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By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG.
June 29, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/update-on-assange-the-most-important-press-freedom-case-of-this-era/
This past week, just as public sentiment and corporate media attention were shifting in favor of Julian Assange, the United States issued another superseding indictment in his extradition case. The indictment doesn’t add any charges, it merely uses public information to smear Assange’s reputation and attempt to portray him as a hacker instead of the journalist and publisher that he is. This shows that the US government has a weak case against Assange. Joe Lauria, an investigative journalist and senior editor of Consortium News, explains the new indictment and provides an update on Julian Assange. The Assange case is the most important press freedom case of this era. It will determine our right to know what our government and corporations are doing.
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Joe Lauria is Consortiumnews.com’s Editor-in-Chief. As a long-time contributor to the website and as someone whose career path followed closely the path taken by Consortium News founder Robert Parry – with an impressive resume in both mainstream and independent journalism. Joe has a long and distinguished career in investigative journalism, writing for publications including the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, the Sunday Times of London, London Daily Mail, the Montreal Gazette, and Bloomberg News. Joe’s work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Salon.com, New York Magazine and The Guardian, as well as alternative media websites such as Antiwar.com, The Duran, and of course, Consortiumnews.com. His focus has been international affairs and its intersection with domestic policy, particularly regarding the Middle East (where he lived for three years), and U.S.-Russian relations. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with former U.S. Senator and American presidential candidate Mike Gravel, which is a history of U.S. foreign policy and the defense industry, and How I Lost: By Hillary Clinton, an analysis of the DNC and Podesta emails revealed by WikiLeaks, with a foreword by Julian Assange.
By Kristian Williams, ROAR Magazine.
June 29, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/full-spectrum-resistance-a-field-manual-for-insurgencies/
Aric McBay’s Two-Volume Handbook For Political Action Helps Us To Strategize, Plan And Organize Effectively In Order To Achieve Our Goals Of Radical Social Change.
Looking back on the events of May and June, one might be tempted to think that nobody needs a field manual for insurgency — that rebellions just arise when conditions are ripe and victories inevitably follow, as spring follows winter.
Alternately, one might look at the same events — the uprising against police violence that began in Minneapolis and quickly spread throughout the United States and beyond — and see a series of missed opportunities, strategic blunders, tactical errors and political miscalculations, resulting in a range of symbolic gestures, temporary concessions and ineffective reforms, all far short of the ultimate aims of abolishing the police.
In that case, one might conclude that a field manual is exactly what we need. Luckily, there is such a thing: Full Spectrum Resistance, Aric McBay’s massive, two-volume, handbook for political action, covers the fundamentals of social change, offering advice on organization, strategy, tactics, security, communication (internal and external), and so on — all illustrated with historical case studies.
McBay does not tell us what we should do. Instead, he helps us learn to think about what we should do, and answer the question for ourselves in light of our actual objectives and circumstances. This is by far the stronger approach, especially because one thing that holds our movements back is the failure to think carefully and creatively about what we are doing, to reexamine our theories and alter course as needed.
Instead, we tend to engage in the same sort of actions as we always have, as if they were rituals or reenactments. Peaceniks march against military interventions; workers picket job sites; antifascists “deplatform” right-wing speakers.
It rarely occurs to anyone to ask whether those tactics are well-suited to the goals of those movements, or to consider whether the goals are the right ones. The various parts of the left just acquire their own distinctive styles of action, modes of organizing, points of dogma and rhetorics — and then cling to them out of some combination of faith and dull habit.
Guerillas And Accountants
McBay wants to shake us out of our ruts. “We are losing,” he writes in the very first line of the very first page; it is time to try something else. He thus urges us to learn, not simply new tactics or talking points, but how to think strategically, and how to build organizations and movements that can implement our chosen strategy, and then learn and adapt.
The resulting manual — encyclopedic in scope and dense with information — is not the work of a singular genius. That, too, is a strength. McBay compiles and distills the lessons from generations of social movement organizing and its related scholarship. He draws from the environmental, labor, anti-war, civil rights, gay rights, and feminist movements, as well as various struggles against colonialism and other forms of foreign occupation, and from organizations as different as the French Maquis, ACT UP and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty.
