Recent Protests in Greece IIl
..spot on!
Mask comes off with Greece crisis — Naomi Klein
video
As happened in South Korea, speculators use disaster to lock in security for themselves.
February 13, 2012: Naomi Klein, the Canadian international best-selling journalist, book author and privatization critic, is interviewed about the Greek crisis in a clip from the forthcoming documentary Catastroika: Privatization goes public, featured on the website Greek Left Review.
Klein charges that "this whole neo-liberal project has been all about hollowing out democracy."
She says the Greek crisis reminds her "of what South Korea went through during the economic crisis" there. "You had a very explicit war with democracy," she says. With Greece, "This has been one of the moments when the mask completely comes off... Greece is portrayed as a nation of children that needs to have the keys to the car taken away."
http://www.publicvalues.ca/ViewArticle.cfm?Ref=001170
Pensioner Shoots Himself at Greek Parliament (and vid)
http://rt.com/news/greece-suicide-218
"Refuses to search for food in garbage.."
let this be a lesson for those who allow government budgets that cause such tragedies...
Anti-austerity activists are planning new protests in Athens' main square the day after a retiree publicly killed himself, leaving a note that blasted politicians over the country's financial crisis.
Many in the debt-crippled country see the 77-year-old retired pharmacist as a martyr, whose suicide symbolized the cumulative effect of over two years of economic pain imposed to secure international bailouts shielding the country from bankruptcy.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/04/05/greece-suicide-protest.html
77 year old man suicides in #Syntagma Square in #Greece #Occupy #GlobalChange
Yesterday a 77 year old retired man committed suicide in Syntagma square, Greece. He left a letter before he shot himself. Bellow is the link with the picture and a rough translation of the letter.
(Sent by our comrades of Syntagma Square media team)
“
The Tsolakoglou* occupation government literally
nullified my ability to survive with a decent pension,
which I had to pay (without government aid) for 35 years.
Since I am of an age that prevents me from giving a substantial response
(without of course ruling out the possibility of following a kalashnikov-wielding Greek),
I cannot find any choice other than a dignified end, before I would have to resort
to rooting through the garbage for my nutritional needs.
I believe that the youth without a future will one day take up arms and hang the
national traitors upside down at the syntagma square, as the Italians did in 1945
with Mussolini (Piazzale Loreto of Milan)
[*Georgios Tsolakoglou was a Greek military officer who became the first
Prime Minister of the Greek collaborationist government during the Axis Occupation
in 1941-1942.]
http://takethesquare.net/2012/04/05/77-year-old-man-suicides-in-syntagma...
NDPPI believe that the youth without a future will one day take up arms and hang the
national traitors upside down at the syntagma square, as the Italians did in 1945
with Mussolini (Piazzale Loreto of Milan)
I very much fear that a not too distant future may see many of us musing similarly...
'EU in Mortal Danger' (and vid)
http://rt.com/news/eu-greece-austerity-danger-296/
"Unfortunately, everybody quite simply within Greek politics and a huge number of the politicians within the European Union must stand accused of effectively leaving their citizens to starve to death. Nevertheless, Greek politicians are the highest paid in the EU. Some of them make 15,000 euros per month which is enough to pay for dozens of pensioners every month in new austerity Greece. The EU is in mortal danger if it does not get its act together..."
Let them eat politicians...
Greek mourners: it was not suicide, it was financial murder – video
Athenians gather in the spot where a 77-year-old man shot himself dead over debts on Wednesday and a woman reads the man's suicide letter to the crowd. Later in the evening the vigil turns to chaos when riot police use teargas on protesters. Mourners say the police attacks were unprovoked
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/apr/05/greek-mourners-suicide...
Greek Town Implements Revolutionary Barter System Without Euro (and vid)
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/04/greek-town-develops-bartering-system...
The KKE and the Greek revolution
Millions of workers and youth around the world have been observing carefully the current events in Greece. 24- and 48-hour general strikes, mass demonstrations, the sieges of parliament during the austerity votes are all looked upon with enormous sympathy and the role of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) in these events is evident to everybody.
