Wisconsin: Greece, Not Egypt
For the past week, there have been scattershot -- and idiotic -- comparisons of the tumultuous -- and idiot -- protests in Wisconsin to the tumultuous -- and historic -- events in Egypt.
It's always nice to be able to compare your petty needs with a larger, grander mission. Watching the screamers and shouters break down into childish tantrums around the Wisconsin capital, it's easy to see that there's some major self-dramatizing going on there.
Let me help. What's happening in Wisconsin isn't remotely like what's happening in Egypt, or anywhere else in the middle east. For parallels, you have to head north, to where the Aegean meets the Mediterranean. You have to go to Greece. From MSNBC:
They blockade highway toll booths to give drivers free passage. They cover subway ticket machines with plastic bags so commuters can't pay. Even doctors are joining in, preventing patients from paying fees at state hospitals.
Some call it civil disobedience. Others a freeloading spirit. Either way, Greece's "I Won't Pay" movement has sparked heated debate in a nation reeling from a debt crisis that's forced the government to take drastic austerity measures — including higher taxes, wage and pension cuts, and price spikes in public services.
What started as a small pressure group of residents outside Athens angered by higher highway tolls has grown into a movement affecting ever more sectors of society — one that many say is being hijacked by left-wing parties keen to ride popular discontent.
That part sounds familiar, doesn't it? Being "hijacked by left-wing parties?" There's more. The parallels, as they say in the news business, are eerie:
At dawn last Friday, about 100 bleary-eyed activists from a Communist Party-backed labor union covered ticket machines with plastic bags at Athens metro stations, preventing passengers from paying their fares, to protest public transport ticket price hikes.
Other activists have taped up ticket machines on buses and trams. And thousands of people simply don't bother validating their public transport tickets when they take the subway or the bus.
"The people have paid already through their taxes, so they should be able to travel for free," said Konstantinos Thimianos, 36, an activist standing at the metro picket line in central Syntagma Square.
In one of their frequent occupations of the toll booths on the northern outskirts of Athens recently, protesters wore brightly colored vests with "total disobedience" emblazoned across their backs, and chanted: "We won't pay for their crisis!"
The tactic has cropped up in the health sector, with some state hospital doctors staging a blockade in front of pay counters to prevent patients from paying their €5 flat fee for consultations.
Critics deride the protests as yet another example of a freeloading mentality that helped lead the country into its financial mess.
It's always someone else's crisis. And it's always someone else's fault. In Athens, and in Madison.
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Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Wisconsin: Greece, Not Egypt
Apparently, libertarianism hasn't taken hold in Greece, where paying for the services you use is seen as oppression, while redistribution of wealth - including the wealth of German workers - is just hunky-dory.
Oct '10
Re: Wisconsin: Greece, Not Egypt
This is unfolding in a manner that will pain all, there was a Knocking at the Door, that has fallen on deaf ears.
The adults in all this have been absent, children schooled in lack of responsibiltiy now wish to rein...
This is not going to get better anytime soon and will reach far beyond the union and member protests..
Jul '10
Re: Wisconsin: Greece, Not Egypt
That's human nature, Rob. The path of least resistance is always to blame someone else, push the problem off into the future, live in denial. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die! Unfortunately, tomorrow has finally arrived, and it's time to pay the bill. Instead of acting like responsible adults, we see large swathes of society react like spoiled children throwing tantrums because they can't have a pony.
Feb '11
Re: Wisconsin: Greece, Not Egypt
I think most of these debt-related crises are likely to end badly, either with outright defaults by countries like Greece or with politically driven inflation in countries like the US to try to inflate away the debt. The reason societies generally never act in time even though everyone sees the crisis coming is that at heart all of these overextended-welfare-state situations are a form of the Prisoner's Dilemma (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma if you're unfamiliar with the term). As in the prisoner's dilemma, the outcome for society as a whole would be better if we all agreed to take some modest punishment (lower benefits, higher taxes, whatever). But we don't trust each other. We're all convinced that someone else is getting away with murder (we think union members aren't paying enough toward pensions and health care, they think "the rich" aren't paying enough taxes, etc. -- not saying both positions are equally valid, just saying that's the way it is), so everyone pushes for whatever policy minimizes their own punishment, even if it means society as a whole is worse off, and time eventually runs out.
Jul '10
Re: Wisconsin: Greece, Not Egypt
Hey, just wait a second: I'm not getting my damn pony?!
I'm going to go outside and shoot out the traffic light. That'll show Them.
Nov '10
Re: Wisconsin: Greece, Not Egypt
Agreed, sdb. Just one qualification: in a Prisoner's Dilemma, all parties recognize the dilemma; in the case of Greece and Wisconsin, it is not yet fully apparent to the left. But it will be: fiscal conservatism must triumph as grim reality bites. Those who fail to understand it in the abstract will come to understand it in the concrete.
Edited on Feb 23, 2011 at 8:07pmFeb '11
Re: Wisconsin: Greece, Not Egypt
I agree that this would represent most Progressives that I have met. I must take exception to that characterization for Conservative, Tea Party, Libertarian types. I would like to think that the vast majority of the center right have no issue with taking their lumps, and getting on with recovery.
Nov '10
Re: Wisconsin: Greece, Not Egypt
"What's happening in Wisconsin isn't remotely like what's happening in Egypt, or anywhere else in the middle east. For parallels... You have to go to Greece."
Yes!
States are broke, and they're starting to push back against the public employees unions. The left is turning out in the streets, big time. It's Greece, exactly.
What we're seeing in Wisconsin is a very European response to budget cuts.
Edited on Feb 23, 2011 at 8:52pm