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Greek Crisis: Clashes Turn Deadly as Thousands Protest Against Cuts
Greek protests turned deadly on Wednesday as three died in an Athens bank set alight while tens of thousands demonstrated against harsh new spending cuts aimed at saving Greece from bankruptcy.
Protesters set a bank in the Greek capital on fire as scores of demonstrators tried to storm parliament, throwing chunks of marble at police, who responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades. The fire brigade said at least three people had died in the fire.
Demonstrators pass the parliament building in Athens. A fire-bomb attack on a bank in Greece killed at least three people as police fought pitched battles with striking protestors furious at brutal spending cuts designed to avoid bankruptcy.
(AFP/Aris Messinis) The clashes took place during a march against austerity measures, the largest since the country was gripped by a debt crisis in October last year.
Violence also broke out in the northern city of Thessaloniki, with youths smashing windows of stores and fast food restaurants.
The demonstrations came as Greece ground to a halt on Wednesday, paralysed by a nationwide general strike in the first major test of the socialist government's resolve to push through unprecedented austerity cuts needed to avert a fiscal meltdown.
Public transport was halted, ferries were holding at docks and air traffic was grounded as unions went on the warpath against the latest wave of spending cuts and tax hikes.
As the violence escalated in Greece, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, warned that the future of the European Union was at stake as the crisis over the Greek bailout pushed the euro to a 13-month low against the dollar.
Ms Merkel defended her decision to back the unpopular measure and called on fellow politicians to give their support.
"The future of Europe and the future of Germany within Europe is at stake," Ms Merkel told the German parliament, which will vote on Friday on a package that would see Germany lend 22.4 billion euros (£19 billion) in taxpayers' money to Greece.
Ms Merkel's cabinet agreed on Monday to the German contribution to a three-year €110bn (£95bn) EU and International Monetary Fund bail-out for Greece. But investors doubt that the loan will be able to stop contagion to other vulnerable eurozone countries, including Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy, which also have debt problems. Investors have warned that these countries may require even larger bailouts.
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143 Comments so far
Show AllOnly we are trashed, as Empire USA is the most wealthy society the world has ever known and our 51% highest earners have all that wealth, all those 5k nukes to protect all that excessive wealth.
Come, give us something more doable.
Truth_Light
I do think you'll find that the folks not in the top 5% are pretty hard workers and you'll also find they have lost a lot of their savings since George took over and Obama continues the gutting.
I also think these people are going to do some nuking of their own come November.
What would you do?
Why do you say it is the top 51%?
I bleieve the top 1% holds 35% of total national net-worth, and 40-48% of the national financial-instrument wealth (depending on the ups and downs of the stock market). The top 20% hold 85% of total national net worth, and when the market is good, 98% of the financial wealth.
The bottom 80% fight over the remaining 2-15% or so.
As a Wisconsin Registered Real Estate Broker for 25 years, may I point out that your real estate holdings are a direct indicator of your standing in society.
For surely 80% of society is not living in the slums.
Surely the 10% Country Club class all have mansions most elegant.
Surely the 40% college educated middleclass all have great jobs and terrific homes.
Surely my 49% laboring class do occupy slums, destitute farm lands, timberlands and live among the homeless.
I never wrote, and the statistics don't imply that 80% live in slums! We are referring to net-worth and wealth, not wages - although income is similarly distributed. That remnant 10% shared by the bottom 80% is still enough to provides a majority with a reasonable living standard (albeit less than a middle-class person in the EU), but provides those 80% with very little political power.
It may be futile arguing with a kook, but go here to see how it works mathematically - teh actual mimbers being a little dated:
http://www.lcurve.org/
TL, you're worse than any troll with you constant repetitions. I'm college educated, hard working. I don't live in a nice house; I rent a two-bedroom apartment with my college-educated wife, and we still have to take in roommates to pay the rent.
This is fairly typical of my family and friends who are college-educated, for the most part. True, we do live in the SF Bay Area, where things are more expensive. But if you believe the "top 51% most educated" are all against you, then why are you even trying? You can't win that fight. Best to move away. By framing the issue as you do, you are subverting the possibility of building a movement.
Fortunately, it's really about 2% of the people who control everything in the US. Their total control of media, politics, police, military, and finance render them extremely powerful, but at least we have a chance. The Greeks are leading the way. We need a general strike here, and soon!
