[Marxism] Syriza MP: It's Time to Take Over the Banks, now!
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. * The Real News Network, July 6, 2015 Paul Jay discusses the results of the Greek referendum with Costas Lapavitsas and asks whether Syriza was prepared for this moment part 1 http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=31Itemid=74jumival=14181 part 2 http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=31Itemid=74jumival=14186 _ 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] DemocracyNow! on Greece today, w/ Paul Mason in Athens and Richard Wolff in NYC
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[Marxism] The Greek people have said NO to the adjustment measures. Now it is time to organise the struggle to defeat the Troika.
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. * With almost all the votes counted, 61% are for No and 39% for Yes. The 22-point difference proves wrong those who predicted a narrow result. According to several sources, the “No” vote was stronger in working class districts and among young voters. http://leftvoice.org/The-Greek-people-have-said-NO-to-the-adjustment-measures-Now-it-is-time-to-organise-the-struggle-to _ 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] Interview: What’s happening in Greece after the Referendum?
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. * Full interview: http://leftvoice.org/Interview-What-s-happening-in-Greece-after-the-Referendum Interview with Manos Skoufoglou, member of the leadership of OKDE-Spartakos and of Antarsya Anti-capitalist Left Coalition. Laura Valet, from Revolution Permanente, conducted the interview. Yesterday, more than 60 % of Greeks voted “NO” in the referendum. What does the vote mean for Greece? Manos: It is clear that this was a class-based vote. If you check out the data, it is pretty obvious that all the workers districts and towns voted massively against the agreement, that is, more than 70 %. And in all bourgeois areas in Athens for example, it was exactly the opposite, maybe 70 % or more voted “Yes”. The question in the referendum itself was not very clear –it was deceptive because it only referred to the proposal that the so-called troika (IMF, ECB and EC) made ten days ago. But it did not include the proposal of the government itself. So we could say that it was deceptive because if you voted “No”, then the government, and that is what they are doing now, will try to renegotiate. However, the referendum turned into a social and a class confrontation between the working class and the bourgeois class. And it also showed that the middle strata, that is, the petit bourgeois sectors, lost so much during the crisis that it is not worth it to be afraid of the collapse, the bank run, or the exit of the eurozone. So the lower sectors of the middle strata voted « No » along with the workers. _ 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] NYC, Tonight: Gaza - The Massacre One Year Later with Mustafa Barghouti Joe Catron
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. * 16 Beaver Street Manhattan or 16 Beaver Street Brooklyn? T -Original Message- From: Joseph Catron via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Sent: Jul 7, 2015 9:00 AM To: Thomas F Barton thomasfbar...@earthlink.net Subject: [Marxism] NYC, Tonight: Gaza - The Massacre One Year Later with Mustafa Barghouti Joe Catron 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 Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1GKM8yM On the Web: http://al-awdany.org/2015/06/july-7-gaza-the-massacre-one-year-later-with-mustafa-barghouti-and-joe-catron Tuesday, July 7 at 6:30pm ALWAN Center 16 Beaver Street 4th Floor Join Al-Awda NY: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, on the first anniversary of the 2014 Massacre in Gaza - and the 10th anniversary of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions _ 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] This NO is only the begining
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. * OKDE - Spartakos on the referndum: http://www.okde.org/index.php/en/announcement/83-uncategoried1/252-this-no-was-only-the-beginning Savvas Michael GS of EEK (Workers Revolutionary Party) on the referendum http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2015/07/the-battle-for-referendum-in-greece_5.html JA _ 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] I think it's the Greeks, Angela!
