The resounding electoral victory of the Radical Coalition of the Left (SYRIZA) in Greece on January 25th may mark the beginning of important changes in Europe. SYRIZA has won 36.3% of the vote and 149 seats in the 300-member Parliament, defeating the right-wing New Democracy Party of incumbent Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. SYRIZA quickly formed …
OCCUPIED TUCSON CITIZEN The distinguished sociologist Imannuel Wallerstein recently wrote of the “rapidly and constantly shifting geography of protest” that has been sweeping the world since the onset of the Great Recession. In his reckoning, one protest “pops up here and then is either repressed, co-opted, or exhausted,” after which another protest pops up somewhere …
OCCUPIED TUCSON CITIZEN After a brief lull, anti-austerity protests in Europe were dramatically ratcheted up last week, especially in Greece and Spain. In Greece last Wednesday there was a 24 hour general strike to protest a new package of cut-backs and take-backs that shut down the entire country. In addition, over 300,000 demonstrators marched in …
OCCUPIED TUCSON CITIZEN Though the front-page headline of last Monday’s Arizona Republic confidently proclaimed that “Pro-bailout conservatives win Greek election,” the reality of last week’s election was far more complicated. The election, in fact, seemed to confirm that the extreme austerity program that has been imposed on Greece by the European Union, the International Monetary …
OCCUPIED TUCSON CITIZEN ATHENS (May 29) — Voters in Greece sent tremors across the Eurozone on May 6 by recording a massive protest vote against EU-dictated austerity. Parties that had participated in an emergency government tasked with passing deeply unpopular belt-tightening measures in return for rescue loans to prop up the near-bankrupt Greek economy were …