Missionary Renegade: Democracy Now! Daily Digest: A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Democracy Now! Daily Digest: A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Democracy Now! Daily Digest: A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Tuesday, July 7, 2015
democracynow.org
Stories:

Economist Richard Wolff on Roots of Greek Crisis, Debt Relief & Rise of Anti-Capitalism in Europe

As Greek voters reject further budget cuts and tax hikes in exchange for a rescue package from European creditors, who is to blame for the debt crisis embroiling Greece? Is Germany trying to crush Greece to set an example? Will Greece leave the eurozone? What does this mean for the global economy? We speak to Richard Wolff, emeritus professor of economics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and visiting professor at New School University. He’s the author of several books, including, most recently, "Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism." Still with us in Athens, Greece, is Paul Mason, economics editor at Channel 4 News.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Richard Wolff, Germany clearly is controlling this situation, of any country. Why do they want to crush Greece? Or do they?

RICHARD WOLFF: I think the Germans face a choice. They’re worried that as the richest country, as the country that controls the situation, and as a country that historically has benefited from the very thing that Greece now wants, which they don’t want to give to the Greeks, that they face the risk that if they crush Greece, it will produce the reaction Paul has described. On the other hand, they will send a message to the Spanish, to the Italians, to the Portuguese and others, who are basically in a very similar situation, only they’re much larger, and the Germans are therefore afraid they’ll have to bail out all of Europe. They can’t afford it. They’re terrified. On the other hand, if they don’t cut a deal with Greece, then they face the possibility of left-wing governments in these other countries and a whole transformation, and they’re choosing between them.

The irony here, the historical irony, is something I think we need to understand. Back in 1953, the Germans, with a very crushed economy—in that case, because of the Great Depression and the fact that they lost World War II—went to the United States, France and Britain and said, "We can’t join you as a bulwark against the Soviet Union unless you relieve us of our enormous debts, which are hampering our ability to grow." Across 1953, they had meetings in London. When those meetings concluded, with the so-called London Agreement, here’s what Germany got from the United States, France and Britain: 50 percent of their outstanding debt, which was very high, was erased, and the other 50 percent of their debt was stretched out over 30 years. In effect, Germany got the relief of all of its basic indebtedness, based on two world wars that they were held accountable for, and that enabled them to have the so-called Wirtschaftswunder, the economic miracle that happened. They now refuse to give to Greece what they got. They refuse to allow Greece to have the chance to solve its economic problems just the way Germany asked for and got. And this discrepancy between these two countries is producing a stress inside Europe that is, what Paul Mason correctly points to, fundamentally dangerous to the whole project of a United States of Europe.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Paul Mason, what about, for example, the people of Germany and other European countries versus their governments that are pressuring Greece right now? And also, in addition to your analysis of Germany’s role, Paul, people cannot take out more than what’s equivalent to $60, 67 euros, from the bank right now, the banks actually closed until Wednesday, if not beyond. And what does that mean? Is there a rift between younger people, who voted overwhelmingly no, and pensioners, who were more supportive of a "yes" vote?

PAUL MASON: No, no. I mean, let’s take that, to start with. Greek society is divided between left and right, between the grandchildren of people who fought in a civil war here in the late 1940s and indeed the Communist resistance movement that defeated the Nazis in 1944. So that goes back a long way. That’s the real division. And therefore, you know, one of the first sets of people on the streets when Tsipras even tried to make a compromise were 70 coachloads of Communist pensioners who tried to storm the street his office is in. So, don’t think it’s young v. old. Look, it is left v. right. And it is class—as Tsakalotos says there, it is a class issue, as well. The richest areas voted 80 percent yes, the poorest areas voted 80 percent no. But the Greek elite got a lesson that the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley taught the English elite in the aftermath of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre in the famous line from his poem: "Ye are many," to the working class—"they are few." You can’t win a referendum with only rich people. So, that’s the issue here.

On the question of the 60-euros-a-day withdrawal, again, it is, in a strange way, redistributive. Young people here earn, on average, 400 euros a month. That’s what you get for waiting table. And you’ll find many graduates and Ph.D.s waiting table. If you draw 60 euros a day out of your account, you’ll clear your 400 euros in a week. You’re not going to be drawing 60 euros a day out. Some people are walking around this city with five euros in their pocket. Now, that has been survivable for them, but not really survivable for businesses. And I’m finding, in the businesses I talk to, extreme pain. It’s the payments mechanism. It’s the supply chain. It is the ability to settle accounts. And, of course, I understand that large corporates, the big global corporates, are keeping supplies coming in, even while they’re not being paid. They’e been advised to do that to avoid reputational damage. But it’s the Greek corporates, it’s the Greek medium and large enterprises that don’t have that ability, where things are breaking down. So if the banks were to go on top of that, that would really be an awful situation.

And that is what—you know, to sum up here, because I do have to rush and do my day job, and indeed complete the documentary that we’ve been working on for six months here, is—the sum-up here is the Europeans cannot afford to let this country go. As Rick says, it’s about Europe. But we are one border here away from the Islamic State. So we have the Turkish border and then the Turkish border with the Kurdish areas, and that’s the Islamic State. Some Greek islands are five miles away—less than five miles away from Turkey, where Syrian refugees are pouring in at thousands a week. And then we are in the region of Vladimir Putin and the newly belligerent Russia. Do you really want a state that has the biggest spend per capita on military, in NATO, in Europe, to fail? That’s the issue. And it’s the issue, I know, that the American State Department is well aware of. The State Department are pressuring the Germans very heavily.

