The short recap of who Yanis Varoufakis is: that Greek finance minister who called for the vote against austerity and then was thrown out of the government to make the bankers happy as Greece re-embraces austerity. I saw this Australia Aug. 27 story thanks to Portside; betcha didn see this in the U.S. His position is that a socialist push against austerity is now vital to the survival of European democracy, against the bankers, and that he will strive to work at a pan-European level. Jokingly, sort of an EU Single Market approach.
The story is at http://www.abc.net.au/... and it's headlined: "Yanis Varoufakis pushes for pan-European network to fight austerity"
Speaking to a gathering organized by the French Socialist Party, Varoufakis delivered the following speech -- I found it electrifying -- https://varoufakis.files.wordpress.com/...
Main quote before the jump:
I am here because our Athens Spring was crushed, just like the Prague Spring before it. Of course it was not crushed using the tanks. It was crushed using the banks.
My pet pull-quote from near the end gets into the overarching concept:
When politics and money are de-politicised what happens is that democracy dies. And when democracy dies, prosperity is confined to the very few who cannot even enjoy it behind the gates and the fences they need to build to protect themselves from their victims. To counter this dystopia the people of Europe must believe again that democracy is not a luxury afforded to creditors and declined to debtors.
So looking at this from a Bernie Sanders volunteer's point of view ... Socialism is now vital to the survival of the substance of democracy itself and democracies world-wide.
Check out the ONLY comment this story received (or that survived moderation):
neil watson : 29 Aug 2015 5:57:02am
A true Socialist airhead. Air money, money from trees, 'build it and they'll come'. Absolute, Grade A tosh. This is the thinking that has bankrupted Greece and Europe.
I think Mr. Watson is probably not a Paul Krugman fan. Anyway, somebody should try to do justice to all the substance in his arguments and make a great diary out of this. It's really a shame that his points apply so well to the U.S., notably student debt or the failure to hold 2008 malefactors accountable.