Nail That Coffin Shut! By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

[Donnachaidh]

http://counterpunch.org/cockburn06242011.html

How many nails does it require to whack down forever the coffin lid on European social democracy? Lenin, outraged in 1914 at the sight of Social Democratic parties across Europe rallying behind their national flags and voting war credits to unleash the horrors of the First World War, would have been caustically unsurprised just over a century later at the current spectacle in Athens.

Here, last Wednesday, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou won a no-confidence vote for what Michael Hudson describes in his article on this site today as a program for national suicide, which can only be thwarted by a national referendum. All 155 deputies of the ruling social democratic PASOK party voted for the government, the 143 MPs from all other parties voted against it. Two independent deputies were absent from the vote.

The confidence vote was to ram through an austerity package, amounting to over €78 billion, against the furious protests and resistance of the Greek people. Around €28 billion of the total is to be raised through spending cuts and increased revenue, while €50 billion will be raised through the privatization of state enterprises.

It really is a bit rich to hear preachments from Germany about the importance of paying debts. Ninety per cent of all Germans oppose a bailout for Greece on the grounds of the latter's aversion to paying reparations for its supposed profligacy.

More at the link --