Majority of Syriza's Central Committee rejects Tsipras' surrender

109 of the 201 members of the Central Committee have signed a document rejecting Tsipras' terms of surrender, which has been labeled as "unbearable", "humiliating", "catastrophic" and even as a "coup". 

This will probably not have decisive weight on today's vote but it effectively underlines how much Tsipras, and Dragasakis' right wing that supports him, is isolated within the party and how the challenge that yesterday placed Kouvelakis (Left Platform) about reclaiming the party by the Left may well succeed. 

Among the dissidents is Tasos Koronakis, Secretary General of the Political Committee. The list of prominent dissidents has been growing also with Finance Secretary Nadia Valavani, who resigned as member of the government. Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who is not member of the party, has also been fiercely critical of the agreement and said that it will not materialize because of IMF opposition (it is true that the IMF has in extremis attacked the deal, demanding a haircut - Washington seems very worried about European stability). It is also apparent that current Finance Minister Euklid Tsakalotos opposes the deal as well.

Greece will hold a referendum on debt deal

Mind you that at the time I write this the deal is not even signed yet. 

Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis warned that "every time we make a concession and we walk three fourths of the road, the institutions do exactly the opposite". But even then he did hope to reach an agreement today.

Unspecified "Troika" speakers also agreed that an agreement today is likely. 

The referendum will be held on July 5th. 

Varoufakis tweeted in this regard:

Democracy deserved a boost in euro-related matters. We just delivered it. Let the people decide. (Funny how radical this concept sounds!)

The official stand of Syriza is to ask for a "yes" "NO" (see update) vote. Right-wing nationalist coalition partners Independent Greeks (ANEL) have asked for a "no". PASOK considered the move "irresponsible". 

I'd personally vote "no" myself (because I believe unilateral bankruptcy and a socialist praxis is the way to go) but I do think it is not just important but a fundamental democratic need that the Greek People is the one to decide in such crucial matters. If they would have been asked five years ago, maybe we would not be where we are now. 

Sources: RT, Público[es].


Update:

The actual stand of Syriza and the Greek government is to ask for a "no". In other words: they feel that they are conceding too much and that they won't go ahead unless the Greek People demands them to do so. 

Brussels warns that the call of a referendum means the end of negotiations. It's plausible that Tsipras et al. already expected that and it may be the way to break useless negotiations in the most democratic and transparent possible way.

In effect it seems to mean that the Greek default is a fait accomplí and now begin the legal squirmishes on whether the Bank of Greece can print euros or not, whose fault is it, etc. Depending on the details it may result on formal suspension of Greece's membership in the EU (although a single country other than Greece could veto that decision even with an abstention, as it requires a yes vote by every single other member state).

Another legal squirmish may take place in the Greek parliament if the conservative opposition demands a no-confidence vote, which Tsipras will no doubt win, delaying the referendum process by maybe 3 days.

In any case the moment of truth has arrived.

Sources[es]: Principia Marsupia (Twitter), Público.

Greek debt nightmare in a simple graph

As "negotiations" (mere charade and posturing, particularly on the creditor side) are and will be going nowhere (Lagarde and the Germans are sabotaging any possible deal) I found this nice explaining graph at RT "live updates" page on the matter:

So what Greece has got in five years of total surrender is a multiplication of its debt x4, a slashing of its economy by a whole quarter and no light at the end of the tunnel. No matter how bad it is, bankruptcy is clearly much better.

Greek debt audit: pure mafioso extortion

Update (Jun 25): full report (PDF).

The executive summary of the Greek Public Debt Audit Report was made public this week, setting the legal and ethical basis for the national bankruptcy which was delayed in extremis to the end of this month but will take place without doubt by June 30th. 

Can't pay, won't pay is the most read header in the mainstream media and even many blogs but that's only part of the issue. The background problem is that the debt was contracted in ways that were akin to high treason. 

First of all, the debt growth in the pre-Troika period was not used to increase public spending, which remained in fact the lowest of the Eurozone, but was caused by:

• Usury by creditors, who charged very high interest rates
• Extremely high unjustified military spending (ironically not at all what the Troika demands cutting)
• Loss of tax revenues via capital outflows (tax evasion to British colonies, etc.)
• Public subsidies (recapitalization) to private banks (welfare for the rich)
• Trade imbalances caused by a flawed design of the monetary union: no UE public spending or low-rate public financing to compensate for this catastrophic design makes the UE a colony of Germany and a few small Nordic satellites, the infamous post-modern IV Reich. Is it a flaw or rather a feature?

