21st CENTURY CHALLENGES TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: PART I

Abstract: It requires several hundred pages to address the complex subject of challenges to American democracy in the post-Cold War era of a global multi-polar economic and political power structure. In this brief essay, I identify only a few of the current challenges to American democracy that appear permanent fixtures of society in the early 21^st century. The objective is to provide but a sample of some issues, regardless of how the corporate media, government, and presidential candidates wish to define challenges to democracy. 

Introduction: Erosion of Public Confidence in Liberal Democracy

From the writing of the Constitution until the present, there have been many challenges to American democracy. This reflects an ideological struggle between those closer to John Locke’s classical Liberal model of government and those advocating a social democratic model based on jean-Jean Rousseau’s view of the Social Contract. 

One of the first challenges to America’s liberal democracy intensified in 1805 during the Federalism vs. Democratic-Republican controversy (10^th Amendment) that was not resolved until Civil War (states’ rights issue with slavery at the core – 14^th Amendment). A second significant challenge came during the early years in the Age of Progressivism (1900-1920) the struggle to modernize the state to reflect the industrialization of society, to rationalize capitalism and balance pluralistic interests against the very rich demanding control of all institutions from the press to politics was a challenge that made its return in the Great Depression when FDR strengthened the central government and used it to keep capitalism afloat amid its self-destructive course. The last major Constitutional challenge manifested itself during the Cold War followed by the institutionalization of counter-terrorism culminating in the Patriot Act that remains a very serious threat to the US constitution and the tradition of liberal democracy. At the core of national security issues if the violation of the 4^th Amendment dealing with privacy and 6^th Amendment dealing with due process. (Joe Kay, Deal to renew USA Patriot Act extends police-state measures; Tom Carter, 13 December 2005; Capitalism, war and the collapse of democracy  22 April 2015 – World Socialist http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/12/patr-d13.html)

Despite America’s history as a former European colony that would emerge to emulate the imperial motherland, similar challenges confront other open societies as well. Depending on one’s ideological perspective, such challenges can be anything from corporate institutional hegemony to lack of respect for human rights, as far as progressive analysts are concerned, to lack of a strong defense and absence of tough policy on illegal immigrants, according to right wingers. To left-of-center critics, the challenges to American democracy are invariably associated with the dismantling of just about everything that the FDR and to some degree Kennedy-Johnson administrations created as part of a pluralistic multicultural society. The Tea Party movement within the Republican Party has its own list of challenges to American democracy, and those focus on immigration, gun ownership, and complete deregulation of Wall Street. Ironically, everyone from Tea Party Republicans and Libertarians to liberal and leftist Democrats and claim Jeffersonian democracy expresses their ideological position. (Andrew Burstein, Democracy's Muse: How Thomas Jefferson Became an FDR Liberal, a Reagan Republican, and a Tea Party Fanatic, All the While Being Dead)  

Some of the challenges facing the US also confront many other developed countries, including all of the richest nations on the basis of GDP. America’s history, traditions and institutions distinguishes it from Europe as well as Canada and Australia for that matter, despite their common heritage as British colonies that industrialized and moved into the core of the world capitalist system. As the world’s economic and military superpower for the last six decades, the US has a different set of challenges confronting its democratic institutions than any other nation on earth. The inherent contradiction between liberal democracy at home and economic imperialism backed by a global military network has always been irreconcilable and will remain so in this century as the US will more than likely become even more militaristic in ordert to counter-balance China’s rising economic and political hegemony. 

In so far as democracy operates under the political economy of international capitalism that shapes institutions and molds the class structure, it is inevitable that challenges in American society have common characteristics with other countries far less militaristic than America. Clearly, official corruption, minority rights, human rights, and elitism that the political economy produces, to mention just a few, are challenges in all democracies and they are permanent no matter how ephemeral politicians try to portray them.

Beyond presidential elections that generate vacuous rhetoric about “change” when in fact the basic institutional structure remains unchanged there is the larger question of the evolution of American democracy owing to objective economic and geopolitical conditions at home and abroad. The US is facing challenges of global economic preeminence from China, unconventional warfare around which the US has built an elaborate institutional counter-terrorism structure and culture, and massive social and economic problems at home that are becoming worse with every downward economic cycle. 

