Syriza now has to govern, they are the party of government — not of revolution. The euphoria of the election was quickly tempered by the pragmatism of governance and the task at hand. They have yet to propose anything radical, instead they talk of minimum wage, eased debt payments, and social programs. These are important programs that may improve social conditions for many in Greece. There is no program of mass nationalizations or land appropriations. If one is looking for a party that will sweep away the state into a classless society, he is looking in the wrong place.
In forming a coalition with ANEL, Tsipras is perhaps hearkening the advice of J.K. Galbraith when he told President Kennedy, “(p)olitics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.” Tsipras must determine if governance is more palatable that principle. To forego the unpalatable, to take any kind of leap to the possible, Syriza needs to display a stronger mandate than it earned in the elections. Here it’s instructive that the Greeks remember their history. They last faced tyranny during the period of the military junta of 1967-1974. It was the student-led uprising at Athens Polytechnic that notably defied the dictatorship. The uprising was not itself successful at restoring democracy, but many believe it precipitated the falling of the dictatorship nine months later. full: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/30/strange-times-in-greece/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
