OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: Euro crisis: Prison of nations

The same can surely be said of all Western leaders these days. United States President Barack Obama has it easy. He at least has a clear agenda to tear up -- the Reagan-Bush one. But the only common policy of Western leaders so far is one dictated by the banking elite: “Bail us out, but leave us alone.” If anything, they are demanding coordinated bailing out and calling for a new international banking institution, which of course they will control, and which, we are supposed to believe, will avert any further unpleasantness. Such an institution may well act to avert capitalism’s collapse, but there will be lots of “unpleasantness”, evenly distributed among the common people.

The sunny euro-vistas of yesterday are no longer. Eastern Europe risks being eaten alive by Western banks. Western Europe risks mere stagnation and endless political unrest. All indications are that this is a deadend, that the only way forward is to break the hold that the economic system has on both East and West. The upheavals have begun and the real domino effect will spread throughout Europe this summer. That the European parliament elections in June will take place in a hostile atmosphere is an understatement.

Using a crisis to push through unpopular measures doesn’t work anymore, as Greek and Latvian politicians have discovered. The streets are already ringing with the cry: “We won’t pay for your crisis!”

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