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[Marxism] just as bad as the slaveholders' flag
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. * UNESCO includes the Alamo in list of World Heritage sites. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/unesco-remembers-the-alamo/ Unesco’s Web site, which announced the decisions Sunday, said that Franciscan missionaries constructed the complexes in the 18th century and that they 'illustrate the Spanish Crown’s efforts to colonize, evangelize and defend the northern frontier of New Spain.' The Missions, Unesco said, include “architectural and archaeological structures, farmlands, residencies, churches and granaries, as well as water distribution systems. _ 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: Swedish colonialism, part 1: the persecution of the Sami | 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. * (This is the second in a series of articles on “the Swedish model”. Part one can be read here.) It is likely that one of the reasons Bernie Sanders advocates socialism based on the Swedish (or Scandinavian more generally) model is that unlike the USA Sweden does not seem to have the same awful history as British, French or American colonialism. In order to develop a critical understanding of this model, it is necessary to dig a bit deeper into Swedish history. To some extent, there is a reasonable basis for being pro-Sweden, at least if you are old enough to remember the role of Olaf Palme in the 1960s. The Swedish prime minister was a vocal opponent of the war in Vietnam and his country became a haven for American servicemen opposed to the war and antiwar activists fleeing prosecution for misguided attempts to sabotage the War Machine, including one Robert Malecki, a Spartacist League sympathizer and general nuisance on the early days of Marxism on the Internet. Malecki ended up in Robersfors, a tiny town in northeast Sweden that is traditionally part of what was once called Lapland, but more properly known as Sami (or Saami) territory. If Sweden had been innocent of the brutal treatment of native peoples, that certainly would have been news to the Sami who as I shall now try to point out had much more in common with indigenous peoples in North America than they did with the Swedes who swept north in the 17th century in their own version of what took place in Ireland or in Indian territories in Canada or the USA. There might not have been wholesale extermination but there was forced assimilation. Indeed, the parallel is much more with Canada where a policy pursued by the dominant nationality can seem benign in comparison to that carried out by the Wild Bill Hickocks or Andrew Jacksons to the south. full: http://louisproyect.org/2015/07/07/swedish-colonialism-part-1-the-persecution-of-the-sami/ _ 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] I think it's the Greeks, Angela!
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 07 Jul 2015, at 2:52 PM, Levins, Richard via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: Dear Michael, I could not open your latest post.Could you please resend? Dick I’m sure it was this: http://starecat.com/i-think-its-the-greeks-angela-middle-finger-trojan/ http://starecat.com/i-think-its-the-greeks-angela-middle-finger-trojan/ _ 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] The case for open borders
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[Marxism] Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers: singer with a social conscience
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[Marxism] Saudi sovereign fund to invest $10bn in Russia
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. * FT, July 7, 2015 Saudi sovereign fund to invest $10bn in Russia by Kathrin Hille in Moscow Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has agreed to invest $10bn in Russia, in a powerful sign of the rapprochement between Moscow and Riyadh. The Public Investment Fund signed a deal with the Russian Direct Investment Fund for the largest foreign direct investment yet in Russia, RDIF said late on Monday. “The first seven projects have received preliminary approval, and we expect to close 10 deals before the end of the year,” said Kirill Dmitriev, RDIF chief executive. The deal, which was initiated with a memorandum of understanding during the St Petersburg Economic Forum last month, comes as Riyadh and Moscow are working to rebuild relations long plagued by the Russian government’s support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. RDIF declined to comment on whether the investment was part of this political agenda, but Mr Dmitriev said Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, deputy crown prince and defence minister, had played an “immense” role of support in sealing the deal. The prince visited St Petersburg with a large delegation during the economic forum and participated in president Vladimir Putin’s meeting with global investment fund heads. Mr Dmitriev said RDIF had been working for more than a year on bringing PIF to Russia, and the political climate might have helped close the deal. “Sometimes the wind can help bring the ship to its destination,” he said. Since King Salman ascended the Saudi throne in January, his government and that of Mr Putin have tried to bridge their differences on possible ways out of Syria’s four-year civil war. While Riyadh backs “moderate” Islamists in Syria, Moscow remains resolutely opposed to any engagement of Islamist forces as a