Of course, this indicates a blindness to the long-term problems that led to the end of PASOK. Crucially that austerity politics gives the centre-right a structural advantage. Rather the SPD is focussed psychologically on not give Syriza any "wins" so as to avoid any encouragement for Die Linke.

when confronted on his derisive commens he is quoted:

Seine Antwort: Gern gebe er Einblick in die vielen Mails der SPD-Basis, die ihn erreichen und die vor zu viel Verständnis mit Griechenland warnen.

What he says is: He gets lots of mails telling him not to go soft on Greece.

True, as German (and French) politicians know only too well, there are no votes in talking about Europe, only costs, so not speaking up is locally rational. But not speaking up when such inappropriate policies are being applied to Germany's European partners is collectively disastrous. Indeed, what is so tragic in this crisis is how the center-left throughout Europe have not just accepted, but in many cases actively supported, policies that have done nothing but hurt their supposed core constituencies.

So I was awarded the prize at a ceremony in Berlin for "thinking differently" about economics. Martin Schultz, the head of the European Parliament, gave the introduction. Peter Bofinger, the voice of macroeconomic reason on the German equivalent to the US Council of Economic Advisors, gave a speech praising the book. I had ten minutes to say something useful at the end of the event. But what should I say that would be of use to the six hundred social democrats gathered in the room?

I had just been there a month before, giving the message of the book, and I didn't want to do that again. I wanted to be useful, and supportive of this shift in thinking. But I also wanted to remind the SPD of who they are supposed to be and whom they are supposed to defend. I hope this was how the following was received.

This is a serious question. In 2013 SPD choose not to try and form a red-red-green coalition, despite that being a majority. Since then the polls are pretty stable with CDU 40+ and SPD around 25%. If red-red-green is still ruled out, I don't see how SPD has a scenario where it returns to being the senior partner in a coalition.

They are political cowards, incapable of actively and successfully mounting a sustained challenge to the Ruling Elite. When the going gets tough, they quit trying.

For example, on 25 July 1914, the executive of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) issued an appeal to its membership to demonstrate against the coming war, only to vote on 4 August for the war credits the German government wanted.

SPD isn't anything special.  All center-Left parties are ditto.  See:  Democratic Party (USA,) Labour Party (UK,) Social Democratic Party (Swe,) etc.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

The seemingly irrational course of Tsipras can be understood as a strategy that amounts to a Latin-Americanization of Southern Europe. That strategy was inspired by the Argentine theoretician Ernesto Laclau who wanted to bring the term populism out of the doghouse for the left.

... not a thing of irresponsible economic politics but about 'recreating a people'. ... inevitably leads to confrontation with 'enemies of the people' ...

Laclau was an admirer of Juan Peron. ... Laclau concluded that a successful left project had to be populist in a specific sense: demands by the people that can no longer be processed by a (neo)liberal state have to be symbolically unified and put against the ruling elites.

... the old elites have to appear as a homogenous caste. That's not difficult in Greece and Spain. Left and right mainstream parties have helped themselves to the bounties of the state over decades and proved their economic incompetence.

Both countries were traumatized by civil wars in the 20th century. ... Clientelism and proportionality were not especially democratic but they pacified ideologically divided people. Compromise not confrontation...

Syriza and Podemos are acting rigorously against the old system. It's not only about gaining power, it's about fundamentally changing the political culture. ... Symbolic politics is not something inferior, in the long term it's the most important politics.

Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador are the specific examples for Podemos. New constitutions were enacted (often ignoring existing laws), masses unified by people leaders stood against the old elites (and the US)... Podemos not only fights against the old parties but also the constitution of 1978, a compromise solution of the transition from Franco to democracy. The specter of a 'Bolivarian revolution' a la Huge Chavez may deter a lot of Spaniards even if they want fresh blood in their party system.

The champions of a "radical democracy" do not agree on everything. But one question is answered without doubt: Who has betrayed the people? The social democrats.

It's the vacuum left behind by discredited parties like Pasok and PSOE that was filled by a generation radicalized by the financial crisis who streamed directly from Syntagma square and the Puerta del Sol. In the seventies the SPD did a lot to help their comrades in countries that transitioned from dictatorship to democracy. Anyone who doesn't want a Laclauian populist Southern Europe must ask what the social democrats are doing today.

There are plenty of counter examples but is there a pattern? (Center)-right parties talk a lot about the neolib program and when it's the social democrats turn at power they are the ones who actually execute it.

_{Schengen is toast!}

http://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-germany-wants-rid-of-greece.html

Yet Germany is a country where the ideas of Keynes, and therefore mainstream macroeconomics in the rest of the world, are considered profoundly wrong and are described as `Anglo-Saxon economics'. Greece then becomes a kind of experiment to see which is right: the German view, or `Anglo-Saxon economics'.

In a sense the communists (more provincial) with their patriotic discourse are more well-atuned to the current circumstances. They were seen as a dying party a decade ago, but I suspect nobody looks at them in that way anymore.

Nun also doch: Sigmar Gabriel hat einer Fortführung der Großen Koalition nach der Bundestagswahl 2017 eine Abfuhr erteilt. Dem SPD-Vorsitzenden, der in den letzten Monaten durch besondere Härte gegen Griechenland, unermüdliches Werben für das Freihandelsabkommen TTIP sowie Forderungen nach mehr "patriotischem Selbstverständnis" und Heimatgefühl aufgefallen war, sind die Unionsparteien inzwischen zu links.

Gabriel ist in dieser europäischen Krise heillos überfordert. Gestern kannte er das #Grexit-Papier, heute nicht mehr: pic.twitter.com/GfaTvSxT4V

— Sven Giegold (@sven_giegold) julio 12, 2015

Bereut habe ich es nie, ein Genosse zu sein. Bis jetzt. Nach einem langen Prozess der Entfremdung habe ich in den vergangenen Tagen und Wochen jede Hoffnung aufgegeben, dass die Partei in ihrer momentanen Verfassung couragiert für die großen Traditionen der Sozialdemokratie einstehen kann.

Keine Partei für die Menschen mehr

Ihr fehlt eine echte politische Vision. So vertritt die SPD kurzfristige sozialpolitische Ziele wie die Einführung des Mindestlohns, die ich durchaus teile - hat aber kaum eine Idee, wie wir einen umfassenden Sozialstaat in die Zukunft hinüberretten können. So bekennt sich die SPD zwar zu freiheitlichen Werten, die mir wichtig sind, aber traut sich, wie bei der Ehe für alle, nicht einmal dann entschieden für sie zu kämpfen, wenn eine breite Mehrheit der Bevölkerung hinter ihr steht.

Vor allem aber liegt meine Entfremdung und, ja, auch meine Wut, darin begründet, dass die Partei eines der ältesten und grundlegendsten Prinzipien der Sozialdemokratie vergessen zu haben scheint: das Versprechen, für die Interessen von Menschen zu kämpfen, unabhängig davon, ob sie Deutsche sind - oder etwa Syrer, Ukrainer oder Griechen.