On 2012-02-13, at 8:08 AM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
> At 01:48 PM 2/12/2012, James Heartfield wrote:
>> Observers make the point to me that the people gathered in the square in Spain were cutting themselves off from the debate that was taking place in the elections over the austerity measures, rather than taking part.
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> we can assume then, that what they don't want is to participate in the elections or debate over what to do about austerity measures...
Greece provides a good illustration of the underlying differences expressed above and throughout this long discussion.
It's possible that a coalition of the Marxist and left social democratic groups - whose members, together with the anarchists, have been battling the cops in Syntagma Square - could win the Greek elections scheduled for April. These parties are committed to repudiating the savage austerity being inflicted on the Greek people by the ECB, European Commission, and IMF, whose diktat was again endorsed yesterday by the faltering parties of the centre and the right. The class line in Greece is sharply demarcated in both the streets and the parliament.
In these circumstances, it would be political lunacy to urge the hard-pressed Greek workers to boycott the elections on the grounds that the parties are all the same and that a government of the left will make no difference. The politically conscious workers will want to give the parties they support the opportunity to undo the austerity pacts, fully aware of the obstacles they will confront. The anarchists have never understood that the streets and the electoral system are complementary rather than contradictory arenas of struggle, and this, above all, is what has prevented them from exercising any significant influence in the working class, despite the courage of the combative youth in Greece and elsewhere who have passed through their ranks.