EU/IMF Revolt: Greece, Iceland, Latvia May Lead the Way

Ellen Brown
Web of Debt
December 22, 2009

Europe’s small, debt-strapped countries could follow the lead of Argentina and simply walk away from their debts. That would shift the burden to the creditor countries, which could solve the problem merely by a change in accounting rules.

Total financial collapse, once a problem only for developing countries, has now come to Europe. The International Monetary Fund is imposing its “austerity measures” on the outer circle of the European Union, with Greece, Iceland and Latvia the hardest hit. But these are not your ordinary third world debtor supplicants. Historically, Iceland was settled by the Vikings, who successfully invaded Britain; Latvian tribes repulsed even the Vikings; and the Greeks conquered the whole Persian empire. If anyone can stand up to the IMF, these stalwart European warriors can.

Dozens of countries have defaulted on their debts in recent decades, the most recent being Dubai, which declared a debt moratorium on November 26, 2009. If the once lavishly-rich Arab emirate can default, more desperate countries can; and when the alternative is to destroy the local economy, it is hard to argue that they shouldn’t. That is particularly true when the creditors are largely responsible for the debtor’s troubles, and there are good grounds for arguing the debts are not owed. Greece’s troubles originated when low interest rates that were inappropriate for Greece were maintained to rescue Germany from an economic slump. And Iceland and Latvia have been saddled with responsibility for private obligations to which they were not parties. Economist Michael Hudson writes:

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3. Address On Iceland &The IMF, Debt Moratorium, And Tobin Tax
4. Iceland Political Leader Calls For Debt Moratorium As Government Crumbles
5. Latvia’s government collapses
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7. Greece To Enforce Mandatory Swine Flu Vaccinations
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12. Bilderbergers to Meet in Greece

Are the people who 'really run the world' meeting this weekend?

By Adam Abrams

Haaretz.com

The Bilderberg group, the topic of many conspiracy theories, is now meeting behind closed doors in Greece.

From today until May 17, approximately 150 of the most influential members of the world's elite will be meeting behind closed doors at a hotel in Greece. They are called the Bilderberg Group or the "Bilderbergers," and you have probably never heard of them. 

The group, co-founded by Prince Bernard of the Netherlands, has been meeting in secret every year since 1954. This year, says the British broadsheet The Times, they are meeting at the Nafsika Astir Palace in Vouliagmeni. 

The individuals at the meeting come from such power houses as Google and the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Senate and European royalty. Governments, the banking industry, big oil, media and even the world of academia are amongst the Bilderberg ranks

Those reportedly in attendance at last year's conference in Virginia include former U.S. senator Tom Daschle; Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and his predecessor Henry M. Paulson; former U.S. secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice; Microsoft executive Craig Mundie; senior Wall Street Journal editor Paul Gigot; World Bank President Robert Zoellick and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. There is no official list of who's who in Bilderberg and there are no press conferences about the meetings. This is because the group operates under the"Chatham House Rule," and no details of what goes on inside are released to the press.

This secrecy has led to many claims that the Bilderberg Group are the world's real "kingmakers," and, some even suggest, behind the global financial crisis. 

There are also rumors concerning Bilderberg's 2008 conference in Virginia, claiming that the recent U.S. presidential election was decided upon in a secret meeting between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, courtesy of Bilderberg. 

Those involved in Bilderberg reject such claims outright, arguing that the forum offers a chance for world leaders to discuss international affairs openly and honestly. 

Former British cabinet minister, Lord Denis Healey, who was one of the founders of the group, branded assumptions of world domination as "crap!" and said that the group's aims were much purer. 

In an interview to journalist Jon Ronson of the Guardian, Healey said: "Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing." 

Veteran Bilderberg-watcher Daniel Estulin says that the big topic on the agenda for this year is the global depression. 

Estulin quotes sources connected to the group as saying that the group is looking at two options, "either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline, and poverty... or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency." 

As the BBC's Jonathan Duffy noted in 2004, the air of mystery has fueled the increasingly popular conspiracy theory that the Bilderberg meetings are where decisions affecting the entire world are made. 

