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Wings Over Scotland


The art of the possible

Posted on January 26, 2015 by

At this morning’s Wings editorial meeting, we were discussing whether the spectacular victory for radical-left anti-austerity party Syriza in Greece last night was a bit of a beamer for Scotland. After all, the Greek electorate were faced with a lot of the same uncertainties as Scotland was in the independence referendum, except in Greece’s case they’re a lot more real.

syriza

Greeks really don’t know which currency they’ll be using this time next year, or whether they’ll still be in the EU, or whether there’ll be an exodus of big business, or whether they’ll be able to borrow money, whereas in Scotland those were baseless scare stories. Yet voters in the Hellenic Republic didn’t bottle it and decide to leave their fate in the hands of Germany.

But then we realised that was a little unfair.

Because despite their landslide win, Syriza actually only got 36% of the vote. Now, a multi-party election isn’t an exact comparison with a two-option referendum, but it’s an illustration of what can be done.

A significantly higher proportion – 45% – of Scots were brave enough to vote for independence despite a universal fear-storm in the Scottish and UK media, and this year and next year will both see significant elections taking place in Scotland, one of which could potentially determine the government of the UK.

smatrtgreece

If the 1.6m Scots who voted Yes back pro-independence parties this May and next May – and such an outcome is by no means guaranteed – the power they wield could yet be more explosive than anything that’s happened in Greece in the last 24 hours. If there are still any Yes supporters feeling despondent about last September’s defeat, there could surely be no greater fillip for them than Syriza’s triumph.

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  1. 26 01 15 11:44

    The art of the possible - Speymouth
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  2. 26 01 15 13:30

    The art of the possible | Politics Scotland | ...
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187 to “The art of the possible”

  1. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    If we think Scotland was treated brutally by the guardians of hyper-capitalism wait until you see how venomously they undermine the elected socialist government of Greece.

    When it comes to implementing neo-con economic policies democracy is always the casualty.

    Let us never forget: Banks Run the World

  2. yerkitbreeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Interesting though that Greece is likely to be governed by a coalition of far Left and Right parties.

  3. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    It was possible last year and remains possible today.

    Its never too late.

  4. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    It depends. If Greece defaults and resurrects the Drachma then there will be pain in the short term in the service of a better medium to long term.

    If our next referendum is within the pain period expect the media to SCREAM about Greece. It doesn’t have to be entirely accurate either. They can always find people willing to bleat, shill academics etc to tell us how it really isn’t and of course Aunty will be big on how terrible it really is in Greece and be all sceptical about the official figures and utterly ignore why they are doing it, so the same people here will be blissfully unaware.

    I note Sturgeon over the weekend thoroughly squashed any alternative Indy routes like levering a double majority in May and in March 2016. I think she needs to a bit careful not to rule out the use of any weapons in our potential armoury. WM need to think we just might UDI if they push us hard enough.

  5. Snode1965
    Ignored
    says:

    The difference between the Greek situation and ours is a simple one. European Union austerity imposed on Greece has had a MASSIVE affect on the general population. Here in Scotland the more comfortable Thatcherites have not been affected. Perhaps when the next round of austerity digs deep into everyone’s lives, the attitudes towards our Union will change.

  6. Marie clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Sadly Grouse Beater, I think you are correct about what will happen. I just hope that the people of Greece do their own thing and win through in the end.

  7. Flower of Scotland
    Ignored
    says:

    I watched Indy Live last night with Colin Fox and I was so excited for the Greeks! Well done them.

    Fed up already listening to the doom and gloom merchants in the UK media.

    But I’ve got thicker skin now and although no one as yet made any comparisons with the Scottish vote ( I wonder why they have forgotten about us already!) I’m still excited!

    Could this be the start of something? Watch what Spain does next.

  8. Author_al
    Ignored
    says:

    How long before a certain J Murphy pops up and takes the credit?

  9. John G
    Ignored
    says:

    grouse beater hits the nail on the head. However the UK threatened to make independence as hard for Scots as they could, will be nothing to the full weight of the whole EU austerity parties which will be set against Syriza. Need to stand firm and support them as much as possible. perhaps Red Ed(sniggers) will lend his backing to this end?

  10. Bugger (the Panda)
    Ignored
    says:

    @ yerkitbreeks says:
    26 January, 2015 at 10:23 am

    “Interesting though that Greece is likely to be governed by a coalition of far Left and Right parties.”

    Left and right they may be but, the are both Grecocntric at heart not Eurocentric although they both want to stay in the Euro and the EU.

    The inclusion of a right wing party in the coalition may also be a master stroke in sending a signal to the filthy capitalist swine tendency that they will have a “rationale” agenda.

    On %4 this morning they had, by telephone, an economic adviser to Sryzia who is tipped to be their Finance Minister.

    In prefect EWnglish he said that all the positions used against him by the interviewer were positions to go into negotiations.

    They are NOT demandinga debt write-off, as they don’t want to undermine the Euro and wish to stay within it and the EU.

    The present austerity policies forced on them are just increasing the debt Greece has to the ECB in relation to a shrinking economy. They can’t repay these loans, most of them have gone to pay off German and French banks, and it would be better to renegotiate rep[ayment terms to allow the Greek economy to grow and thus be better equipped to avoid a debt default.

    They ain’t daft and are sending all the right signals.

  11. Doug Daniel
    Ignored
    says:

    Muscleguy: “I think she needs to a bit careful not to rule out the use of any weapons in our potential armoury. WM need to think we just might UDI if they push us hard enough.”

    UDI is completely off the table. UDI is for extreme circumstances, and no matter how badly we’re treated by Westminster, the fact is our situation doesn’t come close to that which makes UDI viable – and it likely never will be, because Westminster is too smart for that. They showed that by letting us have a referendum and cheating their way to a win, in contrast to Spain, whose refusal to recognise the right to self-determination is leaving Catalonia with no other choice.

    This year’s election is all about trying to get people who voted No but want a bigger voice for Scotland to vote for the SNP. Labour would love to be able to tell such people that a vote for the SNP is a vote for UDI.

  12. gillie
    Ignored
    says:

    The Greek Spring.

    People rising up against austerity, the old political order and the financial institutions.

  13. Cath
    Ignored
    says:

    Have to agree with Snode. Greece is perhaps showing the limits of what people can be pushed to – their austerity and resulting poverty is far worse than the UK so far. But perhaps it’ll wake the elites up to the fact there is a limit.

  14. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    We manged 45% on an 85% turnout (which is pretty incredible) whereas in Greece it was 36% with a 64% turnout. We did spectacularly well given every dirty trick in the book thrown at us and I daresay that strategic thinkers in Whitehall view it as far too close for comfort.

    We need to build on what we achieved but certainly if we can mobilise the Yes vote on the 7th of May we will rattle their cages because in a multi-party system we will cause mayhem in the ranks of the Naysayers.

  15. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    Mind you her call reported in today’s National for a double majority for the Euro Ref (all parts of the UK must vote in favour, nobody forced out against their expressed will) is canny. If it is conceded then Scotland will keep the UK in the EU. IF England votes to leave can you imagine the fury? They will divorce us!

    However if the issue is not conceded and Cameron has made statements to that effect, if Scotland votes to stay but English votes take us out then the SNP are in a stronger moral and political place to demand a snap IndyRef as a response by pushing this principle.

    Either way if the vote goes the polls currently say they will in 2017 we win either way. They anger us or we anger them: result Independence.

  16. Mark
    Ignored
    says:

    I found the coverage interesting this morning, in spite of all the scaremongering and doom that we were hearing as it became clear a victory was entirely plausible, the coverage today has been fairly positive with people discussing how to move forward and work together in cooperation. I remember having many discussions with Naws where they just wouldn’t believe me that the all the talk and chest beating would end on the 19th.

  17. Craig P
    Ignored
    says:

    What line were the Greek media pushing, I wonder? I suppose even the most ardent Europhile journalist would have had difficulty pushing the line that Greece was getting more back from the EU than it was putting in.

  18. chalks
    Ignored
    says:

    Greece should default on their debts.

    It is effectively no different from what the US/UK etc are doing now, their debts are increasing with no sign of them EVER being paid off.

    It’s a farce.

    Someone will call the bankers bluff sooner or later.

    What’s the point in having unmanageable debt? Tick tock.

  19. Craig P
    Ignored
    says:

    And of course, everything I know about the situation in Greece (which is not a lot) comes from our own media – and who knows what spin has been put on the truth before reaching us.

  20. Graham Macqueen
    Ignored
    says:

    Fair comment Rev,however I would like to point out that it has taken the Greek electorate three elections in the past 6 years to come to the realisation that the family-run career politicians who have governed the last 30-odd years have been working towards the same objectives as those in Westminister. Their remains a lot of Greek people, and not only, who are still fearful of the ‘left’ because of the propaganda that has prevailed for so long. Now, however, is the prime opportunity to lay such fears to rest and work together to prove to the world that their are far better ways to run societies than the current market based system. One which benefits ALL, not the few!

  21. Rev. Stuart Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    “WM need to think we just might UDI if they push us hard enough.”

    We really, really need to absolutely stop saying “UDI” in any circumstances whatsoever.

  22. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    The one’s who need the money the most are charged the most interest by the Banks. Greece should have been given interest free loans.

    Scotland’s position is very different. Scotland raises enough for all it’s needs. It would be in surplus with spending powers. Westminster has secretly wasted Scotland’s resouces. Oil revenues etc.

    Austerity has meant children are worse off. Families have lost £1000 a year. pensioners and singles are no worse off. Although pensioners/students and the most vulnerable have the lowest incomes.

  23. No no no...Yes
    Ignored
    says:

    Democracy in action is a wonderful thing. It’s interesting that they have formed a coalition with a right wing party. I wish them success.

    Back home, we have 101 days until the general election and the SNP is making solid progress compared to the Labour Party.

    Murphy will make a new policy announcement every day, just to keep in the headlines, but nobody believes his branch office student grade politics.

    We need to make sure that the words Miliband, leader and Labour are used at every turn to make sure voters understand who is their boss.

  24. Graham Macqueen
    Ignored
    says:

    Grousebeater. Evidently,banks do run the world, but only because we have allowed them to do so. Whether through lack of understanding, ignorance or even indifference. Collectively, we now have rectified this and since we understand the problem we are therefore in a better position to correct the situation.

  25. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    Interesting how the “Unionist Parties” all appear united in attacking the vote in Greece.

    I do not blame the people of Greece for rejecting austerity. The damage to the world economy was a result of greed in the finance market so why should the poorest in society pick up the tab.

    Time for change – the fact that the Labour Party align with the Tories is a clear indicator on how far they have travelled to the right.

  26. Bruce
    Ignored
    says:

    Sadly I suspect that many YES voters will vote for unionist parties in the GE, most likely Labour. I really hope that I am wrong as the need for change is becoming ever greater since the majority voted to remain a part of the UK. Time will tell but I admire the Greek people who have decided that it’s time for change and possibly thought that maybe things can’t get any worse either way. At least some no longer want to be held to ranson by the banks and the political right. Good for them, I wish some of my country men and women had the same guts.

  27. IAB
    Ignored
    says:

    I was jealous when I saw the news – it should have been us! But it will be. Hail Alba

  28. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    If Scotland is dumb enough to vote for unionist parties in May, just wait and see the austerity measures that they have in store for us after the election.

    All the best, Greece – I really hope you make a go of it. Show em all that neoliberal trickle-down garbage is finished. We don’t have to live off the crumbs from the master’s table, we really don’t.

  29. Kenny Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    I think like the earlier comment that Sturgeon is setting up the position where if we have in out EU referendum and we vote overall out but Scotland votes in then it will be used to drive a new Indyref.

  30. bjsalba
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ll ask the same question here as I have asked elsewhere.

    I would be curious to know how Syriza got its message out. Is it like here where the entire press (newspapers or TV) tow the neo-liberal line?

    As far as I can ascertain, we only hear from people from the Neo-Liberal School of Economics. This morning on Radio 4 was a good example – Robert Peston with a PPE Degree from Oxbridge.

    I now check the CV of these people and automatically discount absolutely anything Mr Peston and people like say.

  31. John Gallagher
    Ignored
    says:

    Just listened to Cameron canvassing on the south cost The new word is that God forbid the world will end if Milliband and (Actually mentioned) The S.N.P. will form the next government I think some English voters might like the idea Than Cameron and Osborne

  32. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    @Bruce
    “Sadly I suspect that many YES voters will vote for unionist parties in the GE, most likely Labour.”

    Happily opinion poll after opinion poll suggests you have little reason to be sad. 🙂

  33. donald anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    Just had a post and video from yet another group of Revolutionary Tourists who want to form a new Party and all should drop everything that we have built up over the years and unite behind them. So they visted Greece and are now experts. How many times have we heard all this before?

    Whilst not disagreeing with their analysis of Greece. I still say that with them unity is not possible just now and it is best to the get the maximun votes for the SNP, the opnoly way to ensure braod support for Independence. The others will have to wait, unless they want us to join the professional splitters. With British left entrists and the like, their own histories show that there is nothing more divisve than their “Unity”.

  34. Devorgilla
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s great news for all of us who want neoliberal austerity politics that serve elites but hammer ordinary folk to end. Here’s Paul Mason, one of the few honest British journalists who ‘got’ the Scottish referendum and that ‘something remarkable is happenning in Scotland’.

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/25/greece-shows-what-can-happen-when-young-revolt-against-corrupt-elites

    Paul’s not sure it signals the end of neoliberalism but he is sure that the Greeks had had the bottle to stand up and challenge it.

  35. Devorgilla
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry, I don’t know how to do that archive thing.

  36. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    This is a victory for the left, not for Greece.

    To be clear, Syriza is a broad rainbow coalition of the left rather than a traditional party. It’s members comprise everything from conservative socialists all the way down to communists and anarcho-socialists. Their links with anarchist groups in Greece are well known and documented…. that would be the same anarchist groups that firebombed a bank in Athens killing 4 people including an unborn child. Syriza have the trades unions in a death grip; they can bring the ports and transport infrastructure to a standstill in less than 24 hours….and regularly do.

    I see nothing but celebration from the left after Syriza’s victory, and not a single post anywhere on social media about who exactly Syriza are. There is much more to them than their media styled charismatic mouthpiece Tsipras, and they are categorically not your average socialist party: they have gone into coalition with Independent Greeks, an unashamedly out and out far right racist group.

    Tsipras’s rhetoric has tempered in recent months, as it became clear that it was possible for Syriza to become more than the quintessential party of opposition that could sneer from the sidelines voting against every government motion without ever having to provide a meaningful and costed manifesto of their own. This tempering has consequently taken him off the Syriza path, one which involved openly advocating a scorched earth economic policy if it meant coming to power and raiding savers’ deposits to prop up the state. This however puts him in direct opposition with the 30% of his party which a radical left and who still openly advocate such policies, making Syriza a coalition that is likely to break from day one. The far left in his party, parliamentarians who can be found hurling rocks and molotov cocktails at riot police on the streets of Athens, will not stand for any capitulation to Europe. They have the power to bring a Tsipras government to it’s knees, a practice they are deftly experienced in through the trades unions.

    So, while the left waits for the hangover to wear off, it might be worth considering what kind of victory this actually is. While it can be seen as two fingers up to the austerity minded technocrats from a weary and angry electorate, we must also consider that the Greeks voted for a party that cannot possibly form a functioning government, and sadder still, that the party that came third at 6.28% was Golden Dawn, a neo-nazi party a dozen of who’s 17 elected parliamentarians are currently in jail pending trial for corruption, armed robbery, assault, attempted murder and murder.

    I love Greece and her people, but I shudder with fear at what is to come next. Before the vote of no confidence some weeks ago, it genuinely felt like Greece was turning a corner. Now, who knows.

  37. Devorgilla
    Ignored
    says:

    bysalba if you read Mason’s article he’s saying it was the young networked generation who used social media to mobilise against the oligarchy, which in Greece they call ‘the entangled’.

  38. Taranaich
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s predictable that trolls like Smart would be so critical of Tsipras. What really gets me are the Guardian-types who extol the virtues of the Greeks bravely confronting the idealogy of Austerity, for daring to try something new, for actually making a bold new step into doing things differently… four months after calling a Yes vote xenophobic, insular, racist, isolationist delusion.

    *Is striving mightily not to get into the bloody UDI thing again*

  39. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    I also wish people would stop using the “UDI” call.

    We will achieve Independence through the democratic process of a referendum. The people who use the UDI banner are providing the unionists with ammunition to damage the campaign.
    I do not want any challenge on the World stage when we become a nation. We will be admired for both avoiding violence and seeking the mandate from the MAJORITY of our citizens.

