Will Syriza take power in Greece?

epaulo13 wrote:

Greece’s Government: ‘Molon Labe’

An high-ranking official close to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said the Greek government is not planing to give in to its creditors’ pressures and go against the program they had promised to the Greek people who brought them to power.

Greece’s creditors — the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund — are asking for reforms that will bring more austerity to the country that already has more than half of its youth unemployed. The creditors are also asking for heavier taxation in sales, pension cuts up to 15% and cuts in public sector workers’ salaries, the government official said.

The official told capital.gr that the government is not even thinking to resign, noting that “if they want, let them try to overthrow us.”

The Greek government seems prepared to collide with creditors as negotiations continue to stall. The Greek side insists on the “red lines” it has drawn on certain measures while creditors insist that Athens should proceed with required reforms before any further financial aid is released. Thereby an agreement seems unlikely....

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/04/16/greeces-government-molon-labe/

This is very clever from a political point of view. A lot of the gun-rights people in the US use "Molon Labe" as well. The Syrizia coalition has some right-wing elements attached to it. Who knows, it might stir some things up.

The whole Euro is an economic failure. They should break it up. It is not giving Europeans the economic prosperity a great trading area with floating exchange rates could have. Canada's ability to drop 20% without major economic disruption (35,000 jobs in Alberta mainly out of about 15,000,000) is a testimony to the validity of each economy having its own currency.

Making profit from countries on loans because of the abject failure of the Euro is not exactly a fair way to deal with countries in the Southern European area. They cannot collect taxes from rich people and suffer from hoarding, and therefore need to run in a constant state of inflation. You cannot impose a strong Euro on them, and whoever thought you could was either foolish, corrupt, or both.

Perhaps a Golden Dawn-type government would be more acceptable to the EU authorities.

The Golden Dawn will not take over via democracy. Are you kidding? Add the right wing, some rich people, and some elements in the military, and you have the situation in Greece for much of the period after WW2. Fascism will be imposed on Greece.

The alternatives will be austerity or dictatorship. The Greek electorate is the least concern of the Fourth Reich.

..txs tom. i enjoy the reseach. :)

The Greek Crisis: Syriza vs Europe

Moderated by Michal Rozworski. Presentations by:

• Ingo Schmidt Academic Coordinator of Labour Studies at Athabasca University
• Peter Prontzos social activist, teaches political science at Langara University
• Natassa Romanou climate scientist at Columbia University, Syriza member and founding member of Syriza-NY

Sponsored by the SFU Institute for the Humanities, SFU International Studies and the Vancouver Ecosocialist Group, also media sponsor Ricochet. Recorded by dgSolidarity.

http://www.socialistproject.ca/leftstreamed/ls262.php

What does Greece look like at the grassroots?

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The Anti-Fascist Movement

The rise of Golden Dawn during the years of crisis has led to the emergence of a larger anti-fascist movement.

The Nazis of Golden Dawn went from 0.3 percent (19,624 votes) in the parliamentary elections of 2009; to 6.9 percent (425,900 votes) in the 2012 parliamentary elections, putting them in sixth place among the political parties; to 9.4 percent (536,910 votes) in the European elections of May 2014; to 6.3 percent (388,387 votes) in the last parliamentary elections in January 2015, which put them in third place.

The decline from 2012 of 37,500 votes may seem small, but it is significant that the drop was concentrated in urban centers, particularly in working-class neighborhoods. Golden Dawn's rise to third place is a product of the weakness of other parties like To Potami and especially PASOK, the former ruling party. Golden Dawn's lower vote totals also came in an election where the main conservative party, New Democracy, lost votes, which is telling.

The main reasons for Golden Dawn's loss in popularity is the eruption of anti-fascist protests after the murder of Pavlos Fyssas, a radical and hip hop artist killed by a fascist in September 2013, along with the lifting of protections enjoyed by the organization when the prosecution of Golden Dawn for being a criminal organization began.

Under this pressure, Golden Dawn was forced to make a turn, withdrawing its violent gangs from the streets and trying to show a more "responsible" profile, though still from the extreme right. The fascists' last attempt at a nationwide mobilization on March 21 is further evidence of the group's lower level of support--the organization was only able to mobilize between 300 and 500 people.