Challenges to democracy are bound to test the republic in the future partly because China will replace the US as the world’s number one economic power at some point in this century – China is already ahead in PPP (purchasing power parity) terms. The US, which has been the world’s number one economy since 1872 when it overtook UK, will try to compete by placing even greater emphasis on its defense sector and military adventures. The US will continue the current policy of containment and destabilizing various parts of the world, while continuing with corporate welfare that has drained the economy in the last four decades. The result of this at home will be detrimental for the economy and the tradition of liberal democracy, and observance of the Constitution.

Do the American people have the same confidence in their government and institutions – political at all levels of government, media, educational and in corporate businesses – as the media tries to convince its audience? According to one public opinion poll, 75% of all Americans polled indicated they were “angry” with the policies of their federal government, albeit for different reasons depending on their ideological and political orientation. Naturally, people look to government for solutions to serious problems ranging from unemployment to living standards, but they also like to believe their government is fulfilling the social contract and not marginalizing the majority of the people to further the interests of the small minority. 

According to Thomas J. Scott (“Democracy and its Discontents” Truthout.org ; January 2015), the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data for 2013 indicates that only 35% of Americans have confidence in their government. Statistics are even worse among young people who simply become disengaged from the political process. A Rasmussen poll indicates that a tiny 8% of all voters have confidence in US Congress doing a good job, and a Gallop poll suggests 44% approve of the Supreme Court, while a Rasmussen poll for December 2014 notes that more than half of the citizens disapprove of Obama. 

While one could argue these are not bad statistics when compared with approval ratings for governments in other developed countries, similar public opinion poll results for European and non-European countries only prove a general decline in confidence for open societies that claim to the name democracy but fail to deliver what the majority believe is the democratic social contract. Again, the percentage of young people dropping out of the political process completely is rather common, reflecting the high level of youth unemployment and expectations of their government vs. reality of “bourgeois democracy” as it is shaped in each country reflecting its dominant culture and heritage. 

It is of interest to note that public opinion polls show a sharp drop for democracy and capitalism (from low 70^th percentile in favor in the early 1990s to mid-30s today) on the part of people across all of the former Soviet republics. This includes Ukraine where a minority of the population turned to neo-Nazism (SVOBODA) under the guise of freedom and democracy. The reason for the drop in public support of democracy and capitalism is largely because the dust has settled and people have now seen that behind the mask of democracy is a small clique of oligarchs on whose behalf government conducts policy.

The lack of confidence in public and private sector institutions in the US, and other open societies reflects a widespread recognition that these only serve the interests of the small privileged political, social, and financial elites to the exclusion of all the rest. Despite this reality, the corporate-owned media would have the public believe that the single most important challenge to democracy is none other than “foreign threats”. Government must meet these “foreign threats” by becoming even more militaristic in its foreign/defense policy, and more authoritarian at home, all in the name of imposing conformity.

Media-defined Threats to Democracy

On a daily basis, the mass media projects the image that the threat to American democracy comes mainly from abroad and from domestic violence that includes everything from petty crime to gun violence by some emotionally unstable individual. Large crimes that involve billions of dollars in banking scandals are hardly a threat to the integrity of the political economy. In short, the neighborhood burglar and foreign and domestic security are newsworthy, while rarely is the challenge to democracy the growing inequality gap, persistent culture of racism, political alienation by the majority of citizens, to mention only a few problems of major societal significance. Meanwhile, all the media and political focus stays on Islamic unconventional warfare – “terrorism”, Russian foreign policy, Chinese economic hegemony, North Korean adventurist statements and military exercises threatening America’s regional allies, and defiant states such as Syria, Venezuela, Argentina, Iran, etc. 

