Views on the Greece Riots

[Clogz]

Read this (especially if you don't know much about the whole thing):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_riots

What does everyone think of what happened there?

What personally bothers me is that alot of things the Greek people are angry about are the same problems that are affecting everyone around the world. I'm wondering if people in the United States would actually revolt if things got bad enough.

 

[GraDoN]

they are just rebellious kids that hate the word and they are just looking for a excuse to break things. Funny enough they are the people that make the hot dogs and fry the chips later on in life.

 

[Clogz]

Really? Because many of these young people were university students...I think they are striving higher than burger flipping if they are spending money on higher education.

 

[GraDoN]

ok fair enough but still... how does breaking everything and causing anarchy put the spotlight on the killing of a teenager? I mean that takes the spotlight away from the police killing and makes it go to the background. The focus is on them tearing down the city. If they really cared about the boy that was killed the protests would be peaceful.

How on earth does a rational person think that causing anarchy justifies what happened? I really dont understand the youth in Europe and in the US. Not that im stereotyping or anything.

 

[Hazi[LP]Tonz]

university kids have always been at the centre of any anarchy, nay, revolutions

yes we may see it as stupid that these kids are just running around destroying hay, nay and may

but if u break down what anarchy is, its the breaking down of an entire system, these kids werent just on a hormone driven breaking spree, they were looking for more, they were looking to bring down
an entire system they felt was unfair and unjust

the french and russian revolutions were particulary bloody affairs

if you break down what they did, they were looking to unsettle and unseat the police system, and organised protests and rallies were never going to achieve that

 

[GraDoN]

and that is the right thing to do?
if i dont like the way my mom handled something ill burn down the house, that will teach her!

 

[woodyloveslinkin]

It's like the Macquarie Fields riots/the Cronulla riots that happened here. People like to abuse their fundalmental right of freedom of speech. But somewhat the Cronulla riots where a bit different because it was instigated by racial hatred of the lebanese and muslim community of Cronulla here in Australia. But somewhat the Macquarie Fields are more like the Greek ones that are happening now - they both were sparked by a controversial death of an individual (but that set off a chain reaction of events within itself as well).

As it was said before, yes, university students have always been the centre of attention as they always seem to instigate riots. Happened with Vietnam. I don't remember what university it was, back in those days, but there was a bloody massacre of university students being slaughtered by police when they had protested against the war in Vietnam.

With freedom of speech comes opportunists who seek to abuse that special quality developed countries like Greece, America, and Australia have because we're not under a communistic/autocrastic rule and we have a say in things - it's called a democracy. No its not right that we abuse such a rich and grateful thing, but we have it, anyway and we may as well use it if we feel something's not right.

 

[crazy robster]

Ok, being Greek and living these riots first hand (well, not too first-hand, I wasn't IN the mob of enraged asses who were running around breaking everything) I have to tell you that the thing is simply this: Since the specific government was elected there have been numerous attempts by the rest of the opposition to overthrow it. And by attempts I mean that they tried and dug up all kinds of political, religious etc scandals, even fake ones, in order to tarnish the image of the government, especially the Prime Minister. I'm not saying the government is flawless, but those scandals still existed many years ago, why didn't anyone say anything about them whan the leaders were different? So, now, taking advantage of the tragic incident, namely the 15-year-old student's death, the leftists found the perfect opportunity to stirr things up and started urging their followers to fight in order to eliminate the "government of killers" as they typically say. There have been rumours too that the eye witnesses who testified that the policeman aimed directly at the kid to deliberately kill him were all paid to say it. But that was concealed of course and no one paid attention. As for the students... It's not the student's fault guys, the problem is that students always start peaceful demonstrations and then a bunch of anarchists with stockings and hoods and makeshift bombs and weapons mingle with them and find the opportunity to break, burn and just cause chaos. Because it's chaos they seek..not justice... But who can say anything? The plot is so well-set that now the police are collectively bastards and fascists who go around killing people. I'm just saying this. During the time the anarchists went around destroying innocent people's property the police had orders not to touch anyone cause then everything would get worse. Their hands were tied, they were just standing there watching some lunatics burning the cities and were unable to protect us!! Is that democracy? Who's the fascist now?? I'm sorry but I'm terribly ashamed of us as a nation right now. This isn't fighting for a better world...this is called taking advantage of innocent victims to benefit politically and in other despicable ways...

