Greeks & French Throw the Bums Out!

More to the point, boys ‘n’ girls,  Greeks and French, as well as other Europeans have basically rejected austerity imposed by the Eurozone. They have started to see what economists like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz have known all along: austerity just doesn’t work.  After all this time, where is that confidence fairy? While right wingnutz on this side of the Atlantic are still waiting, Europeans have realized that their chances of seeing that confidence fairy are even less likely than meeting the tooth fairy. Today’s elections in France and Greece were basically cases of throwing the bums out!

In France, Francois Hollande would be the first Socialist president elected in that country since Francois Mitterand. While Hollande doesn’t necessarily want to leave the Eurozone, he doesn’t want the austerity measures imposed by Angela Merkel, Nicholas Sarkozy’s former master, as well as the folks in the ivory towers of Brussels.  He campaigned on scrapping the current Eurozone deal, renegotiating and promoting stimulus to lower unemployment and taxing France’s wealthiest citizens. Good. Somebody who gets that.  It looks promising. However, my optimism is cautious.  Next month, France will be holding their parliamentary elections.  As it stands now, Sarkozy’s center-right party has a majority in parliament. While that is most likely to change next month, there is no guarantee that the Socialists will hold a majority.  More importantly, let’s remember that George Papandreou, the discredited former Socialist Prime minister of  Greece,  did indeed cow tow to the Merkozy pair, IMF and Eurozone and implemented austerity measures that would make Cons like Stevie Spiteful and David Cameron proud.  Papandreou did everything that was not Socialist or even social democratic.  Let’s hope that Francois Hollande will live up to his party’s name and ideology and not become Angela Merkel, IMF and Brussels’ bitch.

Speaking of Greece, well, their election results are anything but stable–they could well end up going back to the polls sooner rather than later. The Greeks threw out the bums voting in more Fringe parties from the extreme right, like Golden Dawn, known as a Neo-Nazi party and far left parties, like the coalition of  Syriza.  Syriza under Alexis Tsipras came in second. The center right main party, New Democracy under Antonin Samaras came in with the most votes, but not nearly enough to have a majority, therefore a coalition would be needed.  Given that parties like Syriza collectively won over 60% of the vote, it is unlikely that austerity program that the Eurozone prescribed will continue.  Basically, Greeks are fed up of programs of high unemployment, wages being driven down, programs cut and higher taxes which have even gone so far as to drive the suicide rate up (a Harpercons’ wet dream) in that country as well as others like Italy and Ireland.

The New York Times reports that suicides that have increased in Europe, especially in countries such as Ireland, Greece, and Italy, where economic struggles have become a fact of life over the past few years. “Suicide by economic crisis” is the phrase being attached to the recent rise in European suicides.

When futility of austerity measures go so far as to cause loss of life, something has to give.  The status quo of alternating between New Democracy and the “socialist” Pasok has proven not to work any longer for them. I would venture to say that if a functional coalition cannot be formed or cannot hold, and new elections are held, those smaller parties once known as ‘fringe’ will become more mainstream. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, that right of center coalition led by Mark Rutte and his Liberal Party and the Christian Democrats , propped up by wingnut Geert Wilders and his far right Freedom Party, fell last month over disagreement over, you guessed it, austerity budgets!  It was Geert Wilders, hisself, who opposed the austerity measures. In fact, he wants the Netherlands to back out of the Euro.  The Dutch will be going to the polls come September 12. However, sadly, an austerity budget passed under the care taker government, propped up by 3 other smaller parties: the centrist D66, left leaning Greens and of course, the Socon Christian Unie.  Wilders’ Freedom Party along with the 2 main left leaning parties of  Labour and the Socialists went against it. What will happen then?  Will the left leaning Labour make a comeback? They only lost to Mark Rutte’s Liberal party by one seat in the last election. Will the Socialists move up? How well will Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party fair?  Let’s remember, boys ‘n’ girls, that far right parties are also gaining in popularity–that is, those who are against the Euro and slamming austerity packages. Yeah, yeah, yeah, banker types and the like are all a panicking now because of  the elections that just past in Europe and those coming up soon. However,  insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.  Austerity measures imposed by Angela Merkel and the Eurozone while bail outs of the financial industry continue just ain’t working.  When something doesn’t work, time to change direction.  It looks like the Eurozone needs shaking up. Here’s a wild and crazy idea, perhaps they should all do like Iceland and refuse to continue bailing out their banks and financial industry.

Now, if only things in Canada can be shaken up. Perhaps a premature ousting the Harpercons would be a great start–we can’t afford them for another 3 years, but that would be dreaming in techno-colour given the apathy and compliance with Canadians these days.

I wonder what will happen at future G7/G8/G20 family photo reunions? I mean, Stevie Spiteful may well cringe at the idea of having to smile while posing in the same pic with a Socialist president.  I can see him once again, being conveniently stuck on the potty when it comes time to shoot those family photos.