These are the objective mechanisms that created the snowball of Greek public debt. 

Then, in the Troika period, states were coerced to bail out troubled private banks. This was again financed by the international financial bankster mafia and greatly increased the public debt of not just Greece but many other states. 

The Troika-imposed agreements (the infamous memorandums) only created new debt at even worse abusive costs (usury again). Most of the money that was lent to Greece in the 2010-14 period went directly back to the pockets of the lending International Capitalist Mafia. These also benefited from the dismantling of the Greek state, purchasing many of its profitable assets at ridiculously low prices. 

Worse: the conditions attached to those credit lines have only damaged the Greek economy, destroying its very sustainability and causing an almost unprecedented humanitarian crisis. 

The European Union and its institutions, such as the ECB, as well as UN institutions like the IMF, are bound (in theory) to protect human rights but they have only charged against them, following the only logic of (1) usurary gain and (2) the forge of an unstable German neo-colonial empire in Europe. In synthesis: profit of the oligarchs above the human rights of us so-called "European citizens". 

Incidentally the agreements were not signed under Greek law or international legality but under English law, which apparently does not care at all for human rights, only for profit. This was intended to circumvent the Greek constitution, what is actually illegal when one of the signatories is the Greek state itself. 

The debt is also illegal because it breaches the IMF statutes. It is also odious because it was produced in spite of being cause of breach human rights, something that neither the IMF nor the EU can legally do.

The ECB is also accused of over-stepping its mandate to favor the narrow interests of the Bankster Mafia. This should also be illegal and certainly is odious. Similarly the EFSF loans are illegal because they breach the Treaty of Lisbon (effective "constitution" of the EU), as well as imposing conditions that are anti-democratic.

The bilateral loans between Greece and various other states are also illegal, as they violate the Greek constitution, as well as EU and international laws. 

Loans with private banks are also illegal and odious because said banks (notably Goldman Sachs) did not behave responsibly and often acted in bad faith (credit default swaps, for instance). The recapitalization of Greek banks was also illegal, using public funds for private purposes and further indebting the Greek nation.

The fact that all these debts are illegal and odious make up the legal and ethical frame that allow the Greek state to unilaterally repudiate them. Of course the Greek state can always declare sovereign bankruptcy (can't pay: won't pay) but this report offers the basis for a different kind of default: the debt is illegal and immoral, so it does not exist. If anything, lenders owe reparations to Greece for the damages caused. 

One may think this is a totally pointless exercise because after all the situation is the same: little red and democratic Greece versus the massive Imperial Bankster Mafia. The point of it is, I understand, to stop the diversion: it's not that Greece owes money because it has dilapidated it, Greece is simply being extorted by the International Mafia. 

And it is not just Greece of course.

...

You can sign a petition demanding to cancel the Greek debt HERE.

The unavoidable and forced bankruptcy of Greece: five days to go

On May 24, the Coalition of the Radical Left, SYRIZA, elected by the Greek People to lead the country beyond the Hell to which the so-called European Union and the IMF (in other words: the International Bankster Mafia) had doomed it, agreed by consensus to the statement titled May hope prevail in Greece and Europe.

The party of common sense, which enjoys massive and growing support, in Greece admits that salaries and social needs must have priority over lenders' demands what means in practical terms that, unless the EU and the IMF turn around in the next few days, what they won't, Greece will de facto go into bankruptcy on June 5th. Very possibly, as the EU is not helping in any way, that will also mean switching to a national currency and a more active state intervention in the economy. Greece will go "Bolivarian", they are given no alternative.

They have tried though to find some other less radical way out of the debt trap but the only goal of the banksters who control the undemocratic institutions of the European Union (soon to be disunion) are only interested in sucking the blood of Greeks and removing the red government. It is not working because they are only pushing Greece towards a more radical path and, meanwhile, rallying the Greek People around Syriza. My worst fear, which was a Béla Kun moment, is not going to materialize: the stand of the EU and the IMF is backfiring.

The statement is clear: the oligarchs, too often enemies of Greece, will have to pay if they wish to continue operating in Greece:

The opponent however, is not only outside, but also within the walls. The oligarchy that was favoured and strengthened during the past 25 years, saw its power sky-rocket through the policies of extreme austerity and the deregulation of the labour-market during the 5 years of the memoranda. The outcome of the struggle against this oligarchy will be the judge of both the new government and SYRIZA as such.