After the election of Golden Dawn's Führer Nikolaos Michaloliakos in Athens in February 2012 and the party's rapid growth in the June 2012 parliamentary vote, the fascists were emboldened and increased their street violence, mainly against immigrants. But the anti-fascist movement grew, answering the attacks of the fascists with increasingly large rallies and demonstrations.

The murder of Fyssas was a turning point. Some 20,000 people protested in Keratsini, the area where the murder took place. There were 35 demonstrations nationwide the next day and 100 demonstrations within the next two weeks. Protests in September 2014 to mark one year since the murder took place in 31 cities around the country.

Without this movement from below, it is likely that the neo-Nazis would have continued to increase their attacks and their numbers. Because of the lower level of activities of the fascists, the anti-fascist movement has not been as prominent. But this will change after the start of the trial of Golden Dawn on April 20....

http://socialistworker.org/2015/04/23/greece-at-the-grassroots

In case you had any doubts that Greece is supposed to act like a good debt vassal, the Eurogroup’s hissy fit over Yanis Varoufakis at last Friday’s meeting, which stoked a raft of unflattering articles, has now led it to demand to that Greek government remove him.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/04/eurogroup-demands-varoufakis-ouster-trajectory-toward-default-continues.html

Take back the factory: worker control in the current crisis

This is an edited excerpt from Dario Azzellini’s new book, An Alternative Labour History: Worker Control and Workplace Democracy, just out from Zed. Photo: the recuperated Fabrique du Sud in France (by Jean-Luc Bibal).

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Greece: Vio.Me from industrial glue to organic cleaners

Vio.Me in Thessaloniki used to produce industrial glue, insulant and various other chemically produced building materials. Since 2010 the workers agreed to be sent on unpaid leave every four to six weeks. Then the owners started reducing the workers’ wages, but assured them it was only a temporary measure and they would soon be paid the missing salaries. The owners’ main argument was that profits had fallen 15 to 20 percent. When the owners did not keep their promise to pay the unpaid back wages, the workers went on strike demanding to be paid. As a response to their struggle the owners simply gave up the factory in May 2011, leaving 70 unpaid workers behind. Later the workers found out that the company was still making profits and the “losses” were due to a loan that Vio.Me formally granted to the mother firm Philkeram Johnsosn. In July 2011 the workers decided to occupy the plant and take their future in their own hands (see chapter 10 on Greece for more details on Vio.Me in? context). As Vio.Me-worker Makis Anagnostou, Thessaloniki explains:

“When the factory was abandoned by the owners we first tried to negotiate with the politicians and the union bureaucracy. But we understood quickly that the only thing we were doing was wasting our time and slowing down the struggle. It was a difficult time; the crisis was showing sudden and intense effects. The suicide rate among workers in Greece rose a lot and we were worried that some of our fellow workers might commit suicide. Therefore we decided to open our labor conflict to society as a whole and the people became our allies. We discovered that the people we thought could not do anything in reality can do it all! Many workers did not agree with us or did not continue the struggle for other reasons. Among those of us who we took up the struggle, the common ground for our work is equality, participation and trust.”

Vio.Me became known internationally and inspired several other workers’ occupations in Greece, even if none was successful at keeping the workplace and/or production. The case best known internationally was the state-owned public broadcasting company, ERT (Ellinikí Radiofonía Tileórasi). After the government announced on June 11, 2013 that all public TV and radio stations would be closed (to be restructured and reopened with fewer workers, fewer rights and lower wages) workers and employees occupied the radio and produced their own program until they were brutally evicted on September 5.

The Vio.Me workers restarted production in February 2013.

“Now we produce organic cleanser not the industrial glue we produced before. Distribution is informal, we sell our products ourselves at markets, fairs and festivals, and a lot of products are distributed through the movements, social centers and shops that are part of the movements. What we did last year is basically keep the factory active. We cannot yet say we have had a very positive outcome regarding production, distribution and sales. Earnings are quite low and not enough to maintain all the workers. Therefore some workers have lost faith, or got tired and left Vio.Me. Recently our assembly decided unanimously to legalize our status by building a cooperative.”

