The 35 MPs who nominated Corbyn are ‘morons’ according to New Labour-era apparatchik John McTernan – basic underlying argument: you can’t actually give voters a choice, because then they might choose the wrong one. You can’t let a candidate who vaguely represents the reasons people join the Labour Party slip into the contest – because we don’t represent those views, and have built entire careers around leading a group of people we fundamentally disagree with.
Europeans who have been completely misled about the Greek crisis, and who are shielded from its consequences, are willing to endorse their governments’ cruelty toward Greeks. German officials have openly boasted about how well protected its economy is against collapse in Greece – not an empty boast given the reality of the past several years. People who believe in democracy assume that it gives voters the most influence on decisions that impact them the most. That is why nobody would endorse the citizens of Athens electing the mayor of Berlin and contemptuously disregarding what Berliners think. Anyone who claims that Germany and its allies are acting with democratic legitimacy in Greece are endorsing that kind of nonsense.
Chris Black concludes that a “court would also have to consider whether the contract was ever valid in the first place; that is – did both sides get real consideration for their part in the bargain….It is clear that the moneys lent did not actually flow into the Greek economy but were nominal loans to the Greek nation, but actually went from one lenders bank to another and back again, so that it was really a scam to steal the wealth of the Greek people…. The Greek could legally argue their way out of all these contracts and loans, but of course behind the contracts sits the German army and behind them the US army – and so it not (so much) a legal matter but a political one. Argentina and Iceland made a political decision and repudiated these contracts. Greece can do the same.”
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has pushed through parliament a proposal to cut at least 13 billion euros from the public purse – 4 billion euros more than the “austerity” figure rejected overwhelmingly by the majority of the Greek population in a referendum on 5 July.