The problem is, as you suggested there, the German people. Don’t get your hopes up about a German mass revolt in favor of Greece. Yes, the left party, Die Linke, is a sister party of Syriza, and, yes, it rules a couple of regions. But the leader of the German Social Democrats has been saying to the Greeks, basically, "Get lost." And many German voters who vote for that party, this German socialist party, and the two right-wing parties that run Germany, the CDU/CSU, have kind of switched off their solidarity with southern Europe. They’ve begun to think very nationalistically in terms of their own economy. And, of course, if you’ve got the Greeks voting for their own bailout and the Germans voting against, democracy is beginning, in other words, to tear the euro apart. I’m afraid that is—if Merkel makes a deal tonight, she’ll probably do it against the wishes of her own party and her own people.

AMY GOODMAN: Paul Mason, thanks for being with us, economics editor at Channel 4 News, producing the forthcoming documentary about Greece titled And Dreams Shall Take Revenge. Go to your day job. Speaking to us from Athens, Greece. And Richard Wolff is still with us. In our next segment, I want to talk to you about what’s happening here at home in the United States, and particularly the rise of the Democratic candidate for president, Bernie Sanders, who is a socialist himself, and what that means in this larger global context. But this whole issue that Paul Mason was just referring to, leaving the eurozone, what does that mean, actually? Especially for people in the United States, it’s hard to understand anything besides dollars as a currency.

RICHARD WOLFF: Well, basically, what the Greeks would achieve if they left the European Union is they would revert to their own currency. They could go back to the drachma, which was their currency before, or a new one. And once they control their own currency, they can also control the relative worth of that currency, relative to others. If that currency becomes much, much cheaper relative to the euro, which is what will happen, then everything priced in that local currency will appear very cheap to people with dollars or people with euros. And suddenly a Greek vacation will become much cheaper than a vacation anywhere else. Greek olive oil will outprice everybody else’s. And that has traditionally been the way that a country blocked into this dead end crawls its way out of that dead end. It’s painful, but they at least have the prospect that their goods will become very attractive around the world, what they have to sell, and they’ll begin to recoup.

The reason they want to go more and more in that direction is that the austerity imposed on them since 2010 has given them lots of suffering with no improvement, with no chance to get out of it, therefore they were choosing between a proven dead end and a difficult strategy, but one that has in the past worked and might in the end work again here, especially if leaving the euro meant they could also cancel their debts, with or without the approval of their creditors, the way the Germans arranged it. But if they had less debt and a cheaper drachma as their own currency, that’s a strategy that at least has a chance, whereas what they were in was endless promises that it will eventually work, that never came true.

AMY GOODMAN: What exactly is happening there, when you say the pain they are now feeling in Greece? What is the pain? And what do you see the future looking like if they do pull out of the eurozone? How will their economy be shaped?

RICHARD WOLFF: Well, they’re being squeezed by 25 percent or more unemployment, by a cutback in public sector, which is the largest part of their economy, of about 40 percent since 2010, drop in their actual wage. Businesses are closing because they can’t solve the payments problem that Paul talked about. So you have a general disintegration that has been worse in Greece than in any other country. That’s why they keep saying, "We’ve been the ones who have borne the brunt of all of this. And don’t make us do more. That’s unjust and not solidarity with the rest of Europe." So, they’re struggling to keep their pensioners having enough to live, to prevent, for example, the continued exodus. They have lost tens of thousands of young Greek citizens, who were educated at the expense of the Greek economy and are now taking what they’ve learned to go to other countries and work and be productive over there. A country like Greece, which is small to begin with, can’t keep hemorrhaging its best and brightest young people at the same time that everybody else’s salary is collapsing. This is an economy that—where you have to look for a metaphor, go back to the depths of the Depression in the 1930s, when we had comparable kinds of situation of desperate people and rampant poverty. They want out of that, because, otherwise, they face an indefinite future of this kind of behavior.

AMY GOODMAN: What happens to the rich people in Greece? And what about the issue of taxes?

RICHARD WOLFF: Well, you know, that’s the unspoken but real story behind all of this, because the more the Europeans squeeze the Greeks, with a left-wing government, that government, especially strengthened by that referendum now, has to sooner or later—and Paul referred to this—go after the wealth that’s there in order to solve some of these problems. They should have done that a long time ago, but they never had a leftist government with a mindset to do it. Now they do. And that’s the great danger, that you’re converting a problem of European disequilibrium and inequality into a real class struggle between the mass of the Greek people, on the one hand, and the one place where wealth exists inside Greece, among the rich and the corporations, to help them solve a problem. So you’ve converted a European problem into a class struggle. And if Syriza can pull that off, the message sent to the comparable groups in every other European country is a staggering reconception of what the future of Europe may look like, where the words "anti-capitalism" become a unifying slogan for people across that continent. Merkel’s great danger is that in pushing as hard as she has, she may reap a whirlwind of results.

AMY GOODMAN: Is she aware of this?

