Greece Gripped with Riots? What Riots?

The War Nerd / December 11, 2008

By Gary Brecher

Greece was supposedly “gripped” with big scary riots this week. I love that TV talk, “gripped.” Was it a firm, manly grip? I don’t think so, actually. People throw words like “riot” around pretty easily, and these were about the wimpiest excuse for urban violence I’ve ever seen. They may have been enough to grip Greece, but that’s not saying much. Around here we call that sort of stuff “Spring Break” and kids drive hundreds of miles to join in.

There was one casualty, a 15-year old shot by a cop. This is supposed to be a tragedy. Well, lemme tell you worn-out old Europeans something: 15-year old boys are supposed to get killed. That’s why they do everything they do, from skiing for the rich whites to packing a 9mm in Compton. That’s why they’ll do anything to get the money for a big honkin’ motorcycle, because you can kill yourself with one of those things. If you’re lucky, that is; guy in my high school wasn’t lucky, hit a retaining wall just hard enough to scramble his brains but not stop his heart. As far as I know he’s still in some longterm care ward getting rotated twice a day.

Boys are supposed to go out headhunting on the next village. They talk about these troubled ghetto kids shooting each other like it’s wrong. It’s not wrong in the first place. They’re the only normal kids around. They’re doing what 15-year old boys are supposed to do. People wonder why girls hang around with them, but I’ll tell you, the last time I had to go see a movie with my relatives, which seemed like a better idea than trying to make conversation, the compromise nominee was something called Gross Point Blank, with John Cusack, every girl’s dream, and the whole point of the movie was that he was the only sexy guy in town—because he was a professional hit man and had about a thousand scalps on his belt. Every woman in the theater is going gooey for his character and an hour later they’re watching the news from South Central going, “Ooh, it’s such a tragedy, it must be society’s fault….” What fault?

The only fault is places like modern Europe where there is no frickin’ way for a kid to be a kid, to quote Chuck E. Cheese. So in places like Greece kids have to pretend there’s some Lefty “cause” to get riled about, when the only thing going on in Greece now is ripping off the tourists. And then they march out in the streets and play soldier, only they hide it with Commie patter like Baader Meinhof, the last real Germans, had to do. And they have this wimpy so-called riot where the only kid to die was, they just announced, killed by a ricochet. Not even aimed fire. Damn, that would bring me down more than anything if I was a Greek kid looking for a little blood and excitement for once: “They won’t even aim at us!”

If you want real riots, for serious people, go to South Africa. Watch footage of a riot there, or in Somalia, and you’ll see serious grownups moving at full speed, cougar speed, in big groups that leak blood when they collide into each other. Or Korea, even Japan in the 1980s, where the rioters showed up with better armor than the cops, padded from helmet to shin guard and toting serious weaponry. That’s a riot. What you’ve got in Greece is just sad, just a desperate bunch of kids who don’t even realize what they’re doing, what they really want. A decent government would give them someplace to take those hormones, like turning Izmir back into Smyrna. But that won’t happen. The phonies on TV will tell you suckers the riots are a “symptom” of something wrong. Which is true, but the riots are the last gasp of sanity, and the “peace” they’re interrupting is the real problem.

Gary Brecher is the author of the War Nerd. Send your comments to brecher@exiledonline.com.

Click the cover, buy the book!

54 Comments

Add your own

1. Cyclo | December 11th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Actually, I wouldn’t take the laughable “ricochet” theory at face value – it’s just crap coming from the cop’s attorney.
Everyone in the area saw it happen, and they all say the cop aimed right for him.
2. Fido Dido | December 11th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
And the little shit deserved it. I’d have shot him and his university pals dead were they chucking rocks at me.
3. LatexSolarBeef | December 11th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Is that’s why you’re a garbage man, instead of a cop?
4. RanDomino | December 11th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Which is true, but the riots are the last gasp of sanity, and the “peace” they’re interrupting is the real problem.
