Re: [Marxism] [SocialistProject] Bullet: Requiem at an Empty Grave? Syriza's Momentous Day
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 7/13/15 7:36 AM, Michael Yates via Marxism wrote: Louis has said that his interest in Syriza lies only in what lessons it can teach those in the US trying to build a radical party. What I would say is that what is needed is a radical re-conception of democracy, one that takes seriously the development, through both education and action, of the people's capacities to govern themselves. Meszaros and Michael Lebowitz have much to teach us about this. I will be writing something on the North Star website when I find the time about why parties like Podemos and Syriza are important and worth imitating by the American left. It can be confusing for some people why we support that position. A guy named purple just posted this comment on my blog: SYRIZA doesn’t exist anymore. The Left Platform is going to be fired, and Tsipras will take on PASOK types. There won’t be a Left government in Europe for generations because of this rout. People calling for a SYRIZA model should take realistic stock, the party failed at every single one of its goals in a shockingly short time span. The confusion has to do with organization versus program. Groups like the British SWP and the small groups that are organized like the SWP and that have come together in the Antarsya coalition have been correct from day one but they got just over a half percent of the vote in the Greek elections. Having a correct program is only part of the equation. You have to an organizational form and a means of communication that the average worker can relate to. By analogy, it is the difference between the Green Party in the USA and the ISO. When Ralph Nader got nearly 3 million votes in 2000, it represented a tremendous opportunity for the left. To give the ISO some credit, they were very involved with the Nader campaign. Was Nader capable of providing the kind of leadership that an American VI Lenin or a Fidel Castro could provide? Or for that matter Eugene V. Debs? Of course not. But the dynamics of the Green Party in 2000 opened up the possibility of important breakthroughs for revolutionary regroupment. That is the way I saw Syriza. If and when something comes along to replace it, it will most certainly not be Antarsya or the KKE. It will be the same sort of mixture of right and left that will be under the same kinds of pressures that Greece is facing today. Furthermore, as I have insisted all along, a socialist Grexit will likely lead to just as much suffering if not more so than Greece is facing today. The drachma is not a panacea. The Greek economy has been dysfunctional from the 1930s as all Marxist analysis I have read has emphasized. Trying to fix that economy within the framework of capitalism is a challenge of Herculean proportions. To go beyond capitalism opens a Pandora's Box of other ills. Once a Greek government takes power and nationalizes the banks and large corporations, declares a monopoly on foreign trade, and institutes a planned economy, its troubles will first begin. If you need any reminder of what a socialist Greece would have to confront, I recommend Karl Marx's The Civil War in France or E.H. Carr's history of the USSR. _ 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] Eurozone/Greece reach deal but Greek parliament must ratify steps for implementation
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. * Eurozone clinches deal with Greece after all-night haggle by Paul Taylor Renee Maltezou I Kathimerini, Athens, July 13 (Reuters) http://www.ekathimerini.com/199413/article/ekathimerini/news/eurozone-clinches-deal-with-greece-after-all-night-haggle Euro zone leaders clinched a deal with Greece on Monday to negotiate a third bailout to keep the near-bankrupt country in the euro zone after a whole night of haggling at an emergency summit. . . . However the tough conditions imposed by international lenders led by Germany could bring down Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' leftist government and cause an outcry in Greece. Even before the final terms were known, his labor minister went on state television to denounce the terms. . . . EU officials said Tsipras finally accepted a compromise on German-led demands for the sequestration of Greek state assets to be sold off to pay down debt. The terms of the agreement were not immediately known. The Greek leader also dropped resistance to a full role for the International Monetary Fund in a proposed 86 billion euro ($95.78 billion) bailout, which German Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared essential to win parliamentary backing in Berlin. However, in a sign of how hard it may be for Tsipras to convince his own Syriza party to accept the deal, Labor Minister Panos Skourletis said the terms were unviable and would lead to new elections this year. . . . Tsipras will now have to rush swathes of legislation through parliament this week to convince his 18 partners to release bridging funds to avert a state bankruptcy and just to begin negotiations on a three-year loan. If the summit had failed, Greece would have be staring into an economic abyss with its shuttered banks on the brink of collapse and the prospect of having to print a parallel currency and in time exit the European monetary union. Six sweeping measures including spending cuts, tax hikes and pension reforms must be enacted by Wednesday night and the entire package endorsed by parliament before talks can start, the leaders decided. . . . If Greece meets the conditions, the German parliament would meet on Thursday to mandate Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble to open the talks on a new loan. Then Eurogroup finance ministers could formally launch the negotiations. Perhaps the toughest condition for Tsipras to swallow was Germany's insistence that Greek state assets worth up to 50 billion euros be placed in a trust fund beyond government reach to be sold off with proceeds going directly to pay down debt. Berlin initially wanted to use a structure in Luxembourg managed by its own national development bank, KfW, but diplomats said it was flexible on the location. . . . For his part, Tsipras demanded a stronger commitment by the creditors to restructure Greek debt to make it sustainable in the medium-term. That could be his only hope of selling such a deeply unpalatable package to his own supporters and the public. An EU official said several options were under consideration to give Greece bridging funds once it passed the laws, but no final decision was taken. . . . Some diplomats questioned whether it was feasible to rush the package through the Greek parliament in just three days. Tsipras is set to sack ministers who did not support his negotiating position in a vote last Friday and make dissident lawmakers in his Syriza party resign their seats, people close to the government said. Greek sources said Tsipras feared a public backlash in Greece when the terms of the bailout become known. Even while Tsipras was still at the table in Brussels, one of his ministers went on television to say he could not blame lawmakers who would find it hard to say 'Yes' to the emerging cash-for-reforms deal. It's clear this deal does not represent us, Skourletis said. Eurogroup proposal on Greece - the whole draft Here is the whole draft of the Eurogroup proposal to the Greek government, currently discussed in the EU summit. It is full of hard preconditions and no debt haircut Times of Change, Greece, July 13 (Reuters) http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/news/article/eurogroup-proposal-on-greece---the-whole-draft FINAL DEAL TEXT(?) http://t.co/4OeNBKtyqv Greek government's majority in question, says labor minister I Kathimerini, Athens, July 13 (Reuters) http://www.ekathimerini.com/199410/article/ekathimerini/news/greek-governments-majority-in-question-says-labor-minister The strength of the Greek government's majority is in question and no-one can blame lawmakers who won't agree to the terms of a cash-for-reforms deal with the country's creditors, Labor Minister Panos Skourletis said on Monday.
Re: [Marxism] Richard Seymour on the 'defeat of Syriza'
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 7/13/15 8:20 AM, Lüko Willms via Marxism wrote: Open the books of big business, of the shipping conglomerates (not only Onassis), of the media coporations (which all belong to various corporations or financial conglomerates). Take cumpolsory loans from the super rich. Don't make gifts to the people, but mobilize them to work and to take things in their own hands, increasing their self-confidence, the self-empowerment. With all, for the good of all, as José Martí, the Cuban hero said. I really feel a profound disgust when I read this sort of thing. These words are utterly meaningless. They are simply a sterile exercise in leftist fantasy. Luko and every other comrade here who has been in a Trotskyist party or read their newspapers can put together such formulations for us to read without breaking a sweat. It is called preaching to the choir. What would be of more use is if Luko--a German--can explain what he is doing in his own vulture nation to organize workers to act in solidarity with Greek workers. I doubt that his missive here will be read by very many Volkswagen employees. _ 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] criticisms of 'new memoranda,' Tsipras' strategy
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. * Nο to ultimatums, Nο to the Memoranda of servitude by Zoe Konstantopoulou, July 11 Speech at the Greek Parliament, on the question of the government’s proposal to the creditor institutions http://www.analyzegreece.gr/topics/greece-europe/item/288-zoe-konstantopoulou-n-to-ultimatums-n-to-the-memoranda-of-servitude The speech delivered early in the morning of July 11 by Zoe Konstantopoulou, president of the Greek parliament, on the question of the government’s proposal to the creditor institutions: . . . For five months the Government, with the Left as its mainstream and with anti-memorandum forces at its core, has been waging an unequal battle within a regime of suffocation and blackmail: Inside a Europe that has betrayed its founding principles, the welfare of its peoples and societies. Inside a Europe that uses the common currency, the euro, not as a means of achieving social welfare, but as a lever and tool for the coercion and humiliation of unruly peoples and leaders. Inside a Europe that is transforming into a nightmarish prison for its peoples, although it was built to be their common and hospitable home. The Greek people entrusted this Government with the great cause of releasing them from the shackles of the Memorandum, from the vise of surveillance and supervision imposed on society under the pretext of debt. This debt furthermore is illegal, unfair, odious and unsustainable, as demonstrated in the preliminary findings of the Truth Commission on Public Debt, and as the creditors already knew in 2010. This debt was not incurred as a cyclical phenomenon. It was created by the previous governments through corruption in procurement, bribes, misleading terms, corporate stipulations, and astronomical interest rates, all to the benefit of foreign banks and companies. The Troika, together with the previous Greek governments, converted this fraudulent debt from private to public, saving the French and German and also the Greek private banks, and in the process condemned the Greek people to conditions of humanitarian crisis and employed the commercial organs of media misinformation to terrorize and deceive the citizenry. This debt was neither created nor increased by the people or by the current Government. For five years it has been used as a tool to enslave the people, by forces operating within Europe under the rules of economic totalitarianism, in the absence of moral stature or historic right. To this day Germany has not yet paid its debts to the small Greece of the wartime resistance, which history has identified for its heroism. These debts exceed the value of the present Greek public debt. According to the committee of the General Accounting Office set up by the previous government, these past debts would today reach a level of 340 billion euros, with conservative calculations. The alleged current debt of Greece is estimated at 325 billion euros. After the Second World War, Germany enjoyed the greatest remission of debt [in history], so as to allow it to get back on track. This was done with the generous partnership of Greece. Yet now Germany has fomented the perpetrators of corporate corruption, those (including Siemens) who dealt with the previous Greek governments and their parties, and has given them protection from the Greek system of justice. And yet Germany is behaving as if history and the Greek people owe a debt to her, as if she expects to receive a historic payback for her own atrocities. Germany is promoting and enforcing a policy that constitutes a crime, not only against the Greek people, but a crime against humanity. This is a criminal concept, a widespread and systematic attack on a population with the aim and calculation to bring about its total or partial extermination. And, unfortunately, governments and institutions that are required to live up to their history and their responsibility have aligned themselves behind this attack. Ladies and gentlemen, The artificial and deliberate creation of conditions of humanitarian disaster so as to keep the people and the government in conditions of suffocation and under the threat of a chaotic bankruptcy constitutes a direct violation of all international human rights protection treaties, including the Charter of the United Nations, the European treaties, and even the statutes of the International Criminal Court. Blackmail is not legal. And those who create conditions that eliminate freedom of the will may not speak of options. The lenders are blackmailing the government. They are acting fraudulently, since they have known since 2010 that this debt is unsustainable. They are acting consciously, since their statements
[Marxism] Kevin Ovenden in Greece: latest updates on a back-breaking memorandum.
