As for the lamentations regarding SYRIZA's alleged capitulation coming from the left: I'm not sure where these are derived from. Certainly they aren't based on the actual government policies being introduced. As we speak many small steps in reversing the austerity disaster of the past 5 years have been implemented:
--abolishing the entrance fee to public hospitals and making them available to everyonewhether or not they are insured (a big deal in a country where by now > 20% of the population is uninsured) --re-establishing collective bargaining and labor rights and restoring by law the minimum wage (in two steps, over a period of a year, which is indeed a retreat from the initial intentions, but nonetheless a break with the past 5 years of continuous reductions) --the public broadcaster ERT has been reopened and all of its employees rehired. Private TV channels exempted from all sorts of fees and taxes forever are now facing a huge bill and their illegal (and decried even by Freedom House) monopoly over the digital TV spectrum is being ended --also within the year, a number of public employees, most prominently the cleaning ladies of the Finance Ministry (despite obstacles by a reactonary judiciary) will also be rehired, including around 4500 new nurses and doctors to support the decaying health system --primary residences are again protected by law from foreclosure as are savings from confiscations from private debts. And (smaller than initially planned but significant nonetheless) emergency aid (electricity, transportation, housing and food) for the most afflicted has began to be delivered, while banks were forced to follow suit in removing debt burdens from the poorest --meanwhile oligarchs are being brought to justice for tax evasion for the first time ever - with the help of the Lagarde list, tax avoidance by the rich is being addressedconcretely again for the first time, while a deal with Switzerland has been inititiated that will tax depositors there immediately --the corrupt edifice of (oligarch-run) football is being attacked anti-environmental mining is being impeded with the obvious intent of being stopped while the mother company is being prosecuted for tax-avoidance --an instalment plan on tax and social security arrears (vetoed in the past by the troika) has been (quite succesfully) implemented and in fact extended --this government has begun to address corruption on all scales, from procurements to clientelist networks of graft full: http://www.analyzegreece.gr/topics/greece-europe/item/196-michalis-panagiotakis-on-syriza-negotiations-and-compromise _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