The discussion of “Dynamic or Situated Hierarchies,” for instance, only occupies a couple of pages, but it looks to groups as varied as the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, the Deacons for Defense and Justice, historical pirates, the Durruti Column and the Kurdish YPG and YPJ.
From the plethora of specific case studies, McBay manages to draw lessons with general applicability. However, the breadth of his approach and the willingness to learn from mistakes and defeats as well as successes, means that there is plenty here to challenge the conventional wisdom of whatever tendency you might identify with, from progressive moderates to Gandhian pacifists to insurrectionary anarchists to Black nationalists.
On the whole McBay’s advice is well-considered, sober, free from posturing and dogma, and in short, serious. It often serves as a much-needed reminder of what ought to be elementary common sense. He writes, for example, “Many tactical disagreements could be smoothed out if radicals at an action or in a campaign joined together as a bloc, organized and showed up early, explained their actions simply and in advance, and tried to calm anyone who got scared or upset by more militant tactics.”
Such straightforward solutions raise the question of why this sort of thing does not happen more often. Why do we need to be told to behave like responsible, grown-up people? Why has such an approach become so exceptional that it is somewhat shocking to see it recommended in print?
Likewise, while McBay is clear on the need for militancy, he is equally clear that militancy is not enough. That is true, in the first place, because tactics are not enough. “A diversity of tactics is not a substitute for good strategy,” McBay writes, adding later, “Tactics can only be evaluated in the context of a good strategy.” Without a strategy, tactics are little more than empty gestures. But even within a confrontational strategy, a movement’s work has to consist of a great deal besides street-fighting and occasional arson.
The very notion of a “diversity of tactics” (a favorite trope of black-bloc types) implies that there is also room in the movement for quieter, more cautious, less bellicose action.
In this sense, McBay really does want resistance to be full-spectrum, availing itself of a broad range of approaches, using all the skills and creativity that many and diverse people can bring to the struggle. He refuses, therefore, to artificially rule out underground activity or violence; he equally refuses to fetishize what is always a small part of larger social processes. “Militancy is essential for successful resistance,” he writes. “But to make gains, the victories won by militancy must be incorporated into enduring organizations and daily life.” The movement may need guerrilla fighters and saboteurs, but it will also need lawyers, medics, artists, accountants, and childcare providers.
We Have No Choice But To Resist
Not that I always agree with McBay’s advice. For example, I think he himself offers plenty of reasons to disregard his rule “Don’t tell other people to slow down.” His impulse is of course a good one: to avoid “paternalis[m],” “dilut[ing] . . . tactics,” and “thin excuses for inaction.” However, much of this book is devoted to explaining the importance of strategy, planning, preparation, organization and a lot of other considerations that in practice mean-looking before leaping, thinking before acting, and in general slowing down to make sure our efforts are not wasted and the risks we take are not pointless or foolish. It seems to me fairly obvious that not all “slowing down” is the same, and that there are circumstances where it is the best possible advice.
There is a way in which such agreements or disagreements are almost secondary. McBay’s advice is always well-argued, based in experience — his own, or historical — and clearly presented. One may disagree, but even then, the disagreement has its effect: it forces you to stop and consider why you disagree, to examine your own thinking, to question, to reconsider. McBay, therefore, models exactly the type of analysis he is trying to instill, and thus he nearly compels the same sort of rigor in the reader.
There are occasional thin spots. The discussion of co-optation is unfortunately weak, missing the key fact that co-optation is a process by which opposition groups, or leaders, are granted access to power, but only so long as they limit themselves to demands that fit within established parameters. McBay’s discussion too closely equates this phenomenon with that of strategic concessions, whereby the authorities give in on select demands in order to placate and demobilize the moderate elements in a movement.
The two tricks of power are related but importantly different: One works chiefly by limiting the objectives of the movement; the other, by dividing its supporters.
Perhaps the greatest oversight in this book is that there is no real guidance as to how to use it. The material calls out for serious study, and if it is to have its intended effect on our movements, its lessons need to be absorbed not merely by individuals but by groups and even formal institutions.