http://roarmag.org/2015/04/azzellini-alternative-labour-history/

..this keiser & herbert piece discusses dual currencies. i don't necessarily agree with the point of view but found this aspect interesting. it could possibly create the space needed to decide what to do. it relieves the pressure placed by the troika to reach a deal. to cave. maybe. the currency discussion begins at 3:04.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s7UVY5yv7Y

In Canada, we can use US Dollars, Pounds, or Euros as well as Canadian dollars, if the other party will take them. We can have accounts in all four of those currencies, so it is not even a matter of cash. There is no reason Greeks cannot use any currency they want. Greece could even issue its own currency, which would be well-taken up by speculators. Just the trading action on the new Drachma would be enough to keep it up. That money could go back to the Fourth Reich and Greece could carry on. The Greek Central Bank could keep pumping out New Drachmas and running down the Euro-Denominated debt, and issue US dollar bonds instead which would have no currency risk for outside investors. In turn, the Greek Central Bank would build up a reserve.

What Germany wants is a fascist coup in Greece so the profits will be extracted to the Fourth Reich expeditiously. Greece has all of the elements necessary to pull this off. Neo-Nazi collaborators and Golden Dawn, allied with the extreme rich who hold billions off shore (these families have been trading for centuries), and military elements.

The choice offered by Germany is austerity or dictatorship. The response from many Greeks to this may not result in either austerity or fascism. There may have to be activity to proactively defend the duly-elected government of Greece. In the West we like to think democracy was invented in Greece, however we are now finding similar systems have sprouted up all over the world from time to time.

This should be an offence to anyone who thinks of themselves as a basic democrat or believer in democracy. The Fourth Reich is trying to run over a democratically elected government in the country that at least in our tradition is the one which invented democracy.

A Brief Clarification about Populism

By: Slavoj Žižek

A recent interview of mine, first published in Mexico and then reprinted in some other Latin-American countries and in El Pais, may have given a thoroughly wrong idea of where I stand towards the recent populist trend of radical politics.

Although the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela deserves a lot of criticism, we should nonetheless always bear in mind that it is also the victim of a well-orchestrated counter-revolution, especially of a long economic warfare....

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When, on March 9 2015, President Obama issued an executive order declaring Venezuela a “national security threat,” did he not thereby give a green light to a coup d’etat? At a more “civilized” level, the same is happening with Greece.

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German media recently characterized the Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis as a psychotic who lives in his own universe different from ours – but is he really so radical? What is so enervating about Varoufakis is not his radicalness but his rational pragmatic modesty – no wonder many radical members of Syriza are already accusing him of capitulating to the EU. If one looks closely at the proposals offered by Varoufakis, one cannot help noticing that they consist of measures which, 40 years ago, were part of the standard moderate Social-Democratic agenda (in Sweden of the 1960s, the program of the government was much more radical). It is a sad sign of our times that today you have to belong to a radical Left to advocate these same measures – a sign of dark times but also a chance for the Left to occupy the space which, decades ago, was that of moderate Left center.

So what will happen if the Syriza government fails? The consequences will be catastrophic not only for Greece but for Europe itself: the eventual defeat of Syriza will add a new weight to the pessimist insight that the patient work of reforms is doomed to fail, that reformism, not a radical revolution, is the greatest utopia today (as Alberto Toscano put it). In short, it will confirm that we are approaching an era of much more radical violent struggle.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/A-Brief-Clarification-about-Populism-20150424-0013.html.

The Syriza strategy has come to an end

In a joint interview with German daily Der Tagesspiegel and ThePressProject International, Syriza MP and economist Costas Lapavitsas says that the time has come for Greece and its partners to understand that “they are flogging a dead horse”.

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So there is no middle way?

There is no middle way. The Eurozone will not allow it. Do I think the leadership was surprised? Yes, I suspect they were to a certain extent. Because my reading of the situation is that the leadership genuinely believed that you could change the political alignments, you could change electoral arithmetic, and on this basis change Europe, change European policies.

Greece needs to consider the true alternative path which is to leave this failed monetary union. It is clearly the only way that was there from the beginning – which is basically exit. If you are going to apply such a programme, as Syriza has proclaimed, which is not radical – Syriza’s programme is just moderate Keynesianism -, you need to think seriously of how you are going to get out of the confines of the Eurozone.

A straight answer is no. Syriza has a mandate to fulfil its programme. Indirectly, not directly, it has a mandate to keep the country in the Eurozone. But this question was never openly posed to the Greek people.

