Several centuries ago, the ‘press gang’ was alive and kicking. This was an institution designed to ‘enlist’ men for the Royal Navy, at its peak of imperialism and overseas exploration. The conditions for seamen on board His Majesty’s vessels was appalling, the most notorious account of which is probably to be found in Mutiny on the Bounty*, at the hands of the infamous Captain Bligh.

Now in order to coerce the hapless seamen into the King’s service, the following practice was applied. The devious recruiter would give, or usually force, the prospective victim to accept the notorious ‘King’s Shilling’ which meant that he had of that fact alone entered into an irreversible commitment to serve the King at his pleasure. He had been loaned or ‘prest’ money by the King and was therefore indebted to him for life and had thereby forfeited his freedom.

This is precisely what has happened to Greece. Under duress, the country’s so called government has signed away just about every right a sovereign state enjoys for the privilege of being loaned (prest?) billions of Euro in order to pay the banks of the lending countries (Debt PLUS interest please note, punitive interest at that).

To ensure this privilege, the Greek government has committed the country to taking further recessionary measures. Measure designed not only to destroy the last vestiges of what remains of a welfare state, but the economy as a whole.  Our government has made a pact whereby not only will none of the loan money go into the economy, but furthermore, all revenue the Greek state manages to raise (not least through exorbitant taxation) will go into an escrow account from which money will be taken to pay off debt first and foremost.

Since we are being pushed deeper and deeper into depression, it is unlikely that any funds will be available for the Greek state at all. So we are on board the Bounty being whipped and keel hauled because we have been forced to take the “King’s Shilling” (or rather The Frau’s in this case.)

A team from the troika has already arrived in Greece to impose cuts of well over 11 billion Euro over the next two years. Never mind that Greece is supposed to be holding a general election in a couple of months. That is of no consequence to the troika! Greece shall do what it is told, whoever wins the election! Even the Communists! Her government has already signed the country’ death warrant in blood. So elections? Hah! That’s a joke if ever I heard one.

Now these cuts being nicely designed for us stand at something like 5% of current GDP, but are in fact much more than that even, given that Europe is forcing Greek GDP down at a monstrous rate. The idea for all this, we are told, is so that we can meet their (impossible) targets to reduce the deficit. This on an economy already contracting at an average rate of about 6% per annum. One simply doesn’t know whether one should laugh or cry!!!

So we find ourselves in Ionesco land again. We are being told we’ve got to save the country! This is the only way! We’ve got to reduce the population to destitution, starvation and slave labour for those lucky enough to have jobs! We have signed on the dotted line! We must destroy the Greek economy utterly in order to save it!

Isn’t that a bit of an oxymoron? Just what precisely will anyone have saved? A waste land of rocks and crumbling columns? What for? And this goes for the European directorate too. Don’t they know that if you kill the chicken that lays the golden egg (or even the ordinary egg!) then you will no longer have anything either?

As for the gentlemen and ladies (all 50 something of them!) of the current government and the PM appointed by the European Central Bank, they are lucky to be living in 2012. Less than a hundred or so years ago their fate would have been very different.

Still for all the smug certainty that they’ve got us by the… and curlies, well, as has been said so many times before, a country is not a company and business contracts are just that. Business contracts. Binding, perhaps, but in other contexts also lethal. Not least for those who forced them on weaker parties through threats, terrorization, and raw Might is Right concepts. Get out the Cat o’ nine tails!

But wait a minute! Revolutions were a European innovation, weren’t they?

 

*A real event, recorded in several books and two famous films. One in 1935 with Charles Laughton and Clark Gable and a remake in 1962 with Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard.