[Marxism] Fwd: Monthly Review’s split personality | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On MRZine's continuing campaign against Syriza despite the fact that its finance minister is a Monthly Review author. http://louisproyect.org/2015/03/09/monthly-reviews-split-personality/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] SYRIZA leaders on new situation in Greece, showing confusion and lack of perspectives
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * on Sonntag, 8. März 2015 at 02:31, glparramatta via Marxism wrote: Greece: Yiannis Bournous' thoughts on the new situation and SYRIZA's responsibilities http://links.org.au/node/4324 Quotes from that article: improve public finances by making the rich pay. A first positive sign in this direction is that the treasury prosecutors investigating lists of Greek account-holders who have illegally transferred money to Swiss and other foreign banks have already blocked €404 million found in the bank accounts of 17 depositors. Why don't they take control of the banks? Merging the banks into one national bank under public control. No need to expropriate the owners or account holders, but to give the working people the means to direct the liquid capital to productive purposes. As to taxes, slash the VAT to the minimum level prescribed by the EU treaties, and raise the income taxes for the rich. Secure the ships of the Greek shipping companies, the way the US hedge fonds nailed down the school ship of Argentinian marine. At the same time, we will be judged on our moves to democratise the political system and the public sphere, in the war against corruption and in tackling the humanitarian crisis. The government has already presented its first bill, which includes free electricity for households that live in conditions of extreme poverty (300 Kwh per month), housing rent allowance for 30,000 households (€70 per person or €220 per family per month), as well as a nutrition allowance for citizens that also live in conditions of extreme poverty. It is nice to make gifts, but that does not change the political situation, and does not help to secure a mass base. People need ways to take part in the creation of a new society, and building the country with their own hands. This is what lets self-confidence grow; receiving gifts by governmental benefactors does not, it rather increases the feeling of being powerless and having to rely on those above. Besides the nationalisation of the banks, the most important move is a public works program which mobilises the 25 percent unemployed, gives them a sense of being important, constructs important infrastructure, and alleviates the state budget by organising exchanges of products bypassing the retail trusts, organising farmers to supply their produce directly in exchange to work by the city workers. One of the worst moves is what I heard this morning in the radio (DLF - Deutschlandfunk), according to which Varoflakis, the non-partisan finance minister, is said to have called on each and everybody to spy on each other for detecting tax frauds. There is no better way to destroy any feeling of solidarity. Again: study Lenin's The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It to learn from it in a creative way. Otherwise I fear that the end of the Syriza government and party is coming much faster than their worst enemies would have hoped for, and the end of the last vestige of social-democratic populism. Yours, Lüko Willms Frankfurt/Main, Germany http://www.mlwerke.de _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] MEE: German socialist killed fighting with YPG in Syria
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * A young German woman has been killed while fighting alongside Kurdish forces against Islamic State militants in northeastern Syria, according to a monitoring group. The woman, named by some sources as Ivana Hoffman, was killed on Sunday near the town of Tal Tamer where she was assisting the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in their struggle against the IS fighters. She is the third Westerner killed among Kurdish ranks in Syria ... http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/female-german-marxist-leninist-killed-fighting-ypg-syria-718535922 By way of background: At the moment the MLKP has fighters in Serêkaniyê and Kobanê in Rojava and also in Sinjar fighting alongside the HPG/YJA Star guerrillas and the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBŞ) against ISIS. Four MLKP fighters have fallen in the struggle, Serkan Tosun, who died in Serêkaniyê on 14 September 2013 and Suphi Nejat Ağırnaslı (Paramaz Kızılbaş), Sibel Bulut (Sarya Özgür) and Oğuz Saruhan (Algan Zafir), who fell during the resistance in Kobanê. The MLKP is now engaged in trying to form an international brigade and is in contact with revolutionary organisations from Latin America to Europe and from the Balkans to the Far East. MLKP members from Europe have also joined the brigade and Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, German, English and Spanish are being spoken ... https://armsforrojava.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/preparations-for-international-brigade-in-rojava -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Exploding Trains and Crude Oil » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * By Jon Flanders. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/09/exploding-trains-and-crude-oil/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Internationalist fighter Ivana Hoffman Dies Fighting for Kurdish Forces.
