All Hell is breaking loose in Greece!

[Joanne98]

After tottering from one social, political and economic crisis to another over the past two years, affairs in Greece now seem to rapidly be coming to a head. Just days after police raids, marches and riots marked the anniversary of the police execution of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos, the ongoing meltdown of the Greek economy, and the austerity program of the newly elected Socialist government, has resulted in the eruption of a wave of strikes across the country.

ActivistGuy's diary :: :: Here are some excerpts from the reporting by libcom.org's on the ground citizen-journalist-activist "Taxikipali". (Please don't be overly concerned about issues of "copyright" and "fair use", both Taxikipali and Libcom are of an ideological position that totally supports the freest distribution of information.) The description of events, the sudden torrent of popular radicalism, the sharing of social and political space by students and workers, by leftists of all shades, the militance across the broadest range of social, economic and political issues is strikingly reminiscent of France in May, 1968:

The strikes come at a critical time for the greek economy which saw a second degrading in ten days in terms of its credit, this time by the Standard & Poor’s group. The second degrading came as international finance centres claimed the austerity measures announced by the belleagured government are not likely to produce adequate results.

Due to the media strike news about Thursdays developments remain scarce

The broadest sections of the working classes have joined the strike waves, from media personnel to garbage collectors, school teachers to doctors to dockworkers and cabbies:

Kindergarden and Primary school teachers have been on strike since the 16/12. The teachers formed a demo outside the Ministry of Education demanding 1400E minimum wage, no hour-work schedules, and 2 years free and obligadory kindergarden education for all children. The union has refused to engage on "tabula rasa" dialogue with the ministry. The general union of teachers of all grades joined the strike on Thursday.

Taxi drivers have gone on strike in Athens after one of their colleagues was arrested for carrying two sans-papier immigrants. The taxi drivers are demanding the abolition of the law that demands taxi drivers to ask for papers from immigrants that ride on their vehicles, and the immediate release of their colleague.

All hospital doctors across the country have gone on strike on Thursday and all intensive care units remain closed.

In Peiraeus, talks were concluded on Tuesday regarding the leasing of the Second Pier of Peiraeus to COSCO which was agreed on a bases of 69 million euros collective compensation to the workers, an amount that has created a storm of political accusations by the opposition. Nevertheless the Mechanics Union of the Merchant Fleet has gone on a "warning strike" on Thursday demanding a minimum 1400E salary.

Geologists, designers and mechanics have also joined the strike demanding that "we do not pay their crisis"

In the mounting social chaos, the far right has also taken to the streets, but is being met with stiff popular resistance:

In Chania the immigrants social centre and a house of a comrade came under arson attack by neonazis who painted swastigas on the walls of the social centre. There were no human injuries and minimal damage on both buildings. The attack comes as an escalation of parastate violence in the Cretan city, after warnings (or threats) by the minister of public order that left and anarchist violence will result in extreme-right terror attacks. A protest march has been called by greens, immigrant groups, anarchists, left wing parties, animal rights groups and the local teacher’s union for Thursday night against parastate-fascist terror.

In Athens, an effort by the extreme-right parliamentary party LAOS to set up a racist local committee with the purpose to purge African immigrants from Amerikis Square was countered when triple the number of antiracists and antifascists responded to the call. The MP of LAOS has to take refuge amidst heckling and the attempts to revamp the vigilante plans that have been degenerating in the nearby Agios Panteleimonas square since the end of the summer were temporarily at least contained.

UPDATE: H/T to conchita for directing my attention to this diary by gjohnsit from Monday, which fills in much of the economic background information.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/18/816140/-All-hell-breaking-loose-in-Greece

[enid602]

1. Euro

The Euro has lost 9 cents to the Dollar in the last few days because of this.

[Laelth]

2. k&r for exposure. Thanks for posting. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[snagglepuss]

3. K&R Thanks for posting. nt

[westerebus]

4. Some thing's burning..... Goldstein's Comrade. n/t

[Joanne98]

5. Hi westerebus glad to see ya back! I was getting worried about you!

:hi:

[westerebus]

7. Hi.

Goldstein decided, the administration deserved chance. To see how far hope and change would get them. It's been six months from our last post as GC.

Goldstein's concern was how much influence could they bring from the left into the right wing central committee's agenda. They had collected every populist mandate and majorities from the center right to the far end of the left. A truly large tent.

Given the economic grand recession, we had expected a debate on how to restructure and regulate the system back into some form of solvency. When that didn't happen and the play book left behind by Uncle Dick was followed to the letter; Af-Pak, Gold Sak, Fed Sak, et al, we tried looking for some current on which to formulate the administration's intention.

One doesn't change the stripes on a tiger over night. Granted. As we have said before, the party does not reflect or know the direction that the inner party is going in in some cases. Mis-direction is diplomacy, is government policy, is the current state of the nation. What then is the change in direction? Is it possible to change direction?

There in is our concern.

The party is barely responsive to criticism. While the right wing is demoralized and engaged in the theater of tea bagging, the left has yet to take to the street. Worse still is the instance of compromise at all turns by the party's leadership in the Great White Bunker.

The pitch of debate is not how to resolve problems, but who will be demoralized faster. The other guy did it Kabuki theater continues. If that's the case and it is, why are they still there?

There is little consideration of what price our comrades will pay to reconcile the budget. There continues a credit crisis on global proportions. Percentage of money spent on the good citizens 5%. Percentage sitting to cover Gold-pak 90%. The other 5% was skimmed off the top.

There exists a mandated, universal, health care payment system in place already. It's called Medicare-Medicaid.

Birth to death coverage. How big of a hammer does one need to drive that nail home.

Af-Pak in about China and the resource war. That deal was struck a long time ago. The first state visit by Madame Sectary was to where? Wal-Mart? Or Wal-Mart's main supplier?

Is our financial house in order? Just how well constructed is the recovery given the foundation of middle class wealth continues to shift closer to the sink hole?

Mean while Greece prepares for Helen's return. Rome for Nero's. Spain for Franco's.

Hoover has returned here for all that's worth.



You are in the game as always. Which is very much appreciated.

[Joanne98]

15. You're insightful as usual Goldstein. I'm looking forward to your comments.

Our situation is dire indeed. We are leaderless again. sigh

[wuvuj]

6. Greece is expected to default?

...

[westerebus]

8. No. There are still checks in the check book.

They are closer than anyone in the EU wants them to be. Their best hope is they are attacked by Iran.

[BB1]

9. That's no joke.

Greece is just about bankrupt, unemployment on the rise, tourism on the fall, govt getting corrupt.
Their best bet may actually be to be attacked by Iran.
That would mean a new European war, which we all would pay for. I for one don't intend to pay for the mess, but I'm afraid I don't have much choice in the matter.
If more countries move to the edge, we may see the same problems as US Americans have. High unemployment, high energy prices, corrupt central government (Brussels and Strassbourg), fat cats in finance (London City) and poverty in large areas of the union.

Great thing, this globalalalisation.

[westerebus]

10. The Iranians are still pissed over Alexander's conquest. n/t

[BB1]

14. Whehehe,

Damn that Alexander! And the 250.000 horses he rode in on!

[marmar]

11. This post has elicited some very strange responses.....

nt

[jmondine]

12. Shouldn't that be, "All Hades is breaking loose"?

[winyanstaz]

13. at least the people there act.

[yellowcanine]

16. Republicans will find some way to blame this on Obama. He prefers spicy mustard instead of Greek

condiments or something.

[Uncle Joe]

17. "We do not pay their crisis."

On edit, kicked but too late to recommend.

Thanks for the thread, Joanne.