BTW, can anyone tell me if there is a way to not see posts by folks like TL? Does CD have an ignore function?
The only "ignore" feature here is your mouse scroll wheel, if you've got one!
And I assume that if the comments software supported an external "killfile" app, some technically able person would've provided one by now.
There's another site I frequent that DOES allow an independently installed killfile. I use it liberally to ward off various trolls: classic wingnut trolls, Hasbarist trolls, supercilious trolls, idiotic trolls, monomaniacal trolls, top-notch multi-issue trolls...
But it's not perfect. One can ascertain EXACTLY what the killfiled are on about, since the most ignorant, stupid, and thuggish trolls attract detailed and extensive rebuttals, which often quote the killfiled material at length.
That site has a "flagging"-type option, too, but it doesn't display when a message has been flagged. I assume the resident trolls there abuse the flagging option just as they do here, but their administrators seem prepared for this.
I fear you'll just have to slog through as best you can. ;)
Yep OS,
A troll-filter would be great here at CD. Just like terrorists, each man defines his own definition of troll. What I do now is just read the posts of authors I admire. I have a mental list of a few dozen who stimulate me with either their great humor, or their great prose, or both. When I see their names, I stop and read their posts. Otherwise, I skip right on by.
I'm sure I miss a lot that way, but it's less aggravating. Of course some subjects are fun to argue, and then I break this rule.
I sure enjoy your stuff OS.
TJ
duplicate deleted by user
Correct . . .
the wealth held by elites -- is 1% -- at the very most 2% now --
The "why?" is involved with the poster's trying to pin this on democracy
rather than capitalism!
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Yes of course, the 10% Country Club class has no wealth, all those golf courses and mansions, why this is just an illusion.
And the 40% college educated class does not have terrific homes or great jobs, why most all go to church and sit with such child-like smiles on their face, are they not all angels?
So everyone who goes to college is "evil" right? It's a good thing only 1/4 of the US population even has a bachelors!
I hate to break it to you, but a college education doesn't mean you "rule democracy", and the "40% educated class", which is really much smaller, don't all have great jobs, or are trying to exploit society for personal gain. You confuse those seeking greater fulfillment in life by higher learning with those predatory individuals who just care about controlling everyone else.
Me thinks you should do some reading, see what groups are typically targeted first for extermination in most authoritarian governments, I'll give you a hit, it isn't uneducated people!
Like what a real stern letter writing campigan? Petitions! Protest at Lunch? That'll learn'em!
>^^<
I am quite surprised that the Greek government has not sicced their intelligence forces on Goldman Sachs.
Europe is about fed up with democracy, it being the 51% highest achievers controlling government and hoarding all the wealth.
Its awesome, and I look for a whole new concept of government to emerge.
And so, democracy being the upper 51% enslaving the lower class, what could we create that would put an end to such stupidity?
I think you mean fed up with CAPITALISM . . .
And, America is also suffering greatly from it --
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Capitalism could not exist unless the 51% highest earners, the voting majority, was enriching themselves upon the misery of it.
For virtually every man out there feels he deserves to be rich and we need a new concept of government that can control such a totally corrupt society.
Let this manchild alone! For he speaks like a prophet and, no doubt, God's words doth enrich us from the flow of his kingly hole even as his superior sense of enlightenment enriches the stew of our septic systems.
EU countries have a problem with debt? But debt is beautiful! Could there even be a civilization without the munny changers?
Actually, we don't need debt/credit. We don't need fossil/nuke. We don't need war/competition. We don't need the elites nor do we need their rackets. If all USan elites drowned in the Potomac tomorrow, nobody would notice.
Only because we have a rich nobility that be the most intelligent on earth are we able to have the most deadly military and best able to compete economy.
My though is, we should herd all our rich nobility into an open air prison on the Potomac, complete with country clubs, golf courses, mansions and everything their heart desires except, capital, wealth and power.
Surely the best of both evils, our super-smart rich ruling our economy and the military and we divide up all the profits.
What is happening in Greece appears to be spreading to Portugal and Spain. Germany's Prime Minister Merkel is warning that the financial collapse threatens the European Union.
Soon this scenario will erupt in Amerikkka. The criminals on Wall Street and their co-conspirators in the Amerikkkan government have wrought this disaster.