"No reporters are invited in and while confidential minutes of meetings are taken, names are not noted," Duffy wrote. "In the void created by such aloofness, an extraordinary conspiracy theory has grown up around the group that alleges the fate of the world is largely decided by Bilderberg." 

Recently, mainstream press coverage of the Bilderberg meeting has grown, largely due to the internet. This year's conference may have been covered by British broadsheets, but don't expect to see any coverage from U.S. news outlets such as The Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post - they will most likely be at the conference. 

Adam Abrams is a British-American blogger, currently working as an intern at Haaretz.com 

Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets

• Ian Traynor, Europe editor
• The Guardian, Saturday 31 January 2009
• Article history

Arcellor Mittal workers demonstrate during a protest march in Marseille. Photograph: Jean-paul Pelissier/Reuters

France paralysed by a wave of strike action, the boulevards of Paris resembling a debris-strewn battlefield. The Hungarian currency sinks to its lowest level ever against the euro, as the unemployment figure rises. Greek farmers block the road into Bulgaria in protest at low prices for their produce. New figures from the biggest bank in the Baltic show that the three post-Soviet states there face the biggest recessions in Europe.

It's a snapshot of a single day – yesterday – in a Europe sinking into the bleakest of times. But while the outlook may be dark in the big wealthy democracies of western Europe, it is in the young, poor, vulnerable states of central and eastern Europe that the trauma of crash, slump and meltdown looks graver.

Exactly 20 years ago, in serial revolutionary rejoicing, they ditched communism to put their faith in a capitalism now in crisis and by which they feel betrayed. The result has been the biggest protests across the former communist bloc since the days of people power.

Europe's time of troubles is gathering depth and scale. Governments are trembling. Revolt is in the air.

Athens

Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year-old middle-class boy going to a party in a rough neighbourhood on a December Saturday, was the first fatality of Europe's season of strife. Shot dead by a policeman, the boy's killing lit a bonfire of unrest in the city unmatched since the 1970s.

There are many wellsprings of the serial protests rolling across Europe. In Athens, it was students and young people who suddenly mobilised to turn parts of the city into no-go areas. They were sick of the lack of jobs and prospects, the failings of the education system and seized with pessimism over their future.

This week it was the farmers' turn, rolling their tractors out to block the motorways, main road and border crossings across the Balkans to try to obtain better procurement prices for their produce.

Riga

The old Baltic trading city had seen nothing like it since the happy days of kicking out the Russians and overthrowing communism two decades ago. More than 10,000 people converged on the 13th-century cathedral to show the Latvian government what they thought of its efforts at containing the economic crisis. The peaceful protest morphed into a late-night rampage as a minority headed for the parliament, battled with riot police and trashed parts of the old city. The following day there were similar scenes in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital next door.

After Iceland, Latvia looks like the most vulnerable country to be hammered by the financial and economic crisis. The EU and IMF have already mounted a €7.5bn (£6.6bn) rescue plan but the outlook is the worst in Europe.

The biggest bank in the Baltic, Swedbank of Sweden, yesterday predicted a slump this year in Latvia of a whopping 10%, more than double the previous projections. It added that the economy of Estonia would shrink by 7% and of Lithuania by 4.5%.

The Latvian central bank's governor went on national television this week to pronounce the economy "clinically dead. We have only three or four minutes to resuscitate it".

Paris

Burned-out cars, masked youths, smashed shop windows, and more than a million striking workers. The scenes from France are familiar, but not so familiar to President Nicolas Sarkozy, confronting the first big wave of industrial unrest of his time in the Elysée Palace.

Sarkozy has spent most of his time in office trying to fix the world's problems, with less attention devoted to the home front. From Gaza to Georgia, Russia to Washington, Sarkozy has been a man in a hurry to mediate in trouble spots and grab the credit for peacemaking.

France, meanwhile, is moving into recession and unemployment is going up. The latest jobless figures were to have been released yesterday, but were held back, apparently for fear of inflaming the protests.

