Posted on 02/12/2012 12:53:20 PM PST by NormsRevenge
ATHENS (Reuters) - Historic cinemas, cafes and shops went up in flames in central Athens on Sunday as black-masked protesters fought Greek police outside parliament, while inside lawmakers looked set to defy the public rage by endorsing a new EU/IMF austerity deal.
As parliament prepared to vote on a new 130 billion euro bailout to save Greece from a messy bankruptcy, a Reuters photographer saw the buildings engulfed in flames and huge plumes of smoke rose in the night sky.
The air over Syntagma Square outside parliament was thick with tear gas as riot police fought running battles with youths who smashed marble balustrades and hurled stones and petrol bombs.
Government officials warned that Greeks faced "unimaginably harsher" sacrifices if parliament rejected the package, which demands deep pay, pension and job cuts, when it votes later in the evening.
But on the streets many businesses were ablaze, including the neo-classical home to the Attikon cinema dating from 1870 and a building housing the Asty, an underground cinema used by the Gestapo during World War Two as a torture chamber.
As fighting raged for hours, protesters threw homemade bombs made from gas canisters as riot police advanced across the square on the crowds, firing tear gas and stun grenades. Loud booms from the protests could be heard inside parliament.
"Tear gas has reached the parliament chamber," said leftist lawmaker Panagiotis Lafazanis.
After days of dire warnings and threats of rebellion, parliament began debating a bill setting out 3.3 billion euros ($4.4 billion) in wage, pension and job cuts this year alone, to secure funds Greece needs to avoid bankruptcy next month.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
To paraphrase James Brown:
“Coming to America... block by block... burn the nation”
LLS
Everybody’s hurting economically so what do they do. They destroy assets. Makes as much sense as anything else done in Greece I suppose!
The best way to help these people is to do nothing.
Let it collapse around them, let them reap the fruits of their socialism.
The survivors might have learned what not to do as they rebuild.
-——The Greek problems are so sad. However, their present mess is our future mess.——
Not if we act now to reign in the debt and start growing the economy again....
It will take some hard decisions that will affect millions of people to make them became part of the productive class rather than the parasite class...
Of course that is as likely to happen as Ron Paul becoming POTUS
California preview...
It looks like Greece could make a big step just by cutting his meal allowance!
Who’s Fatty Arbuckle?
When entitlement zombies come face to face with reality...
“to make them became part of the productive class”
Good luck with that.
You can’t make someone productive.
Gimme gimme gimme and make someone else pay for it. When you don’t get what you want, riot. This is the end result of an active program of government dependence.
He's already gotten his pie.
——You cant make someone productive.——
I think you can if given the right incentive like given the choice between eating and starving ....can motivate one in the right direction....
I would think most people would rather work than starve .....but than that would make me a mean spirited evil rethug....with no compassion for the “victimhood” mentality.... / s
And, as is typical of Communism/Socialism...he will salt his own fields.
They all have it...only their brainwashing has neutralized it!
Reichstag fire?
-——You cant make someone productive.-——
of course you can.
You can give a typist an IBM Selectric and then a word processor. You can give a tire changer an air ratchet. You can give a carpenter a circular saw and an air nailer . You can give a grave digger a back hoe You can give a small contractor an I phone
Italy will make these riots look like your average Saturday night football hooligan riot.
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