Greece shows what can happen when the young revolt against corrupt elites(The Guardian)

[Ken Burch]

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

by Paul Mason

The rise of Syriza can’t just be explained by the crisis in the eurozone: a youthful generation of professionals has had enough of tax-evading oligarchs

At Syriza’s HQ, the cigarette smoke in the cafe swirls into shapes. If those could reflect the images in the minds of the men hunched over their black coffees, they would probably be the faces of Che Guevara, or Aris Velouchiotis, the second world war Greek resistance fighter. These are veteran leftists who expected to end their days as professors of such esoteric subjects as development economics, human rights law and who killed who in the civil war. Instead, they are on the brink of power.

Black coffee and hard pretzels are all the cafe provides, together with the possibility of contracting lung cancer. But on the eve of the vote, I found its occupants confident, if bemused.

However, Syriza HQ is not the place to learn about radicalisation. The fact that a party with a “central committee” even got close to power has nothing to do with a sudden swing to Marxism in the Greek psyche. It is, instead, testimony to three things: the strategic crisis of the eurozone, the determination of the Greek elite to cling to systemic corruption, and a new way of thinking among the young.

[Ken Burch]

1. More:

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.

The oligarchs allowed the Greek state to become a battleground of conflicting interests. As Yiannis Palaiologos, a Greek journalist, put it in his recent book on the crisis, there is “a pervasive irresponsibility, a sense that no one is in charge, no one is willing or able to act as a custodian of the common good”.

But their most corrosive impact is on the layers of society beneath them. “There goes X,” Greeks say to each other as the rich walk to their tables in trendy bars. “He is controlling Y in parliament and having an affair with Z.” It’s like a soap opera, but for real, and too many Greeks are deferentially mesmerised by it.

Over three general elections Syriza’s achievement has been to politicise the issue of the oligarchy. The Greek word for them is “the entangled” – and they were, above all, entangled in the centrist political duopoly. Because Syriza owes them nothing, its leader, Alexis Tsipras, was able to give the issue of corruption and tax evasion both rhetorical barrels – and this resonated massively among the young.

[lunasun]

2. And look at the young party leader from Spain who came to Athens to say Madrid next

http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2015/01/22/podemos-at-syriza-rally-first-we-take-athens-then-we-take-madrid/

[Ken Burch]

3. Change is coming to Europe...perhaps it can come here as well.

It's a beautiful moment.

[lunasun]

4. Yes on the first nah on the 2nd point imho, but we do get this>

http://www.c-span.org/video/?323834-14/iowa-freedom-summit-sarah-palin

So we got free dumb at least

[sabrina 1]

5. Thanks for the OP, this really is a significant moment. Next step, Greece needs to get out of the EU

start arresting the crooks who stole their country's treasures, BAN Goldman Sachs, who have installed so many of the useless 'leaders' they've had for the past number of years, and arrest any of those who try to make off with their ill gotten loot.

Greece was the first to suffer the awful consequences of the so-called 'Austerity' neo-Liberal 'policies'. What it was, was a blatant takeover of several European countries by Wall St representatives where Austerity meant destroying all Social Programs, sending that money to Wall St and putting Greece's workers out of work, part of the plan to create a cheep work force world wide.

I hope Greece is just the firsts of the House of Cards built by the Wall St thieves to fall in Europe.