means of stopping the rapid expansion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis). But Mr Putin and King Salman have discussed the issue on the phone, followed by a visit of Mr Putin’s envoy for the Middle East, deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov, to Riyadh, and the Saudi defence minister’s visit to Russia. A visit of King Salman to Moscow is being discussed. RDIF said PIF’s funds would be invested in projects for infrastructure, retail, logistics and agriculture over a period of up to five years, and the Saudi investment vehicle would invest together with other foreign sovereign wealth funds mostly from Asia, including the Russia-China Investment Fund, a $2bn vehicle backed by the China Investment Corporation and RDIF. RDIF also agreed to invest jointly with the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority in projects in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. PIF’s commitment adds to pledges from Asian and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds to Russia. Until 2013, RDIF had established partnerships with western sovereign funds. Since then, the Russian fund’s new partnerships have been dominated by Asia and the Middle East as Russia’s political stand-off with the west has made US and European funds cautious over teaming up with a state-backed entity. Mr Dmitriev urged European investors to interpret the Saudi deal as a signal to come back. “Europe needs to continue to work with Russia,” he said. _ 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 Stonewall Obscures the Real History of Gay Liberation
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. * The Chronicle of Higher Education Review How Stonewall Obscures the Real History of Gay Liberation By Henry Abelove In American GLBT (gay/lesbian/bisexual/trans) popular memory, the Stonewall Riot of June 1969 is more than a major incident. It is a foundational myth, and it has been the subject of countless commemorative speeches and articles, of television shows, films, artworks, and even full-length books. In nearly all of these accounts, whether naïve or sophisticated, the meaning of the riot is the same: This is when we GLBT Americans first fought back physically against our subordination. This is the source of our tradition of fighting back — a tradition to which all GLBT Americans and indeed all GLBT-identified persons everywhere are the heirs. Increasingly, the Stonewall story figures in official American memory, too. President Obama has contributed to publicizing the story. He has invoked it at least twice. In a speech given at the White House in June 2009, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the riot, he admiringly retold the story of the protesters who stood their ground. Then, in his second inaugural address, in January 2013, he joined Stonewall to Seneca Falls and Selma in a list of key events in the progress of American democracy. Historians have, of course, worked to refine and qualify the Stonewall story. So, for instance, some (notably John D’Emilio) have explained that Stonewall had antecedents, long-term causes. By 1969 there was a substantial record of about 40 years of homophile organizing in America. Such organizing, by groups like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, had helped to build a sense of connection and shared purpose among GLBT Americans. These were the ground-spring of assertiveness, eventually of militancy. The historian Marc Stein, among others, has shown that some homophile groups were already militant before Stonewall. Some historians (especially Susan Stryker) point out that there were also scattered riots prior to Stonewall, in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Despite such revisions of the historical record, the Stonewall story remains fixed in memory as hugely, overwhelmingly important — so much so that it has eclipsed every aspect of gay liberation except its readiness to fight back. Gay lib’s whole mental world — its ideas, values, attitudes, confusions, aspirations — has in effect been lost in the Stonewall story. There is another popular story about the GLBT political past. It appeals, I believe, to rather more scholars than does the Stonewall story. This other story is sometimes just suggested, sometimes vigorously represented, in lots of American academic writing and journalism as well. I’ll call it the citizenship story. In it the Stonewall Riot recedes, may even go unmentioned. What is emphasized instead is the goal of American citizenship in the fullest sense for GLBT people. Here citizenship is understood to include a set of entitlements and rights — the right to live one’s sexual orientation and gender identity freely without the risk of arrest; to adopt children; to serve in the armed forces; to seek employment and housing in markets devoid of discrimination against GLBT people; to be safe from hateful violence; to marry. This story says that since about 1948, the goal of civil rights and entitlements has been the grail, sometimes sought quietly and respectably, sometimes assertively. Homophile organizations sought the status before Stonewall; liberationist organizations sought it after Stonewall; present-day organizations seek it, too. The continuous seeking of the goal of citizenship in the fullest sense, not the riotous militancy of 1969, is what drives this story. Gay lib’s whole mental world — its ideas, values, attitudes, confusions, aspirations — has in effect been lost in the Stonewall story. The citizenship story is obviously different from the Stonewall story, but the two aren’t incompatible. They actually have much in common. Both underwrite or maybe even justify American GLBT political activism as it exists today; both make that activism seem congruent with the GLBT past. For surely today’s activism is a mix of assertiveness and the seeking of full civil rights, especially the right to marry. Both stories have another element in common: They obscure the mental world of the American gay liberationists. Take the first gay-lib group, which was founded in New York City shortly after the Stonewall Riot. Its members named it the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), in a provocative allusion to the Algerian National Liberation Front and the
