An article here, on the similarities between Greece and Spain’s new Leftist movement Podemos, or Si Se Puede.
The interesting part:
It means Podemos is now in charge of local policies for 6 million Spaniards in a country of 40 million and leaves it poised to create greater electoral havoc in national elections that have to be called by December this year.
If it were to win, it promises to restructure Spain’s massive debt of $1.16 trillion, which is close to 100 percent of GDP, to adjust it to “social justice criteria and legitimacy.” This, of course, would mean ending the mild spending cuts instituted by the center-right government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy (cuts which Podemos denounces as an “austerity program”) and turn on the Keynesian spending spigot.
But Iglesias doesn’t stop there. He also promises to copy France’s 35-hour work week model; ban companies that make a profit from firing workers; raise taxes on companies with profits above $1.1 million; raise the minimum wage and establish a “maximum wage;” audit the debt to figure out which part is “illegitimate” and thus not worth paying; and, of course, “make rich people pay taxes.”
There’s much, much more to Podemos’s program, but you get the picture. Suffice it to say the party and Iglesias are very close to the government of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his leftist Syriza party, which caused so much consternation this week by breaking off talks with his European Union and International Monetary Fund creditors.
But Greece is small potatoes by comparison. Spain is the euro’s fourth largest economy, and Podemos has associations beyond Athens.
A foundation associated with Podemos has done consulting work for Venezuela, and Podemos is also linked with Iran, as one of Iglesias’ two TV shows are run by Iran’s state-run Spanish-language TV service. Iglesias also calls Fidel Castro’s Cuba “a reference point.”
It is interesting that leftism appears to have one last death gasp in heavily r-selected populations. Basically, the rabbitized populace, panicked by the arrival of K-selection and still unable to fully grasp or face reality, tries to force the world to be r-selected in an extreme fashion, one last time, despite the futility which is obvious to any non-rabbit observer. In doing that, they only make the inevitable approach of K-selection hit with that much more force.
You see the underlying mechanism in Vox’s post detailing how the Greek Prime minister actually intended to sell Greece out, but got screwed by reality when the Greeks voted no. In contrast was Iceland.
There are two ways to view this mechanism. There is the theoretical, which states that leftists have diminished amygdala function, and thus can’t see threat, can’t tolerate an accurate picture of reality, and can’t adjust their behavior to confront reality accurately. The more leftist they are, the more threat-blind and reality-intolerant they will be.
Then there is the practical, in which you call up instances where you have seen this type of thing before.
I remember dealing with my favorite Narcissist Bob once. He called, wanting advice on something, and mentioned he was about sue a powerful entity in a suit that, at best, would create two years of misery, before it would conclude, and which would create numerous headaches for him along the way, none of which would he be able to cope with emotionally. At worst, the suit would have lasted almost a decade and cost him more than it brought in, and that was the likelier outcome. He then explained to me his contrary belief that it would, within a couple of months, give him a massive windfall, with no cost.
I paused, partly confused, partly almost reflexively thinking it a joke, and expecting laughter. As the silence continued, I realized he wasn’t joking. His amygdala so needed to believe something good, to shield his brain from the aversive stimulus he could not tolerate, that it adhered to a perception of reality which was totally impossible.
For some reason I reflexively try to help people I deal with, and moreover feel driven correct misconceptions about reality. So I gently began to explain the clear pitfalls I saw in the plan, and the potential costs to him.
I had just gently explained the second major pitfall of about ten, when he cut me off, saying, “Look, I don’t want to hear any of that. I’m just going to tell you how this is going to go….” He then explained that everyone would just give him what he wanted, and that was that. He had formed a perception of what was to come in the future which quieted his amygdala, but which was completely detached from reality. He literally couldn’t tolerate just listening to any contrary data, let alone contemplating it for any extended period of time, even if listening to that data would help him find a more pleasant life path.
It is the exact same thing which happened in Greece. There, in the model of the future the leaders created in their brains, the leaders told themselves that everyone would do what was best for them – and believed it. As reality unfolded, everything went badly because no planning had been done to deal with the inevitable bad outcomes that was approaching.
In a single individual’s life, it causes personal turmoil. In a national government it creates a broader transition to a more K-selected environment, and short term misery of a level that is almost unimaginable – at least until K-selection reprograms everyone’s amygdala do embrace reality to facilitate effective adaptation to the environment as it is.
