politics for the 99%

Published on teleSUR english, by Jerome Roos, Aug 27, 2015.

Far more than regaining state power to exit the euro, the challenge for the Greek left is to build the social power that can sustain a radical rupture.

Now that Alexis Tsipras has resigned, Syriza has split and Europe’s first radical left government has been brought to its knees in less than six months’ time, it is time to reflect. What have the experiences of the past half year taught us? And how does the struggle move on from here?  

The first and most obvious lesson is that there is no space for democracy, let alone for a socially progressive alternative, inside the Eurozone. Of course this was clear long before Syriza came to power, but there were still many among the European Left – Tsipras and his inner circle above all – who seemed to harbor a naïve belief that the monetary union could somehow be made a little bit more humane.

The dramatic failure of Tsipras’ negotiating strategy has now made it abundantly clear that these were, unfortunately, pipe dreams. The Eurozone has its virulently anti-democratic and anti-social nature hard-wired into its institutional framework; the structural constraints on government action – especially for a small and heavily indebted peripheral country like Greece – are simply far too great.

The only way to democratize the euro is to smash it … //

… The real challenge, then, is not just to regain state power and propose Grexit as an alternative top-down solution to the economic crisis, but rather to start building forms of social power that can push for meaningful political transformation from below and create the collective capacity to sustain social reproduction in the face of the serious short-term hardships that the radical rupture of an eventual Grexit would entail.

This means mobilizing society in the streets, workplaces and neighborhoods; it means building those democratic organs of popular power from the bottom up; it means doing away with vertical party structures, actively encouraging popular participation in the political process, and institutionally subordinating leaders to the movement. But most of all, it simply means creating the social conditions under which no leftist leader could possibly consider betraying their democratic mandate again.

Until then, continued calls for Grexit will remain little more than an empty and ineffective campaign slogan.

(full text).

Links:

Governance Matters, on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, Aug 28, 2015;

CEOs Call for Wage Increases for Workers to Address Inequality, what’s the Catch? on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, Aug 28, 2015;

Sweden to open Assange talks with Ecuador, on Axis of Logic, Aug 28, 2015;

Deflationary Collapse Ahead? on Countercurrents.org, by Gail Tverberg, Aug 27, 2015: both the stock market and oil prices have been plunging. Is this “just another cycle,” or is it something much worse? I think it is something much worse …;

A boycott of meat? on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Ahmed Kotb, Aug 27, 2015: calls to boycott meat seem to have reached everywhere in Egypt;

The Kissinger Telcons – New Documents Throw Light on Sensitive Ford and Kissinger Views, on The National Security Archive, by William Burr, Aug 19, 2015:

• President Ford “Offended”, Kissinger “Almost Blind with Rage” over Israeli Behavior during 1975 Talks over Sinai;
• Telcons Reflect US Leaders’ Candid Thinking about Israel, Vietnam, Cyprus, Korea, U.S.-Soviet Détente, U.S. Politics, and Key Personalities of the Period;
• Documents Released by Court Order as Part of National Security Archive FOIA Lawsuit;

Scenes from a tragedy: just another week in Europe’s migrant crisis – in pictures, on The Guardian, by Emma Graham-Harrison and Jim Powell, Aug 9, 2015;

The Four Maladies Of Global Capitalism, on New Left Project NLP, by Adam Blanden, July 17, 2015: What are the key features and dynamics of the global political economy that the left needs to understand? The spectres that haunt the minds of economists today – from authoritarian state capitalism to the growth of ‘welfare dependency’ – are conjured by the peculiar neuroses of the profession …;

Syriza … Defeat. Victory. Defeat. on new Socialist, by Richard Seymour, July 12, 2015: It is gut-wrenching, watching Syriza [the Greek Coalition of the Radical Left] beg, and plead with the creditors not to crush Greece. Too late did they realise that they weren’t negotiating. They had nothing to do negotiate with, no cards to play. They went looking for the ‘good euro’, and found only ruthless, mercenary capitalist enforcers. They sought compromise and were given fiscal strangulation …;

The 1% and the Rest of us, on New Left Project NLP, by Tim DiMuzio, July 3, 2015: Tim DiMuzio discusses his book …;

The Top Secret Trade Deal You Need to Know About, 56.50 min, uploaded by Moyers & Company, Nov 1, 2013 … Bill Moyers discusses the Trans-Pacific Partnership with journalist Yves Smith and economist Dean Baker, then a preview of filmmaker Robert Greenwald’s new documentary Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars. Also a Bill Moyers essay on Obamacare’s rocky rollout.