Europe in crisis: Greece in chaos
Personally and collectively, the Greeks don’t understand and can’t cope with what’s happening now, let alone what will happen next. The welfare state is being swiftly and deliberately dismantled without any time to set up replacements
Noëlle Burgi
Le Monde diplomatique, December 2011
EXTRACT:
The Greeks struggle to see a way out of what a social worker described as a return to a “barbaric” way of life. They feel abandoned and unable to cope. Strong family ties are buckling under the pressure of diminished incomes and a collapsing welfare state. Those who can leave, do so. The options for those remaining are limited. Some turn to the Church, which arranges soup kitchens and other social services. In Salonika, Father Stefanos Tolios of the Orthodox church, is swamped by desperate people looking for work. Residents of several cities (Volos, Patras, Heraklion, Athens, Corfu, Salonika) have set up community-based informal economies, based on local exchange systems. Families are bringing their elderly back from retirement homes, to recover the monthly charge of € 300-400.
No country could withstand this. Greece is worse equipped to deal with the social consequences of the austerity measures imposed with a “scientific cruelty” (7) by the national and transnational elites.
Phi Beta Iota: The level of detail in this article is superb. The author provides a gripping preview of what could befall the USA in 2012 — Obama will cook the books and spend borrowed money to create a semblance of stability in support of his bid to be President but the bottom line is clear: whoever is elected will deal with a near-total collapse of the economy and the government in 2013. If America does not elect a team with a governance philosophy that places We the People first, we are in for four more years of elite loot-fest and the implosion of what is left of the USA.
