I think you have something to contribute to the conversation, but you don't say enough for us to know what you are trying to say. Please explain your post.

deficit spending are the same ones who clip the coupons on Treasury Bonds. High Interest Rates are their best friends.

what the Greeks learn from the Greek election. My guess, it ain't gonna be pretty.

In any case, there's not a damn thing that can be done until January, 2017, at the earliest. We have plenty of time to see what a Grexit brings, if that's what comes about.

from the Corporatist/Conservatives that control the party at the Wash DC level.

as fighters of the 99%. Teddy Roosevelt was rich but also was a corruption fighter before becoming president and FDR went through a battle with Polio that gave him empathy to people in suffering.

Please.

It is also, if fought for in isolation, an issue that can't ever lead to a real challenge to the powerful-which is why it was the only issue Bill Clinton was slightly non-conservative about(refusing to support women on pretty much any other issue and attacking poor women by endorsing the Right's hatesprache about "welfare mothers". Defending choice isn't, by itself, ever going to bring down an oppressors or defeat any of the forces of reaction. It can't, by itself, liberate anyone or fundamentally change life. That's what I was saying there.

And, while fighting for LGBTQ rights is crucial, there is the risk of that becoming an issue the 1% use to hive LGBTQ people off from the broader struggle for social and economic change. Wealthy corporate types are, in at least some cases, trying to split LGBTQ people off from the broad coalition of those on the outside and turn them into a "pet minority". Getting corporate donors out of Democratic politics and making sure that the LGBTQ movement identifies with the 99% rather than the 1% are crucial to preventing that from happening.

John Browne (BP), Christopher Bailey, Burberry; lots of rich people are.

I'd say they're as interesting in gaining full political rights as they are in turning LGBTQ into a 'pet minority'.

What they're *not* interested in, though, is reducing financial inequality. They want more of that. They'd just prefer to be able to share the wealth with their gay partners. LGBTQ rights are more salient the more money you have, like marriage.

(lots of non-rich people are as well, but its harder for them to "come out", though most people in most parts of the U.S. are coming around on that).

There is also a real danger that wealthy, powerful gays can be used by straight capital as the Christian arustocracy used Jewish people throughout European history-as the false face of wealth and power, towards whom the anger of the powerless can be deflected, which protected the Christian aristocrats and royals then and can protect the heterosexual wealthy now from the reckoning that should be theirs and theirs alone.

about improving financial conditions for all.

they prefer. The most they can do is make trouble for other individuals, as individuals; unlike the rich and powerful, who can make trouble for entire populations and the entire world -- and do, on a regular basis.

difference in their lives .

marry less. Marriage is for the propertied.

in fact it's even more important for the non wealthy as things like benefits for spouses, hospital visitation etc are not things they can get around as more wealthy types might be able to.

you believe about its importance.

through things like benefit for spouse.

married longer. To the degree middle class and rich people do.

it's like you are dismissing LGBT rights because there are some LGBT who are in the 1 percent.

But those are people we really can't do much about, and aligning the cause of LGBTQ rights with the economic agenda of the 1% is not the way to fight people like that.

in the top 1 percent who are LGBT or support LGBT rights ?

on a opportunistic and "divide and conquer" agenda.

It needs to keep the characteristics of an outsider movement aligned with other outsiders in a program of broad change.

that there is something wrong with support LGBT rights because there are some in the 1 percent who are LGBT or support LGBT rights ?

What I'm saying is we need to avoid getting back into a Nineties situation where liberalism(and really, not even all that much liberalism) on choice and LGBTQ issues was used as justification for accepting conservatism from the party leadership on everything else.

The LGBTQ cause needs to always be in the same part of the spectrum with labor, the poor, opposition to corporate trade deals and things like opposition to neighborhood gentrification(or, at least, taking a new approach to gentrification that doesn't mean that the people in the neighborhood before gentrification happened don't get driven out by higher rents and condemnation of their homes through eminent domain.

LGBTQ rights are a just cause, but it needs to be a cause that keeps its distance from the wealthy and powerful.

The answer isn't to ally with unionbusting wage-cutting business types against the Pope just because those business types are nominally pro-woman and publically gay friendly, though.

Somehow, we've got to get the fighters for income inequality and the fighters for choice and LGBTQ rights in the same tent.

And wariness of what and who LGBTQ people should be seen as aligning themselves with.

If that cause comes to be seen as a "corporate cause", it just sets LGBTQ people up as backlash bait.

women ? why don't you worry that those will be seen as part of the same thing ?

I'm not thrilled with what he says about women and gays...but it's not as if it would be better to have a Pope who said the right things on just those issues but supported U.S. corporate tax policy and bashed unions.