  40. gillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour’s Socialist Campaign Group have released a statement in the wake of the Greek elections. It has three demands, basically

    1. An alternative to the continuation of austerity and spending cuts till 2019-20

    2. Returning rail franchises when expired to public ownership rather than subjecting them to competition

    3. The need for the restoration of collective bargaining and employment rights as a check against excessive corporate power

    Signed by;

    Diane Abbott
    Dave Anderson
    Katy Clark
    Jeremy Corbyn
    John Cryer
    Fabian Hamilton
    Kelvin Hopkins
    Ian Lavery
    John McDonnell
    Michael Meacher
    Ian Mearns
    Grahame Morris
    Linda Riordan
    Steve Rotherham
    Jim Sheridan
    Chris Williamson

    Do you think other Labour MPs will signing up and declaring themselves as anti-austerity socialist as the UKGE approaches?

  41. arthur thomson
    Ignored
    says:

    Well done Greece and I wish only the best for them. They will be undermined from within by the same kind of people who undermine Scotland; they will be subverted by the USA, the Brits and the security services of their ‘friends and neighbours’; and the money merchants will do all they can to undermine democracy and retake control of the country. From my point of view the ‘mature and dignified’ approach of the SNP has been and is spot on. That is appropriate for Scotland, a nation with a long history. We have no need to go looking for the big punch, we just have to be relentless (to quote a yessir on another site). The apparent ‘chaos’ in Greece will be projected by project fear of course. Only those who are already driven by fear will be affected by that and the support of such people can never be relied on. Scotland is only comparable to Greece in that we share their desire for a better and a more equitable society.

  42. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    @Doug Daniel

    So what happens after a split EU vote in 2017 if Westminster ignores our vote to stay and refuses to let us have a legal referendum in response?

    You say the Catalans have a right to it. In that situation so should we. 2017 threatens just such an extreme and urgent situation.

    I agree all legal and democratic routes to independence need to be out of play and the situation most urgent for UDI to be considered. But that situation is not all that hard to imagine. For eg UKIP want to roll back devolution and take our parliaments away. IF they and the Tories manage enough seats to govern they could implement that. What would we do in that situation? Would the democratically elected Scottish government with a majority of Scottish MPs and a majority at Holyrood meekly go along with that? For a start it would be electoral suicide to do that.

    So that is two entirely possible scenarios where UDI needs to be a live, if nuclear and last chance, option.

  43. Taranaich
    Ignored
    says:

    We will achieve Independence through the democratic process of a referendum. The people who use the UDI banner are providing the unionists with ammunition to damage the campaign.

    See, I still don’t know why you would declare UDI without a clear mandate from the people i.e. referendum. Maybe that’s why the whole controversy confuses me: the only time we’d declare UDI is when it’s something the people clearly want, but for some reason cannot achieve. Right? Because I can easily believe WM being stubborn enough to go the Spanish route even if we got 80% like Catalonia.

  44. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Stevie Cosmic says:
    I love Greece and her people, but I shudder with fear at what is to come next

    If ever there was a perfect example of a post registered by a shill yours is it – a comprehensive demolision job on Greece’s new administration designed to cast doubt upon its integrity, honesty and intentions.

    It also suggests those who voted for the party are blind idiots, their fate is already sealed. Nice. The extreme right has always existed in Greece ever since the military dominated government assassinated all who opposed it. You portray it as something new. It rears its ugly head in Golden Dawn because it has widespread extreme poverty on which to breed. The current draconian EU conditions of loan cause massive unemployment and despair. The only winners are the banks – they get richer.

    And I love the avatar – sunning yourself on a beach while warning of hell to come.

    My advice to the friends in Greece: Don’t be intimidated, don’t be frightened, and recognize that the future can be in your hands if you’re willing to grasp it.

  45. Devorgilla
    Ignored
    says:

    Taranaich, sorry, the Catalans didn’t get 80%. It was only 80% of those that voted. The No voters opposing independence didn’t vote, because it was an unofficial non-binding poll so they didn’t see the need and just stayed away. When the low turnout was factored in, the Yes vote was below 50%,

  46. Jim Mitchell
    Ignored
    says:

    The people of Greece who brought this about have lined up a lot of powerful enemies now, I wish them well for their bravery!

  47. crisiscult
    Ignored
    says:

    re UK ref on EU – does anyone think, as I do, that the media will fall into line if there’s a referendum on EU membership i.e. the anti EU stories will start to fade and the scare stories about leaving will increase? Opinion polls may show right now that the English would vote to leave, but I believe that will change once MSM get going. I hope I’m wrong, because it’d be a great opportunity for a new indy ref if rUK vote to leave and we vote to stay.

  48. r esquierdo
    Ignored
    says:

    Austerity is the biggest scam ever made by man. So is global warming which is another way of extorting taxes.

  49. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    Sigh! People supporting UDI are trying to force the issue. Bad idea. With 45% currently for and 55% against, this would lead to civil war. Don’t go there, we don’t have to, just be patient.

    Listen please – Scotland WILL be independent, but only when the people of Scotland are ready for independence. No sooner, no later. And don’t worry about dirty tricks, the power of the UK establishment and MSM etc etc – when Scotland’s time comes, nothing will be able to resist it.

    IMO, we are still about 5-10 years away from this. Sorry folks, but it will take a few years of more crap, unless the euro referendum creates a constitutional crisis within the next five years. Be patient, we have come so far already.

  50. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Most of the UKOK ConDem cabinet are millionaires. First thing they did when they lost the last GE, award themselves tax cuts and have kept on cutting cutting their own taxes. Proud Scot buts voted for them to stay in control of Scotland and at a local level , SLabour/super unionist City Council Finance boss Wullie Young is a private landlord millionaire in a city that has not built social housing for 40 years. Housing rental in Aberdeen is quadruple that of the rest of Scotland and Aberdeen is nearly bankrupted by same very rich red and blue Tory unionists.

  51. ScottieDog
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T just remembering how YESrs were compared to nazis well here’s the Saudi legacy praised by western leaders…
    http://rt.com/news/226147-seven-facts-king-abdullah/

  52. bookie from hell
    Ignored
    says:

    I booked a Greek restaurant tonight glasgow,so I can have a chat with Jim

  53. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    @Grousebeater

    I live in Greece, have done for 5 years. My wife is Greek and we have a travel agency here. I was here when Pasok took power in 2009, when Yiorgaki went on television and said to the nation ‘pame’..’we go together’. A month later the books were opened and we all knew that Greece was broke, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy at any moment.

    I’ve struggled here. I gave up everything to come and live here because I thought I had a chance at something, but when I did the country fell apart.

    I’ve watched friends and family here lose practically everything in the last 5 years. You have absolutely no idea what Greeks are going through. As far as Greeks are concerned, this is not a recession, this is a robbery, as the troika seek to squeeze every last drop out of this country.

    Perhaps you’re not listening, perhaps you don’t want to. Syriza is not the answer; they were merely another choice on the ballot paper yesterday. I’ve watched Pasok voters go to Nea Demokratia and back, to To Potami, to Aristera, to Syriza and some to the nazi Chryssi Avgi. All of them offering a path, not one of them convincingly.

    In case you missed it, Syriza narrowly pipped the centre right Nea Demokratia while the nazi Golden Dawn came third. These are not unrelated events.

    And I’ll say it again for the hard of understanding; Syriza has just gone into coalition with Independent Greeks, an out and out racist far right group. They rejected coalition offers from other leftist parties and the centre To Potami, a party not of politicians but academics and business men. That tells you all you need to know about Syriza.

  54. Ali
    Ignored
    says:

    There seems to be much celebration about Greece taking a running jump into the dark, which must surely be at least presumptuous? Far too early for celebrating anything! As it happens they are also taking a running jump FROM the dark, so I guess they figure they have nothing to lose.

  55. One_Scot
    Ignored
    says:

    They probably didn’t have the dark art of the British State and the British media conspiring against them.

  56. Christian Wright
    Ignored
    says:

    TRUST IS THE ONLY ISSUE – or – Never miss an opportunity to state the obvious.

    While you need articulate coherent policies, I don’t see concern about Trident or even the NHS, or any other policy issue, as the engine driving the SNP’s explosive growth and electoral popularity – rather is the matter of trust.

    Old and new managements of Labour’s Scotland branch have revealed themselves to be opportunistic, and inclined to say anything and promise everything to obtain power.

    Few now believe they possess any core values. Indeed, the lesson of the referendum was that Labour don’t do values. Their governing ethos is one of expediency in pursuit of self-interest.

    If folks don’t believe you will do what you promise you will do if elected, it doesn’t matter what those promises might be, or how good a fit they might be with targeted focus groups.

    Arguments over policy must be built on an existing foundation of credibility and trustworthiness.

    The only question I’d want voters asking themselves before they decide for whom they will cast their ballot on May 7 is, “Who do I trust to put my interests and the interests of my country (Scotland) first?”

  57. Hoss Mackintosh
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T

    Just wondering if Danny Alexander is going to apologise to his constituents and the rest of the Highlands for opposing average speed cameras on the A9 (SNP Bad means bad policy).

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-30972743

    Speeding down, accidents down and most importantly no deaths.

    Danny – we are waiting for your response…

  58. Doug Daniel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Muscleguy : “You say the Catalans have a right to it. In that situation so should we. 2017 threatens just such an extreme and urgent situation.”

    Not quite. Catalonia asked for a referendum, but was refused. They then held elections with a referendum as the central issue, and were still refused. They then held an “unofficial” referendum, and have still been ignored. They’re now going to turn the 2015 election into an alternative referendum, and only then will they take the UDI route if necessary, because it’s not just a case of going “we’re independent now” and the rest of the world going along with it.

    In contrast, we’ve not even been refused a referendum yet.

    If either the scenarios you mention happen (and to be honest I’m less convinced than I once was that rUK will vote to leave the EU) then we can say “55% voted to stay in the UK within the EU, so now that’s changed, we’ll have another referendum, thankyouverymuch.” That’s when we start on the Catalonia path.

    Quite simply, we don’t have a hope in hell of convincing the rest of the world to accept us as an independent nation while the most recent public vote on the issue went against us.

  59. Taranaich
    Ignored
    says:

    Devorgilla: Taranaich, sorry, the Catalans didn’t get 80%. It was only 80% of those that voted.The No voters opposing independence didn’t vote, because it was an unofficial non-binding poll so they didn’t see the need and just stayed away. When the low turnout was factored in, the Yes vote was below 50%,

    Devorgilla, sorry, but the Catalans did get 80%. Including non-voters in a poll on the notion that they were protesting or didn’t see the need is defeating the entire purpose of voting – not least because even with that turnout, support for independence in Catalonia was higher than support for Partido Popular across the whole of Spain.

    I’m doing my best not to swear, and I’m not saying this to you personally, but there is truly little I despise more than the idea of including non-voters in discussions about a vote.

  60. Gary
    Ignored
    says:

    Not so long ago Greece was heading towards far right extremism after having suffered deeply damaging austerity cuts and changes to their structure enforced by the EU as condition for the loans. They had effectively lost sovereignty. The people decided enough was enough. These conditions are perfect for the rise of the far right and they’ve made the most of it. NF in France, Pegida in Germany, Golden Dawn in Greece, UKIP in England and assorted parties across Europe. If we don’t step back from Austerity we could be headed down the route of Ukraine where the Nazis wrested power from a democratically elected government.

  61. Brian Fleming
    Ignored
    says:

    I wonder if Greece is ‘blessed’ with postal vote(rigg)ing.

  62. boris
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T. The War Game – The Reality Of A Nuclear War – The Harrowing Film Produced By The BBC But Never Shown.

    The movie was so powerful and realistic that the BBC banned it from TV despite the fact that the film had been commissioned by the BBC and had won an Academy Award in l966 for best documentary.

    http://caltonjock.com/2015/01/26/the-war-game-the-reality-of-a-nuclear-war-the-harrowing-film-produced-by-the-bbc-but-never-shown/

  63. Helena Brown
    Ignored
    says:

    Stevecosmic, I just want to thank you for the insider view of what has happened in Greece. When you look at history and what happened in Germany and what brought about the second World War, you think people would have more sense than to impoverish a nation, but no there is no sense being shown. We will see what happens but given what you have said, it looks like we can only expect the worst.

  64. A (reluctant) Labour Member
    Ignored
    says:

    Note also that PASOK, which was once the ruling party and is one of Labour’s sister parties in the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, collapsed to 4.66% of the vote and just 13 seats in the 300 member legislature. A salutary lesson for Labour there, which in Scotland it seems determined to meet with eyes shut and fingers firmly in ears.

  65. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Stevie Cosmic:
    Syriza has just gone into coalition with Independent Greeks, an out and out racist far right group.

    You have learned nothing from your ‘struggles.’

    A basic agreement with the ‘Independent Greeks’ on some policies is decidely not a coalition, not in the accepted meaning of that term, nor is that party as ‘far right’ as you hope people here will believe.

    It is a populist right wing party.

    It has only a few elected in comparison to Syriza, 13 seats against 151 seats. That means the IG party will find it near impossible to implement its electorally rejected immigration policies in toto.

    With only 13 seats it has no mandate.

    What undermines your incoherent argument – full of Nazis under the bed – is your assertion only you see the truth, while all the people, young and old, who voted for Syriza are deluded. We have heard that here in Scotland, black propaganda worthy of fascists.

    Your other problem is your complete lack of any political solution to extreme right wing policies laid upon the Greek people by EU banks, their democratic rights all but removed, diminished by those who intend those rights removed permanently to keep the masses docile and compliant.

    If Syriza is, as you attest, really a right-wing party about to implement all that has been done before, then it is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated by the Right to hoodwink Greeks into thinking they are getting something new and radical.

    Why do they bother when they had Greece already in their grasp? That’s a rhetorical question. Spare me your insult by answering it.

  66. Auld Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    While I’m sorry for the Greeks but let’s not forget that they got themselves into the situation that they found themselves in. A tax system that was in chaos, full pensions at 55, tax dodging was rife, so no matter what we think you can’t run an economy that way and the ECB should have been a lot tougher on their run-away borrowing which broke the ‘Euro’ rules. I just hope that the incoming Government has the courage to do the right thing for their long suffering people.

    Auld Rock

  67. Doug Daniel
    Ignored
    says:

    Auld Rock – aye, tax dodging was rife, but not by the ordinary Greek. Paul Mason did a good article on this last night (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/25/greece-shows-what-can-happen-when-young-revolt-against-corrupt-elites)

    “As for the Greek oligarchs, their misrule long predates the crisis. These are not only the famous shipping magnates, whose industry pays no tax, but the bosses of energy and construction groups and football clubs. As one eminent Greek economist told me last week: “These guys have avoided paying tax through the Metaxas dictatorship, the Nazi occupation, a civil war and a military junta.” They had no intention of paying taxes as the troika began demanding Greece balance the books after 2010, which is why the burden fell on those Greeks trapped in the PAYE system – a workforce of 3.5 million that fell during the crisis to just 2.5 million.”

    Let’s not fall into the trap of blaming ordinary Greeks for the trouble they find themselves in – it’s no different to the situation we’re in here, where corporations and rich businessmen pay little-to-no tax. It’s just a bit more endemic in Greece.

    However, Syriza intend to end this (http://www.channel4.com/news/we-are-going-to-destroy-the-greek-oligarchy-system).

    Besides, it could be argued that the ECB should never have let Greece into the Eurozone in the first place. They should surely shoulder at least some of the blame, the way banks (used to) shoulder the burden when they lent money to someone who couldn’t pay.

  68. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    On a world wide scale people are turning to any form of alternative government to that which has bled them dry for decades.

    The Vast majority of political leaders are out to fill their pockets and stroke their egos.

    The Politicians, the Bankers, the big corporations have a
    hunger for a bigger and bigger slice of the pie, and absolutely no thought for the quality of life of average citizens.

    Fascinating times in which we live.

    If Greece refuses to pay their “Debts”,
    Will the Bankers try to repossess Greece.
    Will they punish anyone supporting them,
    will yet another UK government offer our Troops and Money
    to go in their and take over from these “anarchists” who
    want to put community before cash?

    When people are ignored they very often turn to violence. Could Europe be subjected to EU based terrorist activities This of course would mean the government would need to install Google Boxes in every home, for your own protection you understand.

    We are on a tightrope and the wind is picking up!

  69. Christian Wright
    Ignored
    says:

    UDI – I think we should be open about it. I thought Sturgeon calibrated her answer perfectly.

    We had a referendum and we lost. That’s over. Done. Our focus is entirely on protecting Scotland’s interests at Westminster and achieving greater self-governance WITHIN the United Kingdom.

    There cannot be and there will never be an end-run around the sovereign authority of the Scottish people. All power is derived from them, and it is to them that our Parliament and Government are answerable.

    It is entirely for the Scottish people to decide whether there should be another referendum on independence, and when (and by implication, that de facto, Westminster is not sovereign in this matter, but subordinate to the will of the People).

