Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Friday, February 24, 2012

Who Needs Democracy?

Commentary By Ron Beasley


If you haven't been paying attention there has been a coup in Greece.  Yes, the home of democracy has been taken over by the global banksters.  Unelected technocrats, some from Greece but most not, are now calling all of the shots in Greece.  They are pillaging the country in an attempt to extract as much wealth before the inevitable default of the country.  And Greece is just the beginning.  Steve Lendman:



Predatory bankers make serial killers look good by comparison. Their business model creates crises to facilitate grand theft, financial terrorism, and debt entrapment.


They steal all material wealth and then some. They systematically rob investors and strip mine economies for self-enrichment.


They demand they get paid first. They hold nations hostage to assure it. They turn crises into catastrophes.


They leave mass impoverishment, high unemployment, neo-serfdom, and human wreckage in their wake.


Their Federal Reserve/ECB/IMF/World Bank/political class lackeys do their bidding.


They're more dangerous than standing armies. They wage war by other means. They cause "demographic shrinkage, shortened life spans, emigration and capital flight," explains Michael Hudson.


They're a malignancy ravaging societies and humanity. Greece is the epicenter of what's metastasizing globally. The latest bailout deal highlights out-of-control pillage.



The people of Greece are screwed.  While they may not be entirely blameless most of the blame has to go to a government that made little or no attempt to collect taxes from the top 20% while borrowing money that the banks should not have lent them.


The austerity being forced on the citizens of Greece will not only guarantee that they will never be able to repay the loans but will also send the country into a deep depression.  The banksters know this which is why they are pillaging while they can.  This is as aggressive as any military invasion.  The Greek people are rioting and burning - who can blame them.  They can see what's going on even if the rest of the world can't.


You think this doesn't impact you.  Think again!  It should remind you of the attacks on Social Security and Medicare here in the US while the hegemonic military and taxes on the wealthiest remain untouched.


Cross posted at The Moderate Voice



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