It's a tough one for me with the Pope, actually.

I'd say attack him where he's wrong, but don't ally with those who attack him on where he's decent.

you are the one who is objecting to wealthy people support LGBT rights .

and the idea that we need to stay to the center to win is false.

It is actually due to the party not expressing it's populist progressive plank that it is struggling.

you you have to live on nothing.

If Wall Street sets you up with big debt you can't pay back, default and let Wall Street worry about it.

And I think that is what Greece is about ready to do.

Americans may feel some of the consequences of Greece's rebellion against austerity.

So be it. Our bankers made a mess of this one as they do so often.

Part of the job of being a banker is to make wise loans. The banks that loaned to Greece did not do their job in that respect. And so the situation got worse and worse and now here we are.

Maybe the biggest lesson you could take from what's happened to Greece over the last few years comes from their currencies. Greece is part of a quasi-gold standard system and does not issue the currency it uses. In that regard, it's sort of like an American state. It has to get euros from either taxation or debt sales because it doesn't have the legal authority to issue euros. To make it worse, they're part of a fiscal pact that's inherently deflationary. All in all, it's a system that's almost guaranteed to fail if anything bad should happen.

The US is in a completely different place. We issue our own currency, our debts are denominated in dollars, and we have a central bank fully authorized, though it oversteps it authority quite a bit lately, to take action to keep the economy going. The issue for the US government will never be running out of money because dollars, for the federal government, are an infinite resource. Our issue is whether we have the productive capacity to match the number of dollars in existence, i.e. the issue is managing inflation or the lack of it. So, in a real way, deficits don't matter in the conventional sense. They matter only in terms of supporting effective demand and managing inflation. I know that sounds radical because it's not something said in the usual political babble. It's really not because it's pretty well recognized among most people who study money. Alan Greenspan, love him or hate him (I'm not a fan), knows money pretty well. Check out the video below for his view on whether the US government can run out of money.

Euro (and give a big F-U to Germany, and, to a lesser extent, France along the way).

I'm not sure it's the best plan because they are a part of Europe. They do business there, they go on vacation (well, they did), and the ties are quite strong. Don't get me wrong, I'd suggest they leave the Euro before being forced to continue down the same path of failure. My hope is that the Syriza win inspires like-minded parties in other countries, like Podemos in Spain, and that they can also win. Well, that and they can make Berlin and Brussels see the writing on the wall: their plans have no democratic legitimacy and they have failed to do right by the public, though I doubt that was ever the intent of their policies. I don't know if it will work, but I do hope it.

excepted), not realizing that they existed in symbiotic relationship. That is, Greek consumers purchased German and French industrial output (and kept German and French workers employed and their bourgeoisie affluent). Ironically, the rejection of austerity by Syriza and the Greek electorate may mean some real austerity for France and Germany.

That beggar thy neighbor bullshit should have been retired after it failed in the 30s.

sow the seeds for the Renaissance and the Age of Reason, but also for Greek partisans (most of them Communist or Socialist) who forced Hitler to divert forces to backstop Mussolini, thereby keeping the Wehrmacht from triumphing over the USSR in World War II. The West owes Greece a huge debt, imo, and if German (and French) creditors get stiff-armed by a Greek 'default' and exit from the Euro, I won't be shedding many tears.

For me, I just want sanity to prevail in Europe. I've been watching the news for the last few years and the rise of explicitly fascist parties, like Golden Dawn or Jobbik, has worried me. I've always found the 30s to be one of the most fascinating times in history, but I have no desire to live through it. It's pretty clear that current path is doing nothing but making the far right viable, so it's time Merkel and co. woke up and realized exactly what they're doing. I'm sure they think they have it under control, but I have no doubt the various leaders of the 30s thought the same.

and the Nazis into the government. That little scheisskopf van Papen thought he was being so clever. I was heartened to see that Golden Dawn made no statistically significant gains in this election which shows that the Greeks retain some immunity to the cheap, easy lures of fascism. (Likewise, the last round of elections in Ukraine saw the fascistic Svoboda and Right Sector factions make no significant gains.)

I don't know much about Jobbik. I'm far more concerned about the National Front's Marine Le Pen and the next round of elections in France. She puts a benign smiling face on the fascism of her father.

That's exactly what I think of her. She's nothing but "fascism with a human face."

Jobbik is an opposition party in Hungary. I don't think they really have any hope of taking power, but they're kind of like a less aggressive version of Golden Dawn. They seem to talk more than they do anything, but Hungary hasn't had a breakdown like Greece.