[Marxism] Greek Crisis Shows How Germany’s Power Polarizes Europe
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. * WSJ, July 7 2015 Greek Crisis Shows How Germany’s Power Polarizes Europe The Continent’s most powerful country is grappling with its leadership role—and other nations are, too By ANTON TROIANOVSKI BERLIN—Under the glass Reichstag dome in Germany’s parliament last week, left-wing opposition leader Gregor Gysi lit into Chancellor Angela Merkel for saddling Greece with a staggering unemployment rate, devastating wage cuts, and “soup kitchens upon soup kitchens.” The chancellor, sitting a few steps away with a blank expression on her face, scrolled through her smartphone. Ms. Merkel’s power after a decade in office has become seemingly untouchable, both within Germany and across Europe. But with the “no” vote in Sunday’s Greek referendum on bailout terms posing the biggest challenge yet to decades of European integration, risks to the European project resulting from Germany’s rise as the Continent’s most powerful country are becoming clear. On Friday, Spanish antiausterity leader Pablo Iglesias urged his countrymen: “We don’t want to be a German colony.” On Sunday, after Greece’s result became clear, Italian populist Beppe Grillo said, “Now Merkel and bankers will have food for thought.” On Monday, Ms. Merkel flew to Paris for crisis talks amid signs the French government was resisting Berlin’s hard line on Greece. “What is happening now is a defeat for Germany, especially, far more than for any other country,” said Marcel Fratzscher, head of the German Institute for Economic Research, a leading Berlin think tank. “Germany has, at the end of the day, helped determine most of the European decisions of the last five years.” Senior German officials, in private moments, marvel at the fact that their country, despite its weak military and inward-looking public, now has a greater impact on most European policy debates than Britain or France, and appears to wield more global influence that at any other time since World War II. Berlin think-tank elites, diplomats and mainstream politicians generally see the rise of German power as a good thing. They describe the stability, patience and rules-based discipline of today’s German governance as what Europe needs in these turbulent times. Germany—with its export-dependent economy and history-stained national identity—has the most to lose from an unraveling of European integration and is focused on keeping the union strong, they say. Ms. Merkel’s popularity at home has remained strong through the Greek crisis, holding about steady at 67% in a poll at the end of June. She now must weigh whether to offer additional carrots to Greece to keep the country in the euro and preserve the irreversibility of membership in the common currency—at the risk of political backlash at home and the ire of German fiscal hawks. Only 10% of Germans supported further concessions for Greece in another poll last week. Heard on the Street: Greek Bank Vortex Threatens Deal Hopes U.S. officials generally see German leadership as crucial geopolitically, praising Ms. Merkel’s push last year to get all 28 European Union countries to adopt sanctions against Russia over Ukraine. But across Europe, Germany’s power is also straining unity in the EU, an alliance forged as a partnership of equals that now is struggling to accommodate the swelling dominance of one member. With every crisis in which Ms. Merkel acts as the Continent’s go-to problem solver, the message to many other Europeans is that for all the lip service about the common “European project,” it is the Germans and faceless bureaucrats in Brussels who run the show. The pushback against German power in Europe is likely to grow if the eurozone crisis worsens or if Berlin’s policies grow more assertive. In Greece last week, it was the stern face of 72-year-old German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble that appeared on some of the posters urging voters to reject Europe’s bailout offer. “He’s been sucking your blood for five years—now tell him NO,” the posters said. “They want to humiliate Greece to send a warning to Spain, Portugal and Italy,” Hilario Montero, a pensioner at a pro-Greece demonstration in Madrid recently, said of Berlin and Brussels. “The message is you are not allowed to cross the lines they set.” Split verdict Similar to America’s global role, German power polarizes Europe. Ms. Merkel is popular in the European mainstream, even as populist politicians say she is building a “Fourth Reich” dominated by German capitalism. In Spain, for example, a June poll found Ms. Merkel to be the most disapproved-of foreign politician after Russian
Re: [Marxism] I think it's the Greeks, Angela!