Massive, militant blocs in the demonstrations and actions such as the draping of the Parthenon with a huge banner inviting the peoples of Europe to revolt have raised great admiration among important layers of the Left. However, although it is clear that the KKE is one of the main actors in the pre-revolutionary situation that exists in Greece, can we regard it as a model for our own struggles? This article attempts to analyse, although briefly, the political line and the programme of the Greek Communists.
quote
The KKE regards itself as the party of the proletarian vanguard. However, it systematically acts in a manner that separates the vanguard from the mass of the Greek proletariat, virtually preventing millions of young people and workers from getting to know the ideas of the Communists, and, even worse, preventing its activists from fighting shoulder to shoulder with other workers and youth.
Behind the idea of safeguarding an alleged ideological purity of the party there really is the fear that the rank and file could connect with the genuine needs of the class and particularly with the idea of unity among all the forces to the left of the PASOK.
In his book Left-wing Communism, an infantile disorder, Lenin strongly argues against the idea of an artificial separation between the proletarian vanguard and the bulk of the workers, branding it as a crime with devastating consequences on the outcome of the struggle and on the influence of the Communist on the masses. It is not just a question of the physical division of the workers in separate rallies; it means giving up in practice the struggle for hegemony within the working class as a whole and within its mass organisations. A strong Communist fraction in the trade unions at this stage should be in a position of attracting the best working-class cadres away from the influence of the reformists, winning them over to the revolutionary cause through consistent work side by side with these workers and activists, rather than isolating one's own members from the rest.
In the context of such a method of the party leaders, the most likely outcome is that they will refuse any electoral alliance on the basis of the fight against capitalism. In a February 11, 2011 article by the Foreign Department of the Central Committee of the KKE, we read the following:
“The rejection of the blind alley of the so-called 'unity of the Left' implies for the KKE the preservation of an alliance policy that matches the interests of the working class, the toiling strata and the needs of the class struggle. We focus our attention on the socio-political alliance, based on common action, common interests, a common line of struggle of the working class, the urban self-employed workers and the peasants. An alliance that will enter into a conflict with the monopolies and imperialism and fight also for another path of development for our country, namely, people's power and people's economy in which the means of production will be socialised, with central planning of the economy and workers' control”.
This basically means that the only possible unity they envisage is under the banner of the KKE. It is a sectarian tactic that only amounts to an entrenchment behind revolutionary phraseology without taking into account the real strength of the Communists in society, the genuine feelings of the masses and the prospects for a possible revolutionary solution in Greece....
Utopia on the Horizon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAnGxynPxL4&feature=youtu.be
In May 2011, hundreds of thousands of Greeks swarmed into Syntagma Square in Athens to protest against the firesale of their country, their labor rights and their livelihoods to corrupt domestic elites and foreign financial interests.
In a matter of days, a protest camp was set up -- organized on the principles of direct democracy, leaderless self-management and mutual aid -- providing a glimpse of utopia in the midst of a devastating financial, political and social crisis. On June 28-29, during a Parliamentary vote on further austerity measures, the state finally responded with brutal force, eventually evicting the protesters from the square and crushing the radical potential of their social experiment.
A year later, Leonidas Oikonomakis and Jérôme Roos -- PhD researchers at the European University Institute and co-authors of the activist blog ROARMAG.org -- returned to Athens to speak to activists involved in the movement and the occupation of Syntagma Square, as well as WWII resistance hero Manolis Glezos. What follows is this dramatic portrait of a country veering on the brink of collapse; and the people who chose to struggle in order to build a new world on the ruins of the old.
MADE POSSIBLE BY:
Syntagma Multimedia Team
Greek Workers Occupy Town Halls, March Through Athens to Protest Austerity Cuts
Greek municipal workers occupied hundreds of town halls across the country on Thursday, and thousands of others marched through the streets of Athens to protest layoffs agreed to as part of a financial 'bailout' of the government.
The Greek government plans to lay off up to 27,000 more public sector workers — with city and local workers likely targeted first — to meet conditions set by its international creditors, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, the Greek newspaper Ekathimerini.com reports.
Photoshopping away police torture in Greece
Greek police may vainly try to photoshop away the torture of four alleged bank robbers, but they cannot gloss over the radicalization of Greek youth.
The story is as follows.