I really don't like Golden Dawn. I didn't like when they opened an office in the US, I don't like their blatant racism, and I really don't like the inroads they've made into the security forces in Greece. I really hope Tsipras and co. are able to do something that's useful because those murderous bastards are waiting in the wings if everything goes south.

I don't have much hope for Ukraine because it appears to be circling the drain. I'm no Ukraine expert, nor am I super-informed on the current situation. I pay some attention to it, but everything looks bad. Even leaving aside the fight in the east, it looks terrible. The country was in bad shape prior to the last years' events and it looks like it's being incompetently managed. Like I said, I'm no expert, but my hope for Ukraine is much weaker than my hope for Greece.

to leave the Euro.

but know i can see it. the euro is stupid. a country that cant control its own monetary policy is a disaster waiting to happen. its happening to greece now. its a prime example of why the gold standard is idiotic.

A) Greece has a left party, which we don't.
B) Greece does not have Faux, or 95% of RW radio stations.
C) Greece is not absolutely paranoid about the word "socialism".
D)Greece is totally bankrupt and lied about it to Brussels.
And lastly: I am not sure that the country is allowed to leave
the Euro zone without paying its debts. So it cannot allow
its currency to float until then.

If it leaves that zone, other countries will follow, and the
resulting recession will not only bring down Europe but
the US as well.

Result: Be careful what you wish for, imo.

it up her collective nose in cocaine nor use it to finance the invasion and occupation of countries that had not attacked her. No, Greece used the monies loaned her to purchase the output of German and French industry. So, if Greece defaults on her obligations, German and French industry (and the German and French bourgeoisie who have so frequently sneered at Southern Europe) will take a big hit. Tant pis pour eux.

the points still remain:
Will Brussels allow its leaving the zone without payments?

If Greece leaves, will the whole Euro concept collapse ?

If it collapses, how far do the results "travel"?

during World War II (when asked whether the Pope should be invited to Yalta):

"How many divisions does Brussels command?"

If Greece leaves, I'm not sure the whole Euro concept collapses, but a lot of German and French creditors are going to take a big bath.

The irony is that a Greek rejection of balance-sheet 'austerity' may mean real austerity for significant slices of the German and French working classes. But really, why should Greece suffer alone when she exists in symbiotic relationship with those industrial powerhouses?

If Greece defaults, then so will Spain, Italy, etc.
This would indicate to me the end of the Euro.

Greece would be only the beginning.

European currency (for the industrial economies of the North). But its scope and influence would definitely be sharply curtailed should Spain, Italy and Portugal follow Greece.

added to by the Swiss floating the Frank with the
Euro, which makes this more of a difficulty.

By the way France (the instigator of the Euro under Mitterand)
is also going down and relies heavily on Germany.

Well, we shall see. I heard that the Euro is/was the second
most reliable currency after the Dollar, which -if true- will
come to hurt the US as well.

All that, because Goldman-Sax helped the Greeks to
cheat their way into the Euro to their own detriment.

The Greek, Spanish, Italian and other situations are sufficiently different that there's no inevitable default by others.

Paul Krugman had this on his blog last week - European long-term interest rates:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/the-european-scene/?_r=0

You can see there that Greece was an outlier. As Krugman points out, Spain was paying a lower rate than the UK, although still over 1% more than Germany. And it also shows that Portugal, Spain and Italy are all paying a lower rate than a year ago.

Who do we owe this debt to? The Big Banks and the Federal Reserve? Well, they owe us. Perhaps it is time to try "demand-side" economy?

What is the work we need to do?

And the continual development of new resistance and mobilization tactics, which will need to arise from the real conditions and experience of people working for change on a day-to-day basis.

I don't personally claim to know what all will be needed-hundreds of thousands of minds will have to generate them and find the ways to communicate them.

to close the deal, and without a critical mass of people, the cops were able to beat us down.

Those are two things to learn from. Find a way to attract the critical mass, and figure a way to implement an effective direct action that the cops can't shut down.

I'm a big fan of mass general strike and boycott. People can watch TV and collapse the system at the same time without ever getting off the couch, and the cops can't do anything about it. Again, the trick is getting enough people involved to make it effective.

Whatever, I'm in. Always.

and take away everything we have. And that includes everyone on Wall Street that supports your candidate.

To avoid helping the U.S. become Greece, the Democratic Party needs to fulfill its responsibility to be the voice and the home of all who've been left out in the cold by our country's economic priorities since January 20, 1981.

We need to stop being just the more moderate party of the status quo-of Reaganism with a humanoid mask.

And right of first refusal on your internal organs, you little #%^*ing €<}% =+*].

Regards,

The Third Way