Greek Style

[prole]

 

Yeah, I know what you thought this thread was about. But this is what populism looks like when the "common man" is fighting for himself instead of against himself.

 

Greece Hit by Strikes, Riots Over Austerity Plan

 

ATHENS, Greece – Serious street clashes erupted between rioting youths and police in central Athens Thursday as some 30,000 people demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government's austerity measures.

 

Hundreds of masked and hooded youths punched and kicked motorcycle police, knocking several off their bikes, as riot police responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades.

 

The violence spread after the end of the march to a nearby square, where police faced off with stone-throwing anarchists and suffocating clouds of tear gas sent patrons scurrying from open-air cafes.

 

Police say 12 suspected rioters were detained and two officers were injured.

 

Rioters used sledge hammers to smash the glass fronts of more than a dozen shops, banks, jewelers and a cinema. Youths also set fire to rubbish bins and a car, smashed bus stops, and chopped blocks off marble balustrades and building facades to use as projectiles.

 

Thursday's strike — the second in a week — brought the country to a virtual standstill, grounding all flights and bringing public transport to a halt. State hospitals were left with emergency staff only and all news broadcasts were suspended as workers walked off the job for 24 hours to protest spending cuts and tax hikes designed to tackle the country's debt crisis.

 

Riot police made heavy use of tear gas during the start-and-stop clashes throughout the demonstration, including outside Parliament. Strikers and protesters banged drums and chanted slogans such as "no sacrifice for plutocracy," and "real jobs, higher pay." People draped banners from apartment buildings reading: "No more sacrifices, war against war."

 

The demonstrators included hundreds of black-clad anarchists in crash helmets and ski masks, who repeatedly taunted and attacked riot police with stones and petrol bombs, at one point spraying officers with brown paint. Shopkeepers along the demonstration route hastily rolled down their shutters, while a few blocks away, people sat at outdoor restaurants, nonchalantly continuing their meals.

 

Tear gas wafted through the city center's streets, sending businessmen in suits scurrying for cover, their eyes streaming.

 

Minor clashes also broke out in the northern city of Thessaloniki, where about 14,000 people marched through the center.

 

Fears of a Greek default have undermined the euro for all 16 countries that share it, putting the Greek government under intense European Union pressure to quickly show fiscal improvement.

 

It has announced an additional euro4,8 billion ($65.33 billion) in savings through public sector salary cuts, hiring and pension freezes and consumer tax hikes to deal with its ballooning deficit, but the measures have led to a new wave of labor discontent.

 

The cutbacks, added to a previous euro11.2 billion ($15.24 billion) austerity plan, seek to reduce the country's budget deficit from 12.7 percent of annual output to 8.7 percent this year. The long-term target is to bring overspending below the EU ceiling of 3 percent of GDP in 2012.

 

The new plan sparked a wave of strikes and protests from labor unions whose reaction to the initial austerity measures had been muted. Thursday's strike shut down all public services and schools, leaving ferries tied up at port and suspending all news broadcasts for the day. However, some private bank branches were open despite calls from the bank employees' union to participate in the strike.

 

While their colleagues clashed with groups of protesters, some police joined the demonstration.

 

About 200 uniformed police, coast guard and fire brigade officers, who cannot go on strike but can hold protests, gathered at a square in the center of the city shortly before the marches got under way.

 

"The police and other security forces have been particularly hard hit by the new measures because our salaries are very low," said Yiannis Fanariotis, general secretary of one police association. He said the average policeman made about euro1,000-euro1,200 ($1,360-$1,635) a month if weekend and night shifts were included.

 

Joining the protest "doesn't feel strange, because we are working people like everybody else and we are all shouting out for our rights," he said.

 

The government says the tough cuts are its only way to dig Greece out of a crisis that has hammered the common European currency and alarmed international markets — inflating the loan-dependent country's borrowing costs.

 

But unions say ordinary Greeks are being called to pay a disproportionate price for past fiscal mismanagement.

 

"They are trying to make workers pay the price for this crisis," said Yiannis Panagopoulos, leader of Greece's largest union, the GSEE.

 

"These measures will not be effective and will throw the economy into deep freeze."

 

A general strike last Friday was marred by violence during a large protest march. Riot police used tear gas and baton charges against rock-throwing protesters, who smashed banks and storefronts, while left-wing protesters roughed up Panagopoulos as he was addressing a rally.

 

The labor unrest could spark fears that the government will have trouble in implementing its new measures.

 

Greece insists it doesn't need a bailout, and its European partners are reluctant to fund one. But it has called for European and international support for its program, saying that unless it receives that support and the cost for it to borrow on the market falls, it might have to appeal to the International Monetary Fund for help.

 

On Wednesday night, Deputy Prime Minister Theodore Pangalos said Greece could bypass the costly process of borrowing from edgy markets by urging international institutions to buy its bonds at a set interest rate.

 

"We want, if there is an unjustified speculative attack against Greek bonds, to know that one of these institutions that have the substantial means to absorb such market products will come and say 'look here, I am buying Greek bonds at this price, with this interest rate,'" Pangalos told private Mega TV.

