Tom Mulcair Makes Huge Blunder Just Before Official Campaign Begins

NDP leader Tom Mulcair's reaction to his blunder

Tom Mulcair has just made a huge blunder that could cost him, the NDP and Canada our future. The official campaign isn't even declared and Mulcair has already shot himself in the foot...at least...perhaps in the heart...no wonder Harper and his attack dogs haven't launched ruthless attacks on Mulcair...there's no need to.

i couldn't believe my ears when read this so i turned on the tube and the first story on CBC's Power and Politics is Rosie Barton interviewing Elizabeth May on her reaction to the news that the NDP has decided it will not attend any debate that Harper does not attend. Ms. May was livid saying twice that all the opposition parties had agree they would participate in the traditional consortium of major network debates, debates that have been the cornerstone of the election process here in Canada since 1968, debates that in 2011 were watched by 14 million Canadians.

i emailed Elizabeth immediately and she answered within minutes saying: "The NDP promised the other non-CPC parties that we would hang tough and leave an empty podium for Harper, and Mulcair throws in the towel in July for an October debate, thus ending ANY chance Canadians will get a real election debate. And keeping the Green Party me out. Shameful."

Ms. May argued on P&P that the Conservatives and NDP are in cahoots in an attempt to once again silence her in by far the largest national Canadian forum. i agree that both Harper and Mulcair fear Elizabeth and her ability, shown time and again in Parliament, to cut through the crap 'like a hot knife through butter'. Harper fears her questions about his rejection of science in service to his corporate benefactors especially in the fossil fuel industry, as he should. Mulcair fears that May's progressive positions on everything from her outspoken denunciation of Bill C-51, a denunciation that compelled Mulcair to go from a wishy-washy Liberal like whining to an opponent of the Secret Police Act that C-51 truly is, to May's recent call for a guaranteed living subsidy for all.

What an idiotic decision by the NDP 'brain trust'. Poll after poll has shown that Canadians from coast to coast to coast were beginning to coalesce around the NDP in their search for the best way to STOP HARPER. Now what? i suspect that it will mean a renewed rise by Trudeau's Liberals, a further splitting of the progressive vote and an even greater chance that Harper will win again in October.

IMO there's no greater argument for electoral reform in Canada than the current situation where over two thirds of Canadians do not support the Conservatives, where the only voice that speaks not for self-interest, not for the enrichment of the few, but for every living thing is silenced by an idiotic First Past The Post electoral system and a few power hungry individuals.

Harpo-Cons Poll #s Surge as Child Benefit Bribery Checks Land in Canadian Mailboxes

Canadians viewed Thomas Mulcair as 'the anti-Harper' until the checks rolled in.

Today Canada's the federal pre-election polls showed a huge bounce for the Harpo-Cons. This Conservative surge in the aggregate is largely due to the Mainstreet Research poll published by Postmedia on Friday. It isn't the only sign of improving Conservative numbers, however, as Nanos Research's four-week rolling poll put the NDP and Conservatives in a tie at 31 per cent apiece earlier this week.

Only 4 days ago, just before the Child Benefit buy-a-vote checks started arriving in mailboxes, Forum Research results found that the NDP continued to hold the lead at 34% followed by the Cons at 29% and Libs at 28%. The NDP have held a lead for at least 7 weeks until the bribery checks landed in Canadian mailboxes. This surge, thanks to the Universal Child Care Benefit [UCCB], is causing a 'Christmas in July' response among those who don't understand that they are being bribed with their own money.

Of course most benefits are taxable, but here’s the catch -- while bringing in the new child “benefit” the Conservatives also just quietly axed our $2,225 child tax credit. After all’s said and done, that means a typical working parent will receive just $13 a month to cover skyrocketing child care costs.

At the same time, Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer figures more than half the people benefiting from Ottawa’s UCCB bribery scheme don’t actually have child care costs:“In 2015, 49 per cent of these benefits would go to families with child care expenses and young children, and the remaining 51 per cent to families with no child care expenses and families with older children,” the report from this spring reads.

So, like the tax splitting scheme, the harpo-cons are doling out the dough to their supporters at the expense of everyone except the rich who's taxes are constantly cut. It'll be interesting to see in the next little while if this bump in the night of if the other pollsters, using different methods, report the same bounce from this moronic CPC vote buying scheme contiueing on into future polls. Can Canadians be this stupid? Can their futures be bought for next to nothing?...if so, maybe it's time to move to Mongolia.

Another Way to Live Fully in Greece and Escape Capitalism's Darkness-the Peasant's Way.

