Spain’s Blood Wedding, Ireland’s Muted Rage, Europe’s tragedy

[girl gone mad]

Spain’s Blood Wedding, Ireland’s Muted Rage, Europe’s tragedy

Yanis Varoufakis

Federico Garcia Lorka’s 1932 play The Blood Wedding (Bodas de Sangre) focused on a wedding that, in the end, never took place. It symbolised the long shadow cast by a hidden crime upon the nation’s dallying with the prospect of deliverance. It also foreshadowed the tragic events that consumed, not just the playwright, but the whole nation, only a few short years later (as captured in Picasso’s Guernica better than by any historian’s pen). Today, we have another Bodas de Sangre in the making. A postmodern version. All of the tragedy’s elements are here, except for the splendid prose and poetry of a Lorka. Instead, we have inanities from Mr Rajoy, from Brussels and from Frankfurt. Meanwhile, a stunned audience in Madrid, in Dublin, in Barcelona, in Cork, in Paris, Athens and Rome are watching, listening, eager for some ray of hope. To no avail. For there is none.

Spain treading on Ireland’s shaky footsteps

Spain’s pain is not novel. It is a carbon copy of Ireland’s. A period of ponzi growth was occasioned by money-capital fleeing the metropoles of financialised capitalism, toward places like Spain and Ireland, in search of higher returns. It found its lucrative returns in a bubble created in the real estate business, aided and abetted by local banks, developers, politicians. Then, Wall Street came crashing down, capital fled (as is its wont at times of financial implosion) and the losses of the banks were passed on to states (the Spanish and Irish governments) which had been, interestingly, running a very tight ship for some time before the Crash. The change in political personnel made little difference. No state, however tightly or austerely is run, can survive (a) once mountains of losses are deposited on it, and (b) when it has no Central Bank of its own to help it remain afloat.

Just like Ireland’s government almost two years ago, so Spain’s now went through the same emotional cycle. First, they refused to accept that the state and the ‘national’ banks were embraced in deadly embrace that condemned both to insolvency. Denial caused angry rejections of the notion that the country would seek EU assistance. However, frustration was bound to follow the realisation that no other avenue was open to them. And, lastly, the bailout was announced in almost triumphant terms – as the road to national recovery and a demonstration of the wonders of European solidarity.

Tragically, of course, Spain’s ‘bailout’, exactly like Ireland’s, will achieve none of that. All that has happened is that proud nations like Ireland and Spain have now joined Greece and Portugal in the Workhouse that is the EFSF-ESM; the Temple of Ponzi Austerity. Structured as a giant CDO, the whole edifice is spearheading the disintegration of the Eurozone, with untold costs for the whole of Europe. If Greece was the canary in the mine, and Ireland the harbinger of a systemic Eurozone-wide crisis, Spain is the portend that Europe’s Reverse Alchemy has now began, dissolving the fabric of countries that, unlike Ireland, are too large to ignore.

Read more: http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/06/10/spains-blood-wedding-irelands-muted-rage-europes-tragedy

[sabrina 1]

1. Excellent article. It is heart-breaking, a massive crime for which no one has yet been held

accountable, and the puppets in Brussels keep pushing and trying to squeeze more out of the working class to pay the debts of the Criminals who crashed the world.

I wish Ireland and Spain and Greece and Portugal would just tell them to go to hell, and default on their debt, return to their own currencies and do what Iceland did. AND most importantly, start arresting the perpetrators, also what Iceland did.

I saw a documentary on Ireland today on RT. They are going back to the old ways, some of the people who were who were interviewed said. Back to doing business they way people used to. I will have to see if RT has the video on its site, but I thought finally, they are realizing they do not need the IMF. All these countries have resources, they survived pretty well before the Global Capitalists swept into their countries and sold them their Ponzi Scheme.

But to take loans from the IMF, I never thought they could turn Europe into third world countries so fast. But they have. I wish they would stand up and fight now, do not pay back those debts, make the banks pay, stop bailing them out, as they are doing AGAIN, in Spain. And all that will do, again, is put off the inevitable for another few months, as it has, over and over again.

What a horrible tragedy. They've destroyed a continent better than any invading army could have done and made off the spoils.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Have these countries stopped buying derivatives from Wall Street?

At least, maybe the damage can be fixed to some extent. But if these countries continue to retain financing policies that put them in this position, it's all a waste of time.

[Prometheus Bound]

3. Those European bankers are damn smart. Make that cunning.

The Spanish govt wanted them to lend the mopney directly to the banks, but they lent the money to the Spanish govt instead. Now taxpayers are on the hook for the money instead of the banks.

[mbperrin]

4. All these governments need to tell the financial people to take a jump.

Get enough rope and enough tall trees, and the problem can be solved - it's all artificial and should all be illegal to begin. There's no room in a real economy for a giant leech to be attached to it, sucking all nutrition and blood from it.

What do we do with parasites? We kill them. Now get busy.