That's a sentiment I've been hearing much more lately.

If enough people start saying it, it's even possible that some changes could be made.

Of course, it's also possible that Europe will just keep muddling through and make the barest concessions required to stop a revolt.

You know, I don't think the unelected part is such a problem, it's all down to the unaccountability.

Well, Syriza is an acronym for Coalition of the Radical Left (roughly), and everything left of the Berlin Consensus is considered to be radical left. So they are going to call Syriza a radical leftist party until the political landscape itelf has been pulled back towards more leftist positions. But you're right, if they were judged by their positions, they'd be centre-left in theory, if centre-left hadn't turned into corporatism by taking up the Third Way of Schröder/Blair/Clinton.

They are, without a doubt, radically democratic though. As your Grauniad article points out, they haven't turned on their election promises yet, which is quite unheard of for a major European party. Francois Hollande in particular was a major letdown in this regard. Few people expected him to bow down to German demands so quickly. Aside from his 75% special tax for the rich, he dropped just about every single part of his program that could be considered socialism.

Grexit... that's a tough one.

Syriza cannot enforce any troika demands that relate to the programmes of the Chicago School of Economics. Friedman ain't welcome anymore. No cuts to wages or pensions, to privatisation of infrastructure, no cuts to the healthcare system, nor any other form of financial oppression of the lower class. That is non-negotiable. In fact, even increases in welfare programs and the healthcare system are pretty much non-negotiable. Even if Syriza wanted to put any of this on the table, and they sure as hell don't, they couldn't make it part of any deal without further damages to an already devasted democratic system in Greece.

So with that in mind, what's the point of all the negotiations?

Varoufakis' suggestions are very reasonable. The growth-linked bonds, for instance, are used very successfully all over the world in debt negotiations, as just about any bankrupty expert would testify. Like Krugman wrote today, Syriza is merely asking to "recognize the reality everyone supposedly already understands". His caveat about the German electorate is on point as well, we haven't had it explained to us yet – and we chose to ignore what little was explained to us.

Yet the troika insists on something Syriza cannot and will not provide, as just outlined above. Some of the officials still expect Syriza to acknowledge reality, to come to their senses and to accept a deal provided to them. Good luck with that, but don't hold your breath. Similarly, Varoufakis is aware that Berlin is almost guaranteed to play hardball all the way.

Of course, nothing is certain and they might strike a deal during their meeting in Wednesday that offers Greece a way out of misery. Or maybe the ECB decides that to stabilize to Euro, as is their sole purpose, they need to keep Greece within the EZ and away from default. That would allow them to back Greece, to provide them with financial support, at least until they present their program in June/July. Everything is possible. However, I see very little evidence in support of it.

Therefore Grexit might actually be just a question of who to blame it on. Syriza is not going to exit the EZ willy nilly, they need clear pressure from outside, so the record will unequivocally show that it wasn't them who made the call. No country can be thrown out, they have to leave of their own. Additionally, Merkel will not be the person to initiate the unravelling of the EU, as might be the consequence of a Grexit. That's leverage for Greece, the only leverage they have. But it has to be played right or else the blame will be put squarely on Greece, even more so than it already is.

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Edit #1: What cannot be overstated is the ability of the EZ to muddle through one crises after another, always on the brink of collapse, yet never actually collapsing. They are determined to hold this thing together, whatever the cost.
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Speaking of blame, Yves Smith linked a fantastic article the other day: Syriza and the French Indemnity of 1871-73.

The author makes a convincing case why the suppression of wages in Germany led to disaster in Spain, why it was not a choice on the part of Spain to engage in irresponsible borrowing and how it is a conflict between workers and the financial elite rather than nations. He also offers historical precedent, with Germany being the recipient of a massive cash influx, ending in a catastrophe similar to Spain's nowadays.

It strikes me as a very objective dissection of what happend, what's going on, and what needs to happen to get things back in shape. Then again, it agrees with many points I made on that BBC videos last week, so it's right within my bubble.

I liked the way the Reuters article closed:

It was not clear what support the German position, which appeared to take no account of the political change in Greece, will have in the wider euro zone talks.

I went against your advice and had a look at a DW article on the subject, and I see what you mean, there is quite a big disparity between the accepted position in the article and anything else I've read from outside Germany. I am now also left wondering how on earth any compromise could be made acceptable to German politicians, and then sold to the public. Since Ireland and Portugal are starting to recover despite The Austerity, it's entirely possible that the usual suspects will say "Look! It works!". They do have much more debt now though...

I can understand a certain aversion to excessive inflation, after the chaos caused by hyperinflation in 1923, but you'd think that if they remember that then they'd also remember where that led (and particularly with the rise of Golden Dawn).

As for Italy, it has somehow managed to muddle along on the edge of disaster for so long that I'm starting to think it can keep doing so forever.

It's a clever rationalization of hypocrisy. If it's going to be taboo to observe patterns in groups of people demarcated by visible characteristics they were born with, be consistent about it. But I'd argue against that taboo.