Word the fuck up.
5. Big Gay Al Qaeda | December 11th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I know exactly what the War Nerd is talking about.
Last year, I went on a similar riot in Berlin Friedrichshain, Germany. A huge crowd of “Antifa” protesters showed up to protest an attemted Nazi attack. I walked with them for a few miles. The scene was exactly like the Athens videos. I knew the danger to my life was close to zero. Lots of drunken punks. No real attackers, and the next day all was forgotten (as they prepared for the next “attack”).
As the War Nerd says, if I want to see real macho men attack, I will go to South Africa. Otherwise I’ll settle for football.
6. Eddie | December 11th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
It would be unwise to underestimate the will and inclinations of Europeans for violence. We are not big on pointless violence and we have lost the need of fighting each other. That is all true, but when the conditions are right and the perceived cause worthy we can organize mayhem on a scale magnitudes greater than any other continent. I think we have proved that beyond any reasonable doubt. What is missing is the motive. I don’t see a good one in the near future.
7. sr | December 11th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I always love watching footage of South Korean rioters. They put on a show over every little issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcKv_xneJWw
8. Steve M | December 11th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Yeah, the whole point of civilization is that you spend a couple of generations in more-or-less peace, then indulge in all-out universal ultraviolence for a few years, then wail and lament for a bit, pick up the pieces, and start all over again. None of this wimpy Somalia and South Africa low level violence nonsense.
9. frank cobain | December 11th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I love the picture to this column. Call it Riot chic. It’ll be all the rage in Paris next season: Che shirts, keffiyehs and burning rubble.
10. UselessSpace | December 11th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Poseur Alert – Orange.
What was Gary Brecher doing at 15?
11. goat_farmers_of_the_CIA | December 11th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Normally the BBC and the other usual providers of Atlanticist pablum ignore long term (half a century at least) historical context, but I think their mention of a long history of extreme left violence and its connection to the Generals’ coup in the mid 70’s (I think it was portrayed by Costa-Gavra’s Z) hits the nail on the head. Beginners or not at rioting, a lot of people are pissed at being led up the garden path by the same phony centrist conservatives or third way socialists. Reason begs they get their way – a govt that does what they want. Something else demands an inept attempt by the current idiot government to crush the rioters with the army, resulting in a bloodbath that only brings more violence and drags Europe back (are you sure it wouldn’t be progress of some kind?) into the Good Old Days. Wouldn’t that be more fun than soccer?
12. goat_farmers_of_the_CIA | December 11th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
BTW, I bet you that pretty girl on the photo was one of the rioters – she looks pretty Greek to me.
13. bill | December 11th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
If you had researched the whole matter a little more than just reading cnn reports you’d know that what you’re writing is actually the right-wing propaganda which is way too stupid to be played here in Greece. In fact your article could very easily be published in the Greek far-right papers (maybe you should mail it to them – they’d be pleased).
Kid was murdered in cold blood and (thankfully) there are many proofs for that. Cynicism (I take your style to be of that kind) is not at least welcome even if in your country killing 15-year old kids is considered “normal” by you or your compatriots.
Also this whole riot wasn’t about just that murder but a series of police violence and a right-wing (neoliberal) policy that has brought 1/5 of the Greeks under the poverty line.
One last thing. I _used_ to read exiled because I thought it to be open minded and progressive and punctual (meaning bothered to research the matter at hand a little bit better). I should know better.
14. tikitu | December 12th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Setting aside the inflammatory bullshit, you’re flat-out wrong about one (rather important) fact. “And they have this wimpy so-called riot where the only kid to die was, they just announced, killed by a ricochet.” The kid didn’t die in a “so-called riot”, his death was during what is typically called a “clash” (as in “police clashed with protesters again yesterday…”) and set off the rioting. Wikipedia calls it a “minor verbal clash”, and even those claiming the officer shot him in self-defence aren’t calling that a riot.
What people are calling “rioting” is the events that followed: buildings and cars set on fire, and burning barricades in the streets.