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. * Kevin Ovenden in Greece: latest updates on a back-breaking memorandum. As one public sector trade unionist told me last night during the violent negotiations in Brussels: The foreign media seem to think that if he [Tsipras] signs up to something and the parliament passes it then its going to happen. Quite simply it is not. There will be an enormous battle. 2) The executive of the ADEDY public sector union federation meets this afternoon. It is set to consider a call from the anti-capitalist left for a 24-hour strike against the new memorandum, whether agreed to by the government or imposed from without through a capital-enforced expulsion of Greece from the eurozone. http://enpassant.com.au/2015/07/13/kevin-ovenden-in-greece-latest-updates-on-a-back-breaking-memorandum/ _ 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] [SocialistProject] Bullet: Requiem at an Empty Grave? Syriza's Momentous Day
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 agreement reached between the troika and Tsipras puts the absolute lie to the nonsense offered by Leo Panitch. A journalist friend (and former student) asked me for comments on the situation in Greece. He asked specifically about Varoufakis. Here is what I said: With respect to Greece, the deal cut hours ago between Tsipras and the troika represents a total capitulation to the latter. Greece has agreed to austerity measures worse than those recently rejected by Greek voters, and especially by the broad working class. The problem for Syriza is that it did not have what negotiators call a “best alternative to a negotiated agreement,” which would have been, in my view, exit from the Euro and the EU. To have such an alternative would have required planning and a mass education campaign to prepare people for such an alternative. This Syriza failed to do. It failed to even try to deepen democracy and to empower those who voted for it. It behaved just like any other modern political party. The consequence now is an admission that there is no defying the neoliberal market gods, namely the rich nations and their richest citizens. Capital rules and as Thatcher said, “there is no alternative.” For the Greek working class, poor, unemployed, pensioners, the results will be more suffering and more death. Greece is in worse shape than the US in 1933, and things will get worse. What growth might occur will be tilted overwhelmingly toward the rich. Greece is now formally a colony of Germany and the other rich EU nations. The troika has taught the Greeks a lesson in power and sent a message to any that would defy them. As for Varoufakis, he was in way over his head, believing that his grasp of game theory would win the day, vastly underestimating what he was up against, a bit too taken with his dashing persona. He didn’t even show up to vote when Tsipras demanded allegiance to his upcoming capitulation. Instead he retired to his summer home. He may now have political ambitions, to the left of Tsipras, but to the right of the left that has rejected austerity all along. We shall see. Louis has said that his interest in Syriza lies only in what lessons it can teach those in the US trying to build a radical party. What I would say is that what is needed is a radical re-conception of democracy, one that takes seriously the development, through both education and action, of the people's capacities to govern themselves. Meszaros and Michael Lebowitz have much to teach us about this. _ 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] Richard Seymour on the 'defeat of Syriza'
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 Samstag, 11. Juli 2015 at 19:58, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: So what kind of party do we need? A party which leads the working people, proletarians (wage earners) and farmers alike, into taking their fate into their own hands. As I wrote already in late February of this year: Datum : Montag, 23. Februar 2015, 19:09 Betreff: [Marxism] Greece: Where is the public works programme? The mobilisation of the unemployed for reconstructing the country? ===8=== Original Nachrichtentext === With a a quarter of the econmically active population being unemployed, and the economy in shambles after years and decades of disrecard for the public infrastructure, a massive popular mobilisation is called for, to take things in their own hands, and build. Build roads, bridges, tunnels, railway lines, and more which will increase the productivity of the country. Organise farmers to produce what they could not sell on the market, because the food industry, the whole salers and the retailers could not make enough profits with it. This will feed the workers in the public works program. And nationalise the banks to stop financial speculation and direct the funds into financing the public works program and other necessary work. Nationalisation does not necessary mean the expropriation of the owners of the banks, but taking control out of their hands, combining the whole financial industry under a common leadership and command for the good of the country. Open the books of big business, of the shipping conglomerates (not only Onassis), of the media coporations (which all belong to various corporations or financial conglomerates). Take cumpolsory loans from the super rich. Don't make gifts to the people, but mobilize them to work and to take things in their own hands, increasing their self-confidence, the self-empowerment. With all, for the good of all, as José Martí, the Cuban hero said. Or is that actually happening? I haven't heard of it. No scandalized uproar in the Corporate News Media... I was disappointed when the previous Greek government ordered the state TV to shut down, and all the workers operating the transmission network followed the order. It would have been so easy to mobilize for a NO, and a refusal to shut it down. Recommended reading: The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It, by Lenin at https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/index.htm ===8== Ende des Original Nachrichtentextes = I wanted to write implement capital controls, but I didn't know the English word for Kapitalverkehrskontrollen. There is not only a huge mass of unemployed, but also farmers in crisis who close shop because the capitalist market does not pay enough for their produce. Both farmers and workers have to gain by combining their forces and helping each other by a direct exchange of their products. Factories closed in the past years have to reopen in order to produce things needed for the big public undertakings. Undertakings which are in the common interest, not induced by favoring entrepreneurship as the national-front declaration of Tsipras and the bourgeois parties stipulates. The important thing is the to activate people who are now jobless and without income. Them being activily working for their advantage and the common good is what helps them to gain self-confidence. Getting gifts from the government does not. One that proclaims the need for rupture? Such a party exists. Actually two of them exist: KKE and Antarsya. But the support for them is negligible. The fact that only 5 percent of those voting no in the referendum expected that if such a vote it would lead to a Grexit, either bourgeois or proletarian, is something that the left has to grapple with. Rebuilding the walls between the European countries which had been lowered by the European Union is not a way forward for working people. Workers have no fatherland is the old truth, and giving up those important elements of the right to free movement as is the Schengen space and the common currency, is really foolish; it only serves the most backward sections of the bourgeoisie. As the history after the no campaign of the French left against the change in the European Treaty a couple of years ago. Today it is undeniable that this reactionary campaign for rising the capitalist borders around France only benefited the extreme right, the Front National. A big question will remain, if the capitulation of the Syriza leadership will result in a setback for the workers movement as
Re: [Marxism] Greece: general strikes and factory occupations
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. * That was my point. THIS general strike could be different because after the experience of failed previous strikes and failed parliamentary efforts,workers are open as never before to NOT going home when the strike ends... On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 9:13 PM, Philip Ferguson via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: 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. * As Louis noted, general strikes in Greece are somewhat a dime a dozen. The Greek ruling class has long since grown accustomed to them. The problem is that the workers strike for a day and then go back to work and nothing has changed. The point about a general strike is that unless they're connected to the question of *actual power* they are quite easily managed in a country like Greece which has so many of them. (Of course, in many capitalist countries, any strike wave around workers' rights would be a step forward!!!) One of the problems in Greece is the one Louis alluded to. That Greek workers had general strike after general strike and in the end, because they didn't get anywhere, opted to use parliamentary politics and voted for Syriza. The electoral process ran ahead of the process on the ground. Unless workers were occupying workplaces and beginning to organise alternative structures of power, the possibilities for serious resistance, let alone going on the offensive, were limited. For instance, what if the government nationalised the banks, without workers having occupied them and demanding workers' control over them? Tsipras was always going to do a deal, he's a social democrat at best. Surely the role of the left was to prepare for that eventuality. In 2013 I interviewed a spokesperson for the Vio.me factory occupation in Thessaloniki and he told me that after the general strikes and mass protests, the Greek working class had gone home and tried to make ends meet the best they could. Vio.me was very much an exception. But this, it seems to me, is the road that hasn't been taken but offers a fruitful alternative to trying to manage things within the confines of capitalism. And surely the chief task of the global left is not around bemoaning the fact that a social democrat acted in a social democratic way, but advancing the struggle where we are and supporting concrete advances by workers in Greece, like the Vio.me occupation. The interview is here: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/workers-self-management-only-solution-interview-with-spokesperson-for-vio-me-occupation/ It links also to other articles on the occupation and a video: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/workers-self-management-only-solution-interview-with-spokesperson-for-vio-me-occupation/ Phil _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.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
[Marxism] Overwhelming Greek opposition to Grexit?
