[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Fwd: Greece

[Mark Barrett]

  <zapatavive at no-log.org>

News from the streets in Greece
Hello friends,
I am writing to you as we are experiencing huge demonstrations all over
Greece on daily basis for the past week. After our entrance to the IMF,
a year or so later people have had enough.

There are daily demonstrations happening in over 60 cities around
Greece. Everywhere. In Athens yesterday some 200,000 people surrounded
the parliament chanting "Thieves, thieves, thieves" and calling
politicians names. They brought rope and hang a dummy representing a
politician. Women, children, young, old, from all walks of life have
come out with metal pans.

The movement is called "The outraged" and there is a web site and a face
book blog created where people are joining and are exchanging ideas and
organizing.

The movement is calling for direct democracy, for the IMF loan not to be
payed off, for the corrupt politicians to go to jail, for change in the
constitution and for the government to step down. They also are saying
they want out of the euro and to go back to our own currency, the
drachma. People are starting to take their money out of the bank,
effectively creating a "bank run" saying that if the government doesn't
default on the IMF loan they will collapse the banking system. There is
a call for people to start taking 100-200 euros each day out of their
bank account until the government decides to default on the IMF loan, or
go bankrupt. Which ever comes first.

There are assemblies happening each night on squares around the cities
where people are getting together and talking about a new system using
direct democracy. They don't want any political parties and when they
see anyone with a flag or a sign from a political party trying to
approach the demonstration or to come to the assemblies they turn them
away, asking them to come back without any political signage or
affiliation.

So far the demonstrations have been very peaceful. The movement has
created a security group to police the demonstrations, so no
provocateurs can infiltrate and cause problems. There are people
camping outside of the parliament 24/7, there are teams created to feed
people and teams created for legal support, medical support etc.

So far the people are learning how to self organize and the movement is
growing at the speed of light. Just yesterday on the Athens face book
there where 90000 people, today there are more than 110000.

People are massively calling TV stations and making their web sites to
go down because they are not covering the uprising and/or are
misinforming people.

Last night the politicians had to escape from the back entrance of the
parliament, at night, through the park where security took them with
flash lights because the people had blocked the front entrance. The
outpouring of the people was so large, estimated at 200,000 that even
the cops were not able to hold them back.

There is no stopping us now. Everyone is talking about change. People
who never even talked about politics, are now coming out in an outcry
for direct democracy. The government is scared and they don't know what
to do. The prime minister has not appeared in days anywhere and has not
made any comments.

It is becoming known now that the IMF deal is a big scandal. The
agreement has been liked and is online and many constitutional lawyers
are going to the streets to inform people of what has really happened.
They have forced on us terms that are illegal even under International
or European law. They are not allowing us to go to elections. The IMF
agreement states that the Greek state cannot go to a Greek court to
challenge the agreement and it cannot sale its debt in order to pay it
back. We have to go to European courts (from 10-15 different European
nations who are the creditors of the loan) and challenge the legality of
the loan in each court individually. They, on the other hand, can sale
the loan to another country.

They have asked that all political parties in Greece accept the IMF and
EU loan as legal and that all political parties sign it, or else we will
not get the next payment. That is why they refuse to allow us to go to
elections. How can they stop us from having elections in our own
country? Well it is a term written in the loan agreement. Yet it is
illegal and there is no court in Europe or International that can uphold
such term. But our stupid sold out government has no guts.

Our system is parliamentarian, so we have a President of Democracy, who
is basically a person voted by all political parties in parliament, and
serves as a check and balance in our political system. If he resigns
the government gets dissolved as per our constitution. In the past week
he has refused to sign anything that has been voted from the Greek
parliament and the Government. We hope that he will do what is right
and resign. If he doesn't sign an agreement or a law that gets passed
in parliament, it doesn't come to effect.

Well, there are tons of things happening. It is crazy how people,
especially the youth, has mobilized. Even the church is starting to
come out for the protesters, although probably a political move to gain
sympathy and approval from the people.

I will write again soon with updates, there are a lot of things
happening and I cannot even begin to start elaborating on them. This
same movement is also going on in Portugal for the past 3 weeks, in
Spain for the past 2 weeks, and in Greece for a week now. It is
spreading now in France, Italy, England and other countries. Last
Sunday it happened all across Europe in dozens of European cities.
Millions of people came out on the streets and is now been organized for
the entire Europe.

This coming Sunday there will be a huge protest outside of the Greek
parliament where protesters will come from all over Greece. Look for
the government to possibly come out or escape via helicopters, like in
Argentina.

OUT OF THE IMF, EURO AND THE EU NOW.
DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOW!!!
lots of love and peace
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