Yearly Archives: 2014

Greece’s Syriza, Germany, and the Gordian Knot

  By

The talk of Europe in the past week has been the snap elections called for Greece at the end of January, which may bring to power a new leftist party called Syriza, which seeks to make domestic reforms and EU reforms that will help average working people and end widespread corruption. Critics have called it “populist” or “radical,” but everything I’ve seen indicates it’s not particularly radical in reality:

Syriza’s manifesto proposes that repayment of debt could come through economic growth, rather than from budget cuts. It wants a European new deal backed up by an investment bank; an all-out war against the tax avoidance endemic in Greek society; an emergency employment programme; a raised minimum wage; and the restoration of collective bargaining.

 
More:

Syriza promises first to achieve a substantial write-off of Greek debt and, second, to lift austerity by aiming for balanced budgets, instead of the surpluses demanded by the troika. It will reconnect families to the electricity network, provide food relief and shelter the homeless. It will take immediate action to reduce unemployment through public programmes. It is committed to lowering the enormous tax burden and to boosting public investment in an effort to accelerate growth.

There is nothing radical, much less revolutionary, in these policies. They represent modest common sense and would open a fresh path for other European countries. After all, Syriza has repeatedly declared its intention to keep the country within the economic and monetary union, and to avoid unilateral actions. There is little doubt that its leaders are committed Europeanists who truly believe that they could help transform the EU from within.

 
Arsenal For Democracy’s guest post by Etienne Borocco, on the 2014 European Union elections, also drew a strong contrast between Syriza on the populist left and the legitimately frightening populist but ultra-right-wing parties rising across Europe, including in Greece:

Additionally, we should also qualify the right’s surge by noting that the radical left made a sharp increase in Southern Europe and in Ireland. The EUL/NGL gained 10 seats. The Greek party Syriza, whose national leader Alexis Tsipras was the EUL/NGL’s candidate for the European Commission, arrived first in Greece. In Spain and in Portugal, the radical left also earned very good results, via new parties such as Spain’s “Podemos,” which ideologically aligns with parties like Syriza, or via older organizations like the Communist Party of Portugal. The far left collectively won as many seats as the Non-Attached members. Notably, in contrast with the right, leftists like Tsipras are not against euro or the EU as a concept; he only denounced the austerity policies advocated by the EU leaders in recent years.

 
They are pro-Europe and pro-reform, just not pro-austerity. They are also not neo-Nazis like Golden Dawn, the ultra-right-wing party in Greece that has also been boosted significantly after four years of economic grind on the poor and lower middle class.

In a recent post on his blog, economist Uwe Bott argues that the rise of Syriza in Greece provides an incredible opportunity for Greece to escape the tangle of its debts — like Alexander the Great slicing through the Gordian Knot instead of trying to untie it — and for eurozone-leader Germany to help the country do so in a responsible manner … if it chooses to:

Like many fables or legends there is a moral to this story: Was Alexander the Great cheating when he cut the knot with his sword or was his an act of genius? Or to put the analogy in this context: Would a Greek default be cheating or the only plausible solution to an intractable problem?

Of course, the troika would scream: Fraud! After all, most of the irresponsible lending to Greece has long been transferred from the private banking sector to public accounts at the IMF, the EU Commission and the ECB.

Now, many Greeks would call a default ingenious. After all, Greek GDP has plummeted by 25% during the austerity program. Unemployment stands at 25% with youth unemployment double that. Pensions have been cut in half. Poverty is skyrocketing. Suicide rates have doubled and infant mortality is up as the public healthcare system has collapsed.

So, from a Greek perspective what is not to like about a default? Some of the alleged consequences, such as kicking Greece out of the Eurozone, turn out to be paper tigers. There are no means by which Eurozone countries can actually expel a member. In other words, a Greek default within the Eurozone is possible.

However, defaulting on one’s debt is not to be taken lightly. The default would exclude Greece from access to capital markets important to its private sector and banks.

 
He also warns in the full post (which I’ve only clipped bits out of) that there is a real risk that an entirely unrestrained default — which Syriza seems to want to avoid anyway, if the EU will help work out a deal — could cause a contagious shock that topples other economies and markets (particularly, he finds Italy a likely candidate). But that’s why Germany needs to lean in and embrace the new movement in Greece, to ensure it has a say in how any default or partial default is managed, so it doesn’t cause panic across Europe: Read more

A world free of land mines?

  By

From an Al Jazeera English report from Mozambique:

Progress in Mozambique and elsewhere indicates that a world without landmines could be achieved by 2025 […] 40 countries are expected to become mine-free within the next five years

 
https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/550305419630227457

Additional excerpt:

Meanwhile, with its snout on the ground, a dog is wiggling through the grass. When it comes to de-mining, dogs are indeed man’s best friend. Using their keen sense of smell to sniff out explosives in the ground, dogs are about 30 times faster than human de-miners, according to Alan Johnson, head of operations at Handicap International’s Mozambique operation.

