Is This Capitulation or Did They Just Force A Grexit? When There Really is No Other Choice...

[mother earth]

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13253

So it from the very beginning--understandably, from one perspective, because it is in a very difficult position in terms of the financing needs of the state, but it took off the table its most powerful weapons. And furthermore, it's negotiating with people who are, down to their very bones, committed to a radical neoliberal agenda, and furthermore, who quite apart from what their ideology may be, are heavily politically invested in the disaster of austerity. You know, if there were to be an implicit or explicit recognition by the government of Angela Merkel, for example, that austerity has gone too far, it hasn't worked, or has actually undermined the ability of countries like Greece to service their debts, which it clearly has, these people would go down in infamy as having been the architects of a European disaster. So they're politically invested, they're ideologically hostile to SYRIZA, and SYRIZA has taken off the table its most powerful weapons.

So, ultimately, what can it do in the current circumstances? Very little. However, if it were to reconsider its commitment to the euro, which is precisely what it should do, and if it were to put on the table in a responsible and intelligent manner the option of a Grexit, which precisely what it would do, I suspect that it would be able to achieve a much better outcome in this.

PERIES: And those options are really not off the table, even though they have stated that that's not the preferred option. Those options still remain.

LASCARIS: Well, clearly they could embrace that option. And there are clearly people within SYRIZA who, at least in the past, have embraced that option. One such person, a very able and eloquent economist who's been on The Real News several times, Costas Lapavitsas, he's embraced that option, although he's begun to moderate his tone since becoming an MP for SYRIZA in the most recent election. There clearly is within SYRIZA a significant constituency that favors a Grexit. Within the party now they have the economic sophistication to navigate through the very difficult project of exiting the Eurozone. What remains to be seen is whether the political will to do this is there.

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What is at stake is everything...and the ripple effect will be monumental, IMHO. Does anyone honestly believe Syriza has any other choice? If one understands the implications and desperation of a nation who overwhelming wants an end to austerity vs. the complete denial that IMO Germany is in...what is really left? The fast road to rejecting austerity globally may be upon us.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. We're in for a very interesting show in Europe

in the next 2 years.

As for me,

[DeSwiss]

2. Austerity was never intended to help poorer countries service their debts.

''You know, if there were to be an implicit or explicit recognition by the government of Angela Merkel, for example, that austerity has gone too far, it hasn't worked, or has actually undermined the ability of countries like Greece to service their debts, which it clearly has, these people would go down in infamy as having been the architects of a European disaster.''

It was intended to service asset acquisitions by the rich after the defaults that resulted from the unconscionable debt financing their central banks allowed to be approved (or possibly arranged), and the austerity policies were designed to weaken the people and take away their will to fight back by forcing them to concentrate on their survival instead. Greece fooled them.

- They want to say they ''own it all.'' When in truth, no one owns, nor can own anything.

K&R

This will go on and get even worse if we let it. Only we can stop it.........

[Jackpine Radical]

3. WE--the 99% of the world can stop it.

But we are not the only force that can do so.

If we don't do it, the death of the biosphere will do it for us.