Almost every Republican Party politician embraces the theme of a foreign enemy threatening American democracy. Therefore, the response to such ominous challenges is a massive military buildup and military solutions to international conflicts, so the people at home “feel safer”, regardless of whether they are actually safer. In the absence of the Cold War because there is no longer a Warsaw Pact but under the persistence of Cold War institutions and policies of containment, surveillance, counterinsurgency and militarism, the US has redefined and subordinated democracy to “emergency politics” invariably associated with a state of war or national emergency. In this manner, the government can justify everything from unilateral military interventions to violating the Constitutional rights of its own citizens. Using the politics of “foreign enemy distraction” government uses the fiscal system to favor the top ten percent of the population, while slashing social and environmental programs. (Des Freedman Daya Kishan Thussu, Media and Terrorism: Global Perspective; Bonnie Honnig, Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy; Pippa Norris, Montague Kern, Marion Just, eds., Framing Terrorism: The News Media, the Government and the Public; Douglas Kellner, Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy: Terrorism, War, and Election Battles (Cultural Politics & the Promise of Democracy)

Populist rhetoric on the part of the two major political parties is the key in convincing public opinion that “the foreign enemy” threatens democracy and freedom, both in increasingly short supply because of “emergency politics”. Populist rhetoric is the catalyst for winning elections for both the Republic and Democrat parties and for defining democracy and its threats real and perceived in the manner that engenders optimum sociopolitical conformity and distracts from issues significant to the larger population. While Republicans and Democrats agree the threats to democracy are terrorism and foreign enemies, it is mostly Republicans that subscribe to a xenophobic and Islamophobic, often latent racist agenda targeting Latin American immigrants who make up the cheapest labor force, African-Americans, and Muslims.

 Perception and reality of what threatens American democracy are two different things, just as there is a huge gap between what politicians promise and what they actually deliver. The populism of the ruling parties in the US is also a characteristic of Europe where both conservative parties and center-leftist under the label of “Socialism” employ similar rhetoric but wind up supporting globalization, neoliberal policies, strong defense and weak social programs, all resulting in downward social mobility of the middle class. (Claire Snyder-Hall and Cynthia Burack, eds., Right-Wing Populism and the Media; Daniele Albatazzi and Duncan McDonnell, Twenty-First Century Populism: The Specter of Western European Democracy)

If indeed people care more about safety and security, or at least if the media and their political, business, and social leaders convinces the public that nothing matters more than safety and security, people will voluntarily surrender any commitment to democracy for the perceived guarantee of safety and security. If the US moves increasingly toward a more authoritarian model under the political shell of “democracy,” as it could if in the future it faces more and deeper economic contractions that result in an increasingly smaller and weaker middle class, the cause will not be the UN, the WTO, Islamic “terrorism,” rogue nations like North Korea, etc.

“Military Keynesianism” in the Age of Counter-terrorism

It is not as ironic as it may appear that American democracy is facing more challenges in 2015 than in 1950. This is because the East-West confrontation (Cold War) provided a consensus that the “war on terror” has not replaced as the Republican and Democrat parties had hoped. The breakdown of consensus revolves around the huge gap between what government, business and media promise and what actually transpires in society. The “open society” would deliver even greater rewards because the Communist threat does not exist. However, there is continued downward socioeconomic mobility and decline in personal freedoms for the vast majority of citizens and not much hope the future has the American Dream in store for most people.

For conservatives the solution is “Military Keynesianism' an early Cold War containment military doctrine refers to defense spending as a means of stimulating the civilian economy by allowing the surplus to be absorbed by the defense sector. This was feasible when the US enjoyed balance of payments surplus in the early 1950s, but in 2015 when its public debt surpasses its annual GDP, “Military Keynesianism” is obviously destructive, especially when combined with the policies of corporate welfare capitalism where the state essentially is steering subsidies and contract to private companies to keep them healthy. (Jerry Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment).

The result of this doctrine can be seen in the immense US sovereign debt that has been skyrocketing in the last fifteen years, as we will see below when analyzing debt as a challenge to American democracy. Moreover, the doctrine of “Military Keynesianism” has weakened the economy with the middle class and laboring classes as the victims paying the price. As David Shreve points out: “Because they sap the strength of the already bastardized Keynesianism built on the weak reed of the defense industry multiplier, the lingering advantages of Keynesianism itself become attenuated even further, devalued and increasingly misconstrued in political circles, and felt only perversely by most affected citizens. “Making the eagle scream” as John Dos Passos once described it, to compensate partly with ever increasing military expenditure, can postpone some of the reckoning, just as it did in the last days of the Soviet Union, but it cannot stave off the inevitable weakening of the overall economic fabric.” (David Shreve, “Defense Spending and the Economy: The Pitfalls of Military Keynesianism”. @War IS A Crime.org

