[Marxism] Catalonia referendum: the insurrection against the Spanish state is reaching a decisive climax

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Dick Nichols, Barcelona

The war without guns between the Spanish state and the 80% majority of
Catalan people who support their parliament’s October 1 independence
referendum is reaching a climax at time of writing on September 29.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/catalonia-referendum-insurrection-against-spanish-state-reaching-decisive-climax



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[Marxism] Peru referendum - 98% oppose gold mining

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/42698-peru-referendum-98-of-cajamarca-residents-reject-gold-mining
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[Marxism] Italian referendum: ‘No’ movement puts government against wall

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Dick Nichols

It takes a lot of social pressure to force a split in the economic elite
over how best to pursue its interests. But that is what has happened in
Italy as the fight about changing the country’s 1948 constitution entered
its final days.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/italian-referendum-%E2%80%98no%E2%80%99-movement-puts-government-against-wall
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Re: [Marxism] Greek Referendum

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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This is the problem. You are for class-struggle methods in Greece but 
are posing this to a mailing list of Marxists with one or two Greeks who 
already agree with you. Preaching to the choir does not begin to 
describe the absurdity of your intervention here. Our main concern is 
not why Tsipras has the gumption to be a neo-Keynesian but why the 
revolutionary left in Greece is so divided and isolated. The small 
groups in Syriza that are for socialism could never get a hearing unless 
they were part of Syriza. Antarsya's miniscule vote would indicate the 
level of support for your way of thinking even though they would find 
your brand of ultraleft sectarianism useless.


It is much easier to excoriate Syriza than to figure out how to build a 
revolutionary left, particularly in the USA where you live and where you 
have wasted 40 years of your life wallowing in the sterile, kibbitzing, 
masturbatory type of politics that the Spartacist League excels in. If 
you had something interesting to say about building the left in the USA, 
it might be easier to take you seriously but this costume party pretense 
at Trotsky in Coyoacan is laughable. You'd have more credibility if you 
imitated Elvis or Napoleon Bonaparte.


On 7/4/15 1:19 PM, James Creegan wrote:

In today's neoliberal Europe, it is impossible to achieve
even neo-Keynesian measures without class-struggle methods.

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Re: [Marxism] Greek Referendum

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 7/4/15 11:49 AM, James Creegan wrote:

Yes, I caught on to the Louis Proyect theory of leadership a long time
ago: If people are confused and ambivalent, it is the task of leaders
to... reflect their confusion and ambivalence.


You don't seem to get my point. Syriza was neo-Keynesian economically. 
When Tsipras came to the USA, he visited the Jerome Levy Institute at 
Bard College not the Spartacist League. Pointing out its failure to 
adopt Bolshevik policies is asinine. Our problem as Marxists is to 
construct an alternative leadership, not to issue sterile critiques of 
people who never pretended to be anything except leftist opponents of 
austerity. We can offer our solidarity to such forces as Podemos, Syriza 
and the Scottish National Party without abandoning the effort to 
construct revolutionary socialist organizations. In your miserable 4 
decades on the left, you have done nothing but write these sterile 
critiques from the sidelines without ever having led a mass movement 
against any social injustice. The left has generally abandoned the 
Spartacist League politics you espouse and has moved on. It is really 
too bad that you are mired in the past but understandable. Cynthia 
Cochran once observed to me that the left in its impotent failure to 
constitute a real threat to the capitalist class has settled into a 
pattern of attacking the traitors in our midst. She was talking 
exactly about you.

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Re: [Marxism] Greek Referendum

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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But don't you get it? The Greeks voted for Syriza because the party 
reflected their own indecision. Polls reflected support for remaining in 
the eurozone even if you and the Spartacist League and the Socialist 
Equality Party knew better. Maybe some of these poor benighted souls 
will stumble across the Marxmail archives, read your rock-ribbed 
Bolshevik analysis and the scales will fall from their eyes. Jim Creegan 
saves the Greeks and then the planet. Hallelujah!


On 7/4/15 6:41 AM, James Creegan via Marxism wrote:

  I will be very surprised if a majority of voters, in the face of all
these contradictory moves, mixed signals and panic from their leaders,
nevertheless decide to vote No. Such an outcome would represent a truly
heroic act of defiance. The Geeks will have chosend to risk entrusting
their future to leaders  of demonstrated indecision and weakness rather
than knuckle under to the debt lords.