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. * Dear Michael, I could not open your latest post.Could you please resend? Dick _ 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] Letter from Ecuador
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. * Letter from Ecuador This is a letter from a friend in Ecuador about the situation there. 'The opposition is encouraging a rebellion in the police. Polarised to say the least.' http://enpassant.com.au/2015/07/07/letter-from-ecuador/ _ 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] Rift Emerges as Europe Gears Up for New Talks on Greece Bailout
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. * NY Times, July 7 2015 Rift Emerges as Europe Gears Up for New Talks on Greece Bailout By LIZ ALDERMAN and JACK EWING ATHENS — Germany continued to maintain a hard line with Athens on Monday, just a day after Greek voters decisively rejected a bailout deal from its creditors. But some European countries showed a willingness to soften the push for austerity that has proved so contentious. The growing rift among European leaders threatens to complicate any new negotiations, as the Greek government moves to restart talks for an international bailout. It also adds to the pressure on Greece, which is close to financial collapse with both the banking system and the government quickly running out of money. If a deal is not struck soon, Greece will probably default on a batch of international debts this month and face even more trouble paying civil servants and pensioners. Should Greece ultimately run out of euros, it could be forced to issue a parallel currency or i.o.u.s to pay its domestic bills, prompting it to leave the euro currency. The country’s financial state is growing increasingly dire. As Greek banks faced a shortage of cash, the European Central Bank decided on Monday to extend just enough of an emergency lifeline to keep them from failing. But the amount, about 89 billion euros, will not necessarily be sufficient to keep the money flowing to depositors. Faced with a funding crisis, the government extended a weeklong bank holiday through Wednesday and said that a withdrawal cap of €60, or $67, per day from A.T.M.s could be tightened. On Monday, long lines formed again at cash machines throughout Athens as people continued to withdraw whatever funds they could. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece has moved quickly to take advantage of the vote results, making the first steps toward conciliation with the country’s creditors. The combative finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, abruptly resigned at Mr. Tsipras’s behest. He was replaced by Euclid Tsakalotos, an Oxford-educated economist who took over from Mr. Varoufakis as Greece’s lead negotiator in April. “I won’t hide the fact that I’m nervous and anxious,” Mr. Tsakalotos said at his swearing-in Monday. “I understand that I’m assuming my post at a difficult time.” The prime minister also persuaded most opposing political parties to back his basic demands from the country’s creditors. After a six-hour meeting, the leaders of Greece’s five main political parties issued a statement saying they wanted any negotiation to include a discussion of relief from the country’s debt load — a key sticking point with creditors. They are also pushing for immediate help to keep the banks afloat, quick economic aid to tackle unemployment and new bailout money to cover current debt obligations. In return, they said, Greece would be willing to deliver “credible reforms based on the fair distribution of the burden and the promotion of growth with the smallest possible recessionary impact.” But the impasse over a bailout threatens to take on bigger dimensions, with implications for European unity. Germany, the eurozone country to which Greece owes the most money, remained resistant. A spokesman for the Finance Ministry said Berlin saw no new basis for negotiations with Athens at this point. The spokesman for Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, said that while Greece was still in the eurozone, it was up to Athens to determine whether the country would stay. Despite Germany’s tough stance, other European leaders seemed eager to avoid the specter of a Greek exit from the euro. While officials in France and Brussels said on Monday that they were unhappy and dumbfounded with the vote, they held the door open to the possibility of a compromise between Greece and its creditors. At a news conference in Brussels on Monday, the European Commission’s vice president for euro affairs, Valdis Dombrovskis, said that the vote in Greece would “dramatically weaken” the country’s negotiating position with creditors and had made things “more complicated.” But now was the time to seek a way forward, he added, saying: “If all sides are working seriously, it’s possible to find a solution, even in this very complicated situation.” In France, the finance minister, Michel Sapin, told French radio that while Greece’s vote “resolves nothing,” France could support debt relief for Greece should Mr. Tsipras come forward with a proposal containing “serious” terms for a new bailout package. Mr. Sapin’s remarks came ahead of a meeting set for Monday evening in Paris between President François Hollande of
[Marxism] Greece Given Until Sunday to Settle Debt Crisis or Face Disaster
