*One wonders why there hasn't been more civil unrest during the economic unpleasantries. Maybe because the populace no longer reads newspapers, no longer attends trade union meetings, and spends their unemployed weeks and months at home websurfing.
*It might also be that urban riot cops are so well equipped these days that nothing short of roadside bombs can dent them.
*I don't think Greeks with spraycans and molotovs can do much, but hey, if things stay bad long enough huge numbers of people will in fact become penniless and even the bankers will go on strike.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/10/athens-greece-protest-strike
(...)
But if there was any doubt that the government would face resistance it was put to rest today . Again and again, as the protesters chanted "we are not Ireland, we will resist", the nationwide strike was painted as the beginning of a backlash against the "tsunami of attacks on workers".
"There should be no sacrifice for the plutocracy," said Vasiillis Stamoulis, one union leader as he took to the podium erected in front of Athens' sandstone parliament. "Those who are responsible should pay for the crisis: the bankers, industrialists, ship-owners, big merchants, the oligarchy of this country."
Stamoulis was not alone. As they marched through Athens arm-in-arm ignoring the rain, Greeks young and old said the crisis was not of their making. The Greek state may have been profligate but that was because it had suffered at the hands of politicians who had "eaten" from the trough of almost every official coffer.
"It's not our fault that our country's public finances are in such a mess," said Spyros Papadopoulos, a hospital worker. "It's the fault of capitalists like the bankers, who got bailed out by the [previous] conservative government to the tune of €28m and the Greek shipping community that never pays a cent in tax. Why is it always the lower-income strata who have to pay the price," he asked as the "river of fury" snaked its way around one of Athens' giant squares. "What they are trying to do is roll back our hard-earned rights, rights like the eight-hour day and a decent pension after a lifetime's work. This is a crisis that is going to make the poor even poorer and the rich even richer. It's totally unfair."
Walking ahead under a giant umbrella, her collar held to her chin, Angela Drossou, a translator, wholeheartedly agreed. It was, she said, the first time she had ever come out to demonstrate but circumstances were such that she could do nothing else.
"We are affected every day. It is not only our salary. We live with the anxiety of unemployment," she sighed. "I am 41 and I am very anxious because one day I may wake up and have no job and if I do have a job they may tell me to work four hours a day with a payment that is more like a tip. Profits always rise during austerity periods. All the banks and industry profits rise day by day, hour by hour while we become more and more poor, literally penniless."
Again and again the protesters said, too, that they believed Greece would set an example for others in Europe to follow....
