Greece elects new government
 

the washington post calls them "radical" left, but it's the fucking washington post

so...

anyone here knows about this? are they really "radical"?

sounds exciting

bhaa haa haa

they are anti austerity, zizek talked to tsiprias and was impressed that "he openly admitted they had no solution".

basically, they are against the german austerity deal. everyone is shitting themselves because its the radical left - proles not accepting the neo liberal consensus of cuts and austerity.

this crisis is to me about the system not being able to buy everyone off, taking the money back that people thought would be theirs. we have to punish the poor more because they are not working hard enough and the magical grain field is not producing enough harvest.

anyway, they have no ideas, tsiprias speech was "lets unite, no austerity, a future of dignity".

i still have no fucking clue how economics works or is supposed to work or what will happen if they refuse to pay up to germany or whatever ... wait and see ...

yeah the anti austerity part i got from the news-- unleash government spending, help people w/ their electric bills, etc. the part about the euro will be a bit of brinkmanship and who knows what will happen.

i'm wondering who they are though, in closer look. i can't get a good picture from here. a wikipedia page is not the same as years of reading the local papers.

i'm not saying it will be wildly successful, but rather, it's exciting because it's a massive shakeup from convention-- that is always exciting no matter what the end result.

which is why i'm interested in hearing who is this "radical leftist coalition".

one of the problems i've seen with leftist coalitions (or good things, if you prefer them to be inefficient) is that they rarely pull with discipline in one direction, but harbor factions that are at odds with each other. there is no one program. a bit like occupy wall street which evaporated into a million causes, or allende's government in chile (where each microparty got control of a ministry and the country got paralyzed).

without being so apocalyptic, the same thing happens with "big tent" parties like in the u.s., where the fucking democrats squander any temporary advantages by shirking party discipline and bickering with each other (e.g., obama's first 2 years in office). republicans have better discipline, but the rift between mainstream vs. tea party republicans endures.

anyway, i wish greece the best-- austerity apparently has only perpetuated the depression, so a keynesian cure might work. but-- beyond that, it's all a mystery to me--- trotskyists? maoists? luxemburgists!?! that i have to see.

So they expected their people to adhere to austerity measures? Why didn't their government? Or did they try to as well? Help the citizens by not needing so much tax funding. Let them keep the money and pay their bills and education and the like.

Or am I just rambling incoherently over here in my corner of the internet?

I am horrified that SYRIZA actually won. This is very bad news for the whole Eurozone.

its no news that the political and cultural -way of thinking- and lastly, the economical state of our country, depresses me deeply.
i have done posts in the past that showed my points of view and predicted stuff that are happening.
now, i have thoughts all over the place and no energy to organize and type them.


i havent been reading or watching as you know; only this morning i m seriously considering to connect the telly, so i have in first hand what i already think or know. hopefully learn smth too, although i have been wondering if any decent economists do some serious talking there. coz, numbers, if you dont mess with them, always say the truth.
we just chose to act only on our benefit and ignore the facts and misdoings.

i dont believe that there is a single person who doesnt want to say fuck off to 'troika' etc. but.
i have zero trust to the guy.
i believe that a large %, maybe more than 20% just voted him in order not to vote samaras.
a large % who voted him, are people who seriously have nothing more to lose. and believed what ever b/s or not he promised.
middle class (financially) has seized to exist long time now, unless you count households who barely make it, as such).
people havent been paying taxes, electricity bills etc the past 2 months, in prospect of tsipras winning!!!!!! i mean cmon!
i had the thought that this election outcome almost shows what we really are. sadly. 3rd party, golden dawn? (have predicted that since 2009).
what i find depressing is that people who got us here (since the 80s) are under tsipras wings,
people who have been stealing this country (corruption) are still out there hiding the money and samaras didnt do much about that. actually that would be my sole reason not to vote for him again. regardless the reasons he couldnt do it.
corruption is in our blood and what was the last slap i took was hearing a year back, people saying that they want to go back the way we were and not come out of this better.

how can any government do any policy, leftish, or rightish, with borrowed or no money at all? am i missing here smth?
my parents never stole the state, never borrowed and are scared for their life savings, its 5 plus years now. they have seen their pension going under 50%. so i m sorry, this time i voted samaras only for them. other wise i would vote smth small.


getting out of EU?
here is the only thing i really want to read about. get the numbers straight.
the big game, the terror and blackmail. i want the numbers to see if the terror, which i share, is justified.