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. * NY Times, July 7 2015 Greece Given Until Sunday to Settle Debt Crisis or Face Disaster By ANDREW HIGGINS and JAMES KANTER BRUSSELS — Frustrated European leaders gave Greece until Sunday to reach an agreement to save its collapsing economy from catastrophe after an emergency summit meeting here on Tuesday ended without the Athens government offering a substantive new proposal to resolve its debt crisis. “The situation is really critical and unfortunately we can’t exclude the black scenarios of no agreement,” said Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, warning that those scenarios included “the bankruptcy of Greece and the insolvency of its banking system” and great pain for the Greek people. Also looming ever larger was the prospect of Greece leaving the European currency union. “Until now I have avoided talking about deadlines,” Mr. Tusk, a former prime minister of Poland, told reporters after a day of fruitless meetings. “But tonight I have to say it loud and clear — the final deadline ends this week.” “I have no doubt that this is the most critical moment in our history.” And Sunday was not the only deadline fast approaching for the Greeks: Mr. Tusk said that the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had until Thursday to deliver a new plan Greece’s creditors. Then, on Sunday in Brussels, all 28 European Union leaders will gather at yet another emergency summit meeting for what might well be the last chance to resolve a crisis that began more than five years ago and, after a period of calm following huge bailout deals, resumed with fierce intensity in January following the victory of Syriza, the left-wing party led by Mr. Tsipras, in Greek parliamentary elections. Deadlines have repeatedly slipped in the past, but the emergency gathering on Sunday might really be a crunch point. “This could be the last meeting about Greece,” Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy told reporters on Tuesday night. In a sign of how the previously taboo topic of “Grexit” — Greece’s exit from the euro — has surfaced as a serious option, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said at a brief news conference late Tuesday night that his staff had drawn up plans for several possible outcomes. “We have a Grexit scenario prepared in detail,” he said. Mr. Juncker expressed fury at a barrage of verbal attacks on Greece’s European creditors by Syriza officials, particularly a remark made by the recently departed Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, accusing creditors of “terrorism.” “Who are they and who do they think I am?” Mr. Juncker said, sputtering with rage. He asserted that he was “strongly against” Greece leaving the euro but “I cannot prevent it if the Greek government is not doing what we expect it to do to respect the dignity of the Greek people.” Tuesday’s efforts to break the deadlock got off to an inauspicious start when Greece’s new finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, on his second day in the job after replacing Mr. Varoufakis, failed to present a detailed plan at a meeting of finance ministers called to review Syriza’s demands after Greek voters rejected previous terms on offer from Europe in a referendum last Sunday. The failure to present concrete proposals turned what had been billed as a last-chance opportunity for Greece into another display of the substantive and stylistic gulf between Mr. Tsipras’ government and his country’s big creditors, starting with Germany and other European countries that use the euro. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, speaking after an inconclusive meeting attended by Mr. Tsipras and leaders of 17 other countries that use the euro, made it clear that eurozone leaders were determined to set a very high bar for Athens before the Thursday deadline. “There are only a few days left for a discussion on what’s going to happen in the future,” she said. Yet if a Greek offer made by Thursday won a preliminary green light, that would “pave the way for negotiations,” she said. The decision by Mr. Tsipras to hold the referendum on whether to accept previous terms by creditors had only made matters worse for Greece’s chances of a favorable deal, Ms. Merkel added. Still, it appears that no one wants to take the blame for a Greek departure from the eurozone. That means that all sides seem ready to keep talking even as the crisis reaches new levels of intensity, and even as Greece hurtles toward a July 20 deadline to make a payment of 3.5 billion euros, or about $3.8 billion, to the European Central Bank. Many analysts