This struggle aims to establish a radically different social and economic model, which will be based on the redistribution of wealth, the promotion of equality, solidarity, the respect of public property, the support for the common goods, the support for wage labourers, and the respect for the environment. That is why it faces fierce reaction. The power block of the oligarchs has cast away its mask of “impartiality” for some time now, and has undertaken the confrontation with the government without political mediators and without pretexts. The daily attacks we face by the media of complicity (both print and electronic) are far from accidental.

However, SYRIZA has proven countless times in the past and continues to prove in practice that it disregards propaganda and intimidation, because it has absolute trust in the judgment of the Greek people. It is time thus, for the oligarchs to understand it for good: The time has come for them to dig into their own pockets. The time has come to pay taxes, to pay their bank loans, to pay for the TV frequencies they have been using so long free of charge, to pay just as the law prescribes and just as every single Greek citizen has been paying out of his/her own meager savings. The time has come for them to pay what they haven’t been paying for all these years. Despite their propaganda against us, we will claim our rights and we will bring justice one way or another. We have before us four years minus four months of government to do it.

The time of reckoning has come for Greece. But this is only the first step, the rest of Europe is next in line.

By the moment let us show our solidarity with the Greek People, because their struggle is our struggle, the struggle of Humankind.

Update on the resistance of the citizenry of Bilbao against the Troika summit

Follow up of previous entry: Troika summit in Bilbao meets popular opposition.

In the afternoon the riots moved to the Old Quarter. I have so far only scarce reports on them.

More importantly there was a second demo called for the evening but it was called out in the last minute, and very poorly so. The dozens of citizens who were there got no information whatsoever about that and waited perplex for some time until rumor spread that an alternative call had been made for Plaza Elíptica instead.

Plaza Eliptika rally this evening

Thousands, were there in spite of the rain and heavy police deployment, lots of young people notably. However the organizers merely read a manifesto with poor quality loudspeakers and called the rally out in few minutes.

Later I know that there were more riots at least in the Old Quarter.

Right now I don't have a complete count of arrests or injuries. But I know that through the day many commerces of major brands (El Corte Inglés, Zara, car companies) have been attacked. 

Update: a total of 7 have been arrested, 50 others have been identified, according to police sources (→ Naiz Info).

The explanation for the calling out of the evening demo is not too clear. Apparently the police imposed such conditions for the march to proceed, including a change in the route, that the social movement coalition Gune decided that it was impossible to proceed.

Sare Antifaxista (The Antifascist Network) has stated that they disagree with one of the points agreed by Gune and that they found the explanations clearly insufficient.

→ More videos of the morning's demo and some of the riots at Sare Antifaxista.

→ Photo-gallery at Herri Kolore.

Sources[es/eu]: Sare Antifaxista (1, 2), Naiz Info, Berria.

Troika summit in Bilbao meets popular opposition

Representatives of the IMF, the EU and the Spanish government are meeting today at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Basque Country. 

Today is precisely the 38th anniversary of the March 3rd massacre against striking workers in Vitoria-Gasteiz ordered by the founder of the Spanish ruling party, the neofascist PP, Manuel Fraga, who was Minister of Interior back in the day and claimed the authorship of the murders under the cry of "the streets are mine!"

It is also the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Catalan guerrilla Salvador Puig Antic (Iberian Liberation Movement, MIL). So the Capitalist oppressors have apparently a lot to celebrate in this summit, as their militaristic boot is still stomping on our lives, freedom and social rights. 

In response to this outrageous summit in our occupied country, the Basque Working People has responded with struggle. Demonstrations have been going on these days last days and today there were two of them scheduled, one at 10am and the other at 7pm.

Police blocked the demo in yet another instance of fascist repression

The morning demo could not freely march as the police mercenaries of the bourgeoisie impeded it. As result some groups of activists proceeded to direct action, throwing paint, smashing commercial windows, setting fire to trash containers and crossing vehicles.  

Seemingly with no relation to these incidents at least two people have been arrested so far.

The enemies of the People remain safe in their overprotected museum. 

Christine Lagarde invades Bilbao

Sources[es/eu]: Naiz Info (link 1, link 2), Twitter #TroikaGoHome, Storify by Ion Telleria, Sare Antifaxista.

Report on the horrible reality of Greece

Read in full the highly informative article by Greek-Australian economist Yanis Varoufakis at his blog. 