15. Yan | December 12th, 2008 at 3:44 am
Dear War nerd,
If you could read greek, and I don’t blame you for not doing so, you could have known a couple of days ago that the coroner that examined the kid gave an interview dismissing the ricochet theory altogether. Apparently, and I’m freely translating, the bullet entered in an up-down trajectory piercing his heart and logging itself in the 10th vertebrae…that’s, according to the coroner, why the bullet was crushed.
In any case, you have to remember that winter in Greece is pretty boring…everybody pretty much waits for the summer to come and spend all their yearly savings in a month-long alcohol and drug infused binge of foreign girl fornication.
A “riot” (also a favorite pastime of the greeks, along with ripping off tourists) is the perfect december activity.
16. Tam | December 12th, 2008 at 5:08 am
‘John Cusack, every girl’s dream, and the whole point of the movie was that he was the only sexy guy in town—because he was a professional hit man and had about a thousand scalps on his belt.’
Rubbish. Most women would happily watch John Cusack spending a couple of hours playing with kittens. The hitman schtick was a hook to get their relunctant boyfriends to come to the cinema too.
17. P2O2 | December 12th, 2008 at 5:39 am
@bill
1) I wonder what do you think the so called right-wing (neoliberals) means. In Europe “far-right” calls are used to describe National-SOCIALISTs (new-talk from 1984 book). Normally, “right” means conservative (in good meaning of the word – church, family, God), and “left” means “progressive”, commy, and socialist.
2) “right-wing policy” isn’t bad in normal circumstances. Greece entered so called YevroSoyuz (Europe Union) which is fascist AND socialist in nature. Why do you whine then now, that you(?) and Greeks live in socialist megastate in which misery is oversupplied and in abundance with wealth belonging to a few? EVERY socialist state will lead to redistribution of misery NOT wealth.
3) Police is to protect and to kill.
Every “rioter” should hear from loud-speakers to disperse peacefully or you’d be shot. People have brains, against the animals. So when the rioters are starting to destroy private property they shoud be shot at with live ammunition. That would be human deal and humane treatment of a MAN.
Alas, the Western society are so pervert now and brainwashed by media they do not see what’s wrong or good.
Did you Greeks want to live in Ein Reich, Ein Furer, Ein EURO, then why do you protest or riots against it now? You knew well in advance that bringing EURO would make you paupers? Were you blind, deaf, and dumb?
Long live YevroSoyuz or UESR (Union of Europe Socialist Republics)!
Regards
18. Lance | December 12th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Want a better idea of what’s up with the rioters? Want to see what is basically the only real coverage of what is happening? Vice magazine is the place to go. Check this shit out:
http://vice.typepad.com/vice_magazine/2008/12/athens—riot-o.html
http://vice.typepad.com/vice_magazine/2008/12/greece—inside.html
19. Baked Dr. Luny | December 12th, 2008 at 8:24 am
So Gary it looks like the Somalis are getting ready for the Ethiopian withdrawl.
(link)http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7779525.stm(/link)
20. Rubino | December 12th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Gross Point Blank came out 12 years ago. What have you been doing all this time? If that is your best movie metaphore for this article (and I hesitate to call it an article) clearly you have not spent the past decade improving your researching and writing skills.
And “15 year old boys are supposed to get killed…” Really? Good bye Exiled RSS feed…
21. goat_farmers_of_the_CIA | December 12th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Comrade P2O2, given that you prefer a more equal society (per point 2), but at the same time favor order (point 3) and the supremacy of tradition and religion over liberal social engineering and moral free for all, what kind of government is your ideal one? Fascism is associated with the imposition of a particular kind of totalitarian order through the state’s monopoly of violence. You admit that the EU in its bureaucratic obsession with regulation (another kind of order) comes close to that. Yet at the very start of your comment (point 1) you favor just another kind of totalitarianism: that of tradition. Could you please make some sense out of this spaghetti? Or is it that you want to have your cake and eat it?