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Internationalist fighter Ivana Hoffman, fighting alongside the People's/Women's Defense Forces (YPG/YPJ) against Daesh/ISIS in Rojava, was killed in Til Temir yesterday evening.Ivana Hoffman (code name Avaşîn Tekoşîn Güneş) was a communist fighter with the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP). According to the MLKP's announcement, Ivana lost her life in a 3 a.m. clash in the early morning hours of March 7, on the eve of World Women's Day. The statement said that for Ivana, standing up for the Rojava revolution meant standing up for the future. It noted that she had taken up frontline positions in the bloody battle to defend Assyrian and Syriac villages from Daesh's genocidal attacks. More: http://turkeyharvest.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/internationalist-ivana-hoffman-dies-in.html Andrew Coates _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: KenLoachFilms - YouTube
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * It appears that all of his films can be seen for free. https://www.youtube.com/user/KenLoachFilms/videos _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Greek Prospects
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On Mar 8, 2015, at 8:46 AM, James Creegan via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: The first thing that strikes me about Marv's thinking is its fatalistic objectivism, which takes present mass consciousness as an immutable given, leaving no role for leftwing agency. I’m not a fatalist. Nothing is immutable. The natural world and human society are ever changing. People respond by trying to do what they consider necessary to maintain or improve their conditions in changed circumstances. In doing so, they generally take into account the economic, political, social and other constraints on their ability to act. Division and conflict arises within and between classes in defining their interests and how to pursue them. This understanding is consistent with historical materialism, and informs my view of the process currently underway in Greece and the eurozone. In my view, the possibilities for overcoming the gap between consciousness and reality are greater in Greece today than they have been in any Western country for a long time due to three circumstances: 1) the people have already taken the momentous step of upending a normal pro-status quo political duopoly; 2) a leftwing party is now in control of the government, giving it an unprecedented ability to shape public opinion (a bully pulpit, in the current cliche); 3) the hopes with which perhaps most people voted for Syriza--that it would roll back austerity and stay in the Eurozone at the same time by means of negotiation with the institutions--have now been clearly exposed by the first round of talks as a dead end. People will be casting about for a new course of action. I’m in agreement with points 1 and 2. But what is the basis for your belief that Syriza has “clearly exposed” itself and that the people are casting about for a new course of action? That is not at all clear, and the evidence presently points in the opposite direction. You understand this, which is why you’re reduced to proclaiming that the people “will be” breaking with the course set by Syriza at some undefined future stage. They may or may not, but in the meantime proclamations relevant to a possible future situation aren’t relevant to one in which they are presently expressing increased confidence in their leadership, not less, even in the face of its programmatic retreat, and where the relationship of forces between the Greeks and their eurozone paymasters is as adverse as ever. I don’t want to throw the bible at you, but I expect you would have seen signs everywhere, where there were few, that the British Labour Party leadership had “clearly exposed itself in the aftermath of WWI and your view of British politics would have similarly been shaped by the firm conviction that its working class supporters were poised to break with it. When and where have you ever thought otherwise? My main fear is that the Syriza leadership will fail to utilize these opportunities because it is paralyzed by thinking akin to Marv Gandall's. Ever since the neoliberal onslaught and the fall of the USSR, broad sections of the left have abandoned any hope of revolutionary change in favor of restoring the liberal Keyensian policies that prevailed during the glorious thirty postwar years. The route to such a restoration seems to be convincing more enlightened policy makers that neoliberalism is bad for capitalism, and that they should adopt policies aimed at stimulating consumer demand. The more radical neo-Keynesians usually add that such persuasion must be supplemented by popular pressure. Marv seems to partake of this 'post-soviet realism'. Having written off any prospect of challenging capitalism… I haven’t written off any prospect of challenging capitalism, and am heartened and hopeful whenever there is the reappearance anywhere of the consciousness and militancy which characterized the international workers’ movement before its historic decline. Perhaps we’re witnessing the first signs of its rebirth, but that once-powerful movement no longer exists. You’re correct that this is the foremost reason why broad sections of the left have abandoned any hope in revolutionary change. Some have done so permanently, others like myself and probably most others on the list, only insofar as they can see to the horizon. Moreover, I’m impressed by how abruptly and unexpectedly history can turn, as we learned in our lifetime with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Here too, the differences between us may not be as wide as you suppose them to be. he seems to be pinning his hopes on a realization by more enlightened bourgeois
[Marxism] Tatlin Groans
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * TATLIN GROANS: Art at the Crossroads of Fear, Hypocrisy and Hope Red Wedge Magazine/ by Mike Alewitz http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/commentary/tatlin-groans-art-at-the-crossroads-of-fear-hypocrisy-hope _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] civil rights pioneer Diane Nash: why i didn't march today; diff. between protest and movement
