On Jul 18, 2015, at 11:43 PM, nathan tankus <[email protected]> wrote:
> If I were on the position of being a Syriza MP forced to vote on this deal I > would have voted for it. I would have also spent the last six months fighting > the party to make a real plan for exiting the Euro, but given that that > didn't happen I would have voted for it. > > > People misunderstand TINA. TINA doesn't say you need a plan to provide an > alternative to austerity and structural reform, TINA says there is no > alternative en toto. In their vision it is literally impossible to create an > alternative. > > What I'm saying is that they haven't worked to create an alternative, that > doesn't mean there isn't an alternative- it means there isn't an alternative > at this historical moment. This is a huge failure and was not inevitable. it > is one we need to correct, if not for Greece then for the rest of Europe's > periphery. > > I think it's cowardly to not develop a viable exit plan and then vote against > the horrible austerity and complete capitulation on offer. You’re essentially > taking the political benefit of not ultimately being the one making the > decision without the political cost of how this impacts real people. 1. The Syriza government should have resigned and gone back into opposition to continue the struggle against austerity, rather than itself imposing a new round of austerity on the Greek people in concert with its enemies. There are people who regard themselves as “revolutionaries” who never considered this as an alternative and get very agitated when it is presented to them. 2. As we know, the Greek popular classes voted Syriza into office precisely because they wanted an end to austerityThey massively reaffirmed this decision, despite the breakdown of five months of negotiations and threat of dire consequences from the troika, in the May 5th referendum. 4. Had the Greeks voted to submit to the austerity measures demanded by the troika, the government would then arguably have been obliged to approach the troika to resume negotiations on the basis of the creditors’ final offer. Instead, the government abruptly turned against the democratic mandate it was given to reject the austerity measures and handed the heads of its people to their enemies on a platter. 5. Nathan and others would not for an instant tolerate such an act by a trade union leadership, even one self-described and regarded by others as “militant’ or “progressive”. When a membership roundly rejects a final offer from an employer and demonstrates it is prepared to continue the struggle even in the face of great risk, it is considered an act of betrayal for the leadership to then turn around in short order and sign an agreement which is even worse than the one the members rejected. Unfortunately in such cases, open rebellion by a majority of the membership does not necessarily follow; it more typically result in discouragement and continued loyalty to a leadership “which must know better”, characteristic of large organizations. 6. The Syriza leadership is effectively transforming the party into a new Pasok. It’s justifications for bowing to the troika are indistinguishable from those offered by the previous governing social democratic party or, for that matter, from the last right-centre New Democracy government. Significantly, the Syriza leadership has distanced itself from the left wing of the party, which has acted consistent with the Syriza program and the democratic will expressed by the Greek people. Instead, Tsipras et al have made common cause with the domestic and foreign enemies of the Syriza program and Greek democracy. 7. If the Syriza leadership had resigned, there would not be this debate on this list, or, more importantly, in Greece and elsewhere on the European left because the issue (or fear) of an immediate exit from the eurozone would be off the table. There would be instead a united Syriza able to fulfill Nathan’s hope of preparing a Plan B while in opposition. In any case, the threat of Grexit has always been overblown. It’s been mainly a weapon placed in the hands of the troika by the Tsipras leadership which publicly signalled its terror of that outcome from the beginning. It’s doubtful the eurozone leaders would have followed through on the threat even if Syriza declined to capitulate to their demands. The Schauble tendency in the eurozone is still very much in a minority; German exporters and banks have benefited enormously from the currency union; there are legal impediments to expelling a member; and the eurozone majority doesn’t want a Grexit to set an example down the road for Spain, Italy, France, and the smaller indebted countries. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
