On 2015, with an eye to 2019: a response to the critique by Konstantinos Poulis – by Yanis Varoufakis

In his recent remarks, Konstantinos Poulis expressed the most substantive and essential critique of the strategy I pursued with regard to the creditors both prior to and during my brief term in the Ministry of Finance. In short, his critique was that:

Remarks occasioned by the Greek translation of Adults in the Room (Ανίκητοι Ηττημένοι)

Yanis Varoufakis’ case is a singular one. There is no other example of such a glaringly unjust mismatch between international esteem and domestic vilification. That said, I believe that the opposite of vilification is not praise but rather rational, rigorous critique.

Golden Dawn and the Classics

The first book that Nikos Michaloliakos, leader of the Golden Dawn, published was, perhaps surprisingly, a collection of poems on the ancient Greek gods. When asked why he writes about the Greek deities he replied that so did Angelos Sikelianos and dozens of other poets, so why not? The truth behind this is that many of the Golden Dawn neo-Nazis are pagans, as were many of the original Nazis. Christianity was considered a branch of decadent Jewishness: National Socialism was the ideology of paganism, while Marxism and Liberalism were the ideological agents of Judeo-Christianity.

The Voice of Europe: Inequality and the Immigrant as a Tourist

The Greek nexus in the refugee crisis

Greece: a creditor’s dream come true

Alexis Tsipras won a second mandate. His call for an early election just months after taking office, and after the perilous conclusion of the talks with the European Union, resulted in an astonishing victory, perhaps beyond expectation.

Let's Sell the Acropolis!

The line that separates defeat from disgrace

Half-heartedly

Annie Hall: Sometimes I ask myself how I΄d stand up under torture. 

Alvy Singer: You? You kiddin΄? If the Gestapo would take away your Bloomingdale΄s charge card, you΄d tell ΄em everything.

Greece: chronicle of an impasse foretold

SYRIZA, the Greek Coalition of the Radical Left, was elected five months ago on the promise of “hope”. Its “Thessaloniki Program” started with the goal of writing off “the greater part of the Greek debt’s nominal value”, together with a program of humanitarian relief, which amounted to 12 billion euros that would be spent in Greece, irrespective of its creditors’ anticipated disagreement. Not only was this program never even remotely considered for implementation, but SYRIZA’s own proposal after five months of negotiations has swallowed austerity measures with indisputable recessionary effects. But this was not enough. It appears that now SYRIZA is cornered, risking a referendum with a very uncertain outcome, in essence a win-win for the troika, and with the Greek banks already closed.

So how could things turn so bad so rapidly?

A point that is often missed is that SYRIZA has been adamantly pro-euro. In fact, so much so, that this has been its main weak spot throughout negotiations. During the election campaign, Alexis Tsipras and his team persistently promised a relaxation of the strict austerity measures imposed by the coalition government of Samaras-Venizelos, although always within the eurozone, since polls showed that Greeks still wanted no rupture with the euro system. But with no power over its currency, the Greek government had to rely on the ECB for cash, while at the same time promising that it would fight austerity in Europe. This proved impossible.

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Torture in Greece

Within the din of current Greek events, a cauldron where violence and injustice mix, there is one issue that stands out because it constitutes the most extreme human experience: torture.

Read more: http://www.opendemocracy.net/konstantinos-poulis/torture-in-greece

Force, fraud, and the jeering indignant in Greece, by Konstantinos Poulis

There are two kinds of means for staying in power: force and fraud. Fraud doesn’t get us very far, though, because the gullibility of the masses is not infinite: sooner or later the game is up. It has been quite some time now that as soon as any of the two main political parties assumes power, their top priority is to disengage from their election promises, on the grounds that they have been misled as to the true state of our finances. Our governments’ elections are based on lies, for which the responsibility is consistently then transferred to their predecessors.