By itself, “Military Keynesianism” does not constitute a threat to American democracy, but when put in the institutional context of a state that violates the constitution by keeping its citizens under surveillance, denying human rights to prisoners, denying due process to citizens, and expanding the “counter-terrorism” institutional structure to the degree that “security transcends democracy”, then there is a very serious problem. The continuation of “Military Keynesianism” and pursuit of counterterrorism measures used as a pretext for police state methods benefits the political, economic, and social status quo. At the same time, counterterrorism precludes societal progress to the benefit of all people, social justice, and above all democratic practices. The result of the “military-solution based foreign policy” invariably weakens democracy at home as domestic institutions mirror the military foreign policy regime.  (David C. Unger, The Emergency State: America's Pursuit of Absolute Security at All Costs; James Petras, The New Development Politics: The Age of Empire Building and New Social Movements .)

The irony about “Military Keynesianism” is that its congressional advocates castigate government spending as counterproductive to the free market system, as though such a market exists, but they have no problem with government engaged in deficit financing to dish out contracts to the defense industries. The argument is that despite deficit financing, defense spending, inherently capital-intensive rather than labor intensive, creates jobs as though non-defense spending such as infrastructural development is detrimental to jobs growth.  “Because the combination of defense spending, massive tax cuts, and the bailout had led to large budget deficits, the proponents of this perverted military Keynesianism insisted that programs for productive government expenditures had to be cut in the name of fiscal responsibility to make way for (wasteful) military spending.” (Michael Perelman, “The Rise of Free-Trade Imperialism and Military Keynesianism” , May 2014, @Naked Capitalism.com)

At the core of this doctrine that goes back six decades rests the assumptions that: a) the US as an imperial power has enemies that refuse to accept its political, economic and military integration model; and b) whether it is the East-West conflict as its evolved during the Cold War or the ongoing “war on terror”, conflicts between the US and its “enemies” have an inherent military solution. Given that such assumptions impede on the nature of the economy and social structure as well as on the kind of democracy the US has, “Military Keynesianism” will remain a major threat to democracy in the 21^st century.

GEOPOLITICS, AUSTERITY AND NEO-LIBERALISM: GREECE, the EU and the US

 Until very recently, the media throughout the world called the Greek SYRIZA party everything from “far left” to “radical far leftwing”.  Once the center-left party with a mass base made up of middle class and workers took power in Greece in late January 2015, it was very clear that the leftist rhetoric was indeed critical of austerity and neoliberal policies. Euphoria abounded within Greece and throughout the world among anti-austerity and anti-neoliberals who believed that growth and development were sacrificed for the sake of capital concentration at home and abroad. Very quickly, however, SYRIZA fell in line under pressure from the international media, domestic and foreign businesses, and of course from governments especially Germany, but also the US and even China that demanded conformity.    

The mass media as well as independent blogs around the world have analyzed the political, social and economic consequences of the Greek public debt crisis more than they have other countries, including Spain and Ireland that are far more significant in terms of economic impact to the EU than Greece. One reason for this obsession is that Greece has been technically bankrupt since May 2010.  The possibility of an unmanaged and uncoordinated bankruptcy could possibly throw the EU economy off by at several hundred billion to as much as a trillion euro, assuming it leaves the euro zone. This would then open the road for the neo-Fascist French National Front to demand that France exist the EU, thus threatening the integrity of the European Union with the inevitable consequence of a cheap reserve currency that would result in disequilibrium in European balance of payments and disequilibrium in world trade.

The theme of the mass media representing big business has been very simple: Greece must accept austerity and neoliberal policies regardless of the cost to the vast majority of its people because it has no choice for the greater good of the markets. The alternative (economic nationalism with a mix of mild social-democratic measures) to EU integration is much worse and it sets a terrible precedent for other EU members and non-members. Trying to drive fear into the politicians, military, business community and ordinary citizens of Greece has actually succeeded. This despite the very obvious result of austerity making the economy much weaker, finances becoming even more strenuous, and the social fabric disintegrating as Greece has a much higher percentage of poverty rate than Argentina; a country that the Western media and governments have targeted for derision and isolation.