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[Marxism] Greek Referendum

[James Creegan via Marxism]

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It will be a miracle if the Troika is rebuffed tomorrow in its attempt to
bring down Syriza and humiliate Greece. When people are faced with a leap
into the unknown, as a No vote would surely be, they usually require the
reassurance of leaders who are competent and determined. Tsipras and the
people around him have shown themselves to be anything but. Displaying all
the ambivalence, vacillation and hesitancy of the middle class layers they
immediately represent, they are presenting to Greek voters not with a clear
choice, but with a confusing muddle.

Having made repeated concessions, Tsipras apparently concluded that
negotiations were going nowhere, and called a referendum. But no sooner had
he taken this seemingly bold step, than he turned around in an
eleventh-hour attempt to capitulate. The Troika rejected his capitulation
and withdrew its terms, having become convinced that a referendum offered a
decent chance of unseating Tsipras and Syriza. I think they made a good bet.

The Greek people are fully aware of Tsipras's last-minute climb-down. He
called the Troika's terms blackmail, and then attempted to submit to
them! They also can't be  anything but confused about what a No vote would
mean. What sense does it make to reject terms the Eurocrats say are now off
the table? A rejection would be no more than symbolic. Would No mean a
Grexit? Tsipras says it won't, that he is only trying to strengthen his
negotiating hand. The troika says it will, because no more generous offer
is forthcoming. Why can't Tsipras accept the fact that the Eurocrats aren't
bluffing? They would rather see Greece out of the Eurozone than soften
their terms.  Does the Syriza leadership have a plan in the event that an
exit becomes necessary? None that I or anyone else has been able to
discern. Meanwhile the Troika, by withholding emergency bank funds, is
deliberately creating a panic on the ground.

 I will be very surprised if a majority of voters, in the face of all
these contradictory moves, mixed signals and panic from their leaders,
nevertheless decide to vote No. Such an outcome would represent a truly
heroic act of defiance. The Geeks will have chosend to risk entrusting
their future to leaders  of demonstrated indecision and weakness rather
than knuckle under to the debt lords.

Jim Creegan
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[Marxism] Greece's referendum: NPR interview w/ Tsakolotos; contending narratives opposition; establishment media, financial fears; a poll (6)

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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National Public Radio (U.S.) interviews Euclid Tsakalotos on the referendum
NPR's Rachel Martin talks with Euclid Tsakalatos, Greece's deputy
foreign minister and chief negotiator in the bailout talks, about
Sunday's referendum and what yes and no votes would mean
All Things Considered, July 3
Audio and transcript here:
http://www.npr.org/2015/07/03/419824368/chief-bailout-negotiator-greece-needs-an-economically-sustainable-deal

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We are joined now by Euclid Tsakalotos. He is deputy foreign minister
for Greece and the head of Greece's negotiating team.

Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us.

EUCLID TSAKALOTOS: You're more than welcome.

MARTIN: Greeks are clearly confused about what Sunday's referendum is
about. Can you clarify? What are they voting on?

TSAKALOTOS: Well, the institutions - that's the IMF, the European
Commission and the ECB - made a proposal for an agreement. And that
agreement, we felt - the Greek government - was not sustainably
economically or socially just. And it's that proposal that is being
put to the Greek people to either accept or to reject.

MARTIN: But as I understand it, that particular proposal isn't even on
the table anymore.

TSAKALOTOS: Yes, that is technically true, but there is going to be a
new agreement, and that agreement is going to be of a certain
character. So we know what the institutions were proposing. I think
most people understand the really underlying issues.

MARTIN: Is this a negotiating tactic, to call this referendum? Since
it doesn't explicitly validate or discredit a particular proposal,
it's mostly symbolic in nature.

