Can't sleep dammit

[Bereta_Eder]

BTW got to love the german minister of finance (6:00)

[Markwinstanley]

You can try sleep hypnosis. It really cure my insomnia very well. There are plenty of free videos available on youtube.

[Bereta_Eder]

Sava your realdoll is talking to me


For example this is what I'll like to see

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30177599

A thorough targeted indictement of the culrpits.
It has been done to an extend but there has been covering up too.
Lists of high profile tax evading people given unconditionally from international sources have not been used to the extend that they should.
huge defense and infastructure bribes conserning german industries have been covered up.
Etc etc
That doesn't mean that I think that troika (not the EU although its appeal is degrading very fast in a vareity of places) isn't a bunch of bloodsucking deviants ready to bleed a people dry as long as the figures add up. and that in more enlightened times they would be by now probably hanging from a tree.
To the words of a populist rightist villager of a person politician (and subminister of development) refering to new debt negotiations with the troika: "they can go to the devil and leave us in peace"
it's nice coming from a gov. official (even if he's known for having shall we say lessened social etiquette skills, and of course being part of the system that crashed the economy)

however, it's all good. every case of corruption not followed, every single person turned away from the national health system, every raised eyebrow in front of the prices in a supermarket, everything, all of that is wind to the sails of the radical left wing that is building associations with likewise movements all across southern europe.

The goal, is the welfare of the people. The end is irrelevant.

[C0ckney]

it's nice to see a leading politician getting indicted for corruption. the problem is that when corruption is endemic, one arrest solves nothing.

and as you say, this kind of thing is leading to the radical left getting organised and doing something about it. they may well take power in greece and spain (then of course we'll see how radical they really are, but that's another story).

[Bereta_Eder]

(then of course we'll see how radical they really are, but that's another story).

indeed...

although I wouldn't say that the radical left wing became organized because of the crisis.
There was a disbelief in the political system and the votes for the radical left swell beyond any expecations.
So far it has been able to get organized and keep this electorate. But it wasn't that it became organized and thus the votes came.
It's more that the votes came and "forced" it to become organized and think up solutions (some of which are populist though...) and solidify within itself internal coherence (the lack of which was it's achiles' heel in the past)

[C0ckney]

it'll be interesting to see what effects these parties have. hopefully they'll break up the merry-go-round where a 'centre-right' and a 'centre-left' party take turns holding power and basically doing the same thing and move left-wing politics beyond state socialism and towards self-organisation, worker control and a re-examination of private property. even if they don't manage anything quite that ambitious, hopefully the will challenge the cosy pro-EU, pro-capitalist consensus and move the political centre of gravity leftwards.

of course the far-right, of both neo-liberal and fascist flavours are doing the same, dragging the 'centre-ground' rightwards in a nasty authoritarian direction.

[Bereta_Eder]

hopefully the will challenge the cosy pro-EU, pro-capitalist consensus and move the political centre of gravity leftwards

To be honest, I don't think it's realistic to expect anymore than that.
But of course anything goes. Reality will dictate the outcome.

There is a framework and within it, only "certain" ways of types of organization are permitted. That has been proven again and again in history.
On a local level though, the instances of self organization I think have multiplied but they will never be allowed to reach critical mass within the given framework.
This is the reality of things IMO.

of course the far-right, of both neo-liberal and fascist flavours are doing the same, dragging the 'centre-ground' rightwards in a nasty authoritarian direction.

True, but they have very, very strong opponents (in some coutnries more than in others)

BTW you are absolutely right to make this amalgamation between far right and neoliberal. Their core beliefs are very similar, their outcomes almost identical.

[C0ckney]

although I wouldn't say that the radical left wing became organized because of the crisis.
There was a disbelief in the political system and the votes for the radical left swell beyond any expecations.
So far it has been able to get organized and keep this electorate. But it wasn't that it became organized and thus the votes came.
It's more that the votes came and "forced" it to become organized and think up solutions (some of which are populist though...) and solidify within itself internal coherence (the lack of which was it's achiles' heel in the past)

i think you have a point here. it's as marx said, social movements (IIRC he was specifically referring to the paris commune) are not really about grand theories and great leaders, but rather how people react to events. the crisis shattered many illusions about their government and who they really represented. the EU came down very firmly on the side of the bankers and capitalists and the pro-EU national politicians meekly followed suit (not that they were forced or anything, most would have done the same whether there was an EU or not). so that made a lot of people angry and has allowed for new organisations and political forces to emerge.

