PANOS LIVITSANOS
P.S. (24.02.2018)
1
We just discovered that the administrators of the website of
Eurodad, i.e. one of the
reformist/globalist NGOs and organizations, among which also
CADTM (the parent organization of the “Greek Committee Against
the Greek Debt” mentioned in my letter below) and of course the
“Audit Commission of the Greek Public Debt” (ΕΛΕ),
which together co-organized a costly convention on May 6-8, 2011
in Athens, removed their official document/agenda of the
convention from eurodad.org (obviously by order of senior
members of these organizations) which revealed that the
conference in question was financially supported by the EU,
through the European Commission:
http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedFiles/Whats_New/News/Agenda%20draft_online2104%281%29.pdf?n=4317
(This happened as early as in 2013
according to Wayback Machine).
The above currently inactive link (it redirects the visitor to
the main Eurodad page) was provided back in summer 2011 by me in
the letter below to 'Global Research' and by the Inclusive
Democracy Network in its announcements, as well as by other
fighters of the antisystemic Left[9]
as irrefutable proof
of the political (and
material too…) relationship between these organizations and the
EU. That is, it showed the strong association of these
organizations which supposedly fight for abolishing the public
debt in Third World countries, Greece etc. with the main
institution of the New World Order of Neoliberal Globalization
in Europe (EU), which is basically the culprit of the
catastrophe in Greece and the crisis in the periphery of the EU
in general[10]!
Nevertheless, not only did they deactivate the link and
remove the original, lawful document/agenda of the convention
from their website, but also in a strikingly malicious manner,
they substituted it with an almost identical fraudulent one, in
which the controversial indication in the end of the document of
the sponsoring of their convention by the European Commission
was deleted!!!:
http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedfiles/whats_new/news/agenda%20draft_online2104.pdf
Hopefully, the
Wayback Machine kept the original
file of the initial link intact in its cache, crawled at
17/6/2011, in the following address. One may see the
indication/logo of the sponsoring of the convention by the
European Union in the end of the PDF
document:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110617065702/http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedFiles/Whats_New/News/Agenda%20draft_online2104(1).pdf?n=4317
To my mind their aim with this sleight of hand was not only to
hide their “unholy” association and dependence on the EU, but
also to make all of us who had taken part in the assemblies of
the squares in Summer 2011, and had revealed their unscrupulous
manipulation by the reformist “Left” and this strong association
in the first place, sound (at least)
unreliable.
P.S. 2
As I had the chance to review my letter, I would like to correct
1-2 errors of accuracy regarding the names and the roles of some
of the organizations mentioned in it which were—among others
like Eurodad, CADTM, the Bretton Woods Project etc. engaged in
“solving” the supposed Greek “Debt” problem, that, according to
the reformist Left, is largely the cause of the crisis in the
periphery and today’s catastrophe in Greece. Thus, for the sake
of accuracy, I would like to clarify that the “Greek Committee
against the Greek Debt” (the Greek counterpart of CADTM) is not
the same organization as the “Audit Commission of the public
Debt” (ΕΛΕ)
which was in reality the “umbrella organization which unites
this reformist “Left” and various MPs in Greece” that I mention
in my letter. This, despite the striking fact that both
organizations had very close ties (at least back then) and Mr.
Mitralias himself was a coordinator of the Initiative for an
“Audit Commission of the public Left”[11]
and a founding member of the “Greek Committee against the Greek
Debt” as well—both organizations co-organized the convention in
question[12].
Lastly, I would like to make clear that by the possibly
ambiguous phrase “special interests that he seems to serve” that
I used in my letter, I meant, of course, simply political
special interests which aimed at the gross promotion of the
disorientating “Debt” and debt-ology agenda of the reformist
“Left”, tooth and nail.
The following letter was sent to the Editors of “Global
Research”* on June 28th 2011, as a reply to Mr.
Yorgos Mitralias’ article
“The Battle against Neoliberalism: Massive Popular Uprising in
Greece”, which was published in their portal. It
was followed by a kind request from the author to know about
their view on the matter, as Mr. Mitralias’ article
is, to my view, “deeply irrelevant to the cause of
the anti-globalization movement, important part of which is
Global Research",
I thought that, ideally my reply should also be published in
their portal, so that a balance between, on the one hand, the
reformist view on Neoliberal Globalization and the movement of
the"Indignants", and, on the other, the anti-systemic view could
be achieved.
Nothing
happened, and the author sent again a letter to the editors of
Global Research on July 10th,
asking again (at least) for their opinion on the matter and
whether they considered publishing the author’ s reply. Yet
again, no reply was given to the author, not even a formal one
to swiftly reject his submission, this way showing that the
editors of this anti-Globalization portal do not even abide by
the standard principles that bound all serious editors and
electronic journals and portals in the World.