22. P2O2 | December 12th, 2008 at 11:10 am
@21
Giving that the tradition is another sort of totaliarinism for you we should stop the discussion here. But… one saved soul is worth the effort. 😉
Point 2. Any state is “rich” with the richness of their citizens. Not by the number of zeros in its budget account. Budget is nothing more and nothing less than money stolen from state’s citizens pockets. You read that second point of mine wrongly.
Any nation should adhere to its tradition. That makes the nations richer spiritually. Money without guidence in life if worth a shit. The best guidence offers tradition.
You asked about the best kind of government.
First, only an owner knows better what is good for his business. A state never. Second, any piece of economy which depends to bureaucratic decisions leads to corruption.
So, the best managers are owners. Only enlighten monarchy is the best form of governing. Nothing better was ever invented. Thru history of mankind.
So called “democracy” has one internal and unremovable flaw. It is “de facto” and “de jure” a dictatorship of voters. And most of the voters do not understand what they are really voting for.
A king as an owner of his property cannot be wrong if he is not stupid and want his kingdom flourished (which owner wants his “business” destroyed). Voters can be easily manipulated by media.
Regards
23. RanDomino | December 12th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
from a communique of students occupying an Athens university
“Power (from the government to the family) aims not simply to repress the insurrection and its generalisation, but to produce a relation of subjectivation. A relation that defines bios, that is political life, as a sphere of cooperation, compromise and consensus. “Politics is the politics of consensus; the rest is gang-war, riots, chaos”. This is a true translation of what they are telling us, of their effort to deny the living core of every action, and to separate and isolate us from what we can do: not to unite the two into one, but to rupture again and again the one into two. The mandarins of harmony, the barons of peace and quiet, law and order, call on us to become dialectic. But those tricks are desperately old, and their misery is transparent in the fat bellies of the trade-union bosses, in the washed-out eyes of the intermediaries, who like vultures perch over every negation, over every passion for the real.”
The War Nerd hit the nail on the head with “the “peace” they’re interrupting is the real problem” and I don’t think even he, the author of that statement, realizes how fundamentally.
24. Paul | December 12th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
good macro social analysis. Chicks lust after an alpha. So the boys push the limits attempting to be the alpha, in order to get the chicks, etc. The struggle to be alpha dog can be risky in terms of life and limb. Hence the fact that women live longer than men …
25. Guy | December 12th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
That communique is hilarious. Same old overwritten, romantic-poet shit. George Orwell would spew. All those communiques (what a word, hilarious retro-Soviet chic) are like bad fucking poetry, left wing style.
Just check the Vice stuff: kids posing for crappy photos wearing their best anarchist poseur clothes destroying stuff that doesn’t really matter.
26. zealot | December 12th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
garry’s recent articles are beginnig to dissapoint. i’d preffer if they came less often, but were better researched. it is annoying when i, a total amateur, see holes and pointless gibberish in articles of someone i consider a semi-pro. i deliberatly omit specifics here cause i don’t feel like arguing. if garry can do shity job of it, so can i.
27. Kelly | December 12th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Nothing tops the Narita Airport riots of 1978
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=view&id=171&Itemid=115&bandwidth=low
28. Moo | December 12th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Point 1: Observing that peace makes people miserable is all well and good, but it’s not as if there’s an alternative available. The advent of nuclear weapons has made real, serious, world-changing warfare impossible. So it’s either
(1) be peaceful,
(2) be poor, or
(3) colonize space.
Unless you’re willing to move to a third word country (or a Western ghetto) and be #2, or have a suggestion for how to achieve #3, it’s sort of petulant to be complaining about #1.
————————-
Point 2: (re P202)
“…when the rioters are starting to destroy private property they should be shot at with live ammunition. That would be human deal and humane treatment of a MAN…”
“…only enlighten monarchy is the best form of governing…”
Scratch a libertarian, find a nostalgic sentimentalist.
