Greek elections

[butchersapron]

Oh, I thought Anti-Bolshvik Communism was published in the mid70s?

It was a collection of stuff he wrote in the 30s/some 40s

 

[Athos]

It was a collection of stuff he wrote in the 30s.

Yeah, just dawned on me - edited my post just before yours!

 

[butchersapron]

Still fresh, still alive, still revolutionary

 

[ska invita]

Interesting piece in the Telegraph about how far Yanis had got to preparing swtichover to the Drachma, the methods employed to do so and the authority for it... the mechanics and politics are interesting for sure...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...Plan-B-for-Greece-awaits-treason-charges.html
(more details on this aspect here http://www.ekathimerini.com/199945/...-had-approval-to-plan-parallel-banking-system )

however this is the really juicy bit:

"
"Schauble believes that the eurozone is not sustainable as it is. He believes there has to be some fiscal transfers, some degree of political union. He believes that for that political union to work without federation, without the legitimacy that a properly elected federal parliament can render, can bestow upon an executive, it will have to be done in a very disciplinary way,"

"And he said explicitly to me that a Grexit is going to equip him with sufficient terrorising power in order to impose upon the French, that which Paris has been resisting: a degree of transfer of budget making powers from Paris to Brussels."

Mr Varoufakis told the Telegraph that the Mr Schauble has made up his mind that Greece must be ejected from the euro, and is merely biding his time, knowing that the latest bail-out plan is doomed to failure.

"Everybody knows the International Monetary Fund does not want to take part in a new programme but Schauble is insisting that it does as a condition for new loans. I have a strong suspicion that there will be no deal on August 20," he said.

He said the EU authorities my have to dip further into the European Commission's stabilisation fund (EFSM), drawing Britain deeper into the controversy since it is a contributor. By the end of the year it will be clear that tax revenues are falling badly short of targets - he said - and the Greek public ratio will be shooting up towards 210pc of GDP.
"Schauble will then say it is yet another failure. He is just stringing us along. he has not given up his plan to push Greece out of the euro," he said.

 

[teqniq]

Interesting piece in the Telegraph about how far Yanis had got to preparing swtichover to the Drachma, the methods employed to do so and the authority for it... the mechanics and politics are interesting for sure...

The Graun has a piece too but it has some factual inaccuracies

...It is not clear how seriously the government considered the plans, attributed to former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. Both ministers were sacked this month. However, the revelations have been seized on by opposition parties who are demanding an explanation....

 

[brogdale]

The Graun has a piece too but it has some factual inaccuracies

Sounds a bit Keystone Cops. And that was the plan B?

 

[brogdale]

So, Yanis thinks he may be tried for treason now?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...government-payment-system-plans-10418684.html

How retro Syriza is becoming.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

This looks good. From what I've seen so far it covers the screwing of Ireland and Spain as well as Greece.

 

[CNT36]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/07/30/revi-j30.html

Television programme shows how German companies benefit from privatisation in Greece
By Verena Nees
30 July 2015
The latest EU austerity measures have nothing to do with a Greek bailout, as is being universally claimed in the press. In truth, it is about increasing the profits of the German corporate and financial elite. Greece is to be plundered and exploited in the interests of the largest European powers, and especially Germany.

The claim that this money should pay off Greece’s debt and get its banks and economy back on track was refuted by “Monitor”. Under the headline, “Billion-euro deals with Greece: Who profits from privatization?” the programme reported the example of Fraport, the Frankfurt Airport company. Already last year, Fraport had applied for operator licenses at Greek airports, and especially those on the main tourist islands, and was awarded the contract. The deal, however, was initially frozen following Syriza coming to power in January.

