On Voting NO! in Greece

[Onyango Oloo]

DIMITRIS KONSTANTAKOPOULOS in Athens writing in the July 3-5, 2015 edition of the Counterpunch says:

In this country where we live today, on the very soil we tread, the “ideologist” of the Athenian Republic, Protagoras, proclaimed “Man is the measure of all things”, for the first time in the history of humanity.

The Greek people, at one of the most critical and dramatic crossroads of a history going back several thousands of years, for which they feel proud and justifiably so, shall be called, this coming Sunday, to decide once again whether man is the measure of all things or money is the measure of all things, the latter being the central “motto” and “belief” of the global financial oligarchy, the European “elites” and their domestic offshoots, attacking Greece. And in the face of the Greeks, they are attacking the social and democratic conquests of all Europeans after their victory in 1945 against fascism, if not after the French Revolution.

A moment comes for man, societies and nations alike, when they have to decide «where they stand». This moment has now come for the Greek people. They will have to decide once for all that their Alexandria[1] of a few decades of a relatively stable and democratic prosperity that followed the fall of the junta in 1974 and accession to the EC in 1981 is definitively lost. The real question facing this people, though, is whether they will abandon this Alexandria with dignity, as urges their great Poet, whether they will take the thorny and dangerous road towards a new future, a new perspective for their country, or whether they will fall apart in a state of enslavement.

The significance of a NO in 2015 is no lesser than that of the NO uttered by the citizens of the Republic of Cyprus in the 2004 referendum, who refused to give in to the strongest international pressures in order to accept a plan which would abolish their independent and democratic state. It is no lesser either than that of the NO uttered by the French and the Dutch (2005 referendum), the Irish (2008 referendum) and the Icelanders (2010) against Euroliberalism, despite the fact that these NOs, with the exception of the one in Iceland, were later belied by their leaderships.

What these NO had in common, despite the different circumstances, was people’s opposition to the dissolution of their national and popular sovereignty, of their independence and democracy, in the only context where it still exists in today’s world, that of the nation-state. This is what the Annan plan attempted to do in Cyprus or the European constitutional treaty in Europe.

Now, read some more:

www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/03/the-future-of-greece-without-illusions/

[kamalet]

..and in the process cut their noses to spite their faces!! The dug the grave they must be buried in....or they can take the treatment and leave to fight another day!

[abdulmote]

Sometimes the price of personal pride can be very high and its value equally so. Sometimes the price can be high but its value significantly low but only time will tell.

I have lived in Europe for a many good years now. I have never thought for once that a monetary union has any real and valuable meaning for its people but loss of their financial control and economic destiny. If I was in Greece right, I would vote NO tomorrow and rest in peace with the EU for a good measure!

Look at the UK; no monetary union and proudly thriving!

[jakaswanga]

IS GREECE OUT OF OPTIONS?

i understand there is some concept called 'odious debt'! A device by which the debtor wriggles out of accrued, crippling unpayable debts. The Greek political class, including Syriza, lack the intellectual confidence to synthesise a life outside the Euro. --Bravo the Brits and Norwegians! For the Greeks, the legendary Drachma is a horror scenario! they would rather be sheep slotted to attend a barbecue party as the nyamachoma, and merrily bleating at the prospect! and so they are likely to vote YES tomorrow. They are essentially peasants, and peasants will bear anything, tolerate any abuse from power, pay tribute to the bone, until a revolutionary thought comes to organise them from without. And Syriza is not revolutionary. But of course the situation can make them so! things are in flux.

What did Greece do with the borrowed money to achieve a debt ratio of 180% of their GDP? that is the anatomy of the servitude they now face!

[abdulmote]

www.aljazeera.com/programmes/countingthecost/2015/07/greece-saved-150704092736302.html

[abdulmote]

Greece latest: the NOs have it by a clear majority. EU in a a panic mode. Its just an illusion. The debt will have to be wiped off and the people of Greece will have another chance to start again, be it a little sluggish.