Greek GDP has continuously collapsed in the last years

Notable excerpt (depressing but highly informative data):

• There are 10 million Greeks living in Greece (and falling fast due to migration), ‘organised’ in around 2,8 million households that have a ‘relationship’ with the Tax Office. Of those 2,8 million households, 2,3 million have a debt to the Tax Office that they cannot service.
• 1 million households cannot pay their electricity bill in full, forcing the electricity company to ‘extend and pretend’, thus ensuring that 1 million homes live in fear of darkness at night while the electricity company is insolvent.
• Of the 3 million people constituting Greece’s labour force, 1,3 million [43%] are jobless.
• Of the 1,3 million jobless only 10% receive unemployment benefits. The rest must fend for themselves.
• Of those who work in the private sector 500 thousand have not been paid for more than three months.
• Contractors who work for the public sector are paid up to 24 months after they provided the service and pre-paid sales tax to the Tax Office.
• Half of the businesses still in operation throughout the country are seriously in arrears vis-à-vis their (compulsory) contributions to their employees’ pension and social security fund.

A failed state whose only objective possibility is to declare bankruptcy, socialize all the economy and begin anew. 

EU: IMF proposes huge tax on savings

It seems clear that the Cyprus savings crisis was just the beginning. Back in the day there were already voices proposing to tax savings and it seems their time has come. Faced with plummeting income sources EU states may agree to tax savings above €100,000 with a yet unclear figure, speculated to be 10%. 

Uh, just what happened in Cyprus!

Or is it a "one time ~30% tax on all assets", as Zero Hedge speculated? Or is it a 10% on all households with "positive wealth", as suggested by the Fiscal Monitor? 

They are in any case trying to impose it stealthily, "before avoidance is possible". 

Oops, just as happened in Cyprus!

Of course, the rumor is already spreading, so it may not work at all. 

In any case it illustrate the terrible woes of this deep systemic crisis, whose cost, as happened some 230 years ago in France, can't be unloaded anymore only on the shoulders of the workers.

Source: The Automatic Earth.

Greece: 10,000 workers to be fired; riot at immigrant concentration camp

Two different news from Greece, not as unrelated as they may seem: they are both serious symptoms of a failed capitalist state.

Samaras will fire 10,000 state workers

The 9,820 public servants mentioned by Eleftherotypia include teachers, cleaners, police agents (surely not the Nazis!), social assistants, airport workers, health personnel and archaeologists. Eleftheros Tipos makes the figure reach 10,092.

The pact with Satan, I mean: the Troika (EC, ECB, IMF), signed by Samaras implies 25,000 public workers to be fired only this year, 60,000 for 2015. The total of redundancies will then amount to 150,000 workers.

Naturally workers did not remain quiet: several thousands gathered before the Ministry of Finance and marched to Parliament.

They denounced that these measures imply closure of hospitals and other services because they cannot be attended with so few workers as they will remain. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es] (incl. video).

Riot in Amygdaleza concentration camp

Upon knowing that the detention term for illegal immigrants has been extended to 18 months, the prisoners at Amygdaleza (Athens) rioted at lunch time. 

According to police reports they attacked the guards with rocks and set fire to mattresses. The uprising was only suffocated after midnight. 10 police agents were injured but police has not reported the number of injured immigrants. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Spain: IMF wants to slash salaries another 10%

Cristina Lagarta, oops, I mean Christine Lagarde, IMF top boss and former right hand of fascist French President Sarkozy, wants Spain to slash salaries another 10% (a 7% was already cut last year to all public officers, excepted MPs).

Not just that Lagarde also wants a reduction of 1.7% in social security fees, along a substantial increase in the time needed to be entitled to a pension (from 25 to 35 years) and an undetermined further increase in the VAT tax (already dramatically increased). 

She also wants impossibles such as to to reach "a credible social pact".

On the other hand her forecasts are gloomy, even in the event of acceptance of her stupid demands: private consume would fall initially on these changes (of course) and unemployment would remain extreme even in 2017 (26% forecast).

In spite of rising the VAT and demolishing the social fabric, Lagarde imagines that prices would drop. 

Source: Gara[es].

Lagarde is a retard, reality instead

This woman is plain stupid (or rather a criminal and compulsive liar): salaries simply cannot fall under the living costs and she is not proposing any such measures other than hallucinating with a hypothetical price drop based on nothing. 

Real effective measures would be to force the housing market to adjust prices downwards dramatically and brutally increase the availability of cheap public housing (and/or allowing squatting of speculators' idle property). The extremely high (and anti-market) costs of housing are surely the main barrier to salary drop. You just can't work for less that it costs you to live. 