So, it makes no
surprise that although “Global Research” does a good job in
exposing the mechanisms of propaganda and geo-political
expansionism used by the elites of the US and some European
countries, it never scratches the surface of a mainly
“geostrategic” and sometimes “conspiracy-theory” kind of
analysis and conclusions, without even implicitly referring to
the crucial systemic factors underlying these mechanisms. And
this is why utterly reformist views like these of Mitralias, or
Chomsky for instance, are welcome to their portal, whereas
antisystemic
views are virtually non-existent!
Dear
Editors of “Global Research”,
I have
been following your Newsletters and posts for a while now, as I
consider that many of the articles posted at your web site
provide very useful and sometimes extremely revealing insights
about the effects of the spreading of Neoliberal Globalization
and the role of the transnational elite and their media during
this process. The criminal war of the transnational elite
against the Libyan people, particularly, which the Inclusive
Democracy Network thoroughly examined from the first moment it
took off —a campaign which was morally justified with the help
of the “Degenerate Left” (see Takis Fotopoulos' thorough
analysis on the matter[1])—
was also a striking example of how useful and important the
anti-globalization inquiry proved to be during such pivotal
events. Especially when the inquiry is combined with rational
analysis and argumentation by anti-systemic analysts who have
offered a significant part of their life research in exposing
the mechanisms of the —nowadays internationalized— system and
the elites who mainly control it.
Having said this, and also having acquired
some personal experience from the movement of the “Indignants”
in Greece and the way their popular assemblies have been
organized and unfortunately manipulated, with the decisive
“help” of “Real Democracy Now”, the reformist “Left” and their
parties, as well as the “Greek Committee Against the Debt” (an
umbrella organization which unites this reformist “Left” and
various MPs in Greece), it came as a very bad surprise to see
that Global Research, a primarily anti-globalization media web
site, published an article called “The Battle against
Neoliberalism: Massive Popular Uprising in Greece” by Mr. Yorgos
Mitralias, who is a founder of the so-called “Greek Committee
Against the Debt”
[2].
And it was mostly an
unfortunate surprise, because I suspect that you decided to pick
his article, without checking either the general validity of the
author' s “over-revolutionary” claims, nor
—more
importantly—
the role of the “Greek Committee Against the Debt” in regards
with Neoliberal Globalization, and its connection specifically
with the European Union, which is the basic Institution for the
integration of European countries (particularly those in the
European periphery, i.e. the South and the countries of the
former actually existing socialism’) into the internationalized
market economy, which Neoliberal Globalization expresses[3].
I will try
to explain my position here in brief:
First of
all, the claims of Mr. Mitralias, who tries to connect the lines
between the popular insurrections in North Africa with those in
Europe, even though the former were mostly anti-regime protests
and not anti-globalization protests, (and that is why in fact in
Egypt and in Tunisia it was only the personnel which changed,
and the US-controlled army continues to have the upper hand),
could be easily deemed as childlike, especially when only a
small part of the reformist “Left” in Greece makes this
connection:
“While fairly different from the similar movement in Spain
through its dimensions, its social composition, its radical
nature and its political heterogeneity, the movement on
Syntagma shares with Tahrir square in Cairo and Puerta del Sol
in Madrid the same hatred against the economic and political
elite that has grabbed and emptied of any significance bourgeois
parliamentary democracy in times of arrogant and inhuman
neoliberalism (emphasis added by me) . The movement is
stirred by the same non violent democratic and participative
urge that is to be found in all popular uprisings in the early
21st century.”
Second,
Mr. Mitralias reveals his utterly reformist view on the nature
of Neoliberal Globalization and the Internationalized System,
when, in addition to the above, he writes that:
“Going back to the Greek ‘Outraged’, or ‘Indignés’ or
Aganaktismeni, we have to note that the movement is getting more
and more rooted among lower classes against a Greek society that
has been shaped by 25 years of an absolute domination of a
cynic, nationalist, racist and individualist neoliberal ideology
that turned everything into commodities.”
And,
moreover,
“Should we therefore conclude that those
demonstrators are schizophrenic? Of course not. As there are no
miracles, or politically ‘pure’ social uprisings, the movement
is becoming gradually more radical while still branded by those
25 years of moral and social disaster. But mind: all its
‘shortcomings’ are subsume into its main feature, namely
its radical rejection of the Memorandum,
of the Troika, the public debt, the government, austerity,
corruption, a fictional parliamentary democracy, the European
Commission, in short of the whole system!
”
So, for
Mr. Mitralias, the “whole System” is comprised by the
Memorandum, the Troika, the...public debt (!!!), the government,
austerity, corruption, a “fictional” parliamentary democracy,
and the European Commission, i.e. by some of the...means and
state organs used by the Internationalized System of the Market
Economy and Representative “Democracy” and the transnational
elite, and their local counterparts, so as to impose the New
World Order of Neoliberal Globalization!