The burden for all of this would fall not just on Greece but actually on Germany that has in fact driven the country into a corner either to accept austerity and neoliberal policies no matter the degree to which the workers, middle class and social security recipients become impoverished. The propagandistic rhetoric on the part of the Western media that it really means nothing to the EU in case of a Grexit is very hollow and economists know this as well as politicians. Grexit will set off another global recession amid a GDP slowdown in Asia and stagnation in Europe and Australia impacted by the slowdown in China.

Complicating matters, the reality is that Greece is financially dependent on Germany but militarily dependent on the US with which it had a long-standing alliance from the Truman Doctrine to the present. This dual dependence is the reason for the intrusive role of the US in this matter, much to the dismay of the German government that resents Washington playing its military protector card. The debt crisis was the result of Western banks and the European Central Bank cutting off Greece from liquidity it needed to continue functioning, making borrowing very expensive after rating agencies downgraded it bands and the private market because too expensive. 

Between 2015 and 2022, servicing the public debt amounting to about $365 billion is simply not possible under existing conditions, that is, in the absence of some kind of a new arrangement that would permit the government to meet its domestic obligations and public debt. In 2015 alone, debt service is about $30 billion, in country with GDP of about 175 billion euro. In other words, debt service for 2015 alone represents approximately 13% of GDP. The IMF and European Central Bank are due to receive half of the payments and the other half for holders of treasury bills, which include entities from Greek banks to the Chinese government. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras delivered the following speech on the debt, explaining why the EU and IMF must reconsider their position on austerity and loan conditionality that impacts all levels of policy in Greece.

In 2010, the Greek state ceased to be able to service its debt. Unfortunately, European officials decided to pretend that this problem could be overcome by means of the largest loan in history on condition of fiscal austerity that would, with mathematical precision, shrink the national income from which both new and old loans must be paid. An insolvency problem was thus dealt with as if it were a case of illiquidity. In other words, Europe adopted the tactics of the least reputable bankers who refuse to acknowledge bad loans, preferring to grant new ones to the insolvent entity so as to pretend that the original loan is performing while extending the bankruptcy into the future. Nothing more than common sense was required to see that the application of the ‘extend and pretend’ tactic would lead my country to a tragic state. That instead of Greece’s stabilization, Europe was creating the circumstances for a self-reinforcing crisis that undermines the foundations of Europe itself.

From the birth of the Bretton Woods system that created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, debtor nations unable to service their debt because borrowing becomes too expensive must follow a regime of fiscal austerity, higher indirect taxes falling on the workers and middle class, and drop in living standards owing to slashing of wages, social programs and rise in both cost of goods and taxes.

Presumably, this monetarist model would be the panacea for the debtor nation. However, in the last fifty years countries under austerity winds up in transferring massive wealth by servicing the public debt and capitalists taking money overseas, thus leaving the debtor nation poorer, its asset values – everything from real estate and businesses to wage rates – much lower thus permitting massive domestic and foreign capital to take over and concentrate wealth even more than before. The end result is greater external dependence. In the case of Greece, however, we have a country financially dependent on North-West Europe, especially Germany, but militarily dependent on the US.

This contradiction of split dependence has cause some friction between Germany and the US, because the former was strict compliance with austerity and neoliberal policies that would ensure Greece as a neocolonial dependency, while the US is concerned that the geopolitical value of Greece is more significant than its economic amounting about 2% of the EU GDP. The objective of Washington has been to keep Greece militarily integrated into the West, to make sure it continues to keep up with military budget as NATO prescribes, and not deviate at all by trying to explore the Russia and Chinese cards as symbolic counter-weights to the West.

The US naval bases in Crete and US intelligence operations in the country are more valuable to Washington than Germany trying to prevail over Greece to the point of driving it away from the West and to the point of endangering its internal political and social stability. In November 2012, the conservative government of Antonis Samaras hired the notorious Blackwater security services (mercenaries) now known as Academi infamous for its clandestine operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Abu Dhabi, Libya, Ukraine, and a number of African countries. This is a security company with deep links both to the US government (Central Intelligence Agency) and the corporate world, but it also has ties with governments around the world.