Small farmers - like Ndomi Magareth, planting beans here
on her land in Cameroon feed the world.

There is 'Another Way' to be in the world without destroying it - living simply, living the peasant's way. We can, each of us no matter where we live, start in our own backyards, rooftops, empty lots and balconies to live the life we dream, to escape the darkness of materialism by living within our one small planet's means, by refusing to consume needless crap, by refusing consumer debt and by following, with worn knees and soil stained hands, the inner light of the peasant's way.

The Zapatistas of Chiapas offer us all an excellent example of how direct action is a wellspring of hope in a desert of dispair. These gentle Mayan descendents of Mexico’s southern region have built real communities based on co-operation, organic food production, a grass roots political revolution.

Greeks have in these last years been forced by criminal bankers and subservient governments to abandon the mainstream economy. Guerrilla gardening and local consumer-producer networks are redefining life in today’s Greek cities. It's an example of how folks in Greece are living and working together outside of capitalism.

Jan Lundberg's wonderful and hopeful article a few days ago explains why the cash economy in Greece is ending, saying in part: "Fortunately, Greeks have a greater connection to the land and sea than most advanced industrialized societies. Typically, families have at least some member with a farm, an orchard, and the means to make homemade wine, cure olives, dry figs, grow fruit, collect herbs, go fishing, and more. The extent of this connection has shrunk drastically since the advent of the shopping culture. But, like in the U.S.'s Great Depression when many Americans had a good chance of having a relative who had a farm to go to as a last resort, Greeks have links to the traditions of their elders and rural relatives."

All around the globe small farmers are finding ways to survive and thrive by refusing to comply with neo-liberal policies designed to force them into debt, then off their land. In Chiapas the Zapatista school  - Escuelita Zapatista - has opened its doors to international solidarity. Unmentioned of course by the capitalist owned mainsteam media thousands of students from around the world attend the University of the Earth, in San Cristóbal de Las Casas and are are returning to their communities, collectives and movements around the world with a new sense of purpose - to pass on all that they've learned while attending the escuelita.

Greece's recent flirtation with liberty, though botched temporarily, will within months turn into a romance. In those months between now and then the other way will continue to show the people of Greece that they have been cheated and stolen from by the oligarchs and the bourgeois who support them. In 6 months there will be no debate, no fear of taking another way.

Please take a few moments and watch this wonderful video that shows how preferable a life of liberty is to a life of compliance. While you do listen to the music of their voices, feel their genuine smiles, imagine that you too could [and should] be living self directed lives of dignity and liberty.

With Tsipras' Compitulation Vote Now Complete Non-Compliant Athenians Rise Up to Resist

the new Greek flag

The Greek parliament just voted by a landslide 229 to 64 with 8 abstentions- in favor of implicitly giving up their sovereignty and sending their "OXI" voting citizenry in deeper economic depression, The Bill titled “urgent measures for the negotiation and signing of an agreement with the European Stability Mechanism” is a complete capitulation to the Germans and their vassals that will go down as the worst example of 'democracy' in Greek history.

If there is one bit of good news it's that former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, and 38 other SYRIZA members, voted against the damned thing. Varoufakis yesterday published the "Greek Terms Of Surrender" complete with his notes which condemn the dirty deal point by point. In it he dubbed the agreement "a new Versailles Treaty" for good reason: for Greece, the agreement which effectively abdicates sovereignty to Germany, is precisely that.

Addressing members of Parliament (MPs) ahead of tonight’s crucial vote, the prime minister Alexis Tsipras said: "Whoever has an alternative [solution] should come and tell me." Well i've been telling him for months, but i guess Tsipras doesn't read The Mud Report. You may say "i'm a dreamer, but i'm not the only one", here's Ellen Brown's essay 'Grexit or Jubilee? How Greek Debt Can Be Annulled' published yesterday which, after explaining 'how to' clearly, concludes:

"For Greece, leaving the EU may be perilous; but it opens provocative possibilities. The government could nationalize its insolvent banks along with its central bank, and start generating the credit the country desperately needs to get back on its feet. If it chose, it could do this while still using the euro, just as Ecuador uses the US dollar without being part of the US. (For more on how this could work, see here.)"

"If Greece switches to drachmas, the funding possibilities are even greater. It could generate the money for a national dividend, guaranteed employment for all, expanded social services, and widespread investment in infrastructure, clean energy, and local business. Freed from its Eurocrat oppressors, Greece could model for the world what can be achieved by a sovereign country using publicly-owned banks and publicly-issued currency for the benefit of its own economy and its own people."

