Gutting Greece's Public Sector and Assets- A country up for sale...

 I.


via Adrian Boutureira

 AB News St Helena, July 1st, 2011   Following is an overview of the structural adjustments affecting the public sector demanded from the EU and the IMF in order for the Greek government to receive the bailout funding.   These cuts are part of a set of broader measures, including tax increases across the board, which aim to cut around 25,500 million euros and generate around 50,000 million in quick cash from privatizing state owned assets and resources:   The state will cut 125,000 public service jobs. That's around 25% of the total public employees work force.   Public employee salaries, which were recently cut by 12 % already, will see further cuts. (the total % yet undecided)   There will be several cuts in social services amounting to 4000 million euro through 2015, and additional 500 million in subsidies to state organisms, and another 855 million through the closing (they call it "merging") of public schools, hospitals, technical institutes, police stations, and other public institutions.   2,100 million more cut from prescription medicine assistance.   This year alone, 850 million in public investment projects have been frozen.   As the NATO country with the highest % of GNP invested in military expenditure, 4 %, military expenses will be reduced by 1,200 million euro through 2015, which is really insignificant, but where the military drew the line in their deal with this plan...After all, they are the caretakers of the capitalist's interests, so they can get messed with too much...   PRIVATIZATION Galore. Greece will be privately owned!    Perhaps worse of all, and I think what it was the IMF was after, the Greek government will sell to the highest bidder almost all the state's  profitable enterprises: The Lottery, several key ports, water plants of the two major cities, it's major bank, oil refineries, the electrical company, the airports, the highways,  mine exploitation rights, and public lands and other real state...mmmm, not much left of the national patrimony. Sounds like all national assets will be put in the auctioning block by 2015.    

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

II.

via Gaza Youth Breaks Out (GYBO)

The actions of the governments of Greece and England against the freedom flotilla and Sheikh Raed Salah show the level of collaboration among all countries [ruled by governments with a neo-liberal agenda] against Palestine and the pro Palestine activists. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

III.

via Muhammad A. Al Mahdi

The struggle continues in Greece. Greece, Middle-Eastern in economy and culture, finds herself in the merciless claws of European expansionism and is torn to pieces by it. The country's absorption into the European Union is the result of the ruling elite's betrayal of the national interests and stands in vivid contradiction to all realities on the ground. The price these elites are happily willing to pay for their economic advance is nothing less than the destruction of Greece, who is victimised to cover up the antagonistic contradictions intrinsic to the EU system, and degraded to the poorhouse of Europe in order to camouflage the bluff of the common European currency, which is based on funds that, for the greater part, simply do not exist. The single European currency is founded on speculation, as is the entire neo-liberal economy. This is why it cannot but collapse. 

To the eltites, this collapse will be the profit of the century. To the people, who are meant to pay for it, it is the end of their existence.

In the motherland of democracy, an entire population has been coerced into a straightjacket they reject and popular protests are suppressed with the utmost brutality. But we know that the freedom-loving people of Greece shall not bow to the whip of tyranny, and we know that their great and ancient culture is resilient to the assaults of this barbarism stripped of all values and ruling by destruction alone.

Brothers and sister in the land that is the doorstep to the East, sons and daughters of Hellenic civilisation, know that your call for liberation is echoed by the Middle East's insurgents. The breaking of your chain is the breaking of our chain too. Know that your struggle is the struggle of all revolutionary classes the world over, for our cause is one and the same. Humanity shall not be enslaved and the East shall not be conquered. Down with the EU! Down with its merciless yoke! For a united Middle East! For global unity in the global struggle for justice!