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * AMY GOODMAN: After President Obama spoke, he walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge along with Michelle and their daughters, Congressmember Lewis, former President George and Laura Bush and few dozen others. One notable civil rights activist who refused to take part in the symbolic walk was Diane Nash, who helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Later in the day, she spoke in Selma and explained why. DIANE NASH: After the event, there was a—like a march, and photographers. And I was all set to march with them. They had—they placed us—they had me in the front line. And then George Bush came out and got in the march. And I left. I decided I wasn’t marching anywhere with George Bush. The Selma movement stands for nonviolence and peace and democracy and fairness and voting rights, and George Bush stands for just the opposite. He stands for violence and war and stolen elections, and, for goodness sake, his administration had people tortured. I think this occasion was not appropriate for him to be here. I think for him to appear to be leading people involved in the nonviolent movement in this country, for photographs of that to go across the world would make it look as though we have sold out. I think that is an insult to people whose lives were taken—Reverend Reeb, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Viola Liuzzo. It’s an insult to me. And I think it’s an insult to everybody who really does believe in nonviolence. That being said, I want to mention just a couple of things that I think might be of value as we continue the struggle now. And the first thing is, I think it would be a huge mistake for Americans to leave the future of this country in the hands of elected officials. Elected officials are not going to do what’s necessary in the interest of this country. It’s important—critical, in fact—that citizens take the interests of this country into our own hands, use nonviolence and make the necessary changes. I like to ask—suppose we had waited for elected officials to desegregate restaurants, lunch counters, public accommodations, buses, and to get the right to vote. I think 50 years later we would still be waiting. My second point that I’d like to bring up is the issue of protest versus a nonviolent campaign. We’ve seen like the Occupy movement a few years ago, and now the hands up movement, and I believe that young people are on the right track. They are taking matters into their own hands. But one thing that I have observed is that I think sometimes we do not know how to differentiate between protest and a movement. In protests, it’s just what the word says: I protest this. I do not like this. Very often, the powers that be know that we don’t like what’s going on, but they’re determined to do it anyway. On the other hand, a nonviolent movement or a nonviolent campaign starts where you are right now, causes you to set a very clear, concrete objective. And I like to say also that it should be a written objective. Nobody can give you what you want unless you know what that is. http://www.democracynow.org/2015/3/9/civil_rights_pioneer_diane_nash_i DemocracyNow! March 9, 2015 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Viola Liuzzo - a forgotten and besmirched working class civil rights hero
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Liuzzo was one of thousands of people at the grass roots whose names never make it into the history books, but without whom there would be no improvement of the human condition. They are the mass in mass movements. http://coreyrobin.com/2015/03/09/the-lives-they-touched/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] SYRIZA leaders on new situation in Greece
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Serious and substantial comments are welcome to be left at the original link at Links (http://links.org.au/node/4324). See Links full coverage of SYRIZA at http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/328 Bournous is a party line hack. On 8 Mar 2015, at 01:31, glparramatta via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrot Greece: Yiannis Bournous' thoughts on the new situation and SYRIZA's responsibilities http://links.org.au/node/4324 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Chavez's legacy lives in social gains
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * When Hugo Chavez won his first election as Venezuela’s president in 1998, it was against a backdrop of a deep economic and social crisis. https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/58453 -- “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism “The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] How Noam Chomsky cleans up Mummar Qaddafi
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * a major new piece from Linux Beach: How Noam Chomsky cleans up Mummar Qaddafi Recently, the whole world was horrified after witnessing the live burning death of a Jordanian pilot by the terror group ISIS. It was less widely publicized that the late Libyan dictator Mummar Qaddafi also fancied this way of doing away with his enemies. This *YouTube* video was posted 14 June 2011 with the title *A Libyan Freedom Fighter Burned Alive for Not Saying Gaddafi is King of Kings.* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiIuxYiGQlA *Warning, it contains disturbing images.* The description reads: One of Gaddafi's military orders a Libyan freedom fighter to say /al-fateh/ (in reference to Gaddafi's 1969 revolution) and say that Gaddafi is the /'King of Kings'/. The Libyan freedom fighter refuses and instead repeatedly says La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad Ar-Rasool Allah (There is only one God and Muhammad is His Messenger). Gaddafi's agent then pours gasoline on the freedom fighter and burns him to death. Qaddafi apologist *Steve Walt* of *Harvard University* wasn't telling the truth when he said http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/04/04/top-5-reasons-we-keep-fighting-all-these-wars/ in *Foreign Policy*, 4 April 2011, that /Despite ubiquitous cellphone cameras, there are no images of genocidal violence,/ while implying that claims of atrocity /smacks of rebel propaganda./ *More...* Clay Claiborne, Director Vietnam: American Holocaust http://VietnamAmericanHolocaust.com Linux Beach Productions Venice, CA 90291 (310) 581-1536 Read my blogs at theLinux Beach http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Libya
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Libyan City Sues France for Support of Anti-Gaddafi Militias http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Libyan-City-Sues-France-for-Support-of-Anti-Gaddafi-Militias-20140822-0025.html Ken, Isn't this suit being brought by the same French lawyer who was going to sue NATO for Gaddafi's death? Hasn't he been Gaddafi's lawyer? Isn't your tag line misleading, since the article only talks about residence from the city? Here you had me looking to see what city government was suing. Clay Claiborne, Director Vietnam: American Holocaust http://VietnamAmericanHolocaust.com Linux Beach Productions Venice, CA 90291 (310) 581-1536 Read my blogs at the Linux Beach http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/ http://wlcentral.org/user/2965/track http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-noam-chomsky-cleans-up-mummar.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Five detained in Moscow over Nemtsov murder, ...
