US Hedge Funds Get Bailed Out if Greeks Pass Bailout Referendum (1/2)

Greek People Crushed by Austerity - Will Vote

Note: The harsh austerity measures were instituted for the last 5 years. The Syriza government was only elected 6 months ago.   To see details of how austerity is killing people, see the videos at the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/.  Note the dates of the videos. Before the Syriza government.

Greek People to Vote July 5 on “Blackmailing Ultimatum”


Anastasios Papapostolou
June 26, 2015
Greek Reporter

Late Friday night Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced Greece will hold a referendum on July 5 to ask Greek citizens if they approve the proposed bailout agreement put forward by Greece’s foreign creditors. “I call on the Greek people to rule on the blackmailing ultimatum asking us to accept a strict and humiliating austerity without end and without prospect, ” Tsipras said. Included: Tsipras’ address to the Greek people and a link to the creditors’ proposal.



Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, European Union-European Parliament/Martin Schulz,


Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced that Greece will hold a referendum on July 5 to ask the Greek people if they approve of a bailout deal with the country’s creditors.

In a nationally televised address after midnight Friday in Athens, Tsipras announced the July 5 vote and excoriated a take it-or-leave it offer as a violation of European Union rules and “common decency”.
“After five months of tough negotiations, our partners unfortunately resorted to a proposal-ultimatum to the Greek people,” Tsipras said.

“I call on the Greek people to rule on the blackmailing ultimatum asking us to accept a strict and humiliating austerity without end and without prospect.”

Greece- This Is What Class War Looks Like

antiracismdsa: Greece- This Is What Class War Looks Like: Greek People to Vote July 5 on “Blackmailing Ultimatum” Anastasios Papapostolou  June 26, 2015 Greek Reporter Late Friday night Greek Prim...

Robert Reich - Military Industrial Congressional Complex

Understanding the Bankers' Assault on the Greek People

by Duane Campbell

We need to understand the crisis of austerity being imposed by  European bankers on Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal, among others.  A catastrophe on the scale of the Great Depression has been forced upon Greece for over five years under the deceptive description of a “bailout.”

Lets start with a few basics usually not considered in the corporate media descriptions of the crisis.

1.     What happened ?

2.     Does Germany owe as much money to Greece as Greece owes to German bankers?

3.     Are current policies of austerity are creating an economic catastrophe?

What happened ?

1.  In 2010 and 2011, mainly German and French banks in pursuit of high profits made massive loans to Greek firms. When the banks recognized that this was a high risk, they were bailed out (not Greece) by transferring the debt from the banks to the public institutions like the European Central Bank and the IMF.  Now the ECB and the IMF are trying to force the Greek government to cut pensions, education, salaries, and health care to pay for the bail out of the banks.

These funds were transferred from banks, the ECB, and the IMF to pay back banks, the ECB  and the IMF.  Few funds were used to assist the Greek people. That is loans are being used to refinance the debt. They are recycled back to Germany, France  and other nations’ banks.  (Macropolis, http://www.macropolis.gr/?i=portal.en.the-agora.2080)

Awaiting debt deal, Greeks resist expected reforms

Awaiting debt deal, Greeks resist expected reforms

Charleston- Mourn, then Organize

To Properly Mourn the Murder Victims at the Emanuel AME Church We Must Rededicate Ourselves to the Fight Against Racism

Posted by Democratic Socialists of America on 06.19.15
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Statement of the National Political Committee of Democratic Socialists of America

Democratic Socialists of America grieves the loss of the lives of nine innocent human beings who were all leading activists and mentors within the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and the larger Charleston community. We express our solidarity with the members of the Charleston AME church and the larger black community of Charleston. The lives and names of the victims must not be forgotten:  Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, Reverend DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Reverend and State Senator Clementa Pickney, Tywanza Sanders, Reverend Daniel Simmons, Sr., Reverend Sharonda Singleton and Myran Thompson.

The shooting, which was perpetrated by a 21-year-old white man, was shocking not only in the massive loss of life but also in the murderer's use of the hospitality of a prayer group to enter the historic Charleston AME Church. The “Mother Emanuel” church since its founding in 1816 has served as a safe haven and movement center for Charleston’s black community. The original church was burned to the ground by the white community in 1822, once the plans of Denmark Vesey and other church activists for a massive slave revolt were leaked to the authorities. The murder of today’s parishioners is accurately described as an act of white racist terror; the choice of the site of this heinous act is unlikely to have been accidental.

