Hello from Greece,
This is the fifth day and the crowd is increasing in Syntagma square
in Athens. There must have been more than 30.000 people this evening
and there are still there more than 10.000 at 11.30 pm (today). As a
genuine gathering of the multitude there are not prevailing slogans
apart from "thefts" and "take a helicopter and leave this place" (it
refers to what has happened in Argentina). Flags of Argentina can be
also seen among the demonstrators. In the front a banner says in
Spanish "we are desperate, we woke-up. What time is it? Its time for
them to leave". People are dancing shouting or just hanging around
talking to each other. A "general assembly" is held at late hours in
the square, where people can take the microphone, speak and say what
they think freely. It's not stopping and it will not stop although I
think that maybe there will be less people the forthcoming days.
Maybe you are not aware on the details of the Greek time lines.
There are enough money for the government until the 14 July and they
desperately need the next dose of the IMF and the EU to keep the
country running. EU governments are blackmailing, asking for a
national consensus of at least the governing socialist party and
the conservative right party, but the conservatives do not accept.
They are asking for a huge privatization plan which practically
spans all public enterprises including water companies and land. The
latter is something quite difficult to be accepted by the public
opinion.
The idea that prevails is that after selling all these crucial
resources nothing will really change for the people and most
possibly we will be in the same position of bankruptcy after a year
or maybe two having lost by this time most of public resources. Also
a huge tax collection plan is under finalization which according to
leakages it will cost 3.000-4000 euros annually for a family with 4
persons . This means that a lot of marginally surviving people will
fell below the elementary standard of living. Another 150.000
unemployed are expected for the forthcoming year. Final decisions
will be announced most probably at 6th of June - so keep this date
in mind. It might be the beginning of real bloody demonstrations.
What are the political implications of this mass mobilization and
which are the probable effects? Although is difficult to say I am
thinking that most probably if this dynamic goes on it might be
impossible for the government to vote for the new measures. At this
stage political instability with these time lines means bankruptcy.
Another interesting story is that parts of the national capitalist
class are seriously thinking of bankrupting the country and take
over with a new drachma. This is not discussed politically openly
because a return to a national currency will be extremely painful
for the masses. In fact the story of Argentina is well known. My
impression of the overall situation is that for several reasons
Greece follows the road to an open bankruptcy with several people
waiting to benefit from that and nobody taking the political risk to
support it. Since European governments are deeply divided on the
Greek crisis, it is difficult to believe that they will act in a
coordinated, quick and generous way to avoid the storm, although
this cannot be ruled out.
Now, some figures from the public opinion
Red = the IMF-EU program is not beneficiary for the country
Blue = it is beneficiary
The most important slide which shows the bankruptcy of the ruling
system in Greece is the following. Please pay attention...
Red = do not trust
Blue= trust
Top bar (1st) = fellow citizens/people
2nd= social movements
3rd=banks
4th=media
5th=trade unions
6th=parliament
7th=governments
8th=political parties
Does this explain to you what happens now at Syntagma square?
Best regards
George
Στις 29/05/2011 04:45 μμ, ο/η orsan@tie-netherlands.nl έγραψε:
To make use of a Yes Man style media action project in
order to reach out poeple and create a ripple effect!
Citeren Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004@gmail.com>:
great Orsan!
On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 10:08 PM,
<orsan@tie-netherlands.nl> wrote:
That would be great!
I have already pasted acall on a new discussion group i
created about
Global P2P Revolution on p2p ning:
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/group/peerlabour/forum/topics/anonymous-call-for-a-global
Citeren Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004@gmail.com>:
I really think we should contribute to this as p2p
collectives and
individuals ...
I really think that Amaia has found the right formula with
her storify's,
which we can easily embed in our blog, and Naomi Klein has
already
retweeted
amaia's story ...
what I propose is the following, i.e. that each of you used
storify to
keep
track of developments in your own area,
then we need one extra volunteer to do this on the 'global
level',
an alternative is to use a specific tag for this and I could
do a weekly
roundup of this global tag ... say Global-P2P-Revolution ??
we can also use Peer Labour at Ning to discuss and spread
the word?