RICHARD WOLFF: I’m sure she must be, although they are so caught up. The Germans are victims of their own propaganda. They converted an economic crisis into a nationalist, we-versus-them mentality—we, Germans who work hard, against the Greeks, who don’t. Reminded me of nothing so much as Mr. Romney’s unfortunate remark in the last campaign where he divided Americans into the 47 percent moochers and the 53 percent who work hard, trying to get the 53 percent to believe they were carrying the other 47. That’s what the Germans have done. "We Germans work very hard, and we’re carrying these lazy Greeks." This—put aside the questionable issue of whether the Germans ought to play such a nationalist card, given their history, but this is a way of solidifying opposition to what’s going on, and this is a very, very dangerous track. But she may be trapped by it. She has done it now. So, as Paul said, her own people wouldn’t support making a deal. She’s made that impossible for herself.

AMY GOODMAN: A few months ago, we talked to Professor Noam Chomsky about what’s happening in Greece.

NOAM CHOMSKY: It’s very significant. But notice the reaction. The reaction to Syriza was extremely savage. They made a little bit of progress in their negotiations, but not much. The Germans came down very hard on them.

AMY GOODMAN: You mean in dealing with the debt.

NOAM CHOMSKY: In the dealing with them, and sort of forced them to back off from almost all their proposals. What’s going on with the austerity is really class war. As an economic program, austerity, under recession, makes no sense. It just makes the situation worse. So the Greek debt, relative to GDP, has actually gone up during the period of—which is—well, the policies that are supposed to overcome the debt. In the case of Spain, the debt was not a public debt, it was private debt. It was the actions of the banks. And that means also the German banks. Remember, when a bank makes a dangerous, a risky borrowing, somebody is making a risky lending. And the policies that are designed by the troika, you know, are basically paying off the banks, the perpetrators, much like here. The population is suffering. But one of the things that’s happening is that the—you know, the social democratic policies, so-called welfare state, is being eroded. That’s class war. It’s not an economic policy that makes any sense as to end a serious recession. And there is a reaction to it—Greece, Spain and some in Ireland, growing elsewhere, France. But it’s a very dangerous situation, could lead to a right-wing response, very right-wing. The alternative to Syriza might be Golden Dawn, neo-Nazi party.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Noam Chomsky speaking in March. Are we in a very different or a very similar situation right now, Richard Wolff? You actually have just returned from France.

RICHARD WOLFF: Yes, in France, the very fear that Noam Chomsky referred to is a reality, that the anti-austerity position was taken by the far right, by Madame Le Pen, who has become an important political leader in France, who declared her solidarity with Syriza. That’s why the complicated politics of this. She sees the future of an anti-capitalism in France enabling her right wing to capture that kind of idea. But it’s a sign that the—below the surface, the anger about austerity, the resentment of the burdens of this crisis being shifted onto average people, is becoming a European problem. And the Germans may discover that they have isolated themselves yet again in European history by being the champion of something which is provoking a backlash larger than anything they had foreseen.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think President Obama could be pressuring them in a different way?

RICHARD WOLFF: There’s no question in my mind, from the evidence we have, that the American government is more interested with a stable Europe than with provoking this kind of a split inside Europe, partly because of the ramifications here in this country, where the same anti-austerity is building. That’s one of the causes for the support for Bernie Sanders, for example. But he’s also concerned that the Germans are making a classic political error, going way too far, and that this will disturb global markets. The economic recovery in this country is very weak and very fragile, and that doesn’t want disturbance to come from a powerhouse like Europe.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to talk about the United States after break. Richard Wolff, our guest, professor emeritus of economics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, visiting professor here in New York at The New School. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.

A Socialist Surge in the U.S.? Bernie Sanders Draws Record Crowds, Praises Greek Anti-Austerity Vote

The Greek election has also factored into the U.S. presidential race. On Monday, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders said, "I applaud the people of Greece for saying 'no' to more austerity for the poor, the children, the sick and the elderly. In a world of massive wealth and income inequality, Europe must support Greece’s efforts to build an economy which creates more jobs and income, not more unemployment and suffering." Sanders’ anti-austerity platform is resonating with voters. On Monday, Sanders spoke before 9,000 in Portland, Maine. Last week he drew more than 10,000 people in Madison, Wisconsin, the largest crowd for any presidential candidate in the 2016 race. We speak to Richard Wolff about Bernie Sanders and what it means to be a socialist.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. Last week, Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who is challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, drew the largest crowd of any presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican, so far this election season, when he spoke to 10,000 people in Madison, Wisconsin.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: We can. We can provide healthcare to every man, woman and child as a right. We can make certain that every person in this country can get all of the education he or she needs, regardless of the income. We can create millions of decent-paying jobs. We can have the best child care system in the world. In the last 30 years, there has been a huge redistribution of wealth from the middle class and working families to the top one-tenth of 1 percent. Our job is to reverse that, redistribute wealth back into the hands of working families.

AMY GOODMAN: In a statement released on Sunday, Senator Sanders praised the Greek referendum. He said, quote, "I applaud the people of Greece for saying 'no' to more austerity for the poor, the children, the sick and the elderly. In a world of massive wealth and income inequality, Europe must support Greece’s efforts to build an economy which creates more jobs and income, not more unemployment and suffering." That’s Bernie Sanders’ comment. Yesterday at Portland, Maine, he drew something like 9,000 people. The country hasn’t seen this kind of crowds before. Front page of The New York Times today headlined "Sanders’ Momentum in Iowa Leaves Clinton Camp on Edge." Talk about how Sanders fits into this bigger picture, Richard.

