Sadly, it's a familiar story. The most powerful 30 or so families in Greece have drastically augmented their wealth in the last couple decades. Due to deregulation and whatnot, they bought up most of the nation's mass media in order to influence the mainstream population into supporting their agenda. In addition, they of course bought politicians, especially from Papandreou's opposition: the more conservative New Democracy party. Papandreou's PASOK socialist party is also infiltrated with pro-rich stooges, who along with the conservatives have fought Papandreou's tax reform efforts to curtail evasion by the rich (twisting the issue as Papandreou wanting to put the squeeze on all Greeks). And as Papandreou is now trying to do right for the country and not just serving the oligarchs or EU powers, he will soon be out of a job and probably replaced by a company man.
As with the US deficit debate, a Greek solution has to include some cuts and some new revenues. In both nations, the rich are waging a propaganda war to block tax reform, claiming the usual nonsense that it will "kill jobs and hurt the hard-working small business owner," when really they're just looking after their own finances at the expense of the 99%. But if the rich in Greece paid their fair share, LITERALLY they would not have a fiscal crisis in the long term. Though as we've discussed, it's a structural problem and they've dug such a hole for themselves now that it's probably too late to avoid default, even if evasion was magically eradicated.
Bottom line, the riots aren't the problem, and "bloated public sector pay & services" isn't either. They are red herrings of the underlying breakdown in the social contract between citizens and government. Some say you can't blame the rich for all our problems, but in Greece's case it's fairly accurate. If the rich believed in good government, they have to power to put the people in place to make it happen. But they prosper from dysfunction, injustice, and lack of accountability, so that's what the people get. The Greek case should be a major warning to Americans, but unfortunately many Americans can't locate Greece on a map (I admit that I've been following only recently). We keep hearing from US leaders and pundits that "we're not Greece," implying that we exhibit some of their problems but we're inherently better able to solve them, because we're Americans. I'm not so sure anymore. It most certainly is class warfare there and here, except it's the rich who have declared war on the rest, and they're winning and pressing their advantage. Knowing this, who's crazier: the folks rioting in the streets, or those who stay home and just accept it?
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