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. * I was listening to this TRNN interview from Sunday night and was intrigued by the following points raised by Dmitri Lascaris: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=31Itemid=74jumival=14231 The other is the political obstacle to a Grexit. And Michael touched upon this. There--Michael mentioned that the Greek people don't seem to be ready for this. From my perspective, that's not so clear. And I say that for several reasons. First of all, the polls which are frequently cited as evidence the Greek people don't want to leave the Eurozone, many of them if not almost all of them have been conducted by media organizations or commissioned by media organizations in Greece that are controlled by the oligarchy. And the polling in Greece has performed very poorly. I think the referendum is an excellent example of this. Michael indicated that the most optimistic prediction from a poll vis-a-vis the no vote was a ten point margin of victory. The margin of victory was 24 points at the end of the day. That's a huge discrepancy, given the number of polls that were performed. As I say, that was the one that predicted the largest margin of victory. Others showed that there was going to be a vote--the difference of the vote was going to be two or three percentage points. Some were even predicting a yes victory. And yet you had this massive discrepancy between the no vote and the yes vote. How could they all have gotten it that wrong? You have in the context of a Grexit polls from external organizations or independent organizations like Gallup in 2014 in December, which showed a slight majority wanting to leave the Eurozone or preferring the drachma. There was another in March of this year by an organization, an independent polling organization called Bridging Europe, which showed 53 percent wanted to leave the Eurozone. So there's an issue about whether these polls that show a desire to remain within the Eurozone to be accurate and reliable. I recalled this point today when reading this wire service report: https://news.yahoo.com/greeks-humiliated-bailout-cry-hands-off-acropolis-210103897.html They can't take a part of the country, said an aghast Lefteris Paboulidis, who owns a dating service business. Has that happened anywhere else so it can happen here? The situation is dramatic. Like many ordinary Greeks, he was sceptical that the deal would bring about any improvement to their lives. - Worse for years to come - It would be better not to have a deal than the way it was done because it will certainly be worse for the years to follow, the 35-year old said. I would have preferred something else to happen, such as Grexit, where we would have starved in the beginning but dealt with it ourselves. Ilias, a 26-year-old civil servant, insisted that the important thing is for the country to be better off -- not so much if we stay in Europe or not, that is the last thing to think of. If we stay in Europe and the country goes from bad to worse, I can't see anything positive about that, he said. Haralambos Rouliskos, a 60-year-old economist, described the agreement with Greece's eurozone partners as misery, humiliation and slavery. His feelings were echoed by Katerina Katsaba, a 52-year-old working for a pharmaceutical company, who said: I am not in favour of this deal. I know they (the eurozone creditors) are trying to blackmail us. But despite belief in many quarters that radical left PM Alexis Tsipras has been taken to the cleaners by Europe, she added: I trust our prime minister -- the decisions he will take will be in the best interests of all of us. The Greek population, exhausted by five years of austerity, overwhelmingly approved Syriza/Tsipras to lead them. He/they should have made an executive decision on it and explained honestly and clearly to the population why they were doing it and why it was the only option. It wouldn't have even needed to be an immediate or automatic course of action. As many others have pointed out, Syriza could have taken measures concurrent with Troika negotiations so they could have fallen back on an already printed Drachma in a worse case scenario. Moreover, if they were going to hold a referendum, it should have happened much much earlier (long before they began tapping various reserve funds to make IMF payments) and involved a very clear choice to vote on (e.g. Euro and endless austerity or Drachma and possibility of a new start in the long-term). The fact that they failed to do any of that reveals more about their own poor leadership and overall naivety/myopia than their supposed
Re: [Marxism] last words 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. * I just finished the Panitch/Gindin article and came here to rant (and to bemoan Gindin's participation; I expected better of him given his decades of grassroots labor work), but Gary and Michael have said it all. Can I quote you both on Facebook? (all these messages are visible anyway on the web :) On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 8:40 PM, Michael Yates via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: 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. * Hear! Hear! Gary. I am afraid that Leo and Sam seem to be getting wronger on so many issues the older they get. Whatever happened to their mantra about building people's capacities, or at least trying to do so? Also, there is lot of what we might call historical amnesia. Too many people say that all left projects have failed because they were doomed to fail. And this is because their adversaries were just too powerful. This is surely an incorrect method of analysis. Why were the Bolsheviks doomed to fail? Why was the restoration of capitalism in China inevitable? Why was Greece doomed to make the most awful capitulations to the troika? It seems that critics of what one man called the ultra-left, meaning not sectarians but all to the left of Syriza, look at everything after the fact, and say, well, no wonder they failed. Not because they failed to make a detailed and sophisticated of the forces at play and plan to find the best was to combat their enemy's power, but because, well, their adversaries were just too damned powerful. As this same guy said, The fucking Germans, man. Best to give in and wait for a better day. Of course, the better day usually never comes, and we find ourselves facing the grave. But let one of us say that they failed to do what needed to be done, and we are accused of looking at things through technicolor glasses. Or told that we didn't read the polls taken to see what people thought at some point in time, never realizing that life is lived in a dynamic and ever-changing context, one in which politicls always comes into play. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.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] last words 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. * Yes feel free to quote, Andrew. comradely Gary On Tuesday, July 14, 2015, Andrew Pollack via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: 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. * I just finished the Panitch/Gindin article and came here to rant (and to bemoan Gindin's participation; I expected better of him given his decades of grassroots labor work), but Gary and Michael have said it all. Can I quote you both on Facebook? (all these messages are visible anyway on the web :) On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 8:40 PM, Michael Yates via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: 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. * Hear! Hear! Gary. I am afraid that Leo and Sam seem to be getting wronger on so many issues the older they get. Whatever happened to their mantra about building people's capacities, or at least trying to do so? Also, there is lot of what we might call historical amnesia. Too many people say that all left projects have failed because they were doomed to fail. And this is because their adversaries were just too powerful. This is surely an incorrect method of analysis. Why were the Bolsheviks doomed to fail? Why was the restoration of capitalism in China inevitable? Why was Greece doomed to make the most awful capitulations to the troika? It seems that critics of what one man called the ultra-left, meaning not sectarians but all to the left of Syriza, look at everything after the fact, and say, well, no wonder they failed. Not because they failed to make a detailed and sophisticated of the forces at play and plan to find the best was to combat their enemy's power, but because, well, their adversaries were just too damned powerful. As this same guy said, The fucking Germans, man. Best to give in and wait for a better day. Of course, the better day usually never comes, and we find ourselves facing the grave. But let one of us say that they failed to do what needed to be done, and we are accused of looking at things through technicolor glasses. Or told that we didn't read the polls taken to see what people thought at some point in time, never realizing that life is lived in a dynamic and ever-changing context, one in which politicls always comes into play. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/gary.maclennan1%40gmail.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
[Marxism] last words 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. * The struggle is over, the boys are defeated, Old Ireland's surrounded with sadness and gloom, We were defeated and shamefuIIy treated, And I, Robert Emmet, awaiting my doom To continue: Hanged, drawn and quartered, Sure that was my sentence, But soon will I show them no coward am I; I die for the love of the land I was born in; A hero I lived, and a hero I'll die. How opposite is the spirit of Emmet from those who now act in that of the Reichstag deputies who voted for war credits on August 4, 1914--a day that will live in infamy, along with July 13, 2015. One might also appropriately quote the lyric of Dominic Behan's The Patriot Game: And now as I lie here, my body all holes, I think of those traitors, who bargained and sold... Why don't Panitch and Gindin go to Athens and hand out their nauseating apologetics to striking workers on Wednesday? I think more is involved here than just wrong opinions on their part. They are obviously in the counsels of many union bureaucrats and reformist politicians, no doubt including Syriza. It makes a pair of aging academics feel like they are political players--a sentiment no doubt exploited by the politicians who use them to put a respectable face on their betrayals. Jim _ 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] General strike called in Greece against the deal
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. * There are also calls on facebook for demos everywhere Wednesday at 7:30 but I don't know yet whether that will pick up steam (hope so!) from Facebook: Kevin Ovenden https://www.facebook.com/kevin.ovenden/posts/10155744653615468?fref=nf General strike called in Greece against the deal (Please share) The public sector trade union federation in Greece, ADEDY, has called a general strike for Wednesday. The strike against the Third Memorandum will be officially announced tomorrow. But activists throughout the public sector unions have begun organising for the stoppage this aft ernoon. The parliament has to agree the new memorandum by midnight on Wednesday. If MPs are to vote tomorrow, then the strike will be brought forward to tomorrow. Angela Merkel *increased* the pressure on the Greek government even after it capitulated. She said that monitoring of moves to implement the memorandum would be strict and begin immediately. She is not certain that this government can pass the memorandum - still less implement it. The fight is on. It is not off. The Greek government may have capitulated rather than rupture with the mafia eurozone. Now an attempt to impose an austerity *July coup against the Greek popular masses risks a different rupture. Between working class Greece and the powers which should not be. The Brussels talks settled nothing. Because the power that delivered the Oxi revolt was not at them. That is the Greek working class with the fighting forces of the radical left at its heart. Solidarity with resisting Greece. *The last such attempted parliamentary coup against the popular will (as opposed to coup d'etat) of this magnitude was 50 years ago this week - July 1965. It marked the beginning of the end of the post-civil war order in Greece. It finally ended with the overthrow of dictatorship in 1974. It is from that date that the rise of the modern radical left in Greece, as an open force, begins. _ 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] General strike called in Greece against the deal
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 7/13/15 9:55 AM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote: The public sector trade union federation in Greece, ADEDY, has called a general strike for Wednesday. General strikes were a frequent occurrence in Greece. They had zero effect. On the other hand, a general strike in Germany would make a huge difference. I have also seen calls on Facebook for assemblies in Syntagma Square as if a rehash of the occupy movement could put a dent in the German ruling class. In Latin America up until the development of the Bolivarian revolution, imperialism had its way. Nicaragua was crushed and so was El Salvador and Guatemala. In fact Latin America, which was in the same kind of relationship to the USA that Greece is to Germany, suffered countless defeats for a hundred years. Just read John Gerassi's The Great Fear in Latin America. The only thing that will work in Europe is a continent wide anti-austerity movement that will be bolstered by mass movements that can put the ruling classes on the defensive, as well as a string of governments that can be partners of the mass movement. _ 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] Iran and Syria: the End of the Road
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. * In conclusion, the steady deterioration of the position of the Assad regime and the heightened support by regional actors to the Syrian opposition seem to indicate that the tide of the conflict has once again turned against Syrian government forces. Unless a political process gets underway soon, Bashar al-Assad may be toppled in the not too distant future. Concomitantly, even if greater assistance from Iran and its allies enable him to survive and stave off defeat for now, it is difficult to envisage that a continuation of the war of attrition would ultimately work in his favor. Iranian President Rouhani asserted recently that Iran would stand by al-Assad “until the end of the road.” Indeed, the end may come sooner than many expect. Irrespective of whether it comes sooner or later, the end though may be far worse than many could imagine. In view of the protracted nature of the Syrian conflict, the radicalization and brutalization of Syrian society, and the influx of foreign jihadists supported by some of the West’s regional allies, the fate awaiting Syria and its people may be far more hellish than under the rule of the Ba’ath. full: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/iran_syria_end_of_road.pdf _ 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: The Pantomime of The Greek Deal