[Onyango Oloo]

It should not have been so great a surprise. Voting age for the referendum was lowered to 18 years, and included army members. Faced with an unemployment rate of over 50 percent, Greek youth understandably wanted no more of euro-austerity.

The Troika’s demand was for austerity to be deepened solely by taxing labor and reducing pensions. Its policy makers had vetoed Syriza’s proposed taxes the wealthy, vetoed steps to stop their tax avoidance, and that the IMF had vetoed cutbacks in Greek military spending (far above the 2% of GDP demanded by NATO), despite even the European Central Bank (ECB) and German Chancellor Merkel agreeing to this. Instead, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, threatened that the EU would expel Greece from Europe – despite there being no law permitting this to occur. And instead of doing what a central bank is supposed to do – provide liquidity (and paper currency) to banks, ECB head Mario “Whatever it takes” Draghi forced them to shut down even their ATM machines for lack of cash. Evidently this was intended to frighten Greek voters to think that this would be their country’s future if they voted No.

www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/06/greece-rejects-the-troika/

[Onyango Oloo]

www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/07/9-myths-about-the-greek-crisis-000131

[Onyango Oloo]

...most likely the EU and Washington and Washington’s Japanese, Canadian, and Australian vassals would attack the new Greek currency and drive its value in exchange markets to such a low value that Greece could not import and wealth held in Greek currency would be worthless abroad.

An inflexible EU creates conditions for Russia and China to act. These two powerful nations have the means to finance Greece and to bring Greece into the economic relationships established by these two countries and by the BRICS.

Alexander Dugin, a Russian strategic thinker who has the ear of the Russian government, has said:

“The Russians are on the side of the Greeks, we will not leave them alone in their suffering. We will help them and give them every possible support. Brussels and the liberal hegemony seek to dismantle Greece. We want to rescue it. We took our religions faith from Greece, as well as our alphabet and our civilization.”

Dugin said that the Greek referendum is the start of “the fundamental European liberalization process from the dictatorship of the New World Order.” He says this also is “our own endeavor.”

The Greek drama is far from over. Pray that the Russian and Chinese governments understand that rescuing Greece is the start of the process of unravelling NATO, Washington’s mechanism for bringing conflict to Russia and China. The One Percent have Italy and Spain targeted for looting, and eventually France and Germany herself. If the Greek people rescue themselves from the clutches of the EU, Italy and Spain could follow.

www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/06/a-rebuke-to-eu-imposed-austerity/

[Onyango Oloo]

...the negotiations’ breakdown demonstrates the unrealistic character of the SYRIZA government program for a ‘decent compromise’ with the EU that would be ‘neither a clash nor a capitulation’ and for ‘staying in the Eurozone at any cost’. If you want to stay in the Eurozone and the EU you have to capitulate to the demands of its dominant powers. There is no other way. Thus, even the 47-pages long SYRIZA proposal for a milder version of the troika austerity program was indignantly rejected.

The failure of the SYRIZA strategy and the simmering popular discontent with the return of the troika austerity policies obliged the SYRIZA government to reject the troika demands and put them to the public vote through a referendum. At the same time the SYRIZA leadership argued that in case of a ‘NO’ it would approach again the EU for new negotiations.

SYRIZA failed not only strategically but also tactically. It did not touch the deep state structure that continuous to be manned by obedient servants of the Greek oligarchy and, on top of that, SYRIZA used more of them in several crucial positions. For example, SYRIZA did not acquire control of the central bank and also accepted or even appointed several ‘men of the system’ in the directorship of commercial banks and other crucial public enterprises. SYRIZA emptied the state coffers by stupidly paying all the due tranches to IMF and the international creditors. Thus, once the referendum was called the EU, in close co-operation with the Greek bourgeoisie, created a condition of asphyxia for the banking sector and obliged SYRIZA to impose very severe capital controls on the very day that the huge mass of Greece’s badly paid pensioners (that support also another big portion of the population) were paid. In this way a referendum that was going to be an easy NO to troika’s demands victory was turned into a close call...

www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/03/the-greek-referendum-and-the-tasks-of-the-left/

[Onyango Oloo]

Position of the Communist Party of Greece:

On the 5th of July 2015, a referendum was held in Greece. The question posed was whether the citizens agreed or not with the proposed agreement, tabled by the EU-IMF-ECB, that will continue the anti-people measures worth 8 billion euros.

