Nicos Loudos brought greetings from Greece. He said, “The movement from Egypt is sweeping through Spain into Greece. Greece has seen a massive radicalisation. We’re not thinking about how to fix the system, we’re thinking about ways to overthrow it.”
Yippee!
Striking London teacher Jess Edwards said, “Who can now say that the working class in this country is dead?
“They say strikes are for Greece. But we have more in common with Greek workers than we have with Tory toffs. We’re fighting for the future.”
Bravo, Jess, well said! For me nationalism is the greatest folly of all. It's not only a scoundrel's refuge, but it is the biggest obstacle to peace and social justice. The idea that we should be faithful to, owe allegiance to, those people who are pissing on our heads because we were born inside the same artificial boundaries arbitrarily drawn by the ruling class of yore, the oligarchs who pissed on the heads of our forebears, is the state's greatest con. That loyalty should be vertical, that we should abandon our own interests to ally with those who suck the blood out of our veins when their profits are at stake in other venues, is capital's greatest canard. Truth cannot ally with power, it can only yield to it. It cannot be in my interest to aid the class which exploits me in its efforts to seize the resources and labor of another nation. As an American, I am supposed to feel confederacy with the people of Wisconsin in their struggle because they are my fellow Americans. However, I am expected to be indifferent to the agonies of the Greek people because they live in a different cage. But the people who occupied the Capitol in Madison, and the people throwing rocks in Syntagma Square are fighting the same foe. The same international ruling elites who own the US also own Greece. The same deprivations being imposed on us, have also fallen on the shoulders of the Greek people, albeit in greater measure.
If the Greeks manage to overthrow their treasonous government, and establish a real democracy, and decide to default or unilaterally reschedule payments; and, hypothetically, the US intervenes militarily to protect its "vital national interests," which side should the people who occupied the Wisconsin Capitol support? Can it ever be morally justifiable to protest free-market reforms oneself, and then join in an attack on a people who overthrew a government which imposed just that? Of course the state doesn't care about such niceties. International capital owns America, and America owns us, so if we would refuse to go and destroy the Greek revolution, we will be incarcerated. Citizenship isn't an entitlement, it's a branding iron.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=25283