On February 1st 2013, an attempted robbery of two banks takes place in a small village of the Western Macedonia region, called Velvento. The bounty was around 180.000 euros and the police managed to arrest the robbers after a short chase. The news would have passed unnoticed, if the heavily armed robbers were not very young middle and upper-middle class boys, whom the police associates with the armed urban-guerilla group ‘Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire’.....
http://roarmag.org/2013/02/photoshopping-away-police-repression-in-greece/
quote:
It is by now obvious that the Greek state, in order to defend the extremely unpopular and unsuccessful austerity measures it has been imposing for a couple of years now, has chosen the road of repression. It is not something new: we have seen such practices in the past too — in Chile, in Argentina, and elsewhere. The difference is that in those cases we were talking about military dictatorships, while in the Greek case we are talking about a democratically-elected government, which is even more scary and unacceptable. At the same time, it is also obvious that this strategy of the state is resulting in the further radicalization of the Greek youth.
The video at the end is eerie. A simple transfer of prisoners and not only are there large numbers of police they were almost all in black masks carrying assault rifles. What is with the black masks? No police ID numbers and black masks.
This is the universe that Canadians share in. When we get the Euro trade deal I am sure that the German and British bankers will play nice with the people of Canada. After all we see how they treat the citizens of their hinterlands so we have a good idea how benevolent they are when they have gained a financial upper hand.
This is the universe that Canadians share in. When we get the Euro trade deal I am sure that the German and British bankers will play nice with the people of Canada.
Too late! Our corrupt stooges sold control of the country and our souls to bankers and foreign creditors long time ago starting with Mulroney and probably even before that by the hand of non-elected central banker, Gerald Bouey, by 1975.
To whom is Canada's debt owed? Notice their "solution" to reduce the fictitious debt by some paltry amount of $130B by changing defined benefit pensions to defined contribution.
Our corrupt stooges and their "independent" citizens groups suck!
The factory of Vio.Me (Industrial Mineral) starts production under workers’ control!
In the heart of the crisis, the workers of Vio.Me. are aiming for the heart of exploitation and property.
With unemployment climbing to 30%, workers’ income reaching zero, sick and tired of big words, promises and more taxes, unpaid since May 2011 and currently withholding their labour, with the factory abandoned by the employers, the workers of Vio.Me. by decision of their general assembly declare their determination not to fall prey to a condition of perpetual unemployment, but instead to struggle to take the factory in their own hands and operate it themselves. Through a formal proposal dating from October 2011 they have been claiming the establishment of a workers' cooperative under full workers’ control, demanding legal recognition for their own workers’ cooperative, as well as for all the others to follow. At the same time they have been demanding the money required to put the factory in operation, money that in any case belongs to them, as they are the ones who produce the wealth of society. The plan that was drawn up met with the indifference of the state and of trade union bureaucracies. But it was received with great enthusiasm by the world of the social movements, which, through the creation of the Open Initiative of Solidarity in Thessaloniki and afterwards with similar initiatives in many other cities, have been struggling for the past 6 months to spread the message of Vio.Me across society.....
http://www.viome.org/2013/02/the-factory-of-viome-industrial-mineral.html
Golden Dawn ‘cell’ in the Municipal Police of Athens
Local government unionists reported the existence of a far-right cell named ‘Group K’ that functions in a para-state fashion and is in co-operation with Greek police.
Local government unionists from the Municipality of Athens reported the existence of an organised cell of Golden Dawn in the force of Municipal Police of Athens, active under the codename ‘Group K’. One week after the death of Senegalese immigrant Cheikh Ndiaye while being chased in Thisseion [Athens] by a group of municipal police officers, the Union of employees in the Municipal Authorities published an angry statement where for the first time they reported the existence of a Golden Dawn cell in the municipal police force. They also reported that 15 members of Group K, bullied one of their colleagues that spoke out against them during the meeting of the general assembly of municipal policemen on the 5th of February: “The group is known and tolerated by the Local Authority of the Municipality of Athens; they enjoy special privileges and specialise in the area of ‘illegal trade’ [an area that mainly involves immigrants]. They are also engaged in joint operations together with the Greek police”....
http://icantrelaxingreece.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/golden-dawn-cell-in-t...
Anarchist intervention at the speech of the Mayor of Athens at the LSE
Published on Mar 5, 2013
On the evening of Monday March 4th, the Mayor of Athens Giorgos Kaminis spoke at the London School of Economics at an event of the hellenic society on "exiting the crisis". The mayor had the nerve to speak about exiting the crisis -- even though he knows perfectly well that his policies during all these years have only deepened the crisis for everyone except those included in his purified vision of citizenship. This, at a time when the scum of his municipal police chase, rob and assault migrant street traders, at a period when the murder of Cheikh Ndiaye in Thiseio, Athens, bears his signature, a few months after the eviction of Villa Amalias and Kaminis' care to give additional ground to the Golden Dawn and the Nazis of Agios Panteleimonas....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CDmBeYI6hA&feature=player_embedded#!
'People Are Just Being Murdered' (and vid)
http://rt.com/business/greece-international-creditors-bailout-017/
despite massive protests and demonstrations there is no help - the better off (for now) avert their eyes and keep shopping.
Metronome is the first short video in Mass Transient, a research strand of the project The City at a Time of Crisis.
Mass Transient is an ethnographic study of spaces of mass transit in Athens — and beyond: it is a study that seeks to reveal the ever-growing antagonisms and tensions in these quintessential spaces of the everyday, as the crisis deepens. At this historical conjuncture, buses, trolleys and metro carriages become the primary public spaces: on the one hand moving around are the ‘fallen angels’ of the bourgeois dream, and on the other, those swirling through the city are the undocumented, seeking survival. A close, meticulous reading of these spaces can help us understand how the transitory flux of a society in turmoil becomes a galvanized reality; how a transient mass becomes critical.
http://www.crisis-scape.net/blog/item/130-metronome
............
"It was racism that killed him" - video
On 2nd February 2013 Cheick Ndiaye's body was found on the rail tracks of Thissio metro station in central Athens. A friend, who was a witness states he saw Cheick being pushed to his death by two municipality police officers who were chasing him. Cheick was a migrant from Senegal.
...........
Into the Fire: The Hidden Victims of Austerity in Greece - English
A hard hitting documentary which shows the plight of refugees and migrants in recession hit Athens, Into The Fire is a film with a difference. intothefire.org
Shot and edited with sensitivity and compassion, it doesn’t pull its punches and makes for harrowing viewing in parts. It is the product of crowd funding, dedication, self-sacrifice and a burning sense of justice.....
Future Suspended
How does a global financial crisis permeate the spaces of the everyday in a city? This documentary film traces the multiple transformations of crisis-ridden Athenian public space and those who traverse it.
In three parts, Future Suspended navigates its way through the past and the present of the crisis as it gets inscribed in Athens dwellers’ minds, and as it plays out in their everyday lives. The first section, Privatised, explores the legacy of mass privatisation projects that preceded the 2004 Olympics, placing them in the context of present-day privatisation schemes.
Part two, Devalued, examines the ever-shrinking spaces of migrants in the city and the violent devaluation that comes as a result. The final third, Militarised, explains how, at the exact moment when the state recedes from its welfare functions, this devaluation of Athenian lives becomes a generalised condition....
both excellent - we should pay close attention because it's coming here and we're far less prepared than the Greeks to fight back..
There was a general devaluation of rights in the context of the G20 summit in Toronto, during the student protests in Quebec, and in New Brunswick during the anti-fracking demonstrations. Rights are synonymous with people's lives, and the visible deployment of para-military police and snipers in the context of the protests in NB is intended to indicate the willingness of power to escalate to whatever degree is necessary to control any given situation. Of course, police snipers are typically present for all the major events, but they're generally hidden if protesters are representative of the general public. No such consideration is required where FN people are involved, because government can count on enough support among its reactionary base for snipers to be visibly employed against FN people and not precipitate too much general outrage. The escalation and resort to violence against general populations is already implied however, whether visible or not, by the way power intrudes into everyone's privacy. This is already an act of intimidation and violence.
Thousands of workers in Greece strike to protest austerity
Greek labor unions staged a nationwide strike Wednesday to protest austerity policies imposed on the country by its foreign creditors — including Germany, whose Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to visit Athens this week.
Schools and pharmacies were shut, ships remained docked at ports, hospitals operated on emergency staff, and transport in Athens was disrupted because of the walkout called by the private sector union GSEE and its public sector counterpart, ADEDY.
Thousands of striking workers, pensioners and the unemployed were expected to march to parliament around noon.
"This is our answer to the dead-end policies that have squeezed workers and made Greek people miserable," GSEE said in a statement. "We are striking and fighting to put an end to austerity."....
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/6/thousands-of-greekworker...