    Clearly then, it would be inappropriate for the FM to say when or if there will be indyref 2.0. Waivering voters can be confident that if they do lend us their vote and their sacred trust, it will be used only to carry out the mandate they have authorised.

    I was impressed by Nicola’s performance; poised, confident, devoid of hubris, direct, no obfuscation, and impeccable dress sense. Our very own Birgitte Nyborg. What’s not to like.

  70. Paula Rose
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Grouse Beater

    Calm down dear – differing views well articulated make for interesting reading.

    Browbeating does not.

  71. Nana Smith
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T sorry but…

    sign the petition against fracking

    https://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/frackoff/

  72. John Boyes
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry to be adding this so late in the day (and on the wrong thread) but I’m fizzing after watching the full 91 minutes of Osborne and McPherson giving evidence to the Select Committee on Fiscal and Economic Devolution to Scotland.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b050xw7s/select-committees-fiscal-devolution-committee

    Watch it all if you wish but particularly from 55 minutes which I’m sure will be enough to have you in the same state as me. “No detriment” is truly Westminster’s “No surrender”

  73. MJC
    Ignored
    says:

    Greece are currently finding thier feet after being shat on from a very high and mighty system that worships only money. A system that watches weans starve whilst the system feasts. The actual make up of the new goverment will over time settle after predictable policy arguements. Main message should be that human beings that suffer at the hands of greedy self interested bastard WILL eventualy say no more.

    P.S. Most countries are bankrupt,with the mighty USA & UK leading the way. Tis all a sham and a few bankers wet dream.

  74. cirsium
    Ignored
    says:

    as an antidote to the likes of Robert Peston, have a listen to Yanis Varoufakis (who I hope was elected yesterday) at

    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/01/yanis-varoufakis-running-greek-parliament-syriza-ticket.html

    His interview starts 4.00 minutes in.

  75. Murray McCallum
    Ignored
    says:

    When you look at the Olympic Games host cities since we got into the new millennium, it looks like a leading list of financially out-of-control countries:

    Athens 2004
    London 2012
    Rio 2016
    Tokyo 2020

    In the case of Beijing in 2008 it’s difficult to assess as the numbers coming out of China are open to manipulation, but the sheer scale of development in China would suggest they have it covered for the moment.

    The UK deserves to be on any list of countries that pretend to be something they are not. Our current financial priorities may lead us to disaster.

  76. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    @Grousebeater

    Maybe you missed it: I LIVE HERE, I WORK HERE, I SEE THINGS AND HEAR THINGS THAT YOU CANNOT GET FROM WIKIPEDIA OR A GOOGLE SEARCH.

    Independent Greeks have some pretty nasty views on immigrants and foreigners, they are, by any definition, a far right racist party. But then you wouldn’t know that because very little has ever been written about them in English. Syriza had plenty of opportunities to form a much stronger ‘coalition’ from other leftist partners but they refused to work with any of them.

    That’s the real surprise here. Tsipras faces certain revolt from a third of his party if he doesn’t take the hardline that he’s been espousing for the last 5 years. Few people think he can seriously stick to promises he’s made, so the reality is that he needs a strong coalition partner if he is to maintain anything like a stable government, which Greece has been lacking since the crisis unfolded.

    Not once did I say that Syriza voters were deluded. Syriza are deluded, I know that from watching their people on telly every night promising Greeks that under Syriza the minimum wage will be 750 a month, that everyone who’s out of a job will get a position in the public sector, that everyone who was unfairly taxed by the troika’s demands will get their money back, that they’ll tear up the memorandum, that they’ll re-nationalize Pireaus port even though it’s sale to the Chinese has made it the busiest port in Europe and has provided hundreds if not thousands of new jobs . And how will they pay for this? By apparently taxing the shipping and tourist industries to the hilt, the only two industries that are doing well and employing increasingly more people.

    People voted for Syriza because they were the only party capable of coming to power that offered any kind of hope for the future that didn’t involve austerity. As someone who’s been here since the get go, I can fully understand the reasoning behind that vote, but it does not change the reality; Syriza were already a fragile coalition before the election, and now that they are in power the strength of that coalition will be tested to the limit as the real politik sets in. Tsipras cannot steer Greece through this storm without negotiating, and the far left radicals in his party refuse to negotiate. That’s a problem for Tsipras and Greece.

    I don’t have a solution, and I haven’t heard anything remotely convincing from anyone else, but I know this: Tsipras and Syriza HAD to come to power in Greece, because the alternative was just too grim for most people to bear. My own feeling on this is that Greece has reached the critical mass necessary for major change to take place, economically, politically and constitutionally, and in the absence of anything remotely hopeful for the near future, Syriza’s victory was assured.

  77. gillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Ed Miliband offers his congratulations to the left-wing Syriza party on their momentous victory.

    “Just like our elections are a matter for the people of this country, so who the Greek people elect is a decision for them. It is the responsibility of the British government to work with the elected government of Greece for the good of Britain and Europe and not to play politics. And it is up to each country to choose its own path on how to deal with the economic and social challenges they face. We have set out our path for Britain: to make sure our country is fairer and more prosperous and balance the books.”

    ……. er, no …. if that is what congratulations looks like I wonder what a slap in the face feels?

    Ed Miliband cannot comprehend that in times of imposed austerity people will vote to end it.

  78. liz
    Ignored
    says:

    I thought Nicola handled Marr perfectly.
    She has to say there will be no UDI as we are still attracting some of the unionist voters to vote SNP in the GE.

    What is happening in Greece, I’m sure we don’t know all of it, seems to be symptomatic of the way the world is being run.

    The very rich and powerful have been consolidating their position over the ‘austerity years’.

    Whatever their plan is you can bet that it will be in their interests and not in the rest of the world’s.

    Greece will experience the full weight of the EU and vested interests if they dare deviate from the ‘austerity’ plan

  79. Dr Ew
    Ignored
    says:

    @Grousebeater / @Graham Macqueen

    The Bankers do indeed run the world, corrupting every echelon of our so-called democratic systems. Syriza threatens that Power (with a captial “P”) so retribution and attempts at corruption will now ensue, and rapidly.

    Austerity is less about money than Power. From the late 70s onwards and even more since the collapse of the Communist bloc (which offered a kind of bulwark against rampant Capitalism, however illusory and corrupt), a tiny elite has operated with almost complete impunity to shape the world in their interests. Crises in 1987, 2001 and especially 2008 were each presented as a catastrophe of Capitalism; in fact each episode parlayed into a highly successful powerplay by the elite. Our governments are entirely in thrall to Capital, and financed from its deep, deep pockets.

    Much as I respect the current (and recent) leadership, the SNP’s increased power means the party will now be a target for corrupting influences. All the blandishments – directorships, junkets, consultancies, campaign funds – are heading their way. If they resist then the black propaganda will be ratcheted up further, along with huge financial and practical support for the opposition.

    Watching what happens to Syriza and its leaders will be very instructive for our own future, whichever way it goes.

  80. Big Jock
    Ignored
    says:

    Leaving aside the potential dangers associated with Fracking. I have thought about this for a while, and appreciate the economic arguments. However at a time in the modern era, where we are trying to protect what we have left of our environment. I really can’t be anything other than against Fracking. Do we want to start drilling giant holes and opening up fissures below our landscape and towns? It’s a short term solution to an energy problem that is not going away.

    For the same reason I am against re-opening the mines. Again I appreciate we import our coal. But should we still be using coal fueled power stations? Who would want their kids to work in a coalmine?

    No doubt we will hear from big businessmen and Tories, the need for Fracking in the next few months. However it’s environmental vandalism and we must stop wrecking our planet.

  81. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    On the UDI question, whilst I agree with Nicola’s response on the Marr show, and accept that another indyref is by far the most likely route to independence, it is most unwise to say UDI is forever off the table. Circumstances can change, and we have no way of knowing if a future Westminster government will blithely accept the precedent of 2014. In the final analysis the option of UDI must be available.

    The Edinburgh Agreement shot the fox of those who were arguing in the run up to the 2014 referendum that no Westminster approval was required; the constitutional minutiae will still be raked over, but it is certainly not impossible that a future government in Westminster will try to do what the Spanish government are now doing in Catalonia. There were plenty of britnats post No vote calling for future indyrefs to be either banned altogether, or stopped for a generation, irrespective of whether the majority of Scots wanted one or not.

    Accepting the argument that UDI is forever off the table is a hostage to fortune, and one that we simply don’t need to make. Doug Daniel is right – the indyref route is much the most likely, and now has the benefit of a precedent, but it cannot and should not be regarded as the only route.

  82. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Nana

    OK then. 🙂

  83. Joemcg
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry folks cannot see us ever achieving a result through the ballot box with British establishment black ops over seeing operations and what happened in those last few months in the run up.

  84. Christian Wright
    Ignored
    says:

    Boris wrote: The War Game – The Reality Of A Nuclear War – The Harrowing Film Produced By The BBC But Never Shown.

    Saw it at college 1968 I believe – film projector ‘nall. Had a profound effect on me. Went to three showings. At the end there’s a notice saying, if memory serves, that wisemen believe it inevitable that there will be a nuclear war by 1980. A chilling prediction.

    Wonder how it comes across now . . . be interesting to re-view.

  85. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Osbourne and Cameron are terrified of the SNP. MacPherson should get the sack.

  86. Christian Wright
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ken500 – “MacPherson should get the sack”

    I was thinking more along the lines of a criminal indictment and trial in a Scottish court.

  87. Nana smith
    Ignored
    says:

    @Macart

    Oh dear I did sound rather bossy…sorry everyone.

    Meant to say if you would like to sign the petition.

  88. X_Sticks
    Ignored
    says:

    @Nana

    you can boss me around any time you like 😀 Respect.

  89. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Mebbes as a demonstration of solidarity & good-will to the Greek people, HM government should demonstrate willingness, at long last, to return the Elgin Marbles to Athens and throw in Prince Phillip for good measure.

  90. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Nana

    What x-sticks said. 😀

    Oh, and duly signed. 😉

  91. Nana Smith
    Ignored
    says:

    @X_Sticks

    I seem to be the petition pusher today.

    Anyone want to sign this one….

    https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/European_Union_Take_note_of_people_in_Europe_supporting_Syriza_campaign_against_austerity/

  92. Calgacus
    Ignored
    says:

    So the SNP are just going for the feeble fifty route are we?

    We don’t need No voters to win seats. 45% wins any seat.

    Why are we painting ourselves into a unionist corner?

    An SNP majority at Westminster and Holyrood can and will be ignored.

    Full devo max as promised in the vow or we are off. Cheerio 🙂

  93. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Stevie Cosmic: I LIVE HERE, I WORK HERE, I SEE THINGS AND HEAR THINGS THAT YOU CANNOT GET FROM WIKIPEDIA OR A GOOGLE SEARCH.

    I don’t use Google or Wikipedia. The latter is unreliable. I do not recognise the crap written about myself or wife in their pages! I am half-Sicilian – I have visit Greece many times, and studied it fascist administrations. (See Costas Gravas’ film ‘Z,’ a film I doubt you know exists.)

    That said, you end up by agreeing with me; that makes your initial post utterly misleading, posed a handful of hours after Syriza was elected.

    However, you add this:

    Syriza were already a fragile coalition before the election, and now that they are in power the strength of that coalition will be tested to the limit as the real politik sets in.

    The paragraph I quote above is the old tired one – it goes like this: anybody who opposes my opinion is politically immature, while I am a realist. That’s a neo-con neoliberal shibboleth.

    The very reason for Syriza’s existence is because they recognise who the wolves are and what needs done to tame them. Other political entities in Greece see the enemy but do not offer radical resistance to the power of the banks and financiers pursuing a liassez faire ‘free market’ economy based on minimal democracy, temorary employment and unemployment to keep the masses insecure.

    Adding the bleeding obvious as you do, that we must see if Syriza can deliver on its promise, does not constitute political far-sightedness. Of course they must negotiate – sheesh! But what it does mean is, let’s give them the time to make their mark – then judge the outcome.

    The rashness of your early condemnation reminds me of Alastair Darling rubbishing the White Paper ten minutes after its publication, all 650 pages of it.

  94. ronnie anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Nana somebody,s got to be pushy & you do it so nicely, signed no fracking petition.

  95. gillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyone else notice how calm the markets are over the result of the Greek elections. There were dire predictions prior to the election. The Euro has recovered and market analysts are now saying that Germany and Greece will come to an understanding over Greek debt.

    It make you wonder what would have happened if Scots had voted YES.

  96. Fiona
    Ignored
    says:

    http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=30037

    As with the SNP, Syriza is not truly radical, at least in what it currently proposes: See the linked article for an alternative view. Mitchell’s analysis makes sense to me.

    Those who have read the “command paper” tend to focus on the WM veto, but it should be remembered that is based on the imposition of a neoliberal economic orthodoxy in the first part of the paper. One does not need to accept the assumptions made at all: though the current Scottish government, in line with all the other parties does broadly accept it. This is not economic fact, it is politics.

    You may remember the furore in the media when Hungary was said to be imposing a political stance on future governments in perpetuity, and thereby introducing a one party state

    http://thosebigwords.forumcommunity.net/?t=49401491

    To me that is no different from what the command paper does. It is precisely what one would expect in a plutocracy: and that is where we now live

    Greece cannot reject austerity and stay in the EZ: because austerity is built into the financial rules of the EZ. As Mitchell explains in the first link. The idea that one can mitigate the worst effects while maintaining the neoliberal policy stance is nonsense: it is not a matter of tinkering.

  97. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    Abuse is water off a duck’s back to me, but willful ignorance I find insulting.

    Listen mate, I don’t care how many times you’ve visited Greece and what films you’ve seen. I live here, and I see what goes on every day.

    Listen to what I am saying: Tsipras HAS to negotiate, but by doing so he risks revolt from within Syriza. I don’t think you quite appreciate just how radical some of these guys are. They are loonies that prepared to completely trash the economy if it means staying in power, and they simply will not countenance negotiation with Europe. How do I know this? They say it everyday on telly. What does this mean? It means a Syriza government looks doomed from the get go.

    And the sense of shock is palpable here, now that Tsipras is in bed with Independent Greeks, a party who are a bawhair away from being Golden Dawn, who want rid of all immigrants now, all gays now. This is a party that says Greeks are confused because of chem-trails being sprayed by foreign powers. Total loonballs. Tsipras, the guy that wants to go after the ship owners, is now in bed with a party led by Kammenos, a multi-millionaire from a shipping family who personally owns a massive yacht.

    And no, I don’t end up agreeing with you, because everything you’ve said bears absolutely no resemblance to the truth on the ground.

    You sir are an ignoramus, who’s arguments it seems rely solely on ad hominems.

  98. Bingo
    Ignored
    says:

    Amen @steviecosmic (Greek wife here too!). I’m genuinely stunned that Tsipras was willing to sign up with ANEL – Kammennos is an utterly hateful dickhead, in a party full of weirdos. His recent comments about Jews were despicable.

  99. Fiona
    Ignored
    says:

    They are loonies that prepared to completely trash the economy if it means staying in power,

    Just like the Troika, then? Or do you imagine that they have not already trashed the economy?

    Negotiating with the EU will not work (see the link to Bill Mitchell’s article in my previous post)

    Living in a place does not necessarily give you a more factual analysis of the big economic picture: in fact for many people the opposite is true because the media is controlled by special interest groups (For which read plutocrats). We know this to our cost in Scotland – after all we live here 😉

  100. davidb
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Snode early today.

    Its only those in a rent seeking position, and at the top of the food chain who are doing alright. The rapid advance of technology is destroying middle income and middle class jobs in its wake. I’m not surprised upstart parties are gaining in Europe. The elite get richer and the rest of us get poorer irrespective of class. And who at Davos was on the people’s side?

  101. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    StevieCosmic says an amusing thing: You sir are an ignoramus.

    But this is funnier: who’s arguments rely solely on ad hominems.

    Mr Cosmic knows a politician in a party of politicians, who knows a rich man with a yacht, (shock!) who is a sympathiser of fascists and ‘loonballs,’ ergo, by association the party of the first party is a worthless loser.

    Cue Salmond smear: he knows a politician in a party of politicians, who know a rich man who owns golf courses, (shock) who enjoys the company of neo-cons and lunatics, ergo, by association the party of the first party is a worthless loser.

    As I said right at the start – a shill in full spate.

    No respect for Greeks – even on the day of Demis Roussos’ death!

    Cue wail of woe to the gods from Greek Chorus.

  102. lumilumi
    Ignored
    says:

    Have been monitoring the reaction to Syriza’s win here in Finland. While a lot of Finns welcome more lefty politics, they’re conditioned by the main political parties (for domestic political point scoring) and the MSM (for sales) to think Greece has taken OUR billions and are the culprits for the bad state of the Finnish economy at the moment. And now the Greek might not even pay us back! Not very edifying. 🙁

    The Finnish public broadcaster YLE invited comments, asking whether this might see a new rise of leftist parties in Europe.

