Greece 2#

Syriza may be breaking apart. Helena Smith report.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jul/12/greek-debt-crisis-e...

I can't shake the image of him outrunning the EU/Troika in a white Ford Bronco travelling at 25mph.

That, and Jasper from the Simpsons, trying to get his beard unstuck from the pencil sharpener.

This seems clear enough.

Greek debt crisis: Alexis Tsipras given ultimatum - push through cuts this week or quit euro

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greek-debt-crisis-alexis-...

 Its more then cuts, it includes legislation that gives creditors a veto over Greek Leglisation, effectively ending Democracy in Greece. If I was Greek and Syiza passes this, I'd get a gun and start a civil war to restore democracy.

An agreement has been reached which looks like a near total capitulation by Greece. Except for keeping an asset privatization bank in Athens. They even have to re-examine legislation passed since Syriza took office. Syriza elected and governs for nothing.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/13/greece-bailout-agreement...

In the short-term, Tsipras can stagger on, relying on the opposition to win the vote on Wednesday (15 July) and any other immediate vote (22 July) required by the lenders. The Greek PM might even reshuffle his cabinet in an effort to diminish the political weight of the most staunch opponents to the deal. But his authority and grip on the party is set to decline, making it harder for him to contain an almost inevitable rebellion within SYRIZA.

In fact, the government’s parliamentary majority is likely to end as soon as Wednesday after the vote on the measures requested by the lenders. At that point, Tsipras will be forced to either reconfigure the current governing arrangement by striking a deal with the mainstream opposition parties or call an early election.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jul/13/greek-crisis-tsipra...

As the dust settles this morning on the Greek bailout crisis, it is increasingly clear we are witnessing one of the most daring raids on national democracy in post-war political history. If this new plan passes the Greek parliament, Greece can no longer be said to be a genuinely sovereign state. Brussels and Berlin are taking over Athens. Even one of Alexis Tsipras’ minor victories – that a £50 billion privatisation fund would be based in Athens, not Luxembourg – was entirely superficial. As Angela Merkel insisted this morning, it would not be under Greek control.

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2015/07/13/the-truth-revealed-there-can-...

josh wrote:

Brachina wrote:

 The Greek Prime Ministers betrayal is complete as will the end of Greek Democracy soon after the legislation passes. And people call this guy the radicalized left? He's passing stuff to the right of Steven Harper. I honestly believe violent uprising at this point in Greece is morally justifyible at this point.

Not only that, but he's killed any chances for Podemos in Spain. Right-wing parties like the National Front, UKIP and Golden Dawn is where opponents of the euro and the EU will go to.

Mild social democracy, rather than anything radical, is generally where I'm comfortable.  But I was quite excited right after the referendum.  The whole thing really appears to be such a shame.  Seems it was a bluff, and it was called.

Varoufakis:

This has nothing to do with economics. It has nothing to do with putting Greece back on the rails towards recovery. This is a new Versailles Treaty that is haunting Europe again, and the prime minister knows it. He knows that he’s damned if he does and he’s damned if he doesn’t.’

In the [1967] coup d’état the choice of weapon used in order to bring down democracy then was the tanks. Well, this time it was the banks.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jul/13/greek-crisis-tsipra...

All of you progressive voters should really take stock of what it is you're actually voting for.  The situation in Greece should prove beyond anyone's doubt that within the governance models allowed for under today's globalized financial architecture, political parties are two faces on the same coin.  But it won't, because people like to forget, or they’re lulled into believing that somehow the situation in far-a-way Greece couldn't happen closer to home because Canadians are not Greek.  No we're not.  There seems to be something in the national character of Greece that causes them to pile out onto the streets at the drop of a hat.  But here in Canada much of the anti-union/anti-collective bargaining activities, increases to the OAS entitlement age, blind eye environmental governance, all of the usual neo-liberal nostrums, etc, that are being acted upon at the Federal and Provincial levels by our so called governments are really the slow motion version of what the Greek government negotiated with the EU.  Syriza, or something like it, represents the 'extreme' of what you'll ever be provided with for 'choice' and 'change,' irrespective of the number of political actors that have been granted access to enter the field of 'viable' contenders.  As it's been described elsewhere, the sphere of political representation is closed, no matter how much we may wish for it to be otherwise.  Instead the western political field is comprised of corporate liquidators.