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 my initial reaction to the deal proposal by Greece: it is more austerity -harsh austerity at that - and many of the measures are recessionary. Distribution of the burden seems to me fairer than before. If the upside is access to a significant stimulus package (front-loaded), a smoothing of the measures (back-loaded) and substantial restructuring of debt, to make it definitively viable, it will probably be seen as worth it. It is certainly capable of being sold as worth it. Essentially, everyone managing to keep their position/perks/income in the context of an economy which is in the middle of a death spiral, is meaningless. If the economy begins to recover, then things which were unbearable, become bearable. Austerity becomes a background noise, rather than a preoccupation and a progressive government will be able to offset the damage. It is a delicate balance. Market confidence is a strange creature. There is a lot of money sloshing around at the moment, taken out of China which is in free-fall. Money which is bulging to be invested. All it takes is an intangible notion that Greece has hit the low point, for investment to return. Whether this package achieves that balance or not, will have to be assessed over time, as the detail of each measure becomes known and away from the adrenaline and hysteria of negotiation fever. Instant, dramatic, pantomime reactions of the type Tsipras just destroyed Greece and Tsipras just saved Europe are numerous and deeply unhelpful. He has done neither. This isn't a booing or cheering moment. He simply has tried to balance his two basic mandate commands to a. end austerity and b. stay within the Euro, which turned out to be pretty much mutually exclusive, in an ideologically propagated, German-controlled climate. As that became clear, one had to be prioritised over the other. It is fair to say that a shrewder assessment at the start may have revealed them to be mutually exclusive, but shoulda-coulda-wouldas are also not particularly constructive. full: https://www.byline.com/column/11/article/155 _ 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] Stripped of ambitions for a political and economic union, the bloc changes into a utilitarian project
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 13 2015 Stripped of ambitions for a political and economic union, the bloc changes into a utilitarian project by Wolfgang Münchau A few things that many of us took for granted, and that some of us believed in, ended in a single weekend. By forcing Alexis Tsipras into a humiliating defeat, Greece’s creditors have done a lot more than bring about regime change in Greece or endanger its relations with the eurozone. They have destroyed the eurozone as we know it and demolished the idea of a monetary union as a step towards a democratic political union. In doing so they reverted to the nationalist European power struggles of the 19th and early 20th century. They demoted the eurozone into a toxic fixed exchange-rate system, with a shared single currency, run in the interests of Germany, held together by the threat of absolute destitution for those who challenge the prevailing order. The best thing that can be said of the weekend is the brutal honesty of those perpetrating this regime change. But it was not just the brutality that stood out, nor even the total capitulation of Greece. The material shift is that Germany has formally proposed an exit mechanism. On Saturday, Wolfgang Schäuble, finance minister, insisted on a time-limited exit — a “timeout” as he called it. I have heard quite a few crazy proposals in my time, and this one is right up there. A member state pushed for the expulsion of another. This was the real coup over the weekend: not only regime change in Greece, but also regime change in the eurozone. The fact that a formal Grexit may have been avoided for the moment is immaterial. Grexit will be back on the table when you have the slightest political accident — and there are still many things that could go wrong, both in Greece and in other eurozone parliaments. Any other country that in future might challenge German economic orthodoxy will face similar problems. This brings us back to a more toxic version of the old exchange-rate mechanism of the 1990s that left countries trapped in a system run primarily for the benefit of Germany, which led to the exit of the British pound and the temporary departure of the Italian lira. What was left was a coalition of countries willing to adjust their economies to Germany’s. Britain had to leave because it was not. What should the Greeks do now? Forget for a moment the economic debate of the last few months, over issues such as the impact of austerity or economic reforms on growth, and ask yourself this simple question: do you really think that an economic reform programme, for which a government has no political mandate, which has been explicitly rejected in a referendum, that has been forced through by sheer political blackmail, can conceivably work? The implications for the rest of the eurozone are at least as troubling. We will soon be asking ourselves whether this new eurozone, in which the strong push around the weak, can be sustainable. Previously, the strongest argument against any forecasts of break-up has been the strong political commitment of all its members. If you ask Italians why they are in the eurozone, few have ever pointed to the economic benefits. They wanted to be part of the most ambitious project of European integration undertaken so far. We will soon be asking ourselves whether this new eurozone, in which the strong push around the weak, can be sustainable But if you take away the political aspiration, you may end up with a different judgment. From a pure economic point of view, we know that the euro has worked well for Germany. It worked moderately well for The Netherlands and Austria, although it produced quite a degree of financial instability in both. But for Italy, it has been an unmitigated economic disaster. The country has seen virtually no productivity growth since the start of the euro in 1999. If you want to blame the lack of structural reforms, then you have to explain how Italy managed decent growth rates before 1999. Can we be sure that a majority of Italians will support the single currency in three years’ time? The euro has not worked out for Finland either. While the country is considered the world champion of structural reforms, its economy has slumped ever since Nokia lost the plot as the world’s erstwhile premier mobile phone maker. Whether the euro is sustainable for Spain and Portugal is not clear. France has performed relatively well during the euro’s early years But it, too, is now running persistent current account deficits. It is not only Greece where the euro is not optimal. Once you strip the eurozone of
[Marxism] Fwd: Open-Source Information Reveals Pro-Kremlin Web Campaign · Global Voices
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. * http://globalvoicesonline.org/2015/07/13/open-source-information-reveals-pro-kremlin-web-campaign/ _ 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] General strike called in Greece against the deal
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. * ... and Wednesday's general strike is a means to getting to that point (i.e. Louis's last paragraph). Another comrade offlist drew the same false equivalence between the dozens of prior strikes and the upcoming one. The Greek masses turned to Syriza after the strikes proved insufficient. Now they're re-mobilizing after seeing the inadequacy of the Syriza leadership. They're not returning to square one, but launching strike action on the basis of more experience in both economic and political spheres. So the strike will be a huge boost to those who want a Europe-wide antiausterity movement (actually there already is one, which is why Merkel insisted on crushing Syriza). And the Greek masses go into the strike knowing they need a new and improved political expression of their militancy. On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 10:25 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: On 7/13/15 9:55 AM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote: The public sector trade union federation in Greece, ADEDY, has called a general strike for Wednesday. General strikes were a frequent occurrence in Greece. They had zero effect. On the other hand, a general strike in Germany would make a huge difference. I have also seen calls on Facebook for assemblies in Syntagma Square as if a rehash of the occupy movement could put a dent in the German ruling class. In Latin America up until the development of the Bolivarian revolution, imperialism had its way. Nicaragua was crushed and so was El Salvador and Guatemala. In fact Latin America, which was in the same kind of relationship to the USA that Greece is to Germany, suffered countless defeats for a hundred years. Just read John Gerassi's The Great Fear in Latin America. The only thing that will work in Europe is a continent wide anti-austerity movement that will be bolstered by mass movements that can put the ruling classes on the defensive, as well as a string of governments that can be partners of the mass movement. _ 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: Alexis Tsipras: Hero, Traitor, Hero, Traitor, 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. * We apologise to Marxists worldwide for Greece refusing to commit ritual suicide to further the cause. You have suffered from your sofas. It is revealing of the political landscape in Europe - indeed, the world - that everyone's dreams of socialism seemed to rest on the shoulders of the young Prime Minister of a small country. There seemed to be a fervent, irrational, almost evangelical belief that a tiny country, drowning in debt, gasping for liquidity, would somehow (and that somehow is never specified) defeat global capitalism, armed only with sticks and rocks. When it looked like it wouldn't happen, they turned. Tsipras capitulated. He is a traitor. The complexity of international politics was reduced to a hashtag, that quickly changed from variants of #prayfortsipras to variants of #tsiprasresign. The world demanded its climax, its X-factor final, its Hollywood dénouement. Anything other than a fight to the death was unacceptable cowardice. How easy it is to be ideologically pure when you are risking nothing. When you are not facing shortages, the collapse of social cohesion, civil conflict, life and death. How easy it is to demand a deal that would plainly never be accepted by any of the other Eurozone member states. How easy brave decisions are when you have no skin in the game, when you are not counting down, as I am, the last twenty-four doses of the medication which prevents your mother from having seizures. Twenty doses. Fourteen. full: https://www.byline.com/column/11/article/164 _ 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] Guardian: US torture doctors could face charges after report alleges post-9/11 'collusion'
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 largest association of psychologists in the United States is on the brink of a crisis, the Guardian has learned, after an independent review revealed that medical professionals lied and covered up their extensive involvement in post-9/11 torture. The revelation, puncturing years of denials, has already led to at least one leadership firing and creates the potential for loss of licenses and even prosecutions. http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/jul/10/us-torture-doctors-psychologists-apa-prosecution Here's the complete report: http://www.apa.org/independent-review -- 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: Anton Shekhovtsov's blog: A statement on the developments in the Ukrainian town of Mukacheve
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. * Members of the Ukrainian, anti-European far right organisation Right Sector have killed one civilian and injured four more, as well as injuring six policemen, using Kalashnikov rifles and a heavy machine gun, in the West Ukrainian town of Mukacheve. As I have argued previously in this blog, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian far right organisations are criminal gangs that exploit a radical right-wing ideology for mobilisation purposes. The incident in Mukacheve seems to be an example of a criminal (far right) group trying to hijack an illegal business operated by another (non-political) criminal gang. Consequently, the Right Sector has tried to mobilise the Ukrainian society in support of the allegedly patriotic agenda of the Right Sector. So far, the Right Sector has succeeded in organising protests in more than a dozen of cities and towns across the country, including the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. Despite the fact that the protests have failed to gather any significant amount of Ukrainian citizens - reflecting the fringe status of the Right Sector in the Ukrainian politics - the security threats of the protests organised by armed members of the criminal, far right gang are potentially devastating. Right Sector thugs demand, in particular, the resignation of the Minister of Interior, dissolution of the parliament, and early parliamentary elections. The Right Sector has clearly challenged the democratic nature of the Ukrainian state and is trying to undermine the state monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force. The actions of the Right Sector are blatantly unconstitutional, and the state must act urgently and forcefully against the criminal, anti-democratic actions of the Right Sector. full: http://anton-shekhovtsov.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/a-statement-of-developments-in.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] Fwd: The Pantomime of The Greek Deal
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. * who is this guy? I certainly would not contribute to his crowdfunding appeal! On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 9:50 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: 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 my initial reaction to the deal proposal by Greece: it is more austerity -harsh austerity at that - and many of the measures are recessionary. Distribution of the burden seems to me fairer than before. If the upside is access to a significant stimulus package (front-loaded), a smoothing of the measures (back-loaded) and substantial restructuring of debt, to make it definitively viable, it will probably be seen as worth it. It is certainly capable of being sold as worth it. Essentially, everyone managing to keep their position/perks/income in the context of an economy which is in the middle of a death spiral, is meaningless. If the economy begins to recover, then things which were unbearable, become bearable. Austerity becomes a background noise, rather than a preoccupation and a progressive government will be able to offset the damage. It is a delicate balance. Market confidence is a strange creature. There is a lot of money sloshing around at the moment, taken out of China which is in free-fall. Money which is bulging to be invested. All it takes is an intangible notion that Greece has hit the low point, for investment to return. Whether this package achieves that balance or not, will have to be assessed over time, as the detail of each measure becomes known and away from the adrenaline and hysteria of negotiation fever. Instant, dramatic, pantomime reactions of the type Tsipras just destroyed Greece and Tsipras just saved Europe are numerous and deeply unhelpful. He has done neither. This isn't a booing or cheering moment. He simply has tried to balance his two basic mandate commands to a. end austerity and b. stay within the Euro, which turned out to be pretty much mutually exclusive, in an ideologically propagated, German-controlled climate. As that became clear, one had to be prioritised over the other. It is fair to say that a shrewder assessment at the start may have revealed them to be mutually exclusive, but shoulda-coulda-wouldas are also not particularly constructive. full: https://www.byline.com/column/11/article/155 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.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