29. Manny the Mooch | December 12th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Them itchy Greek kids could go to Iraq. If they’re nationalistic, pretend to be Kurdish and join the PKK.
30. zealot | December 13th, 2008 at 9:46 am
@ moo:about point 3, for interesting reading go to (http://space.mike-combs.com/) and (http://ssi.org/)
it could actually be done, with presently available technology. might be too late, tho, as we are entering TEOTWAWKI. you don’t have to move to achieve no 2, just stay where you are and wait. by 2010 you should have all the rioting & blodshed you ever wanted. goes for garry too, i wander how he’ll react when the real deal happens on his doorstep.
31. RPG Cunthair | December 13th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Lemme tell you mofo’s something. You haven’t lived until you have rioted. I used to seek them out and try to get on the side that got beat. Jeezus.
32. totalesturns | December 13th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
@28: “Unless you’re willing to move to a third word country (or a Western ghetto) and be #2…”
For jaded Westerners from good backgrounds, this is a viable option. Why else would Vice Magazine be publishing riot coverage?
A few weeks ago the New York Times Sunday Magazine (retch) ran a feature about a straight-outta-_Lebowski_ German eurotrash artist who started a nightclub in Kinshasa, because it was so much more authentic and edgy than anything Europe could offer.
Let’s hope Lufthansa cancels outbound service when the next crop of rebels takes the city. Nothing says “edgy” like a rusty panga.
33. GK | December 13th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Gary,
stop posting daily. The quality is going down. Once a week is good enough, and put some more thought in it.
You’re the WAR nerd. Not RIOT nerd, or CIVIL UNREST nerd.
This one was lame.
34. T.A.H. | December 13th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
“like Baader Meinhof, the last real Germans”
Are you kidding me? Those jackass kids with the depressed journalist? I know you spend most of your time being sensationalist because it is funny (and safe behind your nom de plume) but calling those confused fascists the last “real Germans” is just freaking confusing.
Oh, and the article overall was kind of weak. Stop replaying your “15-year-old-as-tribal-warrior” thesis. It’s getting tired.
35. Moo | December 14th, 2008 at 12:41 am
@T.A.H.
“…I know you spend most of your time being sensationalist because it is funny (and safe behind your nom de plume)…”
You do realize that his name is printed directly under the title of the column, yes?
36. Cuban_from_Miami | December 14th, 2008 at 1:42 am
These Greek kids should try to make Istanbul back into Constantinople again.
Baader-Meinhof had a cool run. But they turned soft as they aged. They became just a bunch of tree-huggers and not trigger-pullers anymore.
37. Plamen Petkov | December 14th, 2008 at 6:46 am
ohh, boy, did you get it wrong this time. A major correction:
the 15 years old boy IS the cause of the riots, he is NOT the “one casualty” as you put it. He was shot by a cop at a point blank range and the corporate owned media claims it was “ricochet”. That’s why people began rioting but now it has become much more: banks are being torched. I live next door in Bulgaria so I DO know what Im talking about.
Obviously your coprporate owned media doesnt give you the facts right. And Im rather surprised, that YOU of all people who seem to research your facts WELL before writing an article failed so hard this time.
Therefore, your diatribe abut Compton and shitty American movies WAS a total waste of time.
Whats worse, this makes me suspect how well you actually DO research your other articles you write. Gonna take your writing with big heap of salt from now on.
Too bad how much you failed.
38. Eye del Cul | December 14th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Nice troll, P2O2, nice troll…
I live in Spain, part of that “totalitarian” and “communist” EU. I don’t see any koljozes, sorry.
Go to Somalia. There you’ll have all the freedom you want. I, for one, wellcome our new European overlords… I can exchange happily some individual freedom for a functional society.
39. surething | December 15th, 2008 at 1:04 am
God, it is such a bad idea to have a comments section on war nerd now. You’ve opened up a can of worms Gary.