The governmental majority of SYRIZA-ANEL rejected the proposal of the KKE for the government’s draft agreement to also be placed before the judgment of the Greek people in the referendum together with the issue of abolishing all the anti-people laws that have been passed in recent years and the issue of disengaging from the EU. At the same time, the coalition government explained that the NO in the referendum is interpreted by the government as approval for its own proposed agreement with the EU-IMF-ECB, which inside 47+8 pages also includes harsh antiworker-antipeople measures, worth about 8 billion euros.

In these conditions, the KKE called on the workers to turn their backs on the false dilemma which was being posed in the referendum, using all appropriate means. The forces of the KKE outside the election centres handed out its own ballot paper to the voters which said:

NO TO THE PROPOSAL OF THE EU-IMF-ECB
NO TO THE PROPOSAL OF THE GOVERNMENT
DISENGAGEMENT FROM THE EU, WITH THE PEOPLE IN POWER

Of course, it was understood that this ballot paper would be counted as a spoiled ballot, but together with the blank ballot papers and the abstention it constitutes a political current that disputes the choices of the SYRIZA-ANEL government and also of the imperialist organizations, with whom the government is negotiating for the needs of capital in Greece.

It should be noted that together with the parties of the coalition government (SYRIZA-ANEL) fascist Golden Dawn also took a position in favour of the NO,, as well as other small nationalist and ultra-left groups, like ANTARSYA.

On the other side, the rightwing opposition ND, social-democratic PASOK that governed until January 2015, together with POTAMI, KIDHSO (the party of the former Prime Minister G. Papandreou) and other smaller bourgeois political forces took a position in favour of a YES which they stated would be interpreted as being consent to “staying in the EU at all costs”.


The final results were the following:




In his first statements after the announcement of the result, D. Koutsoumpas, the GS of the CC of the KKE saluted the thousands of people who responded to the call of the KKE and did not submit to the blackmailing dilemmas i.e. those that cast the ballot proposed by the KKE into the ballot box, a proposal which the government refused to put to the vote in the Parliament, depriving the people of the right to cast it in a mass way into the ballot box.

He noted that in relation to the dubious question of the snap referendum, a section of the people was able to overcome the entrapment and deception and gave a first response, with the spoiled ballot, and also with the blank ballot, while some chose abstention from this process.

The GS addressed himself in particular to those who chose NO, believing that in this way they could stop austerity, that they can answer the anti-people measures and memoranda in this way. He called on them not to be complacent and not to consent to the government’s effort to transform this NO into a YES to new anti-people agreements. He stressed that the KKE extends its hand to them for the struggles against the deterioration of their lives that will begin the day after the referendum.

The KKE issued a similar militant call to those who chose YES under pressure from the big employers, due to fear about closed banks and fear of the consequences for their salaries, pensions and small savings.

The KKE notes that the negotiations promised by Mr Tsipras, based on his proposal, will inevitably lead to a new worse memorandum.

The situation highlights the necessity of the movement and our people adopting the proposal of the KKE for a pro-people way out of the crisis in a mass and determined way. The KKE will be in the frontline of all the struggles of our people in the following period, strengthening, from tomorrow, the anti-monopoly anti-capitalist line of struggle, the rallying around the KKE.



06.07.2015

inter.kke.gr/en/articles/On-the-result-of-the-referendum-Hundreds-of-thousands-of-people-supported-the-proposal-of-the-KKE/

[kamalet]

The owners of Europe and the Euro have decided that they will not be writing off the Greek debt....so the options available to the Greeks is either an extension of the debt to 40 or so years or in the alternative revert to the Drachma. The Olympics were the genesis of the problem Greece faces, but then it could remind the Germans that it bailed them out in 1954 if that appeals to Angela!