We Organize with class

By Maria Svart

One of my favorite DSA T-shirts reads, “We organize with class.” It sums up what makes us different from other progressive activists. We understand that the capitalist class has an inherent interest in exploiting the working class and has structured society and all of our institutions accordingly. Yet, we also recognize that the ruling class shapes institutions and social relations not just to regulate and control people based on their position in the economy but also on their gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and other categories. In other words, based on other aspects of their identity.

For example, we women are taught from birth to be caretakers—of children, of men, of elderly relatives. In our capitalist system, we receive no economic support for carrying out these tasks. This has implications beyond the family, in that traditional women’s work, even when women are paid for it, is more devalued than that of men. Thus, child care, elder care, home health care, and food workers are some of the lowest compensated workers in our economy. It is to black feminists Kimberlé Crenshaw and those from the Combahee River Collective that we owe the insights of intersectionality, the idea that dominant groups use various aspects of our identities to exclude the subordinate groups from power and decision making and that these intersections of identity must be taken into account along with class when organizing for political power.

Greece and Europe- May Hope Prevail

May Hope Prevail in Greece and Europe: SYRIZA Central Committee Statement


SYRIZA
May 28, 2015
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

May 28, 2015 -- The following is the resolution of the central committee of SYRIZA, published on May 24 and is binding for the party collectively. The resolution is a product of consensus and has been voted for. It is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal for the information of the international left.



, ,


From January 25, the government has been giving an unprecedented political struggle. A struggle towards the country’s final exit from the dead-end of the memoranda; a struggle to alleviate the burden of those fighting to survive after the policies implemented during the last 5 years; to restart the economy on a path of viable and socially just development; for the termination of the vicious circle of dept and austerity. A struggle for hope, not only for Greece but for the whole of Europe.

The confrontation with the conservative forces insisting on bankrupt austerity policies, constitutes a Europe-wide struggle. It is not only the future of Greece that hangs on the outcome of this effort. If we win, a new paradigm will firmly show the way to all the peoples of Europe. That is why, the hope for which SYRIZA and its government stand, has been under threat from the moment of its birth. That is why, the domestic and international Holy Alliance of austerity has gathered up against us. That is why the battle we give is of historical significance for the future of Europe.

Throughout its course SYRIZA has repeatedly pointed out, that the struggle against the Holy Alliance of Austerity will not be a stroll in the park. We claimed from the very beginning, that this would be a long and hard battle. Unfortunately, the course of events has confirmed us. But the value of the Left is measured and proven in hard times.

SYRIZA always defined itself as a party different from others. We always claimed we are a party promoting contemporary popular interests, and at the same time, the timeless values of the Left. For four months now, we have been proving day by day, our unbreakable connection to the peoples’ desire for justice and dignity. For four months now, we have been defying all ultimata. We have been resisting to the attempts for the suffocation of the economy and society. We have defied the international “mudslinging”. We have kept our ears shut to the sirens of conformity and submission. For four months now, day by day we insist on the red lines drawn by the people itself on the 25th of January. The government will not sign a new memorandum.

The fact that we reject all ultimata however does not mean that we are not seeking a mutually beneficial solution. All this time we have made every possible effort to remove the deadlock. The good will we have shown should not be taken as a sign of weakness or of assimilation to the dominant narratives. It was a sign of our responsibility to the Greek society as well as to the rest of the European Peoples. We have sought after and we continue to seek for, an agreement that will lead us out of the vicious circle of debt – austerity – more debt. We have sought for, and we continue to seek, an agreement that will strengthen the cohesion of the European peoples.
Reposted from Portside.

You May Not be a Citizen - Neo Liberalism

Neoliberalism Has Created New System of Dual Citizenship for the Poor and the 1%

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/neoliberalism-has-created-new-system-dual-citizenship-poor-and-1

Author: 

Bill Fletcher, Jr.

Date of Source: 

Friday, May 29, 2015

Alternet

In a lecture at Harvard during my freshman year, a professor—who may have been Martin Peretz—offered an insight that left a profound impact upon me. “Citizen,” the professor noted, was a unique and quite revolutionary concept. Different from many other terms, e.g., “comrade,” the notion of citizen implied a specific relationship between an individual and the polity. It specifically suggested a role for the individual within a state system in which said individual was a participant/actor rather than an observer.