The Guardian reports: “I don’t believe in heroes or saviours,” says Alexis Tsipras, “but I do believe in fighting for rights … no one has the right to reduce a proud people to such a state of wretchedness and indignity.”
The man who holds the fate of the euro in his hands – as the leader of the Greek party willing to tear up the country’s €130bn (£100bn) bailout agreement – says Greece is on the frontline of a war that is engulfing Europe.
A long bombardment of “neo-liberal shock” – draconian tax rises and remorseless spending cuts – has left immense collateral damage. “We have never been in such a bad place,” he says, sleeves rolled up, staring hard into the middle distance, from behind the desk that he shares in his small parliamentary office. “After two and a half years of catastrophe, Greeks are on their knees. The social state has collapsed, one in two youngsters is out of work, there are people leaving en masse, the climate psychologically is one of pessimism, depression, mass suicides.”
But while exhausted and battle weary, the nation at the forefront of Europe’s escalating debt crisis and teetering on the edge of bankruptcy is also hardened. And, increasingly, they are looking towards Tsipras to lead their fight.
“Defeat is the battle that isn’t waged,” says the young politician who almost overnight has seen his radical left coalition party, Syriza, jump from representing fewer than 5% of Greeks to enjoying ratings of more than 25% in polls.
greece and these other countries should consider argentina’s experience in these econ0mic hostile take-overs. get out of the euro, and back to your own currencies. it won’t be easy and over night but your own people will work together maintain your independence and dignity. argentina and japan did it , but it takes the will and the courage to do it. disaster capitalism is just that,we need growth not austerity.
Interesting how Germany is at the heart of this, perhaps because they went through the same or similar circumstances after W.W.I, and we all know where that led. Granted, Greece isn’t Germany, but the simple fact that Austerity is being demanded, that there are other Countries on the brink too, a new direction is needed, one that won’t turn the population[s] into debt slaves.
The bail-out money has all gone to the banks and financial houses because the EU governments’ objectives all along have been to protect their banks that loaned the Greek conservative government more money than they could repay. Some (Goldman Sachs) were even complicit in falsifying the Greek books to hide the fact that the loans were contrary to EU regulations. Almost none of the bailout money has gone to the Greek people—it has gone back to the banks in the countries that pretended it was a Greek bailout.
If party A lends more money to Party B than B has the ability to pay A does not get paid back—PERIOD. That is (or should be) game over for A’s money right there.