But the surrender of the Syriza government to the EU has now given Fraport free rein. Using the Trust Fund, Fraport wants to take over the 14 most lucrative airports, including the crown jewels on tourist islands such as Rhodes, Mykonos, Santorini and Corfu, running them for at least 40 years, and all for only 1.23 billion euros and an annual fee of 22.9 million euros. The other 30 airports, which need to be subsidized, would remain with the Greek government. “This is a model that has not been applied yet anywhere in Europe. This fits more with being a colony than an EU member state,” commented Greek Minister of Infrastructure Christos Spirtzis on the broadcast.

 

[butchersapron]

SYRIZA Central Committee Session Turns into a Battlefield

Greece’s ruling party looks likely to will split in two after Thursday’s Central Committee emergency session saw the Left Platform accusing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of “shackling Greece with a bailout Memorandum.”

Earlier in the meeting, Tsipras asked for party unity in order to implement the reforms required for a three-year, 86-billion-euro bailout program. Tsipras said that he needs the leftist votes in order to make the first leftist government in Greece succeed. Otherwise, he said, he would have to resort to a SYRIZA grass roots referendum with the question “euro or drachma?”

Left Platform leader Panagiotis Lafazanis replied: “How many referenda do we need? We had a referendum and we got 62%”

Lafazanis went on to say that “Democracy is finished. The system of government in the country is the dictatorship of the euro.”

...

During the session, 17 members of the Central Committee resigned, claiming ideological differences with current party policy.

 

[Coolfonz]

you know shit is fuuuuuucked when leftys get love from Mohamed El-Erian
http://www.project-syndicate.org/co...genda-defended-by-mohamed-a--el-erian-2015-07

 

[Lurdan]

Interesting new overview by the TPTG :

TΗE BIG DECEPTION

Doesn't seem to be on their own site yet.

A final word about the political situation in Greece before and after the referendum: most of the vote for Syriza last January was a passive “revenge vote against a right-wing government whose harsh austerity programs had disastrous effects on [people’s] lives”, as we said in our first text on Syriza.[7] But another quite large part of its voters were activists involved in the anti-austerity citizens’ movements of the previous years (as we also explained in the first part of the same text). The same people, through exactly the same recuperable forms of organization (popular assemblies, municipal political parties, local solidarity structures etc) have recently set up new “NO to the end” [sic] committees, consisting mainly of dissident Syriza and other pro-drachma leftist parties members.

This means 1) that proletarian social needs are still mediated by inter-classist, populist forms of organization and 2) that the mass base of a new Syriza-like populist party of political crooks is under formation. Whether it will manage to attract Syriza’s disillusioned electorate is a question which is too difficult to answer for the moment.

 

[brogdale]

Been re-reading bits of Hardt & Negri's "Empire" recently...and have been struck by some of the relevance to the experience of Greece and, given that they were writing in the late 1990's (published 2000), quite prescient stuff...

The tendential realization of the world market should destroy any notion that today a country or region could isolate or delink itself from the global networks of power in order to re-create the conditions of the past and develop as the dominant capitalist countries once did. Even the dominant countries are now dependent on the global system; the interactions ofthe world market have resulted in a generalized disarticulation of all economies. Increasingly, any attempt at isolation or separation will mean only a more brutal kind ofdomination by the global system, a reduction to powerlessness and poverty.

The activities of corporations are no longer defined by the imposition of abstract command and the organization of simple theft and unequal exchange. Rather, they directly structure and articulate territories and populations. They tend to make nation states merely instruments to record the flows of the commodities, monies, and populations that they set in motion.

 

[toblerone3]

Greek Finance Minister is called Euclid Tsakalotos (pronounced 'Sack a lot o'us')

 

[ska invita]

Syriza split? http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/08/13/syriza-hard-leftists-to-start-new-party-in-greece/

 

[pocketscience]

I'll put this here as the main thrust of the article is about the German/Greek/Eu dynamic and that Streeck has often been mentioned in this thread:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/17/greece-eurozone-deal-north-south

 

[brogdale]

I'll put this here as the main thrust of the article is about the German/Greek/Eu dynamic and that Streeck has often been mentioned in this thread:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/17/greece-eurozone-deal-north-south

Interesting (now historic/academic) detail...