 

[Friðbjörn]

I havent read all this thread and I dont know all the info on this situation so this reply is theoretical more than anything.

I think extreme damage of property and chaos and anarchy in the streets can be justified like here in my country where the government is basically ****ing the people over, staying in power and then saying they're gonna fix it. when the government by for example their financial actions are doing more damage to society and people than a bunch of riots then go for it by all means. and Im talking about rioting without threatening innocent lives. if its extreme enough to kill someone then stop. that would be just nonsense.
however stuff such as stopping transportation is justifiable if attention needs to be drawn to extreme injustices

 

[Hazi[LP]Tonz]

^ thats the "theory" behind anarchism, take away the marauding hordes of mindless idiots and the idea behind instigating anarchy is to overthrow the current system, to destabilise it, like i alluded to, these peope were trying to destablise the police forces and stability of the government. these things happen


@gradon, mate, not the same thing...not the same thing AT ALL

its more along the lines of, whenever u were a child and ur mum made u do something u didnt want ud throw a kiddy tantrum, thats what its more like, because after some "punishment" or time out, you;d return to normal, the greece riots may have disrupted the place, but they return to normal, they still had a city, they didnt burn the entire place down...

 

[Sygy]

I havent read all this thread and I dont know all the info on this situation so this reply is theoretical more than anything.

I think extreme damage of property and chaos and anarchy in the streets can be justified like here in my country where the government is basically ****ing the people over, staying in power and then saying they're gonna fix it. when the government by for example their financial actions are doing more damage to society and people than a bunch of riots then go for it by all means. and Im talking about rioting without threatening innocent lives. if its extreme enough to kill someone then stop. that would be just nonsense.
however stuff such as stopping transportation is justifiable if attention needs to be drawn to extreme injustices

ergghhh the whole ideology doesnt sit to well with me...it is almost contradictory in itself..
sorry to repeat, but i do think that sometime situations are so dire that action does need to be taken but rioting is certainly not then way to do it as you take all the negative attention from what you were protesting about and placing it on yourself, dont try and work against society try to work with it, being consential surely means that any process is lenghtly but altimatly it leads to a better result...but then again, maybe im too idealistic

 

[Hazi[LP]Tonz]

you could say idealism is the way to go, but by working with society, it takes way too long for anything to change, think about how governments work now, when it comes to policy changes, it takes ALOT of red tape to get ANYTHING going, thats nto even considering the people who want to keep things the way they are for personal gain. Sometimes it takes something drastic and quick to change things, sometimes rioting/revolting/destabilising a system is what is required to change things

i get that its a barren thing to do, a rush of blood to destroy everything, but it does depend, we look at the French and Russian revolutions for instance, things needed to be changed quickly, any time we have riots of any magnitude, we just hafto look at the length of time that this occured, the fact that the riots are over and not much has changed meant that wha happened was deemed wrong, that the situation wasnt as drastic as say the revolutions, where anarchy continued til everything changed

 

[Clogz]

I havent read all this thread and I dont know all the info on this situation so this reply is theoretical more than anything.

I think extreme damage of property and chaos and anarchy in the streets can be justified like here in my country where the government is basically ****ing the people over, staying in power and then saying they're gonna fix it. when the government by for example their financial actions are doing more damage to society and people than a bunch of riots then go for it by all means. and Im talking about rioting without threatening innocent lives. if its extreme enough to kill someone then stop. that would be just nonsense.
however stuff such as stopping transportation is justifiable if attention needs to be drawn to extreme injustices

Underlined - That's almost the exact reasoning behind the American Revolution, verbatim. Just thought I would point that out for the sake of argument...cause this business obviously got some changes made on our soil!

 

[Hazi[LP]Tonz]

not to mention russian and french revolutions were bloody affairs, yet we look on them as revolutionaries and heroes who took their countries out of dark times, it doesnt hafta be blood free to be effective...

 

[Clogz]

not to mention russian and french revolutions were bloody affairs, yet we look on them as revolutionaries and heroes who took their countries out of dark times, it doesnt hafta be blood free to be effective...

I'm confused as to what you are saying here. It is worded strangely.