I just like the discussion, but I did recommend this one. How far indeed marmar.

Micheal Lewis covered a bit of it in his book Boomerang but i'm not sure how accurate it was, in that it painted the Greek government as being fundamentally flawed (i.e. very corrupt) - but I don't know how accurate that is.

Bryant

one fundamental problem in Greece is that so very few people paid taxes. Especially their upper income earners. Somewhat like here, only a whole lot worse.

If congress gets their way. They vote the way the money tells them. The oligarchs control much of congress.

I don't expect this country to turn around until it gets much much worse.

Reagennomics end results are. We are so damn lucky the Democrats claimed the levers of power from time to time. So much for the Chicago School of Economics,did we learn anything yet as a nation?

don't give a shit about the condition of the people, nor do they care about the environment here. I don't know what those people are, but anyone who calls himself a patriot but doesn't care about the citizens or even the land in his country is anything but a patriot. They might as well be enemies.

It is these basic necessities that need to be the line in the sand. And they need to be fought for, because the oligarchs don't want people to have even basic health, dignity, and education. And we need politicians who won't sell those values out.

Perish the thought that they should have one penny less!

Syriza is an acronym that means Coalition of the Radical Left. Don't get me wrong, they'd call them radical regardless. There just happens to be a happy accident here that makes it an accurate statement, if only by chance.

it's a beautiful country and a beautiful people.

Hitler had to divert crucial men and materiel to Greece, thereby delaying the start of his assault on the USSR by five weeks and forcing his Army to fight to non-victory in the Russian winter as a result. Near the end of the war, Hitler blamed Mussolini's failed invasion of Greece for his defeat by the USSR.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Greece

they are in for a rude awakening.

A lot of debtholders are shitting bricks about now...

but they will need to address military spending.

Because of their long standing face-off with Turkey
their military spending is . . "Greece is the largest importer
of conventional weapon in Europe and its military spending
is the highest in the European Union (relative to G.D.P)." (Wiki)

Veteran For Peace

Not a nation that thinks twice of corpsing up the neighborhood.

Portugal's 2.1% of GDP
or the UK's 2.2% of GDP
or Cyprus's 2.1%

Not to mention non-EU but nevertheless "European" countries like"

Turkey's 2.3% of GDP
Ukraine's 2.9% of GDP
Georgia (2.7% of GDP)
Armenia (4.1%)
Azerbaijan (4.7%)....


Yeah, that extra .3 of GDP throws Greece over the line....

K&R!

conservatives like to keep the status quo. That's why progressives tend to be considered "radical", and there's nothing negative about the word "radical".

and the judges, and steal from everybody legally.

The change the laws to make stealing legal.

Because if they called this a common sense, mainstream economic solution, then they would be forced to refer to the ICELAND solution as the "radical" solution. And for the moment, they're still going for the total news blackout on what Iceland is doing.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-28/iceland-defies-creditor-backlash-with-debt-relief-nordic-credit.html

the top execs publicly guillotined in front of their buildings, their families sold into slavery in Dubai and every last penny that can be found should be seized and distributed to their victims.

Is what they fear most!

This is international… They is everywhere, mar mar.

This is an excellent thread.

a 'radical' party -- witness its newly-formed coalition with the bourgeois 'Independent Greek' party -- whereas the Greek Communist Party (aka "KKE&quot is. The KKE refused to consider entering a coalition with Syriza for reasons it best knows itself, thereby passing up a historic opportunity to rule in a coalition on the European mainland.

Which means they will vacillate wildly between the left and the right depending on timing. Right now and for the last few years they've been in a left turn, but that could change tomorrow. Ergo they're not consistent and principled in their positions.

And because they're Stalinist, they won't do coalitions unless they're the primary partner in the coalition. That's part of the bureaucratic thinking of the Stalinists. Since they're top-down, any coalition where they're not in the primary role would be a coalition that would call into doubt their ascendency and indeed their very legitimacy. They have to lead or it becomes an existential crisis for them.

KKE and Syriza to form a ruling coalition. that appeal has thus far fallen on deaf ears, AFAIK.

As for KKE being 'Stalinist,' what does that mean in the Greek context? Not saying you're wrong necessarily, just that 'Stalinist' is used too often as a pejorative and not as a purely descriptive label.