Under contract to work with the police to make sure the regime is protected, Blackwater acted from behind the scenes, indicative of how fearful both the pro-austerity conservative regime and the US were about the country lapsing into revolutionary chaos. This is the same Blackwater that has four of its operatives recently sentenced to prison because in 2007 they killed 14 Iraqi civilians, albeit operating under contract with the US government that has used their services for “contract work” in many countries. What the company describes as “logistical support services” are in essence privately contracted counter-insurgency operations, including assassinations according to the New York Times (C.I.A. Sought Blackwater’s Help to Kill Jihadists” Mark Mazzetti, 19 August 2009) on behalf of governments and multinational corporations that fear popular opposition to policies that result in exploitation of labor, natural resources, and environmental degradation.

For obvious reasons, the contract between Greece and Blackwater was kept secret until the Greek Ambassador to Canada let it slip out in one of his public appearances. The conservative government of Antonis Samaras never admitted that Blackwater was operating in Greece. SYRIZA as opposition knew that this mercenary company operated in a number of trouble spots around the world on behalf of the US and other governments. SYRIZA was concerned that Blackwater had a key role in preparing the Greek police and military for the possibility of suppressing the popular expression of democracy through grassroots organizing.

While Tsipras was willing to accept Greek military dependency and US strategic interests, he hoped in exchange Washington would help the government dealing with Germany and the IMF. The center-left government of SYRIZA, essentially a collection of leftist academics, former PASOK party members and some former euro-Communists, found the hard way that as long as Greece remains in the EU, Germany determines the terms of the integration model, which means Germany determines austerity and neoliberal policies for the member nations. It is not clear if SYRIZA expected the IMF, EU and the media to make compromises just because there was a tacit understanding Athens would retain its strategic loyalty to the US-NATO. In reality, SYRIZA found out the hard way that dealing with hard-core “political and economic criminals”, as some of its officials called them when in opposition, means the latter have vast experience imposing their will over periphery debtor countries.

Cornered by the immense pressure of the German-led coalition, by the wealthy Greek elites, the conservative political parties and the military, SYRIZA simply accepted austerity and neoliberal policies, asking for terms that could be met in servicing the debt and domestic policies that would not further entail higher unemployment currently at 26% and more wage, benefit and social security cuts. Trying to use the Russian card with a visit and a natural gas deal meant very little, although Athens has asked both Beijing and Moscow to purchase treasury bills. The faint attempt to use the US as the country’s military patron as a counterweight to Germany has not worked well either. Alexis Tsipras is not Josip Broz Tito and Greece is not Yugoslavia that could play East against West, and the leverage he has is limited to geopolitical issues in a tumultuous part of the world.

On 15 April 15, 2015, the Reuters Moscow office reported that Greece is negotiating to purchase S-300 missiles. Although this may be a shock to the Western anti-Russian media, Athens has used as part of its air defense system in the last two decades. The irony here is that Vladimir Putin promised better terms on natural gas sales to Greece, but the quid pro-quo was weapons purchases from Russia must be part of the deal. This is exactly what France and Germany have been doing with Greece from 2010 until the present when Greece has been under austerity. The Western media is critical of this deal asking “where is Greece finding the money to buy S-300 missiles”, the same ones that Moscow recently decided to sell to Iran amid the final stages of the US-Iran deal on nuclear weapons development.

The larger question is why is Greece under a supposedly leftist SYRIZA government continuing to spend on defense at rates about the same as before austerity (about 3% of GDP, or one of the highest in the world, while the EU average is under 2%)? Once again, there has been immense pressure on Athens by Germany and the US not to cut defense, just wages, social security benefits, social programs, especially health care and education. Tsipras decided to cut a deal with Putin that essentially is not much different than the quid pro quo deals Greece has with the West, hoping Russia increases trade with Greece and purchases T-Bills while discounting natural gas sales.  

The US wants Greece in the EU for strategic reasons, and it would not mind if Germany makes a few symbolic concessions to show that it is not a heartless neo-colonial power in Europe as its critics have portrayed it. However, Greek politicians and analysts are deluding themselves if they assume that the US would sacrifice its relationship with Germany to support Greece on austerity and neoliberal policies. The most likely scenario is that SYRIZA will cave into German-US pressure to conform on austerity and neoliberal policies. A more distant possibility is everything from referendum to new elections that would not really solve anything, to Greece leaving the EU eventually.