You’re going to have two groups of idiots dominating the comments section. The outraged progressives (“OMG I CAN’T BELIEVE EXILE IS WRITING IN A REALIST STYLE. I’M GOING TO GO BURY MY HEAD IN LARGE CUP OF LATTE FOR A BIT AND GO READ STUFFWHITEPEOPLELIKE”).
And the “old school haters” (*SNORT* GARY THE TOPIC OF THIS COLUMN SUCKS. YOUR COLUMN LAST YEAR WAS SO MUCH BETTER. I HATE YOU).
The high quality of blog entries will continue, but the comments section will turn into boingboing.
40. bill | December 15th, 2008 at 4:10 am
@P2O2
I hope you get paid enough for doing right-wing propaganda on a global level. If not then I’m really sorry for you having all that messed up in your brain.
So, to explain it simply to you. It’s a bad thing that a few people take advantage of the other people. Any communist could explain why is so in a number of noncontroversial ways.
It’s also a bad thing to not see the actual role of police (any police) in capitalism (or any other oppressive system). Any Anarchist could explain that to you.
In Greece we had a period of extra-light socialism during the 80’s which is what gave the opportunity to lots of people to have a nice life. After that we’ve had liberalism (a nice name for shitty turbo-capitalism) which sent those people back to misery. Also simple to see if you care to look.
Far-right are called nationalist-socialists but whatever you call them they actually are far-right which means fascist capitalists by any way and they would happily reproduce “war nerd’s” article.
What’s happening in Greece is happening by people that have no serious prospects and they are many and they are many because of turbo-capitalism (under whatever name it may come to you). Those people have nothing to do with those ripping-off tourists. Too bad that “war nerd” never cared to distinguish between those two.
What’s happening to Greece is bound to happen to a lot of other countries that are bound to “globalization” (another fancy name for capitalism). If I were you I’d hope that it would be as little violent as it is in Greece but I’m afraid that it won’t, which in turn it will finally give the “war nerd” enough blood to keep him happy for years.
Like it or not, capitalism under globalization has bound all of us with the same problems. Either governments start to implement policies for their citizens or they continue by petting corporations and they get their own versions of the Greek riots or the Paris riots or their Somali pirates or …
41. surething | December 15th, 2008 at 6:12 am
Oh, god Bill. Will you progressives fuck off with your sense of holier-than-thou bullshit. Right wing blah blah blah. We all know the right suck, but don’t pretend for a second your “GOTTA BURN THE SYSTEM DOWN” progressive bullshit is above the moral fray.
You want a contemporary progressive left wing utopia?
Move to South Africa or Zimbabwe. Ubuntu my friend. It is a utopia for progressives like you. They’ll also greet people like you with a burnt tire necklace.
Go back to stuffwhitepeoplelike you fucking trendsetting trotskite bourgeoisie numbskull.
Goddamn, if isn’t neo-con authoritarian types ruining a thread, it’s authoritarian socialists like yourself.
42. surething | December 15th, 2008 at 6:23 am
Oh, and the bullshit about global capitalism logically entails riots is crap.
What infers riots and revolution is weak government. Read any sociological study of revolutions (start with Brinton’s Anatomy of Revolution).
A strong handed government that made quick and forceful decision would beat the piss through these teenagers and you wouldn’t have the riots to begin with, as they’d be pissing their superman underpants.
Stronger government I say, put Bill’s head on a stick.
43. Carpenter | December 15th, 2008 at 7:35 am
What the media don’t tell us is that the rioting “youth,” as the socialist propaganda machine calls them, are in fact communists and immigrants – the usual suspects, always ready to loot more stores and attack more innocent people. They are having a field day taking what they can, while the media owners in the West cover for them. Hopefully ordinary Greeks will learn something from this and organize to strike back against the extremist scum in the coming Depression, when hardship will wake up ordinary people. Your day as target practice is coming, commies!
44. zealot | December 15th, 2008 at 8:52 am
@bill: why do you bother? arguing with these guys never made any sense, just look at the tribal grunts you elicited in response. they are beyond argument.
these guys are:
right wing.
american.
the only way it makes sense to engage with them is with something heavy in your hand. otherwise, you’re wasting your time.