The first thing to do is not so much discuss the idea of a referendum but actually that of the alternative strategy. There has to be a genuine public debate at last. That’s not easy because for five years this country has been subjected to the most incredible misinformation and scaremongering campaigns. So the atmosphere has been very badly poisoned. It is not impossible to have this debate now but it is much more difficult than a few years back.

In my judgement, the best strategy right now is what I call a consensual and orderly exit. Not a contested exit.

Can you elaborate on that? 

I think Greece should set a target for itself to negotiate an exit basically without rupture, without falling out, without fighting, without unilateral actions. This would mean: Exit takes place and Greece seeks deep debt restructuring....

http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/1967-costas-lapavitsas-the-syriza-strate...

Durand, Kouvelakis and Keucheyan: "Make common cause with Greece"

Syriza coming to power in Greece at the end of January has finally disproven the argument that it is possible to implement an alternative to neoliberalism within the framework of the European Union. The EU treaties are neoliberal, in their very DNA. Since the 1986 Single European Act, or even before then, we have seen constant proof of the EU’s neoliberal DNA, and even its hardening. Up till now, the untrammeled hegemony of neoliberalism could have been blamed on this or that government coming into office: in this view, the reason why austerity policies reigned across Europe was that a François Hollande, a Matteo Renzi or some other social-liberal lacked courage or betrayed their campaign commitments to reorient European policies.

But with Syriza, that argument has collapsed. After all, Alexis Tsipras and Yanis Varoufakis have clearly been working with some determination to try and bring about change at the continental level; but they have done so in vain. Since 4 February the European Central Bank has cut off the main source of financing for the Greek banking system, while the payments from Europe itself were broken off in summer of 2014.  The noose is tightening, pushing the country toward a disorderly bankruptcy and chaos, unless of course it accepts the humiliating terms imposed by the EU.

The conclusion? That the alternative to neoliberalism must proceed by way of a break with the European framework, and thus – how could it be any other? – through Greece leaving the Eurozone. Any basic self-defence measure that the Syriza government takes in the face of the constant aggression to which it is subjected by the EU and ECB, such as defaulting on the debt payment or taking the banking system into public hands, will place it outside of the Eurozone. And of course such a break would be no panacea. There are no good solutions for Greece, only less bad ones. But a break with the EU holds the possibility of a renaissance for this heroic people, which in recent years has been subjected to unprecedented torture-by-austerity....

http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/1969-durand-kouvelakis-and-keucheyan-mak...

It’s Time for a Rupture

The Syriza government’s decision to transfer all available public sector funds to the Bank of Greece marks a political turning point. This high-risk move exposes in the clearest possible way the nature of the situation as it has evolved in the two and a half months since the February 20 agreement.

The argument that was put forward then in favor of that accord was that it “bought time,” at however painful a price, so as to prepare the ground for key summer negotiations.

The claim was that for a four-month period the European Central Bank would call a halt to the torture it had been imposing on the country’s economy since February 5, when it decided to terminate the most important mechanism for funding the Greek banks. As it is now generally recognized, the government was dragged into signing that unbalanced agreement through pressure from an accelerating outflow of bank deposits and the threat of bank collapse.

Now, with public coffers emptying to forestall a cutoff of debt servicing and inescapable state obligations, it is evident that the only time that has been bought is time that works to the advantage of the Europe institutions and that the Greek side is exposed to an intensifying blackmail as its position deteriorates.

The unprecedentedly belligerent climate at the Eurogroup meeting in Riga, with the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis being pilloried and ridiculed by his counterparts (even those from countries of the weight of Slovakia or Slovenia) shows clearly enough how much humiliation the government has had to swallow over the last two months....

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/kouvelakis-syriza-ecb-grexit/

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/05/greece-finally-threatens-default-...

Russia Invites Greece to Join BRICS Bank

http://rt.com/business/257701-greece-russia-brics-invitation/

"Greece has been invited by Russia to become the sixth member of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB). The $100 B NDP is expected to compete with Western dominance and become one of the key lending institutions.

Tsipras said Greece is interested in the offer and promised to thoroughly examine it. The new bank is expected to challenge the two major Western led institutions, the World Bank and the IMF, and is expected to start functioning by the end of 2015, with headquarters in Shanghai."