Furthermore, the attribution of
Neoliberalism just to a “bad ideology” that this author
maintains, is another staring indication that Mr. Mitralias
adopts an extremely reformist and “illiterate” view on
Neoliberal Globalization, despite the fact that there has been a
thorough dialogue on the nature of Neoliberal Globalization in
Greece for over 20 years, with the anti-systemic trends to
consider it clearly as a systemic
phenomenon, due to the expansion of transnational corporations—a
new phenomenon that emerged in the last 40 years or so, and not
just an “ideology” imposed by some “bad elites” (implying that
this phenomenon can be reversed if some “good elites” come in
power – namely the reformist ones!)[4]
Lastly,
and even more importantly, Mr. Mitralias jumps to the point of
sheer speculation just for the sake of the special interests
that he seems to serve, when he adheres that:
“It is surely not by chance if for the
past two weeks demonstrators shout such phrases as ‘We owe
nothing, we sell nothing, we pay nothing’, ‘We do not sell or
sell ourselves’, ‘Let them all go, Memorandum, Troika,
government and debt’ or ‘We’ll stay until they go’.
Such catchwords do unite all demonstrators
as indeed all that is related to their refusal to pay for the
public debt.[2] This is why the campaign for an audit Commission
of the public debt (my note: a campaign indirectly promoted
heavily by the Greek mass media) is a great success throughout
the country. Its stall in the middle of Syntagma square is
constantly besieged by a crowd of people eager to sign the call
or to offer their services as voluntary helpers…[3]”
This is because it is truly enraging that
Mr. Mitralias managed to “explain” that the popular masses who
protest all over the country are united by their “refusal to pay
for the public debt”, as he implies! So, for the author, it is
not mainly the huge crisis expressed by
the climbing unemployment, the
criminal unprecedented cuts on the public spending for covering
the basic needs of the population, the wages, the social
services, etc. that united the people to “get indignated”, but
just the question of who is going to pay the public debt, which
as can be shown, is strictly a symptom of the crisis in Greece
and the European South and not the cause of it[5]!!
Besides, even if we accept that, indeed, a brainwashed, by the
mass media, part of the population, considers that the public
debt is the “root of the evil” today, what is then the role of
the reformist “Left”, of which Mr. Mitralias is a prominent
member, in demystifying this systemic ideology? And why the,
manipulated by this sort of “Left”, “general assemblies of the
squares” which are supposedly “direct-democratic” but, in fact,
are insidiously controlled by members of the reformist parties
and the “Greek Committee Against the Debt” itself, through
various methods as we have revealed elsewhere[6],
also promote, every crucial day that passes, the myth that the
problem —and the unifying factor of the enraged people—
is the public debt, in the public dialogue?
So, it is more than obvious that the
reformist “Left” that Mr. Mitralias and his associates express,
is in fact playing an important role
in the
general public disorientation about the true causes of the
crisis in Greece today, and therefore, about the possible way
out from this. However, this does not only happen because this
reformist “Left”, of which
the “Greek Committee Against the
Debt” is a proud counterpart, is prevalent in the pro-system
media and the “alternative” media, which do not challenge
Neoliberal Globalization in Greece. It is now well-known that
some of the major global gatherings and means of propaganda of
this Committee, such as their costly convention in Athens last
month, was financed by the European Union itself, i.e. the major
institution which integrates Greece into Neoliberal
Globalization[7]!
No wonder that Mr. Mitralias and the reformist “Left” do never
directly challenge EU as part of the system and their catalytic
role in creating the chasm between consumption and production,
which was the main factor that led to the crisis today, that
threatens to turn Greece and their people in a protectorate of
the transnational elite for the indefinite future.
I hope that my letter provided you with
some crucial facts about the struggle “from below” that is
ongoing in Greece and the role of the degenerate “Left” (as we
call the reformist “Left”) in censoring implicitly
—and
sometimes explicitly—
the public dialogue about the true causes of the Greek crisis,
which has to do with the integration of the country into the
Neoliberal
Globalization through EU, a process that accelerated the crisis.
I am certain that you will take my letter into account and, if
you see fit, you could publish it as a new post/reply to Mr.
Mitralias' article,
so that, at least, a sort of
balance is restored, in view of the
significant disorientation and misinformation it may have
created to the wide international audience of “Global Research”.
Even more importantly, when your web portal seems to be one of
the few alternative media left internationally, trying to expose
the mechanisms and the role of Neoliberal Globalization and the
New World Order which it introduced.
Thank you,
Panos
Livitsanos
Member of the Editorial Committee of “The
International Journal of Inclusive Democracy”[8]