    I didn’t read all the comments. There seemed to be a lot of rabid xenophobic rightist spew. Predictably the failed Soviet Union was brought up a lot. Sigh.

    I tried to explain the situation in the UK. That a centre-left party, the SNP, has tripled its membership since the indyref, has taken Labour’s place as the main lefty party in Scotland and might sweep it in Scotland, which would cause all sorts of headaches to the rightist, unionist parties (including Labour) in Westmister. Well, I was cautitios and predicted 20-35 for the SNP. Thanks to the undemocratic FPTP system, some of those Labour MPs sit faster than porridge behind a radiator! (A word of explanation: a few years ago some friends of mine renovated their home and discovered their kids had been secretly spooning their breakfast porridge behind the kitchen radiator. It was rock-hard and impossible to shift.)

    As I said, I tried to explain the situation in the UK, with the UKIP eating into the Tory and the Labour vote and also the rise of the Greens and the different electoral system. I don’t think I did a very good job of it in the limited number of charcaters you’re allowed. 🙁 As everyone on Wings knows, I’m verbous. Why use a word or two when you can use ten or twenty?

    We have our own GE coming up in March. It seems the main opposition party, the Centre Party (which is actually centre-right) might regain the ground they lost in the previous GE. The main government party, (moderate) rightist Coalition seems set to lose seats. Their new leader and present PM is just a bit too slick and rightist for Finnish tastes. The moderate centre-left Social Democrats (now in coalition government and actually the largest party by membership) will hobble along. Last GE’s biggest winner, eurosceptic, anti-immigration (lefty) populist party, in opposition, has seen their support sink – thanks to the ineptness and antics of some of their MPs over the past four years. The real left remain a bit fractured and ineffectual but the leader of the Left Alliance is quite likeable and they might gain some ground. The Greens languish at about 8%, a far cry from their heyday of 15% support (in a PR multi-party system!) ten or fifteen years ago. I think we’ll have a slight shift to the left but because of the PR system and coalition governments (which we expect and welcome because of our political system), I don’t think there’ll be any momentous change. The UK GE is definitely more interesting this time around.

  103. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    And now the Greek might not even pay us back!

    That was the propaganda disseminated by the ‘lenders’ to ensure nations were unsettled enough to place great pressure on the Greeks to do as they are told. Remember the completely baseless internet smear – ‘there are more Porches sold in Athens than in the whole of Europe’? All those rich Greeks living it up on Europe’s hard labour!

    Good post, Lumilumi.

  104. Nana Smith
    Ignored
    says:

    http://drillordrop.com/2015/01/26/results-of-votes-on-fracking-amendments-in-infrastructure-bill-debate/

    The Scottish National Party has described Scottish Labour’s policy on fracking as a “sham” as the vast majority of Scottish Labour MPs abstained on a key fracking vote in the House of Commons today.

    http://www.snp.org/media-centre/news/2015/jan/scottish-labour-sham-fracking

  105. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Clootie says: 26 January, 2015 at 11:04 am:

    “Interesting how the “Unionist Parties” all appear united in attacking the vote in Greece.”

    That, Clootie, is exactly what, “Unionist” do – they unite. Thing is – what is it they actually unite against?

    The whole history of Britain, since the Romans first recorded it, has been of different elite ruling classes living off the backs of their slaves, serf or villeins or whatever other term they chose to call the working/slaving classes. That being the term chosen to describe the back of those they needed in order to generate, or increase, their personal wealth.

    There’s plenty wealth in the UK today but it is all in too few pocket while the rest of the country is heading towards food banks. The difference between when I first started work is that they needed their slaves to dig coal, make steel, spin and weave and so on. While today they have automation and the workers, a.k.a. slaves, serfs or villeins are no longer needed to support the elite ruling classes and we, not part of that elite, have all become disposable.

  106. Fiona
    Ignored
    says:

    Further to the point about trashing the Greek economy, this is what has happened.

    https://rwer.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/troika.png

    Try to imagine this in your own town; your own family

  107. Wuffing Dug
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis;
    Excellent
    Calgacus;
    My thoughts exactly, you hit the nail right on the head.

  108. GrahamMacQueen
    Ignored
    says:

    In reply to previous post(s) sent by Steviecosmic:
    As yourself, I too live in Greece and have done for more than 20 years. I don’t know which part of Athens you live in but there was certainly NO feeling of Greece turning any corner over the weeks preceding the failed vote for a new President (BTW, it wasn’t a vote of no confidence, it was 3 failed attempts by the governing parties to vote a technocrat, Stavros Dimas, in as President of the Hellenic Republic) and given the results of yesterday’s election, I think we can safely say we have negotiated the aforesaid ‘corner’ successfully.

    However, that said, of course there is going to be much turbulance ahead and of course Tsipras is going to have to re-negotiate the terms of the memorandum but he shall do so in the interests of the Greek people NOT the financial markets and If I am not mistaken that is the reason for his choice of coalition with P. Kammenos’ Independent Greeks party and cooperation between the two had been discussed before the elections. Given that the other parties were unwilling to undertake the re-negotiation of the terms and given the fact that SYRIZA are 2 seats shy of forming a majority in parliament, Tsipras’ only other option would have been to return to the Ballot Box and hope for a stronger result. There isn’t much point in putting him, or anyone else, down; especially before he has had the opportunity to prove his sincerity and commitment to his word.

    As for your prefered choice of coalition party, Potami were simply formed in order to divert votes away from SYRIZA. If memory serves me well, Theodorakis is from the same area of Crete as the Mitsotakis family (ND) and is said to have ties to former PM C. Simitis(PASOK). Theodorakis’ intentions may or may not to sincere but that in itself is suspicion enough for me to think there may be ulterior motives behind the timing of his party’s formation.

    Another point I would like to clarify is your accusations regarding the Molotof attack on Marfin Bank which ended in the death of several employees. Sadly people were killed but to lay the blame on SYRIZA is definately going to far, especially since the ‘documented proof’ points to the connections between the so called ‘anarchists’ and the police openly collaborating with each other during such demonstrations.
    On any given night you can watch an abundance of crap on the TV, it doesn’t mean it is real, though!!!!!!!!!!!!

  109. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Fiona: Trashing the Greek economy

    Many thanks for the figures – depressing statistics but not a surprise, figures echoed by other nations where neo-liberal economics are forced on people overnight.

  110. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    Ok Grousebeater, if you want to continue making a fool of yourself go right ahead. You, from your armchair in Scotland, are aux faix with every facet of Greek politics having visited the country on a few occassions and having seen a movie, more so than someone who lives and has a business there, who has a Greek family who have businesses as diverse a media, shipping and tourism, and who has a circle of friends that are amongst the best connected in media in the entire country. Fine. Knock yourself out. You’ve said little of any substance and even less that can be backed up by any documentary evidence.

    Here’s my assessment of what I have seen across social media today: Very few people give a fuck about Greece or it’s people. Lot’s of folks are happy that the ‘left’ scored a victory against the man and austerity, but very few care about what the cost of that might be to Greece. I hope the distinction is clear; sticking it to the man is not a victory for your politics when it’s only those in a far off land who actually had the balls to say ‘fuck off’ that are the only ones who are staring into the abyss and taking all the risks.

    Many many people here find it odd that Tsipras has been portrayed as a great white hope by the ‘leftist’ media abroad and that this caricature has gained any traction at all. True, the youth here have rallied to his cause en masse, and who can blame them after being robbed of their birthright, robbed of their future. However a near three quarters of a highly engaged Greek electorate have rejected him.

    No one can predict the future. However it cannot be understated that there are portents and omens of disaster and crisis ahead, because the record of Syriza, which cannot be excised so easily, speaks for itself. As of this moment, it seems their motivation to ‘smash the oligarchy’ is only to replace it with their own, staffed by trades unionists party officials that enjoy 150% of salary for pension. As of this moment, it seems incredible that an anti-austerity party is actually advocating a ballooning of an already despised public sector that is not only inadequate, but comprises innumerable phantom employees that have never done a day’s work but who nonetheless receive either a salary or pension. As of this moment, Tsipras and his band of goons are a joke party that fluked their way into power….now that they are here, they have to deliver, lest they be consigned to the bargain bin of Greek parties forever.

    O Tsipras has tempered his rhetoric. Maybe, just maybe, he might be able to deliver on a fraction of the goodwill he has promised. I have my doubts, which are less about trust and more about how politics work in Greece; his hard left radical colleagues, the guys who did the donkey work in Syriza’s gestation period as a political force, will be a hard faction to please come the real politik of ‘actually’ running a 21st century European democracy.

  111. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    steviecosmic burbles: Ok Grousebeater, if you want to continue making a fool of yourself go right ahead. You, from your armchair in Scotland

    You made you point in your first post, an assassination of Tsipras’ character, made even before he was sworn in. And I made my point. Another loud-mouth, Right-wing denouncer – ready and determined to squash any rebellion of a system that you think, laughably, ‘was about to turn the corner.’

    Justification for your claim of superior wisdom – because you have lived in Greece all of ‘five’ years – is fatuous. Living in a place does not guarantee wisdom. And wisdom you don’t have.

    The dire predicament Greece is in is repeated worldwide, has been for over 20 years, a blueprint for every neo-con ‘experiment.’ It is meant to remain in perpetuity.

    “No one can predict the future,” says the fool, happily wasting reader’s time predicting the future.

  112. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    You know, this is a problem here in Greece too; if you even remotely criticize anyone in any of the socialist or communist parties about absolutely anything, you’re a right wing fascist, even if you are, like me, a dyed in the wool socialist.

    It’s as laughable as you are, my friend. Your almost wholly ad hominem attacks after I criticized your great white hope is indicative of an ideologue who is utterly unable to grasp reality because it jars with your rigid monolithic politics. The arrogance of your assumptions, and assumptions they must be because they bear no resemblance to reality, is nothing short of breath-taking.

    People like you don’t give a fuck about Greece or her people. You’ve made that clear. Your only concern is that someone stuck it to the man, and it doesn’t matter what the consequences are for people who live here, the majority of whom didn’t vote for Tsipras or his nazi friendly coalition partners.

    lolz

  113. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    StevieCosmic: the majority of whom didn’t vote for Tsipras or his nazi friendly coalition partners

    You were busted Post 1.

    Still tarring anybody you don’t like as a Nazi? There’s a difference between ‘Nazi’ and blindly right-wing.

    Greece is grappling with a massive humanitarian problem. Syriza’s objective is to secure an economic policy that does not inflict more suffering on the Greek population, and more profit for the oligarchs who, “viciously suck the energy and the economic power from everybody else”.

    Bank losses, vast reserves they lost by their own greed, are stuck onto the backs of the masses and the very poor.

    Like Syriza, ANEL wants an end to lethal austerity. Once that is achieved we shall see who Syriza allows at table. It might not be ANEL, unless good government tames its interperate tongue.

    Take note: accurately described by the new Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, ‘austerity is fiscal waterboarding,’ akin to the Victorian workhouse.

    End of. (As they say.)

    Get back to your sunbathing on the beach.

  114. Carnyx
    Ignored
    says:

    Stevecosmic said

    “has a Greek family who have businesses as diverse a media, shipping and tourism, and who has a circle of friends that are amongst the best connected in media in the entire country.”

    You are not the only one here with Greek connections and family pal, I know Greece well enough to know that your above passage strongly indicates your family and friends are well invested in the corrupt and pervasive culture of patronage in Greece circulating around ND and PASOK machines and it’s thus hardly surprising your less than overjoyed that your family’s patrons are out of office.

  115. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    StevieCosmic:
    You are not the only one here with Greek connections and family, pal.

    My connection, Carnyx, is the study of Plato, origins of Greek democracy, study of Greek playwrights, Aeschylus, Sophocles, some plays produced on the professional stage, the study of the Greek military junta 1967-74, the rise of Golden Dawn fascism, the films of Costa Gavras, (not to be confused with the commercials of Costa coffee) and of course, the wonderful Melini Mercouri.

    🙂

  116. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m no fan of PASOK either, nor do I have any faith in ND. I’ve had plenty of horror stories relayed to me from people I trust that tell me that those ugly sisters are responsible for a whole host of crimes. I’m a socialist, really, and I should really be supporting Tsipras but I cannot. Syriza has a rap sheet as long as your arm, and Tsipras et al have a very confusing habit of saying one thing and doing another, announcing one policy then withdrawing it the next day. It’s for that reason I can’t bring myself to trust them. What do I think might work for Greece? If the parties of the centre and left could show a united front to Europe, form a strong rainbow coalition that had an anti-austerity agenda as it’s goal, then it would stand a better chance than Tsipras’s constant grandstanding, and his refusal to work with parties that have common ground with him.

    Now to the accusation. How fucking dare you suggest my family are ‘well invested in the corrupt and pervasive culture of patronage in Greece circulating around ND and PASOK machines’

    You think that people work hard for themselves and don’t like Syriza must be ‘well invested in corruption’? Have you any idea just how fucking bat shit crazy that sounds?

    You think that because I cant stand Tsipras and Syriza, that I must therefore be a neo-liberal ‘shill’. Are you fucking demented? I was born and raised in Toryglen, to a poor but working class family that had Labour running through it’s veins. My dad was a union man, shop-steward at the Hoover plant. My mother still works for them at a local level (much to my disappointment).

    Tell you what, how about this. One of my friends here is an anarchist, big fella, who likes nothing more than going out of a night and beating the shit out of Golden Dawn supporters and chucking rocks at Riot Police. By you tow’s reckoning, that must make me a commie at least eh?

    You two are so far off the mark it’s fucking hilarious. I am literally LOL. This is like talking to angry children, pissed off that someone didn’t like their crayon drawing. Grow the fuck up the two of you, and just accept that your opinion isn’t shared by everyone.

  117. Carnyx
    Ignored
    says:

    Tsipras’s constant grandstanding, and his refusal to work with parties that have common ground with him.

    It’s the KKE who refused a coalition with Syriza not the other way around, Syriza would have been in govt from the previous election if the KKE had agreed to Syriza’s offer. The Democratic Left were wiped out after participating in the bailout govt so perhaps you are talking about Potami who are funded by the Bobolas family, owners of Ellaktor, the biggest construction contrator with the Greek state and is thus merely an attempt to continue the Greek establishment’s corruption under a new banner and perhaps keep some former PASOK voters from going to Syriza (same with To Kinima).

    Also I dispute your earlier assertion Syriza control the unions, PAME is the largest union and it’s aligned with the KKE. Syriza have only recently become big and it’s ridiculous to argue they have control as great as the KKE and formerly PASOK.

    You think that people work hard for themselves and don’t like Syriza must be ‘well invested in corruption’? Have you any idea just how fucking bat shit crazy that sounds?

    I think that everyone in Greece has to have a political patron to run a business or get a decent job, but that even goes all the way down to school cleaners. It’s why although Greece is much smaller than the UK, PASOK and ND have/had memberships that dwarf any UK party. Thus when you boast of the good connections of your own circle you clearly indicate you are circulating among those most invested in the system as it is.

    Your argument amounts to “Oh my god Syriza are anarchists and fascists and communists who control the unions but can’t control their own party and will upset the austerity that was finally working”. I’ll tell you what I think the answer is, clean hands who are not fascist, a purge of the entire former Greek political class, an end of the bailout that simply cannot work (the very slight improvement in economic figures is merely the result of EU grants boasting construction, the economy is still in a death spiral), yes Syriza are the best answer on offer, they can’t do it alone, they need support in other parts of Europe but nobody else comes close to offering any answers.

  118. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    steviecosmic: You two are so far off the mark it’s fucking hilarious.

    The entertainment you derive indicates why your responses get successively more and more abusive. I can hear the stamping of tiny feet and screams of fury from here.

    Grow the fuck up the two of you, accept that your opinion isn’t shared by everyone.

    That outburst is perfectly in line with the doctrine behind Greece’s draconian cuts and mass unemployment imposed by the power elite – Freudian slip, or what?

    You haven’t quite got the hang of this social site, chat thing, have you?

  119. Carnyx
    Ignored
    says:

    Grousebeater, I only married a Greek who shared my love for the more extreme edges of primal rock’n’roll, a lot of Greeks without good connections in PASOK or ND ended up having to go abroad and that’s how I met her. I’ve lived there in patches since the late 90’s and am indeed just back from Athens last week.

  120. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Carnyx: I’ve lived there in patches since the late 90’s and am indeed just back from Athens last week.

    I envy you – was there last year – can still hear squeal of car tyres on Piraeus’ bone dry streets late at night. My wife, a painter, refuses to accompany me – prefers France, Spain, and Italy for inspiration. Maybe get her to Corfu one day – the nice idyllic bits!

