Newswire from Greece III

[Black Cross]

And in the mean time, the imf will keep throwing money at Greece's economy...

http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article...40530?irpc=932

I'm sure this will result in a great boon for all Greeks!

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[cyu]

The vehicle by which Austrian "economics" will be forced upon the world's poor

[Philosophos]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTICRE0EMs8#t=287

An anarchist antifascist social center has opened inside an area of Athens, that until recently predominantly supported the neonazi Golden Dawn party in Greece.

The guys in the video say antifascist slogans as they pass by the streets and they leave graffiti as they pass by (or maybe there were already there I don't know I don't actually live there) with things like "We are here now", "Alkiviadou street, we are open and we expect you" "Antifascist, antiauthoritarian place "Distomo" " and then they continue with some slogans against Golden Dawn captain and vice-captain.

That made my day personally

I don't know if it has been posted again, but i just saw it

[cyu]

Greece is and remains in a Great Depression. Seven years of precipitous falls in income have spawned a humanitarian crisis. In each of these years, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund predicted that recovery was “around the corner”.

their number one priority was to shift gargantuan losses from the books of the private banks onto the shoulders of the weakest of taxpayers. Once this strategy was in place, it was embellished with neoliberal ideology.

What they are afraid is that the twin bubbles that the Berlin, Frankfurt and Brussels so elaborately pumped up over the last year, in the bond and stock markets, so as to pretend that Greece was recovering, would burst. But this is the fate of bubbles: they burst.

There is no doubt that the establishment will throw everything they can at SYRIZA, inspiring the maximum amount of terror in the hearts and minds of Greek voters.

It reveals a deep-seated contempt for democracy and a colonial attitude that makes a mockery of the notion of a Union that respects the sovereignty of its member-states. The European Commission is supposed to be answerable to the citizens of member-states. The citizens of member-states are not answerable to the Commission.

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/12/15...za-government/

No doubt even if SYRIZA wins, the powers that be will still try to bring Greece under control. If they can't win by cheationg in elections, then they'll win with blackmail and physical intimidation. Support for capitalist economics is based on ignorance and lies, and as of now, the ruling class still has no plans to give up their power. And so the world continues to lurch on into darkness.

[cyu]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...unch-criminals

Living at home, Katerina describes herself as an adult forced to live as a teenager, her life put on hold. considering the high numbers unable to afford a place of their own. “No-one is even thinking about getting married or having children.”

In 2010 there were 114,766 live births, and by 2013 that number had declined by almost 20,000. miscarriages at the Leto maternity hospital have doubled over the past year. “Maybe it’s down to stress. There is no proof, but you can see it in the eyes of the people, there is stress and fear for the future.”

a woman he had been treating with IVF came to him one day crying because she was pregnant. She had lost her job and demanded an abortion. But he felt he could not perform the procedure.

Some who have children and are struggling to support them have turned to sex work, to put food on the table. Soula Alevridou, who owns a legal brothel, says the number of married women coming to her looking for work has doubled in the last five years. “They plead and plead but as a legal brothel we cannot employ married women,” she says. “It’s illegal. So eventually they end up as prostitutes on the streets.”

A doctor explains how she also works as an escort in the sex industry to support her family. Her clinic treats three patients a week, but the sex industry enables her to keep up with the rental payments on her home and the healthcare bills for her parents. “I live a double life and only I can know about it. I have applied for jobs in medicine abroad and wait every day in hope of a reply.”

[cyu]

Democracy in Europe

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/01/29...-lack-thereof/

Our Foreign Minister briefed us that he heard in the news bulletins that the EU had approved new sanctions on Russia unanimously. The problem was that he, and the new Greek government, were never asked

[cyu]

Seems these days, the ruling class operates a bit like a burglar who has been discovered.

"Oh shit, they saw me. Better eliminate the witnesses."

"Crap, their kid heard the gunshots. Better kill the kid too."

"Now that I've cleaned up the crime scene, I just need a place to dump the bodies."

"Did that f**king farmer see me drag the kid's body into the woods? Better make sure he's dead too..."

It was all fine when Third-World nations paid for the failures of capitalism. The more it fails, the more they have to dump on people closer to home.

[nomoba]

Support the Greek people's fight against deadly austerity

On Sunday 15/02 the Greek people will demand that their right to freedom, democracy, justice, equality and dignity are respected. These should be unconditional axioms for “civilized” Europe.

Support our efforts which constitute the most crucial fight for democracy, the contemporary Hot-Gates for Greece, Europe and the whole world.


It`s now or never!


