The Greek Tragedy
Posted: December 18, 2010 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Article, Costas Douzinas, European Left, eurozone, Greek left, IMF Leave a comment »Author: Costas Douzinas*
Few events in recent European political history have baffled analysts and commentators more than the widespread insurrection or ‘riots’ (according to right-wing commentators) that took place in Greece in December 2008. The catalyst was the unprovoked police killing of the 15-year old Alexis Grigoropoulos on December 6 in the Exarcheia district downtown Athens next to the Polytechnic and the Law School, two Universities associated with student militancy for some 60 years. Within hours of Grigoris’s killing, massive protests, occupations and demonstrations broke out all over Greece. Daily marches to police stations, Parliament and Ministries were accompanied by sit-ins, street happenings, interruption of theatres, the raising of a banner calling for resistance on Acropolis and the burning of the Christmas tree in Syntagma Square. Some early violence against banks and luxury shops was minimised and no casualties. In an unprecedented move, large numbers of secondary school pupils occupied some 800 schools and took to the streets. Half the population supported the protest. Solidarity protests throughout Europe created fears of the protests spreading.
The insurrection led to a plethora of anxious interpretations. Many, often contradictory, causes were put forward: economic (unemployment and neo-liberal economic measures), political (persistent corruption and failure of education), cultural or ideological. But the most prominent reaction of commentators has been incomprehension mixed with incredulity.
http://www.criticallegalthinking.com/?p=514
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Europe or The End of Politics
Posted: August 16, 2010 Filed under: EU | Tags: Article, Costas Douzinas, democracy, Europe, European Left, neoliberalism, social Europe 1 Comment »by Costas Douzinas*
How different does Europe look today from ten years ago. In 2000, influential commentators hailed the dawn of the ‘new European century’ to replace the atrocious ‘American’ 20th century. Europe was on the way to becoming the model polity for the new world. The re-unification of Germany, the successful introduction of the Euro and the expansion eastwards were ushering a new age of prosperity and freedom. Read the rest of this entry »
Greece, Again: Demystifying “National Debt”
Posted: August 16, 2010 Filed under: Economy, EU, Politics, Society | Tags: Article, European Left, Greek economy facts, Richard Wolff 1 Comment »by Richard Wolff.
PUBLISHED ON APRIL 27, 2010
Yet again, business leaders, politicians, academics, and media are blowing smoke around Greece’s efforts to cope with “national debt” problems. Something far more important for the world than this small country’s financial travails is at stake. Indeed, what is at stake affects us all. What is happening in Greece parallels developments everywhere; only details and timing vary.
The struggles in Greece begin with the complex relationship among workers, employers, and the state. Workers and employers are locked into the endless, multi-layered struggles of capitalism (workers vs. employers over wages and working conditions, workers competing for jobs, and capitalists competing against one another for profits). One object of these struggles is the state: varying combinations of workers and employers press the state to (a) serve their interests rather than others’, and (b) shift the cost of doing so onto the others. Read the rest of this entry »
The time to organise resistance is now
Posted: August 6, 2010 Filed under: Activism, Economy, EU, Politics, Society | Tags: Article, Europe, European Left, neoliberalism, Press Article Leave a comment »We reject these cuts as simply malicious ideological vandalism, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest. Join us in the fight
Tony Benn guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 4 August 2010 15.32 BST
It is time to organise a broad movement of active resistance to the Con-Dem government’s budget intentions. They plan the most savage spending cuts since the 1930s, which will wreck the lives of millions by devastating our jobs, pay, pensions, NHS, education, transport, postal and other services.
The government claims the cuts are unavoidable because the welfare state has been too generous. This is nonsense. Ordinary people are being forced to pay for the bankers’ profligacy.
The £11bn welfare cuts, rise in VAT to 20%, and 25% reductions across government departments target the most vulnerable – disabled people, single parents, those on housing benefit, black and other ethnic minority communities, students, migrant workers, LGBT people and pensioners.
Women are expected to bear 75% of the burden. The poorest will be hit six times harder than the richest. Internal Treasury documents estimate 1.3 million job losses in public and private sectors.
We reject this malicious vandalism and resolve to campaign for a radical alternative, with the level of determination shown by trade unionists and social movements in Greece and other European countries. Read the rest of this entry »
Austerity: Why and for Whom?
Posted: July 13, 2010 Filed under: Economy, International, Politics, Society | Tags: Article, European Left, Greek economy facts, Greek left, IMF, neoliberalism, Richard Wolff Leave a comment »by Rick Wolff
Clearly, the global capitalist crisis that started in 2007 will be neither short nor shallow. The government rescue of the US financial industry pumped enough extra money into the economy and sufficiently reduced interest rates to give banks and the stock market the heavily hyped “recovery” that started March 2009 and is now over. What is worse, their recovery never reached much of the rest of the economy. Efforts to broaden the recovery or extend it beyond one limp year have failed. That failure cost Washington trillions in borrowed funds from lenders who now demand guarantees that those loans will be repaid to them with interest. Similar demands now confront many other governments who likewise borrowed heavily to cope with the crisis in their countries. Read the rest of this entry »
Debate on the Greek Insurrection
Posted: July 13, 2010 Filed under: Politics, Society | Tags: Academic article, Europe, European Left, eurozone, Greek economy facts, Greek left Leave a comment »
Legitimation Crisis and the Greek Explosion
PETER BRATSIS
Abstract
The political ‘explosion’ that took place in Greece was a symptom of a systemic and deep-rooted legitimation crisis of the Greek state. This essay examines some of the causes of this crisis, how the political space in which this explosion occurred was produced, and possibilities for continued political antagonisms and struggles. Events belie forecasts; to the extent that events are historic, they upset calculations. They may even overturn strategies that provided for their possible occurrence. Because of their conjunctural nature, events upset the structures which made them possible (Lefebvre, 1969: 7).
The dramatic upheavals in Greece, sparked by the December 2008 murder of a fifteen-year-old student by the police, have been the focus of much interest and speculation. This ‘explosion’ has been one of the most acute challenges to the Greek political
establishment since the end of the Greek Civil War. Read the rest of this entry »
Europe: Final Crisis – Some Theses
Posted: July 10, 2010 Filed under: Economy, Politics | Tags: Article, Etienne Balibar, Europe, European Left, globalization, neoliberalism Leave a comment »by Etienne Balibar*
1. This is only the beginning of the crisis
Within one single month, we have 
witnessed Prime Minister Papandreou of Greece announcing his country’s default, an expansive European rescue loan offered to him on the condition of devastating budget cuts, soon followed by the “downgraded rating” of the Portuguese and Spanish debts, a threat on the value and the very existence of the Euro, the creation (under strong US pressure) of a European security fund worth € 750 bn, the Central European Bank’s decision (against its rules) to redeem sovereign debts, and the announcement of budget austerity measures in several member states. Clearly, this is only the beginning. These latest episodes of a crisis which started two years ago with the collapsing of the US housing credit forecast others. They show that there is more than ever a risk of financial crash, provoked by the huge amount of rotten stocks which have been accumulated over the last decade through the combination of unwarranted loans and the transformation of credit default swaps into financial products by the banks. “Black Peter”, the sum total of unrecoverable debts, is running around fast, and the States can’t catch up. The speculation is now targeting the currencies and the public debts. But the Euro is the weak link in the chain, and so is Europe itself. There can be little doubt that catastrophic consequences are coming. Read the rest of this entry »
