I think the Greeks really have no choice. One can argue about the causes of this. Some believe that the Greeks, Italians, Spanish, Portugese, the Slavs, and other people of the periphery are just inherently inferior to the Aryan peoples of England, Germany, the US. They are predestined to be losers in any 'free market.' They are born to serve.
This is what a major presidential candidate privately said to his one percent cronies about half the American people. And he was still able to run for office, and not be shamed off the stage. That is how coarse and ignorant we have been conditioned to become.
Or, more likely, the periphery have been shoe-horned into a rigged game in which they are destined to be exploited shamelessly, and ultimately lose except for a few who survive The Hunger Games. There seems to be a lot of that going around these days. It is the neo-liberal economic model, here at home in the US, England, and abroad.
The new Greek leaders could, like the prior governments, go along with the extend and pretend that only makes the situation worse. There is a lot of that going around these days. No one wishes to tell the Emperors that they are barking mad. But it is clear that the new Greek leadership has decided that now is the time for force a reckoning, and to deal with this problem realistically, 'though the heavens may fall.' The timing is now fortunate for this play.
If it gets bad enough, and the situation becomes extreme enough, and ideology trumps common decency and sense, we might see a 'color revolution' in Greece, likely with the rise of fascism or extremism, as we are now seeing in the Ukraine and so many other countries that have submitted to Anglo-American 'nation building.'
Germany, as an attendant nation to the Empire, does not get this. They are firmly in the grip of neo-liberal financial interests and neo-con political empire building. But I do not wish to single out Germany in this. They are more followers than leaders. And the 'leadership' in almost all the English-speaking countries has become uniformly appalling. Alas, even Canada. The tentacles of the moneyed interests and their Banks reach far and wide.
England? They view themselves as the power behind the throne, with dreams of recreating Empire.
Germany is making its bid to be the Empire's viceroy of Europe. Japan and a few others are vying for Asia, which would be partitioned. Israel is calling dibs on the Middle East, and Egypt wants Africa. That is just my sense of things, and I could be wrong. And they could be wrong as well. Players often get played. And the unipolar world is an amazingly unstable place, from Julius to Caligula to Nero.
Such are times of currency wars, which are really just the age old bid for domination and power by other means, excused by whatever rationale and necessity is convenient, from security to humanitarian intrusions to living space.