Tsipras was bullied and blackmailed into agreeing to this odious agreement. But the fact he agreed to it, despite his beaten dog look, shows he was in over his head from the beginning. This is a dark day for every person everywhere, except The Bankers and Billionaires Club where the bastards are toasting another victory for money over principles.

"The scene in Athens is explosive," King's College London professor and Syriza central committee member Stathis Kouvelakis wrote. The good people of Greece will never comply with this sellout. Long live the Greek people. Long live the Greek resistance to fascism.

The Greeks Will Not Comply, Long Live the Resistance, Long Live an Independent Greece

Tweet by Beppe Grillo, leader of Italy's 5 Star Movement

Tomorrow [Wend. July 15th] the Greek Parliament are expected vote on whether or not to accept complete humiliation by approving the 'German Coup'. Global anger at the EU, and especially Germany, has erupted both online and on the street. "By now every lawmaker in Athens is fully aware of the fact that what has happened to Greece is nothing short of a ruthless political coup executed by Germany." - ZeroHedge

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are expressing their outrage at the fascist elites' attempt to steal Greek sovereignty at #ThisIsACoup. Check it out, you don't have to have an account there to read the messages, it's eye opening and jaw dropping at the same time.

Greece's former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said yesterday "the Eurogroup is 'completely and utterly' controlled by Germany. Adding today, "The recent Euro Summit is indeed nothing short of the culmination of a coup. In 1967 it was the tanks that foreign powers used to end Greek democracy...in 2015 another coup was staged by foreign powers using, instead of tanks, Greece’s banks. Perhaps the main economic difference is that, whereas in 1967 Greece’s public property was not targeted, in 2015 the powers behind the coup demanded the handing over of all remaining public assets, so that they would be put into the servicing of our un-payble, unsustainable debt." - Yanis Varoufakis

Highly respected economist Micheal Hudson's excellent interview on Greek privatizations and odious debt frames tomorrow's vote in Athens [see video below or read transcript here]. In part Hudson says, "...the European Central Bank has taken what is very nearly a fascist position. It says what we're after isn't the collective debts. We know Greece can't pay, out of the--it can't earn the money to pay that debt. What it can do is sell off its islands, it can sell the Parthenon. It can sell its land. It can sell its gas rights in the Aegean. It can sell its radio stations and television stations. It can sell its roads to people that we appoint.

Raúl Ilargi Meijer of The Automatic Earth, now writing from the street in Athens, says:"The people here in Greece are being forced to pay for years for something they were never a part of, and that they never profited from. The profits all went to a corrupt elite."

IMO the Parliament will first, instead of voting on the capitulation directive, call for a vote of non-confidence in SYRIZA and Alexis Tsipras will resign. New snap elections will be called and the Germans will be told to shove it. The thousands gathered in the streets all across Greece tomorrow will raise a collective cheer so loud the EU will tremble.

The Germans have made a terrible mistake, whether or not the mostly upper middle class Greek Parliament accepts Germany's terms of surrender. the Greek people will not comply. For the third time in a century the Germans have set in motion the forces that will split Europe, this time between haves and have-nots, As Varoufakis and most observers agree, before it was tanks, this time it's banks, but the results will be the same. Long live the resistance, long live an independent Greece.

Capitulation Not Enough, EU and Germany, Demand Privatization of "Very Valuable Greek Assets"

Tsipras on his way to the principle's office...note in hand

The EU has given Greece a "choice": hand over sovereignty to Germany/EU or undergo a 5 year Grexit "time out", which is a polite euphemism for get the hell out. Greece has 24 hrs to accept a new, even more draconian, list of demands  Under the proposal, the only way Germany would let Greece stay in the euro now is if it puts in escrow 50 billion euros of "very valuable Greek assets," allows international observers to monitor its bailout, and puts automatic spending cuts in place in case it misses its deficit targets.

"What is at play here is an attempt to humiliate Greece and Greeks..." says Dimitrios Papadimoulis, vice-president of the European Parliament and Syriza Party member, That is especially true amid charges that Germany now is trying to debase the Greeks, lording over them the threat of forced sell-offs of monuments, even islands.

Were the forced sale of Greece's monuments, islands and its electrical grid to proceed the Germans would have accomplished with odious debt and bankerster criminality what they couldn't with their Panzers 70 years ago.

Tsipras has flip flopped so many times it's become impossible to tell what will happen next. Some, like Raúl Ilargi Meijer at The Automatic Earth, think/hope/pray that "Tsipras has set the perfect trap for the other side of the table. He’s driving them apart, setting them off against each other, putting them into incompatible positions, and making the positions of quite a few of them untenable." And in so doing has accomplished his goal of finding a door out of the Euro and Eurozone trap without anybody blaming him for it happening. Sure hope he's right and Greece uses this door to run like hell propping it open for all the other countries who too have been indentured by the Eurozone trap of debt slavery.

