Greece

Greece’s Capitulation Reveals Deep Conflicts Within Eurozone

July 13, 2015 Jerome Roos, www.roarmag.org Educate! Austerity, European Union (EU), Finland, France, Germany, Greece

By Jerome Roos for ROAR - For the past two weeks, day-to-day life in Greece has been suspended on a political pendulum swinging violently from one extreme to the other. Between bank runs and mass mobilizations, heroic victories and inglorious defeats, financial blackmail and popular defiance, the future of this small country — and of the entire currency union of which it is a part — still hangs in the balance. It has been an emotional roller coaster throughout, with the collective heartbeat in Athens oscillating wildly between hope and desperation; between the tears of joy at Syntagma on the night of the referendum victory and the cries of agony resounding from the same square just days later, as prime minister Tsipras and his Syriza-led government prepared to capitulate. In the end, the overwhelming sensation is one of confusion and disbelief. What just happened? Was that real? The European Monetary Union is a mortally wounded animal preying blindly on its own tail. The Greek debt saga is merely the signal crisis of its eventual demise; even if it is eventually “resolved”, more intense conflicts are undoubtedly to come.

Newsletter – Austerity Is A Weapon

July 12, 2015 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Austerity, Banking, Climate Change, Greece, Neoliberalism, TISA, TPP, TTIP

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance - Austerity, decreased spending by government on necessary programs, is a type of economic sanction like the ones that are often imposed by one country upon another country as a form of punishment. Financial elites and their institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) force austerity measures on countries that have been driven into debt in order to extract every ounce of wealth from them and weaken the populace's ability to resist.Austerity Unite Against Austerity Austerity is a fundamental tool in the neo-liberal agenda that is spreading around the world to monetize and privatize everything. It is fundamental to our success in resisting this agenda and preserving a livable future that we understand austerity amounts to sanctions against the people. We hope Greece, and the rest of the world, begins to pursue a new economy rather than kow-towing to bankster criminals.

Those Who Lead Greece To Surrender Should Be Opposed

July 12, 2015 Stathis Kouvelakis, www.jacobinmag.com Educate! Austerity, European Union (EU), Finance and Economy, Greece

By Stathis Kouvelakis for Jacobin - A simple conclusion emerges from all this: with the moves it has made in the last week, the government has achieved nothing other than a full return to previous entrapment, from a much more unfavorable position, under the pressure of even more relentless economic asphyxiation. It has managed to squander the powerful injection of political capital from the referendum in record time, following at all points the line of those who had opposed it and who have every reason to feel vindicated, despite being trounced at the ballot box. But the referendum happened. It wasn’t a hallucination from which everyone has now recovered. Yesterday, late in the evening, it sent to all members of parliament (MPs) a hastily written, twelve-page text, written in English by experts sent by the French government and based on Tsakalotos’ request for a €50 billion loan to the ESM. This is nothing but a new austerity package — actually, a “copy and paste” of the Juncker plan rejected by the electorate a few days ago. Its core is all too familiar: primary surpluses, cuts in pensions, increase in the VAT and other taxes, and a handful of measures to give it a slight flavor of “social justice” (e.g., an increase in the corporate tax rate by two points).

Ireland Showed We Can Get By Without Banks

July 12, 2015 Patrcick Cockburn, www.independent.co.uk Create! Banking, Finance and the Economy, Greece, Ireland

By Patrick Cockburn for the Independent - Shuttered banks are a striking physical symbol of economic disaster, but even they are not proof that the final dénouement is at hand. I recall a six-and-a-half month strike that closed all banks in Ireland in 1970 which was meant to have similarly calamitous results as predicted for Greece today, but in fact had very little destructive impact. Contrary to expectations, Irish people rapidly found other ways of carrying out the functions previously performed by the banking industry. The economist Michael Fogarty, who wrote the official report on the bank dispute, was quoted by the Irish Independent as saying that “the services of the clearing banks proved by no means as indispensable as would have been expected before the dispute”. Others take the example of the Irish bank strike as evidence that much of what banks do is a “socially useless activity”. My father was not alone in enjoying the crisis which turned out to be no such thing. Almost half a century later, many Irish people remember with relish how they successfully replaced the banks with other ways of dealing with payment and credit.

