On Jul 19, 2015, at 11:44 AM, nathan tankus <[email protected]> wrote:
> [MG] 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." > > I agree with this but I also think they should explicitly say that they are > resigning because they have failed and need to regroup and acknowledge the > difficulty they’ve put the opposition in by handing over the reigns in the > last minute. It would not put the opposition in any ideological difficulty because the opposition supports and has implemented austerity and is awaiting its chance to return to government. It also has a better relationship with the troika than does Syriza, which is not fully trusted because its popular base is strongly anti-austerity. > [MG] 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." > > > the difference is the balance of forces between the two parties negotiating. When the balance of forces is adverse to the point that further struggle is hopeless - yours, Louis’, Heinrich, and Hans’ position - a principled union leadership would demonstrate this to its membership and reluctantly recommend acceptance of the employer’s final offer. It would not mislead its members into thinking otherwise by campaigning for a no vote, only to turn its back on that result the next day and enter into a brief process culminating in its acceptance of a worse agreement than that which was rejected, consistent with its campaign (!!!). I don’t know whether this would be considered fraud or just plain criminal negligence in a court of law. > we want unions because they give workers negotiating strength and leaving the > table will not cause mass death…If a high percentage of the union members > will starve to death as well as all their families you’re damn right i would > want the union leadership to take the deal. Let’s keep the theatrics out of it, shall we? There is a large body of informed opinion in Greece and outside of it, and not only on the left, which doesn’t think a exit of Greece from the eurozone would mean “mass death by starvation” or that the US and the European powers would allow this outcome in order to “punish" Greece. This includes those who don’t advocate for Greece to voluntarily leave the euro. > The point of the union is to distribute and lessen the costs of resisting > your employer. Remember that in the heady days of early Union organizing they > would have a central fund and raise money from sympathetic people to help > support those out on strike. In other words, they had a plan. Thanks. I know some trade union history and have had experience in several of them at the rank-and-file and leadership level. > t’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." > > This completely misunderstands the structure of the eurozone. you need all > the different governments to agree to have a deal and they would definitely > hold out. cutting off ELA is essentially cutting them off from the Eurozone. “Definitely”, you say? How can you be so certain? How do you know this wasn’t merely a threat to secure compliance from a transparently frightened adversary? Were you privy to the tactical discussions of the troika? Finally and again, if the Tspiras leadership and its supporters like yourself were convinced that the balance of forces was so adverse and there were no options open to Greece other than to surrender, why run for office in the first place? And if, to your horror, you discovered the hopelessness of the situation while in office, as the Tsipras leadership is said to have done, why not resign instead of agreeing to impose on your people the very austerity you were pledged to resist? In fact, why form a left-wing party at all in a small country like Greece if you think there is no escape from austerity? You begin by professing your agreement that the leadership should have resigned rather than accept to further ravage the living standards of its people. You then spend the rest of your post defending its actions on grounds it had no other option other to capitulate because of the balance of forces. That’s your contradiction to wrestle with, not mine. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
