"Bread, Peace, Education
The Junta didn't Die in 1973"
“I like Tsipras. He has something fresh
to offer. He has achieved much in the role of official opposition…”
Kostas Karamanlis New Democracy ex- Premier to Vima 24th February 2013
Despite announcing last June, to much fanfare, that this was the
last Saturday before a new anti-Monetary Union dawn, Tsipras has presided over
six months in opposition. In those six months we have seen the future role for
Syriza in action.
They are ECB- IMF
appendages in waiting: they are the Dem Left’s
successors; Maastricht ’s
honourable heirs. Tsipras flip flops on a range of issues: accepting NATO;
accepting a rescheduling of the debts rather than demanding their immediate
cancellation; asking people to stay on the streets whilst being the first to
depart; selling out strikes etc. This has set the tone for what a possible
future Syriza government could look like, assuming an open dictatorship isn’t
declared or a peoples’ rebellion occurs.
In 2012 Syriza grew from 4% electoral support to 27%. This was the
shortest period of time in history, and happened because of the response by
Greeks to the international blackmail and global corporate media attack that
they are the ‘laziest’ ‘most corrupt’ ‘biggest shirker’ nation on Earth. They
refused to prop up bankrupt and corrupt Western banks. But it was due primarily
to the fact that opposition to ‘Grexit’ (Greek exit from the Eurozone) no
longer held sway with a majority of the electorate. The 40% that didn’t vote in
the election knew they were all the same anyway and kept their conscience
clean. But for those who did, the last six months have been the biggest
disappointment in an opposition, possibly ever in Greek history.
Tsipras at the Karamanlis foundation function with Samaras, Papoulias and other 4th Reich Quislings
Tsipras at the Karamanlis foundation function with Samaras, Papoulias and other 4th Reich Quislings
The economic genocide continues apace. There are daily suicides.
There are more than 450,000 families with no breadwinner (in total 1.3 million
people). There is around 30% official unemployment. Probably around 50% of the
population are underemployed; wages have lost around 40-50% of their value.
Hospitals have ceased to function in any meaningful sense. We are in an economic tsunami akin to the period of
war rationing. Within this monstrous situation, which shows no signs of
abating the opposition parties (Syriza, KKE, Independent Greeks etc.) have done
nothing apart from engaging in waffle from the sidelines, or turned
out to make funeral orations after the defeat of strikes led by them: Steelworkers (KKE), Metroworkers (Antarsya), Sailors (Syriza). They drone on
about how in the next life, we will win, but in this one we can only endure
defeat after defeat.
Coordinated campaigns of disorganised resistance and disunity are
their hallmarks. They should register a patent and see if they can continue to
make money on it, for that is all they are concerned about: receiving their
state subsidies as official parties; MP’s sinecures; pension deals as union
presidents, who, if they serve just one term, are pensioned off and so on).
It was the people in their hundreds of thousands who saw off
Papandreou in June-July and again in October 2011 via mass occupations of
squares and disruption of annual military parades. They reduced his party PASOK
to a rump with a rabble rouser, Venizelos, whose nickname is Benito, in charge.
PASOK’s only lament is that Golden Dawn took votes from them. It appears once
more that it will be the people who will get rid of the latest Tripartite
Quisling formation known in Greece
as the Internal Troika. They gave 1 in 3 of their votes to Syriza and what have
they got in return?
Syriza’s Abysmal role in ‘Opposition’
The initial elation by Tsipras and Stamoulis arising from their
not winning the election suggested the possibility that they agreed not to win.
Was there an electronic cooking of the books? After all, the company that
computes the results is owned by Latsis and Vgenopoulos, ship owners par
excellence. With this they would be able to ‘rock
the government in…
legality’. In other words they would be a pliant opposition.
Tsipras’ first big foray in Opposition was to state we will not go back to the Drachma and met with Shimon Perez ex-Premier of the Zionist US airbase going by the name of Israel. This was to guarantee that any oil exploration projects, as was also the case with his friends in the Cypriot Government, would be handed to Israeli companies and that any future president would guarantee their investments.
During Merkel’s visits, despite ex-PASOK MP’s Sakorafa stating that we will stay on the streets so as to end the third round of cuts imposed by the MoU, what did they do? They left Parliament and held their banner outside the steps whilst the rest of the population routinely were teargassed. Despite union members dressing up in SS uniforms and chanting ‘down with the 4th Reich!’, Syriza refused to leave the Parliament, stating that to do so would go against Parliamentary democracy. When hundreds of thousands demonstrate and the desire and need is for them to stay out to win, if there was even a nominal leadership this could be achieved. Instead we have a commitment to Parliamentarism which is beyond even what the parliamentarians are doing. After all, they no longer govern via Parliament, which governs by Executive Decree, signed and sealed by a corrupt President whose nickname in street protests is Papoulia-Julia (porn actress deliberately made famous by the corporate media during the arrival of the IMF so as to confuse sections of the population).