The deal Schäuble offered in the last hour of July’s battle of the euro might have been worth exploring: a voluntary exit (an involuntary one not being possible under the current treaties) that gave Greece the freedom to devalue its currency and return to an independent monetary and fiscal policy, plus emergency assistance and some restructuring of the national debt, outside of the monetary union to avoid softening its rules by creating a precedent. A generous golden handshake might have also been an idea, protecting Germany from being blamed for having plunged the Greeks into misery or driven them into the arms of Vladimir Putin.

Politics can make strange bedfellows, but sometimes just for a one-night stand. In the end Varoufakis was overruled by Alexis Tsipras and Schäuble was overruled by Angela Merkel.

 

[pocketscience]

Interesting (now historic/academic) detail...

​

Yep, it's water under the bridge now but, wasn't Schauebles offer of the exit academic at that stage of the negotiations (i.e after Tsipras had already folded)?
Schauebles comments about an exit were inconsistent to the media comments he's been making during the negotiations. Then Veroufakis confirmed it in his FT article.
All very weird. More like a closed door session of a wall st corporate merger and acquisition negotiation.

 

[pocketscience]

The sell-off begins;
German company Fraport wins bid for greeces 14 main region airports:
http://www.dw.com/en/fraport-to-operate-greek-regional-airports/a-18655351

 

[ska invita]

Martin Rowson nails it - captures the sickness of it all

 

[J Ed]

Greek PM 'to announce early elections'

Presumably this is so he can circumvent the left platform in Syriza by forming some variation on a 'national unity' government

 

[Flavour]

he's resigning.

 

[weltweit]

He's resigned.

Greek premier Alexis Tsipras quits to force early election
http://www.itv.com/news/2015-08-20/greek-premier-alexis-tsipras-to-quit-and-force-early-election/

In a televised address to the country, the Greek leader announced his resignation, saying it was up to voters to judge whether he adequately represented them in a battle with foreign lenders on austerity demands.

"The political mandate of the January 25 elections has exhausted its limits and now the Greek people have to have their say," he said, clearing the way for a poll in September.
...

 

[DotCommunist]

voroufakis bailed a while back, seeing the writing on the wall I suppose. Its a lesson for corbynites and the army of the three pounds. You'll not actually be allowed to reject austerity through demorcratic structures as they stand. Capital will tank your economy deliberately and basically starve the populace out for having voted wrong

 

[teqniq]

Yeah anyone who thinks that they are going to gracefully acknowledge that yes, they got it a bit wrong and give up without a fight is having a laugh.

 

[phildwyer]

Yeah anyone who thinks that they are going to gracefully acknowledge that yes, they got it a bit wrong and give up without a fight is having a laugh.

I'm not so sure about that. But things will get even more interesting if they do vote in a further-Left version of Syriza.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I'm not so sure about that. But things will get even more interesting if they do vote in a further-Left version of Syriza.

At this stage having not seen any opinion polls my guess is that the right (both official and headbanger) will make gains at the expense of the left, but then again making any hard and fast political predications at the moment is a mugs game,

 

[dilute micro]

I hope the Greeks never elect to do away with tzatziki sauce.

 

[brogdale]

Syriza's Pasokification?

Far-left rebels in Greece's Syriza party have broken away to form a new party with 25 politicians, a parliament deputy speaker announced on Friday.

The new party will be called Popular Unity and headed by former Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, the leader of the far-left faction within Syriza that has defied outgoing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's call to back a third bailout programme.

It comes after Tsipras resigned on Thursday.

With 25 politicians, the party would be the third largest block in Greece's 300-seat parliament ahead of the centrist To Potami and far-right Golden Dawn parties, which each have 17 politicians.

 

[J Ed]

Syriza's Pasokification?

​

It's getting a bit meta