In a revealing interview for the Greek radio-station Radio 98.4, former Greek Minister of Finance and current DiEM25 leader, Yanis Varoufakis, spoke about the current situation in Greece under COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the result of the recent US general election.
The current Greek government (one of the worst the last decades as it seems), receives a lot of negative criticism from the opposition and from the independent press in Greece, for the fact that it didn't take advantage of the first lock-down to reinforce Greece's public healthcare system.
It seems that during this second wave of the pandemic (and the second lock-down), the Greek government is losing control as the COVID-19 cases rise dramatically and the public healthcare system now operates close to its limits.
Mitsotakis administration receives negative criticism for the fact it left the tourism sector open during the summer to protect specific private interests. Most importantly, although it had the time to appoint more doctors and organize better the public healthcare system for the second wave of the pandemic, the government didn't make any move towards that direction.
According to Varoufakis, this was a deliberate stance because this extremely neoliiberal administration doesn't want to reinforce the public healthcare system and takes advantage of the pandemic to promote private interests in the healthcare sector too.
Concerning the recent US general election, Varoufakis provided some revealing inside information as he collaborated with Bernie Sanders to establish Progressive International.
As he said, a good thing that happened lately was the fact that many of his colleagues and Sanders' collaborators, had cooperated quite well with Joe Biden's team. This cooperation was established for the purpose of giving birth to the Green New Deal.
This was actually the term imposed by Sanders to Biden to attract radical progressives and vote for him in order to win the election. As Varoufakis revealed, Stephanie Kelton - the progressive economist who served as an advisor to Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign - had already worked with Biden's team to build an economic program around the Green New Deal.
However, the program died because the Republicans won the Senate. So, now we have the worst combination because as Varoufakis said, Biden didn't want to make the agreement with Sanders in the first place.
Therefore, Biden now is being relieved from his commitment to the progressive America for a Green New Deal.
Poor #Bernie. #CreepyUncleJoe won't lift a finger towards that direction. Believe me. https://t.co/ba5lPVj67l
— failedevolution (@failedevolution) November 10, 2020
So, here is the worst combination for the progressives: a weak Biden (who should have won overwhelmingly under current circumstances) who doesn't have to implement a single progressive policy.
Therefore, as Varoufakis said, the day of the US election was a day for mourning, not celebrating. All the progressives who followed Bernie Sanders, who were protesting against police brutality and worked to help Biden get elected, will now have a president who will not do what he promised.
It's pretty clear now, (for whoever still believes that Biden will implement a part of the progressive agenda), that the hardcore neoliberal, Joe Biden, has nothing to do with the Left. And that his sole mission is to fully restore neoliberal order and secure specific big corporate interests, not to help working class Americans.
Our guess is that one of his first priorities will be to get rid of the Leftist faction of the Democratic Party as his corporate masters dictate.
However, things may get even worse under his administration. Because if Biden is taking advantage of the fact that the Republicans won the Senate in order to drop his promises to the progressives, he may go even further concerning foreign policy. He may take advantage of Trump's awful actions that deteriorated dramatically the US relations with Iran, in order to start a war with that country.
Comments
Post a Comment