[Onyango Oloo]

www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/10/the-man-who-refused-to-play-by-the-rules-the-real-sins-of-varoufakis/

[jakaswanga]

Jul 4, 2015 23:42:11 GMT 3 jakaswanga said:

IS GREECE OUT OF OPTIONS?

i understand there is some concept called 'odious debt'! A device by which the debtor wriggles out of accrued, crippling unpayable debts. The Greek political class, including Syriza, lack the intellectual confidence to synthesise a life outside the Euro. --Bravo the Brits and Norwegians! For the Greeks, the legendary Drachma is a horror scenario! they would rather be sheep slotted to attend a barbecue party as the nyamachoma, and merrily bleating at the prospect! and so they are likely to vote YES tomorrow. They are essentially peasants, and peasants will bear anything, tolerate any abuse from power, pay tribute to the bone, until a revolutionary thought comes to organise them from without. And Syriza is not revolutionary. But of course the situation can make them so! things are in flux.

What did Greece do with the borrowed money to achieve a debt ratio of 180% of their GDP? that is the anatomy of the servitude they now face!

In the event, the Greeks voted a resounding No. 60/40 (% ratio). Some yellow fellows up North within the Eurogroup fainted; confusion reigned, and Angela Merkel looked like a cornered rat as she rushed to weep at Hollande's shoulders. But the nerves of her finance minister Wolfgang Schauble held. He shrugged: 'that will be the drachma for them then. Good luck!' and he ordered Draghi of the ECB in a power-play to send NOT a dime to the Greek banks. These banks were already closed for the week, with withdrawals restricted to 60 euros/day. –-The German was also daring the Americans: If the Yankees wanted the Greeks that much in the eurozone, let them flood her with dollars then, temporarily to use as a currency until the siesta-addicts of the Aegean got their ruins of a house in order, and return to the Euro!

What would Tsipras do!? With no money in the bank.

Exactly what Schauble had thought, and expected. Young Alexis would not dare lead the way out of the Euro. He would not dare declare an economic state of emergency and seize control of all levers of finance, to pave the way for the re-introduction of the new/old currency, the drachma. No, absolutely not, Greeks do not trust themselves to run their country, they want it run for them, within the euro. When push comes to shove, they are in the Euro, and will undergo any amount of German sadism. And so Tsipras, and the whole Greek political elite have reached a consensus and are sending the new Finance Minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, to Brussels with the same package the Troika dictated and which Tsipras and Varoufakis rejected.

The referendum, just as it exposed the Eurogroup as butchers of no conscience nor democratic instinct, has also exposed Syriza as a hoax. Mere slogan mongers.

Yanis Varoufakis was sacrificed to placate the European creditor powers.
Germany let it be known that there could be no possible hope of an accord on bail-out conditions as long as this wild spirit remained finance minister of Greece.
In a moment of condign fury, Mr Varoufakis had accused EMU leaders of "terrorism", responsible for deliberately precipitating the collapse of the banks in one of its own member states. (This is objectively true, of course)
"I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride," he signed off in his parting shot, 'Minister no More'.

Fri Jul 10, 2015
Greek PM Tsipras seeks party backing after abrupt concessions

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras appealed to his party's lawmakers on Friday to back a tough reform package after abruptly offering last-minute concessions to try to save the country from financial meltdown.
With creditor institutions due to deliver an initial verdict on Athens' loan request and reform proposals within hours, euro zone partners appeared to be preparing for a deal at the weekend to keep Greece in the euro zone.
After walking into a party meeting to applause, Tsipras tried to rally his Syriza lawmakers behind the new proposals ahead of a snap vote in parliament expected late on Friday. He urged them to help Greece stay with the euro, but he faced some resistance from leftists stunned by his acceptance of previously spurned austerity measures.
"We are confronted with crucial decisions," Tspiras told his party caucus, according to a Greek official.