TSAKALOTOS: In one sense you're right, and in one sense you're wrong.
In one sense you are right, in the sense that we always said that this
referendum was part of the negotiation process and not in lieu of the
process. And it's part of the negotiation process when we feel that we
really did try our very best to reach an honorable compromise, whereas
the IMF, the Commission and the ECB proposal was much more close to
their opening bid three months ago, rather than trying to find the
common ground. And that's where you're wrong. It's more than a
symbolic gesture. It's a democratic gesture. And what we're asking is
that European people must respect the democratic decision because if
they do not, people will draw the terrible conclusion that in Europe
you can vote, but it doesn't matter who you vote for, what electoral
platform you vote for, what manifesto you vote for - you always get
the same policies. And that means that people will be disgruntled with
the democratic process, alienated from the democratic process, and
that could lead to some very nasty, nationalistic, right-wing
politics.

MARTIN: If the vote does not go the way you would like it to, if
Greeks vote yes, does that mean your government folds?

TSAKALOTOS: Well, I can't tell you the mechanics - the political
mechanics. But, obviously, it's like a vote of no-confidence for
opposition for the Greek people, and that is a very serious matter. We
would have to respect the decision of the Greek people, and the deal
would have to be signed on the lines suggested by the institutions.

So the political mechanics are less important than the substance. And
the substance is that we would need a government who believe in the
institution's proposals, think that they can work. Presumably, a lot
of people who are voting yes and the politicians recommending yes -
who are the same politicians, I would add, who ran Greece over the
last five years with disastrous consequences for people's income -
they would have to have a greater say in a government. But exactly how
that would be carried out, it's too early to say.

MARTIN: If the vote is no then what does that mean - talks continue?

TSAKALOTOS: We will be there on Monday morning, if there is a no vote,
negating on one and only one criterion. What we need is a deal that is
economically sustainable, and that's why it must have something on the
debt because what we have in Greece is a lot of pent-up demand. We
have people that have some money who are not spending it now. Not
because they don't have it, but because they fear the future. We have
savers who are not willing to put their money in banks because they
fear for the future. And we have investors not investing because they
fear for the future. And unless the decision on debt it taken now and
not pushed back to December or Easter or next summer, that pent-up
demand won't be released, and then we won't even be able to keep our
promises.

MARTIN: But what do you say to smaller European countries, like
Ireland, who never got their own debt 

[Marxism] Greek referendum

[Stavros Mavroudeas via Marxism]

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A short piece on the Greek referendum.

 

Stavros Mavroudeas

 

 

Stavros D. Mavroudeas

 

Professor (Political Economy)

Dept. of Economics

University of Macedonia

156 Egnatia

54006 Thessaloniki

Greece

e-mail: sma...@uom.gr; sma...@uom.edu.gr 

web: http://stavrosmavroudeas.wordpress.com
http://stavrosmavroudeas.wordpress.com/ 

www.facebook.com/stavros.mavroudeas 

off. Tel: +30-2310-891779

 

Recent books:

The Limits of Regulation

 http://www.elgaronline.com/abstract/9780857938633.xml
http://www.elgaronline.com/abstract/9780857938633.xml

 

Greek Capitalism in Crisis

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415744928/

 

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Re: [Marxism] The Referendum

[ioannis aposperites via Marxism]

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On 03/07/2015 12:19 μμ, Dayne Goodwin wrote:

Thanks JA, i think this is very good, good on politics of referendum,
good on politics of KKE.

and at their site, they have video evidence for the assertion about
size of Monday rally.

The only other material on their site that i readily found in English
was on Ukraine.  Can't say i was impressed with that...
Dayne



Well, i should have made a warning not to read their position on 
Ukraine! It's really pitiable! Yet, they occasionally take correct 
positions, along with their unsupportable voluntarism.

JA

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[Marxism] The Referendum

[ioannis aposperites via Marxism]

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This is Communist Revolutionary Action an ex-Syriza group:

The declaration of the referendum puts an end – once and for all – to 
all the illusions about the “national negotiations” and all the myths 
about “the Greeks who join forces when faced with hostile foreign 
forces”. It has now been proven that the ruling class together with its 
courtyard is not willing to leave the national affairs at the hands of 
Tsipras – or anyone who may undermine its international relationships.


full at: 
https://avantgarde2009.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/no-to-the-cancellation-of-the-referendum-no-until-the-end-proletarian-defence-against-the-bourgeois-sabotage/


JA
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[Marxism] Greece: referendum OKed; troika vengeful; if 'Yes' vote, new gov't? (3)