RICHARD WOLFF: I think what Syriza shows in Greece is the potential of a mass popular resistance, not only to the austerity policies that came in after the crisis of 2008, but even to the very basic system of the countries of Europe that divide people into a tiny number of very wealthy and a mass of poor, that the system is producing outcomes that more and more people are hurt by, are critical of and want to change. But the conventional politics, the Republican and Democratic parties here and their equivalents all across Europe, don’t see it, don’t act on it, don’t even speak about it. So it becomes a kind of a vacuum, where there’s no political expression of what a growing mass of people feel, both about austerity and about capitalism as a system. And so it’s like a solution into which you drop that last little bit of hard material and everything crystallizes. Everybody is waiting for the new political voice to emerge that speaks to and represents what the traditional politics have failed to do.

Bernie Sanders is doing that in this country, and he’s doing it very well, exactly like Syriza surprised everybody. Indeed, in England, there’s a struggle going on right now inside the Labour Party, where a candidate like Bernie Sanders, named Corbyn, is surprising everybody by the support he’s getting inside the struggle for who will be the new leader of the Labour Party. So you see everywhere the signs of an emerging left wing, not because of some political maneuver, but because of the enormous vacuum that a left leadership can take advantage of, given what has happened in the last eight years of this capitalist global system.

AMY GOODMAN: How does Bernie Sanders compare to Hillary Clinton?

RICHARD WOLFF: Well, she’s the old. She is the staid, do it by the books, the old rules, as Paul said so nicely. She is playing the game the way the game has been played now for decades. Bernie Sanders is saying the unthinkable, saying it out loud, saying it with passion, putting himself forward, even though the name "socialist," which was supposed to be a political death sentence—as if it weren’t there. And he’s showing that for the mass of the American people, it’s not the bad word it once was. It’s sort of a kind of position in which the conventional parties are so out of touch with how things have changed, that they make it easy for Mr. Sanders to have the kind of response he’s getting. And my hat’s off to him for doing it.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what socialism means.

RICHARD WOLFF: Well, that’s a big one. Socialism has traditionally meant one thing, but it’s changing, as well. Traditionally, it meant that instead of private ownership of means of production, of factories and land and offices, you socialize it. The government takes it over. And instead of having bargaining in the market, buying and selling goods to one another, we work from a governmental plan. So it gives the government an enormous power. But the idea was, if the government owns and operates the businesses, and if the government plans how we distribute goods and services, it will all be done more democratically, more egalitarian, etc., etc., than capitalism. That was always the idea.

The problem was, socialists have to admit, that giving the government that much power raises a whole new set of problems, which the Soviet Union and China and so on illustrate. So the question is: Are there other ways of understanding socialism that gets us the benefits without the negatives? And I think the new direction is the whole focus at the enterprise level, of changing the way we organize enterprises, so they stop being top-down, hierarchical, board of directors makes all the decisions, and we move to this idea which is now catching on: cooperation, workers owning and operating collectively and democratically their economy and their enterprise.

AMY GOODMAN: When Senator Sanders talks about it, he talks about the example of Scandinavia.

RICHARD WOLFF: Scandinavia is one example. He also sometimes talks about co-ops. And I think there’s the hint of what he is hopefully going to say more about, that if we believe in democracy, as we claim to do, then we should have instituted democracy, from the beginning, in the workplace. It’s where, after all, most adults spend most of their lives, at work, five out of seven days, 9:00 to 5:00. If you believe in democracy, then why haven’t we made our workplaces democratic, or cooperative, just another way of saying it? I think the new direction that socialism is taking, and that will make it extremely powerful, both in the United States and in Europe, is a system in which, yes, the government is given a whole set of roles, but the base that will control the government are workers who now own and operate enterprises, and therefore will have the power to constrain that government. That’s a way of fixing and learning from socialism’s history.

AMY GOODMAN: Bernie Sanders is also talking about taxing the rich. Now, taxes in the U.S., the standard wisdom is you can’t talk about it. But we’re seeing a level of wealth going from the bottom to the top like we’ve never seen in history. Can you talk about what that would look like?

RICHARD WOLFF: Yes. In one way, it’s easy to talk about it, because it’s going back to something we in America once had. I often have to explain to people, because of our strange way of—I don’t know—amnesia about our economic history, what we once had. I’ll give you an example. At the end of World War II, for every dollar paid into the federal government by individuals in personal income tax, corporations paid $1.50. In other words, corporations as a whole paid 50 percent more than individuals as a whole. Today the relationship is, for every dollar that we as individuals pay, corporations pay 25 cents. In other words, there’s been a change in the taxes. I’ll give you another example. In the ’50s and ’60s, the richest people paid an income tax rate of 90 percent or above. Today they pay 39 percent, is the maximum.

So, what we’ve seen—and Bernie said it quite right—is a massive change in the tax structure, benefiting the richest and putting the burden on the middle and the bottom. And all we are asking—people like Bernie Sanders or, for that matter, me—is that we go back to what we had, especially when you remember that the '50s and ’60s, when we taxed the rich, we had rates of economic growth much faster than we've had now that we don’t tax them anymore. We have lower kinds of economic development, because we help the rich, which is bizarre, because the argument for helping the rich has always been that’s what you need to do to get economic growth, but the actual history of the United States is the reverse.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you for being with us, Richard Wolff, professor emeritus of economics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, visiting professor at New School University, has written a number of books. Among his latest is the book, Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism. Also has a radio show that broadcasts on Pacifica radio stations and community radio stations around the country, called Economic Update.

