Events as moving very rapidly, but as I write this Greeks face a referendum on July 5 in which they will hopefully vote “no” on theJune 25 “offer” made by the Troika (IMF, EU and the ECB) to the Greek government. Rampant corruption and tax evasion by its elites made Greece especially vulnerable when a global recession struck in 2009. Several years of bowing to the dictates of the Troika hasn’t fixed anything. Quite the contrary, as Joseph Stiglitz described, it has devastated the Greek economy in order to rescue French and German banks that were exposed in Greece. Jerome Roos shows this in an excellent piece by relying on quotes from IMF economists!

If the Troika were doctors they wouldn’t just be sued for malpractice. They’d be charged with homicide. Suicides increased 35 percent in Greece thanks to the Troika.

In January, the Syriza government of Alexis Tsipras was elected to end, or at least slow, the force feeding of the economic poison named “austerity”. Greeks have been made to swallow at least twice as much of it as other Troika victims – like Spain and Ireland – and have therefore suffered vastly more. Months of negotiations went nowhere. It became very clear that the Troika was insisting on an unconditional surrender in order to overthrow the Syriza government. Greeks were told to accept pension cuts, ruinous and regressive sale taxes, privatizations and – in return – get nothing. No debt relief so that there would at least be an end in sight to its torment. You’d think Greece was being punished for going on a murderous rampage throughout Europe.

The problem with kicking people when they are down is that they might get up. Syriza has refused to be humiliated, at least for now. Not only did Alexis Tsipras call for a referendum on the Troika’s “offer”, he passionately urged Greeks to vote “no”.

Soon after that, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Junker was playing the victim. In an amazing press conference, Junker said the Troika had never demanded pension and wage cuts. Junker begged Greeks to vote “yes”, and, in a deranged rhetorical flourish, advised the Greek people not to “commit suicide because you fear death”.

I explained here how corporate journalists, with a few honorable exceptions, downplayed Junker’s stunning dishonesty.

Interestingly, pundits of all ideological stripes have been attacking Alexis Tsipras for his defiance of the Troika and for sticking to his democratic mandate – to fight the Troika’s assault without taking Greece out of the Eurozone.

An op-ed in the UK Guardian accuses Tsipras of “evading responsibility”, of campaigning on a “lie” that “austerity” could be even be softened. If that is a lie, then what is the “truth” – that contemptible liars like Jean-Claude Junker are invincible? Is it the truth that Greek’s pensioners must be even further impoverished to pay for the bail out of foreign banks? Is it the “truth” that Greek elections should be cancelled for the next few decades or until whenever the Troika decides they can be held?

The socialist Morning Star editors in the UK dismissed the upcoming referendum as a “manoeuvre designed to persuade the Greek people that Syriza and its right-wing coalition ally Anel are fighting to defend their living standards”. It blasts Syriza for not withdrawing from the Eurozone and even NATO – as if it had ever been given a mandate to do that by Greek voters. Is the typical electoral fraud of campaigning on one thing and then doing the opposite acceptable depending on whether it is done from the left or right? The answer is “no” for people who respect democracy.

Some who support Syriza, like Paul Krugman – and who urge a “no” vote in the referendum – reject Syriza’s firm commitment to keeping Greece within the Eurozone. It is not a commitment, as Dean Baker explained, to simply using the Euro as its currency like Ecuador uses the US dollar. It means keeping the execrable ECB in control of Greece’s monetary policy.

In 2012, Yanis Varoufakis, the current Greek Finance Minister, put forth arguments explaining this commitment to the Eurozone. He basically argued that exiting – and again this means issuing its own currency – would be too painful in Greece’s case. However, in 2012, he also argued that default, and Greece has just defaulted on loans from the IMF, need not lead to exit from the Eurozone.

The incredible brutality of the Troika has settled the argument in favor of those who disagreed with Varoufakis in 2012. Greece needs both default and its own monetary policy, or Greeks will continue to suffer needlessly for many years.  Moreover, the Troika may well be emboldened by the assumption that Syriza remains, even now, fully committed to the Eurozone despite the immense pain it has caused. Syriza needs to change its mind on this and convince its supporters to do so as well. It may be forced to act and then call another referendum down the road.

So far, the Eurozone politicians, in particular the Germans, feel secure that they will pay no real political price at home for their despicable behavior towards Greece. Hundreds of years ago Adam Smith gasped at the “savage injustice of the Europeans” towards indigenous peoples in the Americas. We should know that modern democracies are perfectly capable of treating the most vulnerable people, at home and especially aboard, with remarkable cruelty.

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