45. Anka | December 15th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Brecher’s Ignacius Riley of warfare routine is simply the Nth rendition of the Nietzsche-cum-Naechev elan for violence posture of facile middle class white boys. Brecher’s explanations of warfare and politics are oversimplified to the point of retardation. Brecher only seems smart compared to the fools on Fox. The old mole of class stuggle is re-awaking around the Globe. Riots in Greece. A factory is occupied in Chicago. Latin American trending distinctly pink. Globally, deflation is back with a vengence. Globally, Unemployment and Under employment are rising dramatically. The rate of profit is falling with no foreseeable avenue of restoration on the horizon. And the systemic gap between profit making and social usefulness continues to widen. But those Greek Communists, Trotskyists and Anarchists are fools who don’t know what the fuck they are doing. In contrast, Fat-fuck Gary the Gamer understands all….
46. Liquid | December 15th, 2008 at 11:58 am
During the french youth protests in may 68, Alex Kojève described the whole stuff as “un ruissellement de conneries”, something you could translate as ” massive bullshit rain drop”. Why? Cuz there’s no “riot”, nor “revolution” without massive loss of life.
How serious is Greece today? One death, and maybe accidental.
Looks like you once again painted the picture right: what riots??? WTF??
47. Greeks suck ass | December 15th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Gary Brecher is right on the motherfucking pimple about greeks masquerading everything with ideology to strip it from its moral faults. Morality always goes in the background when greeks collide against each other and ideology explains and excuses everything.
There are no real riots. Athens counts 5.000.000 citizens and those out on the streets were hardly 20.000, most of them students protesting the death of an innocent kid, having no political agenda whatsoever except the one brought upon them by their self-appointed saviours… the left (each one of the many fractions) and the dumb drama-chasing media.
It’s just a public outburst after a serious police-violence tragedy which everybody seeks to exploit their own way, according to their own agendas. But when the storm cools off, the shit and the empty bottles will hit the surface.
Revolution is the trend and rage is the style. Fuck ’em all left and right.
48. Mark | December 16th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Seconding the recommendation of South Korea for awesome riot footage. People forget that a lot of the so-called “liberal democracies” of East Asia were actually right or left-wing police states until the 80s.
As for Greece, it must be tough being part of a culture that peaked in the 4th Century BC under a bisexual Macedonian military dictator. The place has never had any redeeming features since, what, the five seconds of history in which the Byzantine Empire was actually cool and not a pathetic joke? Like the Serbs, their national identity is based off a tradition of getting their asses handed to them by better-organized Turks. And the Slavs, and the Bulgars, and the Arabs, and the Sicilians, and the Doge of Venice, etc.
49. Mark Smith | March 25th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
actually, most of the people active in the social movement in greece are adults, not “kids”. or that’s what i heard, anyway. i never have the balls to go anywhere, i just love leaving angry anonymous comments, trying to sound like i know what i’m talking about.
50. Mark Smith | March 26th, 2009 at 5:09 am
actually, i did go there myself and talked to a lot of people there. you should being hypocritical, go there yourself and find out what’s actually happening.
and stop hiding people’s comments, that expose as a fraud who knows fuck all and likes hating on “kids” that actually go out and do things, because you’re afraid to dream of a better world.
51. Mark Smith | March 26th, 2009 at 5:39 am
by the way, the people there are not “Leftists”. most of them have no political affiliation; some of them are anarchists (Greece has a long tradition of anarchism). they are against “the Left” as you mean it; they’ve been occupying trade union offices for fuck’s sake.
52. SA | April 17th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Oops, I think everyone that attacks Garry should calm down and get off the high horse. The chap wrote an article probably lightly researched about the background and the social environment in modern Greece, because as far as I understood, his main goal is to compare the level of the violence, even violence within a riot in a European country say Greece with the violence that everyday are facing in the States with the gangs or otherwise, or how the people understand violence there.