  121. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    @Camyx, we actually agree on more than we disagree. I disagree about political patronage being the ‘only’ way to get ahead, but I would concede that it is an endemic practice. As to that practice and how it relates to my circle of friends, I’m afraid you are wrong on that count. My background and that of my missus is in the arts, and most of our friends too. We are all natural Syriza supporters, or at least we should be by all accounts, but the fact is that almost all of us don’t trust either him or his party, save for a few exceptions. To be fair, we don’t trust the ugly sisters either. So in that respect, we’re in the same boat as everyone else in Greece: why vote for more of the same?

    Syriza’s union history is shameful, but then the behaviour of unions in even the UK wasn’t always to the benefit of it’s members. Greek marine craftsmen and crew are regarded as the best trained in the world. Thanks to the shenanigans of the unions of BOTH PAME and Syriza, Greek ships are not only seldomly flagged and maintained in Greece, but are crewed by former soviet satellites or sub-continental seamen. That takes thousands of jobs out of the Greek workplace, a country that is steeped in maritime history. If they go after the shipping magnates as they say the will, these guys will just register their businesses in London, and along with them, they’ll take thousands of jobs in insurance, salvage, management and finance. It’s no different to the UK or any other country for that matter, they headquarter in whatever country is best.

    Your last paragraph I am in in almost total agreement with, except that Syriza is the answer. I have laboured to make the point, though evidently not lucid enough, that because Syriza are a broad coalition containing everything from moderates to hardline communists and anarchists, it makes Tsipras’s already monumental task of delivering what he has promised orders of magnitude more difficult, because the hard left of his party are ripe for revolt; hardliners are uncompromising, and compromising is precisely what Tsipras will have to do to steer this country clear of an economic apocalypse. Perhaps you are right and I am totally wrong, maybe Tsipras will shake the whole system up for the better….based on the available evidence, I do not think that is the case. Greece needs a strong and stable government. It doesn’thave that in Syriza unless it went into power with a strong collection of coalitions partners.

    OK, our politics may differ a shade here and there, but we broadly agree that austerity is counter-productive, the old guard are fucking poison, and real sweeping change has to take place. I would agree up to a point that Tsipras is the man for the job, but living in Athens since the crisis unfolded has demonstrated to me that Syriza are, in their own way, just as morally corrupt as the rest of them. I give you Varoufakis
    on the BBC yesterday saying that tearing up the memorandum was ‘ just political posturing’. That was a key promise to the Greek electorate broken within hours of a Syriza win, no different from Cameron on the morning of the 19th September. Yes, it’s a game, but up to a point. It ceases to be merely a game when you’re gambling with peoples’ lives and hopes and futures.

    And to my friend Grousebeater, chronology my dear, chronology. There is a record here, that every fair man be the judge. Let them judge. And there let them judge who was ‘successively more and more abusive’, which in context is yet again, utterly hilarious.

    So, since you’ve been trying to push the frankly ‘pish taking’ line that ANEL are ‘centre right’ ‘populist’ party, here’s a press release from Syriza’s communist faction:

    In Greek
    http://www.iefimerida.gr/news/188692/kommoynistiki-tasi-syriza-atopima-i-synergasia-me-toys-anel

    The same in English, from the commies, lestI be accused of making it up:
    http://www.marxist.com/against-a-coalition-of-syriza-and-independent-greeks-decleration-by-the-communis-tendency-of-syriza-26-january-2015.htm

    And just as a wee addendum to that, ANEL were one of the small clutch of right parties that OPPOSED bringing charges against Golden Dawn. Once again, those charges were variously; corruption, theft, assault, armed robbery, conspiracy to murder, attempted murder and murder.

    And to add insult to injury, Tsipras, who opposed all ND candidates for the presidency thus forcing a vote of no confidence which lead to them being in power, ARE NOW APPROACHING ND FOR A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, EITHER KARAMANLIS OR APOSTOPOULOS.

    Karamanlis took power as prime minister from 2004 to 2009. In that time he managed to DOUBLE the size of both the public sector and the national debt. BY OECD figures, Greece was flush in 2004. At the end of ND’s tenure, Greece was broke, and now Tsipras want’s this guy to be president?

    Yup, great white hope. Who, apparently, can do no fucking wrong outside Greece and amongst Europe’s armchair socialists.

  122. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    StevieCosmic: Syriza’s union history is shameful

    I see you detest not being believed.

    If it achieves a radical renegotation of the terms of the loan and lifts Greece out of despair, it’s a temporary association. You should hear what some of our Tory and Ukip politicians think of foreigners, gays, and Jews, so please, no more of your wanton hypocrisy. In fact, try reading what Labour politicians think of the Scots and the SNP. Sun tan oil has blionded your eyes.

    Your entire argument is based on abuse, abuse of the electorate, abuse of the party elected, abuse of the movement against austerity, abuse of the casualties of a brutal economic system, abuse of those elected to carry out the will of the electorate, and of course, abuse of anybody here who dares asks you to stop shouting wolf.

    Your final wonderfully contradictory insult – we here are all ‘armchair socialists’ – is ripe for ridicule. What the hell are you doing but numbing your fingertips bashing away at a keyboard from the comfort of your apartment or office?!

    That’s some animus you harbour for your fellow man. I suspect it won’t abate until all your ‘enemies’ are eliminated.

    Well, you know what you can do with your trolling and black propaganda. It must be one of the few places in Greece where the sun doesn’t shine.

  123. Graham Macqueen
    Ignored
    says:

    @Grouse Beater
    Please do come to Corfu. I would be more than happy to show you and yours around this truly beautiful island. Maybe the kind Reverend would be good enough to pass my email on to you so as not to display it publicly.

  124. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Graham McQueen: Please do come to Corfu.

    Very gracious. I love that place… tortoise and all. Thank you. I plan to have an e-mail contact address on my blogsite ‘ere long.’ Keep watch.

    What did the banks and the giant finance houses say? “We are too big to fail.”

    What does the new Greek administration say? “Greece is too big to fail.”

    I know which is deserving of support.

  125. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    No it is your argument sir, from the get go, that rested on juvenile supposition and abuse. It goes something like ‘ If you don’t support Tsipras, then you must be therefore be an austerity supporting neo-liberal stooge’ I say to you again: that is utterly laughable, a demonstrable logical fallacy and, shock, is also precisely the argument deployed here in Greece by the extreme left to shut down any debate. In your warped reality, the inalienable rights of the electorate don’t extend to those who criticize Tsipras (and there is much to criticize here), only those who support him: I don’t apologize for having to point out to you that historical precedents have already been set for politicians who are deemed ‘beyond criticism’.

    It doesn’t matter a jot to me whether you believe ‘me’ or not. I am relaying facts as I find them on the ground in Greece, facts reported in live debates on Greek TV (a Greek institution, every night for 2 hours, 4 sometimes 6 guys shouting over each other) and then the ensuing debate among friends and family, another Greek institution. Greece is alive with political chatter, it is impossible to avoid it. We get the facts that are knowable here, and then we decide individually where our allegiances fall. I have a few friends that are staunchly pro-Syriza, and others who clearly are not. Either way, no big deal for me. Your not believing me would be of no consequence to me personally whatsoever. It doesn’t change reality for me or any of the poeple I know. In the absence of any documentary evidence to the contrary, it is merely the argument from self incredulity, another logical fallacy that’s best ignored.

    Your doling out of accusations of ‘abuse’, particularly that of the electorate, the victims and the movement against austerity is not only ludicrous and utterly baseless, it is demonstrably falsifiable. One need only scroll up to see what I ‘actually’ said, rather than your tawdry interpretation thereof, which has all the hallmarks of classic smear, rather than any attempt to engage in what would be considered debate by any rational person.

    Putting Tsipras’s and Syriza’s history aside for one moment, my argument rests on the basis of Syriza forming a strong and stable government in order that it CAN tackle austerity, that it CAN help it’s victims, and that at least some of it’s less audacious policies were deliverable. All the chatter, before and after the election, was all about coalition partners and how that would help stave off internal revolt from hardliners in Syriza and allow the party to present a united front to Europe in order that they negotiate a better deal for Greece. Greece hasn’t had a stable government for 5 years. It was under constant attack (rightly or wrongly), from outside and within, and that in itself has had an enormously detrimental effect on the economy and the governments’ ability to negotiate with the troika. In going into this election saying they won’t work with anybody, Syriza haven’t improved things on that front at all. This government was always going to be a coalition arrangement, and Syriza had within it’s power to make that a strong coalition comprised of reliable and respected partners with which they had common ground. They did not, and that is not only a tragedy for the left working class(to use the words of the Syriza communist branch), they may have missed a once in a lifetime opportunity for the sweeping change that this country needs so badly. I may not be a Tsipras fan, but I believe in the strength of co-operation for the common good.

    I take no comfort whatsoever, none, in all the chatter here about how long the Syriza government is likely to last. That uncertainty has a very real effect on everyone’s lives here, it impacts business, employment, tourism (which hundreds of thousands of working class Greeks depend on for survival), property, et al and wipes out any small growth that Greece has eeked this last year. So, no end in sight for the misery, the unemployment, the uncertainty of getting paid even if you’re lucky enough to have work, the rising bills, the unaffordable troika taxes on fuel and property, the poverty, the homelessness the likes of which I have not seen since I was in India 25 years ago. So yeah, I’m pretty angry at agitating dickheads that can’t get by their rigid politics.

    For you, Greece is a holiday. For me, it’s home.

  126. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    The fearful of democracy at work, StevieCosmic is, as predited some posts ago, back scribbling the exact same incoherent hatred and accusations as his first post.

    But he’s too late.

    The reaction against corporate power and wealth has taken root in most European countries, following the example of South American nation states.

    Let’s look at the reality sun soaked Stevie can’t face:

    “One by one they were rolled back, blitzkrieg-style, mercilessly, ruthlessly, with rat-a-tat efficiency. First the barricades came down outside the Greek parliament.

    Then it was announced that privatisation schemes would be halted and pensions reinstated.

    And then came the news of the reintroduction of the €751 monthly minimum wage. And all before Greece’s new prime minister, the radical leftwinger Alexis Tsipras, had got his first cabinet meeting under way.

    Ministers announced more measures: the scrapping of fees for prescriptions and hospital visits, the restoration of collective work agreements, the rehiring of workers laid off in the public sector, the granting of citizenship to migrant children born and raised in Greece.

    On his first day in office – barely 48 hours after storming to power – Tsipras got to work.

    The biting austerity his Syriza party had fought so long to annul now belonged to the past, and this was the beginning not of a new chapter but a book for the country long on the frontline of the euro crisis

    If Athens’s troika of creditors at the EU, ECB and IMF were in any doubt that Syriza meant business it was crushingly dispelled on today.

    With lightning speed, Europe’s first hard-left government moved to dismantle the punishing policies Athens has been forced to enact in return for emergency aid.

    Measures that had pushed Greeks on to the streets – and pushed the country into its worst slump on record – were consigned to the dustbin of history, just as the leftists had promised.

    The new energy minister, Panagiotis Lafazanis, announcing that plans to sell the public power corporation would be put on hold.”

    And from George Monbiot:

    “Perhaps there was a time when this counsel of despair made sense. No longer. The lamps are coming on all over Europe. As in South America, political shifts that seemed impossible a few years earlier are now shaking the continent. We knew that another world was possible. Now, it seems, another world is here: the sudden death of the neoliberal consensus. Any party that claims to belong to the left but does not grasp this is finished.”

    There is hope in fearless resistance to the power of the 5,000 percent interest money lenders.

    I shall study the Greek spring closely, but expect its fat, over-stuffed enemies to close ranks to do all in their power to undermine its strength of will to fight the corrupt, crooked economic system imposed upon us all.

    Greece stopped voting in fear. Spain will follow, We in Scotland are almost there.

  127. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    At last a break in the clouds, even if it is mired by a veiled though irrelevant attack. ( There is nothing inherently wrong with being sun-soaked by the way, particularly if your income relies solely on travel photography and travel blogging. )

    Your ‘reality’ is very clearly written from a left perspective, and a suspiciously foreign one at that. However, it is not without truth, though that does not alter the facts at hand; Syriza, as it stands, is in a weaker position than it appears to be. However, let’s set that aside and deal with what these articles have covered.

    Privatizations: On this score Syriza are judged reasonably to be correct in their assesment, that the utilities and publicly held assets are being sold off for a fraction of their value. Hence my previous statement, this is a robbery, not a recession. However at least in the case of Piraeus port, it can be seen that since it’s sale to the Chinese, it has become the busiest port in Europe providing employment to hundreds if not thousands of people in a place that was previously in decline. The wisdom of ‘halting’ all privatization must therefore be questioned. A moratorium for sure, but not a policy that everything ‘must remain’ in public hands. Personally, I believe the utilities should stay in public hands; the privatization of public utilities in the UK has been disastrous.

    Minimum wage: You can introduce any minimum wage you want, but you can’t make anyone pay it. How can a small to medium size company that relies on an overdraft for cashflow pay an extra 50% in salaries when the banks wont provide the overdraft in the first place? I know people who haven’t been paid since last summer, so increasing their salary is not likely to make any difference to that scenario, seeing as halting all privitization has wiped 30% off Greek trading in a single day after the election, making it even less likely that banks will lend.

    Scrapping of fees for prescriptions: Great. It was fucking utterly corrupt anyway. And at the level of NI that Greeks pay, the very least they deserve is free prescriptions.

    Work agreements: see small enterprises relying on overdrafts above….doesn’t translate to diddly squat in reality.

    Rehiring of workers: Well they’ve rehired the sacked cleaners from the ministries who’ve been camped out in protest on Servias at Syntagma for over 6 months now. I applaud that, because it was a fucking shocking move to get rid of the people who ACTUALLY worked there, rather than the phantom employees and general layabouts that had jobs due to those ‘connections’ we were talking about earlier. The trouble is, when you re-hire ALL public sector workers that lost their jobs, you are de-facto re-hiring ALL the phantom employees, all the lazy bastards put in post by PASOK and ND through family connections, all the leeches that haven’t done a hand’s turn. Not a great policy by any accounts, but one that has populist appeal.

    Granting citizenship: 110% agree. The fact that ethnic Albanians and Bulgarians born here who pay taxes but don’t have papers is a fucking national disgrace. But I would go further: If Europe continues to ignore Greece’s demands for help with it’s monumental immigration problem, thanks in large part to the Dublin Convention, then Greece should threaten to provide every immigrant with citizenship. Precisely NONE of these people want to be in Greece, they are here through no fault of their own, and if possible, they would get the fuck out of Dodge.

    Biting austerity does not belong to the past. There is still a relatively well turned out guy still sleeping at the bus stop around the corner from me. He was joined, tragically, by a woman who was clearly in her 70s last week. She’s still there too. So are the two old woman begging outside the local supermarket across from the bus stop. I fucking dare you to tell them austerity is over.

    We’ll see what is consigned to the dustbin and what is not. They are yet to meet with EU officials who arrive over the next few days. As Varoufakis says, tearing up the memorandum was ‘political posturing’. What they negotiate is at this point, anyone’s guess, and what the political outcome of that negotiation will be domestically is equally as unpredictable (although the money is apparently on a hard left revolt if any concessions are made). One piece of news cheered me up tonight though, I have a friend in the arts, whom I trust and respect, who knows Varoufakis very well, and says that he is squeaky clean with the very best of intentions. He also has a good reputation abroad, so there is cause for celebration on that front at least.

    Is a Syriza win inspirational? Yes, I fully understand that. Is it necessarily a good thing for Greece? No it is not. It certainly could be, without a doubt, but it does not follow that simply because they were elected that this makes them ‘a good thing’. That equation is ND/PASOK=bad, ergo, Syriza=good. It’s inductive logic, which the sensationalist press outside of Greece are clinging to. Syriza can only be judged on what they deliver, and how much they can deliver is a function of how stable a government they can form.

    Can we expect a rounding from the right, from the rich and the powerful with a vested interest in austerity and profiting from picking at carcass of the Greek economy? You bet your bottom dollar. And Syriza would have been better equipped to stand steadfast had they accepted the olive branch from their colleagues. Perhaps that might still happen, we’ll see. Whatever happens, Greece cannot escape the maw of rampant right wing greed until it’s leaders agree to co-operate.

  128. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    StevieCosmic: Privatizations: On this score Syriza are judged reasonably to be correct in their assesment, that the utilities and publicly held assets are being sold off for a fraction of their value

    You don’t say?

    As I stated at the onset of this little spat, it’s a truth not solely contained to Greece, hence spurious accusations of a lack of experience of such extremes issue only from those making false argument.

    There’s masochism in a man demanding consensus government that will do what he wants it to do, namely, exactly what has been done before at great cost to a nation’s health and well-being by continuing an inhuman, imposed orthodoxy, whilst simultaneously condemning the administration duly elected to alter failed policies, and moreover, he refusing to support it, spreading all sorts of fears and falsehoods before it has implemented a thing.

