Communists on the March in Greece

From the Globe and Mail comes this story about how civil servants are striking in Greece over government austerity measures taken to prevent the country from going bankrupt.

Greece's state sector shut down Thursday as civil servants walked off the job in a 24-hour strike, demanding the government take back stringent austerity measures designed to pull the country out of a debt crisis.

Tax and customs offices, municipalities, schools and universities were closed, while state-run hospitals were functioning on emergency staff as doctors walked off the job for the day.

Flights were to be grounded for four hours Thursday afternoon as air traffic controllers joined in the protests with a work stoppage from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. (1200GMT-1600GMT). Greece's two main airlines, Olympic Air and Aegean, cancelled or changed the times of dozens of other flights during the day because of the strike.

Greece narrowly avoided defaulting on its debts in May after the International Monetary Fund and other European Union countries using the euro granted it rescue loans under a three-year €110-billion ($152-billion) package. In return, the government has imposed austerity measures that included trimming pensions, cutting civil servants' salaries and increasing taxes. . . .

About 5,000 civil servants marched through central Athens towards Parliament in a peaceful demonstration, while hundreds more affiliated to a communist party-backed union held a separate march.

Communists, eh? In case you thought communism was dead, there it is alive and well telling people that the government is just being mean and not doling out the goodies that it must be hiding under the mattress.

Communists, like socialist everywhere, live in an alternate reality in which wealth just magically appears every morning like manna from heaven and the only serious political question worth discussing is how to divvy it up. Creating wealth is assumed; redistributing it is their only concern.

But lest Americans (and Canadians) feel too smug about our situation, have a look at this deer in the headlights moment for Dick Blumenthal when Linda McMahon gets to ask him a question in their debate the other night. She asks, "How do you create a job?" and he stumbles, flails around and stalls for time before falling safely back into Mummie's arms by talking about how government will take care of us. What is amazing is that this clueless rich boy is actually ahead in the polls - and this is not Greece but the United States!



Linda McMahon's response makes her sound like an adult and we need more of those occupying high political office. (I believe in the wrestling business this is regarded as a body slam.)

If this exchange does not make her poll numbers surge then they really ought to check out citizens of Connecticut to see if there is still a pulse.