Now, the way he goes about is quit satiristic, but I am surprising with the negative replies even from Greeks, after all, the greatest satirists where Greeks (see Aristophanes) and maybe the greatest talent of a satirist, is to bring out the positive side (the laugh) out from the pain, out from the disaster, see “Life is Beautiful” by Benigni.
The other point to refer to is the actual anarchistic style and ethic that goes amongst the youths in Greece. I am Greek my self in my 40s but even back in my teenage years going school in Athens we had such groups calling themselves anarchists or fighters against the “system” (seems now is more popular), they were kinds mainly from deprived families or worst from upper high class, having illusions about life and order, instead of sitting down and doing something useful in their life. You know something, working class kids, kids that had to work for their bread, have never been anarchists; I bet you that even now that is the case.
And continue with the point that Garry made, that the only thing going on in Greece is ripping off the tourists, I have to agree is true. If all of those kinds who call themselves anarchists, or socialists, or even capitalists, from my generation up to now had taken life seriously, today Greece wouldn’t rely only on Tourism. Greece would be politically and economically more powerful than is today. It would have the power to stop the European and American “friends” destroying the neighbour and friendly country Yugoslavia and destabilising Balkans, and moreover stopping of using its soil for it! It would have stop monkey states like FYROM to threaten its sovereignty and the most important it wouldn’t allow half of the Greek population in Cyprus to stay refuges forced out by the Ottoman (in attidute) Turkey for more than 30 years.
53. macedon | February 14th, 2010 at 3:11 am
you are not greek,but turkish orthodox cristian…..
you are expelled from Turkey….
why you did not respect your (Turkish) country?
shame of you….
if i am wrong…
then you knows about monkeys and bananas,because you are sub-saharan greek….
if they were not Germans and British romantics, you would be called Urum…Roma…Gypsy=Roma
Yugoslavia is only in your dreams….
54. joe | August 6th, 2013 at 10:41 am
Sure, the anarchists rioting are (were) just in it for the excitement. The whole trying to make their lives better thing, protesting outrageous excess, was (is) a poor pretense of an excuse for raging hormones. In another article, MR. Dolan will argue the opposite point– maybe more subtly. Have cakes and eat them.
But yet, this isn’t an analysis. This is a rehashing of the Rousseau vs. Hobbs nonsense, with Mr. Dolan shilling for the latter in this instance.
Things are simple: there are too many people, and somehow, the more people there are, the easier they are to control. A long time ago, society (with infinitely fewer people) was structured in such a way as to allow a frequent release of testosterone, AND a social organization which was free of hierarchy and fascism. You don’t like the prick leading your band, join the neighbors. Or kill the prick and take his place. You never get to be supreme leader when your weapons are identical to those of everyone else in the band.
Perhaps we can’t go back to that set up. Likely, we can’t change anything about the trajectory of our sick race. But I will agree with the much-maligned (admittedly rightly, often) Chris Hedges here: you don’t fight a tyrant because you think you can win, you fight them becasue it is the right thing to do.
After youth, comes adulthood– and it is the by far longer part of one’s life. It seems like the trick has been to deny people a childhood or a youth, and thus force them to remain stuck in these stages their whole life, never reaching adulthood. If they did, we might make some decisions and act on them. I don’t know– maybe we would, maybe not. We certainly won’t in the present condition, all we can think about is fucking and killing as Mr. Dolan insists. But, here we come to the main thing: Mr. Dolan thinks this is “human nature,” when really human nature, at least in these matters, is malleable. I’m pretty sure we would perceive a pre-contact north american hunter gatherer as an alien, and vice versa. They actually got to have an adulthood, we are condemned to die as children.
“A long time ago, they had wise men, which in a grave manner taught the people knowledge; but they are dead, and their wisdome is buried with them, and now men live a giddy life, in ignorance, till they are white headed, and though ripe in years, yet then they go without wisdome to their graves.”