 

He did not say which institutions he was referring to, or elaborate on the interest rate.

 

Markets think some kind of rescue would be organized if default looms. Speculation has focused on possible guarantees for Greek bonds or help from state-owned banks in other eurozone countries.

[rob]

how should the government handle it's debt problem, other than cutting spending and raising taxes? Does greece have a lot of rich people to tax? I didn't see any solutions in this article, other than torching cop cars and throwing rocks. Where do they propose the money comes from?

 

Am I missing something? "No sacrifice for plutocracy..." -- are they saying that the rich are not carrying their share of the burden of tax hikes? The article doesn't say.

[billcoe]

Yeah, I know what you thought this thread was about. But this is what populism looks like when the "common man" is fighting for himself instead of against himself.

Rioters used sledge hammers to smash the glass fronts of more than a dozen shops, banks, jewelers and a cinema. Youths also set fire to rubbish bins and a car, smashed bus stops, and chopped blocks off marble balustrades and building facades to use as projectiles.

This is sticking it to the man? Fighting "FOR" himself, and not "AGAINST" himself? Well, I hope those nasty shopkeepers learned their lesson.

[ivan]

when's the last time the greeks got anythign right?

 

salamis?

 

sounds like the same nonsense here in the states - "we want stuff, we just don't want it to cost us anything?"

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Yeah, I know what you thought this thread was about. But this is what populism looks like when the "common man" is fighting for himself instead of against himself.

Rioters used sledge hammers to smash the glass fronts of more than a dozen shops, banks, jewelers and a cinema. Youths also set fire to rubbish bins and a car, smashed bus stops, and chopped blocks off marble balustrades and building facades to use as projectiles.

This is sticking it to the man? Fighting "FOR" himself, and not "AGAINST" himself? Well, I hope those nasty shopkeepers learned their lesson.

 

Prole is showing what he and all Marxists have always stood for: violence and chaos.

[ivan]

 

Prole is showing what he and all Marxists have always stood for: violence and chaos.

humans in general are cheer-leaders for that shit, esse - the capitalist system has hardly demonstrated forebearance in war, has it?

 

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

Prole is showing what he and all Marxists have always stood for: violence and chaos.

humans in general are cheer-leaders for that shit, esse - the capitalist system has hardly demonstrated forebearance in war, has it?

 

 

Whatever

[Choada_Boy]

 

 

 

[prole]

 

Yes, the term "chaos" just about covers it...

 

Chaos As an Everyday Thing

by Immanuel Wallerstein

 

You know you're living in a chaotic situation when

(1) the mainstream media are constantly surprised by what is happening;

(2) short-term predictions by various pundits go in radically different directions and are stated with many reserves;

(3) the Establishment dares to say things or use words that were previously taboo;

(4) ordinary people are frightened and angry but very unsure what to do. This is a good description of the past two years throughout the world, or at least in most parts of the world.

 

Consider the recent enormous "surprises" - the election of a Republican senator in Massachusetts; the financial collapse of Dubai; the near bankruptcy of various large states within the United States and four or five of the member states of the European Union; severe world currency fluctuations.

 

These "surprises" are commented on each day in the world press and by leading politicians. They don't agree at all about what is happening, and even less about what one should do to improve the situation. For example, I have seen only two intelligent statements about the election results in the United States.

One was by Barack Obama himself: "The same thing that swept [Republican] Scott Brown into office [in Massachusetts] swept me into office. People are angry, and they're frustrated." And the second was by African-American op-ed columnist in The New York Times, Charles M. Blow. He called his op-ed "Mobs rule." He said: "Welcome to the mob: an angry, wounded electorate, riled by recession, careening across the political spectrum, still craving change, nursing a bloodlust." First they elected Obama; now they're rejecting him. Why? "The mob is fickle."

 

What are we seeing in California, in Greece, in most of the world's governments? Government revenues are down, primarily because of reduced tax incomes, which are in turn caused by the fact that everywhere people are consuming less out of fear that their money is running out. At the same time, precisely because world unemployment is considerably greater, the demands on the states for expenditures have risen.

 

So states have less money to meet greater demands. What can they do then? They can increase taxes. But taxpayers are seldom in favor of having their own taxes go up. And states are afraid of the flight of enterprises. Well, then, they can cut expenditures - present ones or future ones like pensions. And then they are faced with popular unrest, if not popular revolt.

 

Meanwhile, the "market" reacts. But what is this market that reacts - for example, by shifting its currency preferences? It is very large corporations and financial structures like hedge funds, which are working the world financial system for very short-term but significant gains.

 

As a result, governments are faced with impossible choices, and individuals even more impossible choices. They cannot predict what is likely to happen. They become ever more frantic. They lash out by being protectionist or xenophobic or demagogic. But of course, this solves little.

 

At this point enters that greatest of world pundits, Thomas I. Friedman, to write a column entitled "Never heard that before." What had he never heard before? He heard non-Americans talking at Davos about "political instability" in the United States. He says that in his past experience such a phrase had been used only about countries like Russia or Iran or Honduras. Imagine that. People actually think the United States is politically unpredictable. And Thomas Friedman never heard it before.