[Marxism] Two articles of note on 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. * 1) Stratfor: The Greek Vote and the EU Miscalculation http://tinyurl.com/nujndsp 2) Europe is blowing itself apart over Greece - and nobody seems able to stop it Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras never expected to win Sunday's referendum. He is now trapped and hurtling towards Grexit By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Athens http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11724924/Europe-is-blowing-itse lf-apart-over-Greece-and-nobody-can-stop-it.html Like a tragedy from Euripides, the long struggle between Greece and Europe's creditor powers is reaching a cataclysmic end that nobody planned, nobody seems able to escape, and that threatens to shatter the greater European order in the process. Greek premier Alexis Tsipras never expected to win Sunday's referendum on EMU bail-out terms, let alone to preside over a blazing national revolt against foreign control. He called the snap vote with the expectation - and intention - of losing it. The plan was to put up a good fight, accept honourable defeat, and hand over the keys of the Maximos Mansion, leaving it to others to implement the June 25 ultimatum and suffer the opprobrium. ... What should have been a celebration on Sunday night [after the referendum victory] turned into a wake. Mr Tsipras was depressed, dissecting all the errors that Syriza has made since taking power in January, talking into the early hours. . _ 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] NYC, Tonight: Gaza - The Massacre One Year Later with Mustafa Barghouti Joe Catron
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 Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1GKM8yM On the Web: http://al-awdany.org/2015/06/july-7-gaza-the-massacre-one-year-later-with-mustafa-barghouti-and-joe-catron Tuesday, July 7 at 6:30pm ALWAN Center 16 Beaver Street 4th Floor Join Al-Awda NY: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, on the first anniversary of the 2014 Massacre in Gaza - and the 10th anniversary of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Speakers: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti General Secretary of the Palestine National Initiative (PNI), member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Central Council, will speak on the massacre in Gaza and the Palestinian call for international action to hold the Israeli state accountable in international forums for its ongoing war crimes, as well as the burgeoning movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and the power of grassroots global action to stand with the Palestinian people's struggle for return, liberation and self-determination. Joe Catron, a solidarity activist and freelance reporter, lived in Gaza, Palestine for three and a half years, including the 2012 and 2014 Israeli offensives. While there, he accompanied farmers and fishermen in areas under regular Israeli fire, contributed to Electronic Intifada and Middle East Eye, and co-edited The Prisoners' Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag, an anthology of accounts by detainees freed in the 2011 prisoner exchange. During Israel's military operation last summer, he joined a group of international supporters in Gaza hospitals and local rescue teams. Suggested donation: $5-$20 sliding scale at the door. All proceeds benefit the Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (PMRC). No one turned away. Dates water will be made available for those observing Ramadan. Sponsored by: Al-Awda NY: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition Jews for Palestinian Right of Return Questions? Email i...@al-awdany.org FULL ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW Join Al-Awda NY, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, on the first anniversary of the 2014 Massacre in Gaza - and the 10th anniversary of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions - to remember and honour Palestinian lives and struggle, demand justice and accountability for over 67 years of US-supported Israeli massacres, and build the economic, cultural, and academic boycott of the Israeli state. Last year's assault on Gaza took the lives of over 2,100 Palestinians, including 500 children, and displaced hundreds of thousands - most of whom have been denied reconstruction to this day. Palestinian physician, activist, and politician, Mustafa Barghouti serves as General Secretary of the Palestine National Initiative (PNI), also known as al Mubadara. He has been a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006 and is also a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Central Council. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 by Mairead Maguire, who won the prize in 1976. Barghouti will speak on the massacre in Gaza and the Palestinian call for international action to hold the Israeli state accountable in international forums for its ongoing war crimes, as well as the burgeoning movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and the power of grassroots global action to stand with the Palestinian people's struggle for return, liberation and self-determination.. Joe Catron, a solidarity activist and freelance reporter, lived in Gaza, Palestine for three and a half years, including the 2012 and 2014 Israeli offensives. While there, he accompanied farmers and fishermen in areas under regular Israeli fire, contributed to Electronic Intifada and Middle East Eye, and co-edited The Prisoners' Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag, an anthology of accounts by detainees freed in the 2011 prisoner exchange. During Israel's military operation last summer, he joined a group of international supporters in Gaza hospitals and local rescue teams. Suggested donation: $5-$20 sliding scale at the door. All proceeds benefit the Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (PMRC). No one turned away. Dates water will be made available for those observing Ramadan. -- 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