Michel
On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 9:06 PM, Amaia Arcos
<amaia.arcos@googlemail.com
>wrote:
The whole world peacefully rising against all that is
unjust on 11.11.11
would send shivers down God's own
spine (:P), I think it is a great idea.
If
the momentum keeps going until then (and I don't see why
not, they are
surely not going to make it easy for us) I guess we have
enough time to
globally link up and try.
I'm up for anything, you can only try. And the idea of
somehow just
concentrating on linking up people makes sense. There are
many who
organise
stuff but are not particularly that well aware of who else
is out there
and/or what else is being done. And having somewhere
decent where to go
and
see who is out there, doing what and when is not a bad
idea either. Many
find the internet disorienting in that there is too much
data and they
don't
know how to search (or they have the idea that they don't
and so they
don't
try).
On 27 May 2011 15:43, <orsan@tie-netherlands.nl>
wrote:
Unindefined Revolutionary Objects (UROs) are appearing
like thunder
stike
around the world and occupying important city centers...
where is this
process headed to!
May be it is time to pool key people from Greece, UK,
Tunusia, Egypt,
Wisconsin, and Spain like you Amaia in order to forge
for a harmonised
city
center occupations in all G20 or even glibally?
You might have the right names Michel. We are entering
into an critical
time zone, I think the climate is getting ready for such
an action. So
we
need to link up!
There are already several calls for world strike or
similar global
uprising. One anaymous call suggests 11.11.11 for such
uprising!
Citeren Samuel Rose <samuel.rose@gmail.com>:
take care of yourself out there, Chris!
On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 7:32 AM,
chris@cataspanglish.com <
chris@cataspanglish.com> wrote:
ok, the police have retreated from the Plaça firing
rubber bullets in
the
air & it is occupied again, now without
infrastructure
sent from my mobile device
On 27/05/2011, at 12:53, Amaia Arcos
<amaia.arcos@googlemail.com>
wrote:
Sure, no worries, I'm in. What email address do I
send stuff to so
that
I
don't end up spamming people unnecessarily?
I agree with Michel, to me this looks like something
big could come
out
of
it. I'd never dreamt of what is happening when I
started "being a
pain"
about the need to go out on May 15th in Spain. I was
only hoping for a
decent turnout that day. Italy happily obliging
within a couple of
days
and
then Greece and then this #europeanrevolution being
organised for
Sunday
is
a massive surprise. I thought Europe was dead, there
might be hope o.O
On 27 May 2011 09:24, Michel Bauwens <
<michelsub2004@gmail.com>
michelsub2004@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Chris,
in a short intro to a piece on spain, I wrote the
following
endorsement,
so I think we should follow this very closely and
support this
evolving
global movement to the best of our abilities,
I hope you can be our point man, perhaps with
Amaia as pointwoman, in
Spain, I think her storyify format would be great
for regular updates
...
I also copying vasilis and George in Greece, in
the hope they can
contribute stories about how this develops in
Greece,
Michel
**
When people agree on what they don't want, i.e. a
market dictatorship
in
the hands of a financial predatory class, but are
open-minded about
the
future, what should they ask for?
The answer is very simply: true democracy, as this
leaves all options
open
to create 'other worlds'.
This is why the relative indeterminacy of the
Spanish movement is not
a
bug, but a feature. It signals civil society
forces have found a
format
for
their protests, and a unifying platform, and this
is why what
happened
in
Spain is really Ground Zero for the start of a
process towards deep
transformation of our civilisation and political
economy. It's early
days,
just green shoots, and the new generations have to
be politically
schooled
as they face obstacles and repression, but, the
tipping point has
been
reached, and something new has blossomed in the
world.
On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Chris Pinchen
<<
chris@cataspanglish.com>
chris@cataspanglish.com> wrote:
Right now police are violenty evicting the camp
in Plaça Catalunya
using
the excuse that they need to clean the square
for a football
celebration
tomorrow. People arriving are occupying the
surrounding streets and
are
being clubbed by riot police who do not have id
badges visible. the
campers
are calling for more camps this evening
*Chris Pinchen*
<http://cataspanglish.com>http://cataspanglish.com
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