What options? Germany did not surrender her legendary D-Mark only to adopt and let the Euro be a form of the old Italian lira, or Greek Drachma, or Portuguese/Spanish Peso, did she? So Draghi of ECB is running the printing press called Quantitative Easing, and is on record as saying he would do anything to save the Euro, but for all that not a dime to Greece, unless Tsipras capitulates. It is Wolfgang Schauble running this show. And Frau Merkel? I told you her nerves broke and she is into Holande for consolation. She is more worried about her legacy than anything else! The Greeks spooked her.

With Greece's banks running out of money and its economy facing implosion, this weekend brings a series of emergency talks over the debt crisis.
On Saturday, eurozone finance ministers meet under the Eurogroup - a forum for discussing monetary policy - to address the Greek plans.
A meeting of eurozone heads of government is scheduled for Sunday afternoon, followed by a full EU summit two hours later
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33473779

[Onyango Oloo]

Greek Communists: NO to new "left wing" memo:

The government of “leftwing” SYRIZA and nationalist ANEL, with the support of the rightwing ND, the social-democratic PASOK (who governed together until January 2015), the centre party POTAMI, is thrusting new unbearable anti-people burdens onto the working class and other popular strata.


On the night of the 10th of July, it placed before the full plenum of the parliament the question of “authorizing” the government to negotiate a new, 3rd memorandum of anti-people measures, posing the following dilemma: the continuation of the anti-people political line or the country’s bankruptcy and an exit from the eurozone.


The Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras defended his memorandum, the Tsipras-memorandum, arguing in essence that the anti-people measures are being taken n order to regain the confidence of the investors and markets.


At 5 in the morning 251 MPs votes for the government’s proposal, while the entire Parliamentary Group of the KKE voted against it. As a whole there were 32 against, 8 who voted “present” and 9 who were absent.


These developments, which reveal once again the true face of the “left-patriotic” government of SYRIZA-ANEL, also expose the unacceptable stance of various forces abroad in recent months, which supported the government, including some communist and workers’ parties, allegedly in the name of “solidarity with Greece”.


Speaking in the full plenum of the Parliament, during the discussion regarding the provision of “authorization” for the government to agree to the new, 3rd memorandum, the GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, addressing the government stressed: “You were always supporters of political amorality, opportunism, which literally and without its deeper theoretical dimension simply means being opportunistic and adventurist.


Just 10 days ago, in this very hall, during the discussion of the proposal for the referendum, the KKE clearly pointed out to you that you were calling on the people to take part in a referendum with a “yes” or “no” that only had superficial differences, as both the “yes” and the “no” meant the acceptance of a new memorandum, perhaps worse than those we have already seen.You adjusted the “no” of the people to a “yes” for the new memorandum.

Something that was confirmed the very day after the referendum, when the rest of the political parties, those that supported a “yes” and those that supported a “no” agreed to a new memorandum which will be even harsher.

We were certain from the beginning that this would happen. Not because we are soothsayers, but because your strategy, but because your programme, your position towards the EU, eurozone and the capitalist unions in general, your position regarding the development path and system that you want to serve, inevitably lead to you to struggle at the side of the EU, ECB, IMF, big capital, the monopoly groups, over how the division of the spoils will be conducted, how you will serve their profitability, how in the end you will reduce the people’s income, how you will economically reduce the price of labour power, how you will suck the people dry, so that the parasites of the system will prosper.”

The GS of the CC of the KKE, in reference of the government’s dilemma “anti-people agreement, i.e. memorandum, or Grexit” stressed that: “The 3rd memorandum will also mean the real bankruptcy of the people. Of course in a somewhat more organized way. We will have barbaric anti-people measures. With the Grexit we will see a rapid pauperization, the people’s bankruptcy together with state bankruptcy, without a way out, still trapped inside the walls of the EU, inside the same old capitalist development path.

