And for those waiting to make up their minds… May 30, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
…they could do worse than read this from Slavoj Žižek on Europe and the Greeks… passed on by Wu Ming for which many thanks…
On the choice between SYRIZA amd the right…
And, as is usually the case when a real choice is on offer, the establishment is in a panic: chaos, poverty and violence will follow, they say, if the wrong choice is made.
And:
Here is the paradox that sustains the ‘free vote’ in democratic societies: one is free to choose on condition that one makes the right choice. This is why, when the wrong choice is made (as it was when Ireland rejected the EU constitution), the choice is treated as a mistake, and the establishment immediately demands that the ‘democratic’ process be repeated in order that the mistake may be corrected.
But it’s his conclusion which is most important where he points to a depoliticised technocracy ‘in which bankers and other experts are allowed to demolish democracy’.
We’re more than half way there already.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
This from a Tory MEP in The Daily Telegraph, with hardly a word that Gerry Adams would disagree with and a link to that excellent dole tv parody ad:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100161609/the-euro-crash-is-coming-will-ireland-vote-to-be-part-of-it/
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Very interesting article and a great find. It’s like you say, the language could be one and the same. Problem is I’ve moved to the point where I think he has a real point.
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I like the sentence: ‘unbelievably…the Irish are about to strap themselves into the impending wreckage’.
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Fits the bill.
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Except that Hannan is a firm ideologue of the pro-capitalism, xenophobic and Atlanticist wing of the Tories (and a big hit over the years with Libertas and their hangers-on here). – and the article you think you’re reading isn’t meant for you.
I read it and I hear the dogwhistle calls to fight the traditional enemies of the Tories – the Germans, the Left, Irish Republicans.
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That’s a very valid point – and you’re spot on re dog whistles. That said in this particular instance there’s a brief convergence of analyses even if more broadly he’s poison.
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Just to reassure EWI, I’m not under any illusions on that score. I write not as a fellow-traveller of Tory anti-Euro-triumphalism, but as a connoisseur of irony.
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Hannan was born in Peru and is fluent in French and Spanish. It’s disgusting how you people label anyone on the right a xenophobe. Any evidence for that accusation? No, didn’t think so. You just need to smear the other side to prevent anyone from opening their mind.
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Reblogged this on Campaign Against the Austerity Treaty and commented:
Good Advice from Zizek
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+1
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éirígí has just received the following message of solidarity from the Communist Organization of Greece (KOE) in support of its NO campaign:
From KOE, Greece: Message to the Irish People
http://www.eirigi.org/latest/latest300512_2.html
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p.s. – great site WbS/Cedarlounge. I drop by for a read every day 😊
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Thanks vladimirlenihan, and again, great leaflet on the Treaty.
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1) The most succint argument for voting against I found at the European Tribune:
Don’t hand weapons to crazy people.
2) The treaty looks more and more irrelevant as events overtake it.
If I were not living in the middle of it I would find the development of the crisis fascinating, instead of mostly terrifying. Spain effectively is playing a high-stakes poker game and demanding that the ECB directly bail out private banks (as opposed to a disasterous national guarantee). If they do so then the major guarantor of the ECB – namely Germany – has effectively agreed to share the burden of ‘foreign’ private bank debt – a form of fiscal union.
Whether the latter can ever fly for more than a few months is another question entirely but if the Germans don’t blink then we are looking at major bank defaults or another epic fudge.
3) Now here’s a rare thing – Actual Greeks talking about the Greek crisis and what is more Greeks of the left.
They don’t do that kind of thing on RTE, thank the Lord.
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Re 2) isn’t it interesting how the Spanish government thinks it can do that and is willing to?
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Anybody see Krugman on Newsnight tonight? It was almost embarrassing seeing him have to try and debate that Tory woman in particular….
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I missed it. What was she saying?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDRouOpgRU4&feature=youtu.be (via a posting on IrishEconomy).
About 40 minutes in.
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