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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1)  Defiant Tsipras issues call to reject insulting bailout in referendum
The parliament approved Alexis Tsipras' motion for a referendum next
Sunday, with the PM issuing a defiant call of rejection of the
insulting bailout offer.
Times of Change, Greece, June 28   (Reuters, AMNA)
http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/defiant-tsipras-issues-call-to-reject-insulting-bailout-in-referendum

In the early hours of Sunday, the Greek parliament approved a motion
to hold a referendum on the proposals submitted by the institutions to
the government on July 5. Voting by roll call vote, 178 lawmakers
approved the motion, 120 were against, while two were absent,
Parliament President Zoi Konstantopoulou announced.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras issued a defiant call on Greeks to
reject an insulting bailout offer from foreign creditors in the
referendum. The day of truth is coming for the creditors, the time
when they will see that Greece will not surrender, that Greece is not
a game that has ended, he said in an address to parliament laced with
references to democracy and national dignity.

I am certain that the Greek people will rise to the historical
circumstances and issue a resounding 'No' to the ultimatum, he said
as he wound up the debate before a vote to authorize the referendum.

“We will all respect the result. We will defend democracy, popular
sovereignty and the founding values of Europe,” Tsipras told
lawmakers, while adding that the government will not ask permission by
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble or Eurogroup chief Jeroen
Dijsselbloem to allow the people to have their say and secure
democracy in the country it was born.

He criticized the exclusion of Finance Minister Vanis Varoufakis by
the second Eurogroup meeting earlier today, saying “this day will go
down in our common European story as gloomy, not only because some
decided outside and beyond any institutional process to block an equal
partner from a meeting, but also because finance ministers questioned
the right of a sovereign country to decide on its future
democratically.”

Earlier in the House debate, former Conservative Greek Prime Minister
Antonis Samaras said the July 5th referendum proposed by the ruling
Syriza government on the country's bailout terms would end up
thrusting Greece out of the euro zone. In the referendum, it's not
really the deal that is being decided; it's the fate of our country in
staying in the euro, Samaras said during the heated late-night debate
in parliament.


2.a)  Greek MPs approve referendum as lenders see difficulties ahead
I Kathimerini, Athens, June 28  (Reuters  Bloomberg)
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_28/06/2015_551603

Greek lawmakers on Sunday authorized Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras'
proposed July 5th bailout referendum, setting Greece on course for a
plebiscite that has enraged international creditors and increased
Greece's chances of exiting the euro zone.

The government easily passed the 151-vote threshold needed to
authorize the referendum, with deputies from the far right Golden Dawn
voting with the government and pro-European opposition parties New
Democracy, PASOK and To Potami and the KKE Communist Party voting
against.
. . .
European partners have reacted negatively to the announcement of the
referendum. On Saturday, they rejected a request by Tsipras to extend
the current bailout in order to cover the period leading up to the
referendum. The rejection means Athens is likely to default on a key
payment to the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday.

Meeting in Brussels Saturday evening after rejecting Greece’s request
to extend its aid program beyond June 30, eurozone finance ministers
said the cash-strapped nation will need to take steps to protect its
banks. The European Central Bank, which has kept the nation afloat, is
set to discuss Sunday whether to pull the plug on its emergency
lending, leaving the country with no backstop.

“Monday could be a bank holiday” in Greece, Ireland’s Michael Noonan
told reporters. “It’s not a question of waiting to see what might
happen on Monday in terms of crisis. The crisis has commenced.”
 . . .
Public opinion is at odds with Tsipras, according to a survey
published Saturday. Two-thirds say Greece should remain in the euro
area and 57.5 percent say the government should back down to reach a
deal with creditors, the Kapa Research poll for To Vima newspaper
showed.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister and head of the
Eurogroup, told reporters in Brussels that Varoufakis had requested a
one-month extension. With “no comprehensive package agreed” to by
ministers, Dijsselbloem said the Greek 

[Marxism] Greece: Referendum on cards if EU deal not reached

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Dick Nichols

In a three-hour appearance on private TV channel Star TV on April 27, Greek
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke extensively about the challenges
confronting the anti-austerity government led by the Coalition of the
Radical Left (SYRIZA).

The program began with a grilling of Tsipras by interviewer Niko
Katsinikolao and ended with questions from a 50-strong audience.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/58917


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