Popular protests in the EU

[Patine]

Those protests are about a plan of the Greek government to hold about 25,000 auctions of houses owned by people not able to pay the mortgage.
(That's 0.1% of the roughly 2.7 million households living in their owned house(Greece has 3.6 million households) => affects 0.07% of the population)
The very poor owners not able to pay lawyers acoording to the Guardian article. (which raises for me the question: is there no (effective) pro bono lawyer right in Greece ?)
Those protests of the 25,000 involved can be simply ignored by the Greek government as long as other Greek people have no solidarity.
But Greece has a very special unit that is apparently deployed:
From that Jacobin article:

The govt back to the Junta methods.
That's where the solidarity for the people has to be found !

Also from that Jacobin article:

Greek economical growth, especially by selfemployed and small companies is stiffled by a lack of financing possibilities by banks.
Burdened by bad loans as explained above, being 45% of total bank loans, being roughly 90 Billion Euro, which is a staggering 50% of Greece's GDP !
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...to-reduce-banks-bad-loan-burden-idUSKCN1NR21P
(Bad bank loans in healthy economies are currently between 1-5% of total bank loans. Total bank loans in healthy economies typical 150-200% of the country's GDP)
Total bank loans in Greece at about 100% of GDP is low. Indicating that not enough money from banks is financing growth of companies in Greece. => stiffled economy.
The investment catch up needed for Greece to have enough physical assets for a healthy economy without real unemployment is roughly 100 Billion Euro.

The real problem of Greece stays that since the end of the Junta in 1974, and especially since 1992, tremendous amounts of money has been pumped in the country by government and company borrowings that did not end up in a thriving economy for all, but was extracted by foreign lenders, by more luxury purchases by median and richer Greeks imported from other countries, by richer Greeks investing money international.
If that all would not have happened Greece should have by now a GDP of 215 Billion Euro (instead of 180 Billion Euro), an unemployment of 5% (instead of 20%), and a govt debt of 60% or 130 Billion Euro (instead of 325 Billion Euro), with enough physical assets (100 Billion Euro more), with only 5% bad bank loans, 10 Billion Euro (instead of 90 Billion Euro).

The money burned and extracted totals: 195 + 100 + 80 = 375 Billion Euro
Roughly 5-10% of GDP per year over that uncontrolled period since 1974.
Roughly 37,500 Euro over that period per Greek citizen of today.
Current average wealth per Greek citizen BTW 90,000 Euro.

What Greece governments fails to do is:
* to stop the corruption and mafia (that's where that special unit, “Department for the Protection of the State and of the Democratic Polity,” , should be deployed)
and NOT directed at the petty stuff, the informal economy of the lower income groups, making some money on the side. The old way of money redistribution by the poor.
and NOT directed at the poor who try to organise.
* to tax back the wealth that went to, was extracted by, the rich Greeks. These are the real ones laughing now.
* transform into an effective government.... a body that can govern a country and an economy !!!

What we have now is politics-unhappy people-politics-EU-politics-repression-politics.

Greece is obviously leaning more to inspiration from Draco than Pericles, at this time.

 

[innonimatu]

News seem to be slow, people get used to things... do we have any french here living in the larger cities? I would like to know how life in those cities has been impacted, if at all, by the continuing yellow vests protests.

 

[Oerdin]

I was under the impression the protesters mostly were from the suburbs and were protesting the fuel tax increase which has now been repealed.

 

[innonimatu]

Postponed, was the last thing I read. France peripherique, it was said they were from. As it turned into an anti-Macron protest they may be from many places. In any case they have been protesting also in the major cities and that is where they drew more attention.

 

[innonimatu]

On the country whose president likes to lecture others about human rights and being proper europeans:

Since the start of the yellow vest protest movement in November 2018, we have received serious allegations of excessive use of force. More than 1,700 people have been injured as a result of the protests across the country”, the experts said.

“The restrictions on rights have also resulted in a high number of arrests and detentions, searches and confiscations of demonstrators' possessions, and serious injuries have been caused by a disproportionate use of so-called ‘non-lethal’ weapons like grenades and defensive bullets or ‘flashballs’,” they added.
[...]
The proposed administrative ban on demonstrations, the establishment of additional control measures and the imposition of heavy sanctions constitute severe restrictions on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. These provisions can be applied arbitrarily and lead to extremely serious abuses,” the experts emphasized.

 

[Hrothbern]

Not everybody in Italy is happy with the current government.

