[Griekenland] Another small story from Greece
L. - 12.02.2011 13:19
People in Greece are increasingly joining the disobedience movement of "Can't pay, won't pay", a revolutionary act of ordinary people with great importance!
Following the recent flow of small articles about Greece in indymedia.nl, it is interesting to present another movement that is growing in Greece, that of the disobedience to pay road-tolls and public transportation tickets. The movement is called "Can't pay, won't pay" and it grows over the last year, including by now over the 40% of the car drivers and public transport users.
The road-tolls problem is a very good example of the corruption of the government and the robbery of the people's money by the capitalists. The national roads have been build by the government, and payed by the tax money collected from the people. However, upon completion of the construction, the maintenance is passed to private companies, who have the right to place tolls booths wherever they see fit and start collecting money, for a road that they do not own and they never payed for. Not surprisingly, most of these companies are owned by Mpompola, a media tycoon, the same one who wants to build the waste facilities in Keratea.
The people decided that they will not pay the continuously increasing tolls. The companies increase the fee every month to compensate for their loses, claiming that who ever passes without paying makes the next one to pay double the money, thus turning the people against each other. But that did not work, and now the government -last Friday- passed a law which makes it a punishable crime not paying the tolls, a law in complete violation of the fundamental human right of free movement without obstacles (toll bars being the obstacles here).
The following video shows people of the movement "Can't pay, won't pay" taking over the one of the toll station last Sunday, breaking the bars and allowing all cars and trucks to pass by without paying anything. Of course this pictures will not be shown by any mainstream media, since it will make evident the power of the people.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBa_iXXdRUk
An *important article* on the subject appeared last week in guardian, written by Costas Douzinas:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/07/greece-protest-democracy-government
From that article, the most important observation made by Costas Douzinas is:
"For the ordinary person, the decision to break the law is the strongest mark that the morality of citizens has not atrophied like that of politicians. It happens when someone reaches the point at which he says to himself "enough is enough – I can't take it any more" and is prepared to risk punishment."
 Website: http://www.epitropesdiodiastop.blogspot.com/
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