سايت سازمان کارگران انقلابی ايران (راه کارگر)

جمعه ۲۲ اسفند ۱۳۹۳ برابر با ۱۳ مارس ۲۰۱۵

The Greek government is calling for a radical new 'basic income' welfare policy

Within the letter sent by Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to the European Commission, the ECB, and the IMF last night — allegedly 45 minutes before the government's Monday deadline — there was one key line that could radically transform the country's social welfare system.

چهارشنبه ۲۰ اسفند ۱۳۹۳ برابر با ۱۱ مارس ۲۰۱۵

Greek PM says Germany used ‘legal tricks’ to avoid paying WWII reparations

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras has accused Germany of using legal tricks to avoid paying Athens billions of dollars in World War 2 reparations. Tsipras says his parliament will look into the matter, but Berlin insists it has already honored its obligations.

The issue of war reparations dating from the 1941-44 Nazi occupation of Greece is likely to increase already heightened tensions between Athens and Berlin. The two countries are already squabbling over Greek demands to renegotiate the terms of a €240 billion ($260 billion) bailout. However, with Germany showing few signs of leniency, the new left-wing Syriza government has decided to raise the issue of war reparations again with Berlin.

سه-شنبه ۱۹ اسفند ۱۳۹۳ برابر با ۱۰ مارس ۲۰۱۵

Syriza and Podemos: the way towards power for the People?

Eric Toussaint

Experience proves that left-wing movements can come to be in government, but nevertheless do not hold power. Democracy, in other words the exercise of power by the People and for the People, requires much more. The problem is currently being faced in Greece with SYRIZA, and will have to be faced in Spain with Podemos (if that party wins the general elections in late 2015), as it was faced in the past, in Venezuela with the election of Hugo Chávez as president in December 1998, in Bolivia with Evo Morales in 2005, in Ecuador with Rafael Correa in December 2006, or several decades earlier with Salvador Allende in Chile in 1970.....

سه-شنبه ۱۹ اسفند ۱۳۹۳ برابر با ۱۰ مارس ۲۰۱۵

SYRIZA’S FIRST MONTH IN GOVERNMENT: OR HOW TO RUN A MARATHON

NTINA TZOUVALA

When this short piece was written, the details of the final deal had just started to emerge. On the negative side, SYRIZA’s government was unable to secure any write-down or even an amicable settlement of the debt, while all major reforms still need to be assessed and agreed with by the ‘Institutions’ (meaning the IMF, the EC and the ECB). Some (unclear, yet real) targets for primary surplus are still in place, while the government had to commit to ‘fiscally neutral’ measures for combating the humanitarian crisis that emerged as a consequence of post-2010 austerity measures. It is therefore uncontroversial that one cannot declare victory.....My view is that declaring defeat is equally problematic. Politics, radical politics even more so –paradoxically- are firmly situated in reality, and more specifically in the social (and international) balance of social powers......Tax avoidance in Greece has never been primarily an issue of institutional incapability. It was and still is a profitability strategy, and crucially, a materialisation of a class alliance between the ‘oligarchs’ and uppermiddle classes.....Hence, both those that want Greece to remain and those that want Greece to exit the Eurozone in the left, need to work towards the same (interim) goal: the revival and strengthening of confrontational trade unionism, grassroots movements and co-operatives. Otherwise, any ‘grand’ governmental plan will be redundant- and this applies regardless of the currency used in the calculations.

سه-شنبه ۱۹ اسفند ۱۳۹۳ برابر با ۱۰ مارس ۲۰۱۵

Yiannis Bournous is a member of the SYRIZA Political Secretariat and of the executive board of the Party of the European Left

new situation and SYRIZA's responsibilities

Learn to swim, comrade
Because the tide is rising
Because freedom will be happening around here
-- Sergio Godinho, Mare Alta)

Yiannis Bournous

he basic aim of the European neoliberal elite and its political representatives was—and still is—to lock SYRIZA into a framework that stops it from constituting a real alternative to neoliberal hegemony. They tried—and will continue to try—to imprison the Greek government and SYRIZA in a clearly defensive position, where we would be forced into mere damage control, without any ability to undertake our own alternative initiatives.....n assuming its historical responsibility, the Greek government must immediately work very hard in order to avoid any possibility of new austerity measures and, at the same time, to improve public finances by making the rich pay

سه-شنبه ۱۹ اسفند ۱۳۹۳ برابر با ۱۰ مارس ۲۰۱۵

Greece Injured By EU

ANDRE VLTCHEK

In Argentina, Russia and Greece, the crises were triggered by neoliberalism, and by market-fundamentalism. For years, both Menem and Yeltsin were busy destroying social state and Communism in their respective countries. ‘Advised’ by Western economists and political handlers, Argentina and Russia got used to treating their own people like some experimental animals in a Friedrich von Hayek economic lab. Results were awful. Economies collapsed, debts mounting, and millions of human lives were shattered.....The EU has no interest whatsoever in a Greek exit. In fact, they are afraid of a Grexit, not only because of a potential default on the Greek debt, but it could open a floodgate for other southern European countries in distress to follow the Greek example. That would be the end of the Euro as we know it. It might be the final blow to the dollar-euro house of cards, house of casino money....Greece is in a cage; it is a hostage. The door is actually open. But the country is scared to walk out and face the world. It still prefers to suffer from familiar tyrants, than to encounter the unknown....

سه-شنبه ۱۹ اسفند ۱۳۹۳ برابر با ۱۰ مارس ۲۰۱۵

Back to the Future?

Greece: the Rocky Road Ahead

CILLIAN DOYLE

So when Syriza and its creditors sit down around the table they will need to show that this time they are determined to end the condition of debt slavery within the Eurozone or without. They will only be able to win the kind of debt restructuring that Varoufakis has spoken of if they have a viable Grexit strategy which the European establishment believes they are prepared to use....In order to do this preparation must now begin in earnest. Muhammad Ali once described how the fight is won or lost long before the combatants enter the ring – its decided behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road. The Syriza leadership would do well to heed those words.....