Milan anti-racism march draws "hundreds of thousands"
Huge crowds have gathered in the northern Italian city of Milan to protest against racism.
Organisers said about 200,000 people turned out in the city in Lombardy, a region where the right-wing populist League party has strong support.
Campaigners say the government promotes fear and hatred to spread division.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47431311

 

[Patine]

Not everybody in Italy is happy with the current government.

Find me a country where everyone is happy with their current government. And North Korea doesn't count - they're faking it...

 

[Hrothbern]

Find me a country where everyone is happy with their current government. And North Korea doesn't count - they're faking it...

yes, but do they go en masse to the streets ?
I cannot find it easily back
but these protests against racism are with 200,000 + bigger than the protests the last years against immigrants of the League and the 5Star

 

[Patine]

yes, but do they go en masse to the streets ?
I cannot find it easily back
but these protests against racism are with 200,000 + bigger than the protests the last years against immigrants of the League and the 5Star

I think Egypt had protests that big in 2011 - and Hosni Mubarak, the authoritarian President of 30 years, actually resigned, the first Arab head-of-state to do so due to peaceful, mass protests (though the ones in Tunis and Yemen weren't far behind). Syria and Libya fired machine guns and grenades into their protest crowds - and look at the mess and chaos those two countries are in now from events directly spiraling from that.

 

[Hrothbern]

I think Egypt had protests that big in 2011 - and Hosni Mubarak, the authoritarian President of 30 years, actually resigned, the first Arab head-of-state to do so due to peaceful, mass protests (though the ones in Tunis and Yemen weren't far behind). Syria and Libya fired machine guns and grenades into their protest crowds - and look at the mess and chaos those two countries are in now from events directly spiraling from that.

The Arab spring was mainly about bringing their governments regimes down.

I see a protest primarily as a communication tool.
I think this Italian protest was just that.

 

[Lexicus]

In a move that probably surprised no one, Macron has deployed the army against the Yellow Vest protesters using a protocol intended to be used against terrorists.

 

[Patine]

In a move that probably surprised no one, Macron has deployed the army against the Yellow Vest protesters using a protocol intended to be used against terrorists.

Note to all Americans in the "Land of the Free," with "Justice for All," your government has the same kind of powers to call at it's disposal from the (un)Patriot Act if a dissident group among you are declared "terrorists," (and it's a frighteningly easy, and near impossible to appeal, label for them to apply).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Note to all Americans in the "Land of the Free," with "Justice for All," your government has the same kind of powers to call at it's disposal from the (un)Patriot Act if a dissident group among you are declared "terrorists," (and it's a frighteningly easy, and near impossible to appeal, label for them to apply).

Things like the patriot act should serve as a reminder to anybody associating with the republican party that their own side is just as willing to cast aside freedom when convenient as they claim the other side is.

They both operate similarly regarding free speech too, with the principle difference between the parties being which free speech they wish to instead suppress.

America USED to have measures against this crap. The patriot act didn't always exist, and if you go back to pre-Nixon this "national emergency" ploy from Trump wouldn't have been possible. USA's trend has not been towards freedom over the past 80-90 years, though like most other countries they'll keep right on claiming great practices.

 

[Traitorfish]

In a move that probably surprised no one, Macron has deployed the army against the Yellow Vest protesters using a protocol intended to be used against terrorists.

I'm starting to wonder if European leaders are having some private competition to de-legitimise their governments.

 

[innonimatu]

I'm starting to wonder if European leaders are having some private competition to de-legitimise their governments.

Is it telling that people are wishing for the metaphoric horde of barbarians to show up on the horizon and wreck the established order? They'll find that if a horde does show up, no one is going to lift a finger to defend their governments.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Has anyone seen the "Scotland is Open" spot? it appears in every single YouTube video i play.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm starting to wonder if European leaders are having some private competition to de-legitimise their governments.

The EU is private?

 

[Hamid.H]

Note to all Americans in the "Land of the Free," with "Justice for All," your government has the same kind of powers to call at it's disposal from the (un)Patriot Act if a dissident group among you are declared "terrorists," (and it's a frighteningly easy, and near impossible to appeal, label for them to apply).

and theyve already labeled antifa a terrorist organization.

hh

 

[Manfred Belheim]

It kind of is to be fair.

 

[Traitorfish]

and theyve already labeled antifa a terrorist organization.

Describing Antifa as an "organisation" tells us more about the fecklessness of the American security services than describing Antifa as "terrorists" tells them about their wickedness.