From The New Significance, an excellent new webzine on global rebellions from former ZNet co-editor Chris Spannos. He is just back from visiting and interviewing activists across Europe, and promises continuing coverage from on the ground there, as well as in New York and elsewhere:
The author of this report from Greece is Jérôme E. Roos, originally from a website called Reflections on a Revolution (ROAR). Norwegian social ecologist Sveinung Legard is also listed as a contributor to ROAR.
Excerpts:
Greece is being strangled — and like any organism struggling to survive while being suffocated, it will kick, scratch and fight until its very last breath. This is not an endorsement of the violence we are likely to see on Wednesday — it’s a dire warning to Europe and the IMF that their brutally inhumane policies are triggering a survival instinct that could turn nasty and brutal and run entirely out of control. Greece is about to convulse in flames and teargas once more.
… For the growing ranks of Greece’s immiserized poor, the question is no longer just about the injustice but simply about survival. While the economy is set to contract for a fourth year in a row this year (with 5.5 percent as opposed to the previously forecast 3.8 percent), and with the country’s deficit set to grow to 8.5 percent of GDP (as opposed to the 7.8 percent demanded by the Troika), it is clear that the social fabric of the country is rapidly being torn apart.
… The New York Times recently ran two reports illustrating the unfolding Greek tragedy: one told the story of the thousands of retired Greeks who are flocking back to their places of birth in the countryside en masse in the hope of being able to survive off the land when the state fails to pay out their retirement checks. The other tells the under-reported story of those who have been locked out of the monetary economy and have resorted to barter just to survive.
In fact, the EU and IMF are throwing Greece back to a pre-capitalist age of survivalism. Reverse migration and the fraying of the monetary economy are threatening to undo decades of economic development and return the country to a rural economy of smallholder farmers. Europe is actively destroying Greek society. With suicide rates skyrocketing, it is literally destroying lives. Ironically, in the process, it is destroying the very system it is trying to save.
Full story is at http://www.thenewsignificance.com/2011/10/05/jerome-e-roos-11-million-reasons-why-greece-is-about-to-explode/.