Johnson said he has never seen a dog hurt in the de-mining process. “They smell everything long before the point they would step on it,” he noted, adding dogs’ weight distribution makes them less likely to trigger the mines.

 

“The Interview” and selective outrage on cultural censorship

  By

Art as much as anything else is important to society. Art has always been a way for human beings to mark achievements, express emotions, or capture their culture in a single moment for future generations to see. When that expression is stifled it should be considered detrimental to all of us. But for some reason artistic expression only seems to become an issue when certain voices are silenced.

When the news came out earlier this month that “The Interview” wasn’t going to be screened in the US (which was later changed to limited screenings) many people were upset. That news, combined with the news that the Steve Carell vehicle “Pyongyang”, a movie he was doing with Gore Verbinski would not even be filmed, a few celebrities took to Twitter to announce that it was a “sad day for creative expression.” A thousand thinkpieces were launched.

“The Interview” is a Seth Rogen comedy starring himself and James Franco and is about a tabloid reporter and his producer who are hired by the CIA to assassinate Kim Jong Un during an interview they’d managed to arrange with him. Anyone who is familiar with Seth Rogen’s movies already knows to expect the same silly, slapstick movie with babbling and incompetent protagonists à la “Pineapple Express” and “The Green Hornet.” However the added elements of a movie set in Korea that has a cast list of primarily White main characters — and depicts the graphic assassination of a living dictator — should make anyone cringe.

The fact that this movie exists shouldn’t really garner any attention. There are plenty of stupid comedies that come out every year, a lot of them by Seth Rogen. So what exactly made this movie go from being just another comedy to a political statement seemingly overnight? The mysterious hack of Sony, which released sensitive emails and personal information of Sony employees and other celebrities, has been deemed a cyber attack from North Korea, by the US Government. (The North Korea link’s truth is still being widely debated in tech media.) In the emails there is a back and forth between the producers, Seth Rogen, and the CEO of Sony about how the fictionalized Kim Jong Un is assassinated in the movie. This exchange coupled with the cancellation of movie screenings caused many to state that this stifling of creativity means that the “terrorists have won.”

What’s glossed over about the emails is the culture of sexism and racism. In the emails, actresses and female producers are called names and have their sanity questioned for being even the slightest bit demanding. This is a big contrast to the way Rogen is treated about his intended ending for “The Interview,” where he was allowed to re-shoot and work on the until all parties were satisfied. In another email, a producer explains how she doesn’t think African-American actors in lead roles — including giants like Denzel Washington — can garner enough box office success because they believe that “the international motion picture audience is racist.”

It seems that yes, it is a sad day for artistic expression, but not in the way that many would think. Many female and/or POC filmmakers and actors have a hard time getting the backing they need to get their projects done — for example, the Toussaint L’Ouverture biopic that Danny Glover has been working on since 2008, or the Cleopatra movie for which Angelina Jolie was called a brat in the leaked emails — and it seems as if Sony, and possibly other companies, are ok with it.

“The Interview” gaining so much attention for being cancelled after the Sony hack shows exactly who Hollywood thinks has the right to artistic expression and who doesn’t. Sadly when it comes to major motion pictures, it looks as if that sad day is every day.

Promotional poster for "The Interview" movie (via Wikipedia)

Promotional poster for “The Interview” movie (via Wikipedia)

Gen. Hifter claims “imminent” invasion of Libya capital for at least the 3rd time in 2014

  By

Supposedly, here is the situation, according to Bel Trew, reporting from Cairo for Foreign Policy magazine:

“A ground invasion of the capital is imminent,” [General Khalifa] Haftar told me from his sprawling military base in the countryside outside Merj, a town that lies roughly an hour-long helicopter ride west of Tobruk [where the “House of Representatives” government is temporarily based].

 
general-khalifa-haftarOk, well that’s got to be about the third time (see first, see second) that he’s said something like that this year, so I’m not sure why we should now believe it has any more chance of succeeding.

The reason given is that General Hifter purportedly now has operational control of western-based pro-“House of Representatives” militias in Kikla, which he means to turn on Tripoli (even though he is in the east himself along with the “House of Representatives” government):

Haftar, 71, has seen his fortunes improve dramatically in recent months. He was declared an outlaw by the authorities after unsuccessfully attempting to overthrow the previous Islamist-dominated parliament in February, and was only recently reinstated by the House of Representatives, which lacked a military force of its own to wrest control back from the militias. Haftar quickly changed that: He absorbed pro-government Western militias into his army, and is currently encircling the capital and fighting Libya Dawn militiamen in Kikla.

 
I’m not sure why, but Trew is giving his interview statements way more credence and credibility than I would. Hifter’s been pretty disastrously bad at everything he’s tried to do so far this year. Apart from acknowledging that he has a lot of enemies within his own “side” (recall that as recently as October he’d been sidelined and had announced his own retirement) and may not have as much support as some of his titles imply, she seems to be taking a lot of his claims of progress at face value, despite the claims contradicting essentially everything else I’ve read (and his history of making stuff up).