The book deserves careful reading and discussion; and collectives, organizing committees and even whole organizations would profit from reading and talking about it together. However the sheer heft of the work — two volumes, twelve chapters, 650 pages — may make it impractical to think that every member will read it straight through, especially if they are also engaged in ongoing organizing.
On the one hand, each chapter can serve as a stand-alone treatment of its topic; on the other, throughout the book, McBay sustains and develops an analysis of how movements work and how they can be made to succeed. The earlier chapters may not be necessary for understanding the later chapters but they certainly inform them.
My advice, for those looking to use the book for their organizing, is to take one of two approaches. One approach would be to have a small committee read the entire book and develop a curriculum tailored to the needs of the specific organization or campaign, selecting short readings as needed. That curriculum could then guide study in the rest of the organization.
The second, more involved approach, would have one or two instructors read the entire work to help with overall context, and then have other members of the organization read single chapters and present the material for the rest of the group. That would distribute the labor, while still allowing everyone to achieve some familiarity with the whole of the material.
McBay is careful never to understate the challenges, even the dangers, facing oppositional movements. He also makes a realist’s case that we have no choice but to resist. Resistance does not guarantee our survival — as individuals, as communities, or as a species — but allowing power to follow its own logic unopposed practically ensures that exploitation and oppression will continue, sometimes at genocidal levels, and likely leading to human extinction.
To avoid that fate we need radical action and militant tactics. But we also need strategy, planning and organization. Full-Spectrum Resistance may help us to get started.
By Brian Resnick, VOX.
June 29, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/the-us-badly-needs-a-wake-up-call/
“Years Of Potential Life Lost” Is The Most Sobering And Sad Covid-19 Statistic I’ve Seen.
More than 120,000 people in the United States have died of Covid-19.
It’s an enormous number and, quite frankly, a failure of our national response, and of our leadership. But that number does not seem to be enough to inspire all Americans to wear masks, to inspire self-sacrifice to save lives, to inspire more politicians in states to action.
Instead, they are doing the opposite: signaling that things are getting better rather than worse. President Trump is holding massive indoor rallies. Rather than suppressing the pandemic, states and cities are easing up on social distancing, shying away from new restrictions even as cases in some states climb.
And so we are at a dangerous time in the pandemic. Cases are rising in many states, along with hospitalizations. Deaths have not started rising nationally yet, but researchers fear they’re coming: It can take, on average, 17.8 days from the start of symptoms to a Covid-19 death. America needs a wake-up call to this endless disaster, and fast.
The death count is almost certainly an undercount. It doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story. Recently, Harvard epidemiologists calculated a Covid-19 statistic that lands like a gut punch. The statistic is “years of potential life lost.” And perhaps it can help shake our collective numbness to the pandemic.
Psychology teaches us it’s too easy to grow numb to mass suffering and death. We need to fight against that instinct when we can. A life lost isn’t just a single number; it’s a trauma with a ripple effect, throughout our communities, and throughout time.
Imagining More Than 138,000 Years Of Human Life Lost
Calculating years of potential life lost is somewhat straightforward. The Harvard team looked at death certificate data from people who died of Covid-19 and set a cutoff age, in this case 65.
They then found all the people who died of documented Covid-19 before reaching this age and summed up how many years they had left until age 65. This analysis made 65 the cutoff age to try to give a sense of the burden of younger people dying of Covid-19 (though they aren’t dying in rates as high as older people, their loss is still immense). “There’s an arbitrariness,” to the cutoff, Nancy Krieger, a Harvard epidemiologist who co-authored the analysis, says. “But 65 is not arbitrary from a policy standpoint, in terms of benefits, in terms of Social Security, in terms of Medicare. It’s an age that helps also distinguish between people who are of working age still versus not.”
Black Americans under the age of 65 have lost, collectively, 45,777 years of life, the researchers’ analysis (published in a working paper) found. Hispanics and Latinos lost 48,204.
