Personally, I blame the financial elites who helped create this situation (Hello, Goldman) and the politicians on both sides who allowed the country to slide further into this no-win situation. Five years ago, this whole situation could have been handled quite less dramatically. But Goldman, Deutsche Bank & friends were still heavily invested. Sure, it was obvious that the situation wasn't sustainable, but as long as profits were to be made, they were making them. Fast forward to now and the banks have absorbed the so called bailout money while the Greek are left with an impossible situation. Mission "Profits = Private, Losses = Socialized" has been a success once again. How surprising. So, no, I'm not blaming the current greek PM for being in a situation without good outcomes. But democracy? I don't really see how democracy could fail anyone in the US or the EU. We'd have to actually have it, first. What did fail us once again was our system of financial plutocracy. But that's the whole point of a plutocracy.
I'm reluctant to sound so defeatist about the entire thing. Yes it is a plutocratic system in this sense - in that big banks are really holding sway over governmental decisions. But let's not just go hailing the death of democracy just because the plutocrats are winning at the moment. Democracy has always been a long struggle of the common people versus the elites, like a pendulum, and we've not yet lost that struggle.
Hey, I'll happily grasp at any straw you have on offer. I just can't see it right now. I really don't want to sound defeatist. It's just quite hard to remain optimistic when, year after year of following events, discussing them and looking for solutions, things only ever seem to go in one direction. Media is under corporate control, money firmly rules the world (phony as our monetary system may be) and the people seem quite content with their bread and games. I'm also not sure we have all that much time left for meaningful change to happen. I mean, sure, there will be change, but I'm not sure it'll be the kind of change you or I envision. There isn't any historical precedent for the current situation (or is there??). This plutocracy has gone global and I'd say that our democratic systems have been subverted beyond recognition. A catastrophic crisis on a global level will of course shake things up, yet so far our plutocrats have proven quite capable of not letting a good crisis go to waste. So... how do you see meaningful struggle happening?
Plutocracy went global before - the Gilded Age had various corporations have control over nations in a way that we can't even imagine - yes there was less transnationalism in their activities but even still. What we need is a bunch of leaders (akin to FDR or Teddy Roosevelt) that can utterly subvert the plutocrats and break up these massive corporations again. It has happened before and it can happen again.