BTW, I'm relying for my understanding and analysis of Greek internal left-wing politics on this article:

http://www.marxist.com/against-a-coalition-of-syriza-and-independent-greeks-decleration-by-the-communis-tendency-of-syriza-26-january-2015.htm

part of the International Marxist Tendency which is a Trotskyist organization. And "Stalinist" in this context strictly describes the method of party organization which is bureaucratic and issues orders from the top-down. It takes the concept of democratic-centralism and forgets the "democratic" part of it.

And I don't doubt that the IMT would call for a coalition with the KKE and/or PASOK. Those are supposedly working class based organizations as is Syriza. Which means that they would call for this type of coalition because the workers of Greece still have illusions about the effectiveness of parliamentary measures in arresting the assault of the owners on the working class. By calling for this type of coalition and having it fail, which it inevitably will since it seeks an accommodation WITH capitalism rather than it's replacement, then workers will be disabused of their illusions in parliamentarianism and be won to the cause of a workers' revolution and a workers' government.

Edited to add: I actually don't have any problem with Syriza forming a coalition with either of these working class based parties, but, as I said in my first post on this subject, the Stalinists in the KKE won't do it because they would not be the primary partner in the coalition. I'm not sure that PASOK was even offered the opportunity to be part of the coalition. My GUESS as to why that is is because Syriza is fearful of being associated too closely with an organization (PASOK) that is seen by most Greeks as bankrupt of ideas AND complicit in the austerity that Syriza campaigned against. Of course, I believe that their current coalition partners are worse than even PASOK would be. I can only GUESS (once again that they formed this coalition strictly to protect their right flank in negotiations with the Trioka over the debt repayment and accompanying austerity requirements.

I personally think they should have tried for a minority government alone. If they had done this, then their opponents would have had to have convinced EVERY OPPOSITION MP to vote against it and call for new elections. I don't think they could have convinced every opposition MP to vote against the minority government.

of the various Marxist factions in Greece. I don't know by what right the KKE think she should be the primary partner in any coalition with Syriza, since KKE's showing (while improved somewhat over the last round of elections) is nowhere near that of Syriza's. I think your guess as to why Syriza formed a coalition with Independent Greeks is as good as any; I have yet to hear or read any convincing explanation from Syriza's people why it formed that coalition.

I do not know enough about the Greek parliamentary system to know whether Syriza could have formed a 'minority government' but, again, your opinion on this matches my own; while Syriza did not win an outright majority, it won a convincing plurality and the burden should be on opposition MPs to demonstrate a united front in opposition, something which seems highly unlikely.

Thanks for taking the time to explain your thoughts in such fine detail. A real pleasure.

just will not fly in Spain, in W. Europe generally. Spanish culture appears to be quite naturally anarcho-sindicalist and rule-breaking, on 'left' and 'right'. 'Capitalism' on an individual and small-business scale has always been a part of the human condition, it seems, and just feels 'natural' (even or perhaps especially when it has to resort to 'black markets'), as does a fairly high degree of 'individual freedom'. And we just, from experience, cannot trust the motives of those who would be willing to assume so much centralised power, from the 'left' or from the 'right'.

The problem with Capitalism, it seems, is a matter of scale, when certain elements grow to be so overwhelmingly powerful and so deeply corrupt and corrupting..

I'm one who so far emphasises the 'reform' part of the possible agenda... Where we call for a serious 'audit' of national debts, for example, we intend to identify the corrupt and the amounts of money they claim is 'public' debt but which in fact, on investigation, will turn out to involve fraudulent activity with amounts of money ending up in the pockets of the corrupt in positions of power and their cronies... such hypothetical balance-sheet entries will be frozen while the associated cases pass through the judicial system, probably very slowly. Where it turns out that only a few corrupt individuals are responsible for that part of the debt they, and not the public, will be accountable, and should be obliged to pay back what was stolen...

A decentralized opposition, no matter how "radical", will not control capitalism. Unless there is an existential threat to the entire system of capitalism IT WILL NOT CHANGE. Then the question becomes, "If there's enough of a threat to the system to force reforms, why stop there?" Reform of capitalism over an historical time frame is an oxymoron. It always has and always will throw off reforms eventually. Then the question becomes, "Do you want your children/grandchildren to have to fight the same battles a few decades in the future?"

And the only proven method to overthrowing capitalism in existence IS the Bolshevik party and it's democratic-centralism. The trick with democratic-centralism is to not tilt to much to one tenet or the other. Too much "democracy" and nothing gets done because of a lack of discipline. Too much centralism and you have the bureaucratic systemic nightmare that became Stalinism.

got totally brainwashed and imprinted by the all pervasive conservatism of that era.