There's an excellent commentary and situation overview in the linked Guardian article. I stumbled upon it through twitter.
The title: Greece shows what can happen when the young revolt against corrupt elites
The subtitle: The rise of Syriza can’t just be explained by the crisis in the eurozone: a youthful generation of professionals has had enough of tax-evading oligarchs
Boy, I hope this is true. I hope they're in it for the long run. And I hope they are going to go big and stand strong.
Of these, the eurozone’s crisis is easiest to understand – because its consequences can be read so easily in the macroeconomic figures. The IMF predicted Greece would grow as the result of its aid package in 2010. Instead, the economy has shrunk by 25%. Wages are down by the same amount. Youth unemployment stands at 60% – and that is among those who are still in the country.
So the economic collapse – about which all Greeks, both right and leftwing, are bitter – is not just seen as a material collapse. It demonstrated complete myopia among the European policy elite. In all of drama and comedy there is no figure more laughable as a rich man who does not know what he is doing. For the past four years the troika – the European Commission, IMF and European Central Bank – has provided Greeks with just such a spectacle.
Over and over and over we've heard that austerity, (reduced government spending), will lead the way out of the New Depression. It hasn't been true. THAT'S obvious.
So obvious that Mitt Romney has tried recently to adopt a veneer of populism.
I hope the Democrats are watching and learning the events in Greece. I hope the old guard, corporatist Democrats will, at the very least, get out of the way of the folks in their party that "get it'.
Folks like Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley and Elizabeth Warren.
I worry about a Hillary candidacy because of this. My sense is that people are ready for real, significant change. They were ready in 2008 and they got tepid lukewarm change.
If it's Hillary against Jeb I think we're in trouble. I don't think voters will see a lot of daylight between the two. Seems to me that voters will see them both as more of the same. On the Democratic side that translates into low turnout. I think we all know what low turn means for the Democrats.
So here's the link to the article - good reading:
http://www.theguardian.com/...