After social services are shut down in Amerikkka and the banks and other businesses that provide food and fuel start closing their doors, the rioting in Amerikkka's streets will be bloody. Martial law will ensue and the gulag system will be stretched way beyond capacity.
Welcome to the New Amerikkkan Order!!
But the darling college educated class, the 51% who rule democracy, they could at any time herd us into mass graves and push the dirt over.
Me thinks humility is a better course of action, me thinks the devil is being given enough rope to hang himself and our part is but to expose the corruption.
Not to say that our cause could not someday be supported by the majority, just to say that we need to stay alive along enough to organize such a grand rebellion.
Yes, that is increasingly a plausible scenario. I am currently reading Liaquat Ahamad's fine book "Masters of Finance: The Bankers who Broke the World" which is about the financial corruption and incompetence that brought on the Great Depression. The parallels with events in the 30's in our current environment are chilling. If as is likely Greece defaults on its loans and Spain, Portugal, and some of the eastern european countries do the same we may find ourselves in Great Depression II.
Also there was an identical depression in the 1830's if I'm not mistaken. Most are preceded by a real estate crash it seems. All have one common denominator: A Central Bank who debases currency that only effects those who don't know the hit is coming.
Please update us with insights you glean from your readings of Ahamad.
TJ
dpjr:
“Those moral issues to which you refer. Upon
what moral standard do you base this claim?
On whose authority do the standards exist?
Judicial case law, established by the Supreme Court:
“No one shall enrich themselves
upon the misery of another.”
Whereas, this corruption called “democracy,” this is the 51%
most educated enriching themselves upon my laboring class.
Ok, we get it. Stop it already with those 51%. The rest 49% don't even pay federal taxes.
But don't we hard labor generate all of society's wealth?
Don't we all who do hard labor drop out of school before twelfth grade, greatly reducing your taxes for education?
Was not my best buddy in the Vietnam War shipped home in a pine box and 95% of those who bleed and die in your wars of plunder, are they not laboring men like him and me?
So why must we laboring men be silenced on this hidden away WEB page that no one reads but you and me?
TL: so you are suggesting I accept as morally right the rulings of "Judicial case law, established by the Supreme Court". That is your moral authority, the opinions of other men and women?
See above.
The so called educated don't worry me, You can educate a dog "cats know better" but the only reason that dog is put in a position to dole out your daily bread is CRONYISM! From first to last, Skull & Bones thru the Masons to the Catholic Church. The fatCats hold on so tight they wouldn't think of letting anyone else in.
The fact is they don't have the mass or the will if Labor gets out of hand, Look at Europe and our Right-wingers cringing in their boots at the thought that level of socialism coming here. So they prop-up Limbugh, Beck, and the Faux Networks to keep wispering and ranting, to keep us down, keep us humble, but that only works when theres food on the table, and a goodly number of armed uniforms to remind yo o keep your place, and stay in line.
SaboCat:
“The top 20% hold 85% of total national net worth…
when the market is good, 98% of the financial wealth.”
LIGHT
“Surely 80% of society is not living in the slums.”
SaboCat:
“I never wrote, and the statistics
don't imply that 80% live in slums! “
LIGHT
Our Empire has most of the capital (wealth) on earth,
and how it works is the rich allow 20% of the wealth
to trickle down to the 51% most educated.
And the smoke screen that locks all of my laboring class
in darkness is the illusion that the rich have all the wealth,
and that there is no laboring class, just an impoverished
80% middleclass class and a 20% rich.
Maybe America needs a nationwide general strike. The jobless need to organize and disrupt rush hour traffic every day for a week.
If my laboring class were to all go on strike, the half of society without a high school diploma were to stop hard labor generating all of society’s wealth, surely all those with a college degree would herd us into mass graves and push the dirt over.
Then we would all be replaced by an influx of workers from south of the border and all the nations our Empire has plundered and impoverished.
So you are saying you have class?
Funny
No Jim,
Truth Light is saying he is in fact, a coward, wracked with palpable fear about what might happen with a general national strike, and therefore his working plight will never change. But we have to listen to him whine 24/7 why labor's situation is everybody's fault but his own.
TJ
"Timid men ...prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty." - Thomas Jefferson to Philip Mazzei, April 24, 1796
Above poster picked a most fitting name, as Jefferson was an ungodly bigot and racist. Such a racist that when he died not even did he free his slaves, but had them, their children and grandchildren sold into perpetual slavery.
For presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both funded the French slave owners in a failed effort to put down the slave revolt in Haiti.
Requiem:
“The (college educated) folks not in the top 5% are
pretty hard workers and you'll also find they have
lost a lot of their savings.
What would you do?”
LIGHT
Well, if the purpose of this world was to prove the good in it, surely I would join your cause and fight for my fair share of the wealth, glory and goodness.
But just because the 40% college educated middleclass works hard to establish a democracy, that does not deny the fact that the 51% most educated will always rule democracy. And all feeling they deserve to be rich, surely all do nothing but corruption.
I say again we need a new concept of government, one that
prevents those most educated from monopolizing government.
The ancient Greeks were and are the only persistent model of western civilization.
The modern Greeks, worthy children of their ancient forebears, show the way to the passive Old Testament-bound, machine-harnessed, spectacle-hypnotized masses of the rest of the West.
Note well: Greeks in general feel, quite rightly, they occupy their place in the world collectively, as a people, as a language, and as a culture.
The Left has still not grasped the real subversion of Leo Strauss, who tried, with systematic sophistry, to expropriate Athens as handmaiden of Jerusalem.
The real Athens, on the other hand, will have none of it.
As always above poster makes no sense, bless his darling heart.
But, Michael Parenti, that man’s man and Italian of Italians,
surely he will give you all the light you need about Italians.
Italian American Identity: To Be or Not To Be
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Italian_American_Identity.html
BEST SELLER
The Assassination of Julius Caesar
A People’s History of Ancient Rome
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Caesar.html
Here here!!! Parenti is a genius on the REAL history of Greece and Athens...he just spoke here in the bay area recently about his latest book "God & His Demons" and he is a real fiesty and authentic patriot for THE PEOPLE not the liberal intelligencia or half-assed progressives....love listening to him speak!
Parenti was radicalized early and never turned back.
One could name the date and place.
I heard Michael Parenti speak once - at an antiwar forum with Patch Adams, Helen Caldecott and Francis Moore Lappe in 2002. He was indeed an powerful speaker, using a perfect mix of passion and sarcasm.
Why was your comment flagged? Did the flagger consider "radical" a slur of some sort?
I'm a radical too. It does not mean "extremist" - it means "one who seeks the roots of things". Ther is no such thing as a "right-wing radical" - since the right most decidedly doesn't seek the roots of things. Such people are properly called "reactionary".
dpjr:
“So you are suggesting I accept as morally right the rulings
of Judicial case law, established by the Supreme Court?
That is your moral authority, the opinions of other men and women?”
LIGHT
The answer to your question has yet to be revealed,
as the purpose of this world is to establish what is
moral and harmless, and by light forcing the
darkness to give way to reveal when you are
enriching yourself upon the misery of another.
Capitalism for example, where big business with the
best ability to achieve enriches themselves upon the
the misery of small business, where Wal-Mart Super
Stores enrich themselves upon the misery of all the
small competing stores.
For time is the great arbitrator of truth.
Poor Greece. First the government messes up and then they try to blame Goldman's Sachs but the people don't buy that. The European economy is a failure. Just ditch communism and bring in the free markets.
Europe is full and perfect capitalism, the ultimate conclusion
of free market capitalism actually.
For be it communism, socialism or democracy, all governments
of men so far have ended up being a monopoly run by the 51%
most educated.
I say again we need a new concept of government, one that
prevents those most educated from totally corrupting government.
This an example of confusing correlation with causality. The rich get educated more than the poor. Duh.
You and your 51% nonsense. It has no basis in reality, it is something you seem to repeat without much thought. It isn't a convincing argument and it is the mirror opposite of any economic and social reality I've studied. It is more like the top 2% vs the rest, with some help from workers who've been harmed by the system but go against their own intersts. 51%? Of course not, but enough to stop any needed, fundamental change.
"The European economy is a failure. Just ditch communism and bring in the free markets."
Europe has had very little to do with a "free markets" since WWII, at least. Their movement towards a "free market", like ours, has been a horror story. So yeah, more of it obviously. Screw reality!
Fortunate, blessed Greece! A nation of fighters!
Parenti as a young radicalized faculty member and a close friend were in the streets together in the 60's against some very tough company. They were almost twins. And the twin's name was....