James Galbraith, economics professor at the University of Texas summarized Tsipras dilemma just before his capitulation well, saying: "The crux of the situation is that the only real political or economic leverage Greece has ever had against the European Commission, the IMF, and the ECB is the threat to leave the eurozone—but that this leverage is actually quite weak, because the political consensus within Greece, and the stated position of the Syriza government throughout the negotiations, has been to stay with the single currency."

Greece has friends who will help them just as Argentina and Iceland had, but the Greeks have to run out that door first. No country can step in with help, especially in the face NATO and US warnings about the geopolitical implications, until then. Russia has already reached out, BRICS and China have too.

The Argentine success story has important implications for Greece and its southern European cousins. The Argentine economy has grown 94 percent for the years 2002-2011, using International Monetary Fund projections for the end of this year. This is the fastest growth in the Western Hemisphere for this period, and among the highest growth rates in the world. This despite the amrageddon like predictions that the Bankers and Billionaire's Club issued non-stop at the time.

GO GREECE GO 

Tsipras to Sign Most Punitive Austerity Package Ever in Exchange for Meaningless Relief Promise

Greece's finance minister at  London Conference of 1953 signing a treaty agreeing to cancel 50% of Germany's debt 

Despite the overwhelming mandate delivered by the 62% vote in favour of, OXI, demanding no more austerity, despite the fact that many of the world's leading economists and both the US and its puppet the IMF agree that the EU and German austerity demands have crushed Greece's economy, Alexis Tsipras has caved and "with lightning speed now agreed to put his name to the most punitive austerity package any government has been asked to implement during the five years of economic crisis in Greece." - The Guardian. 

It appears that after having fired Varoufakis for refusing to be part of the capitulation, Tsipras is now grovelling for any hint of 'debt relief' being even mentioned by the Germans and their northern European lapdogs. Earlier today German officials seemed to blink when they conceded that Greece needs debt relief but at the same moment Merkel was saying that there was zero chance of debt reduction. So it's bullshit, the EU will 'pretend and extend', Greece's poor will suffer even more while Greece's oligarchs and their euro scum partners continue to fleece the poor.

In the last few days the IMF, undoubtedly with Obama's blessing, allowed an internal document that was highly critical of austerity as a solution to the world's growing 99% vs. 1% divide to be made public. Saying in part "that the strong pro-capitalist policies at the centre of its activities in developing countries for the past 30 years do not work." Further, "that the IMF’s claims of reform on conditionality do not stand up to close scrutiny." In addition "the IMF report contradicted its long-held position of following hard-nosed capitalist guidelines. It said that the dreaded concept of 'trickle-down' economics -- which it forced on developing countries -- should be abandoned." In short, austerity doesn't work!

Another report yesterday by Global Exchange charges that the IMF contributes to poverty instead of alleviating it: "Nearly 80 per cent of all malnourished children in the developing world live in countries where farmers have been forced to shift from food production for local consumption to the production of export crops destined for wealthy countries."

The IMF is the financial wing of the US military and only acts or speaks in the service of the global capitalist Empire's continued war on the poor. In that role, because their masters now believe that world opinion has turned against the financial elites at least momentarily, they are appearing to put pressure on their German partners to speak the words debt relief as a seeming compromise to Greece for it's capitulation.

The real pressure on the Empire, the pressure that can't be spoken of by the corporate media, isn't coming from the Bankers and Billionaires Club and never will be. The real pressure is coming from the street, from the world's downtrodden masses who have little left and are becoming more dangerous to the elites daily.

One extralarge pain in the ass to the Empire is Beppo Grillo who's bottom up, common sense, solutions to the Eurozone scam and his outspoken refusal to genuflect at the alter of greed clearly shows that contagion is in the air. Just today the mainstream corporate parties in Italy were forced to debate, and of course reject, a proposal by Grillo's party, M5S, in the Italian Senate that was backed by over 300,000 Italian signatures [in a single week] in support of a popular petition not just about an exit from the Euro - - but even from the European Union.

Today is just another day in WWIII. The Greek referendum results, as expected, split along class lines, with the nation's poor voting overwhelmingly against the austerity package, and rich people voting "Yes." In the days to come Alexis Tsipras will argue that what was good for Germany in 1953 would be good for Greece in 2015, but it'll be just another example of his flip floppety non-leadership. Those who voted OXI will know the truth, SYRIZA members will too.

