Greece: Only the 'No' Can Save the Euro

This was written before the IMF called for a twenty year concession to Greece and 30 billion Euros aid to Greece.  The pressure on Greece is basically the right's usual: cut wages and benefits, boost profits.  - gwc
Greece: Only the 'No' Can Save the Euro
by James Galbraith
***The creditors rejected even [Greece's latest concessions]. They insisted on austerity and also on dictating its precise shape. In this they made clear that they would not treat Greece as they have any other European country. The creditors tabled a take-it-or-leave-it offer that they knew Tsipras could not accept. Tsipras was on the line in any case. He decided to take his chances with a vote.

The stunned and furious reaction of the European leaders was, possibly, not entirely inauthentic. Perhaps they did not realize they were dealing with something not seen in Europe for some years: a political leader. Alexis Tsipras has only been on the international stage for a few months. He is brash, but charming. It would be easy for those as sheltered as Europe's present leaders to fail to figure him out—to fail to realize that like Varoufakis, Tsipras meant what he said.

Faced with Tsipras's decision to call a referendum, Merkel and her Deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, Hollande of France and David Cameron of Britain—and shamefully also Italy's Matteo Renzi—all sent direct messages to the Greek people, that they would really be voting on membership in the euro. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker went further, to say it would be a vote on membership in the European Union. It was an orchestrated threat: surrender or else.

In fact, neither the euro nor the EU is at issue. The plain language of the referendum states that the vote is about the creditors' terms. The threat to expel Greece is an obvious bluff. There is no legal way to eject Greece from the Eurozone or the EU. The referendum is actually, and obviously, on the survival of the elected government in Greece. The European leaders know this, and they are trying now to ensure that Tsipras falls.

What does Tsipras gain by a “no” vote? Apart from political survival, only this: it is his way of proving, once for all, that he cannot yield to the conditions being demanded.

What does Tsipras gain by a “no” vote? Apart from political survival, only this: it is his way of proving, once for all, that he cannot yield to the conditions being demanded. So then the onus will be back on the creditors, and if they choose to destroy a European country, the crime will on their hands for all to see.