The Greek Debt Crisis- and ours

by Duane Campbell

The so called Greek debt crisis continues to grow.  The Sacramento Bee has an editorial on Sept.12 on the editorial board’s view that the nations of Europe will need some form of consolidation.

This view illustrates how the corporate owned media takes austerity and budget cuts for granted.  They are presented as normal and inevitable.

    The Bee editorial, along with one side of the  European economic establishment,  propose  the need for a consolidation of government power in Europe.  The editors compare the growing debt crisis in Europe  to the Articles of Confederation .

But,  to understand the situation, you need to first ask, unified for what purpose?  The proposed solution forms a new government power to protect the financiers in Germany and France.  They want a government that can enforce austerity to repay bank debts.  The Bankers and capitalists caused the crisis.  Now, the question, as in the U.S. is – who will pay for it.

Austerity programs, whether in Greece, Spain, Italy or California, cost someone.  In addition to the loss of wages and benefits,  austerity programs take capital out of the system and thus make the recession worse.  Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, and California working people will suffer more.

The Bee editorial assumes that government should be an enforcer for banks ( as they were in the U.S.). This ignores the position of the working people in the streets organizing resistance.  They say, the Bankers caused the crisis- make the bankers pay.  The Bee editorial assumes that austerity is necessary in Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal , and more.  Working people  , pensioners and social services  should pay for the bankers looting of the economy. 

 Here the Bee editors  are consistent. This is the same “solution” they  propose for working people and pensioners facing the California government crisis.  There is resistance.  There is another point of view.  And, the Bee should recognize this alternative viewpoint.

It is long past time for the various progressive  forces in the U.S. , each of which is being crushed by casino capitalism, to work together to defend democracy. This requires unions, teachers, academics, Democratic Party activists and others to recognize that what they have in common is the need for a powerful united front to defend against the corporate media and right wing, nut case,  onslaughts.