Another key barrier are the totally unjustified high prices of electricity bills, which have grown more than 50% in the last few years and more than 100% in the last decade. Spain now has the most expensive electricity bills in all the Eurozone, excepted Cyprus and Ireland.

If Spanish salaries have to fall, living costs have to fall first and foremost. And that means hurting the banks and the energy monopolies.

Neither Lagarde nor Barroso nor Rajoy will do that. But is the only logical thing to do other than outright communism.

IMF admits 'austerity' wrong for Greece

In yet another case of, quite hypocritical, "too little, too late", the International Monetary Fund has admitted (so far only internally but to be published this week) that the organization underestimated the damage that austerity would cause to the Greek economy and society. 

They also admit that the Greek debt bubble was only possible because the IMF bent its own rules in order to pretend and extend.

The acknowledgement seems to forecast a haircut of the Greek debt. 

Source: The Guardian.

Greek top officer accussed of pretending greater Greek debt to impel 'austerity'

The Greek officer in charge of budget statistics (Hellenic Statistical Authority, ELSTAT), Andreas Georgiou, is under trial for greatly and mischievously inflating the figures of Greek debt so the Troika plan of "austerity for the poor, fiesta for the rich" would have more support. The accusations date back to 2009 and were initiated in 2011. 

Former PM, George Papandreou and former Minister of Finances George Papaconstantinou are also suspect. 

Is the Greek debt nightmare, partly, a case of engineered storm in a teapot?

Sources: Greek Reporter, Yanis Varoufakis (who is oddly sympathetic of the accused).

Former President of Belgian Central Bank: the system is designed to work as it is

All the video is quite worth watching but a key moment is around 5'20" when he explains how the monetary system is institutionally conceived to exist as it is, without any room for improvement.

It is designed to work "poorly" for a reason, not well explained in the video: to make sure that all the wealth goes to a few hands and that the international system remains organized in a hierarchical form in which each country or region plays its specific role in a hierarchy: financial center, industrial center, industrial periphery and the role reserved form most: neo-colony.

That part is not explained in the video properly, possibly because the speaker is after all an economist of the bourgeois school, still believing in chimeras like free market or democracy without equality. 

For us that means yet another reason for Revolution and to lose any hope (if we still had any) in Keynesian reforms: the Capitalist system has no room for meaningful reforms, only for radical transformation into something essentially different: Communism.

Source for the video: Naked Capitalism.

Hundreds of thousands take Athens in second day of General Strike

Greece came to a halt again for two days as the Parliament debated the new Memorandum imposed by the colonial powers (namely Germany, France and the other rich EU states).

As the KOE statement at Kasama explains the three bourgeois parties supporting the Samaras coalition government duped voters with empty claims of renegotiation of the Memorandum which they never even attempted. Instead they are now approving and imposing Memorandum 3: more of the bitter poison that had Athens burning already last year.

While nearly everyone is falling into extreme misery, the only thing that the bourgeois regime offers is police and fascist gangs attempting to sow fear in the hearts of the brave Greek People.

Among the measures approved is the anti-constitutional extension of retirement age to 67. Also any person needing hospital attention will have to pay a €25 fee beforehand. These are just the more insulting of an array of new collective punishments that include salary, pensions and benefit cuts, being particularly damaged those with incapacities. The national agreement on labor will also be blown up retroactively (what is also unconstitutional).

Occupied London - From the Greek Streets has some good coverage of these two days, which I will try to synthesize here:

The first day of general strike (yesterday) was relatively quiet. The strike was, of course, a massive success but the demonstrations were relatively small and the incidents minor.

Today has been a much more active day in the streets of the Greek capital (which hosts 40% of the Greek population). Police presence has been ominous, with preemptive arrests at metro stations and arbitrary attacks against gatherings, but that has not impeded hundreds of thousands of citizens from fighting their ground at Syntagma Square. 

Since 18:50 local time clashes have been general at Syntagma, as people tried to open their way towards the Parliament. 

At 19:00 Parliament workers went on strike as well, making continuation of the debate impossible because nobody would write the acts for example. Parliament workers had been so far exempt from the salary cuts to public workers but not anymore, triggering their walk out.

Clashes continue in Athens as of this entry, for what I can appreciate in the live stream.

'No Monti Day' brings hundreds of thousands to the streets

Some 100-150,000 people marched in Rome alone in the so called "No Monti Day", against Mario Monti the Goldman Sachs' appointed manager of Italy.