Slumberjack wrote:

All of you progressive voters should really take stock of what it is you're actually voting for.  The situation in Greece should prove beyond anyone's doubt that within the governance models allowed for under today's globalized financial architecture, political parties are two faces on the same coin.  But it won't, because people like to forget, or they’re lulled into believing that somehow the situation in far-a-way Greece couldn't happen closer to home because Canadians are not Greek.  No we're not.  There seems to be something in the national character of Greece that causes them to pile out onto the streets at the drop of a hat.  But here in Canada much of the anti-union/anti-collective bargaining activities, increases to the OAS entitlement age, blind eye environmental governance, all of the usual neo-liberal nostrums, etc, that are being acted upon at the Federal and Provincial levels by our so called governments are really the slow motion version of what the Greek government negotiated with the EU.  Syriza, or something like it, represents the 'extreme' of what you'll ever be provided with for 'choice' and 'change,' irrespective of the number of political actors that have been granted access to enter the field of 'viable' contenders.  As it's been described elsewhere, the sphere of political representation is closed, no matter how much we may wish for it to be otherwise.  Instead the western political field is comprised of corporate liquidators.

 And you have zero alternatives to electoral politics, except sitting on the sideline day dreaming about the way you feel the world should be.

 Flawed as it maybe electoral politics is all we have. 

 And Mulcair is not like the Greek Prime Minister, the Greek Prime Minister is a coward who allows himself to be pushed around, Mulcair for all that idealogically he maybe to the right of the Greek Prime Minister, but he won't be bullied or pushed around, he'd have told the EU to fuck itself by now, that's why character is more important to me then idealogy, and why Mulcair, dispite flaws I acknowledge, will be the greatest Prime Minister Canada has ever had, he has the guts to stand up to the bullies.

Brachina wrote:

And Mulcair is not like the Greek Prime Minister, the Greek Prime Minister is a coward who allows himself to be pushed around, Mulcair for all that idealogically he maybe to the right of the Greek Prime Minister, but he won't be bullied or pushed around, he'd have told the EU to fuck itself by now, that's why character is more important to me then idealogy, and why Mulcair, dispite flaws I acknowledge, will be the greatest Prime Minister Canada has ever had, he has the guts to stand up to the bullies.

I believe you're absolutely correct ... at this time.  If push came to shove and Canada were in the same financial position as Greece?  I don't have faith that any political leader wouldn't capitulate. 

Probably the best thing I have read in the past 24 hours ....  a good solid reality check on the limits of leadership and the art of the possible.

https://www.byline.com/column/11/article/164

We apologise to Marxists worldwide for Greece refusing to commit ritual suicide to further the cause. You have suffered from your sofas.

Keynes never existed. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was never written. Economic history ended on the day Franklin Roosevelt replaced Herbert Hoover as president of the United States.

That’s the gist of the deal that keeps Greece in the euro, an agreement that will deepen the country’s recession, makes its debt position less sustainable and virtually guarantees that its problems come bubbling back to the surface before too long.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/13/europe-greece-pushed-into-f...

sherpa-finn wrote:

Probably the best thing I have read in the past 24 hours ....  a good solid reality check on the limits of leadership and the art of the possible.

https://www.byline.com/column/11/article/164

We apologise to Marxists worldwide for Greece refusing to commit ritual suicide to further the cause. You have suffered from your sofas.

 That's exactly what Greece has done, even the Globe and Mail's business section calls it the death of greek democracy.

 And I'm not a Marxist.

sherpa-finn wrote:

Probably the best thing I have read in the past 24 hours ....  a good solid reality check on the limits of leadership and the art of the possible.

https://www.byline.com/column/11/article/164

We apologise to Marxists worldwide for Greece refusing to commit ritual suicide to further the cause. You have suffered from your sofas.

Thank you for posting this. This is how I feel. I have been shocked at the attacks on Tsipras. As we observe here in a country that has never seen the likes of what is happening in Greece, we have purists call their government a sell-out. Sellout to what -- exactly?

He had a mandate -- the most difficult mandate possible -- and this mandate was to do anything to improve the dire situation his country was in. To get a better deal. The best possible. His perspective was never assumed to be the one that would prevail but having him lead, the Greeks could know that whatever happened in the end, he is the last who would want such austerity for Greece.

It is not clear to me that he did not get the best deal possible. There is more at stake than the austerity package -- and we are not certain of all that will follow. We are also not certain of what would have happened in leaving the Euro. I am not prepared to tell the Greeks what they should do among their truly terrible choices. But I can say they are not a symbol for our causes, a representation of what we want. We do not own their defiance. They are not like the children of washed up middle aged people, there just so we can live our revolution vicariously through them.

And he, having taken the best deal available -- some extra cash to wash down horrific austerity that was coming anyway, having tested this austerity to see if it really was the bottom line offer (it was), will now be the one to have to address it. I think without Tsipras Greece would have had the Austerity minus the cash they are getting now.

Yes, he will have this program to work with, but he will do it, trying to mitigate its effects on the people. He will do this with more compassion than a government that beleives in it and he will look for any measure to make it more bearable. And he provides the Greeks knowledge that there is nothing else they could do in the circumstances.

The Greeks do not want to leave the Euro, that is an experiment they feel unable to make. It might have worked for the better but it also may not have. The loss of access to the common market could have been even worse than staying in Europe. The write down on their own currency, may also have been worse. With real lives in the balance they are choosing among dreadful options and nobody can be sure which is the best move.