[Marxism] FT's Sandbu, Munchau; Guardian's Elliot on Greek deal
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. * http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/04312dc0-2729-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c.html#axzz3fpEL2oPg Three unedifying lessons of the Greek deal Martin Sandbu ...Greece capitulated because the European Central Bank forced it to do so. In flagrant defiance of its treaty obligation to support the general economic policy of the eurozone — which includes since June 2012 a requirement to separate the health of the banking system from the solvency of sovereigns — the ECB forced a shutdown of the Greek banking system and made clear it would only let it function again once a deal on sovereign finances had been struck. This has established beyond any doubt that the independence of the eurozone’s central bank from politicians is nothing of the sort. Far from being independent, the ECB does governments’ bidding. But its dependence is selective — and that is something that should worry the citizens of eurozone nations beyond Greece. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e38a452e-26f2-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c.html#axzz3fpEL2oPg Greece’s brutal creditors have demolished the eurozone project Wolfgang Munchau ...What should the Greeks do now? Forget for a moment the economic debate of the past few months, over issues such as the impact of austerity or economic reforms on growth. Instead ask yourself this simple question: do you really think that an economic reform programme, for which a government has no political mandate, which has been explicitly rejected in a referendum, that has been forced through by sheer political blackmail, can conceivably work? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/13/europe-greece-pushed-into-further-peril With Europe behind it, Greece is being pushed into further peril Larry Elliott ...In truth, there is not the remotest prospect of Greece raising €50bn through privatisations in the next three years. The €50bn target was first announced back in 2011, since when the value of the Greek stock market has fallen by 40%, making its assets far less valuable. In the past four years, privatisation proceeds have raised just over €3bn. For the moment, Greece remains in the euro but it should be obvious by now that there are only two ways of resolving the crisis. The first is to write off a large chunk of its debts. The other is to allow it to grow at a pace that allows it to service its debts. This deal offers neither. Its one minor concession is that there will be talks about giving Greece longer to pay its debts provided it takes steps that are certain to lengthen and deepen the recession. This is not a solution. It is a chink of light filtering through the bars of the debtors’ prison. _ 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] WaPo: How Russia’s labor migration policy is fueling the Islamic State
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. * ...[L]ocal migrants and religious advocates say that if the Islamic State is recruiting from Tajikistan, it is driven more by economics than ideology. Since the start of the year, a new Russian migration law has required foreign workers from countries outside the Eurasian Economic Union customs bloc to pass Russian language and history tests, acquire expensive permits and pay steep monthly fees to keep the jobs they have been doing for years. The law has had a particularly severe effect on Tajikistan, where remittances account for almost half the national income. The World Bank expects them to drop by 23 percent this year. Meanwhile, Islamic State recruiters are at the ready, offering large sums of cash to desperate, unemployed workers to go fight in Syria. And many — given the lack of options in the poorest of the former Soviet republics — are answering the call. “If our citizens who are without work, who are young, who don’t have a salary, who don’t have a life, are offered a golden city and told ‘you can earn more money, you can improve your conditions’ — naturally he would feel that he would be much better off going to fight in Syria,” Mavjuda Azizova, of the International Organization for Migration’s Tajikistan office, said in an interview recently. “More than 400 of our citizens are in Syria, officially, and it could be even more. Those are just the ones we know by name.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/how-russias-labor-migration-policy-is-fueling-the-islamic-state/2015/07/08/15b9300e-1141-11e5-a0fe-dccfea4653ee_story.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
[Marxism] The National Interest: Nurturing Extremism in Gaza by P. Pillar
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 Pillar fellow has had some decent commentaries in National Interest lately (yes, he's a bourgeois think tanker, but he's worth following as a mainstream reference): Nurturing Extremism in Gaza Paul R. Pillar July 3, 2015 ...The histories of many lands have repeatedly demonstrated two patterns in the relationship of extremism to political and economic conditions. One is that the combination of miserable economic circumstances and a lack of peaceful political channels for pursuing grievances tends to gravitate people toward extremist groups and ideologies. The second is that the resulting extremism is on a sliding scale. What may have been seen at one time as an extreme response to circumstances may, as misery continues and possibly worsens, come to be seen as part of an inadequate status quo and is eclipsed by something even more extreme. Such a process is taking place today in the Gaza Strip, the open air prison in which 1.8 million people endure what for some time have been genuinely miserable circumstances. Blockade by Israel, aided to varying degrees by Egypt and punctuated by repeated Israeli military assaults, has destroyed much of the Gazan economy and kept residents in squalor. The estimated unemployment rate is around 44 percent, and the Strip is still strewn with rubble from the most recent Israeli assault last year, with lack of materials and other impediments permitting only minimal reconstruction so far. An unsurprising result is growth in the number and activity of Gaza-based extremists—specifically and most recently ones claiming allegiance to the so-called Islamic State or ISIS. Their numbers have increased, according to an estimate by Nathan Thrall of the International Crisis Group, from several hundred a few years ago to a few thousand today. They act in opposition not only to Israel but also to Hamas, the group that tries to function as a governing authority in Gaza and is to the extremists a part of a despised status quo. “We will stay like a thorn in the throat of Hamas, and a thorn in the throat of Israel,” says a spokesman for groups that identify with ISIS. http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/nurturing-extremism-gaza-13258 _ 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] WaPo: The deadly consequences of mislabeling Syria’s revolutionaries
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. * My apologies to Louis if he already posted this article - I accidentally deleted a lot of e-mails from this listserv over the weekend, so I missed a lot... The deadly consequences of mislabeling Syria’s revolutionaries By Labib Al Nahhas July 10 Labib Al Nahhas is head of foreign political relations for Ahrar al-Sham. ...In December, Secretary of State John F. Kerry stated that “Syrians should not have to choose between a tyrant and the terrorists.” There was, Kerry declared, a third option: “the moderate Syrian opposition who are fighting both extremists and [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad every day.” Unfortunately, this commendable view has broken down because the United States has defined the term “moderate” in such a narrow and arbitrary fashion that it excludes the bulk of the mainstream opposition. The group to which I belong, Ahrar al-Sham, is one example. Our name means “Free Men of Syria.” We consider ourselves a mainstream Sunni Islamic group that is led by Syrians and fights for Syrians. We are fighting for justice for the Syrian people. Yet we have been falsely accused of having organizational links to al-Qaeda and of espousing al-Qaeda’s ideology. Nothing could be further from the truth. We believe that Syria needs a national unifying project that cannot be controlled or delivered by a single party or group and should not be bound to a single ideology. We believe in striking a balance that respects the legitimate aspirations of the majority as well as protects minority communities and enables them to play a real and positive role in Syria’s future. We believe in a moderate future for Syria that preserves the state and institutes reforms that benefit all Syrians. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-deadly-consequences-of-mislabeling-syrias-revolutionaries/2015/07/10/6dec139e-266e-11e5-aae2-6c4f59b050aa_story.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
[Marxism] Fwd: Court; A Hard Day | 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. * New Yorkers have an extraordinary opportunity to see Asian films at their best this week. Opening at the Film Forum on Wednesday July 15th is “Court”, an Indian film about a judicial system that functions as an arm of the police by making it impossible for radicals to enjoy the rights of legal protection supposedly guaranteed in a democracy. In a real sense, the title of the film might have been “Kangaroo Court”. Two days later the Korean film “A Hard Day” arrives at the Village East. Once again if we play with titles, it has an affinity with “A Hard Day’s Night”, Richard Lester’s classic about the Fab Four given its comic inventiveness and visual panache—all the more surprising since it at first blush it seems like just another policier. full: http://louisproyect.org/2015/07/13/court-a-hard-day/ _ 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] Some strategies that were wrong in the past are becoming right 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. * In our debate around Greece, the environmental crisis has rarely been mentioned. This cannot be right. The environmental crisis is not only a problem of capitalism, it is a problem of any modern industrialized production system. In addition to the unfair distribution of wealth under capitalism, modern industrial production is creating too much waste and has too many unintended side effects on the ecosystem to be sustainable. We must transition to a much lower environmental footprint in production and consumption. Socialism can no longer just mean eliminating the capitalist privileges, but it also means profound changes of the industrial production system: living closer to the land, abandoning some luxuries and the throw-away mentality, enjoying more companionship, culture, free time, and security instead of toys and stress and isolation. Looked under this angle, Greece is not poor. It has some traditional wealth that needs to be preserved and protected against the world wide land and resource grabs of a capitalist system which is looking for additional natural resources to throw into the black hole of globalized industrial production. Greeks live close to land and sea, have community, enjoy culture and leisure more than lots of stuff --- these are treasures that must be recognized and protected. Therefore privatizations must be resisted as much as possible, workers rights and safety nets must be preserved. The environmental crisis is here. It is global and needs global remedies. In a socialist system, it would be much easier to change human behaviors towards sustainability, than in capitalism. But there is no time to institute socialism first, we have to do the best we can in a capitalist system. Despite neoliberal ideology, a stronger pro-active state is needed which can put limits to capitalist excesses. Therefore Socialists must re-think the relation between reform and revolution. Instead of smashing the state and creating an entirely new system from scratch, the road to socialism will go towards reforming the state, making democracy more participatory, and eliminating corruption and greed in favor of defending human rights against capitalist intrusion. As long as the capitalist system was rich enough to buy off any reform, and vibrant and flexible enough to integrate all opposition forces, socialists had to fight reformism. But the environment is throwing the capitalist system into deep crisis because it is making continued capitalist growth impossible. Capitalism no longer has enough money to buy out opposition, and some of its destructions cannot be papered over with money: capitalism cannot buy out people whose health is destroyed by pollution. Due to its inability to lead in humanity's most serious crisis ever, the entire capitalist system is losing its mass support more and more. Therefore it is not wrong for today's anticapitalists to embrace reforms. At the height of the capitalist era, reforms could not make a dent in the coherent and successful system of capitalist relations. Today reforms can make big differences. They can push back capitalism and create openings for alternatives to capitalism. One of the major obstacles which makes environmental reforms so difficult under capitalism is the fact that there is no world government. Competition between national states punishes those who try to preserve the environment. Against these systemic obstacles, the EU has played a pioneering role in environmental protection and innovation, which put the other world powers under pressure to follow suit. Therefore the EU and its institutions should not be abondoned or smashed, but they are an arena of class struggle which deserves our attention. Thank you for reading, if you have read this far. Hans G Ehrbar _ 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] Varoufakis on negotiations, split in inner cabinet; Left Platform statement
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. Varoufakis on the fraudulent negotiations, split in inner cabinet before and after the referendum a) article: http://tinyurl.com/p3hr7uk b) transcript of interview: http://tinyurl.com/opdx3wx 2. Statement of the Left Platform at meeting of Syriza's parliamentary group a few days ago. There is an alternative to austerity https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-euro-debt-default-grexit/ _ 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] In Defence of Syriza against “Syriza delenda est”.