What makes racism bad is treating people as specimens of a group rather than unique individuals. Group averages may differ slightly but there's tons of overlap. Common usage of the word "racism" unfortunately conflates a moral aspect (how to treat people) with an epistemological aspect (dogma that all groups are created exactly equal in every way). Epistemology shouldn't be moralized. I could give you lots of examples of sociological and psychological research getting muddled on account of an inflexible dogma that there couldn't be any heritable differences between groups other than the obvious superficial ones. I'd rather conceive of the word racism as a verb describing harmful actions towards people due to their group membership, not a noun denoting a thoughtcrime or speechcrime. Like church and state, or science and religion, epistemology and morality don't go together.

A priori based on generation times and mutation rates you should expect there could be 1/10 as much variation between historically isolated groups of humans as there is between breeds of dogs, since the most recent common ancestor of all domestic dogs is half as far back as humans' most recent common ancestor is (or rather was before 16th and 17th century explorers spread their sperm across the globe) but dogs breed a lot faster. Breeds of dogs demonstrably vary in many behavioral and psychological traits. It's not far fetched to suppose that a variety of environments over the past 100,000 years of humanity pushed population means of behavioral traits in various directions.

Ok, I will grant your point about ignorance vs malice, and certainly for uneducated people in decades past it's understandable that they just went along with it because they didn't have access to the information.

But it's 2014 and it's still going on, and the US of all places. It's not like the information is hard to come by.

Call me crazy, but maybe when someone suggests cutting pieces off your child, you should take a few minutes to research it?

As I said before, what mentally competent adults do to their own bodies is their own business. The only reference I could find to the alligator people is 1950s horror movie, but I have no problem with it as you describe it.

Regarding the "hardcore nipple chafing" (and this conversation is REALLY starting to get weird now ), if there was a real, practical reason, then that certainly mitigates it, but then the analogy is kinda muddled, because there is no real practical reason for circumcision. It's purely a cultural/idealogical practice. Again, I don't have a problem with that in adults (you're not hurting anyone but yourselves), but it strikes me as a particularly messed up thing to do to defenceless infants.

I tried to read the article -- I'll try again later.

Seems like same old, same old to me.

Look, I agree with you that it is pretty stupid that women are held up as being better than men. It is really stupid that men are insulted by being defined by their lowest common denominator or by some superficial stereotype.

When I was in my 20s, which was a long time ago, I would hear things like -- if women were in charge of the world, we wouldn't have wars. Bullshit. Women are just as capable of being territorial and selfish as any man. And men being stupid about their emotions, and walled off? It was clear to me that they were victims of emotional terrorism from men, boys, women and girls, who put enormous pressure on them to "be men." Whatever the fuck that means.

But to constantly throw everything into the pot and expect every single video about women to include the pressures on men is not helping. I'm glad to hear that you acknowledge being "triggered" -- which to me is an emotional response out of scale with the current situation. I'm glad you know that.

Maybe if you could channel that energy into specifics, instead of broadsides. Instead of challenging women's right to talk about themselves and their experiences, why not challenge the part of the videos that do the denigration towards men? I try very hard not to denigrate men, and I fall into it way way way too easy. (A source of shame for me.) A woman makes a crack about men being stupid? Jump on it! Say it is bullshit. Say you don't like it when we do it to you. OPEN OUR EYES TO OUR OWN BULLSHIT.

But that isn't going to happen when a woman is talking about her own experience and you jump in and muddle things by bringing up men and their challenges. That is where the "make your own video" comes from. Men aren't the topic right now. Women are the topic. And fuck yeah, we are victims. And we need to learn how not to be. Which is what this (flawed) video was trying to do.

The thing is, men are victims too. They just never talk about it. Why is that?

I absolutely agree with you that men have enormous pressures on them. I have two male friends who have talked at length about the experience of growing up male and not fitting the stereotype (and it is a stereotype), and what they suffered as they tried to make their own lives despite those pressures. Both of them were perceived as "weak". And now they are some of the best people on the planet because they had the courage to stay true to themselves.

I just beg of you to keep these topics separate.

Let women talk about their issues.

If you can find videos where men talk about their issues, post them.

If you find something in a video where men are denigrated, speak up about that specific piece of it.

It godawful tiring trying to change the world, isn't it?

(And maybe as you stick up for men in specific instances, you might grow some insight into the challenges faced by women. Maybe gain some sympathy as you attempt to help women have some sympathy towards men.)

>> ^Murgy:

That's what I heard, too. In spades.


>> ^hpqp:
Interesting, but phenomenally anti-democratic. Then again, the US political system is phenomenally anti-democratic already... was that the point being made?

The way I saw it, he was pointing out that the U.S. seems to feel the need to run other countries as it is, so wouldn't it only be fair to allow them to elect "their own" government? I think much of his point may have been muddled by his tongue-in-cheek joke suggesting that instead of the entirety of the globe voting, everyone but America votes being crammed in to too short a time frame.
Though there might have been some seriousness, or at least an element of poetic justice, to the idea in that it would give the American people an idea of what it is like when a government that you had no part in bringing into power starts making drastic decisions that affect both you and your country.
But again, that's just what I saw.

