Source: Global Research.caPaul Craig Roberts
Every day that passes adds to the fraudulent image of what is called Western democracy.
Consider that the entire Western world is outraged
that the Greek prime minister announced that he is going to permit the
Greek people to decide their own fate instead of having it decided for
them by a handful of banksters, politicians, and bureaucrats living it
up at taxpayer expense at “talks” in the French resort of Cannes on the
Mediterranean.
The Greek economy is facing its fourth year of
decline and lacks the revenues to service its national debt held by
private European banks. The banks don’t want to lose any money, so a
handful of power brokers reached an agreement with representatives of
the Greek government to write off some of the debt in exchange for EU
capital subsidies to be financed by inflicting severe austerity on the
Greek population. Wages, salaries, pensions and medical care are being
cut while the rate of unemployment rises to depression levels.
Government employees are laid off. Valuable public properties are to be
sold to private parties for pennies on the dollar. In short, Greece is
to be looted.
Large numbers of Greeks have been in the streets
protesting the austerity policy and have reached the point of anger of
throwing Molotov cocktails at the police. Greece is disintegrating
politically. The Greek people sense that the EU “bailout” is not bailing
out Greece. It is bailing out the French, Dutch, and German banks at
the expense of the Greek people.
The Greek prime minister, watching his party’s
support and power crumble, announced that he would let the people decide
in a referendum. After all, allegedly that’s what democracies do. But
it turns out that “we have freedom and democracy” is not supposed to be
taken literally. It is merely a propagandistic slogan behind which
people are ruled through back-room deals decided by powerful private
interests.
The Greek prime minister’s announcement that he would
put the back-room bailout deal to a referendum shocked the EU
hierarchy, Washington, and investors. Who does this Greek guy think he
is permitting the people, who bear the cost of the deal, to have a say
in it? Who let this Greek guy out of his cage? This is not the way
democracies are ruled.
The EU power brokers are outraged over the Greek
prime minister’s departure from normal procedure. But the Greek PM is
relying on the Greek people to approve the deal, and not without reason.
The Greek people have been brainwashed for decades as
to the importance of “being part of Europe.” That means being a member
of the European Union. When the Greeks realize that voting down the
bailout of the banksters means being thrown out of the European Union,
which is what they will learn between now and the referendum, they will
vote for the back room deal.
Polls already indicate this. A poll for a Greek
newspaper indicates that whereas 46% oppose the bailout, 70% favor
staying in the EU, which the Greeks see as a life or death issue.
If this poll is a reliable indicator, the Greek PM
has made a brilliant political decision. The Greek people will vote in
favor of what they have been protesting violently in the streets. As the
Greek people will do themselves in, the politicians are off the hook.
This is the bet that the Greek PM has placed.
Whatever the outcome, keep in mind that the entire
Western political and investor world was shocked that a politician,
instead of simply imposing a back room deal, said he would let the
people decide. Letting the people decide is a no-no in Western
democracies.
If you need more evidence of this mythical creature
called “Western democracy,” consider that Western governments are no
longer accountable to law. Contrast, for example, the sexual harassment
charges that are plaguing US presidential candidate Herman Cain’s
campaign with the pass given to high government officials who clearly
violated statutory law.
What follows is not a defense of Cain. I take no
position on the charges. The real point is different. In America the
only thing that can ruin a politician is his interest in sex. A
politician, for example, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, B. Omama, cannot
be ruined by violating United States and international law or by
treating the US Constitution as a “mere scrap of paper.” Bush and Cheney
can take America to wars based entirely on lies and orchestrated
deceptions. They can commit war crimes, murdering large numbers of
civilians in the cause of “the war on terror,” itself a hoax. They can
violate US and international laws against torture simply “because the
president said so.” They can throw away habeas corpus, the
constitutional requirement that a person cannot be imprisoned without
evidence presented to a court. They can deny the right to an attorney.
They can violate the law and spy on Americans without obtaining
warrants. They can send due process to hell. In fact, they can do
whatever they want just like Hitler’s Gestapo and Stalin’s secret
police. But if they show undue interest in a woman or proposition a
woman, they are dead meat.
Very few commentators have said a word about this.
The House of Representatives did not impeach President Bill Clinton for
his war crimes against Serbia. They impeached him for lying about a
sexual affair with a White House intern. The US Senate, which had too
many sexual affairs of its own to defend, didn’t bother to try to
convict.
This is Amerika today. A president without any
authority whatsoever, not in law and certainly not in the Constitution,
can assassinate US citizens based on nothing except an assertion that
they are a “threat.” No evidence is required. No conviction. No
presentation of evidence in any court. Just a murder. That is now
permissible to the Amerikan president. But let him try to get a woman
who is not his wife into bed, and he is a cooked goose.
In Amerika there is no such thing any longer as
torture; there is only “enhanced interrogation.” A mere word change has
eliminated the crime. So torture is permissible.
In Amerika today, or in the UK and the EU, anyone who
tells the truth is a “threat.” Julian Assange of Wikileaks, who made
public information leaked to him by US government sources horrified by
the criminal actions of the United States government, is now, as a
result of Amerikan pressure on UK courts, being turned over to Sweden,
which, for favors from the “world’s only superpower,” will turn him over
to the US regardless of law to be prosecuted on trumped-up charges.
Western “civilization” is totally corrupted by
American money. There is no integrity anywhere. For a decade Washington
has been murdering women, children, village elders, and journalists in
the name of the hoax “war on terror.”
What terror does the world actually see? The world
sees the terror that Israel, protected by Washington, inflicts on the
Palestinians. The world sees the terror that the US inflicts on Serbia,
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Latin America and
now Africa, with Syria, Lebanon, and Iran waiting in the wings. The “war
on terror” is nothing but an orchestrated invented excuse for
Amerika-Israel to achieve hegemony while enriching their armaments
industries.
In Greece, at least the PM committed to giving the
people a say in their fate. In America the people have no voice
whatsoever. The sheeple are content to be protected by “security,”
porno-scanners, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, and
sexual groping. To carry on the hoax “war on terror,” the US government
has elevated itself above the law.
The American effort to achieve accountability to law,
the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, if not shut down by cold
weather, ice, and snow, is likely to be shut down by police violence.
One riot begun by provocateurs is all it takes to transform protesters
into “domestic extremists,” the number one concern of Homeland Security.
The presstitute media will make the case against the rioters, and the
sheeple will buy it.
The police have been militarized by Washington.
Community police forces no longer represent the local public that pays
their salaries. Local police represent Washington’s war against America.
American citizens are all suspects. Anyone who goes
through airport security knows this. The only law that the US government
obeys is not even a law. It is a bureaucratic regulation that prevents,
even in dire wartime, any profiling of suspects by ethnicity or country
of origin.
Consequently, all native born, flag-waving, American
super-patriots are suspects when they board commercial airliners.
Americans who have a life time of security clearances are subject to
being porno-scanned or sexually groped. Airport Security cannot tell a
“terrorist” from a CIA analyst, a Marine general or a US Senator.
Well-connected members of the ruling elite, such as
Michael Chertoff, can become rich from selling the porto-scanners to
taxpayers in order “to protect the public from terrorists.”
The only terrorists Americans will ever experience
are those funded by their own tax dollars within their “own” government.
A people incapable of perceiving its real peril has no chance of
surviving. America might be a military superpower, but it no longer
exists as a free country with accountable government and a rule of law.