The people voted Syriza and they got PASOK.

..i see no evidence that the people voted fantasy but there is plenty that some of the syriza leadership chased it. and i believe that all is not lost as syriza's direction can still be changed. that was not the case with pasok. there is more that has yet to be played out. the movements have been watching and have yet to come forward. it is doubtful syriza will use the police to crush them when they do. not like pasok did. these are important distinctions. imho.

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They're living with the reality of austerity and the imposition of the shock doctrine.

And also with the reality of their country spending more money than it had.  But instead of voting in someone with a good idea for how to raise more money to pay their debts, they voted for someone whose solution to debt was to say "screw that debt!".

I doubt that this is about SYRIZA secretly being neo-liberals in sheep's clothing so much as about SYRIZA's plan just not having legs.

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They can't afford to sit back smugly as someone halfway across the world can.

Gee willikers!  Are you referring to *me*? 

Workers move to stop Greece’s Syriza government backsliding

The Greek government, led by the radical left Syriza party, is backsliding under pressure from the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF). But workers are not taking this lying down.

The government was in talks with EU finance ministers on Monday of last week, and had to pay £544 million in debt repayments to the IMF on Tuesday. 

The EU and IMF are pushing Greece closer to bankruptcy by withholding £5.2 billion of bailout funds in order to force through “reforms”.

Syriza has gone back on its “red line” that there would be no cuts to pensions. It is postponing the promise not to tax the first £8,700 of workers’ wages.

It has also agreed to privatise one of Europe’s largest ports in Piraeus, near Athens, and now the EU wants it to privatise energy too.

But workers at the formerly state-owned Hellenic Petroleum refinery have seen what privatisation means. An explosion there severely injured six workers on Friday of last week. On Saturday the whole refinery went on strike.

And the Piraeus dockers struck on Thursday of last week (see below).

Sacked workers marched into the offices of state broadcaster ERT in Athens on Monday of this week. 

Government legislation passed to get their jobs back will take time to implement. Workers were told they would return piecemeal, in alphabetical order....

http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/40497/Workers+move

Greek PM Tsipras Seeks Deal Amid Reactions Within SYRIZA, Election Talk

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is seeking a realistic deal with creditors that will leave both sides satisfied amid voices within SYRIZA that call for a rift with the European Union. He even says that if the agreement is not voted by the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition, he may resort to elections.

Tsipras insists on a political solution and will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on the sidelines of Thursday’s EU summit. Negotiations on a technical level are starting again on Monday in Brussels but they are progressing slowly, while there are concerns that it is very likely Athens will not be able to make the scheduled 1.5-billion-euro installment payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in June, starting with a payment of 300 million on June 5....

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/05/18/greek-pm-tsipras-seeks-deal-a...

The moment of truth for SYRIZA

Antonis Davanellos, is a member of the Internationalist Workers Left (DEA) that co-founded SYRIZA, and currently a member of SYRIZA’s Central Committee and Political Secretariat and one of the party’s best-known left voices. In this article for DEA’s newspaper Workers’ Left, he analyzes the decisive confrontation to come in Greece.

MANY OF us didn't accept the rhetoric about SYRIZA's program put forward during the election campaign to gain votes, but which begged a crucial question: Would it be possible to carry out a radical anti-austerity program while accepting the limits of the eurozone and through negotiations with its "institutions"?

Today, we know the answer: No.

The EU and the IMF are trying to crush SYRIZA by forcing it to face a dilemma: Accept all the terms and conditions of integration into the euro system or face the immediate overthrow of the government. Their motive is both economic, because SYRIZA's anti-austerity program is incompatible with the prevailing policy, and also political, because they want to protect Europe against the spread of the SYRIZA-Podemos threat to austerity policies.

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In any case, the crucial decisions cannot be made by a small and closed circle at the top, even with the best intentions. SYRIZA--from its central committee to its local branches--must be asked to decide. The party must stand against the headwinds that become increasingly menacing.

http://socialistworker.org/2015/05/18/the-moment-of-truth-for-syriza

Syriza is facing down resistance

BY TOM VOLOUMANOS

Why not expropriate private property, use the income to pay off the debts, and then sell the properties off?