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Aymani Dadayeva, Mr Dadayev’s mother, told Russian media that her son served for ten years in the “North” battalion in Chechnya, an interior ministry unit headed by relatives of Ramzan Kadyrov, the republic’s fiercely pro-Putin leader. This tends to confirm what was written in the editorial in Open Left, posted to this website by Andrew Pollack on February 28th. http://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/the-murder-of-boris-nemtsov/ There are a few possibilities in terms of who may have ordered the execution. Among them are certain circles of Russia’s extensive security class who have an interest in ramping up tensions here. Others include the members of amateur groups broadly falling under the “anti-Maidan,” as well as veterans of the military operation in the so-called Novorossiya, or even militants on the payroll of Ramzan Kadyrov. ken h _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [UCE] Eurozone FM's meet on Greece; Greek gov't considers going to referendum, elections
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Greece's Varoufakis warns of referendum if eurozone rejects debt plans Deutsche Welle March 8 Athens could call for a referendum or early elections if the eurozone rejects its debt plans, Greece's finance minister has said. The present government won elections on promises of renegotiating the EU bailout program. Greece's Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said his government was willing to hold a referendum or even early elections if Eurogroup ministers reject debt and growth plans. Varoufakis' statements came shortly before finance ministers of the eurozone countries were due to meet on Monday for crucial talks on Athens' list of reforms, which the EU received last week. . . . http://www.dw.de/greeces-varoufakis-warns-of-referendum-if-eurozone-rejects-debt-plans/a-18302509 Greece to dominate eurogroup meeting Greece signals referendum intention if international lenders reject reform plan Suzanne Lynch Irish Times March 8 Minister for Finance Michael Noonan travels to Brussels on Monday for a meeting of euro-zone finance ministers that is expected to be dominated by Greece...The eurogroup gathering, which will be attended by Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, is the first since euro-zone finance ministers granted a four-month loan extension to Athens just over two weeks ago, on condition the government presses ahead with reforms. Mr Varoufakis ratcheted up the pressure on Greece’s lenders to accept Athens’s latest reform proposals this weekend, telling Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera that Greece may call new elections or hold a referendum if European finance ministers reject the government’s reform proposals. The latest proposals submitted by Greece in a letter to eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem on Thursday, which included a suggestion of hiring tourists to work temporarily as undercover tax collectors, elicited a bemused response from some EU officials in Brussels. Mr Dijsselbloem welcomed the proposals as “helpful” but added that they needed to be scrutinised by Greece’s international lenders. “This document will be helpful in the process of specifying the first list of reform measures,” the euro group head wrote in his official response to Mr Varoufakis, adding that the proposals “will need to be further discussed with the institutions.” With Athens facing about €2 billion of debt-servicing payments later this week, it needs to convince its international lenders to unlock the outstanding €7 billion due to the country under the current bailout programme. Negotiations are ongoing between Greek officials and the three creditor institutions, and no specific decision is expected from Monday’s meeting. The suggestion that Greece might hold a referendum is the latest proposal by the government of Alexis Tsipras to break the deadlock between Greece and the lenders that have financed the country for the past five years. Mr Varoufakis said citizens would be asked to vote on the country’s economic policy – not EU membership – in any referendum. . . . http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/greece-to-dominate-eurogroup-meeting-1.2131114 Early Greek election, referendum possible if EU rejects debt plan: Varoufakis by Steve Scherer Reuters, Rome March 8 Greece could call a referendum or have early elections should its euro zone partners reject its debt and growth plans, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said in a newspaper interview on Sunday. . . . Most Greeks want the country to keep the euro, but two-thirds also continue to back the government's tough stance to renegotiate the bailout package. A referendum over a deal with lenders that keeps the country in the euro zone but falls short of Tsipras's promises could give the government cover to accept a deal even though it was elected with a different mandate. But even floating the idea of a referendum is politically risky. In 2011, then-prime minister George Papandreou suggested calling a referendum over the bailout and was later forced to make way for a unity coalition led by a former central banker. With the Tsipras government's popularity level above 40 percent, Varoufakis said people understand that the government is fighting the establishment that said it was saving Greece while it put everything on the backs of the poor. . . . In the interview, Varoufakis said that the response so far by euro zone partners to his proposals to replace its current debt with bonds linked to nominal growth is silence. . . . He also criticized the European Central Bank for being disciplinary in not letting Athens issue more short-term debt, and said the central bank should buy Greek debt as part of its bond-buying