    He is for consensus government, just not with that one.

    Then again, he condemns himself out of his own mouth when he justifies his rage by branding its members, ‘pinko socialists, commies, and Nazis.’

    That sort of language identifies the liar and thug Post 1.

  129. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Syriza can only be judged on what they deliver…

    Said the man who hung and quartered them before they took office.

  130. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    Again the accusation that, because of my dislike for Syriza, I must therefore be an austerity supporting stooge, a neo-liberal ‘liar and thug’. It’s an utterly fatuous argument that can only have been uttered by an uncompromising ideologue.

    There’s no point in re-iterating what I ‘actually’ said, rather than your twisted interpretation, as you are completely unwilling or unable to grasp the reality. There’s an offer on the table from To Potami to provide the administration with what might be termed a cross party negotiating team for Europe; nb, only for EU negotiations, not domestic legislation. As far as I know, so far the offer has neither been rejected nor accepted. I would hope that Tsipras grabs the olive branch and demonstrates to the technocrats in the EU that Greece is united in it’s rejection of austerity politics.

    You make a big deal of my judging Syriza before they took office. Let’s be clear about when, what is and what is not being judged in this context: It is not, as you clumsily imply, their record in office which can barely be said to exist, but their history in opposition. UKIP have never held power in the UK, but I bet I can find plenty of examples of you judging them, and perhaps many other UK political groups that have never held office, on this very site. It matters little that they are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, only that it is their record of policy, rhetoric or history in opposition that is being questioned. Why are only Syriza and Tsipras exempt from this question, judgement or criticism?

    And this from a man who has the audacity to suggest that austerity is over. Isn’t that also a judgement of a barely sworn in adminsitration? It is also fantasy politics. I again dare you to come to Athens and make that fevered proclamation to the poor.

    And as their record in office does unfold, it should invite nothing but criticism and debate if Greece, at this key moment, is to avoid going straight back to the politics of cronyism and corruption.

    @Graham Macqueen;

    Sorry, I completely missed your first post directed to me. You are of course totally correct that it wasn’t a vote of no-confidence but a vote for the presidency. It did however effectively become one, with Syriza saying weeks out from the votes that they would not support any ND candidate thus forcing a general election. That Karamanlis is now a potential candidate is mental.

    The ‘turning of a corner’ was based on a financial report which I have endeavored to find but cannot, that the Greek economy has shown some furtive signs of growth, that growth being a halt in contraction. In a shitstorm of politics global and domestic, and collapsing oil prices into the bargain, that light was extinguished. I’m sure you’ll agree, that any good economic news is always welcome in Greece, however small.

    I can’t speak to the suspicion you may or may not have about the true motivations of To Potami, only to say that I wholeheartedly welcome the idea of ‘untainted’ new politicians with an academic background. Indeed, that is one of the few things about Syriza that give me cause for some hope, they have some ministers and advisors who are respected academics by all accounts.

    I suspect the choice of ANEL as partners is more to do with state structures and their internal politics rather than any one financial policy. Kammenos’s position as Minister of Defence would seem to support that. It will be interesting to see whether the offer from To Potami will be accepted.

    On the bank’s firebombing, let’s be clear about what I did and didn’t say: I said they have links to anarchist groups, one such group carrying out that attack. As you rightly point out, there are false flag attacks by people associated with the police, and there is documentary evidence that proves this beyond doubt, but it leaves us no closer to catching the culprits because they are being shielded by either the extreme left OR the extreme right. It could have been either true, but that does not change the fact that there are close link between such groups and Syriza.

    But there is another dimension to that story that is an utterly shameful episode in the history of the Greek left. While that bank was burning, there were demonstrators on the street taunting the employees as the flames licked through the windows. A group of protesters stood in the street and prevented the emergency services getting there earlier, an act of wanton cruelty that almost certainly cost lives. How can any reasonable person blame a savings bank employee for the crisis? It’s precisely the thug mentality that’s engendered by the more radical factions of Syriza and KKE that lead to tragedies like this.

  131. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Again the accusation that, because of my dislike for Syriza, I must therefore be an austerity supporting stooge, a neo-liberal ‘liar and thug’.

    None of the bile you express bears scrutiny set against the monumental tasks that confront the new Greek government. You made plain Post 1 you wish them ill.

    Veering from outright condemnation that sticks labels on individuals such as ‘commies’ as a smear tactic, and then wasting readers time with back-pedalling musings on what might come about if Syriza implements its policies, leaves no one in doubt they are reading incoherent opinion.

    Moreover, there’s damn all credibility shouting down a Scottish political site with half-metre long diatribes when we here applaud a dynamic, fresh, radical, progressive approach to the brutality of fiscal and political colonialism.

    I suggest you spend your energies convincing Greeks who, so far, don’t share your animosity.

    Next self-appointed amateur sage, please.

  132. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘None of the bile you express bears scrutiny set against the monumental tasks that confront the new Greek government.’

    Except that it does, if you live in Greece, exposed on an ongoing basis to developments as they unfold, and you speak to Greeks of all political hues on a daily basis.

    Go back to reading your Morning Star or whatever the fuck is informing your frankly deluded view that ‘austerity is over’. Come over to Athens and proclaim that in the squares and let’s see where it get’s you, you utter clown.

    And as for what Greeks think, simple arithmetic (which you find more difficult to deploy than juvenile insults) demonstrates that ‘most’ Greeks didn’t share their brethren’s trust in Tsipras. But of course, you know better. What a spectacularly self-centred and arrogant cunt you are.

  133. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    StevieCosmic: What a spectacularly self-centred and arrogant cunt you are.

    You honour me by confirming my perception of your character.

  134. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    In case it hasn’t revealed itself yet, I can go on. Relentlessly. And I will.

    Come to Athens, ‘brother’, and spread the good news that austerity is over. Once again: I fucking dare you. I double dare you.

    BTW, Your buddy Tsipras has been warning his more radical (literally laugh out loud) colleagues to stop the fuck announcing policies that aren’t sanctioned by the party. You’ll find this all over Greek press, even in the English speaking versions thereof, with a Syriza spokesman putting it down to inexperience. (I’ll post a link if you wish). The words that spring to mind are ‘two bob’.

    So, while you’re celebrating Tsipras RE-employing those public sector employees that were paid-off (actually …..no they weren’t….turns out they were on involuntary leave on 75% pay) it is actually much cheaper than expected, meaning he doesn’t have to sell Crete to pay for it. Shamefully however, Tsipras is still against identifying public sector workers…..so all phantom employees put in place by ND and PASOK over the years get their jobs back………………as do all those associated with SYRIZA unions.

    Way go Alexis. Break the mould….

  135. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    “The Greek election result has shouted loud that we – meaning countries iunder the thumb of neo-liberal fantasy economics – don’t have to accept austerity.

    Two main factors explain Syriza’s success. One was the scale of the economic assault. When the economic crisis swept the globe, the Troika of the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund provided £165 billion of loans to Greece.

    90% of it went to bail out Europe’s banks and hedge funds. The Greek people were left with the bill. Workers faced devastating cuts in wages and pensions.

    Large swathes of the health service were effectively abolished while unemployment rocketed. A recent report from the European Commission admits that those affected by “severe deprivation of basic goods” doubled to one in five between 2008 and 2013. The result of the bankers’ “fiscal waterboarding”, as new prime minister Alexis Tsipras calls it, was soaring rates of homelessness, illness and suicide. But suffering can lead to despair or racist scapegoating. So the Syriza vote is inconceivable without years of relentless struggle.

    This began in December 2008 when people rioted after the police killed school student Alexandros Grigoropoulos. Instead of meekly accepting the demands of the bankers and the bosses, Greeks fought back. There were 32 general strikes, hundreds of smaller strikes, occupations of city and town squares, and student mobilisations. Syriza’s support soared.

    The battles are only just beginning. The ruling class has two ways to deal with the election of radical governments. It first tries financial pressure to threaten economic annihilation unless the new rulers “see sense”. If that doesn’t work, more violent methods can be used.

    The people of Greece have voted to end austerity. But capitalists don’t care about democracy.

    Their power doesn’t live in parliament but in their control of banks, industry, the unelected state apparatus, the police and the army. They will seek to use this power now. The Financial Times on Tuesday of this week admitted, “To service its debt burden would require Greece to operate as a quasi slave economy”.

    But it insisted that Tsipras must compromise. The choice for Syriza is to surrender to the blackmail or to confront the bankers. Tsipras’s choice to go into a “national unity” government with the right wing Independent Greeks is a warning of how he sees the future.

    Austerity will not be reversed without refusing to pay any of the debt, taking over the banks under democratic ownership and encouraging workers’ control in key parts of the economy.

    This is what Greek workers must fight for. And they should use the same methods that have brought them to this success—strikes, mass mobilisations, occupations and democracy from below that can go further than Syriza offers.”

  136. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    Sooo, that’s a quote from where? 1 cent in the euro of bailout money stays in Greece, the rest of it bails out foreign banks. It’s a scam. I have laboured this point for years, as have I laboured the point that Greece was in Fiscal Surplus in 2004, with a debt to GDP ratio of 90% trending down. After 6 years of ND power they doubled both the national debt and the public sector.

    But why an article? Are you so insecure that you are really reduced to this? Reproduction, rather than an ability to actually defend, ostensibly in public? I thought more of you( LOLZ ) .

    It’s pretty emotive language ‘brother’, but as a ‘CITIZEN’, I can tell you that living in a world of strikes, industrial action and reaction is fucking boring, especially when those agitating are the best off. Come here and declare Austerity Is Over. I fucking Double Dare You.

    …..

  137. Graham MacQueen
    Ignored
    says:

    @StevieCosmic

    I would like to make clear a few of the points in your previous reply for the sake of anyone reading and getting the wrong impression based on what you have said.

    Firstly, The proposal for C. Karamanlis to become President was made before the election and Karamanlis himself refused the honour so as not to upset the ND party. It has still to be confirmed, but Syriza is more than likely to recommend former ND Mayor, MP and current EU Commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos. By doing so, Syriza look to replace him on the Commission with one of their own members and thus gain a very strong position within the Commission itself.

    Secondly, of course economic growth is desired, but not at the expense of the country and its people. Financial reports have been compiled to include infrastructure grants given by the EU in order to hoodwink the layman into thinking that prosperity is ‘just around the corner’. Such reports do not give a true picture of the state of the economy.

    Thirdly, I strongly feel the need to clarify your continuous false claims regarding the unfortunate deaths of the Marfin Bank employees. While I completely agree with you that such an attack was unjustifiable and despicable, I refuse to allow you to wrongfully lay blame on those you persistently accuse.

    Present-day Syriza was formed in July 2013. Before then they operated as smaller parties; the largest being SYNASPISMOS. Therefore, to lay claim that SYRIZA was responsible is absurd given the molotof attack took place in May 2010, which was 3 years prior to their formation. The demonstration in which the attack took place was organised by the 3 main trade unions,PAME, ADEDY and GSEE and each are of different political persuasions. The rallye was also attended by thousands who had no connection to any of these unions whatsoever. Therefore, it is practically impossible to say that a group ‘closely linked’ to Syriza is responsible; and given that the police arrested and charged two people claiming to be self-proclaimed ‘antiauthortitarians’ for the attack in 2011, this should be evidence enough to lay your claim to rest. But please do not just take my word for it, do the necessary research!
    Indeed, the EMS where hindered in their approach to the bank on Stadiou St. but given the shear numbers of protesters attending the demonstration, I fail to see how you, or anyone else, can point the finger at the suppossed ‘radical factions of Syriza and KKE’ for such a tragedy and as for your accussation of demonstrators ‘taunting the employees as the flames licked through the windows’ this is not my recollection of events. Demonstrators were actually trying to help the employees flee the burning building from a balcony on the first and second floor to the safety of the adjacent building. The employees were unable to flee the building through the entrance because it had been locked by the manager who had previously been told that the employees were NOT allowed to leave the building by their employers. The CEO of Marfin Bank, head of security and the manager of the Stadiou Street branch were all found guilty of manslaughter through negligence and causing bodily harm.

    I sincerely hope this clarifies any misconception you may have as to who was actually to blame. Next time, check out the facts before traducing anybody.

  138. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Graham MacQueen

    Thank you for an excellent counter attack on a sociopathic troll’s frenzied accusations.

    I love his argument, summed up as: some Greeks are okay, most are scum. I trust he treats his wife as the former.

    Above all, I am delighted to see him frantically sacrifice sleep posting at 02.54 in the morning to satisfy his vainglorious ego.

    🙂

  139. Hobbit
    Ignored
    says:

    How did the Greek government get so hopelessly in debt in the first place?

  140. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Graham

    This caught my attention. Can’t imagine any member of Scotland’s parliament arriving at Holyrood for a major meeting on a cool motorbike though I wish it would happen. It would be great if stuffy politicians ditched the tyranny of the suit and tie, and arrived at work in tidy but casual attire. Bsack in the day in the UK arriving at work in a pair of suede shoes, (‘brothel creepers’) got you sent home and a black mark on your progress report.

    You probably know President Jose Mujica of Uruquay uses a battered old VW Beetle he has had most of his working life as a modest farmer. He refused a $1 million offer to buy it from some idiot Saudi prince, anyhow… I digress.

    Here’s the headline I spotted.

    “The finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, arrived on a 1300cc Yamaha bike for a meeting with PM Alexis Tsipras.”

    Talk about throwing off the old hackneyed images! Amazing.

    The two men are conferring ahead of their meeting with Euro group president Jeroen Dijsselbloem. If any proof were needed that Greece has entered a new era, this was it. Long may it last.

    To my mind it it reconfirms the growing suspicion that Yanis Varoufakis is the coolest politician around. (And on a motorbike an easy target, alas, for Greece’s right-wing assassins!) Yesterday, as he arrived for his first day behind his desk at the finance ministry, he was mobbed by breathless mobile camera wielding schoolgirls, and you just know that the shills and right-wing stooges in the mainstream press will exploit that to create a spurious debate about the intrusion of ‘celebrity’ status in serious politics, ad nauseam, as if somehow, there has never been a politician anywhere on the planet that attracted celebrity status. Here, they are reburying Churchill for the umteenth time to remind us of imperial England’s power and glory.

    Still, things are looking up – just think of the press scorn if Varoufakis had arrived in a Mercedes 600 to talk about austerity, official flags flapping from the bonnet, police guards on all sides!

  141. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Hobbit: How did the Greek government get so hopelessly in debt in the first place?

    Only Greek banks got into trouble for following fantasy economics – we in more civilised countries avoided the disaster. Happily we don’t have the shame of food banks.

    🙂

  142. Hobbit
    Ignored
    says:

    Grouse Beater – which makes it interesting when we see western countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand) which *didn’t* practice ‘fantasy economics’. And kept much better control of their banks as well!

  143. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Hobbit: And kept much better control of their banks as well!

    Cheers, Hobbit.

    On the subject of Greece’s hopes and aspirations, which are not too far removed from our own, you and Graham might want to continue this subject matter by joining me on my blogsite, free of frantic trolls:

    ‘One Cool Dude’ Grouse Beater on WordPress

    https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3119&action=edit&message=1

  144. Carnyx
    Ignored
    says:

    I was a student at Glasgow uni when Varoufakis was there, I frequently used to see him around the Adam Smith building although I wasn’t in economics, I remember him cause I liked his bikers jacket!

  145. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Carnyx: I remember [Varoufakis] him cause I liked his bikers jacket!

    Ha ha! Excellent. 🙂

    I write about it on my latest blog essay.

  146. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    @Graham MacQueen

    I didn’t blame Syriza for the bank firebombing. Read again what I said, it’s their long held and absolutely undisputed ‘connections’ with anarchist / militant marxist outfits in Athens (not all of whom are murdering bastards by the way….for the record) which stink to high heaven, connections that a sitting administration should sever immediately. Those links only serve to create suspicion, the same kind of suspicion you hinted at earlier with Theodorakis’s ‘connections’ in Crete. It works both ways. Tsipras, in 2009, was calling for an end to ‘the vendetta against anarchists’ by the police in parliament. The same anarchists that were burning Athens to the ground in that period. The same anarchists that appeared every time Syriza and KKE said ‘the people should let their voices be heard’, as they did on the 4th May 2010 in parliament, in answer to PASOK signing up to the first round of inhumane fiscal reforms from the troika.

    Syriza are quick to condemn government and police measures aimed at dis-arming anarchist terrorist cells as you well know, this being only one example:

    “The government is entering a period of new internal instability with the Lagarde list scandal,” SYRIZA spokesman Yiannis Bournous said. “That’s exactly the reason why they chose to organize these raids, to divert people’s attention.” The government denies that accusation, and has accused SYRIZA of sympathizing with leftist radicals. – See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/01/21/athens-mall-bombing-raises-terrorism-stakes/#sthash.fBEQSG6F.dpuf

    Tsipras has promised to repeal the law allowing police to raid suspected bomb factories in universities.You seem like a reasonable man, surely you understand my argument that Syriza, now the ruling party, must be seen to be distancing themselves from dangerous radical elements both they and KKE are associated with?