White Americans under age 65 have lost, collectively, 33,446 years of life. Already you can see a clear disparity. White people in the United States greatly outnumber Black people and Hispanics — there are also more deaths among white people overall — but the burden of years life lost among this young group is in these minority communities. (American Indians and Alaska natives lost 1,745 years of life. Asian and Pacific Islanders lost 8,905.)
Tallied up, that totals more than 138,000 years of human life lost before age 65. That’s enormous — and still, an undercount. Many of these people would have lived to a much older age. Still, this small slice of our national loss is enormous: What is 138,000 years of human life worth?
“You think about people being the dynamic beings that we are, living across space and time,” Krieger says. “And then you have lives that are just pulled out of the picture.”
That’s a huge loss.
“Think of all people do in a year,” Rhea Boyd, a pediatrician and public health expert, tweeted on Twitter, referencing Krieger’s study. “You work, have babies, get married, make memories. Black and Latinx populations have lost those opportunities more than 45,000 times from COVID alone.”
America May Be Growing Numb To The Pandemic — But It’s Never Been More Critical To Act
There’s a growing sense that America is giving up on the pandemic. Many states have lifted stay-at-home orders without aggressive new mitigation measures in place. And as cases rise in certain states, it’s unclear if governments will take further action to stop the exponential growth.
As a reporter covering the pandemic, I feel a greater sense of pandemic doom now than in February. In February, we didn’t know what was going to happen, but we were prepared to do something. Now we have a better idea of what will happen, and we’re largely giving up.
It’s partly understandable. People are tired of stay-at-home orders. People need to work (especially if the government is unwilling to provide expanded support). There’s also been an absence of a strong, nationalized message on the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a lot of information for individuals navigating the Covid-19 world, but it gets undermined by the Trump administration, which seems to try to make the issue of mask-wearing into more of a front in the culture wars than a guideline for public health.
But it’s also understandable in terms of human psychology. There’s a concept called psychic numbing, and it may, in part, explain the apathy and exhaustion many are feeling about the coronavirus pandemic. It means that as the number of victims in a tragedy increases, our empathy, our willingness to help, reliably decreases. This happens even when the number of victims increases from one to two.
“Anything that happens on a large scale seems to require that we use numbers to describe it, and yet numbers are precisely the mode of discourse that, in most cases, leaves audiences numb and messages devoid of meaning,” Paul Slovic, the University of Oregon psychologist who has studied psychic numbing for years, writes.
“Years Of Life Lost” Could Help Cut Through The Numbing
For me, the “years of life lost” metric helps cut through the numbing by making these deaths a little less abstract. Think about one year of your life: of the depth and richness of it, of what you can accomplish in it, of how many people you can show your love to during it. Now try to multiply that by 138,000.
This also runs the risk of becoming another large number. But perhaps its novelty, and its accessibility in terms of applying it to our own lives (we can all imagine a year of life), can help. It also underscores how a single death is a trauma that can ripple out.
“When someone dies, their own death matters enormously,” Krieger says. “But it matters enormously for everyone in that person’s family, friends, and networks. When you strip out someone at a much younger age, there’s just a different dimension to what that burden is.”
No death occurs in a vacuum. “It’s also all the ripple effects,” Krieger says. The parents who can no longer provide for their kids. The people who can no longer contribute to their communities. “This gives a different view, and I think it’s a very important one about who is being ripped out of society at younger ages.”
Even among older people, years of life — years of potential — are being lost. In Italy, researchers found that Covid-19 was killing people around 12 to 14 years before they might have died naturally. Even accounting for age and underlying conditions, the study found, people were dying more than five years sooner than life span estimates would suggest.
Of course, death isn’t the only effect Covid-19 has had on our society. There are plenty of other reasons we need greater action to manage the pandemic. One is the great health burden — all the hospitalizations, the days sick, the lingering effects — on those who fall ill but recover. Also the unknowns: Even asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 may leave a mark on the lungs.
Another reason is to save our economy. Another is for our mental health. Nationally, around a third of Americans have reported symptoms of anxiety and depression since late April. For comparison, in the first three months of 2019, just 11 percent of Americans reported these symptoms on a similar survey.
