Reply #2: I second that.

[Democracyinkind]

While I have lots of sympathy for the common man in Greece, who - for the most part - is also just a victim of the racket that the Greek gov has been runing in the last 15 years, I do blame Greek society as a whole for uncritically accepting the effects of it as long as the going was good. The Greek gov and the Greek economy have been and still are a cruel joke (one that even puts such third world countries as Italy to shame) and the people decided to go with it while it was comfortable. To some degree, societies as a whole have to pay for the decisions they made (privatly, and at the ballot box).

Like that friend of mine who is a Professor of History at a reputable University over there. He was prophesizing the downfall of greek society and its economy for 10 years while collecting checks from the government as an advisor to a committee that never existed. He never thought of that fact being part of the problem, since everyone was doing it. At some point they will have to clean up their act. I know this sounds elitist and uncompassionate to most people who participate on DU but I'm just way too familiar with Greece to just uncritically accept the narrative of "they were raped by the evil bankers". That's not to say that I welcome retirement checks being cut or University budgets being downsized - but there were other choices and paths not explored. And there was a whole decade in which basically everyone that refused to live the illusion was telling Greece that it was going down the tubes - and it really didn't seem to concern anyone... (which should be a familiar story to some, if not all, Americans).