“Right Greece, up against that wall over there. Here, put that blindfold on... what’s that? No you can’t have a last fucking cigarette, you are too broke. You flogged your last pack off to Goldman Sachs.”
If the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was honest, this is how its press releases would read when describing the brutal austerity the “troika” of the IMF, European Union and European Central Bank demands from Greece in return for funds to stop the country going bankrupt.
Instead, they prattle on about Greece's “tremendous efforts to implement wide-ranging painful measures” in a “difficult social environment” when explaining further demands for cuts that have already slashed wages and pensions by as much as 40%, sacked hundreds of thousands of workers and imposed drastic tax hikes on ordinary people.
These measures, which have plunged Greece into deep recession, were said in a March 15 IMF statement to focus on “restoring competitiveness and growth” through “fair and sustainable” measures to “improve the business environment”.
Really, Andres Breivik should have employed an IMF spokesperson as his defence lawyer. His murderous rampage could have been spun as a “life-affirming program” developed as a contribution to “creating a tolerant atmosphere” in order to “promote multicultural values”.
Not that the Greek people didn't have it coming. There is no question when you think of the cause of the Global Financial Crisis that shook the world in 2008, the first image that comes to mind is a Greek pensioner.
So, no doubt, when 77-year-old Greek pensioner Dimitris Christoulas shot himself in February opposite the Greek parliament, leaving behind a note saying he could no longer afford to live, it was the guilt that finally got him.
It wasn't mentioned in his suicide note, but we can be pretty sure among his final thoughts were: “If only I hadn't convinced those running the huge banks to pour so much money into those dodgy investment packages to earn short term profits in an unsustainable financial bubble, then perhaps Lehman Brothers would still be here today and it would never have come to this.”
It is not just Christoulas who can't live with his role in throwing the global economy into crisis. Greece's suicide rate rose 41% in 2011.
Greece, the argument goes, just owed too much money and it couldn't pay. The people of Greece therefore have to take these cuts or the country goes bankrupt.
The big financial institutions, you see, were afraid Greece couldn't pay its debt and would default. They should know, they are the ones who decided Greece couldn't pay its debt and was at risk of default.
And, in doing so, made it near impossible for Greece to access the funds needed to pay its debt, making it at risk of defaulting.
So in rides the troika with the bailout cash so Greece can pay the financial institutions. With one or two conditions — Greek workers get bled dry and everything not nailed down is flogged off. All so the big banks get paid.
Which we can all agree is the most important thing here. What, with the big banks being the victims of all those scams perpetrated by Greek pensioners.
The worst thing is that so many people in Greece seem to have no sense of shame at all. Rather than allow their country to be dismembered piece by piece in the interests of the big banks, they used the May 6 elections as an opportunity to tell the big banks and the Greek and European ruling elites to go and get fucked. Unbelievable.
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