Please take the initiative! Organize an event with the same title as this, invite people and send the link here.


https://www.facebook.com/events/905611336125794/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular


https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zT6Kb4WezFQA.kLAUyEABfmRg

http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2...t-against.html

[cyu]

“What is money? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”
- Apologies to Crowfoot

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...ts-plunge-2005

the Troika did everything in its power to accelerate the bank run in order to crush any negotiating leverage Varoufakis may have.

the total amount of Greek deposits has tumbled down 7.7% from the month before, and down 10% since November.

[ckaihatsu]

the Troika did everything in its power to accelerate the bank run in order to crush any negotiating leverage Varoufakis may have.

Hmmmmmm, this doesn't make sense -- the interests of international holdings wouldn't be for a *decrease* in relative solvency (deposits), any more than they would want a bank heist.

How desperate would they have to be to 'pay' in economic capital for the 'political capital' against Varoufakis, in this scenario that's being claimed -- ? And Varoufakis, with all of Syriza, has been *cooperative* with the Troika, *not* using any antagonistic negotiating leverage as is being implied here.

[ckaihatsu]

"Following the Agreement Between the Greek Government and Its Creditors: Questions and Answers" -- by Dominique Ferré (from Informations Ouvrières, February 25, 2015)


[Please excuse duplicate postings; to subscribe/unsubscribe, contact [email protected]]

Following the Agreement Between the Greek Government and Its Creditors:

Questions and Answers

By Dominique Ferré

[reprinted from Issue No. 340 – February 25, 2015 – of Informations Ouvriéres [Labor News], the weekly newspaper of the Independent Workers Party (POI) of France]

What did the Greek government agree to with the European institutions?

The Greek government agreed on February 20 to come up with a "program of reforms" that it will implement in exchange for a four-month extension on funding and "financial support."

Late in the night of February 23, the Greek government sent its program of reforms to Brussels. This program must now be reviewed and approved by the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- that is, the three institutions that make up the Troika. It must then be approved by the finance ministers of the Eurozone.

What "reforms" has the Greek government committed to implement?

As this article goes to press, the detailed program has not yet been made public. The only thing disclosed thus far is an “overview” distributed by the Greek government. It’s a document that the daily French newspaper Le Monde characterized as an attempt to "reconcile two contradictory positions: austerity and anti-austerity."

"Athens promises to wage a fight against tax evasion, corruption, smuggling of gasoline and cigarettes, and the reorganization of the public service to decrease the bureaucracy," in the words of Agence France-Presse (AFP), “while reaffirming a whole series of measures in favor of the poor: free electricity for 300,000 families in need, free healthcare services, distribution of food aid and transportation vouchers for low-income people.”

An illustration of the seemingly contradictory character of the measures to be implemented is the following:

"Privatizations -- which had been excluded categorically from an earlier ‘to-do’ list by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras -- have been reinstated in the new government’s list of commitments, and this includes the port of Piraeus," writes Le Figaro on February 24. The Tsipras government had initially announced a halt to the process of privatization of the port, reversing a concession that been promised by the previous Sampras government to a Chinese company. But, as Le Figaro also notes, there is also a "return of the collective-bargaining agreements and a 200-euro increase in the minimum wage.”

What is the meaning of the "fight against cronyism and corruption" in public administration?

In an interview with the Swiss newspaper Le Temps, Greek Deputy Minister of Administrative Reform Giorgos Katrougalos stated, "I'll make use of the technical advice of the Task Force to deal with cronyism in the public sector, and I will ask ADEDY [the public service trade union] if it would agree to cooperate with this Task Force by accepting its technical assistance, for example, in relation to the system of evaluating civil servants, a system that must be clear and effective.”

“The problem,” Katrougalos continued, “is that previous systems were designed not as tools for a genuine assessment of performance, but rather as an excuse to lay off employees. It is therefore necessary to clearly differentiate between layoffs and evaluation, the latter being a means to improve public administration and not a punishment.”

In this regard, a trade unionist was quoted asking the following question: "With all our colleagues, we fought against the ‘evaluations’ of the Samaras government. Is it the role of trade unions to ‘cooperate’ with the government (whatever its political stripe) and with the international institutions to help them organize a system to evaluate our wages?"

What are the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB), the IMF and the Eurogroup saying about the measures?

On the morning of February 24, the European Commission announced that the list of measures sent by the Greek government was "sufficiently complete to be a valid starting point. . . . We are particularly encouraged by the strong commitment to combat tax evasion and corruption.” The EC went on to add that Greece must now "be more specific in its commitments." The spokesperson for the Eurogroup stated that, "this list is a first step, it is not a new Memorandum."

This balancing act is explained by the fact that the European institutions -- in deep crisis and facing the risk of a meltdown -- need to be able to count on the involvement of the Greek government, without which they cannot carry out their agenda, on behalf of finance capital, against the workers and people of Greece. That was the message of Obama, who on CNN called for "the continued implementation of the reforms” and “the continued payment of the debt" – taking a hard line, but understanding at the same time that everything still could blow up in Europe.