Avoiding all slum visits in Brazil and flipflopping on debt
repayments in Argentina
We then had Tsipras’ long holidays to Latin America to gain international kudos as if the big boys across theAtlantic
aren’t supporting him as the next best hope for their financial sharks who want
their pound of flesh from the decapitated Greek nation. Brazil was touted as a model of
development, the country that not too long ago was bumping off street kids and
has a police force, which to this day, makes the Greek one look like it
operates in the spirit of Gandhi.
We then had Tsipras’ long holidays to Latin America to gain international kudos as if the big boys across the
Tsipras in Brazil, sunglasses for a visit!
In
Brookings Institute and Washington, Tsipras Made in the USA
Tsipras pro-American stance started to reveal itself just six
months after being the main opposition. Whilst not still able to go openly to
the inauguration of a US
President, he was there soon after speaking in one of the most Cold-War
institutes in the USA ,
the Brookings Institute. He said nothing less than that austerity is killing
capitalism and he wanted to save it. According to the German media, one of the
meetings in New York was funded by Soros, that well known financier who always
seeks his pound of flesh against nations when he isn’t actively destabilizing
them culturally.
Metro workers burning back to work papers...
The message back in Greece, in particular after Syriza’s
conference in early December, was that there are two wings in the party: the
‘pragmatist’ wing that sees Obama as a saviour and the ‘left’ party wing led by
Lafazani, which oscillates from saying that it wants the return of a national
currency, to talking up strikes in order to aid in their betrayal when the
government announces another ‘emergency decree’ to ban them.
Tsipras flipflopped on being against NATO, considering it no
longer is an issue under the present dire economic circumstances, despite the
fact that, according to bourgeois commentators such as the Guardian’s Helena
Smith, Greece probably spent around 250 Billion Euros in arms. Tsipras
implies he wants to maintain these payments at all costs, along with Greece’s
external commitments, including soldiers as part of NATO, in Kosovo,
Afghanistan etc - and wherever else NATO decides to invade in the future (even
Greece itself if it comes to it!)
Politicians don’t run Greece, neither does Parliament. So don’t
expect anything from the Fake Left either.
With the Troika in charge of every Ministry; with some banks being
funded by the ECB; with no National Agricultural Bank; with all decisions
regarding ‘national’ economic policy set by Brussels, then Greece is no longer
a state with its own decision making bodies. It has become an EU Protectorate. The fake left refuses
to accept this vital fact in order to maintain its role, which is none other
than propping up the IMF. It does so by its policy of coordinated disunited
resistance, allowing section after section of employees to be dragged into
defeat, kicking and screaming.
Whilst Metro workers and Sailors tore up their militaristic orders from the government to return to work, the union tops brought out lawyers who threatened them with being fired, arguing on the picket line for them to go home. Then we had the despicable spectacle of the fake ‘lefts’ appearing to march back in defeat and give militant sounding speeches about the future ‘struggle’. Lafazanis and Papariga turned up in unison for the sellout, whilst everywhere else they march separately, here they struck together!
Whilst Metro workers and Sailors tore up their militaristic orders from the government to return to work, the union tops brought out lawyers who threatened them with being fired, arguing on the picket line for them to go home. Then we had the despicable spectacle of the fake ‘lefts’ appearing to march back in defeat and give militant sounding speeches about the future ‘struggle’. Lafazanis and Papariga turned up in unison for the sellout, whilst everywhere else they march separately, here they struck together!
Greeks waiting for free handouts from Greek farmers
The mass privatisation and selloffs of Greece will be stopped only
by popular struggle, as occurred in Keratea over the creation of dumpsites
right next to peoples’ homes. Whether we get a new government in the coming
period (Syriza in power with Ind Greeks seems most likely as the KKE is refusing to join Syriza) this kind of resistance will continue because the present government seems to
now be a busted flush.
Samaras’ handing over sea rights to Turkey, wanting to seel the main state owned Greek gas import company to the Americans, despite being offered double by the Russians have all contributed to this inherent national bankruptcy of the internal Troika.
Samaras’ handing over sea rights to Turkey, wanting to seel the main state owned Greek gas import company to the Americans, despite being offered double by the Russians have all contributed to this inherent national bankruptcy of the internal Troika.
The hundred thousand who marched for the umpteenth time in another
24 hour General Strike in Athens on Wednesday 20th February shows that people are
willing to take on the IMF. All that is lacking is the leadership.
Syrizas economics team around Dragasakis announced that due to
budgetary constraints and the delay in assuming power it will
probably be impossible the longer Syriza remains out of power or constitutes
the backbone of a new government to restore the minimum wage as promised to the
pre-Troika period.
26.02.13
Tsipras is to speak at the 15year funeral oration for the founder of New Democracy Konstantinos Karamanlis. From marching with PASOK-Dimar now speaking at New Democracy functions....
03.03.13
Alavanos ex-leader of Sinaspismos wants to found the Party of the Drachma in discussion talks with Antarsya...Kazakis of EPAM...
26.02.13
Tsipras is to speak at the 15year funeral oration for the founder of New Democracy Konstantinos Karamanlis. From marching with PASOK-Dimar now speaking at New Democracy functions....
03.03.13
Alavanos ex-leader of Sinaspismos wants to found the Party of the Drachma in discussion talks with Antarsya...Kazakis of EPAM...
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