Will Alexis Tsipras hold on to power after this betrayal of the poor? Who knows. Why would he do it? Perhaps he had a visit from a CIA type who explained to him that his life expectancy and that of his family was very short unless...Events are spinning out of control, the world is on fire, the New World Order [NWO] will not give up its wealth and power voluntarily. i expect Greece to explode and the tsunami that follows to reach every shore.

Varoufakis Quit After He Refused to Participate in Tsipras' Upcoming Capitualation to the Troika

Syriza's leader and Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, has said all along that OXI would give him a stronger hand, more leverage, in making his capitulation to the Bankers and Billionaire's Club slightly less dreadful. No where., ever, did Tsipras say his goal was anything other than getting slightly less rapacious terms to surrender under. Yanis Varoufakis, the x-Finance Minister refused to capitulate to the Troika so he either resigned or was fired depending on what source you read.

Varoufakis himself said as much in his short statement to the media: "Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted 'partners', for my… 'absence' from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister [Alexis Tsipras] judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement. For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today," he stated. "I consider it my duty to help Alexis Tsipras exploit, as he sees fit, the capital that the Greek people granted us through yesterday’s referendum."

The Germans, and each of their lapdogs in turn, will announce that there will be no reduction in the conditions demanded of Greece even if  Tsipras arrives with some new agreement that he can capitulate to. Germany and the others know that Greece is a small fry but that if they are appeased 'contagion' will be near instant and that, if allowed to proceed, would be the end of their leeching the wealth from their poorer cousins.

It was a great party in Greece last night but today it's widely understood that it was at best a symbolic victory. SYRIZA needed to stop waffling a long time ago. SYRIZA and Tsipras must either eat shit and stick with the EU come what may or hit the road and come what may. The Greeks, and they are the majority, are living an 'Alice in Wonderland' existence if they think Germany et al will budge because of the OXI vote. The referendum question was purposefully vague because SYRIZA had to get an OXI answer without confronting the 'Alice' effect.

Argentina didn't flip-flop they made a choice and DID it, same with Iceland. The NWO corporate/banking Empire won't give Greece a break. Greece needs, to declare bankruptcy and get out, then jail the oligarchs, generals, elites etc before the CIA/NATO uses them and their assured whining to justify whatever gruesome tactics they'll try next.

Argentina was saved by Chavez, Iceland was saved by being small and self-contained for centuries, Greece needs China/BRICS who'll only help if/when Greece declares total independence.

Here's a few of great background pieces:

Greece — The One Biggest Lie You Are Being Told By The Media

Germany's Unpaid Debt to Greece: Economist Albrecht Ritschl on WWII Reparations That Never Were

Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Tsipras Must Resign Immediately

Tsipras this morning in Athens...another flip-flop

After today's capitulation, Alex Tsipras must resign immediately. We've all been watching this drama for many months now. One day Tsipras says one thing, the next, the absolute opposite. Regardless of whether it's a case of bribery or blackmail - J. Edgar style, whether he's insane or incompetent, this is the final straw.

i hope and suspect that SYRIZA is meeting right now and voting to demand his resignation as leader. If not, the Greek Parliament must, by the end of the day today demand a non-confidence vote.

"Greeks know what Tsipras urged they oppose he largely supports – likely heading toward full capitulation given the largely negative response he’s gotten so far and how easily he shifts from one position to another. He was elected on a pledge to end austerity. Instead he increased it harshly and supports tougher measures.
He wants to avoid snap elections in case Greeks vote yes on Sunday to accept Troika terms. Given his public betrayal, SYRIZA would likely lose and he’d be out of a job. He wants to remain prime minister no matter the cost to his own people." - Global Research 

Sunday's referendum, which was always somewhere between symbolic at best and meaningless, must be canceled. As the Guardian says: "The jargon-heavy question inviting Greeks to decide whether to support texts on “reforms for the completion of the current programme and beyond” and the “preliminary debt sustainability analysis for Greece” has been widely criticised. Speculation mounted that the Tsipras government would be forced to call off the referendum."

The international narrative among progressive voices is: Tsipras' surrenders, saying, "Since becoming Greek Prime Minister in January, Tsipras proved he’s like all the rest – promising one thing, doing another."

From the Bankers and Billionaires Club: 'Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, out of his depth?'

Is this the face of insanity?

IMO, it's most likely that Tsipras has had some sort of mental breakdown. It's all so sad. No matter which side you're on though, this morning's capitulation isn't just another twist in some game. Tsipras must resign immediately.