'centrist and right-wing parties...have called Syriza “dangerous.” Maybe it’s time to get dangerous'

[marmar]

With Syriza’s Victory, the Anti-Austerity Movement is Going Mainstream
Big business and centrist and right-wing parties throughout the world have called Syriza “dangerous.” Well, maybe it’s time to get dangerous.

BY KATE ARONOFF


This post first appeared at Waging Nonviolence.


Yesterday, Syriza—a previously marginal, left-leaning coalition party in Greece—made history by winning the country’s general election. Winning 149 of 300 parliamentary seats, the party fell just two votes shy of an outright majority. Syriza’s leader, 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras, will become prime minister at the head of a coalition anti-austerity government, beating out the conservative New Democracy party and its now former prime minister, Antonis Samaras.

Many have attributed the party’s meteoric rise to power as a product of the brutal austerity conditions imposed on Greece by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union in their 2010 bailout of the country. Such measures have destroyed a quarter of the country’s GDP, and driven youth unemployment to an astounding 50 percent. At this point, the country’s non-working population outnumbers the employed as national debt continues to skyrocket.

Syriza has offered Greece a hopeful alternative, focused on getting people back to work, “transforming the political system,” and meeting basic needs. The party plans to immediately implement programs to guarantee housing and electricity as well as provide free medical and pharmaceutical care for the unemployed, among other measures aimed at reconstituting the country’s social safety net—left to crumble under austerity. In Brussels, they also plan to push for a renegotiation of the country’s debt, an infusion of capital for a “European New Deal,” and quantitative easing. In confronting the Eurozone and the IMF, the party has grown into rather than shrunk from its radical-left, anti-capitalist roots. Speaking with the Guardian, Tsipras noted, “This crisis is not coincidental. It’s a structural crisis of capitalism and of its neoliberal model.”

Syriza’s success, however, is about more than just material conditions. Emerging from various splits in Greece’s communist left, as well as the alter-globalization and anti-racist movements, the party jolted from relative obscurity by mobilizing a younger, more populist base alongside trade unionists and older middle-class Greeks shaken by the country’s financial crisis. The party has made a public alliance with the Spanish populist party Podemos, or “We Can,” a largely decentralized formation out of that country’s Indignados movement that, of late, has surged in popular opinion polls and predicts a strong turnout in the Spanish general election later this year. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/17577/syriza_austerity

[GeorgeGist]

1. Go left or die ...

It's that simple.

[snappyturtle]

2. Looks like the cradle of democracy is experiencing labor pains of a

rebirth. I surely hope so.

[DetlefK]

3. The problem:

The economy only grows when people spend their money. But even if Syriza helps people get by by doling out money indirectly via Social Security, will that be enough to get the market going again?

My prediction: No. You need loans to get the necessary amount of money. And who is willing to give Greece a loan?

[jeff47]

4. Almost everyone is willing to give Greece a loan.

When the ECB took on the role of "lender of last resort", the interest rate on Greek debt plunged. They don't have a problem getting loans. They have a problem because massive budget cuts forced by the rest of the Euro countries decimated spending to satisfy the confidence fairy. When the confidence fairy didn't show up, Greece was left paying the costs without an upside.

[2banon]

7. "confidence fairy" - I like that.. :)

[jeff47]

12. It's blatantly stolen from Krugman (nt)

[bemildred]

5. Without the debt service they don't need a loan. NT

[2banon]

11. side question: why does"economic growth" seem to be the "be all", end goal?

it's like this holy grail of capitalism. believe in profit and "growth" or die.

What about a completely different paradigm where stock "markets" aren't calling the shots.

the term "growth" has this rather dubious suggestion of "good" attached to it. When I hear an economist or a politician hammer with what's good for the community is "growth" often referring to both real estate development and the "economy" (most often more low wage jobs) I hear, cheap labor for moguls in various industries, real estate developers/banking) over crowding of cities and communities creating congestion, leading to decay etc etc. "growth" not so much a good thing, imo.

[bemildred]

15. Because without growth you cannot justify the inequality that is rampant in a democracy.

As long as we are still on the way to prosperity, you don't need to explain why everybody does not have it yet. If you adopt a steady state economy, sustainable, then you are going to have to treat everybody equally too, or come with some other pretext for why the bigshots have to get and keep the biggest piece of the pie.

[2banon]

22. That's pretty much the way I see it. :)

[hifiguy]

25. Eeyup.

Excellent explanation!

[jalan48]

16. Good question

We live on a planet with finite resources and have an economic system that pursues unlimited growth. Doesn't sound like a reasonable system to me. It sounds like a system that will come to a dramatic halt.