What were the reactions in Syriza?

The New York Times (February 22) ran a lead story under the headline, “Greece’s Leaders Face a Revolt at Home as They Try to Appease Creditors.” Manolis Glezos, a member of the European Parliament for Syriza, recalled the meaning of the Greek elections of January 25, 2015, in which “the people voted for what Syriza promised -- that is, to abolish the austerity plan." Giving voice to the growing anger, he went so far as to state: "I apologize to the Greek people because I participated in creating this illusion.”

But does this mean that the Greek people are back to square one; that they are in the same situation they were in before January 25?

First, as noted by many activists, the Tsipras government -- in keeping with what Syriza had pledged before the election -- has always stated that it would not pursue leaving the Eurozone or breaking with the European Union. On the other hand, nothing has been settled.

Panayiotis Lafazanis, the minister of Transportation and Energy, said: "Any transitional arrangement must be compatible with the government’s program." But that’s the rub: While Brussels and the IMF welcomed some of the measures taken by the Tsipras government, other measurers, such as the return of the collective-bargaining agreements, which had been annulled in recent years, and the raising the minimum wage to its pre-crisis levels pose an altogether different problem. In the words of the French financial daily Les Echos, these measures announced by Tsipras, “destroy the competitive gains achieved with great pains since 2010.”

What have been the reactions of the Greek workers and people?

While not knowing the details of the measures, the workers, youth, and trade unionists expressed conflicting views.

“I'm relieved,” a Syriza voter told Le Monde. “I feared a sterile confrontation that would cut us off from Europe." Her cousin, however, took a different stance: "I voted for them to put an end to austerity -- not for them to extend it for four months or more!"

Within the working class, the announcement of the first measures that represent a partial break with the Memorandum has led many organizations to reassert their demands. Thus, following on the heels of the statement by POE-OTA, the union of municipal employees, ADEDY, the federation of government workers, denounced the drive by the ECB, the European Union and the Eurozone "to ignore the will of the Greek people." The ADEDY statement called for “the cancellation of the Memorandum and all its measures” and for “the immediate cancellation of the debt."

A few hours after the Greek prime minister's speech, one thing is certain: The Greek people have not given up fighting for the mandate that they gave the new government on January 25. Sofia Sakorafa, another member of the European Parliament for Syriza, stated, “The people gave a mandate for the Memorandum to be annulled. We have no political justification to do the opposite.”

[cyu]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...n-french-banks

For the first time in public, though practically the entire world assumed it, an official from The IMF has admitted that the various Greek bailouts were not for The Greeks at all... "They gave money to save German and French banks, not Greece,” one of the Executive Directors of International Monetary Fund told Greek TV.

[ckaihatsu]

First Reactions Inside Greece to the "Reform Program" Approved by the Eurogroup -- by Dominique Ferré (reprinted from Informations


[please excuse duplicate postings; to subscribe / unsubscribe, contact [email protected]]


First Reactions Inside Greece to the "Reform Program" Approved by the Eurogroup

By Dominique Ferré

[Note: The following article is reprinted from Issue No. 341 (March 5, 2015) of Informations Ouvrières (Labor News), the weekly newspaper of the Independent Workers Party of France (POI).]

After the publication of the list of "reforms" that the Greek government forwarded to the creditors of Greece -- and that were "validated" by them -- what is the situation?

In the Greek working class, among the layers of the population that have been hit by five years of policies of social destruction imposed by the "Memorandum," opinions are divided. Many workers who voted Syriza say -- as was the case of these construction workers interviewed by one of our Greek correspondents: "You have to give the government a bit more time. It’s not so simple; they have the entire world against them -- the European Central Bank (ECB), the IMF, the European governments. . . ."

That said, as highlighted by Stathis Kouvelakis, a member of the Central Committee of Syriza, the agreement is not a victory given that "the agreement stipulates that the Greek government will repay its creditors, and on time.” The agreement, moreover, establishes "that the country will accept to be placed under the supervision of the ‘institutions’ – the new name of the Troika[1] -- and that “the government commits itself not to take any unilateral action that could endanger the budgetary objectives set forth by the creditors."

But herein lies the problem, as Kouvelakis noted: "The restoration of labor legislation . . . as well as the rehiring of laid-off public employees, the restoration of electricity for households that had their power cut off, or the reconstitution of the ERT (public radio and television)” . . . all these commitments "have clashed with the dictates of the European Union and the Troika."