"A Europe of Equals": Report from Athens as Greek Voters Seek Alternatives to Austerity

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has arrived in Brussels for an emergency eurozone summit two days after Greek voters overwhelmingly turned down the terms of an international bailout in a historic rejection of austerity. On Sunday, Greeks, by a 61-to-39-percent margin, voted against further budget cuts and tax hikes in exchange for a rescue package from European creditors. Tsipras is scrambling to present a new bailout proposal as Greek banks remain shut down. If Greek banks run out of money and the country has to print its own currency, it could mean a state leaving the euro for the first time since it was launched in 1999. Euclid Tsakalotos was sworn in Monday as Greece’s new finance minister, replacing Yanis Varoufakis, who resigned following Sunday’s referendum. Tsakalotos, who has called for a "Europe of equals," had served as Greece’s main bailout negotiator and has been a member of Syriza for nearly a decade. Like Varoufakis, Tsakalotos has been a vocal opponent of fiscal austerity imposed by the core of the eurozone, saying it has unnecessarily impoverished Greece. We go to Athens to speak with Paul Mason, economics editor at Channel 4 News, and economics professor Richard Wolff.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has arrived in Brussels for an emergency eurozone summit two days after Greek voters overwhelmingly turned down the terms of an international bailout in an historic rejection of austerity. On Sunday, Greeks, by 61-to-39-percent margin, voted against further budget cuts and tax hikes in exchange for a rescue package from European creditors. Tsipras is scrambling to present a new bailout proposal as Greek banks remain shut down. If Greek banks run out of money and the country has to print its own currency, it could mean a state leaving the euro for the first time since it was launched in 1999. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande met in Paris Monday to discuss the crisis.

PRESIDENT FRANÇOIS HOLLANDE: [translated] We have been paying close attention to the voting results, and we respect Greece’s referendum. The door remains open for discussions. It is now up to the government of Alexis Tsipras to make serious, credible proposals so that this willingness to stay in the eurozone can be realized.

AMY GOODMAN: In Athens, Euclid Tsakalotos was sworn in as Greece’s new finance minister, replacing Yanis Varoufakis, who resigned following Sunday’s referendum. Tsakalotos had served as Greece’s main bailout negotiator and has been a member of Syriza for nearly a decade. Like Varoufakis, he has been a vocal opponent of fiscal austerity imposed by the core of the eurozone, saying it has unnecessarily impoverished Greece.

EUCLID TSAKALOTOS: [translated] I will not hide from you that I am nervous and very anxious. It’s not the easiest time in Greek history to be taking on this job. There are class issues with this vote, simple working-class and middle-class people who have lost their businesses, so that we want to trust the government that will deliver a viable solution.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about Greece, we’re joined by two guests. In Athens, Paul Mason is with us, economics editor at Channel 4 News, producer of a forthcoming documentary about the rise of Syriza in Greece titled And Dreams Shall Take Revenge. And here in New York, Richard Wolff is with us, emeritus professor of economics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, visiting professor at New School University here in New York. He hosts a weekly national radio program called Economic Update, the author of a number of books, including Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism.

Let’s go first to Athens. Paul Mason, first, were you surprised by Sunday’s vote? And talk about what this means now.

PAUL MASON: I was surprised by the size of it, but, of course, all the opinion polls were effectively rubbish, because you just can’t opinion-poll a country like this on an issue like this. But the size of it astonished not only the journalists, but also the Syriza leadership, as well. I think both the size of the rally that preceded it on Friday night visibly shocked the leadership around Alexis Tsipras—I mean, it filled the square behind me and several streets around it; it was six times bigger than the opposing right-wing "yes" rally—and then the vote itself. You know, there’s probably maybe 35 percent, 40 percent leftist voters here. To get 60 percent means that liberals, conservatives, just people who are not political must have voted for the "no."

And I think it just—it’s part of actually what we’re observing here on the ground: a very rapid radicalization of population. I think it’s probably fair to say nine out of 10 of the media groups that are camped out here in Greece are not getting that, because they’re tied to these satellite dishes that are all around me, but there is a radicalization going on. And it happened in the last two days of last week, when people saw TV stations, owned by oligarchs, pumping out not only the usual one-sided news, but actual straightforward sort of World War II-style propaganda for the "yes" camp. Many people said they switched their votes when they saw these TV stations break even the most rudimentary Greek—which are not very good—TV regulations and became—basically, they make Fox News look objective.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about Yanis Varoufakis, who briefly spoke to reporters after he announced his surprise resignation as finance minister on Monday.

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: [translated] What is happening here is just a change of the guard between something more than comrades. We are friends, colleagues and fellow academics. Euclid and I have shared similar philosophical, ideological views for a long time now.

AMY GOODMAN: Yanis Varoufakis left the Ministry of Finance with his wife, Danae, on the back of a motorbike, downtown Athens, on Friday, two days before the Greek referendum. He was interviewed by you, Paul, for Channel 4 News. This is a clip of what he said.

PAUL MASON: Yanis Varoufakis, you said yesterday you’d resign if there’s a "yes" vote on Sunday. What will you do if there’s a "no" vote?

YANIS VAROUFAKIS: We’re going to press ahead. We have a deal to make, one that is viable, unlike the deal that was offered to us by the institutions. The only reason why we’re having this referendum, Paul, is because we were given an ultimatum on the basis of a set of proposals, which we consider to be nonviable. In other words, next week, two weeks from now, three weeks from now, two months, four months from now, we’re going to be still mired in an endless negotiation, with economy fading, without investment. And we thought that we should put this to the Greek people: Accept this if you wish, but if you don’t, empower us with a "no" to seek a better deal for Europe.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Yanis Varoufakis said he would quit if there was a "yes" vote. There was an overwhelming "no" vote, and he quit. Paul Mason, explain.

