Only the victory of truth, justice and sound finance in Greece can stop the drift towards a gunfight in Europe

Some of you may have heard the voice of Gallup Poll in the US call President Obama a liar yesterday. He didn’t actually name the Black Dude, he just called the better employment numbers “a big lie”….and as Barry had been talking up those numbers, I’d imagine he took it personally.

He’s right of course, for the same old reason: if people run out of reasons to be on welfare in the US, they, um, don’t get welfare. And in Non-farm payroll data, that’s counted as someone who found a job. Yes, it’s weird, but it’s a sociopathic world we live in today: “the patient’s dead, Dr Kildare, so he’ll go down as another successfully discharged patient”.

I mention this only because there is a fair amount of clambering into the lifeboats going on at the minute among neoliberal ‘leaders’. And what it adds up to is this: it was all going just fine until those dumbf**k Greeks torpedoed our good Ship Eurotania. “Now look what they’ve done. Tch tch: Trot Lefties, eh? They never change”.

It is of course a demented, borderline depraved, way of blaming the continuing slow (and horribly expensive) death of the eurine in particular and neoliberalism in general. But it’s just as contagious as the spread of revolt infecting Europe at a frightening rate: every liar in power is at it.

Antonikis Smarmarse began the process two days ago in the Greek Parliament with a rewrite of recent history that was up there with Stalin at his best. The Opposition Parties as a whole voted en bloc against Syriza proposals that (a poll had shown earlier) enjoyed the support of fully 70% of Greeks. So here we have half of Greece’s legislators voting like robots against the clearly expressed will of the People. We can only guess at the outside forces who were doing the prodding and drilling involved in that robotic process.

The next day our own George Osborne – who two weeks ago had blamed the Chinese slowdown for Britain’s ills – pointed his culprit-seeking fickle finger of falsehood at the Greeks, saying the crisis could get in the way of a recovery. This is the recovery that he and his next door neighbour can see, but the rest of us (being mortal dingbats) can’t.

The media side of neolickspittleism began clambering aboard big time yesterday:one of the wealthiest, street-smart professionals in the markets, the business partner of billionaire Eric Sprott, warned “the Greek crisis will unleash chaos in world markets”. Well of course it will Rick Rule (for it was he) because all those silly derivative bets are going to be found out, hmmm? Great name, Rick Rule: it works in just about any context: “Rick Rule, Pilot of the Future”, “Rick Rule, ace cub-reporder on the Daily Plummet”, “Rick Rule – obsessive controlling superhero”.

Of course, Rick’s line, sorry, rule here is that old one “…and it was all going so well…”. Of course it was, dear boy, of course it was.

THE FIVE INESCAPABLE TRUTHS ABOUT GREEK DEBT. Another way of looking at the current “showdown”: survey the verifiable facts calmly.

One, Syriza wants a bridging loan and some debt relief. Two, Varoufakis’s suggestions are the first remotely creative ideas injected into the colonial scam in five years – during which time, lest we forget, the Greek debt went from 151% of gdp in 2012 via 175% in 2013 to 185% in 2014. So clearly, it’s all been going very smoothly and, by the by, in some 14 gdp forecasts over that time, Crispbean Latarte’s IMF has been wrong, oh, only 100% of the time. Three, the banking arm of the Troikanauts seems to have got its blood money out…but the People’s bank haha (the ECB) is still holding most of the Greek debt. Fourth, fractional reserve banking accountancy alongside junk bonds bought at 5% of face value mean Greek lenders have, in many cases, profited…and thus the real debt owed by Greece is nowhere near €300bn euros. And finally, not one Ezone member has so far had to cough up any real, new money from its domestic budgets to imprison Greece in serfdom bail Athens out.

Those five points are factually verifiable. You won’t read any of them in the Establishment Western Press, because that press is owned by the 1% – who are getting a little concerned about punk double-act Yanis & Alexis walking around near live microphones, telling these awkward truths to pinkoes who, you know, will put out conspiracy shit on the internet. You know their kind – NVEs (said with sneer).

And that is the choice that’s really playing out now. This is a crossroads in history.

There are two directions in which we can go from here, and they involve turning neither Left nor Right: we can either go full steam ahead towards a world run by the few; or take a stand….and turn back towards a better world run by a more politically aware majority.

Not a journey back in time, but a retracing of our steps for a thorough look at where we went wrong.

We’re being warned by a mixture of spin, smoke, mirrors, stereotypes and doom-prophecy that life as we know it in 2015 will come crashing down unless Greece pays all its debts in full. All I ask is that you go back to the para in Hellas Blue above and read the real facts again. The only things about to come crashing down are (1) a form of capitalism that is insanely dysfunctional (2) an egocentric supranational nightmare of undemocratic bureaucracy and (3) the corrupt elites running it via banking, multinational business, and media ownership.

Syriza (and most decent Greeks) want to set the People free from the ‘other’ Troika at 1-3 above. The EC, the ECB and Wall Street want to put them back in their cage. I think most Sloggers know whose side they’re on – but remember: the chances are your MP, your bank, your newspaper and your Mayor are on the other side.

They’re on the side of the munneee. The munneee being used to starve Athens of cash, to banish them from QE, and to start a bank run. You see, these bastards will do anything rather than allow a victory of liberty, the People, and real Democracy.

It won’t end here, of course. But I’ll tell you why there should be all Hell breaking loose about ex-Goldman psychopaths running a coach and four over our rights, and it goes like this.

We can give them a very seriously bloodied nose here. Or we can wait until the Spain thing gets ugly. And the Italian thing. And the Hungarian thing. And the Ukrainian, Russian and Cypriot thing. Because when too many things get out of control at the same time, it starts to look disturbingly like the Armageddon Thing.

If this trail of foreseen events is ringing any bells from your history classes, then I’ll offer you one clue: appeasement. And we all know where that little idea led.

Think 1936. Think of Greece as the Rhineland. Stop it here: don’t wait for Poland.

Yesterday at The Slog: Silence is golden, but gold prices lie