Budapest

A balance of payments crisis last autumn, heavy indebtedness and a disastrous budget made Hungary the first European candidate for an international rescue. The $26bn (£18bn) IMF-led bail-out shows scant sign of working. Industrial output is at its lowest for 16 years, the national currency - the forint - sank to a record low against the euro yesterday and the government also announced another round of spending cuts yesterday.

So far the streets have been relatively quiet. The Hungarian misery highlights a key difference between eastern and western Europe. While the UK, Germany, France and others plough hundreds of billions into public spending, tax cuts, bank bailouts and guarantees to industry, the east Europeans (plus Iceland and Ireland) are broke, ordering budget cuts, tax rises, and pleading for international help to shore up their economies.

The austerity and the soaring costs of repaying bank loans and mortgages taken out in hard foreign currencies (euro, yen and dollar) are fuelling the misery.

Kiev

The east European upheavals of 1989 hit Ukraine late, maturing into the Orange Revolution on the streets of Kiev only five years ago. The fresh start promised by President Viktor Yushchenko has, though, dissolved into messy, corrupt, and brutal political infighting, with the economy, growing strongly a few years ago, going into freefall.

Three weeks of gas wars with Russia this month ended in defeat and will cost Ukraine dearly. The national currency, at less than half the value of six months ago, is akin to the fate of Iceland's wrecked krona. Ukrainians have been buying dollars by the billion. In November the IMF waded in with the first payments in a $16bn rescue package.

The vicious power struggles between Yushchenko and the prime minister, Yuliya Tymoshenko, are consuming the ruling elite's energy, paralysing government and leaving the economy dysfunctional. Russia is doing its best to keep things that way.

Reykjavik

Proud of its status as one of the world's most developed, most productive and most equal societies, Iceland is in the throes of what is, by its staid standards, a revolution.

Riot police in Reykjavik, the coolest of capitals. Building bonfires in front of the world's oldest parliament. The yoghurt flying at the free market men who have run the country for decades and brought it to its knees.

An openly gay prime minister takes over today as head of a caretaker government. The neocon right has been ditched. The hard left Greens are, at least for the moment, the most popular party in the small Arctic state with a population the size of Bradford.

The IMF's bailout teams have moved in with $11bn. The national currency, the krona, appears to be finished. Iceland is a test case of how one of the most successful societies on the globe suddenly failed.

(orignal article)

Greek Cops Caught on Video Posing as Anarchists

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
December 28, 2008

A Greek television show has revealed how Greek police posed as anarchists and destroyed property. Inciting violence and blaming it on legitimate activists is a favorite tactic of the state in order to crack down on protest and dismiss genuine grievances.

In 2007, agents provocateurs attempted to incite violence in Montebello, Canada, during a peaceful protest against a Prosperity Partnership summit. A video and photographs later revealed the so-called anarchists were wearing the same military boots as the police. “Neither the RCMP nor the Surete du Quebec would comment on the video or even discuss generally whether they ever use the tactic of employing agents provocateurs, however it has been common practice at previous protests for authorities to employ police or special forces to intentionally infiltrate peaceful protests and cause violence,” Steve Watson wrote on August 22, 2007.

Other documented instances of agents provocateurs used against peaceful protests occurred in Seattle in 1999 at the World Trade Organization meeting, at the WTO protests in Genoa, Italy, and during protests in Miami in late November 2003. The United Steelworkers of America called for a congressional investigation in the latter case and stated that the police intentionally caused violence and arrested and charged hundreds of peaceful protesters. Earlier this year, MP George Galloway accused the London Metropolitan Police of engaging in “a deliberate conspiracy to bring about scenes of violent disorder” during President George W. Bush’s visit to the UK.

Police have gone to great lengths to subvert antiwar organizations. In 2003, two Oakland police officers working undercover at an anti-war protest were elected to leadership positions in an effort to influence the demonstration, according to the San Franciso Chronicle. “The ACLU said the Oakland case was one of several instances in which police agencies had spied on legitimate political activity since 2001.”