Death “is really important,” Krieger says. “But there’s also when somebody gets sick, or they’re worried about being sick, there’s all the fear that goes with that. There’s the concerns of their loved ones about them. There’s the questions of what the economic implications are for individuals and their households if someone becomes ill.”
There’s also the unfair burden Covid-19 is placing on Black and minority communities — in terms of health and mortality, but economically too. In the paper, Krieger and her co-authors find Covid-19 mortality is nine times higher in Black communities compared to white people in the 35- to 44-year-old range. “You don’t get relative risks for seven- to ninefold for most things in the US for health inequities,” Krieger says. This is extreme.
And a lot more damage can still be done. For the pandemic to simmer down naturally — in a way that will allow life to go back to normal — the population needs to achieve something called herd immunity. For the coronavirus, herd immunity could possibly be achieved when 50 percent of the population is immune. But it could need to be as high as 65 percent.
No area is anywhere near that figure, even New York City, where at least 17,000 people have died of Covid-19. In late April, it was estimated that 20 percent of the city had been exposed to the coronavirus. Elsewhere, the infection rates are much, much lower.
There are so many reasons to not be numb to the coronavirus pandemic. As we see case counts rising, we can’t stay complacent. There’s so much more left to lose.
Yanis Varoufakis
The pandemic is not the first crisis (if we can say so) that hit capitalism all over the world. what is the difference between this one and the previous crisis?
The obvious one is that Covid-19 dealt capitalism an external shock, like an earthquake or a meteor that strikes at both production lines and consumption at once. In contrast, the 2008 financial collapse, for example, was an internal, an endogenous, shock that was created, within, by the system itself. Having said that, the reason why the pandemic will prove so damaging is that capitalism had never recovered from the 2008 crash. Back then, it was the financial sector that crashed and burned. Central banks and governments refloated the financial sector by means of trillions of dollars of new money. However, this liquidity did not turn into actual investment in the real economy. So, while the banks recovered, and the oligarchy found themselves with appreciating assets, the majority our there had to face harsh austerity. This boosted the disconnect between available liquidity and investment in good jobs and its associated disconnect between the world of money (that was doing well) and the world of the real economy (which was not). Company shared were high but profitability was low. So, when Covid-19 arrived on the scene, it acted like a pin that bursts a gigantic bubble. Reflating this bubble, in the absence of serious public investment, will not be possible however much money Central Banks pump into the financial markets.
Why does capitalism face so many problems and challenges, despite the absence of ideological competitors?
Because that’s what capitalism is wonderful at doing: Producing technologies that undermine itself. The process at work is fascinating: In the real economy, new machines come into play that cut down the content of labour per unit of output. New jobs are created lower down the hierarchy of work. This means that machines play an increasing role in producing great new products which the machines will never want and which humans are decreasingly able to afford. Meanwhile, in the world of money, financiers constantly create new forms of debt that disguise themselves as a form of private money. Its accumulation eventually leads to a crash due to a string of bankruptcies. The combination of these dynamics, in the real and in the money worlds, inexorably produce one crisis after the other.
Why throughout the years, the economic success was not accompanied by improvements in peoples's lives? Is it one of capitalism problems now?
Defenders of capitalism dispute this. They roll out statistics that show a steady increase in average living standards over the past one hundred and fifty years, presenting it as evidence that capitalism has been good for humanity. While it is true that average real incomes have increased, especially in China and other developing countries, it is not at all clear that this has been a victory either for capitalism or for humanity. Take China, for example. While it has relied on the market and on private enterprise, it would never have grown the way it did if it was not for the capacity of its government to direct investment and determine the income distribution in ways that capitalism would have made impossible – in other words, without the Communist Party and its structures. Additionally, defenders of capitalism ignore the simple fact that a rise in incomes does not necessarily mean a rise in the quality of life. To give an extreme, but not misleading, example, take Australia’s Aborigines. Before the Europeans arrived in Australia, they had no income. But they had a rich and fulfilling life. Today, their majority receive government benefits but lead broken lives. Is this progress?
Will Covid- 19 bring down capitalism? Or do you think it is just a battle inside the same capitalist camp, and capitalism will win again?