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. * https://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/in-defence-of-syriza-against-syriza-delenda-est/ On 7/13/15 12:19 PM, andrew coates via Marxism wrote: We Backed Syriza then, and We Stand by our Friends. Syriza delenda est – Syriza Must be Destroyed:There is little doubt that this is the aim of the neo-liberals, from the hard right to the ‘moderate’ left in the European Union. _ 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] In Defence of Syriza against “Syriza delenda est”.
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. * We Backed Syriza then, and We Stand by our Friends. Syriza delenda est – Syriza Must be Destroyed:There is little doubt that this is the aim of the neo-liberals, from the hard right to the ‘moderate’ left in the European Union. But there is worse to come. A commentator in the Financial Times has been moved to state,Greece’s brutal creditors have demolished the eurozone project. Like the Communist Party of Britain and other fragments of the British far-left who have wasted no time in denouncing Tsiparis these are objective allies of German Finance Minister Schäubleand, Europe’s neo-liberals, and the nationalists who want to see a return to “nationalist European power struggles.” That is, they lay the responsibility for the present impasse on those who did not create it. If you want to know where the real blame lies it is important to read: Yanis Varoufakis full transcript: our battle to save Greece. The full transcript of the former Greek Finance Minister’s first interview since resigning. (New Statesman). We are not accustomed to abandoning our friends when they are in trouble, for all the complex comments and judgements that need to be made about this “coup” against democracy. 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] Deal on Greek Debt Crisis Exposes Europe’s Deepening Fissures
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 13 2015 Deal on Greek Debt Crisis Exposes Europe’s Deepening Fissures By STEVEN ERLANGER LONDON — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said about Greece on Sunday that “the most important currency has been lost: that is trust and reliability.” But many Germans think the most important currency that has been lost is the deutsche mark, the symbol of rectitude and confidence that embodied West Germany’s ascent from the ashes of World War II. That same sense of solidity is badly lacking in the European Union as it confronts the limits of its ambitions, and Monday morning’s painful deal on Greece seems unlikely to restore it. The latest effort to preserve Greek membership in the eurozone has only deepened the fissures within the European Union between north and south, between advanced economies and developing ones, between large countries and smaller ones, between lenders and debtors, and, just as important, between those 19 countries within the eurozone and the nine European Union nations outside it. In the name of preserving the “European project” and European “solidarity,” the ultimatum put to Greece required something close to the surrender of the nation’s sovereignty. For all of Greece’s past sins, and for all of the gamesmanship and harsh talk of the governing Syriza party, this outcome arguably had elements of punishment as well as fiscal responsibility. Whether this is good or bad for Greece, in the end, the Greeks will decide. But it averted an outcome that could have left Europe even more badly fractured. And it highlighted the willingness of some leaders to make a compelling case for unity over narrow national interest, especially President François Hollande of France, who played an important role in mediating between Germany and Greece. Unpopular and yet contemplating another run for the presidency in 2017, Mr. Hollande displayed leadership and distanced himself from Ms. Merkel and German demands, which many in Europe, especially in France, saw as selfishness and even vindictiveness. On Monday, Mr. Hollande said that “even if it was long, I think for Europe this was a good night and a good day.” That is true, given the alternatives. But it will be even better if the European Union can now, after so many years, lift its head from its euro crisis and begin to concentrate on other critical issues: providing economic growth and jobs for its young people, a rational and unified policy on migration, a response to Russian ambitions in Ukraine and elsewhere, and a British vote on whether to leave the European Union. A so-called Brexit — an exit by Britain, which is expected to overtake France as Europe’s second-largest economy and is one of Europe’s main military and diplomatic actors, with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council — would be far more damaging to the European Union than the departure of small, difficult Greece. Britain, which never joined the euro currency bloc, plans to hold a referendum by the end of 2017 on whether to remain a member of the European Union, and Prime Minister David Cameron is negotiating now to change Britain’s terms of membership. The mess over Greece has hardly helped the reputation of the European Union inside Britain, but it may also help Mr. Cameron secure a better deal. And the challenge to the post-Cold War order in Europe posed by a newly revanchist Russia is a bigger threat to European ideals of peace and stability than Brussels seems to understand. Together with the migration crisis and Greece, these represent “the four horsemen” circling around Europe’s future, said Rem Korteweg of the Center for European Reform, a research institution based in London. “The four horsemen threaten the E.U. precisely because they raise issues that can only be solved if governments prioritize a European solution over narrow national agendas,” he said. “If a European answer cannot be found, the horsemen will continue to promote chaos, instability and mutual recrimination” within the European Union. As for Ms. Merkel, her reputation hangs in the balance, at home and in her role as Europe’s de facto leader. Having rejected a Greek exit from the eurozone three years ago in the name of European solidarity, she has again avoided that outcome. This time, she risked considerable cost to her political standing at home. But what would really damage her legacy is another expensive bailout for Greece that fails. The crisis that played out over the weekend was just the latest in a series that traces back to the origins and nature of the currency union. When Germany
[Marxism] The Bullet: Treating Syriza Responsibly by Panitch Gindin
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. * ~ T h e B u l l e t ~ A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1140 ... July 13, 2015 _ Treating Syriza Responsibly Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin As against those on the international left so keen to put the boot in against the Syriza government with the charge that they had abjectly capitulated already with the plan passed in the Greek parliament, it is instructive to read this document from the German finance ministry. Syriza's unique capacity on the international left to build the type of party capable of both mobilizing against neoliberalism and entering the state to try to actually do something about this has always hinged on the way it sought to find room for manoeuvre within a European Union which has neoliberalism in its DNA, going back all the way to the Treaty of Rome let alone the Economic and Monetary Union thirty years later. Anyone who at all seriously followed developments in Greece over the past five years should have known that the leadership of the party would only go as far as the Europeans would let it, and that the balance of power inside the party made the Left Platform faction's strategy for Grexit an effective non-starter. Those on the revolutionary left who hoped that after Syriza's election this leadership would get swept away by a massive popular upsurge for Grexit in face of the limits and contradictions of a Syriza government were, as usual, dreaming in technicolor. Click here to continue reading: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/1140.php#continue ~ T h e B u l l e t~ The Bullet is produced by the Socialist Project. Readers are encouraged to distribute widely. Comments, criticisms and suggestions are welcome. Write to i...@socialistproject.ca _ 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] We Are All Greeks Now by Chris Hedges
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. * http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/07/13/we-are-all-greeks-now . . . Human life is of no concern to corporate capitalists. The suffering of the Greeks, like the suffering of ordinary Americans, is very good for the profit margins of financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs. It was, after all, Goldman Sachs—which shoved subprime mortgages down the throats of families it knew could never pay the loans back, sold the subprime mortgages as investments to pension funds and then bet against them—that orchestrated complex financial agreements with Greece, many of them secret. These agreements doubled the debt Greece owes under derivative deals and allowed the old Greek government to mask its real debt to keep borrowing. And when Greece imploded, Goldman Sachs headed out the door with suitcases full of cash. . . . _ 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] last words 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. * Truly I intend this to be my last contribution to the Greek debate. I am becoming increasingly offended by the attacks on the international solidarity movement.. I now read from Panitch and Gindin that we have been as usual dreaming in technicolor. Earlier, I read we did not care about someone's mother who had only 14 tablets left. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have acted in solidarity with the Greek people, because they believe there is an alternative and they do care. Now we are being told we are like arm chair generals urging the Greek people onto their death and ruin. The death and ruin was plotted and carried out, not by the international solidarity movement but by Merkel, Shauble, Holland, Gabriel, Dijesselbloem et al. Panitch and Gindin have seized and held aloft the Thatcherite banner of TINA and shame on them. They are bringing comfort to the enemy. It is true that we on the Left dream of a better world. We expect, and get, sneers for that from the Right. But we deserve better from soi-disant Marxists. I doubt if Panitch and Gindin will ever read these words, or that I will ever meet them in person, but they can be sure they have my full disagreement and no little disappointment For what it is worth, I support the formation of broad left groupings. I have both a horror of the politics of the sects and a clear understanding that the working class need an alternative to Zinoviefism. But that does not mean that I will refuse to analyse and criticize the leadership of Syriza. For a moment the politics of anti-austerity had a period of hope, a focus and something to rally around. That is gone and Richard Seymour is correct. I now agree it is a terrible defeat and a devastating absence. There is an old Irish folk song of the rebellion of 1803 led by Robert Emmet. It seems all too appropriate for the Greek context The struggle is over, the boys are defeated, Old Ireland's surrounded with sadness and gloom, We were defeated and shamefuIIy treated, And I, Robert Emmet, awaiting my doom comradely Gary _ 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] Some strategies that were wrong in the past are becoming right 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. * I read Hans' post with considerable interest. Not least, because here in Australia the Government has moved to directly attack renewable energy - specifically wind and solar. The prime minister Tony Abbott actually peddles the worst nonsense about windmills being damaging to health. Now he has moved to cut funding to small solar projects i.e. houses. Like so much that is happening in the world today, this is truly atavistic. Ah well. comradely Gary On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 5:37 AM, Hans G Ehrbar via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: 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. * In our debate around Greece, the environmental crisis has rarely been mentioned. This cannot be right. The environmental crisis is not only a problem of capitalism, it is a problem of any modern industrialized production system. In addition to the unfair distribution of wealth under capitalism, modern industrial production is creating too much waste and has too many unintended side effects on the ecosystem to be sustainable. We must transition to a much lower environmental footprint in production and consumption. Socialism can no longer just mean eliminating the capitalist privileges, but it also means profound changes of the industrial production system: living closer to the land, abandoning some luxuries and the throw-away mentality, enjoying more companionship, culture, free time, and security instead of toys and stress and isolation. Looked under this angle, Greece is not poor. It has some traditional wealth that needs to be preserved and protected against the world wide land and resource grabs of a capitalist system which is looking for additional natural resources to throw into the black hole of globalized industrial production. Greeks live close to land and sea, have community, enjoy culture and leisure more than lots of stuff --- these are treasures that must be recognized and protected. Therefore privatizations must be resisted as much as possible, workers rights and safety nets must be preserved. The environmental crisis is here. It is global and needs global remedies. In a socialist system, it would be much easier to change human behaviors towards sustainability, than in capitalism. But there is no time to institute socialism first, we have to do the best we can in a capitalist system. Despite neoliberal ideology, a stronger pro-active state is needed which can put limits to capitalist excesses. Therefore Socialists must re-think the relation between reform and revolution. Instead of smashing the state and creating an entirely new system from scratch, the road to socialism will go towards reforming the state, making democracy more participatory, and eliminating corruption and greed in favor of defending human rights against capitalist intrusion. As long as the capitalist system was rich enough to buy off any reform, and vibrant and flexible enough to integrate all opposition forces, socialists had to fight reformism. But the environment is throwing the capitalist system into deep crisis because it is making continued capitalist growth impossible. Capitalism no longer has enough money to buy out opposition, and some of its destructions cannot be papered over with money: capitalism cannot buy out people whose health is destroyed by pollution. Due to its inability to lead in humanity's most serious crisis ever, the entire capitalist system is losing its mass support more and more. Therefore it is not wrong for today's anticapitalists to embrace reforms. At the height of the capitalist era, reforms could not make a dent in the coherent and successful system of capitalist relations. Today reforms can make big differences. They can push back capitalism and create openings for alternatives to capitalism. One of the major obstacles which makes environmental reforms so difficult under capitalism is the fact that there is no world government. Competition between national states punishes those who try to preserve the environment. Against these systemic obstacles, the EU has played a pioneering role in environmental protection and innovation, which put the other world powers under pressure to follow suit. Therefore the EU and its institutions should not be abondoned or smashed, but they are an arena of class struggle which deserves our attention.