>> ^hpqp:

Interesting, but phenomenally anti-democratic. Then again, the US political system is phenomenally anti-democratic already... was that the point being made?


The way I saw it, he was pointing out that the U.S. seems to feel the need to run other countries as it is, so wouldn't it only be fair to allow them to elect "their own" government? I think much of his point may have been muddled by his tongue-in-cheek joke suggesting that instead of the entirety of the globe voting, everyone but America votes being crammed in to too short a time frame.

Though there might have been some seriousness, or at least an element of poetic justice, to the idea in that it would give the American people an idea of what it is like when a government that you had no part in bringing into power starts making drastic decisions that affect both you and your country.

But again, that's just what I saw.

That is quite impressive.. Going furioso with that many notes, whoah. Low end is muddle, it's the arr that has too much going on in downstairs, no doubt just to get everything that much flashier.

FYI: The best mojitos have a little Serrano pepper muddled up with the mint.

@dannym3141 my apologies brother. That comment was far more confrontational (and cynical) than I intended. I do stand by the final statement, but yes psycho- or sociopath doesn't really matter - semantic games around the idea of a person capable of unwarranted atrocity. (Not sure why I've always associated psychopaths with more direct engagement in violence than sociopaths - wishful thinking, perhaps?)

As for democracy, well, the ancient Greeks had a form of democracy (from which our own is derived), but my point was more broadly focused. People that aspire to or seize power have been of the same ilk forever. What I'm saying is that our elected officials are no different than ancient warlords or modern tyrants in their desire for power and their drive to attain it. This is the cynicism I can't escape - those who would rule are by their very nature rulers, incapable of abrogating their own authority. If you want to depose them, you must have the same desire to rule. That trait has been known to all since before we even were humans. And of course, any deposer soon becomes the tyrant.

Don't mistake my cynicism for fatalism though. I don't think there is any political system that can get around that aspect of human nature, but it doesn't mean I think we should put up with anything unless we're willing to do the same (anything). It is possible to muddle through life essentially ignoring the assholes until they get right up in your face. That's when action on the part of courageous individuals and groups makes a difference. Questioning authority, civil disobedience, or just defiance of the local cultural dogma - all of these are theoretically capable of establishing collective authority (at least temporarily) over individual authority. But it's hard. Generally, we suck it up until we're ready to stick 'em up.

@Diogenes

i really appreciate your depth of insight.
the muddle makes me think it makes more sense to start from the beginning. I think it is time to fully appreciate that modern issues can't be solved by an ancient document. We have a culture built on the idea that the framer's were infallible, and that the constitution was a standard of perfection. We know this to be false, and we have since built an entire system of fuckery on the "interpretations" of the document.

Myself I consider life to begin at implantation of the fertilized egg.


OK, sorry, you did give your position. But what rational reason do you have for your position? Why implantation instead of fertilization? I mean, if it's just floating around in there and would "without interference" find it's way to the uterine wall, why is it OK to stop it or kill it? Suppose I have a kind of contraceptive that blocks an implanted egg from growing... why is that different than a contraceptive that prevents an egg from fully implanting, or why is it different than one that prevents an egg from implanting at all, or kills it on it's way?

You're making a magic touchdown line, and you could have drawn it 100 other places with exactly the same amount of reason. Sure it's kind of easy to define, but that's like saying that people should go to jail for 10 years because that's a round number. Ease of definition is a sad way to make this kind of judgement.

I think if you want to be rational you have to say humanity is a sliding scale. But, again, the consequences of that are messy and not acceptable to most humans. So we muddle through, trying to come up with arbitrary rules we can live with.

Language changes to muddle the issue, so you would generally agree with what they say if it were your friend or relatives saying those same words. That way if you repeat what a politician says to someone else, it sounds completely reasonable. The true intent is not among the soundbytes and quotes, they are there for mass appeal.

The purposefully try to muddle the conversation so there's so much redefinition of the words that you can't even begin to argue with them...because no one knows what the hell the other side means when they say each word.

If your point was in the best interest of the people you represent (IE not corporations) there would be no need for all this. And this is why I don't understand when plain spoken people who don't mince words aren't more popular. At least then it isn't like the guy is speaking a foreign language that sounds a lot like the one everyone else uses.

to be crazy, doesn't mean you have to go around humping doorknobs, throwing poop at people...
some of the craziest people in life would have been considered normal (at most a little weird) if not for happenstance/luck

many sociopaths can function (some, extremely well even) in society... and in fact are quite adept at manipulating others

i'd love to be as optimistic as Penn, but I literally believe there are people who believe the end of the world will happen in our life time... i think some of these people are in positions of authority and power... and while I don't consider there to be a conspiracy to "bring the end of the world upon us"... I think their belief comes into their decision making process... and that might go a long way to explaining some of the VERY short sighted decisions being made today

of course I believe, the majority of these decisions are made because of inneptitude and corruption/greed

I just don't think its that easy to muddle through the mess of motivation to declare that this person is undeniably good when you wouldn't be able to justify declaring a person to be undeniably bad... both are extreme's... it's just more socially acceptable to do one more than the other