“Guerrilla Warfare Against A Hegemonic Power”

July 12, 2015 Ellen Brown, www.ellenbrown.com Resist! Banking, Europe, European Union (EU), Finance and the Economy, Greece

By Ellen Brown for Web of Debt - Banks create money when they make loans. Greece could restore the liquidity desperately needed by its banks and its economy by nationalizing the banks and issuing digital loans backed by government guarantees to its ailing businesses. Greece could provide an inspiring model of sustainable prosperity for the world. But it is being strangled by a hegemonic power in a financial war that is being waged against us all. As reported in Zerohedge, the Greek government was prepared to pursue three “nuclear options” to protect the deposits of the Greek people: (1) nationalize the banks, (2) launch a parallel currency in the form of electronic California-style IOUs, and (3) use the Greek central bank’s printing press to issue euros.

Greek Debt Crisis: MPs Approve Bailout Plan, Some Syriza MPs Rebel

July 11, 2015 Graeme Wearden and Nick Fletcher, www.theguardian.com Educate! Austerity, Greece, Syriza

By Graeme Wearden and Nick Fletcher in The Guardian - Alexis Tsipras has won crucial approval from the Greek parliament for the €13bn of austerity measures he is proposing to creditors, to obtain a third bailout programme. After a late-night debate, 250 MPs out of 300 voted to give Tsipras, and finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos, a mandate to negotiate this weekend. But, two Syriza MPs voted no, eight abstained, and seven were absent, potentially undermining the PM’s authority at a critical time. Before the vote, Alexis Tsipras described the last few months as a war in which difficult battles were fought and some were lost.

Greece: Latest Battleground In Elite’s War On Democracy

July 10, 2015 George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com Educate! Democracy, Europe, Finance and the Economy, Greece

By George Monbiot in The Guardian - Greece may be financially bankrupt, but the troika is politically bankrupt. Those who persecute this nation wield illegitimate, undemocratic powers, powers of the kind now afflicting us all. Consider the International Monetary Fund. The distribution of power here was perfectly stitched up: IMF decisions require an 85% majority, and the US holds 17% of the votes. The IMF is controlled by the rich, and governs the poor on their behalf. It’s now doing to Greece what it has done to one poor nation after another, from Argentina to Zambia. Its structural adjustment programmes have forced scores of elected governments to dismantle public spending, destroying health, education and all the means by which the wretched of the earth might improve their lives.

UK Campaigners Take Inspiration From Greek Vote

July 8, 2015 Matthew Weaver, www.theguardian.com Resist! Austerity, Europe, Greece, Hope, United Kingdom (UK)

By Matthew Weaver in The Guardian - Buoyed by the no vote in the Greek referendum, anti-austerity campaigners across Britain are to stage “Oxi to Osborne” protests on Wednesday against cuts the UK chancellor is expected to announce in his budget. Organisers from the People’s Assembly group said interest in about 40 planned protests had soared since Sunday’s overwhelming no vote to austerity in Greece. The UK protests include a mass “die-in” outside parliament to protest at the impact of welfare cuts. Speakers are expected to include Marina Prentoulis, a British-based Greek academic and member of the radical Greek governing party Syriza, and Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn, who welcomed the Greek vote. Campaigners from Disabled People Against Cuts, who tried to storm parliament last month over the scrapping of the Independent Living Fund are also planning to take part.

Leaders Of Europe’s New Left Rejoice As Greeks Vote ‘No’

July 7, 2015 Charlotte Alfred, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Democracy, Europe, Greece, Hope

By Charlotte Alfred in The Huffington Post - This is the breaking point; everything will either start or end here, they say with their fingers crossed as they circle through the rooms of this seven-story palace located in the aptly named Liberty Square. “We have a responsibility; we feel the pressure of it,” a Syriza official smiles but responds nervously to Anderson’s predictions. However, the atmosphere is positive here at the offices of the new leader of the European left: Tsipras, who is not here but at the Old Royal Palaces, which house the Greek Parliament. Meanwhile, the ballots are closing and the stations are running the latest polls, which were not shown earlier to avoid influencing the vote. Everyone is saying “no” to the troika. Even the Greek polling institutes have come to the same conclusion: They agree that the Greeks are voting “no.”