The death of capitalism has been pronounced so many times that it is unwise to do so once again. What I can say is, first, that Covid-19 has struck at a time when capitalism was particularly fragile (and, therefore, all the talk of a quick recovery is inane) and, secondly, how this crisis affects humanity will depend on what we do, on how we react. Nothing is written in stone.
If we will set another regime, what will be? and do you think China and Cuba could have an advantage after their role in fighting the virus and helping other countries? -- Miatta Fahnbullah wrote in "Foreign Affairs" that "A new economic model is needed, one that adapts traditional socialist ideals to contemporary realities", you agree?
Yes, of course. Strong public health systems have proven themselves immeasurably better, and more resilient, than private ones. Capitalism’s reliance on just-on-time supply chains that no collective agency can plan or direct is proving its Achilles Heal. How could we have organised production and distribution differently? What might Postcapitalism look like? I have been struggling with these questions for a long time. Alas, this coming September I am bringing out a new book that offers my answer, for whatever it is worth. It is entitled: ANOTHER NOW: Dispatches from an alternative present.
You said that "either we unite with progressives around the planet in a shared struggle for justice, or we surrender to the forces of nationalism and free-market fundamentalism", how could reuniting progressives help in any way?and what is your plan beside the website?
Let me give you a simple example: During every recent crisis, bankers banded together and forced governments to apply socialism – for them! The price was austerity and hardship for almost everyone else. This led to discontent. Discontent then breeds fascism, xenophobia, nativism, ultra-nationalism. The representatives of this misanthropic type of politics unite across borders (look at the love in between Trump, Bolsonaro, Modi, Le Pen, Salvini etc.). Is it not the time for progressives to band together in the interests of the majority in every country, on every continent?
This is what our Progressive International is about. How are we organising this, besides a website? In two ways. First, by putting together a global plan for shared, green prosperity. (We must be able to answer questions such as “How much should we spend on fighting climate change? Where will the money come from? How will we redistribute wealth from the few to the many and from the Global North to the Global South?”) Secondly, by organising global actions in support of local causes (e.g. a global campaign in support of a few striking women workers in, say, India). To accomplish these hugely hard, but essential, tasks the Progressive International has put together a Council, comprising leading activists from around the world, and a Cabinet, consisting of a few dedicated organisers working on our campaigns on a day-to-day basis. Our next meeting will take place on 18th September in Iceland, under the aegis of Katrin Jacobsdottir, the country’s Prime Minister.
What should be the role of the state in all of this, specially after the Covid 19 and critics to capitalism and private sectors which was not able to cope with the crisis?
The state’s role is crucial. Even politicians inspired by small-government libertarianism have had to call for governments to step in and, effectively, save everyone. The question is not whether the state has a role. The question is: On whose behalf is the state acting?
Part 2: Europe after the pandemic
How will Covid - 19 change Europe?
It will make it even more fragmented, insular and wrought by nationalism. Europe’s historic failure came in 2010, when a financial sector crisis was dealt with as if it were a great opportunity to cement the policy of socialism for the bankers and austerity for everyone else. As a result, our democracies were poisoned and powerful centrifugal forces began to tear apart any sense of a union. Covid-19 simply reinforced these forces.
This is not a "traditional economic crisis", and it's been very long time since the world faced something alike, but we notice that governments and nations are making "traditional moves", specially with releasing new bonds. Yanis Varoufakis doesn't agree with these procedures, but why should European institutions continue in supporting a failed financial system by saving creditors? And what should be done instead?
Because our political system belongs to the failed financiers. It is they who, for years, financed political campaigns. It is they that wrote the rules of our monetary union, both during the good and the bad times. And it is they who have the power to impose upon the rest of society that the rest of society bails them out from the mess of their own doing. It is oligarchy par excellence.
Why you said that the last thing businesses in Germany, in Italy, in France, in Greece need now is loans? and how loans could affect them?