PAUL MASON: Well, look, the official explanation is that he did it to lessen the physical and sort of moral friction there is with the creditors. He has been winding them up very—very effectively for months, and they don’t like him. The reason they don’t like him is because he’s U.S.-trained. He speaks perfect English and speaks the language of the IMF, the World Bank and Wall Street, and indeed Silicon Valley, where he worked. That’s the official reason.

I think there’s an extra set of reasons, though. And it’s like this. Varoufakis privately, throughout these negotiations, I think, was urging a tougher stance, an earlier break. The break only really—it’s called "the rupture" here in Greece. The strategy of rupturing with the lenders began only in June, early June. I think he wanted to do that earlier. I think he wanted them to go out to the people, physically, earlier.

And I think the other thing is, because he’s a professional economist whose entire career has been based on this critique of austerity, as finance minister, what’s he going to do? The best deal they’re going to get today is going to be eight billion euros’ worth of austerity over two years, because that’s what they offered two weeks ago. I know that he believed that deal itself is a recessionary deal, unless there’s several tens of billions poured into Greece in the form of a kind of Marshall Plan that would offset it. So I think he’s taking a step back.

The other thing is psychologically—[inaudible] psychologically, about the background of the two men. Tsakalotos and Varoufakis are both people I’ve spoken to at length during this crisis. Tsakalotos is somebody who is organically from the far left, from that New Left generation that you know very well, Amy, and that your listeners probably know very well, going back to the Port Huron declaration, etc., in the '60s. Varoufakis is not. Varoufakis came to the far left from the center. And I think that just, basically, people know, who have been on the left for some time, for decades, that it tends to build a level of patience in you. You can do things and accept things moving slowly. Varoufakis, mentally, I think, wanted to win, and he wanted to win big time and to win now. They're not going to win now. And so, somebody is going to have to sign a deal that is a compromise.

And maybe they win, maybe—or they advance, when they’ve actually shored up behind them in Greek society a little bit more support for the things they want to do, because although 60 percent of people voted no, you don’t see 60 percent of people on the streets out there protesting in favor of Syriza. You don’t see 60 percent of people out there self-organizing, doing the soup kitchens, doing the voluntary pharmacies. And the Syriza activists will tell you that’s the hardest part. So I think for the strategists of Syriza—and Tsakalotos is a strategist of the Syriza party—this is one step in an advance of taking Greek society down the route of a left-wing project. And maybe Varoufakis will be leading, as it were, from the sidelines. I know when I spoke to him, he was looking forward to being a back bencher.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to comments made by the new Greek finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, earlier this year. While speaking to Sinn Féin activists in March, he described the negotiations between Greece and its creditors as part of a wider ideological struggle across Europe.

EUCLID TSAKALOTOS: We will be seeking to negotiate a new deal to address Greece’s nonsustainable debt. No economy that has lost a quarter of its GDP, has 25 percent of its population unemployed and over 50 percent of its young people unemployed, and has one-third of its population facing extreme poverty can be expected to repay its debt with a succession of years of very high primary surpluses. For all of this, we need the solidarity of European peoples. Some European governments will be arguing that we should not give problematic Greeks special treatment. But you know that we are not asking for special treatment, but for equal treatment in a Europe of equals. Greece—Greece had had the biggest per capita fiscal adjustment of any economy since the crisis began—hardly special treatment, especially when you consider that the bailout was more to serve Northern banks than sovereign peoples.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the new Greek finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, earlier this year in Ireland addressing Sinn Féin. We’re joined by Paul Mason. He is in Athens, Greece. He has been intensively covering Syriza and what’s been going on in Greece. And in New York, we’re joined by Richard Wolff, a professor, economist here at The New School. Your response to what is happening and what the new finance minister was just saying?

RICHARD WOLFF: I think the real importance of what is happening in Greece is that fundamentally a poor corner of Europe has said it will no longer absorb the disproportionate burden of this crisis and of the bailouts that have been used to cope with it. Basically, what is going on here is that the richer countries of Europe, led by Germany, are shifting the burden of all these crises—that they are responsible for—onto people in Greece. They never imagined that in trying to do that they would generate their worst nightmare: a left-wing political organization that goes from 4 percent of the vote a few years ago to an ability to call out a referendum and get 60 percent of the people to support them. So, they have generated a response, and that struggle, of which this is only one step, is what’s being played out here. And that’s why it’s relevant to the rest of Europe and to the United States, everywhere where there is mounting evidence of people saying, "No, we will not continue to absorb the costs of a system that works in this dysfunctional way."

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go to break, and when we come back, to talk about what the alternatives are, what the alternatives to austerity are, in Athens, as well is in Europe, and even here at home. We’re joined by New School professor, economist Richard Wolff, as well as Paul Mason, who is the economics reporter for Channel 4 News—economics editor, speaking to us from Athens. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: "Zorba’s Dance" from the 1964 film Zorba the Greek, Mikis Theodorakis. His popular songs and music, including the scores for the movies Zorba the Greek and Z, were banned during the military dictatorship of the 1960s and '70s in Greece, and Theodorakis spent much of his three years of banishment in a remote village and in prison. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

As we talk about what’s happening in Greece, what’s happening in Europe, what is the trend that’s happening in different places all over the world and the global repercussions of the battle taking place over austerity in Greece? Paul Mason with this, economics editor, Channel 4 News, producer of a forthcoming documentary about Greece titled And Dreams Shall Take Revenge. And with us here in New York, Richard Wolff, well-known economist, formerly at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, now at New School.

