Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Sebastian Budgen and Stathis Kouvelakis — Greece: The Struggle Continues

Key Points


Jacobin
Greece: The Struggle Continues
Sebastian Budgen, an editor for Verso Books and member on the editorial board of Historical Materialism, and Stathis Kouvelakis, reader in political theory at King’s College London and member of the central committee of Syriza
ht/ Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism

5 comments:

lastgreek said...

What I find weird is that the SYRIZA MPs who voted NO to the austerity measures in today's vote, including Varoufakis, did not immediately resign after the vote now that the government is officially an austerity government. You know, hard to reconcile the two actions...

Btw ... if anyone here watched the debate in the Greek parliament today, and he/she wasn't sure who was in what party, here's how to tell. The backbenchers with no ties mostly belong to SYRIZA; those with ties belong to the opposition. And as for the 17 MPs of Golden Dawn, who some where ties and some don't, they're seated in the far, right corner of the chamber. Because of where they're seated, they're rarely seen on televised debates -- rarely because the camera rarely zooms out. Why? Because out of sight, out of mind ;)

Peter Pan said...

Did Golden Dawn members vote against the measures? Just curious...

lastgreek said...

Bob,

Golden Dawn MP furiously tears up papers in Parliament over bailout deal

So that would be a NO ;)

Here is the scene where he tears up the papers: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/11741814/Golden-Dawn-MP-furiously-tears-up-papers-in-Parliament-over-bailout-deal.html

Peter Pan said...

Excellent! Thank-you :)

Calgacus said...

Important and enlightening interview:

Nuggets:

So it’s completely irrational to say that the people voting for No were not in the very least taking the risk of a possible exit from the euro if that was the condition for saying “no” to further austerity measures.

The new elections have already been announced — now it’s just a question of when they are going to happen. See also Early Elections 'Very Likely' in Greece as Austerity Reforms Pass Parliament

The discussion, the situation is too complex to summarize, but the key is:
And, in fact, actually the government lost control of its own majority. A majority of Syriza + Anel did not vote for the "reforms", and that is why there'll be new elections in a few months. The Greek drama will have a few more acts soon enough.
Note also his points that the vote was a "symbolic move" that "One of the conditions posed by the lenders was that the proposals of the Greek government had to be approved by the parliament, knowing that this did not make sense. It’s not even strictly speaking constitutional"