It is crucial that we never mistake a bankruptcy for a case of illiquidity. If the estimated value of your future income is greater than your debt, you are solvent. But, you may be ‘illiquid’, i.e. lacking cash. In these cases, a loan is both sensible and useful. However, if your debt is lower than your future expected income, no loan can help – all it will do is magnify your debt and push you deeper in bankruptcy. It is in this sense that I said that businesses do not need loans so much now. They need cash injections or, better, a debt restructure – under conditions that society places upon them (e.g. how they treat their workers, the environment, their customers etc.)
Could European institutions finance governments directly?
The European Central Bank cannot, due to a severe restriction in its charter. But, there are a myriad ways in which member-state deficits and debts could be mutualised – the first step toward a proper union.
All we talk about is saving European economies and markets, what about citizens, and the social impact of the pandemic?
I never talk about anything other than our main task, which is to minimise human misery and to maximise shared, real, green prosperity. If I indulge in any discussion about banks, bonds and fiscal policy is because these are the tools by which so few people destroy the lives of so many.
Part 3: Greece and IMF
Did Greece recover after the program with IMF? - if no, why?
Of course not. The reason is simple: The joint IMF-EU program was never about helping the Greek people recover. It was all about, primarily, saving four or five French and German banks by cynically transferring their gargantuan losses onto Europe’s taxpayers, using the Greek Treasury as an intermediate stop for the bailout funds. A secondary role of this IMF-EU program was to force the people of Greece into permanent debt bondage so as to ‘teach’ others (e.g. the Spanish, Italians, French) an important lesson: You do as you are told or else…
Economically speaking, what were the benefits of the program and negatives?
Precisely zero benefits, unless you were an oligarch. As for the negatives, it suffices to mention two: First, permanent debt bondage. Second, desertification, as your young (especially the better educated) are migrating in droves.
If not asking for IMF "help", what else could have Greece do?
Declare bankruptcy. And then take it from there. Yes, it would have been costly. But, with hard work it would have been possible, either inside or outside the euro, to climb out of the hole. Under the IMF-EU program, this was – and remains – impossible, the result being that all the sacrifices are wasted.
Part 4: Lebanon economic / financial crisis and its IMF Program
The Lebanese government put recently a "Financial Recovery Plan", claiming that the "lebanese economy is in free fall" and that an "international rescue package to backstop the recession and create the conditions for a rebound. In parallel a quick delivery on long-awaited reform measures is critical to help restore confidence". The minister of finance started the negotiations with IMF, and government say that it is the only way out. Why? Is the IMF a solution for the problem or a problem itself? Can we really negotiate to get a better deal, or it's a package "take it or leave it", specially for a small country that every day one American responsable give a statement telling us what we should and should not do?
Just like Greece in 2010, Lebanon is facing a moment of truth, a great dilemma. Become a vassal of the IMF and hope for a miracle that becomes less and less likely in the era of the post-pandemic depression. Or, take the pain but also take matters in the hands of its people. There are no easy solutions. But there is a clear choice.
The IMF program can never work for the majority. It may end up a complete disaster, with even the richer Lebanese suffering hugely. Or it may end up as a partial disaster, leading to some benefits for the better off while the majority languish in deeper debt and misery than ever. In either case, the majority of young Lebanese, especially the better educated, will leave the country, thus draining it of its most precious capital. The reason the majority are condemned under the IMF program is that this is what it is meant to do: A mild restructure of banking, personal and public debt in exchange for a massive redistribution of income, and in particular wealth, from the poor to the oligarchy-without-frontiers. While the IMF can, potentially, restore in Lebanon a semblance of normality, this will be bought at the price of the permanent expropriation of whatever little prospects and wealth the ‘little’ people have.
The alternative takes courage and political organisation. Throwing out the IMF, unilaterally haircutting your dollar or euro denominated debt, nationalising the banks, launching a new currency under a reconstituted central bank… these would be the first steps. Undoubtedly, it is a thorny and treacherous path as the world’s powerful will treat your people as a rebel army. But, if they see that you are pulling together and are using this crisis as an opportunity to eradicate corruption and cronyism, they will eventually relent. Iceland was in the same situation at the beginning of the 2008 crisis. They followed this hard road. And they won. There is no reason why a small country cannot assert its right to sovereignty from the global oligarchy that the IMF represents.
