorer-neighbors.html?_r=0\">article<\/a> entitled \u201cGreece\u2019s Troubles Attract Little Sympathy From Poorer Neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cWe are much poorer than the Greeks, but we have performed reforms,\u201d Rosen Plevneliev, the president of&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/news\/international\/countriesandterritories\/bulgaria\/index.html?inline=nyt-geo\">Bulgaria<\/a>, a northern neighbor of&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/news\/international\/countriesandterritories\/greece\/index.html?inline=nyt-geo\">Greece<\/a>, said in an interview.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>While the media cannot refer to Greece\u2019s government without the label \u201cleft-wing,\u201d an ultra-right wing politician and vitriolic opponent of the Greek government is simply referred to as \u201cthe president of Bulgaria.\u201d (The <em>NYT <\/em>article above promptly referred to \u201cThe left-leaning Syriza Party.\u201d) Given Plevneliev\u2019s anti-worker ideology, he was delighted to inflict \u201creforms\u201d harming labor. His fear is that Greece will not be destroyed by the <em>troika <\/em>and that Bulgarian labor will rise up in political opposition to his party. He is, of course, a virulent opponent of the Greek government.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>More signs the revolution is coming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Economic Perspectives has the article Greece Proves Again Why Democracy is the Criminal Classes\u2019 Great Fear by William Black. So, the new Greek government was right on both of its key policies \u2013 as even the troika\u2019s historic \u201cdeficit hawk\u201d (the IMF) now admits it has known for years. That means that the troika [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21178,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21177\/revisions\/21178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}