thanks for posting that.

still dont trust him and most of politicians with or without him/ ok lets see. cant do anything else.

ah, see, this is the kind of info i can't get from wikipedia!

thanks for your whole comment-- i just quoted this piece to zoom in on it.

look, for me Greece's problem remains the same.
corruption and lack of productivity.
and no solutions for unemployment and growth of the ecomony.


when it all started, the debt wasnt so much the problem as the government deficit. they tried to fix that, but that of course created more unemployment and disatisaction -coz many had learnt to live on HUGE payments with rediculous benefits, not to mention the difficulties and obstacles any government would face trying to clear this up.
this process however, remains one of the most unfair, in my opinion. they throw away people with big salaries (they had reductions of course during the 5 years) and get new -and less- people hmm like myself, with petty salaries and many qualifications to do the job.

lol let me verify this first! havent connected the telly yet. :cool:



hmm nor played any music, which always means i m in bad mood.

How powerful is the "radical right?"

i really dont know much about this situation and am just posting links.

at least golden dawn who are nazi extremist murderers, didnt get elected.

ermm they did get elected. i mean they get 17 seats in the parliament. 6, smth%.
extremely sad and i as i ll never get bored to say, alarming. and not a surprise. they are well organized.

that sucks

The flags flew at half mast in UK for the despot in Saudi Arabia that died and just got replaced,.

The conservatives are pretty nervous but considering how much Greece is in an economic bind more than likely this new government would be about as much a radical shift as was the Obama presidency (eg negligible ideological or policy change).. people voted simply to try something "new" but economics and geopolitics will probably thwart any substantive change towards "the left"

please keep us posted

eta: hilarious photos:

First quick reaction to the latest developments in Greece.

Syriza going into a coalition with the right-wing Independent Greeks ANEL party is a huge mistake.It undermines the whole project of the radical Syriza party, and is a kick in the teeth for those who voted for it.

The Independent Greeks are a nationalist, anti-immigrant split from the conservative New Democracy that Syriza has just beaten and removed from office. ANEL received just 4.75% of the vote and has 13 deputies. Despite its small size and level of support it will be a block on any radical social policies and act as a cancer inside the government, poisoning everything Syriza tries to do. The playback that will be demanded on social policies for the support of ANEL will not be pleasant to watch.

It is likely that the Syriza leadership will use the coalition party ANEL as an excuse for reneging on some of its policies and some in the Syriza leadership may well welcome that, as it will allow them to argue that they can't go as far as they would want.

After such a resounding result, today it doesn't look so good. I didn't expect the disappointment to begin so quickly.

actually i feel i want to disengage myself.

had a really bad day, wasted all day but mostly my mood.
and it hurts.
also i have smth other personal stuff emerging and all that led to my having bit of insomnia last night and now entering the internet caused my stomach, ache.

if anything, its better to say/type i mean, after some time passes by. after we have more solid developments.

edit anel 's guy is one of the largest pieces of shit.

i'm sorry. i won't ask you again.

i know this sounds bizarre and it's probably a futile thing to say but-- anything i can do to help?

no need to say sorry. and thank you!

actually most lower class people seem quite happy and eager to see what's going to happen next. you can tell this by looking at the faces on the streets, the discussions people are having on the buses, grocery stores etc. There's a definite change in the social atmosphere, so to speak, towards a restrained optimism.

optimism is not an argument of course. The general sentiment is that the cretins that were in power for so long needed to go.

i almost missed this! you live there too?

yep I live there. I was in the netherlands for 4 years but I returned to greece in 2014.


My first impression when I returned was that the 4-5 years of extreme austerity have almost destroyed the fabric of the country, so to speak.


Syriza is not 'radical leftists'. Perhaps they are radical in the current neoliberal lean-and-mean atmosphere of zero-hours contracts, reduction of the welfare state and concentration camps for the immigrants. Their politics is just social-democratic.

ANEL are populists and quite ridiculous.


if the new government gives 'naturalisation rights' to the 2nd generation of immigrants (that's what they say they will do) it will be a major positive development for thousands of young people here. So far the laws regarding that are totally absurd.

What will happen next remains to be seen.

ooooh... thank you thank you. i've been keeping an eye on your news so the first-person perspective helps.

i remember living under teh thumb of the IMF. it was not pretty.