[Bereta_Eder]

Absolutely true.
But I would be lying if I didn't point out that it's not like 30% of the greek electorate became believers of the radical left. For most of them the end game is an amelioration of every day life and an end to the bloody crisis. A deep realization that if troika is completely left unchecked their country will be reduced to a hellish existance, something which happens little by little (don't know if you are familiar with the frog in the cooking pot and the temperature increasing little by little so the frog doesn't realize he's been cooked? ) As said, also a deep disbelief to anything resembling the old political system.

So the radical left is used as a "vehicle" to bring about that change. IMO, its leadership has been very correct in stating that the amount of change that will be brought about, will correspont to the power of the mandate it will receive from the people.

Bare in mind that the war waged against it by the system (established media, traditional political powers) has been viceral and devoided of morality (for the most part)

If it comes to power though (polls say that if elections were now, it would) there will be a tectonic shift in the current political establishment. Of that I have little doubt to be honest.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Interesting times, perhaps Greece will lead the world again soon

[pchang]

No. Against the rules. Only 1 golden age per Civ.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

They must have built Taj Mahal secretly at an undisclosed location with all that borrowed German money.

[C0ckney]

Absolutely true.
But I would be lying if I didn't point out that it's not like 30% of the greek electorate became believers of the radical left. For most of them the end game is an amelioration of every day life and an end to the bloody crisis. A deep realization that if troika is completely left unchecked their country will be reduced to a hellish existance, something which happens little by little (don't know if you are familiar with the frog in the cooking pot and the temperature increasing little by little so the frog doesn't realize he's been cooked? ) As said, also a deep disbelief to anything resembling the old political system.

So the radical left is used as a "vehicle" to bring about that change. IMO, its leadership has been very correct in stating that the amount of change that will be brought about, will correspont to the power of the mandate it will receive from the people.

Bare in mind that the war waged against it by the system (established media, traditional political powers) has been viceral and devoided of morality (for the most part)

If it comes to power though (polls say that if elections were now, it would) there will be a tectonic shift in the current political establishment. Of that I have little doubt to be honest.

i agree with this of course. the situation reminds me somewhat of the oil shock that brought the keynesian post-war consensus to an end. the system was breaking down and the establishment left found themselves defending a failed system. the right, with their neo-liberal economics seized the initiative and have held it ever since. now we find ourselves with another systemic crisis, but this time it's the right who are promoting more of the same. hopefully the radical left will seize the initiative.

[Bereta_Eder]

Bare in mind that the right wing (which is by now immensly neoliberal and displaying authoritarian tendencies all the time) has the full backing of the troika. That means the whole established international financial system. The left has noone on its side but the people who either vote for it or have by now begun to really disbilief the "official line" of rhetorics and start believing their own eyes.
It is a huge disrepancy of power if you ask me.

And I'd add that yes, in the 90's social democracy ruled Europe but they failed in job creation and that's why they lost power. Ever since, the right wing rules and where has this brought us? To a crisis that will claim many victims more untill the establishment is forced to rectify its course.

Stories like this break my heart

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/23/spanish-football-club-rayo-vallecano-helps-woman-85-evicted-son-loses-house-debt

And IMO a real problem is that the established right wing and left wing are identical by now (minus some worthless semantics).
Another real problem is that neoliberalism is by now engraved in community law (for the love of god...!) thus immediatly transposed to national law.
In other words a unified market will by default be a neoliberal market. Screw that
The whole system is rotten. What keeps it together is a thread of unity that is more on the peoples' minds to stay together in the EU, that what is actually being done which will lead it dangerously close to being demolished.
Personally I have no ambivalance that this is inevitable unless neoliberalism is curtailed drastically not only on a national (the leeway for maneuvre is limited) but also on a commission level.

About self organization I think there have been many instances in history where it was achieved and then again and again, but the central state has always been able to squash it with violence.
It seems to flourish where there is an absent central state, that being created either by a vacuum of power steeming from political/military developments or by force of those involved.

[C0ckney]

one of the advantages of the crisis is that many of the lies that the system relies on have been exposed for what they are. and one of the remarkable things is that even with the whole campaign that you refer to against ideas and movements outside the neo-liberal consensus, the radical left may yet take power in greece and spain, and are gaining strength in other countries.

for a left-wing opponent of the EU such as myself, it has been satisfying to see the 'social-democratic' arguments in favour of the EU have been exposed, by the EU themselves, as totally false. people are waking up to this fact. unfortunately many of those people are attracted to a right-wing message based on 'national sovereignty' and blaming foreigners, rather than the real culprits.