A lot of people are extremely depressed after they watched what happened
during the last days and weeks with Greece. German branded neoliberalism
showed its ugly face and the EU completely failed.
Greece is now a German protectorate and the trust in the EU is seriously
wrecked. Democracy has been crushed. Any economic rationality is gone. So
in order to cheer people up a bit I decided to try to see things from the
positive side. And if you try that you will find that there are actually a
lot of them:
The Emperor has no clothes
For anyone who did not know it before it should be clear now: The emperor
has no clothes. The EU has tried the austerity regime for 5 years and it
made things worse and they still want to stick with it. For anyone with
an economic understanding above the level of a furniture sails guy (like
e.g. the Austrian minister Schelling ) it is now clear that the economic
decisions of the finance ministers are not based on reason. If your read
Varoufakis description about how the Eurogroup meetings went: He gave
macroeconomic analysis and got nothing but blank stairs from them.
One should not be surprised. And what many of us have already known for
quite a while is now obvious to anyone. The political personnel is for the
most part a bunch of idiots with no clue about what they are doing at all.
And in the current system they do not have to: They are supposed to just sign
the directives that they get from industry and bank lobbyists anyway. If they
where a little smart this would be just an obstacle.
It is for this reason why the hated Varoufakis and the SYRIZA government so much:
Their presents in the meeting showed them their on incompetence (a fact that they
surely had repressed already from their conscience).
In all the negotiations during the last neoliberalism reared its ugly head and
the elites losts their any credibility. Neither did they have empirical facts
or economic reasoning on their side they also lost their moral standing. They
now stand their for all to see as incompetent, corrupt assholes.
A left shift
As a direct consequence of the above: While the elites have won this battle many
people in Europe can see a much clearer picture of the problems and thus their
opinion has clearly shifted to the left.
And for those who did not: know we know where people stand. Which is an advantage
after all. We know now better then before who is on the right side of history and
who is not.
This is true for the media, for the European Greens and most of all for the Social
Democrats. As i have shown in my article that I wrote back when
SYRIZA came into power, it is the Social Democrats that have on the one hand side
the most to loose and on the other hand can not easily oppose the left government
without alienating their base. Nonetheless, in the heat of the battle they had
to take sides and now most of the masks are off.
I would be surprised if we would not see significant gains for the left throughout
Europe in all upcoming elections and some left-shift within existing left parties.
And not just in Spain.
The danger of fascism
In my article from January this year I wrote that i would expect that SYRIZA has a hard time
in Europe. I expected the opposition from conservatives and S&D but my hope was that
ultimately they would not want SYRIZA to fail out of fear that this would lead to
nationalism and the rise on fascist parties like Golden Dawn and others.
I was proven wrong on this. Obviously Merkle, Schäuble and Schulz are not afraid at all of
fascism. In their crusade against SYRIZA they where willing to risk the rise of fascism.
Now this is certainly extremely alarming. So we have to point out this fact as often and as
clear as possible: A vote for conservative and for the right side of S&D means also a vote
for fascism in Europe. If we do this effectively will also help our cause.
We need a more united Europe
While at first glance it seems that the last days where not really helpful here, there
is some ground for hope:
On the one hand side: The struggle has helped to bring the left closer together. People
all over Europe exchanged their views on twitter and facebook, trade unions issued
petitions for support, etc.
And on the other side: To many people it is now much clearer that a more united Europe is
necessary to counter the nationalist forces and to keep the German conservatives from
dominating the EU, that we need democratic control of the ECB and the Euro that the
European Parliament needs to be strengthened, etc... A more federal Europe!
Yes, the EU has been seriously wrecked but in the process a lot of people have clearly seen
and understood its problems. Gaining insight is the first step on the road of making things
better.
As left, we need to communicate this more rigorously. The right has shown that they do not
care at all for the European project. So we need to unite around a common unite and a united
struggle to make it better.
So, if you look at it this way: There is some ground for hope. Venceremos!
Franz Schäfer (Mond), July 14, 2015