Re: [Marxism] [SocialistProject] Bullet: Requiem at an Empty Grave? Syriza's Momentous Day
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. * Michael Yates wrote (...) Louis has said that his interest in Syriza lies only in what lessons it can teach those in the US trying to build a radical party. What I would say is that what is needed is a radical re-conception of democracy, one that takes seriously the development, through both education and action, of the people's capacities to govern themselves. Meszaros and Michael Lebowitz have much to teach us about this. Here are just two examples from among myriad. I just happened to read this morning these passages from Meszaros, thinking it might be useful to share them, and behold! comes this opportunity. It is no exaggeration to say that with 1989 a long historical phase - the one initiated by the October Revolution of 1917 - came to its end. From now on, whatever might be the future of socialism, it will have to be established on radically new foundations, beyond the tragedies and failures of Soviet type development which became blocked very soon after the conquest of power in Russia by Lenin and his followers. (...) To be sure, historical time - emanating from the dynamics of social interchanges - cannot possibly flow at a steady pace. Given the greatly varying intensity of social conflicts and determinations, we may experience historical intervals when everything seems to grind to a complete standstill, stubbornly refusing to move for a prolonged period of time. And by the same token, the eruption and intensification of structural conflicts may result in the most unexpected concatenation of apparently unstoppable events, accomplishing within days incomparably more than in decades beforehand. Istvan Meszaros, Beyond Capital, London: Merlin Press 1995 at pp. 284 and 283. Then also last night I viewed the debate between Stathis Kouvelakis and Alex Callinicos on Greece https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1paxMRddO0M, in which Kouvelakis of the Left Platform concludes his statement by saying, You might know that I work as a political theorist and I have also worked on Marx's theory, and also particularly dear and very central to my work is the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, 'Every time I was mistaken it was because I haven't been sufficiently radical,' and I fully share this quotation - provided, provided - (holding up a finger amidst applause) hold on, there is a catch here, there is a catch. There is a catch, and the catch is that radical, for me at least, doesn't mean the repetition of the old recipes but, as one comrade, actually the speaker of the Syriza parliamentary group and prominent member of the Left Platform Zoi Konstantopoulou said yesterday, 'opening up our wings to the unknown.' Thank you. However, throughout the presentations of both discussants, I kept thinking of something unmentioned, even in some other from, that 90% of Greece's needs, elements of its lifeline in the context of inexorably increasing interdependence, are supplied from outside Greece. And then by way of sober warning, I think of Richard Strauss's tone-poem of Cervantes's epic of the knight-errant Don Quixote, tilting with his sword at windmills, thinking they are giants, whereupon he falls at the first brush against the windmill's sails, shattering his lance. Cervantes tells us about how Don Quixote became who he was: “Through too little sleep and too much reading of books on knighthood, he dried up his brains in such a way that he wholly lost his judgement...“ So, the opening of wings to the unknown, that's beautiful and evocative, but it encounters material reality, implying in the Left Platform's program Grexit and cutting off creditors who supply capital for imports, who when asked for credit after Grexit, demand collateral - and then what? So yes, on the other foot under Tsipras's leadership Syriza conveyed confidence in reform of Europe 'to save it from itself', as the only way to save Greece - a strategic error, and now they seek in disarray to preserve their lifeline to the Euro. Likely, in assuming the role of capital management on behalf of the creditors, aligning with the police and military against the antagonist, labor. Rock and hard place. What lessons learned? I echo Michael Yates and refer one and all fwiw to Lebowitz and Meszaros. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com _ Full posting
[Marxism] Antarsya member: for united front against austerity and rupture with eurozone
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 Future Is Now It’s time for a united front on the Greek left against austerity and for a rupture with the eurozone. by Panagiotis Sotiris (Panagiotis Sotiris is a member of Antarsya and teaches at the University of the Aegean.) Jacobin magazine, July 13 https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/tsipras-debt-eurozone-bailout-deal-germany July 3 was Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s greatest moment. In front of a huge crowd in Syntagma Square, he gave an electrifying speech in favor of a “no” vote, evoking the words of the great poet Andreas Kalvos: “freedom requires virtue and courage.” Unfortunately, in the long night of the negotiations with the European Union, he showed neither virtue nor courage. July 13 is the end of the road for both Syriza and Tsipras. In spite of the massive popular vote in favor of “no,” in spite of the evident acceptance by large segments of the people that a rupture with the eurozone is a possible solution, in spite of the alignment of a broad spectrum of left and progressive social and political forces in favor of an exit from the iron cage of eurozone austerity, Tsipras and the leading group of Syriza chose to quickly and fully capitulate to the demands of Greece’s creditors. In a state of panic regarding any thought of an exit from the eurozone, unable to realize that Greek society was more than ready for such a development, totally unprepared both for the blackmail of the EU but also for an eventual Grexit, Tsipras and the negotiating team could offer no actual resistance to the proposals of Greece’s lenders. They never learned the lesson of the Cypriot tragedy of 2013: if you do not accept the first set of measures proposed by the EU and you are not ready to exit the eurozone, then you will be forced to accept the second set of measures, which will be worse and harsher than the first one. The result is a devastating set of commitments to an aggressive neoliberal program that entails privatization and fire sale of the state assets, additional austerity and budget cuts, pension reform, further curtailing of the right to collective bargaining, repeal of whatever legislation Syriza had already introduced, a humiliating condition of limited (or even non-existent) sovereignty, and to a disciplinary supervision from the EU. Instead of the “honest compromise” Tsipras had promised, we have a humiliating defeat and yet another “memorandum,” equally authoritarian and neoliberal as the two previous ones that sparked the immense protest movement of 2010–12. Today, the danger is that the very notion of “the Left” will become associated with betrayal and full endorsement of austerity. And this a cost that the entire Left will pay. This is also the end of the road for the pro-euro left. It is more than evident that any insistence on the utopia of a “good euro” can only lead to the dystopia of authoritarian neoliberalism and limited sovereignty, to the death of democracy. Exit from the eurozone, suspension of debt payments, and disobedience to EU treaties are the necessary and inescapable conditions for any progressive exit from the current crisis. It is the moral obligation of all Syriza members of parliament to vote against the new measures if they want to somehow salvage the honor and dignity of the Left. Otherwise, they will be no different than the systemic parties’ parliamentarians, who approved the austerity packages without even reading them. They will be equally hostile to the people and the forces of labor. There is no point in hesitating in the name of keeping a left government in place; it is not a left government anymore, and Tsipras will find a way to negotiate with the dominant forces and rule in cooperation with them. Above all, now it is the time for all forces of the Left that insist on the road of rupture, the road of Oxi, inside and outside of Syriza, to take the initiative. With courage and audacity we need a Left Front around the dividing lines of Oxi and the question of rupture with the eurozone. And we need it now, leaving aside the pathology of sectarianism and the micro-intrigues of the radical left. We need exactly the convergence of political forces and movement dynamics that could, in a certain way, dialectically incorporate and at the same time go beyond, the legacy of Syriza as broad front, the experience of Antarsya as anticapitalist unity, the experience of all the forms of organization in the movement. The Greek crisis opened a historical rift that traversed Greek society and created the conditions for a new bloc. Syriza failed to translate this potentiality into political praxis. We have a historic responsibility to construct this
[Marxism] Organise global solidarity with Greek workers striking against austerity this Wednesday
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. * Organise global solidarity with Greek workers striking against austerity this Wednesday Wednesday is the public sector general strike and the parliamentary vote on the Third Memorandum in Greece. There is a global call for solidarity with Greek workers striking against austerity. 5.30 pm Wednesday in every central square worldwide. Get cracking. Organise. http://enpassant.com.au/2015/07/14/organise-global-solidarity-with-greek-workers-striking-against-austerity-this-wednesday/ _ 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] Syriza surrenders: time for renewed grassroots resistance
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. * Syriza surrenders: time for renewed popular resistance by Theodoros Karyotis ROAR magazine, July 13 http://roarmag.org/2015/07/syriza-bailout-movements-greece-crisis Now that Syriza has caved in to the creditors, the need for grassroots mobilization is more urgent than ever. A new cycle of struggles is ahead of us. . . . For about three years, grassroots social movements in Greece had deeply contradictory sentiments towards the electoral rise of Syriza. On one hand, the prospect of a left government was an opportunity to bring the conflict to an institutional level; after all, many of the demands of the struggles were reflected in Syriza’s program and the party always kept a movement-friendly profile. On the other hand, Syriza has been an agent of demobilization, ending the legitimation crisis that gave a protagonistic role to the social creativity and self-determination of the movements, and by promoting the institutionalization of the struggles, the marginalization of demands that did not fit into its state management project, and the restitution of the logic of political representation and delegation, which promoted inaction and complacency. At the same time, Syriza cultivated the illusion that real social transformation was possible without breaking with the mechanisms of capitalist domination, without calling into question the dominant economic paradigm, without building concrete bottom-up alternatives to capitalist institutions, without even calling into question the country’s permanence within a monetary union that by design favors the export-driven economies of the North in detriment of the Europe’s periphery. Syriza’s leaders detached themselves from the party base and their former allies within the movements, and stubbornly resisted a public debate on the elaboration of a ‘Plan B’ outside the Eurozone, should the ‘Plan A’ of an ‘end to austerity within the Eurozone’ fail, for fear that this would be used against them by the pro-austerity opposition as proof that they had a hidden agenda from the very start. Unfortunately, recent developments tend to confirm the views of those who claimed that, given the extreme delegitimation and fragility of the previous government, a new memorandum was only possible through a new and popular ‘progressive’ government. This is probably the role that Syriza unwillingly ended up playing, using its ample reserves of political capital. Lifting the veil of illusion Syriza’s failure to deliver on any of its campaign promises or to reverse the logic of austerity lifts the veil of illusion regarding institutional top-down solutions and leaves the grassroots movements exactly where they started from: being the main antagonistic force to the neoliberal assault on society; the only force capable of envisioning a different world that goes beyond the failed institutions of the predatory capitalist market and representative democracy. Undoubtedly many honest and committed activists are linked to the Syriza party base. It is their task now to acknowledge the failure of Syriza’s plan, and to resist the government’s efforts to market the new memorandum as a positive or inevitable development. If Syriza, or a majority part of it, decides to stay in power — in this governmental arrangement or in some other, more servile, put in place by the creditors — and oversee the implementation of this brutal memorandum, it is the task of the party base to rebel and unite with other social forces in search of a way out of barbarity, to break the ranks of a party that might quickly be turning from a force of change into a reluctant administrator of a brutal system they have no control over. The role of the left, broadly defined, is not that of a more benevolent manager of capitalist barbarity: after all, that was social democracy’s original purpose, a project that exhausted itself already in the 1980s. There can be no ‘austerity with a human face’: neoliberal social engineering is an attack on human dignity and the common goods in all its guises, right-wing and left-wing. I have argued elsewhere that the NO in last week’s referendum was ambivalent, and the struggle to give meaning to it has only just begun. Hours after the announcement of the result, Prime Minister Tsipras interpreted the verdict as a mandate to ‘stay within the Eurozone at any cost’. It is evident, however, that the new ‘bailout’ package obviously is outside his mandate: Plan A, Syriza’s only plan, envisioning an end of austerity without challenging the powers-that-be, has utterly failed. Plan B, promoted in various forms by Antarsya, the Communist Party and Syriza’s own Left Platform advocates a