Will The US Intervene To Remove The Greek Government

July 7, 2015 John Helmer, www.johnhelmer.net Educate! Finance and the Economy, Greece, Russia, usa, Wars and Militarism

By John Helmer - A putsch in Athens to save allied Greece from enemy Russia is in preparation by the US and Germany, with backing from the non-taxpayers of Greece – the Greek oligarchs, Anglo-Greek shipowners, and the Greek Church. At the highest and lowest level of Greek government, and from Thessaloniki to Milvorni, all Greeks understand what is happening. Yesterday they voted overwhelmingly to resist. According to a high political figure in Athens, a 40-year veteran, “what is actually happening is a slow process of regime change.” Can the outcome — the 61% to 39% referendum vote, with a 22% margin for Οχι (No) which the New York Times calls “shocking” and a “victory [that] settled little” – defeat Operation Nemesis? Will the new Axis – the Americans and the Germans – attack again, as the Germans did after the first Greek Οχι of October 28, 1940, defeated the Italian invasion?

We Must Support Greece’s Fight For Democracy

July 7, 2015 Owen Jones, www.informationclearinghouse.info Educate! Democracy, Europe, Finance and the Economy, Greece

By Owen Jones in Information Clearing House - From the cradle of democracy, a lion has roared. It is difficult to overstate the pressure the Greek people have both endured and defied. A country that has already experienced an austerity-induced economic disaster with few precedents among developed nations in peacetime has suffered a sustained campaign of economic and political warfare. The European Central Bank – which has only recently deigned to publish some of the minutes of its meetings – capped liquidity for Greek banks, driving them to the verge of collapse. There were stringent capital controls, and desperate queues outside banks followed. A country desperate to stay within the euro was told it would be ejected, and with calamitous results.

VIDEO: Solidarity To Greece By European Parliament Left

July 6, 2015 SYRIZA European Parliament, www.popularresistance.org Organize! Austerity, European Parliament, Greece, Solidarity

By SYRIZA European Parliament. Brussels - On Wednesday, July 1, 2015, during Greek negotiations with the Troika and in advance of the vote on the Greek referendum, members of the European Parliament on the Left gave statements of support for the people of Greece. They held signs that said "Solidarity with Greece" and "No to austerity" and Greek flags. The members of Parliament were with the GUE/NGL which stands for the United European Left and the Nordic Green Left. The statements by eleven members of Parliament representing nine political parties are in English.

Greece – What You Are Not Being Told By The Media

July 6, 2015 Chris Kanthan, www.nationofchange.org Educate! Austerity, Finance and the Economy, Greece

By Chris Kanthan in Nation of Change - Every single mainstream media has the following narrative for the economic crisis in Greece: the government spent too much money and went broke; the generous banks gave them money, but Greece still can’t pay the bills because it mismanaged the money that was given. It sounds quite reasonable, right? Except that it is a big fat lie … not only about Greece, but about other European countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland who are all experiencing various degrees of austerity. It was also the same big, fat lie that was used by banks and corporations to exploit many Latin American, Asian and African countries for many decades. Greece did not fail on its own. It was made to fail.

Landslide Victory For ‘No’ Vote In Greece, Rejects Troika

July 5, 2015 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Austerity, Democracy, Europe, European Union (EU), Greece, Syriza, Troika

By Staff for Popular Resistance. Today, the people of Greece voted in a landslide to refuse to accept the demands of austerity by the troika by a vote of 61.31% to 38.69%. The vote, along with an IMF report critical of the austerity plan, should open a new round of negotiations in the upcoming week. Syriza is now in a slightly stronger bargaining position and the EU now has to decide whether democracy matters. The people of Greece celebrated the vote despite the unclear and difficult paths ahead. There is a lot of confusion and unpredictable paths ahead. The simpliest path is a better deal from the troika with less austerity and restructured or even forgiven Greek debt, but some of the comments by EU and German finance leaders indicate that is unlikely. A more difficult path with lots of unpredictable repersussions is a Greek exit from the EU and the return to the Greek drachma currency. The choices are difficult, let's hope that the vote today is the beginning of a fresh start and much greater fairness and common sense from the troika.

Greek Villagers’ Secret Weapon

July 5, 2015 Gregory Katz, www.ap.org Create! Austerity, European Union (EU), Food and Agriculture, Greece, IMF

By Gregory Katz in AP. KARITAINA, Greece (AP) — Ilias Mathes has protection against bank closures, capital controls and the slashing of his pension: 10 goats, some hens and a vegetable patch. If Greece's financial crisis deepens, as many believe it must, he can feed his children and grandchildren with the bounty of the land in this proud village high in the mountains of the Arcadia Peloponnese. "I have my lettuce, my onions, I have my hens, my birds, I will manage," he said, even though he can no longer access his full pension payment because of government controls imposed six days ago. "We will manage for a period of time, I don't know, two months, maybe three months, because I also want to give to our relatives. If they are suffering, I cannot leave them like this, isn't that so?"

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