They understand -- now --  that when things get this desperate a national government is a colony of who it owes money to. We may all beleive this is wrong but we still know it is true. Greece is like a debtor whose income is garnished and who is being prevented from going bankrupt. Leaving the Euro changes this only slightly. The country needs the cooperation of those who would not give it if they left. The hammer of damage to Europe may still be their best weapon. Or it may not but we cannot judge with certainty.

For now I accept that Tsipras is on my side of the political field. I also accept that he knows more about what is best for his country than I do. And I don't assume that he has sold them out. For now, even though my support is of no value, he still has it. Along with my best wishes and hope. I think he has had more guts and determination than any of our leaders put together. And he is facing a crisis. He did not beat Merkel but did you really expect him to?

I suspect without the No vote that he would have got less cash this week and he needs the cash for his country to function this week and that matters more than anything else.

Sorry to say Sean, but you're just way off base on this. The offer of June 25, which was put to a referendum, was not as egregious as what Tsipras agreed to. Not only that he (1) wanted to lose the referendum, and (2) totally ignored the result of the referendum and capitulated to an even worse deal. His actions are totally indefensible on both ideologically and strategic grounds. All you have to do is read the New Statesman interview I posted above.

..truth of the matter is that we do have something similar. that is the plight of the first peoples. for more than 100 yrs we have allowed that shit to continue. when will that end.

Syriza surrenders: time for renewed popular resistance

quote:

A contradictory relationship

For about three years, grassroots social movements in Greece had deeply contradictory sentiments towards the electoral rise of Syriza. On one hand, the prospect of a left government was an opportunity to bring the conflict to an institutional level; after all, many of the demands of the struggles were reflected in Syriza’s program and the party always kept a movement-friendly profile.

On the other hand, Syriza has been an agent of demobilization, ending the legitimation crisis that gave a protagonistic role to the social creativity and self-determination of the movements, and by promoting the institutionalization of the struggles, the marginalization of demands that did not fit into its state management project, and the restitution of the logic of political representation and delegation, which promoted inaction and complacency.

At the same time, Syriza cultivated the illusion that real social transformation was possible without breaking with the mechanisms of capitalist domination, without calling into question the dominant economic paradigm, without building concrete bottom-up alternatives to capitalist institutions, without even calling into question the country’s permanence within a monetary union that by design favors the export-driven economies of the North in detriment of the Europe’s periphery.

Syriza’s leaders detached themselves from the party base and their former allies within the movements, and stubbornly resisted a public debate on the elaboration of a ‘Plan B’ outside the Eurozone, should the ‘Plan A’ of an ‘end to austerity within the Eurozone’ fail, for fear that this would be used against them by the pro-austerity opposition as proof that they had a hidden agenda from the very start.

Unfortunately, recent developments tend to confirm the views of those who claimed that, given the extreme delegitimation and fragility of the previous government, a new memorandum was only possible through a new and popular ‘progressive’ government. This is probably the role that Syriza unwillingly ended up playing, using its ample reserves of political capital....

Brachina wrote:

Slumberjack wrote:

All of you progressive voters should really take stock of what it is you're actually voting for.  The situation in Greece should prove beyond anyone's doubt that within the governance models allowed for under today's globalized financial architecture, political parties are two faces on the same coin.  But it won't, because people like to forget, or they’re lulled into believing that somehow the situation in far-a-way Greece couldn't happen closer to home because Canadians are not Greek.  No we're not.  There seems to be something in the national character of Greece that causes them to pile out onto the streets at the drop of a hat.  But here in Canada much of the anti-union/anti-collective bargaining activities, increases to the OAS entitlement age, blind eye environmental governance, all of the usual neo-liberal nostrums, etc, that are being acted upon at the Federal and Provincial levels by our so called governments are really the slow motion version of what the Greek government negotiated with the EU.  Syriza, or something like it, represents the 'extreme' of what you'll ever be provided with for 'choice' and 'change,' irrespective of the number of political actors that have been granted access to enter the field of 'viable' contenders.  As it's been described elsewhere, the sphere of political representation is closed, no matter how much we may wish for it to be otherwise.  Instead the western political field is comprised of corporate liquidators.

 And you have zero alternatives to electoral politics, except sitting on the sideline day dreaming about the way you feel the world should be.

 Flawed as it maybe electoral politics is all we have. 

 And Mulcair is not like the Greek Prime Minister, the Greek Prime Minister is a coward who allows himself to be pushed around, Mulcair for all that idealogically he maybe to the right of the Greek Prime Minister, but he won't be bullied or pushed around, he'd have told the EU to fuck itself by now, that's why character is more important to me then idealogy, and why Mulcair, dispite flaws I acknowledge, will be the greatest Prime Minister Canada has ever had, he has the guts to stand up to the bullies.

Hahahahahahahaha!