And Kouvelakis concluded: "The problem is right there. . . . You cannot break with the policies of austerity and the mechanisms of the Memorandum without confronting the European Union. . . . Any political force that seeks to take issue with, let alone go against, the dominant policy directives in relation to economic policy, must break with such directives; this is an indispensable condition"[2].

But though they may want to "give the government a bit more time," the workers are not about to give up fighting for their demands. On Thursday, February 26, the leadership of the OLME, the teachers' union, was received at the Ministry of Education, where they demanded that the thousands of laid-off teachers be rehired.

It was a face-to-face meeting between a Syriza government minister and the union president, also a member of Syriza, who, as it turns out, had also been laid off. One of our Greek correspondents commented on this meeting as follows: “The Greek unions are not about to throw in the towel.”

It is in this context that one must understand the importance of the vote that took place at the Central Committee of Syriza this past weekend.

Alexis Tsipras[3], came to the meeting to defend the terms of the agreement with the Eurogroup, and he was faced with the vote by 41% of the members of the Central Committee[4] in support of a resolution titled "We disagree with the list of measures signed with the Eurogroup" (with 55% voting against and 4% abstaining). These measures, according to the resolution, are "in total contradiction with the electoral commitments of Syriza. In the coming days, Syriza must immediately enact measures in accordance with its electoral commitments, whatever commitments it may have made to the Eurogroup."

In other words, Syriza must heed the will of the Greek people expressed in the vote of January 25, 2015.

- - - - -

Endnotes

[1] Troika: The European Central Bank, the IMF and the European Union

[2] Concerning the attitude of French President François Hollande, who some in France have called upon to come to the rescue of Greece, Stathis Kouvelakis replied: "You cannot implement a policy of austerity and vote for the anti-labor Macron Law, on the one hand, and provide political help to a country that wants to break with austerity, on the other."

[3] Alex Tsipras, member of Syriza, is the new Greek prime minister.

[4] A vote by 41% of the Central Committee means that the resolution was submitted and approved by forces in Syriza beyond those of the “Left Platform.”

[Ele'ill]

http://anarchistnews.org/content/hun...torious-greece

32 days, the hunger strike became a daily, slow torment of death, in order for us not to make truce with the absolute death of emotional blackmail. An insidious blackmail which authority wanted to impose on us by abducting and keeping our relatives as hostages in prison. 32 days of hunger strike, every fading beat of our heart, reminded us of the promise we made together when we met for the last time, “Let’s go, until freedom …”.

[cyu]

Greece was warned by a group of European Union officials in Brussels it had less than 24 hours to come up with a serious counter-proposal

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...-control-plans

So, what would an anarchist "counter-proposal" be? Clearly not bothering to negotiate with any self-proclaimed authorities at all. Seize the means of production like any good leftists would. Ignore national borders like any good anarchists would. Help leftists in other EU countries seize the means of production by arming them.

What happens to the stock market if leftists are seizing the means of production, or even seem likely to seize the means of production? It would crash of course. There is no value in claiming to "own" something if the employees just ignore the "owner". What would that do to the ruling class if their investment portfolio is almost entirely tied up in the stock market? Panic

[cyu]

When you've got a system built on fraud and corruption, it can be sustained only by more fraud and corruption (and maybe a little violence).

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...s-favor-troika

Greece’s former representative to the IMF said several Greek journalists were “trained” in Washington D.C. in order to support the positions of the IMF and the European Commission in Greek media.

the seminars and training classes took place in Washington D.C., as well as various sessions taking place in Greece.

“Christine Lagarde and other high officials at the IMF contacted me before my testimony before the committee to remind me that members of the IMF are immune from prosecution.”

[Luís Henrique]

Well, it seems that Greece will default, after all. Unless somehow the people votes for austerity in the referendum their government is now calling.

It is time to Europe to concede, or face the consequences.

Luís Henrique

[The Feral Underclass]

Well, it seems that Greece will default, after all. Unless somehow the people votes for austerity in the referendum their government is now calling.

It is time to Europe to concede, or face the consequences.

Luís Henrique

According to a KKE member who has posted in my thread, it is not so clear whether they will default. Apparently that doesn't seem like the option that will be available in the referendum.

[Luís Henrique]

Well, the shit hit the fan.

There is no deal, and Greece will have to take stern measures starting Monday. Likely they are going into a bank holyday, either until next week end referendum, or at least until they can enforce controls on withdrawals.

Greek banks are going insolvent next week; they will need to be either nationalised or saved by the government. Either option needs minting; it looks like the drachma is coming back from Hades' realm.

Either that or some political decision stops the process and restarts the negotiations.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

According to a KKE member who has posted in my thread, it is not so clear whether they will default. Apparently that doesn't seem like the option that will be available in the referendum.

They will default because they do not have the money to pay the loans, not because they will vote for default.

Luís Henrique