    There is no place in politics for thuggery, which is why a dozen Golden Dawn MPs are in the clink. The bank attack was carried out by an extreme anarchist outfit (we have no reasonable evidence to the contrary, and it fits their MO to a tee) NOT by random protesters. It was a planned attack, in as much as the perpetrators went out ‘tooled up’ to burn property (and Marfin was a prime target as it was the only bank opened that day), like anarchists always do here, although there is no evidence whatsoever that they intended on killing anyone:

    ‘A police manhunt is underway for the arrest of the culprits, who broke the bank glass window with hammers and dowsed the interior with flammable liquid before throwing a firebomb thus trapping the employees inside the building causing the deaths of three people.’
    http://www.hri.org/news/greek/ana/2010/10-05-07.ana.html#26

    Protesters don’t normally carry hammers, fuel and molotovs.

  147. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    SteveieCosmic: Syriza, now the ruling party, must be seen to be distancing themselves from dangerous radical elements both they and KKE are associated with?

    You’re waffling again.

    You ARE the ‘dangerous elements!

    In classic hate speech fashion you post grossly inaccurate statements and malicious assertion, invariably half-truths or personal interpretations, claiming them ‘facts’ on the basis you ‘live’ in Athens and hold all knowledge.

  148. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    The other half of this answer to Graham is still in moderation due to having multiple hyperlinks, so it is as yet incomplete. I had to split it in two to post, and would ask kindly for you to wait for the second half to pass moderation before passing judgement.

    If however you’d like to discuss any of the information linked to in the above post I would be more than happy to do that. In fact, if you’d like to ‘discuss’ any of the above, rather than attribute it to ‘personal interpretation’ (even though I’ve linked to quotes from Syriza) I’d be more than happy to do so.

    And I’d be equally happy to discuss, on a point by point basis, anything that you claim to be ‘hate speech’, ‘ grossly inaccurate statements’, ‘malicious assertion’, ‘half truths’, or indeed ‘personal interpretation’.

    And I fully expect you to back it up with evidence, rather than just state it as gospel truth.

    Post after post of ‘you’re hate monger’, ‘you’re a liar and a thug’, ‘you’re a neo-liberal shill’ isn’t argument. It’s not even close. I invite you to have an adult discussion of same.

    I await your reply.

  149. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    There are eyewitness accounts of demonstrators throwing rocks at the fire service. It was widely reported at time. And though you may not recall the taunting, it happened. People stood idly by taking photographs and chanting political slogans, at least initially, as that bank burned, as the ‘flames licked through the windows’, and here is the video evidence:

    youtube.com/watch?v=ynKph6t0hWY

    It matters little who called the strike on 5th May 2010, as it was the largest left protest in Athens for 50 years. The entire left mobilized that day, with as many as 200,000 protesters. I remember it well, as the violence spilled over even into Neos Kosmos at Kallirois, where I stayed at the time. And whether Syriza registered as a party last year or not, it is intellectually dishonest to claim they did not exist in 2010. They did. Look at any newspaper, any archive form the time, and you will find multiple references to them. They have existed as a coalition group since 2004, not that this actually matters.

    On the matter of the arrests, 4 arrests were made in 2011, two of whom were charged at the time, one with the arson attack on the Ianos bookstore on Stadiou, the other Thodoris Sispas, with the arson and killings at the Marfin bank. After submitting photographic and CCTV evidence that placed him elsewhere at the time of the attack, he was released in December 2014. The trial of the remaining 2 alleged arsonists has been postponed yet again until September this year. Three of those arrested that day are claimed by anarchist groups, including T Sipsas. It looks very much like the remaining suspects are being kept in custody and their trial dates moved continually forward, suggesting there is a lack of evidence for a conviction. Anarchist sources say their detention is illegal under Greek law.

    Again I have not ‘persistently’ laid the blame at Syriza’s door. For absolute clarity, I DO NOT BLAME SYRIZA FOR THE MARFIN EGNATIA FIREBOMBING, NOR HAVE I EVER SAID THAT. I blame extreme anarchist groups, whom Syriza are not entirely in a hurry to dis-arm given the quote above, nor are they unambiguous in their condemnation of acts of political violence in general:

    ‘The reaction of SYRIZA, a collection of leftist, even militant groupings, to such incidents has been rather ambiguous as the party – which denies links to violent groupings – has repeatedly fallen short of providing a clear-cut condemnation of violence.
    “We condemn violence but we understand the frustration of those who react violently to the violence of the memorandum,” SYRIZA chief Alexis Tsipras said of the painful bailout agreement signed with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Critics responded by accusing the left of giving in to ethical relativism, by seeking to differentiate between “good” and “bad” violence as it sees fit.
    A few months ago, SYRIZA refused to vote for a motion by the Parliament’s ethics committee that condemned violence, arguing that the text should refer to “racist violence” and not just “violence.” Party officials appeared concerned that the motion could be used to sabotage acts of popular struggle versus the injustices of the state. KKE, as is its wont, chose to abstain from the vote.’
    voxversendaal.wordpress.com/tag/marfin/

    Call me old fashioned, but that IS not the rhetoric nor the behaviour I would want to see from the elected party of government. And I’m sure you will agree, given a moment’s pause, that kind of rhetoric sends out the wrong signals, particularly to young people who look up to Tsipras and are ripe for ‘radicalisation’ by anarchist groups. This, is why I am deeply suspicious of Syriza. A few short years ago, Tsipras was a smug militant leftist running a party that was largely despised or laughed at with 3% of the vote share, KKE had 14% at the time. 5 years on, he is the Prime Minister.

  150. Paula Rose
    Ignored
    says:

    Bloomin eck handbags still flying, beat hasty retreat mes amis.

  151. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    StevieCosmic: I fully expect you to back it up with evidence,

    You present not a shred of evidence to back up your claims. One link you offered actually countered your whinging. You squander your life condeming the elected government for not doing what you want them to do, namely put all lazy cleaners in jail, and shoot all those lefty students. You’re posts are insane ravings.

    It’s weirdly reminiscent of the BNP, irrational leaps of logic, bigotry and prejudice stuck on isolated incident, and suddenly, ‘Look! Those strangers there in the distance are definitely Sryiza hoodlums.’

    Here a glaring example: Tsipras has promised to repeal the law allowing police to raid suspected bomb factories in universities

    Two unconnected elements stuck together to appear as if connected.

    Since when does a politician say, “We know there are bomb factories in universities, but hey, we think students should be left to get on with their job of studying bomb making, and getting free flights to Syria to test their theories. That’s what education is about, empirical experience. The police should be left to do what they do best, help old ladies across the road.”

    And worst of all, this topic has long left the stage and you still think you have an audience. I repeat, you have BNP tattooed all over your suncream lotioned forehead.

    Give you wife some attention. She must think you’re on a porn site late at night, or making a date with another woman. You’re pitiful.

    A few short years ago, Tsipras was a smug militant leftist running a party that was largely despised or laughed at with 3% of the vote share. 5 years on, he is the Prime Minister.

    Yeah. Tragic isn’t it?

    You are nowhere, still flogging yourself to death on the internet and having to knit your own hair shirts.

  152. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    This thread would be enjoyable if the subject wasn’t so serious.

    By my reckoning, GrouseBeater and StevieCosmic have had at least 16 direct exchanges in the past five days. I’m not counting ‘asides’ (mostly by GB, where he responds to other commenters) but anyone reading this thread will know, soon-ish after starting, that it’s a full-on, ‘nae prisoners’ kind of exchange.

    And that’s all fair enough.

    What I would kindly ask, if I may, is that GB and SC each tell us, as concisely as possible, what their take on it all is right now, and do so without referring to one another? Most of us have no meaningful knowledge of what’s happening in Greece right now – can we please hear an objective analysis of what’s going on?

  153. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Bad move, Ian. He’ll exploit your ‘intervention’ by thanking you for being civilised, having called out f*****g c***t, and “*!!^^” to anybody who dare say he’s way off the mark.

    It’s a blueprint copy of the EDL crapology we got thrown at us for two years, only it’s aimed at the elected government of Greece, tasked with implementing radical policies that do not impoverish the nation and give more largesse and power to the few. Why? because what’s happening in Greece has echoes here in Scotland of what we wanted to achieve running our nation to suit us, not the UK Treasury.

    You can find my initial discussion on this topic at: https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2015/01/30/greece-one-cool-dude/

  154. Paula Rose
    Ignored
    says:

    No GB we the long standing readers of wings would like you both to heed what Ian Brotherhood is saying and reply. This is not a private chat we can all read you.

  155. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Grouse Beater –

    Bad move? Maybe.

    I’m glad to see you enclosed ‘intervention’ thus. I’m not getting involved in the argument. You and SC are going at-it, and some of us are learning a lot from just witnessing the exchange.

    Hey man – you know me, and where my party-political allegiances lie – can you imagine how hard it’s been for me NOT to ‘intervene’?!

    In any event, more power to ye mister, as always. (And fair play to SC – at least he’s giving you some exercise, eh?)

  156. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    Certainly Ian Brotherhood

    I shall attempt to relay what people are telling me rather than what might be construed as what I ‘think’.

    People are scared. Straight up. Afraid of what is to come next. They, those who voted for and (ostensibly) against Syriza seem now largely agreed that the people have spoken, and democracy is at work. I too, am agreed with this. It also has to be said, that amongst those of a far(er) left persuasion, the mood is positive. Again, fair enough. Syriza won. We could argue until we are all blue in the face about the rights and wrongs and history, but Syriza won the popular vote and that is that.

    In my opinion, and that of many others, Syriza’s biggest threat is from within. To provide contrast, their greatest weapon is surely Varoufakis, a rock star economist who is utterly deserving of every accolade heaped upon him. Here is a man who speaks sense, calmly, cohesively and convincingly. Yet his position is, at least as we speak and this may change in coming weeks, being constantly undermined by party officials seemingly trying to outdo each other on promises to the victims of austerity. Thus far, he is managing incredibly well. He is, for want of a better expression, a fucking hero, given the circumstances he’s in. This is the guy, incidentally, whom the media has decreed, ‘the voice of Greece’. No better a voice could they have chosen, in my humble opinion. Despite my own personal misgivings about his boss (which I shall defend indefinitely, because there is no statute of limitations on calling for action and then refusing to condemn violence) Varoufakis is the best thing that Greece has, and, I concede, that could only have happened through Syriza’s election to government. I refer you to my earlier statement, that Syriza’s election simply ‘had’ to happen.

    There is a general mood here of ‘not wanting to talk about it’. That is, in party politics terms, and Greece is fractured in that department now. Who can blame them? There is a palpable sense of, now that the threshold has been crossed, us and them. Not left or right, but Greeks and ‘them’, that notion of others, which is none of our doing. We are Europeans. I obviously include myself in their family.

    If you want an objective analysis, I’m not sure that is entirely possible. This is a fractured country who’s politics have been scattered to the winds. I know an ostensibly ‘neutral’ journalist that might be persuaded to comment here, but given the previous exchanges, I think he might decline. Syriza might be good for Greece, or they may not. Only an idiot would say otherwise. But their history remains unchanged, and for the moment, we’ll leave that aside. We are, after all, looking to the future, regardless of who our government might be.

    FWIW, my own personal opinion is that the EU/ECB/IMF will not stand back and watch Greece burn. You wont hear them say it, at least from the top, but Syriza feel the same way ( you have to dig deep to get a quote, which is why I am absolutely not providing one)and going into negotiations they are sure those in charge do not want trash Europe and the single currency on the basis of Greek debt. The risk of contagion to Italy and Spain is simply too great. Is this an ace up Syriza’s sleeve or a move predicted long ago? Who knows.

    All I can tell you is that people are scared. This is uncharted territory for everyone. Greek society is different in many ways from the UK. That has to be respected. We have the same rules, but there’s a different social constitution here, in part accounting for different attitudes, in turn, reflected by a ‘different’ and very ‘colourful’ history.

    Greeks are being literally robbed by EU institutions in a ‘sins of the father’ like raid. It has to stop, and it has to stop now. ‘Thus far and no further’ as the saying goes.

    It’s almost poetic that Syriza were the only party able to effect that change. Whether they succeed in securing some concessions or indeed major change, is a matter for history to decide. Greeks decided on the fate of the Yes men, and voted Syriza instead. We’ll see, is all we can say. For at least the sake of self preservation, I hope the present government are successful. What more can I say?

  157. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    StevieCosmic: “those who voted for and against Syriza seem now largely agreed that the people have spoken, and democracy is at work. I too, am agreed with this.”

    Dishonest again. You have spent reams of posts explaining they have a flaky genesis, are corrupt, unreliable, and inept, accusations made by libelling party and individuals.

    “Syriza might be good for Greece, or they may not. Only an idiot would say otherwise.”

    Which makes you what, exactly?

    Andd here comes the clincher I predicted accurately in my blog essay: the demotion of an internationally respected economist as a ‘rock star’ – meaning fascile and shallow.

    “their greatest weapon is surely Varoufakis, a rock star economist who is utterly deserving of every accolade heaped upon him.”

    Praise and relegation all in the same sentence.

    The last post before this appears reasonable, conciliatory even, but that begs the question, why did the poster not begin with rational, even-handed observations (rambling I can forgive) rather than denouncing a fresh administration formed out of committed opposition to corruption and authoritarian rule, ‘commies’ and ‘nazis.’

    Bi-polar, or what?

    Finally, its a blindingly obvious truism the population will be fearful, they were when the EU told them they were bankrupt because the banks had stolen all their money – but unlike the IMF that first smeared an entire nation into submission as tax dodgers and Porsche owners, Syriza defends the people who did and did not elect them, and their way of life.

    Like the Spanish, and at least 45% of the Scottish nation, it’s time to rebel against the democracy-sucking violence, repressive orthodoxy of the power elite.

    Syriza offers a real alternative to the brutality of neo-con economics. Barely a moment to take its first breath and in steps the cowboy with his branding iron.

  158. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Paula: As a long standing readers of wings …

    Is ‘long standing’ one of your famous sexual innuendo gibes?

    Just joshing – kinda – as I was a few posts back, the target easy to lampoon, Charlie Brooker-style. Please note, others have tackled the falsehoods posted here. I stick it longer because I can see the same nasty black propaganda that brow-beat so many in the Referendum. And they waved the Union Jack in George Square on the 19th.

    Meanwhile…

    Andy Murray calls – fighting another battle … bye!

  159. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    Those wishing a brief insight into the mindset of the radical left here, and at least a rudimentary introduction to why Greek politics might be so polarized, could do worse than begin here:
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/30/athens-1944-britains-dirty-secret
    It’s by no means comprehensive, but it’s a start. In a country that has a military dictatorship still within living memory (and I’ve actually had to listen to otherwise sane Greeks my age tell me how much better it was under the junta, I kid you not) and where a very active left has a long and bloody history of persecution at the hands of the establishment , it’s little wonder that tensions often run high.
    Those who think Syriza to be just your run-of-the-mill, common or garden variety socialists would be wrong. Their name is an acronym of ??????????? ????????????? ?????????, or Coalition of the Radical Left. They didn’t put ‘radical’ in there because it sounded cool. Sure, Syriza contains moderates too (some of whom, thankfully, now occupy key ministerial positions), although they obviously didn’t feel strongly enough about their inclusion to incorporate them into the name as well.
    The equation that is being posited here, that because Syriza are the ideological antithesis of their predecessors, ergo, they must therefore be good, is not only a statement of mindless inductive logic, but also an act of shear stupidity and abject ignorance. The placing of Syriza beyond question or reproach, above criticism or judgement, and the attempt to mitigate any perceived wrong doing by excising their very recent past from history on the grounds that it is somehow irrelevant now that they are in office, should be met with nothing less than deep suspicion. The rules that apply in our judgment of other parties apply equally to Syriza. If we are to dig deeply into even the last 10 years in order to vilify ND and PASOK for their corruption, cronyism and acts of economic vandalism that led directly to the current state we find ourselves in, then Syriza are also deserving of judgement in that period, as are KKE for that matter, as parties of opposition that had a profound and very real effect on society. They can be judged in the same way as we all judge parties of opposition in the UK, parties that also have never held power, like the Greens and UKIP, who also have manifestos that are the subject of both praise and criticism. Syriza don’t have exemption from criticism simply because they are anti-establishment, or for that matter a ‘new administration’ (which is being advanced as an argument for exclusion) , no matter how morally correct or populist that position is. I’m down with radicalism, but only up to the point of where violence and the wilful destruction of property is tacitly supported through the complete absence of unambiguous condemnation. Again, maybe I’m just old fashioned in that regard. We Scots are used to our Westminster overlords waxing lyrical in their condemnation of violence as a political tool, even though they themselves seem to be constantly engaged in it. It should come naturally to a politician, in my opinion.
    Syriza’s meteoric rise to power, from 3% 5 years ago, came on the back of a plea of ‘ripping up the memorandum’, ‘cancelling Greek debt’, ‘reinstating laid-off public sector employees’ (carte blanche, with a resolute opposition to ‘identifying’ public sector workers) and reinstating a minimum wage of 750 eu per month.