For example, he claims in the interview to have retaken 95% of Benghazi from pro-Islamist militias backing the rival GNC government. She does refer to this as a “claim” — but also suggests he has “gained serious ground” and has “momentum,” based on this claim. Just over a month ago, I noted, based on neutral observers’ accounting and AFP reporting that things were going very, very poorly in Benghazi for Hifter’s forces:

On the military side, the three biggest cities in Libya as a whole — Tripoli, Benghazi, and Misrata respectively — are under full or partial control of the pro-GNC faction and their various aligned Islamist-leaning militias. And the pro-HOR/Hifter forces in Benghazi are reportedly being utterly wrecked by the pro-GNC forces, even while armed with fighter jets and supported by the Egyptian military: In the past month, eighty percent of all deaths (military, Islamist, and civilians) in Benghazi have been from the military or Hifterite militias, according to Agence France Presse, based on Red Crescent and hospital accounts.

 
Seems hard to reconcile that with suddenly having 95% control and being back on the offensive all over the country. One wonders how much authority he actually has over the Kikla militas at all, given how far away he is from it all, and his apparent lack of leadership ability.
Read more

Cameroon deepens involvement against Boko Haram

  By

Following a coordinated, massive assault by Nigerian-based Boko Haram militants on Cameroonian targets, the government of Cameroon for the first time ordered airstrikes and rocket strikes on the attacking fighters. BBC:

About 1,000 militants attacked five villages, including Amchide, and seized the nearby Achigachia military base, where they raised their black flag, army spokesman Lt Col Didier Badjeck told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme. He said President Paul Biya then personally ordered the air force to intervene, forcing the militants out.

 
The base was reportedly retaken and the attackers repulsed. According the Cameroonian military, one soldier was killed and 41 Boko Haram members were killed. It was not immediately clear what aircraft participated in the counterattack, given the very weak state of the country’s air force.

This marks a significant development in Cameroon’s involvement in the regional war against Boko Haram. Thus far the country has been primarily concerned with trying to secure the border with Nigeria to stop militants trying to cross over.

Flag_of_Cameroon

Sweden’s budget deal is American-style extortion

  By

Sweden’s ruling center-left government, elected only in September and led by the Social Democratic Party, will live to fight another day after reaching a deal with the mainstream center-right opposition (led by the so-called “Moderate Party”) to support the Moderate Party’s proposed budget this year instead of their own but avoid going to early elections. The extreme right was expected to make big gains if elections were held within just six months of their last big jump and less than a year after their big performance in EU elections.

This is a bad deal but probably still worth taking, at least in the short term. It’s worth taking in that it avoids that dangerous election and will commit the mainstream opposition to supporting the government’s budgets through 2022, after this one. But it’s bad in that adopting the opposition’s proposed budget even this year is kind of the opposite of what is supposed to happen when they lose an election and it effectively constitutes political extortion (much like U.S. Republicans extorting concessions for vital debt ceiling increase votes).

In the long run, that means the mainstream left is likely to lose even more support for being “sellouts,” while the mainstream right continues to be extremely unpopular. The only clear upside, besides the immediate prevention of a risky snap vote, is that it pushes the next election out to 2022 and avoids several future budget showdowns, which is still a better outcome than most recent U.S. budget and debt ceiling fights.

What should have happened here is either a Grand Coalition between the two biggest mainstream parties or the main center-right party holding their noses to vote through a center-left budget instead of trying to tank it, as they did. That’s what a losing but responsible conservative party would do to avoid strengthening the far-right, particularly in a week that saw 2 different mosques attacked by Swedish extremists trying to burn people alive and vandalize property.

Instead, the “Moderate Party” extorted the ruling Social Democrats (and Green Party) by demanding their budget proposal be adopted anyway. Their budget is, in fact, the polar opposite of what the Swedish population has been demanding and had been a factor in the rise of the extreme right.

In the last 8 years, Sweden became the economy with the fastest growing income inequality in the industrialized world. The previous, Moderate-led center-right coalition government in Sweden pursued not just an austerity agenda — like many of their peers (on both sides of the center) across Europe during the recent crisis — but they also pursued an aggressive effort to roll back government services and programs and introduce private sector participation in functions traditionally managed by the Swedish state.

Although some of the policies were introduced in the 1990s, they were ramped up even more in recent years. In particular, Swedish government attempts to privatize and voucherize public education — along the lines promoted by many right-leaning education “reformers” in the United States — devolved into a mess. One recent poll, by Gothenburg University’s SOM Institute, found that ahead of the September elections 70% of the country was opposed to the privatization and corporate subsidy schemes of the Moderate Party government that subsequently lost.

In the September general election, the mainstream center-left Social Democrats won the most seats in Sweden’s parliament, but they also finished with one of the party’s lowest vote shares of any election held after the 1909 reform that granted male workers the right to vote. That’s because many of the seats previously won by the mainstream center left and right were lost to smaller parties. Most notably, a far-right, anti-immigrant party, the Swedish Democrats became the third biggest party in Swedish politics.
Read more