From COINTELPRO: The Untold American Story:

Over the years, FBI provocateurs have repeatedly urged and initiated violent acts, including forceful disruptions of meetings and demonstrations, attacks on police, bombings, and so on, following an old strategy of Tsarist police director TC Zubatov: “We shall provoke you to acts of terror and then crush you.”

In October, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga suggested the police be used as agents provocateurs to start riots and then have the police “beat the shit out of the protesters”. Cossiga was one of the founders of Operation Gladio, the CIA and NATO “stay behind army” that engaged in terrorist bombings and assassinations that were subsequently blamed on leftist organizations.

“Cossiga is essentially describing the problem-reaction-solution dialectic that he exploited when he was in government. Under the banner of Operation GLADIO, which was unveiled after parliamentary investigations in Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, NATO sponsored secret armies committed acts of violence and terrorism and blamed the attacks on left-wing political movements, allowing far-right governments to seize power in numerous European countries,” explains Paul Joseph Watson.

The Greek people now have evidence of a similar campaign as they attempt to mobilize against the neoliberal dominated Greek state and its bankster stooges who have brought economic misery to the country. As a matter of course, this vital information will not be brought out in the corporate media as it attempts to discredit peaceful political organizations.

Trends Forecaster Celente: Greece-Style Riots Coming To U.S.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, December 15, 2008

Frighteningly accurate trends forecaster Gerald Celente says that America will see riots similar to those currently ongoing in Greece and that the cause will be a hyper-inflationary depression, leading to the inevitable use of troops and mercenaries to deal with the crisis as Americans are incarcerated in internment camps.

Celente said that the troops now being brought back to America for “domestic security” would be used to suppress the riots.

As we have highlighted before, Celente’s accuracy is stunning - he predicted the 1987 crash, the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the “panic of 2008,” and is routinely cited even by mainstream news networks as highly credible.

The cause of the riots would be a hyper-inflationary depression, Celente told interviewer Lew Rockwell, causing Americans to revolt in similar circumstances that we have witnessed recently in Iceland and Greece. The trouble would be sparked off by Obama declaring a “bank holiday” whereby people won’t be able to withdraw their money.

“What’s going on in Greece with these riots has nothing to do with a 15-year-old boy being killed, that was only the spark that ignited the pent up, really hatred and disdain, people have for the scandals and corrupt government and the same thing is going on in this country as well,” said Celente.

Celente reiterated his prediction of a revolution and riots in America, and said that the first signs of it could even emerge before the end of the year.

Celente said that the troops now being brought back to America for “domestic security” would be used to suppress the riots.

“There’s talk of opening all these detention centers and hiring the goon squads, the Blackwaters to run them, so these are realities going on as we speak,” said Celente, adding that the Halliburton subsidiary KBR had been awarded a half a billion dollar contract to build “national emergency” internment camps in the name of detaining illegal immigrants but that they would be used to hold rioting Americans.

“We’re really in a period of ‘off with their heads’ and its going to be the people against the politicians,” said Celente.

Celente said that a breakup of the United States was possible and that the secessionist movement was strong.

“The government owns and runs the largest mortgage company, owns the largest insurance company, they’re going to be owning a piece of the oil industry, so it’s a fight against a totalitarian government…so there’s going to be rebellions and things will change for the better if we break up these criminal governments that are in place now,” said Celente.

The forecaster added that the government was killing people for a false reason in Iraq and robbing people blind with the bailouts at home.

Listen to the interview here.

Did Greek “Anarchist” Agents Provocateurs Torch Police?

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
September 12, 2008

It looks like government agents provocateurs are out in force in Greece, attempting to discredit legitimate protesters outraged over the murder of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by the police.  

The demonstrations quickly transcended the murder and now encompass the plight of average Greek citizens as they endure economic hardship under the reign of PM Costas Karamanlis, a globalist stooge who has brought “privatization” and “structural reforms” to the country, in other words allowed the banksters to loot Greece. “The new generation of privatizations will accelerate growth and improve state revenues,” Karamanlis declared in 2006. In fact, this “new generation” of thievery has resulted in the current crisis. 