Paul Mason, before we lose you on the satellite, do you share this view that this is a turning point in European history?

PAUL MASON: Tonight and tomorrow are absolutely strategic moments for Europe. I’m sorry, Amy. Tonight and tomorrow are absolutely strategic moments for Europe, because the Europeans know that not only did 60 percent of people in Greece vote against the austerity, but that means the structural reforms that the IMF always try to do, that the Greeks have been saying won’t work here, won’t work here as a fact. You cannot impose economic structural reforms on a population that has voted 60 percent against them, with the television blaring out propaganda for them, every TV station and every newspaper, virtually, doing that. You just can’t do it. It’s not a question of argument; it’s a question of fact.

Because they know that, the Europeans—Merkel and Hollande—met last night, and they were supposed to come up with something. We’ll find out today what that thing is. If it is more division, if it is more recourse to the rules—because the rules of the European Central Bank say that the Greek banks should be forced into submission, the rules of the various bailout funds say that Greece should get no more money—well, the rules are going to destroy Europe, in that case. If they cannot break out of the rules, then they are going to be—it’s no longer here are Syriza and the Greek people the actor, the protagonist in the drama. The protagonist is Europe. And we need to decide whether it has a single personality or a split one. We need to decide whether or not it is going to save Greece or not. And we’ll probably find that out in the next 36 hours. If not, the streets behind me, which are calm now—and they remained calm in the face of a very big media attempt to cause panic—will eventually reach some kind of breaking point, because you can’t shut supermarkets and pharmacies and doctor surgeries for so long, for too long. They’re open now, but if the banks collapse, it will be—it will be an uncharted territory.

And, of course, the other thing is Syriza’s response. Yesterday, Syriza can be in a meeting of every party except the Communist Party. Communists here dislike Syriza more than they dislike capitalism. But every other party agreed to back Syriza in its negotiations today. If the ECB decides to completely crash the Greek banking system, I do not believe this government will do what a normal government would do, which is to first of all wipe out the shareholders and then wipe out some of the depositors. They will more likely wipe out the private ownership of the banks themselves and nationalize them. If they do that, that is like pressing a nuclear button for the European Union. And most likely, Greece will find itself suspended from the European currency’s payments mechanism, TARGET2. At that point, we’re into what we call "Grexit," Greece’s exit from the eurozone. Everybody in the Syriza leadership who I’ve spoken to, personally and privately, in the last 48 hours, fervently wishes they do not get to that point. They do not want to get to that point. But this is not a party that’s going to step back and just do what the international finance people want it to do. They would rather lose power than do that, and they know now that 60 percent of people would rather they did not lose power.

AMY GOODMAN: The ECB being the European Central Bank.

Headlines:

Greece Talks Continue After Historic Anti-Austerity Vote

Jean-Claude Juncker: "The ball lies in the court of the Greek government, and the Greek government must explain in Brussels today how it sees us extricating ourselves from this situation. The president of the European Commission and the European Commission are ready to do whatever necessary within a reasonable time frame to reach an agreement."

We’ll spend the rest of the hour on the crisis in Greece, after headlines.

Yemen: Nearly 200 Killed in Deadliest Day of Saudi Offensive

In Yemen, clashes and airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition have killed nearly 200 people, including many civilians, in what appears to be the deadliest day since the U.S.-backed offensive began. In total, nearly 3,000 people have been killed since late March, when the Saudi-led coalition began airstrikes against Shiite Houthi rebels. Among those reported killed on Monday were 30 people at a market in the northern province of Amran and 60 people at a livestock market in the southern town of al-Foyoush. Last week the United Nations declared its highest-level humanitarian emergency in Yemen, where it says more than 80 percent of the population needs aid.

Obama Vows to Intensify "Long-Term Campaign" Against ISIL

In Syria, Kurdish fighters have reportedly retaken more than 10 villages seized by the self-proclaimed Islamic State around the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the victory came amidst intensified U.S.-led airstrikes. Speaking on Monday, President Obama vowed to increase U.S. support for opposition fighters in Syria and ramp up what he called a "long-term campaign" against ISIL.

President Obama: "In short, ISIL’s recent losses in both Syria and Iraq prove that ISIL can and will be defeated. Indeed, we’re intensifying our efforts against ISIL’s base in Syria. Our airstrikes will continue to target the oil and gas facilities that fund so much of their operations. We’re going after the ISIL leadership and infrastructure in Syria, the heart of ISIL that pumps funds and propaganda to people around the world."

Iraqi forces meanwhile are said to be preparing for a counteroffensive to retake the key city of Ramadi from ISIL in the coming weeks.

Iran Nuclear Talks Set to Continue Past Tuesday Deadline

There’s no sign of an agreement yet between Iran and world powers who are trying to reach a nuclear deal ahead of today’s self-imposed deadline. It appears likely the talks will be extended with key issues in dispute, including U.N. sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program and a wider arms embargo. The real deadline could be Thursday, the last day for President Obama to present a deal to Congress before a mandatory review period of 30 days jumps to 60 days.