    Not only have the party singularly retreated from all of these positions as hardline bare minimums ( as the stench of power became potent), and done so within the last few months (any English speaking Greek press will relate this, ekathemerini.com for example, look for quotes, not opinion pieces), they are now relating their new found conciliatory approach as a position they’ve always took, which is utterly dishonest and indefensible. Their candidates during the election period promised everything from the sublime to the ridiculous, just to get the airtime, then the party promptly reneged, citing ‘ inexperience’ in defence. That inexperience is what swung the election.

    They have retreated from every line in the sand they drew, as the real politik set in. Varoufakis has smarts to be sure, but his position is undermined from the get go; BBC journalists and the like, can quote mine and make him look like an idiot thanks to the slack jaws in Syriza over the Dec-Jan pre-election period, plenty of which is available online, in English. He is only guy that can make any of this work yet the people potentially most responsible for undermining him are in the same party. And that’s one of my main problems with them. They are destructive from within. It must be a left thing eh?

    I meant to say this several posts ago , but the rumour mill within the media here has Syriza lasting 6 months and Karamanlis being prepped for a return to power thereafter, a man who has been utterly absent for 6 years. It would be utterly tragic if that were to come to pass.

  160. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    SteveieCosmic: The rules that apply in our judgment of other parties apply equally to Syriza. If we are to dig deeply into even the last 10 years in order to vilify ND and PASOK for their corruption, cronyism and acts of economic vandalism that led directly to the current state we find ourselves in, then Syriza are also deserving of judgement

    Yet another leap of woozy logic, one to term the ‘plausible impossible.’

    Pathetic stuff.

    As soon as you look closer at anything Mr. Cillit Bang writes, (one word from him and the dirt sticks!) there’s not an ounce of evidence to support his assertion that, because administrations in the past were inept or corrupt, the new one must be too. Even before it has implemented a single policy.

    This is the bogus alarm of mouth wash companies. You might get gum disease if you don’t use their product, as if hundreds of years without mouth wash reduced homo sapiens to a gummy blob reduced to living on soggy rice pudding.

    In fact, in a desperate effort to prove there are mad reds under the bed ready to rape our daughters and the dug, he is forced to go further by suggesting there are people in Syriza who might undermine Syriza.

    Wow! Who’d have thought?

    In fact, to take that logic to its full extent there might be people in Syriza who might undermine themselves, so purblind are they. Who are they? Your guess is as good as mine. He doesn’t say. But hey, they are there, hiding behind the pillars of the Parthenon.

    Mr Cillit Bang (one word from him and crud is gone) begins with his trademark reasonable outlook.

    It goes like this: we should be alert for inertia or kow-towing, or venal compromise on the part of the new administration that might be ranked as a sell-out.

    Then he takes it way beyond it’s meaning to, the new administration is corrupt. It is so, he avers, because being in government means it must be corrupt.

    In other words, our vacuous scribbler is still doing his best to taint Syriza. And the best he can do to answer my criticism of his scurrilous drivel is to suggest I might be tarnished too, ‘of the radical Left.’

    In that we are back to his early accusations; his world is full of smelly unwashed socialists, commies, and Nazis all ready and keen to bleed the state dry. Now they wear a different hat, but he is smart enough to recognise them.

    This frantic branding insults every Greek and non-Greek voter who checked Syriza out as the best way forward and then elected them. They are, he implies, all idiots. This is a man who detests anybody left of Ghengis Khan.

    See anything familiar?

    For decades the SNP were depicted as a bunch of kilt wearing, sword flailing lunatics, a fringe party of no discernable worth except as amusement. As soon as elected we were told they had connections to Fascist and Nazis, and hey look, there’s a fascist marching with them to Calton Hill.

    However, the one thing that stuck in my throat is his puke-making ingratiating reference to himself as, ‘we Scots.’

    Aye. Right. You’re on your own, pal.

  161. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Colin Fox, SSP, giving a public account of what’s happening in Greece, and how it affects the ‘left’ in Scotland, and us all generally:

    new.livestream.com/accounts/6163639/events/3761411

  162. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Many thanks, Ian.

    I will develop my observations on my blog, and have begun the study already here:

    https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/the-enemies-of-greeces-reformation/

  163. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    so how’s that analysis working out for you then?

    ‘clown shoes’ is the adjective I would use.

    I’m glad to see journalists use my ‘rock star’ description of Varoufakis that was much traduced by you earlier as pejorative. As said, he is theirs and ours and my greatest weapon. His specialist field is games strategy, and this is one where he seems to be out-foxing everyone. In the process thereof, it has become apparent that Syriza has no intentions of keeping any election pledge. While this, at least right now, doesn’t seem to be bothering the electorate that much (80,000 people in Syntagma tonight in support of ‘the government’…loose words for demonstrators..), he still has to contend with the radicals making noises in his own party, again a point I made earlier.

    In time, some things, at least, shall reveal themselves.

  164. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    steviecosmic:
    I meant to say this several posts ago, the rumour mill within the media here has Syriza lasting 6 months and Karamanlis being prepped for a return to power thereafter

    When it comes to being totally lost for authenticated facts, proper research backed by references, insight born out of experience, and especially first hand knowledge, just repeating a rumour gets the rank amateur out of trouble!

  165. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    I know a journalist. Fairly well known here. We went out for a drink last week (the night of the ‘tapping my fingers numb’ or whatever it was). and it was he who related the story. Rumours, though never reported as fact by any journalist with any self respect, often have some basis in truth. The whole ‘rumour’, should you wish to grant it any head space, is that the government will barely last til summer, and that Karamanlis is being prepped as ND’s new leader (presumably through the lack of any other well kent candidate). We cant say much about a government’s longevity less than two weeks out of an election, even in Greece where there hasn’t been stability for over 5 years, but what we can speculate on is the sudden appearance of Karamanlis in the media. Here is a man who has been utterly invisible for 5 1/2 years, not a single public appearance nor a quantifiable presence within Greek media, who has emerged, Lazarus like, from his slumber in only the last fortnight. The right smell blood.

    FWIW, Paul Mason related a similar story on his blog, albeit without the ghastly apparition of Karamanlis, BEFORE the election.

    Should you like references to many of my previous points/accusations/arguments for and against SYRIZA, I would be happy to provide them. Be warned however, that my posting multiple hyperlinks on this site puts the comments into a moderation queue, which last time took 3 days to appear.

    I have a plethora of referenced material supporting my arguments. Just say the word boss.

  166. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    The whole ‘rumour’, should you wish to grant it any head space, is that the government will barely last til summer.

    Repeat of previous post with only addition a reference to an unknown ‘journalist,’ but makes plain alleged ‘plethora of reference material’ is actually hearsay, nothing more than other people’s passing opinion.

  167. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    I note that the only ‘opinions’ you choose to reject are those which do not align with your own. I’m sure I don’t have to point out the inherent dangers in confirmation bias.

    You continue to deliberately confuse one statement with another. That’s not cricket old sport. I have references with respect to my previous arguments, clearly not something I offered up from the beginning as ‘rumour’, although there is evidence of the sudden appearance of Karamanlis, which I think offers at least a little weight to it. But really, there is nothing the right would like more than the demise of SYRIZA by any means. As I said, Paul Mason covered this point already on his CH4 blog, he said it before I did.

    I have no intentions of naming the journalist. I won’t be responsible for someone losing a job over a juvenile internet squabble. If there is any truth in, we’ll all find out soon enough.

  168. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    I note that the only ‘opinions’ you choose to reject are those which do not align with your own

    Wrong. Again.

    More repetition of previous two posts. Nothing to learn here, all tedious in the extreme.

  169. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    You can hardly attribute it to mere hearsay when I’ve offered you another entirely independent source:

    http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/minute-thoughts-greek-election-syriza-voters/3025

    A recurring theme in the English language press here is the appalling campaign Samaras ran, so bad in fact, that it could be said that he actually wanted to lose the election. All of which chimes perfectly with the notion of letting Tsipras inherit a poisoned chalice that had all the potential of turning from crisis into utter chaos in a pitched battle with the EU over debt reduction.

    That debt reduction incidentally, shows no signs of being any more realistic now than it was before the election. In fact the response of the ECB, to withdraw direct funding to Greek banks, to Varoufakis’s ongoing negotiations seems as petty as some of the officials he’s met with; Dijsselbloem walked out of the conference with Varoufakis in the huff, and Schauble couldn’t even look Varoufakis in the eye. Stiff, stubborn and stuffy beaurocrats, looking more like ideologues than SYRIZA’s hardline left. To their credit, SYRIZA (no doubt under the counsel of Varoufakis) have retreated so far from pre-election stances in order to get negotiations underway. The institutions of the EU on the other hand haven’t budged an inch. SYRIZA can’t give any more ground without risking support at home.

  170. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry, all old news not even dusted down, end tipped with the expected bogus reinterpretation to depict Syriza as weak and feckless, quick to compromise.

    No evidence offered.

  171. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    You chaps seem to be – albeit very v e r y slowly – approaching territory where agreement may be possible.

    It’s fascinating to watch, but I have the advantage of not knowing what youse are going on about most of the time. It’s like one of those wildlife documentaries, where two massive creatures with unlikely-looking horns spend days wandering around one another.

    No-one’s going to ‘win’ this, but it’s great theatre. (Apt, then, that’s it’s all about Greece, eh?) 🙂

  172. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    He makes it up as he goes along to suit his agenda. 🙂

    He must love driving around and around roundabouts. (PS: He said earlier he will not stop posting…zzzzzz.)

    By the way, I posted to you, Ian, but it got lost – has the SSP membership benefitted from the surge of new wave politics, as the SNP has done?

  173. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    There’s no winning. I do this because I genuinely love it. And sometimes for the shear hilarity.

    You didn’t like the ‘end-tipped’ part? I’m thoroughly disappointed. I’d genuinely love to hear exactly why you think SYRIZA’s very accommodating, very statesmanlike maneuvering from rigid positions long held in order to get negotiations going, hasn’t ‘weakened’ their position domestically. As I said earlier, Varoufakis’s field of expertise is Game Theory, and he’s several steps ahead of everyone according to one of his former colleagues, but even given the undeniable intellectual might of this man, it is very very difficult indeed to envisage SYRIZA giving any more ground to a clearly vindictive and intractable EU elite without seriously harming themselves at home. The art of negotiation is not something that hard left ideolougues are any good at, and god knows, Syriza is stuffed with them.

    For the avoidance of any doubt, what I want for my country, and it is my country now, is stability, because that’s the only thing that will get us through this. Now that they are the democratically elected government, I want SYRIZA (despite my misgivings about their more radical elements and slack jaws) to remain the government for at least a parliamentary term. Snap elections in September, and the sure return of ND thereafter is a horror scenario that I personally do not want to see, for obvious reasons. To that end, I will not stop criticizing the party numbskulls on the far left. It was precisely that kind of criticism that led to Deputy PM Dragasakis practically apologising for the behaviour of ‘inexperienced’ cabinet members inventing ‘on the spot’ non-sanctioned policies and making the party look like a joke. Putting them beyond criticism, allowing them to do and say as they please, is a massive mistake.

  174. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    A recurring theme here is you attributing things to me that I clearly did not say. As I cannot edit posts, that is plain for all to see (even though all is apparently 3).

    I’m not writing Paul Mason’s blog by the way. So how can I be ‘making it up as I go along’?

  175. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Grouse Beater –

    🙂

    You always sound cheery. I was watching an old South Bank Show episode today (part of uni-related work) all about William Blake. It was inspiring. One of the contributors pointed out that Blake always stayed upbeat, kept himself happy, despite being shunned and dismissed. He abandoned any hope of being ‘recognised’ in this life, but knew that the ‘angels’ would appreciate his work.

    Anyway, I digress – to your question!

    Yes. The SSP has prospered, but I’m not privy to the details. Last I heard, we’d ‘roughly tripled’ our membership, but very few people know what that was to begin with, so it’s all guesswork. I’d love to know what the real figure is, but bluff/bluster/hype seems now to have supplanted the ‘old-fashioned’ keeping of one’s cards to one’s chest.

    Fact is, the SSP remains a very small party. We don’t register in the polls – even Scottish-only ones where UKIP is occasionally credited with a slice of the pie. But that doesn’t reflect our experience on the street – we get great support from ‘ordinary’ punters.

    I don’t know mister – it’s a tough one. Puff our chests out and crow as loudly as we can, hoping to impress the ‘opposition’? Or appeal to the ‘punters’ by admitting that we’re toty, and need all the support we can get?

    I don’t have the answer. All I know for sure is that I’ve made lifelong friends from being involved with the SSP. ‘Comrade’ hits a sour note with many folk – it summons memories of ill-tempered disputes back in the 70’s, and should be reserved for conversations with non-English speaking socialists. For me, these ‘comrades’ are, first and foremost, my friends, and I value them on that basis, over and above any party-political concerns.

    The SSP could change name, flag and manifesto tomorrow – won’t matter that much to me, because I know the same good folk will still be there, still yearning for the same goals.

    And, FWIW, I do believe we’ll win. Eventually!

    Cheers, as ever.

  176. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    And that’s why I consider the SSP on the side of the angels.

    Oh and I have it on good authority from Mrs Macart that size isn’t everything.

    Whatever that means (cough).

  177. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood: You always sound cheery.

    Ha, ha! Very perceptive! Pleased it communicates through all this electronic gadgetry, reconfigured, pixelated, and reconfigured again!

    Fascinating about Blake; didn’t know.

    All I know for sure is that I’ve made lifelong friends from being involved with the SSP

    A fine honesty shines from your posts, a good person. Making friends comes easily for the Brotherhood!

    I do believe we’ll win. Eventually!

    We have to.

    Macart: And that’s why I consider the SSP on the side of the angels.

    Aye, the imperative to put others before self, to care, is saintly. My guardian was the embodiment, rest her memory.

  178. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Macart & GB –

    I head off to the flea-pit now, ‘tired & emotional’, but with a smile on my coupon – cheers to ye’s both.

    Our day will come friends.

  179. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @GB –

    Here’s the Blake documentary – superb.

    Hoots mon!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvx0on0Hj2I

  180. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    Dont ever confuse Scottish Socialists with SYRIZA. It is simply not the same thing. SYRIZA may share the word ‘radical’ with RIC, but there the comparison ends. Even the meaning of the word is different here.

    By way of example, Rena Dourou, SYRIZA MP and now prefect of Attica (which Greeks colloquially name, the little prime minister) is on video, moments after having a glass of water thrown at her by a Nazi piece of shit on live TV, as saying “SYRIZA shall not take one step back from the Koriskades’. The Koriskades is a document written in 1944 that formed, essentially, the mission statement of the communist ELAS and EAM resistance forces. It basically outlines taking Greece back by armed force.

    SYRIZA had a 2012 election candidate that openly advocated the re-taking of Greece, street by street, by means of guerilla warfare. SYRIZA are a diverse and strange beast cast from the fire of Nazi occupation and the military dictatorshp of the colonels. No such comparison exists in Scotland. The very language of left politics changes under such circumstances.

    See it for what it is rather than what you wish it to be. Leftist ‘radicals’, usually identified with intellectuals, are to applauded for their fight against the neo-liberal austerity movement, and more power to them. What we can’t have, is loonball agitators usurping that position by burning cities and setting bombs off, and calling it legitimate political protest.

    SYRIZA have, paradoxically, shown that you can be ‘radical left’ and not only sane, but inspirational. Varoufakis is such a walking breathing paradox; here is a well kent and respected economist that identifies politically as a communist. Now if only their loose tongues would shut the fuck up. This is not the time for exalting long held extremist views from the far left that are steeped in cold war ideologies. Greece’s problems aren’t hypothetical, real people are really suffering. That requires action, not tired rhetoric.

  181. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood: Here’s the Blake documentary – superb.

    We all know Blake’s key poetry from our school days, and a couple of his best illustrations, but the breadth of his talent is well explained in that documentary.

    Many thanks, Ian. 🙂

  182. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

    William Blake

  183. Paula Rose
    Ignored
    says:

    My favourite song from Greece..

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMblmkcdJEw

  184. steviecosmic
    Ignored
    says:

    Very droll.

  185. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Paula: My favourite song from Greece…

    Neat! 🙂



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