[Jackpine Radical]

19. Essentially, capitalism is a giant Ponzi scheme.

It has to keep sucking in more each year in order to keep the scheme going. And just like any ponzi scheme, when it stops growing, it collapses.

[2banon]

23. In 2008, I actually cheered on the collapse.. thinking naively we finally reached the point

of ending this corrupt scheme, that we would be forced to create a different, more sustainable and equitable paradigm. Yes, capitalism is a great big giant Ponzi scheme, and for a moment in our history it was all laid to bare for all to see. But somebody blinked... and put a lot of expensive ribbons and bows and lipstick to boot.

it's all good for some folks, until it isn't.

[sendero]

27. The moment of accountability...

.... can be delayed, but not indefinitely. It's on the horizon right now. The money printing here, in Japan and now in Europe can't go on forever.

[2banon]

29. true, but gosh it's been going on for longer than I've been on this planet, 6 1/2 decades!

I agree with your point, just the same. just a question of time.

[azmom]

6. Alter-globalization

First time hearing the term, I like it.

[stillwaiting]

8. Syriza may be dangerous to the elite's need to hoover up all wealth and income, BUT...

... mainstream, status-quo parties are apparently dangerous to the 99%'s wealth, income, and even life (in cases where health care is denied to ensure the elite's ill-gotten gains OR the 99% are put in harm's way to fight for resources for the elite).

And really, calling Syriza "dangerous" is quite laughable in that context.

The danger clearly lies in the policies that mainstream and established parties have been pursuing all around the world (and in Greece, in particular). Life and death matters can indeed be dangerous if the elite's greed trumps the very lives of the masses.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. When the people fight back the Capitalists always think them "dangerous".

Will Obama send congratulations and promises of help to Syiza and Tsipras? Or, would that be considered "dangerous"?

[marmar]

24. so true

[Blue_Tires]

10. Well, they have since formed a coalition with the hard right

so the "dangerous" tag might be related to something else entirely...When Marine Le Pen is publicly cheerleading for them, I have to step back and take a moment of pause...

Strange bedfellows and all that...

[mountain grammy]

13. This from the article:

"From their outset, each party has been staunchly anti-austerity, providing a political vehicle for both leftists and, perhaps more importantly, ordinary Greeks who felt abandoned by the political leaders who dumped them headfirst into a painful crisis.

In an interview with Jacobin, Syriza central committee member Stathis Kouvelakis describes his party’s success in terms of its transition from “a party of members [rather than] a party of activists or active members, a parti d’adhérents rather than aparti de militants.” In multiple publications and TV appearances, both Tsipras and Pablo Iglesias, Podemos’ former TV personality spokesman, have emphasized the need to reach beyond traditional left bases among educated workers, student radicals and intellectuals, being realistic about the extent to which the left has been defeated in the court of public opinion — in other words, “mainstreaming” the movement. There are plenty of lessons to be taken from Syriza’s victory and Podemos’ rise to power, but striving to speak to people rather than politics might be chief among them.

“Our enemies,” Iglesias advises, “want us small, speaking a language no one understands, in a minority, hiding behind our traditional symbols.” These enemies, he continues, are “delighted with that, because they know that as long as we are like that, we are not dangerous.” This may be a lesson, then, that now—more than ever—is the time to get dangerous."

Come out, come out and speak to the people. It is the time to "get dangerous."

[CanonRay]

14. The utter panicked overreaction by the MSM is just amazing

They are already talking up terrorist connections, and radical left wing, communist agendas. What a joke.

[Fred Sanders]

17. Shows you exactly how committed the corporate America media is to democracy.

[Jackpine Radical]

20. They need to get some terrorist action going in Greece

in order to justify the NATO invasion.

[uhnope]

18. let's see where we are in a year. Syriza's plans are much easier said than done

[xchrom]

21. du rec.

[Rex]

26. When you point out the huge inequality gap to the wealthy, they get irrational.

So now they are all worried that Greece might be able to work something out, WITHOUT the vulture capitalists stealing everything in site...as a matter of fact the VCs are livid that Greece did not just roll over and die for them!

Wealthy people are so self-absorbed and self-entitled that serfs should not ever ask questions and just accept wholesale theft. Glad to see someone put a stop to it, of course that will NEVER happen in America. The owners have what they want now, the power to run America without that pestering group of voters that want silly things like clean water and breathable air.

[onecaliberal]

28. Dangerous? Perhaps to the great wealth inequality.

We need to do the same thing here in the US. I damn sure hope we don't wait until we're in as bad as shape as Greece is.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

30. Wait and see what happens in Greece first. N.T.