South Carolina Senate Votes to Remove Confederate Flag at Capitol

The South Carolina Senate has voted to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the state Capitol. The vote was 37 to 3, far more than the two-thirds majority needed to advance the bill. The vote came 19 days after nine African-American worshipers, including South Carolina state Senator Rev. Clementa Pinckney, were gunned down in a Charleston church by a racist suspect who embraced the Confederate flag. Republican state Senator Larry Martin, who for decades opposed attempts to remove the flag from the Capitol grounds, said he changed his mind following the massacre.

Sen. Larry Martin: "See that thing fluttering out there in a way that sort of gives some official status to it on behalf of the people of South Carolina. That doesn’t represent all the people of South Carolina. And we need to remember that. And in that regard, it is part of our history. It needs to be respected in whatever way or honored in whatever way folks choose to do. But as far as this state, on this state House grounds, it isn’t part of our future. It’s part of our past."

The bill to remove the flag still needs to pass a second vote in the state Senate today before advancing to the House. Among the three senators who voted against removing the flag was state Senator Lee Bright, who sought an amendment to put the flag’s fate to a popular vote. Senator Bright used the debate as an opportunity to condemn recent court decisions in favor of same-sex marriage.

Sen. Lee Bright: "Our governor called us in to deal with the flag that sits out front. Let’s deal with the national sin that we face today! We talk about abortion, but this gay marriage thing, I believe we will be one nation gone under, like President Reagan said. If we’re not one nation under God, we’ll be one nation gone under. And to sanctify deviant behavior from five judges, it’s time for us to make our stand, church! It’s time to make our stand, and we’re not doing it. We can rally together and talk about a flag all we want, but the devil is taking control of this land, and we’re not stopping him."

NYC to Pay Occupy Wall Street Protesters $330K for Pepper-Spraying

New York City has agreed to pay more than $300,000 to six Occupy Wall Street protesters who were doused with pepper spray by police in an encounter which helped ignite the movement. Video of the incident shows New York City Police Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna pepper-spraying a group of peaceful protesters, most of them women, while they are trapped in an orange police net. The protesters received settlements of up to $60,000 each, the highest payouts to date for individual Occupy Wall Street protesters. The police inspector lost 10 vacation days for violating police guidelines.

Leak Shows Hacking Team Sold Spyware to FBI, DEA

Leaked documents appear to show an Italy-based private spyware company known as the Hacking Team was selling its products to U.S. law enforcement agencies and repressive governments around the world. The Hacking Team sells software which lets users seize remote control of another person’s computer. Its customers include the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Army, as well as foreign governments including Ethiopia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The documents were published to the company’s own Twitter feed following an apparent breach.

Reports: U.S. Spied on Brazilian Officials, German Media

WikiLeaks and The Intercept have revealed the National Security Agency’s targeting of Brazilian officials was far wider than initially known. While previous reports revealed the NSA targeted Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s personal cellphone, newly revealed documents show the agency targeted the cellphones and other devices of more than a dozen top Brazilian political and financial officials, including the phone on Rousseff’s presidential plane. The revelations come amid reports the United States also spied on the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. Meanwhile, former Attorney General Eric Holder, who waged an unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers during his tenure, has said the "possibility exists" for the Justice Department to cut a deal with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, allowing him to return to the United States from Russia.

Eric Holder Returns to Corporate Law Firm with Bank Clients

In the latest sign of the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington, Eric Holder is returning to the corporate law firm where he worked before becoming head of the Justice Department. Holder was a partner at the firm Covington & Burling for eight years before becoming attorney general, representing clients including UBS and the fruit giant Chiquita. The law firm’s client list has included many of the big banks Holder failed to criminally prosecute as attorney general for their role in the financial crisis, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. The law firm had reportedly kept a corner office vacant for Holder.

Report: 95% of Elected Local Prosecutors are White

A new study has revealed the vast majority of elected prosecutors across the United States are white. The study by the Women Donors Network found 66 percent of states that elect prosecutors have no African Americans in those positions. Of the more than 2,400 elected state and local prosecutors in office last year, 95 percent were white and 79 percent were white men.

Bill Cosby Admitted to Drugging Women in 2005

Court documents obtained by the Associated Press show Bill Cosby admitted obtaining quaaludes to give to young women he wanted to have sex with, and acknowledged giving the drugs to at least one woman. Cosby made the admission in 2005 in a deposition as part of a sexual abuse case brought against him by a former Temple University employee. About 40 women have accused Cosby of sexually assaulting them in incidents dating back four decades.

Winning U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Paid Fraction of Losing Men’s Team

The U.S. women’s soccer team is being honored at a rally in Los Angeles, California, today after they beat Japan to win the World Cup on Sunday. Their victory shattered TV rating records, becoming the most viewed soccer game ever in the United States — men’s or women’s. Yet the international soccer organizing body FIFA, which is under fire for rampant corruption, forced the women to play on artificial turf and awarded the team just $2 million for their victory — a fourth of what the U.S. men’s team received after they lost in the first round of the men’s World Cup last year.

Protests Mark 2nd Anniversary of Lac-Mégantic Oil Train Disaster

And protests and commemorations were held across the United States and Canada Monday to mark two years since the deadly oil train derailment in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. The train was carrying volatile crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken shale when it exploded on July 6, 2013, killing 47 people and destroying dozens of buildings. In Portland, Oregon, Monday, 60 people held a memorial blockade, blocking the tracks into an oil transfer and storage facility and holding signs with the names and ages of the victims. The action is one of dozens planned in the coming days as part of the Stop Oil Trains week of action.

Follow: