Riot Police At The Funeral March.

      December 11 saw the funeral of Sara, the young 13 year old girl who died from carbon monoxide poisoning in Thessaloniki, after her mother, in desperation to keep herself and her daughter warm, lit a fire in a make-shift stove in their apartment. The young girl and her unemployed mother lived alone and had their power cut off three months earlier. They were doing their best to try and keep warm, as temperatures dropped to near freezing in their part of northern Greece.

Photo from Teacher Dude: 

       In Greece even a funeral march by students, is accompanied by riot police in full riot gear. The march to the funeral by high school students in the Thessaloniki, was also in commemoration of the murder of a 15 year old teenager, Alexis Grigoropoulos, by a Athens police officer in December 2008. An event that set off a wave of protest that engulfed all of Greece in the worst civil violence experienced since the overthrow of the country's military dictatorship in in 1973.

    Sara died because of the Troika and their subservient Greek puppet government. They forced the banksters' policies of “austerity” and “structural adjustments” onto the people of Greece, they are directly responsible for the deaths by suicide, malnutrition and ill-health that must follow in the wake of their social destruction. These events are not accidents, they are the expected consequences of driving people to deprivation.

     Alexis Grigoropoulos was murdered my the state apparatus, likewise, Sara was murdered by that same state apparatus. You can point a gun and shoot, or you can starve and freeze people, the effect is the same, death by a deliberate action. All the poverty and deprivation brought about by the actions of the Troika, (EC, European Commission, ECB, European Central Bank, IMF, International Mankind Fuckers) are not accidental events, they are aware that if you slash people's standard of living, they will suffer, the more you cut, the more they suffer, and that suffering can and does end in death. There is nothing accidental in that.

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€200 A Month,--Economic Recovery!!!!

        I know I go on about the planned European sweatshop economy, but it is all falling into place. All the European countries are moving in the same direction but at a  slightly different pace. Greece is just the most advanced in the grand plan. In the UK with wage freezes/cuts, and inflation romping along at around 3%, wage earners here have seen the income reduce by approximately 10% since the "crisis". Where will they be in another 5 years or so? Unless we change the system, we the ordinary people, are on a downward spiral to deprivation. It is not the lack of wealth, it is the system. Like I said, Greece is now well established as on par with some third world countries, In that country, on offer are IT jobs at €200 per month, without insurance. This is a European country, try talking about economic recovery on that salary.

Another report from Teacher Dude: 

Keep Out! - The 78th Thessaloniki International Trade Fair

      Inside the 78th Thessaloniki International Trade Fair the prime minister is giving a speech as prime minister have done for decades on this date. I will not bother to follow the speech, either in person or on TV as Samaras's public addresses are usually leaked well in advance and amount to a little more than  a series of soundbites linked together by the slightest of rhetorical devices, more akin to bloated TV commercials than anything Demosthenes would recognise.
         "The economy is coming round, recovery is on its way, the sacrifices of the people are finally paying off."It's old, old stuff made all the more unconvincing by the fact that every prime minister has sad the same since the financial crisis began in 2009. Yes, the rate of decline in the Greek economy has slowed down to "just" 3.8% but unemployment is still rising, set to reach 30% by the end of the year if the latest Greek trade union research is to be believed.
       On the other hand while Samaras was addressing the nation, safely ensconced behind thousands of riot police the people next to me in the cafe are discussing a mutual acquaintance;
"They're looking for a IT graduate, part time, 5 to 9 and you know what they're offering?   200 euros a month, without insurance, 200!"
       This is is the economic success story that the government and the foreign press are so happy to promote, a country in which salaries do not even begin to cover living costs, even for people with years of experience and advanced qualifications. An economy where millions are unable to start a family or even afford basic health care or a pension. Even if the books balance by the end of the decade the macroeconomic damage being wrought will last for a generation.
         By midday the prime minister will have returned to Athens, his presence having left behind little than a bunch of high sounding promises and a lot of disgruntled commuters. The Trade Fair once again has become the political plaything of the leadership which fails to see that turning a city into war zone every year is not the best way to encourage international trade and especially not Greece's image abroad.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

     

Spectacle Amidst Austerity.

      The Thessaloniki Annual Trade Fair has come around, this is when the Athens puppets of the Troika put on a show in another city. Teacher Dude gives an excellent review of the coming event.

      In years gone by the political leadership would take the chance to make lavish promises and announce grand public works in the city. Indeed this approach proved so popular that five PMs in a row announced that, unlike their tardy predecessors, they would ensure that Thessaloniki's promised subway would start the following year.
      Despite the fact that the country has yet to reach budget targets and is faced with the prospect of requesting yet more bail out cash, government officials and their friends in the media have once again started making promises that public works project, long stalled for lack of cash will resume, a minimum guaranteed income will be introduced and the country will be flowing with milk and honey before the month is out.
     On the other the list of those unhappy with New Democracy and PASOK's austerity measures continues to grow and after five years of economic contraction, broken promises and despite claims that the worst is over few believe that Athens is in a position to say no to its creditors demands for yet more cuts.
      So the stage is set for a potentially violent showdown on Saturday when the prime minister will give a speech surrounded by anything up to 8,000 police and the streets fill with angry Greeks.

