...and this BBC opinion piece is painfully laughable:
"But the point about this deal is - once again in the eurozone, it was a case of politics trumping economics.
"The desire to keep the eurozone together was stronger (for now) than the economic forces threatening to pull it apart."
That's exactly what didn't happen. A blind religion of economics and a non-elected body or three trumped any sense of democracy.
The Germans could easily have dropped the false economic concept. One detail today is that they are hiding behind "rules"--they are reluctant to use the mechanism described to save Greece, and the reason given is "the rules won't allow it."
So change the rules. It is called politics.
Unless the BBC means using economics as a political weapon, it is as usual in this case totally upside down. Weapon aka "the economic forces threatening to tear it apart" aka the hubris of Germany.
Why? Because they have to mock the euro at the back of every sentence on Europe. Why? Because Cameron is threatening to axe the BBC.
Don't pin the tragedy tail on the wrong donkey BBC.
What the editorial is in fact implying is: "If we Brits had been in charge, we would've punished Greece even worse."
See--Britain didn't need a Nazi party. It was already #1 in world domination. Any excuse to clobber the Germans--from a position to the right of them.
I'm sorry, Tim, but all of this is just speaking way too soon. You might remember a country called Argentina, and Greece is nowhere near as uppity. Bankers make/break rules at will and their pet politicians write the copy after the fact, not before. You and I can say what we feel like saying precisely because it has no effect except to make ourselves feel good. Nobody will remember what we say, and so we can easily post-write our own micropropaganda in imitation of the pros. As above, so below...and our rhetoric is a performative indication of where we know the power is. We're wrong, of course, but that doesn't matter. The point is to make sure we do enough talking to obviate real political activity.
ReplyDeleteI don't quite follow, Nick. I agree with the point about the banks but I don't follow what you mean about talking/obviating. Please explain.
ReplyDeleteThe rhetoric that expects people (ordinary Humans--in this case Greeks--and the fallible political collectives they inhabit) to do what much less economically disadvantaged people (US) would never do in terms of getting up the courage to halt injustices and create economic reform, and that predicts certain outcomes based on its own emotion-fueled conviction. This is a case where I definitely agree with Graham Harman: politics is not really about left/right (as Democracy Now! commentators would seem to have us believe), nor is it about truth/power axes; it's about uncertainty--and no people on earth are more uncertain than we whose political action and discourse currently poisons the metaphorical air of every other country on earth.
ReplyDeleteThanks. That's interesting-- if over my head a bit ; or a lot. ...
ReplyDeleteIf you're interested in filling up yet more time with reading, check out Harman's book on Bruno Latour's politics (or a more succinct report is available in his lecture and interview at Sonc Acts earlier this year. Also, to see why collective political action usually happens (it's not caused by hard times and injustice, but by the collective understanding that the answer lies in its own hands), check out Goodwyn's "The Populist Moment".
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