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Ordinary Greeks Are Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands
Hara Kouki and Antonis Vradis, Guardian/UK
Grassroots refusal to put up with austerity is quickly gaining momentum, as people give up on mainstream politics
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In early October, a peculiar news item barely made its way into the back pages of Greek national press: in the northern city of Veria, a small group of people had started reconnecting the electricity supply of households disconnected from the national grid due to bill non-payment. This kind of solidarity action seemed rather abnormal.
Then again, it is difficult to define what constitutes normality in the country nowadays – the upper echelon of political power is in an unprecedented turmoil …
Take Yannis, a 43 year-old man working in a bank in Athens, who doesn’t want to return home because it is going to be cold again. The heating will be off, as nobody in the block can afford the heating prices. His 16-year old daughter, Sophia, does not want to go to school, as she finds little meaning in preparing for her exams: why would she want to enter university knowing full well she will never find a job in Greece, anyway? Or take Eleftheria’s father, a 72-year old pensioner leaving in the village of Kymi, who called her today while she was returning home and hesitantly asked her for money to buy his medicine that the state fund no longer covers for. His pension was recently cut by 50%. “But, please,” he pleaded, “do not tell your mother.” Back in the city, Eleftheria’s streets are lined with garbage which has been lying there for more than three weeks.
Thousands of workers are to be put on reduced pay schemes across the country and hundreds are being fired on a daily basis. The government has raised already existing taxes and introduced a variety of new ones across the board, while slashing salaries and pensions in both the public and private sector. Official unemployment rose by more than 35% year-to-year and now stands at just under 20%; homelessness is on an enormous increase across the country, while tax on food consumption has shot up from 13 to 23%. At the same time, public transport is being dismantled and hospitals across the country barely function.
… People here feel the country is gradually sinking, carrying them down a path dug in arbitrariness and injustice. Yet at this very moment – when it is not only the rules of the game that are challenged but the game itself – they seem to feel empowered to act in ways that would not have appeared feasible in the past: they physically attack politicians, mock and cancel military-inspired national public parades and humiliate army officials attending them, participate in neighbourhood assemblies and mass demonstrations (irrespective of the amount of tear gas thrown against them by the police), create grassroots trade unions to demand their labour rights, occupy workplaces, disrupt public services and protest in violent, impulsive, unpredictable ways.
In these peculiar times, when there is nothing to lose for so many, everything becomes possible. In the northern Athens suburb of Nea Ionia, the municipality is now actively calling for locals to shun the new tax, offering instructions to avoid its payment on its official website and promising legal support and even volunteers to reconnect potentially disconnected supplies. Grassroots refusal to put up with austerity is quickly gaining momentum, regardless of everyday politics of fear and emergency, or never-ending market crashes. In return, the realisation is sinking in that a possibility for tangible change only lies in people changing their understandings, their habits, the ways in which they do politics: while asked to cast a vote, Greek society sees a major role recast.
(3 November 2011)
A windfall would beat QE hands down
Anthony Hilton, London Evening Standard
With the Western world drowning in debt, a new book by Richard Heinberg resurrects an idea from Ancient Greece to solve the problem, lift the gloom and create the conditions where economies might begin to grow again.
He proposes that all individuals’ debts and savings be reduced in value. Moving the decimal point by one place would see savings or pension pots of £100,000 shrink to £10,000; but debts or mortgages of £250,000 would be cut to £25,000. Those with the highest debts would benefit most: the winners would be the profligate and the losers are the savers.
This might seem a bit harsh, if not totally against the interests of society, though it has to be said inflation does just the same by stealth. A rate of 4% – less than we have now – halves the value of debt and savings in just nine years and though they are loathe to admit it, a systematic debasement of the currency is how governments have always paid down their debts. Thomas Gresham coined the “law” for which he is still remembered – “bad money drives out good” – way back in the first Elizabethan age.
(3 November 2011)
The 99 Percent Organize Themselves
Jeremy Brecher, The Nation
… The occupations have been incredibly successful. But nothing can fail like success. Z Magazine founder Michael Albert, just returned from conversations with protest veterans in Greece, Turkey, London, Dublin, and Spain reports he was told that their massive assemblies and occupations at first were invigorating and uplifting. “We were creating a new community. We were making new friends. We were hearing from new people.” But as days and weeks passed, “it got too familiar. And it wasn’t obvious what more they could do.”
Besides boredom (rarely a problem so far), winter is coming. I can testify just from sleeping out on one rainy night in October that, whatever the occupiers’ determination, it’s going to be tough. Some will need to create sturdier encampments better protected against the elements. Some will need to come inside.
When a threatened army successfully repositions itself it is a victory, not a defeat. What matters is that the social forces that have made OWS and its kin continue their feisty, imaginative, nonviolent reclaiming of public space by marches, occupations, and other forms of direct action without getting pinned down in positions they can’t sustain. That way they can continue their crucial role in inspiring the rest of us 99 percenters to organize ourselves.
For that, they need help right now from the rest of us 99 percenters. In New York, there is now a campaign to let the protesters stay and set up tents. Elsewhere possibilities for using indoor spaces where occupiers can “come in from the cold” (with or without official permission) are being explored. Occupiers need both material aid and political pressure from unions, religious group, and ordinary 99 percenters to make the transition to the next phase.
(4 November 2011)
One Facebook post becomes national movement to abandon big banks
Stuart Pfeifer and E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times
When Kristen Christian learned that Bank of America Corp. planned to charge her a $5 monthly debit card fee, she did what many people do these days when they get mad: She ranted on Facebook.
What followed was an illustration of the power of social media.
Her Facebook post urging friends to abandon big banks unwittingly blossomed into a national campaign. More than 75,000 people have pledged to participate in “Bank Transfer Day” by moving their money from large U.S. banks to nonprofit credit unions by Saturday, Christian said.
The 27-year-old Echo Park resident has become something of a media star. Christian has appeared on national television programs to discuss the grass-roots movement that started with a couple of key strokes on her Mac and ended with credit unions bracing for a swarm of new customers.
“I definitely never expected it to become this big,” Christian said.
She started the campaign Oct. 4 by inviting 500 of her Facebook friends to abandon their banks. Christian said she would have been happy if just a few others joined her, but it became something much bigger.
About 650,000 U.S. consumers opened credit union accounts in the month since BofA announced Sept. 29 its planned debit card fee, according to the Credit Union National Assn., a trade organization. That compares to an average of 80,000 new members a month the rest of the year, the group reported.
Faced with mounting consumer criticism, BofA abandoned the planned fee Tuesday.
(5 November 2011)