The lesson of Greece to the rest of the world is that the so called “leftist” SYRIZA party that had promised to end austerity and neoliberal policies was unrealistic. The result was following in the footsteps of the conservatives and PASOK socialists that alternated ruling the country in the last forty years and followed policy dictates of the EU (Germany) and IMF. The disillusioned voters of SYRIZA that has blatantly lied about what policies it would pursue once in power have nowhere to go. SYRIZA lacks ideological cohesion as there are elected officials and ministers that range from the traditional liberal center within the Greek context to the Socialist – Euro-Communist wing of the Greek Communist Party after it split. The cacophony of disparate voices accounts for confusion among voters. The political and ideological heterogeneity has been deliberate so the party can reach a wide voter base. As PM and head of the party, Tsipras has opted to isolate the left when it comes to financial and economic policy, but engage it only on certain social issues such as illegal immigration, and to deliver a leftist message to the people desperate for radical solutions. Andreas Papandreou in the 1980s was a master at this political game, and it seems that young Tsipas is following in the footsteps of the former PASOK leader who at least managed to create a middle class through inflationary policies and foreign borrowing when Greece enjoyed monetary sovereignty.

The message that SYRIZA’s volte face sends to Europe is that no EU member can possibly challenge German hegemony, largely because the entire capitalist world support austerity and neo-liberalism. In other words, beyond the small confines of Greece, it was important for Germany to demonstrate its economic and political power so that its integration model based on patron (Germany) client (periphery EU members) relationship will continue and make Germany even stronger while enriching European banks and multinational corporations that support austerity and neoliberal policies.

The Greek Communist Party (KKE), the only Stalinist remnant of the Cold War in Europe with a mere 5% popular voter support, had warned the voters that the SYRIZA option to remain integrated into the EU meant there would be no solution much different than what Greece had under PASOK and New Democracy (both neoliberal) governments in the past. Greece under SYRIZA learned reformism does not work any more today than it did in the 19^th or 20^th century because leverage rests with the counter-reformist political and economic powers. Reformism works only when it starts with the core capitalist countries, not the periphery. This does not mean that SYRIZA did not have options to exercise or that it is now too late to take bold steps. It only means that it is just another conventional bourgeois political party opting for more “enlightened capitalist” solutions within the system in a world made up of predatory capitalists and their neoliberal political representatives.

One scenario that the foreign creditors, domestic wealthy elite and the neo-liberal politicians have in mind involves a simple co-optation strategy of SYRIZA by the neoliberal elements. This means that eventually a new SYRIZA emerges without the left-wing minority that would go off to fom its own party perhaps with other smaller parties. The neoliberal PASOK, the "cloned PASOK" known as POTAMI (River) join forces with the rump pro-EU SYRIZA and government togetgher with a neoliberal agenda that IMF, ECB and Germany prescribe in order to maintain the domestic elites in solid control of the economy and keep the nation tightly dependent on northwest Europe. This may or may not take place, but co-optation of SYRIZA's moderate wing has been on the agenda even of the conservative New Democracy Party (led by right winger Samaras) for the last three years. 

At the other end of possibilities, very remote indeed, is a mass uprising that invites the role of the armed forces as it will most likely fail owing to absence of grassroots leadership and organization. In the last analysis, nationalism is a much stronger sentiment in the political culture and the media as well as the neoliberal supporters have been using it to manipulate public opinion to support austerity and neoliberal policies, no matter hoe detrimental to the middle class, workers, and social security recipients. SYRIZA has also used this issue directly by making the IMF-EU austerity-neoliberal agenda a problem between Greece and Germany, instead of one that places international and domestic capital against workers regardless of whether they are Greeks or Germans. As legitimate as it is, the German war repparations issue that SYRIZA has raised is really to co-opt the nationalist agenda and make the masses feel a sense of patriotic identification with their government. The old strategy of using nationalism to kill class solidarity and refuse any concessions for social justice still works.