This is why all the other parties bear historic responsibilities, especially SYRIZA which is in government today and was trusted by the people.

A real way out from the crisis and development in favour of the workers’-people’s interests require the organization of the people, their full preparation, honest talk, clear programmes and positions so that the people themselves decide to take power and to organize the economy and new society, outside and far away from the imperialist unions, with central planning, with social ownership of the wealth produced by the working class and our people.

All the other options are the failed experiments in social-democratic management, allegedly leftwing governments that manage the system, inside the framework of capitalism, and which after spreading fleeting hopes and false expectations lead the people to great disillusionment, the labour movement to retreat and strengthen conservative and even extremely reactionary trends among the popular forces.”

In reference to the entanglement of the “Greek issue” in the inter-imperialist contradictions, D. Koutsoumpas noted that: “You often present the “cruel” Schauble as the only opponent, Schauble who represents an important section of German capital, and that the friends of Greece from time to time are the USA and the IMF, and now France, focusing on the issue of the restructuring of the state debt.

Neither US or French or German capital are the friends of the people. They all demand the slaughter of the people’s rights and income. The competition between them is being conducted on the terrain of the capitalist crisis and the deep unevenness that permeates the hard core of the Eurozone. The USA and Germany are competing for hegemony in Europe. The IMF, France and Germany over the future of the eurozone. Sections of domestic capital, industrialists, banking and shipping groups are involved in this confrontation.

As long as we are involved in this dangerous web of contradictions all the alternatives will be a nightmare for the people: either the anti-people agreement/memorandum or a state default or a Grexit or even a possible war in the wider region.”

The GS underlined the following as regards the future developments:

“Despite the temporary compromise the tendency for the expulsion of countries remains strong. This does not concern merely Greece but all indebted countries.

The people must not choose between their bankruptcy under the Euro or a bankruptcy under the Drachma.

A decisive solution in favour of the people requires a true rupture that has nothing to do with the fake rupture that certain forces within SYRIZA invoke when they defend the exit of Greece solely from the Eurozone.

Those who claim –including forces of SYRIZA, as well as other nationalist, reactionary forces from another standpoint– that the exit of Greece from the Eurozone, with a depreciated currency, will give impetus to competitiveness and growth and will have positive consequences for the people, are deliberately deceiving the people.

The prospect of Greece as a capitalist country with a national currency does not constitute any rupture in favour of the people. Those political forces that promote this goal as a solution or an intermediate goal for radical changes (such as the “Left Platform of SYRIZA, ANTARSYA as well as other ultra right, fascist forces in Europe) are actually playing the game of certain sections of capital.

So we will not choose whether we will go bankrupt under the Euro or the drachma, under an internal or external devaluation.

For this reason we do not choose between a memorandum and a Grexit.

Because there is an alternative solution if the people struggle for a rupture with the EU, capital and their power.

For example, we can abolish the EU commitments which have caused stagnation in domestic production, from sugar and meat to shipbuilding and many other sectors.

We can utilize the contradictions between the imperialist centres and achieve international agreements of mutual benefit for Greece under people’s power, which will be disengaged from the EU and NATO.

We can pave the way for the satisfaction of the people’s needs if we proceed to the socialization of monopolies, the means of production with scientific nationwide planning of economy”.

Finally, D. Koutsoumpas noted that the KKE called on the working people to organize their counterattack in the streets and the workplaces against the new destructive measures.

In the afternoon of the same day (Friday 10th July) PAME organized mass rallies in Athens and other major cities throughout the country against the 3rd (“leftwing”) memorandum of anti-people measures. The demonstrations were joined by trade unions, People’s Committees, Women’s Associations and Groups, mass organizations and Struggle Committees of self-employed and craftsmen as well as students i.e. by those who are being attacked by the measures of the coalition government. All of them declared: “enough! There is another path in favour of the people”.

D. Koutsoumpas who participated in the mass rally of PAME in Athens stated: “we cannot waste any more time. The working people must organize their struggle, promote their demands and organize the people’s alliance”.