 

There have been some people who have been writing this, and explaining this, for some forty years at least, but Thomas Friedman never heard it before. That's because he has been living in a self-constructed cocoon, that of the political Establishment in the United States and its acolytes elsewhere. Things must be really bad for them to recognize this basic reality. The United States is politically unstable - and likely to become more so, not less so, in the coming decade.

 

Is Europe more stable? Only somewhat. Is Latin America more stable? Only somewhat. Is China more stable? Perhaps somewhat, but there are no guarantees. When the giant teeters, many things can come down with it.

 

So, this is what everyday chaos is like - a situation that is not predictable in the short run, even less in the middle run. It is therefore a situation in which the economic, political, and cultural fluctuations are large and rapid. And that is frightening for most people.

 

Published Feb 18 2010 by Fernand Braudel Center, Archived Feb 19 2010

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global.

[ivan]

 

Prole is showing what he and all Marxists have always stood for: violence and chaos.

humans in general are cheer-leaders for that shit, esse - the capitalist system has hardly demonstrated forebearance in war, has it?

 

 

Whatever

whatever indeed. it might also be argued that capitalists have nothign to protest about, since they hold the power - if the tables were turned, i'm sure you'd approve of violent protest to oust the despot marxists, right?

[rob]

Why can't the greeks just sell more of their delicious food???

[tvashtarkatena]

I reckon yall argue lahk faggits.

[prole]

when's the last time the greeks got anythign right?

 

Tzatziki.

Edited March 11, 2010 by prole

[Winter]

The got Kalymnos right.

[Stonehead]

Common denominator?

 

Goldman role in Greek debt crisis probed (CNN.com)

[ivan]

the historical dynamic of greece is clear - an engine of extreme fuckedness generating an incessant stream of emigres constantly Getting the Hell Out of Delphi

[G-spotter]

is that sound we hear the scream of the engines of capitalism spinning out of control?

 

omfg better get mai che flagz ready!

[Stonehead]

You gotta wonder why people here aren't agitating for banking reform.

 

[video:youtube]v=9IRqwhxlarU

 

Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, UBS Are Charged With Fraud (Bloomberg.com)

[prole]

 

So the American government is ignoring the need to reform the markets in the wake of the financial crisis? Why should that be surprising? In reality, like a recalcitrant domestic servant who professes to a potential employer that she won't "do" windows, the US government and its congress doesn't really "do" national problems anymore. Actually, the most effective response to the crisis has been the $1.3 trillion in "quantitative easing" "done" by the US Federal Reserve. But since the Fed is seen by the populace as less like a publicly controlled government entity and more like the nefarious secret "Syndicate" from the X-Files, this hardly is taken by the public as a shining example of the democratic impulse.

 

Think of the nation's problems - global warming, industrial competitiveness, the dysfunctional, poorly performing educational system, medical care for pensioners, even the developing obesity/diabetes 2 tsunami that should inundate the nation's medical care within two decades.

 

What solutions for any of these problems are emerging from the government? True, the nation's legislature can do a more than effective job issuing proclamations of congratulations to US college basketball or Olympic champions, but that is what the United Kingdom much more effectively uses its shiny royal family for. The nation's public policy apparatus can be easily flummoxed if only by presenting it with a problem that does not involve as a solution making rich people richer.

 

When punditry in the United States gazes out over the world and sees such pathologies in a nation as rampant crime and corruption, a crumbling physical infrastructure, poor and falling health statistics, and a sharp decline in economic and living standards for the general public, the society involved may often be given the doleful moniker of being a "failed state".--from Asia Times 3/17/10

[j_b]

What's even more dismaying is that most formerly industrial nations are becoming failed states. I mean just look at western Europe, they are in just sorry of a situation and show as little capacity to address significant problems. Neoliberals are like locusts.

[JayB]

What's even more dismaying is that most formerly industrial nations are becoming failed states. I mean just look at western Europe, they are in just sorry of a situation and show as little capacity to address significant problems. Neoliberals are like locusts.

 

As in they have little or no impact on Europe's political economy? Like locusts...

[j_b]

They wear sheep's clothing and can't be as blatant in their destruction of the social safety net and deregulation of economic activity because the traditional European left still has plenty of muscle, but neolibs are in control of Europe. Just look at the way they rammed down people's throat their version of a constitution that enshrines "free trade" (read unfair trade) and economic competition.

[G-spotter]

omg world ending!

[j_b]

Pulling your head out of your ass sure would help you realize that the world of plenty of people is indeed ending.

[prole]

Wow, it's a complete mystery why European workers wouldn't want to work more hours for less pay, dismantle environmental and building restrictions, pay more money for worse health care, increase economic inequalities, increase corporate power in politics and over daily life through privatization, decrease their security in old age, and gut their educational systems along with the rest of the post-war legacy that's made them the envy of the world in order to "compete" in a credit card funded hotdog-eating contest with America. To the extent European neoliberals have been able to affect change in their countries (and it has been considerable), it's been an unmitigated disaster. Choke on it.