Read the full article HERE: 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Unfolding Story Of Greece.

       A few minutes after 11pm on the night of June 11, the signal of the two TV stations of ERT (the Greek state media broadcaster) was abruptly cut, as the Greek fascist government went further down the road of attempting to control the flow of information, or cut it all together. This decision was taken and enforced without any public debate or any vote in parliament. This unprecedented action was carried via a "act of legislative content" which is supposed to be invoked only during a state of emergency. The shut down meant the immediate firing of all the 2,600+ employees, this on top of an unemployment rate of 27.4%, the employees immediately occupied the broadcasting premises. The Greek public have come out in support of the employees occupation and more than 8,000 have gather outside the ERT HQ on Mesogeion Avenue.

     This drastic action by the fascist political puppets of the financial Mafia changes the situation in Greece as it has even angered the other political puppets that are playing the "representative democracy" game with the fascists, and further alienated the people from the government.

        Public sector Unions called a general strike for Thursday 13 June, buses, subway and trains stopped running, train and ferry links were affected, air traffic control was involved, journalists staged an indefinite strike with practically all major newspapers failing to appear, and hospital staff, already under pressure, also reduced staffing in protest at the ERT closure.

            There are some excellent photographs HERE and by Teacher Dude on his flickr site.
     Though the Troika, (ECB, European Central Bank, EC, European Commission, IMF, International Mankind Fuckers) consider that their fascist puppets in Athens are doing a good job, the people of Greece have not yet decided which way they will take their country, the book is not yet written.

ann arky's home.

THE BENEFITS OF FISCAL READJUSTMENT.

     It is incredible how quickly a country that was pleasant and friendly to live in, can deteriorate to an unbelievable state of deprivation and misery. In the years that I visited Greece, I don't ever recall seeing a beggar or anyone sleeping on the streets. Not that everybody was rich, of course not, it was still a capitalist country. Now however, doorways are a welcome shelter from the cold Greek winter nights. 

          I found this Teacher Dude photo particularly haunting. It probably wasn't that long ago that this child had a home and slept in a warm bed, her dad had a job, they probably laughed and joked. What effect will her new lifestyle have on her health, physical and mental? What will the future hold for her, what will now be her life expectancy? How will her dad feel parading his daughter around the streets looking for food and a doorway in which to sleep? This is the manifestation of the financial Mafia's fiscal readjustment.

 Teacher Dude's comment on his photo is very apt:

Remember, Greece is not the victim of an insane policy of austerity but a shining example of the benefits of fiscal readjustment.

 This rapid destruction of living standards that the people of Greece are having forced on to them, manifests itself in many ways. Even if you still manage to hold onto your home, and still have a job, the chances of you eating properly and heating yourself will have gone. Trees are disappearing as people cut them down to burn for cooking and heating, furniture is going the same way. Athenians are now living in a fog of wood smoke.

This from NPR:

     "Someone must have been burning a door with the windows still set in," she says. "When the girls and I were walking home, it was hard to breathe. We used our coats as masks."

     Greeks may actually be burning old furniture to stay warm, says Stephanos Sambatakakis of the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

     Scientists are studying the particles in the noxious fumes, which could soon leave people suffering from inflamed eyes, respiratory problems, headaches and nausea, he says. Long-term effects could include lung inflammation and, "in extreme cases, lung cancer," he says.

Read the full article HERE:

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FIGHT TO WIN.

        Another brilliant piece of artistic, critical comment from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ.

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YOUR KIDS WILL BE NEXT.

         What awaits us as the Eurozone circles the drain, for some idea we can look at what has happened to the Greek people in just a couple of years. From a relatively comfortable lifestyle for most, to deprivation, from a comparatively low crime rate, to a rocketing crime rate, from mostly stable communities to massive increases in suicides, alcoholism and mental health problems, all the direct result of AUSTERITY, which is just a polite word for plundering the people and pushing them into deprivation. I should add that all these problems are for the ordinary people, our political masters and the financial Mafia are exempt from that deprivation they inflict on the rest of us. This from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ.

      This picture was taken in the centre of Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. The young teen, no older than 13 or 14 was wheeling a shopping trolley full of scrap metal just metres away from the high end hotels and shopping malls that call this part of the town home.

      He, along with many even younger can be seen in the city rooting through the recycling bins for cans, scrap metal and paper.. For those who scavenge, beg, sell trinkets and wander the streets of this European city there is no school or perhaps even a future, except for more of the same.

ann arky's home.