[Marxism] Hear Petros Constantinou, long-term socialist activist from Greece, speak on the crisis in Greece at Keep Left in Sydney in August
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. * Hear Petros Constantinou, long-term socialist activist from Greece, speak on the crisis in Greece at Keep Left in Sydney in August Petros Constantinou is a long-term socialist activist from Greece. As a member of the anti-capitalist coalition Antarsya, the Greek socialist organisation, SEK, and a councillor for Athens, Petros has been a part of the momentous struggle of Greek workers against austerity in the midst of capitalisms greatest crisis since the Great Depression. Now, as the newly-elected left party Syriza tries to manage the crisis, Petros will join us at the Keep Left conference organised by Solidarity to discuss: Recession and austerity in Greece: Can Syriza solve the crisis? A debate. Join us. http://enpassant.com.au/2015/07/14/hear-petros-constantinou-longterm-socialist-activist-from-greece-speak-on-the-crisis-in-greece-at-keep-left-in-sydney-in-august/ _ 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] Greece: general strikes and factory occupations
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. * As Louis noted, general strikes in Greece are somewhat a dime a dozen. The Greek ruling class has long since grown accustomed to them. The problem is that the workers strike for a day and then go back to work and nothing has changed. The point about a general strike is that unless they're connected to the question of *actual power* they are quite easily managed in a country like Greece which has so many of them. (Of course, in many capitalist countries, any strike wave around workers' rights would be a step forward!!!) One of the problems in Greece is the one Louis alluded to. That Greek workers had general strike after general strike and in the end, because they didn't get anywhere, opted to use parliamentary politics and voted for Syriza. The electoral process ran ahead of the process on the ground. Unless workers were occupying workplaces and beginning to organise alternative structures of power, the possibilities for serious resistance, let alone going on the offensive, were limited. For instance, what if the government nationalised the banks, without workers having occupied them and demanding workers' control over them? Tsipras was always going to do a deal, he's a social democrat at best. Surely the role of the left was to prepare for that eventuality. In 2013 I interviewed a spokesperson for the Vio.me factory occupation in Thessaloniki and he told me that after the general strikes and mass protests, the Greek working class had gone home and tried to make ends meet the best they could. Vio.me was very much an exception. But this, it seems to me, is the road that hasn't been taken but offers a fruitful alternative to trying to manage things within the confines of capitalism. And surely the chief task of the global left is not around bemoaning the fact that a social democrat acted in a social democratic way, but advancing the struggle where we are and supporting concrete advances by workers in Greece, like the Vio.me occupation. The interview is here: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/workers-self-management-only-solution-interview-with-spokesperson-for-vio-me-occupation/ It links also to other articles on the occupation and a video: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/workers-self-management-only-solution-interview-with-spokesperson-for-vio-me-occupation/ Phil _ 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] Yanis Varoufakis interview with Austrailian Broadcasting Corporation
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. * I entered the prime minister’s office elated. I was travelling on a beautiful cloud pushed by beautiful winds of the public’s enthusiasm for the victory of Greek democracy in the referendum. The moment I entered the prime ministerial office, I sensed immediately a certain sense of resignation—a negatively charged atmosphere. I was confronted with an air of defeat, which was completely at odds with what was happening outside.” http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programitem/pgJE6gZygG?play=true _ 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] Greece's future in the eurozone (3)
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) Alexis Tsipras: We decided to prevent a political Grexit with an economic pretext Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ speech in the Greek parliament concerning the mandate to conclude the negotiation, July 11, 2015 http://www.analyzegreece.gr/topics/greece-europe/item/289-alexis-tsipras-we-decided-to-prevent-a-political-grexit-with-an-economic-pretext 2) Saving Greece, Saving Europe by Barry Eichengreen Project Syndicate, July 13 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/greece-debt-agreement-risks-by-barry-eichengreen-2015-07#yhAzFgD7WyUlII5h.99 . . . German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s idea of a temporary “time out” from the euro is ludicrous. Given Greece’s collapsing economy and growing humanitarian crisis, the government will have no choice, absent an agreement, but to print money to fund basic social services. It is inconceivable that a country in such deep distress could meet the conditions for euro adoption – inflation within 2% of the eurozone average and a stable exchange rate for two years – between now and the end of the decade. If Grexit occurs, it will not be a holiday; it will be a retirement. Early Monday morning, European leaders agreed to remove the reference to this “time out” from the announcement of the latest bailout deal. But this door, having been opened, will not now be easily closed. The Eurosystem has been rendered more fragile and subject to destabilization. Other European finance ministers will have to answer for agreeing to forward to their leaders a provisional draft containing Schäuble’s destructive language. Economically, the new program is perverse, because it will plunge Greece deeper into depression. It envisages raising additional taxes, cutting pensions further, and implementing automatic spending cuts if fiscal targets are missed. But it provides no basis for recovery or growth. The Greek economy is already in free-fall, and structural reforms alone will not reverse the downward spiral. The agreement continues to require primary budget surpluses (net of interest payments), rising to 3.5% of GDP by 2018, which will worsen Greece’s slump. Re-profiling the country’s debt, which is implicitly part of the agreement, will do nothing to ameliorate this, given that interest payments already are minimal through the end of the decade. As the depression deepens, the deficit targets will be missed, triggering further spending cuts and accelerating the economy’s contraction. Eventually, the agreement will trigger Grexit, either because the creditors withdraw their support after fiscal targets are missed, or because the Greek people rebel. Triggering that exit is transparently Germany’s intent. . . . Barry Eichengreen is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley; Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Cambridge; and a former senior policy adviser at the International Monetary Fund. His newest book, Hall of Mirrors:The Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Uses – and Misuses – of History, was just published by Oxford University Press. 3) They have created a desert and called it Europe by James Meadway Counterfire, July 13 http://www.counterfire.org/articles/analysis/17912-they-have-created-a-desert-and-called-it-europe The Syriza government has made a total surrender on every single point it was elected on, back in January. The deal, agreed in principle late last night by the Eurozone finance ministers, commits Greece to deepening austerity over the next three years, breaking every red line it maintained in negotiations. Pension reforms and VAT increases must be passed next week by the Greek Parliament. Greece is to be forced to hand over €50bn of assets to a separate fund, as a guarantee of its good behaviour. . . . Yanis Varoufakis, who in a lengthy interview makes clear that his attempts to prepare for bank closures and possible Grexit were ruled out by the Cabinet, was forced from his position as finance minister the morning after the result. Euclid Tsakalotos, an economist from the strongly pro-European wing of the party, was drafted in to prepare the terms of surrender. There are several failures that lead to Syriza's collapse. At the heart, however, was the poison of Europeanism. Far from a family of equal nations, the EU is today revealed as an appalling debtors' prison. But with the majority of Syriza unreservedly committed to maintaining Greece's membership of the family, as part of a strategy for change that placed the necessity of transnational institutions at its centre, they have been unable to break. When taken to the crunch, forced to choose between the two
[Marxism] last words 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. * Hear! Hear! Gary. I am afraid that Leo and Sam seem to be getting wronger on so many issues the older they get. Whatever happened to their mantra about building people's capacities, or at least trying to do so? Also, there is lot of what we might call historical amnesia. Too many people say that all left projects have failed because they were doomed to fail. And this is because their adversaries were just too powerful. This is surely an incorrect method of analysis. Why were the Bolsheviks doomed to fail? Why was the restoration of capitalism in China inevitable? Why was Greece doomed to make the most awful capitulations to the troika? It seems that critics of what one man called the ultra-left, meaning not sectarians but all to the left of Syriza, look at everything after the fact, and say, well, no wonder they failed. Not because they failed to make a detailed and sophisticated of the forces at play and plan to find the best was to combat their enemy's power, but because, well, their adversaries were just too damned powerful. As this same guy said, The fucking Germans, man. Best to give in and wait for a better day. Of course, the better day usually never comes, and we find ourselves facing the grave. But let one of us say that they failed to do what needed to be done, and we are accused of looking at things through technicolor glasses. Or told that we didn't read the polls taken to see what people thought at some point in time, never realizing that life is lived in a dynamic and ever-changing context, one in which politicls always comes into play. _ 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] Good Tony Norfield piece on Origins of the Greece crisis
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's from 2011, but well worth reading. https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/origins-of-the-greek-crisis-reprint-of-2011-article/ Phil _ 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] Marty Hart-Landsberg, 'Lessons from a Defeat in 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. * https://economicfront.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/lessons-from-a-defeat-in-europe/ -- - Michael A. Lebowitz Professor Emeritus Economics Department Simon Fraser University University Drive Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6 Home: Phone 604-689-9510 Cell: 604-789-4803 _ 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] Turkey: Erdogan manoeuvres to retain power after election shock
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. * President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains the dominant figure in the AKP and is manoeuvring to retain his party’s leading position. https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59463 -- “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