Karamanlis has rejected calls to step down and hold early elections and insists the country needs his “steady hand” to deal with the financial crisis engineered by the international bankers. “There should be no confusion between the emotions felt by young students over the tragic death of a colleague … and this destructive mania,” Karamanlis told the Associated Press. He quickly ran off to Brussels to consult his globalist masters after the demonstrations threatened his rule at the behest of the international elite.

It is no mistake this “destructive mania” has spiraled out of control. As the Pentagon’s Field Manual FM 30-31B states, the most dangerous moment arrives when political activists “renounce the use of force” and embrace the democratic process. It is precisely at this moment that “U.S. army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations which will convince Host Country Governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger,” that is to say the danger of non-violent democratic action. 

In Italy, this strategy worked perfectly under Operation Gladio, the CIA and NATO effort to sow violence and blame it on communists and socialists. “Many members of Operation Gladio were also in a shadowy organization known as P-2,” writes Mark Zepezauer, “it too was financed by the CIA…. One of P-2’s specialties was the art of provocation. Leftist organizations like the Red Brigades were infiltrated, financed and / or created, and the resulting acts of terrorism, like the assassination of Italy’s premier in 1978 and the bombing of the railway station in Bologna in 1980, were blamed on the left. The goal of this ’strategy of tension’ was to convince Italian voters that the left was violent and dangerous – by helping make it so.” 

Is it possible the Greek government is employing this very “strategy of tension” to discredit the growing calls for new elections and the ouster of the bankster stooge, Karamanlis? 

Obviously, torching police and attacking banks along Athens’ central Syntagma Square will only prompt the government to send out shock troops to deal with the “anarchists” who have stolen the momentum of the demonstrations from the people. “One protester walked up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside Parliament and threw a black-and-red anarchist flag at it,” reports the Associated Press. It is no mistake the corporate media is concentrating on this provocateur “anarchist” element, likely dispatched to discredit the opposition. No doubt sensational photographs of supposed anarchists throwing Molotov cocktails at cops will help in this effort.

Banks gas-bombed in Athens

ATHENS (AFP) — Five banks were attacked overnight in Athens, police said Saturday as youths prepared to assemble at the scene of a teen's killing by police one week ago.

The attacks, using gas canisters, also targeted a local party office operated by Greece's ruling conservative party.

There were no victims, but firefighters were called out to extinguish blazes with neighbouring stores also suffering damage to property.

Two cars were also burnt out in the busy Guizi and Exarchia areas of Athens . A week of unrest was triggered in Exarchia with the fatal shooting of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos.

There were no organised rallies planned for the day, but youths occupying nearby university buildings have said they will gather over the weekend at the spot where the schoolboy died.

Peaceful tributes are to be paid to Grigoropoulos, although authorities remain on alert.

Riot police again clashed with youths on Friday, the seventh day of Athens street protests, as Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis dismissed opposition calls to quit.

"At this time the country faces a serious financial crisis... a steady hand on the helm is needed to deal with it," Karamanlis said. "That is my concern, that is the priority of the government, not scenarios about elections and successions.

"The compassion with which all of us ought to treat the distress of young people cannot be confused with blind violence, with the activities of extreme elements."

The offices of lawyer Alexis Kougias, representing two policemen awaiting trial over Grigoropoulos' death, were trashed, while in Paris, demonstrators blocked traffic on the Champs-Elysees after security was beefed-up at the Greek embassy.

In Berlin 1,500 people, about 150 of them Greeks, joined a peaceful march late Friday protesting the boy's death, organisers said. Police put their number at 500.

In Greece hundreds of banks, stores and public buildings have been destroyed, badly damaged by fire or looted in a week of violence mainly involving youths. Statistics show one in four aged 15-24 are officially unemployed.

And while normal life has returned to most of Athens, with protests falling off across provincial Greece, prominent university sites -- beyond the reach of law enforcement -- remain occupied.

The officer who shot Grigoropoulos says he was defending himself from a gang of youths and killed the boy by accident due to a bullet ricochet. A ballistics report, said to confirm that the handgun was not pointed at him, has yet to be released.

(original article)