A sea of red banners combined with egg and firecracker hatching in the Italian capital.

"We are here against Monti and his politics, the same politics as all over Europe, that brought Greece to its knees and that is destroying half of Europe, public schools, health care," said a demonstrator.

But Rome was not the only town to march, there were protests elsewhere in Italy. In the Northern town of  Riva del Garda, where Monti was babbling about "family values" (oh, so he's not apolitical after all?) the military police (carabinieri) attacked the citizens protesting outside, as can be seen in this Euronews video:

Sources: Reuters, DW, Cuatro[es],

Huge anti-austerity protests rock Lisbon, Madrid and many other European cities

Hundreds of thousands protested today in both Iberian capitals against the brutality of the austerity measures designed to feed the banksters at the expense of the very lives of the people.

Top: Lisbon, bottom: Madrid

Lisbon

In Lisbon some 100,000 people marched through the city crying against the so-called "troika" (EC, ECB and IMF) that dictates the politics in the European Union with zero democratic legitimacy these days and against the Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, whose resignation demanded.

The main union CGTP has called for another protest this Tuesday and will probably call for a general strike soon.

Unlike in Madrid, police did not attack the protesters, so the demonstration remained peaceful.




Police violence again in Madrid

In Madrid, the neo-fascist regime attempted again to quell the protests in blood and shackles by releasing the dogs, the police, without any leash.

It was the third journey of protest in a single week in the Spanish capital and it was again full of people, as you can see in the images:

In order to prevent a complete understanding of the dimension of the protest, the regime forbade air coverage by the media. Later on the rectified, probably realizing that they would be throwing away their last remnants of legitimacy

Through the evening there were many actions of repression, including the arrest of a protester who dared to address the police as "comrades" (take note: they are not your "comrades" but dangerous mercenaries of the banksters), but the real violence began already in the night, with violent charges against those who attempted to stay in Neptuno Plaza. They obviously fear a repetition of the Plazas movement but whatever the shape it takes, they are obviously reaching the limit in their contention capability and I truly expect a most hot Autumn, Winter and Spring...

Hateful debt: referendum

Large protests also elsewhere

In Valencia, Zaragoza, Sevilla and many other cities of the Spanish state but also in the continent: in Brussels, Warsaw, Berlin, Paris or London there have been protests of greater or smaller size. The current "troika" regime is clearly less and less legitimate in the streets of Europe.

Seville

London (before the Spanish embassy)

Valencia

Sources (mostly in Spanish): La Voz, Kaos-1, Kaos-2, La Haine, La Información, Al Jazeera, Público, Caracol.

Scissors or rather... axe?

Tasio today at Gara:

The guy on the armchair is of course M. Rajoy, President of the Spanish Government.

Spain: massive spontaneous protests continue for 6th day

Virtually all public servants (who are like three million people) and many other angry citizens have starred the sixth day of protests across the state, with special focus in Madrid, where the large spontaneous illegal demonstrations have cut traffic lanes, marched to Congress[es] and been sometimes attacked by their "colleagues" of riot police only to be tolerated the next day.

 

There are quite many interesting things about these protests, notably that the unions and the left political movements are really going behind what the citizens themselves are spontaneously organizing using Twitter and social networks.

Jaca mutiny 1930

I mentioned on Friday that there was some growing unrest inside the police forces, including the militarized Guardia Civil. Today it has been known[es] that also circles of the armed forces are unhappy about how the cuts are being done (against their salaries and perks and not against the real waste). This kind of discontent in the military against a right-wing government has no precedent since the Jaca mutiny of 1930, which preluded the advent of the Second Republic a few months later.

It is difficult to think that the Spanish Army, a stronghold of chauvinism and conservatism, and specially an institution that is much disliked by the citizenry since time immemorial (at least since the pointless imperialist invasion of Northern Morocco a century ago), can lead anything. But it is nevertheless good to know that they are not a solid bloc backing the lackey government of Rajoy.

A more interesting move is a popular call to occupy Congress[es] on September 25. Although it's very possible that at the current rhythm of growing antagonism between a government that has lost all legitimacy few months after being elected and the people betrayed by them, something like a popular occupation of Congress or even the Government may happen well before September.

Tahrir is the word that comes to mind with all it implies (and let's not forget that it's Arabic for Freedom).

Some videos of some of the latest protests:

.

Great Latvia "success" story

Fun, short and highly didactic video by Mark Fiore explaining IMF-EU economic theory with a practical example and cool cartoons: 




Hat tip to Naked Capitalism.