“In psychology,cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.” Wikipedia

Iceland is popularly believed to be a success story in the struggle against international debt slavery and oligarchic vulture-finance capitalism. But, perhaps this belief in the triumph of democracy and the power of the people is just one more milepost marker on the road to generalized cognitive dissonance. It keeps alive the possibly futile hope for peaceful change. (After all, if the Icelanders can do it, so can we!)

Meanwhile, in Greece, the government rapidly capitulates to banking interests and reneges on its election promises against the clearly expressed will of the Greek people. The deal voted on in the referendum is no longer on the table, says the EU, and even more harsh terms will be imposed. As in Iceland, Greek assets will be put on the auction block for vulture capitalists to plunder...with the sop that the fund will be located in Greece!

Despite all the usual “democracy” hogwash, in the face of threats to crash the Greek economy even the “radical left” Greek parliament appears quick to grovel abjectly to the EU and bankers rather than calling for new elections and dumping Tsipras. (The “Left”, from the Bolshevik revolution on, has suspiciously been “soft” on financiers when attacking the evils of capitalism: bankers and financiers--the very groups responsible for capitalism's worst excesses—have largely escaped any punitive measures and actually benefited handsomely from the “red menace.” I believe it to be no accident that the leaders of the rightist Golden Dawn party were safely ensconced in jail on trumped-up charges to prevent any interference with this Greek capitulation.)

Wasn't Iceland really a small-scale “beta” version of what we're now seeing in Greece? The hand, after all, is quicker than the eye, as magicians say.

I had the opportunity to speak with a part-Icelandic neighbor who visits that country frequently and, after what I had read on the internet, was surprised that he didn't see the Icelandic crisis as ending in a popular victory.

According to this first-hand source, there is full employment, virtually, but wages are extremely low and prices have gone up in real terms. So in one sense only—unemployment--there is no “austerity.” The Krona is seldom seen--the Euro is now the main currency used from day to day (along with British pounds). The banks, speculators and anonymous private investors (some of whom may reside in the City of London)—appear to own Iceland after a bailout. (I reminded him the U.K. had Iceland declared a “terrorist state” for a time—until it capitulated to the bankers.)

What about prosecuting the bankers? Well, a few had been arrested, he said, but the worst sentence he'd heard for putting the entire nation into bondage was 9 months!

I recently found an excellent article that seems to substantiate some of my neighbor's anecdotal observations:

“It’s worth highlighting the inconsistencies in the media account. It’s often said that the banks were “allowed to fail”, yet a State Department cable released by Wikileaks clearly calls Icelandic government intervention a “bailout”. One of the three banks involved remains publicly owned, while the other two are now largely owned by anonymous foreign investors...The Icelandic Krona was saved from complete decimation by means of an IMF-agreed re-floatation together with currency restrictions.

While Iceland’s outgoings look stable, the same can’t be said about her assets. While Naomi Klein initially bought in to the heroic story of Iceland resisting the IMF, the current austerity and sale of Iceland’s assets could come straight from her account of the neoliberal shock doctrine. Before the crash, almost all businesses in Iceland were owned by Icelanders. Now the foreign-owned aluminium industry is swiftly growing, and debate over use or sale of land continues. When you follow the money, what emerges isn’t so much the story of the lone plucky Viking but a country which has had much of its own “rich”, it’s own ruling class deposed in favor of the rich from abroad, and which now only awaits the lifting of the currency restrictions to lie open to foreign capital...Since the crash, levels of private debt have soared, particularly levels of mortgage debt, due to the effect of the crash and re-floatation of the Krona on mortgage indices. While the current left-wing government largely holds repossessions in moratorium, it seems clear that, just like in the rest of Europe, the banks’ private debt has been socialized.”ⁱ

We in the U.S. and those in other parts of Europe cannot view these situations as mere bystanders being fully involved in our own cognitive-dissonant processes that will probably eventually lead to outcomes like Iceland and Greece. Some recent glaring examples:

*Election of Obama (U.S.), Cameron (U.K.) and Hollande (France) as “reformers” who promptly emulate their predecessors and even overtake them in universally odious policies like austerity and militarism--despite being from different political parties. (Tsipras has taken a page from this book in Greece—he proposes to replace with votes from the opposing parties any support he loses with Syriza in ratification of mass privatization and austerity); and,

*Faux popular victories in TPP, Net Neutrality, and the Patriot Act in the U.S., followed by stinging reversals under a smokescreen of shootings, terrorist threats, frivolous events, “gay marriage” and politicking.

In conclusion, if the real story of Iceland (and the repeat performance now being staged in Greece) tells us anything it is that activists are going to have to become less self-delusional if they are to have any chance of making any real changes.

In fact, all of us have to ask this very difficult question: is democracy now illusory and is peaceful political change even possible any longer due to bribery/blackmail of politicians, control of and by the media/corporate/finance sectors, and vote rigging?

http://12160.info/profiles/blogs/iceland-s-victory-greece-s-capitulation