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Unknown A
I'm talking about this because I was kind of prompted to, in a juxtapositional sense, right? You guys remember that, like, fake Instagram economic boycott that happened today? That doesn't matter and no one cares about. We talked about it a little bit and it was mostly just, like, talked about in the context of, like, American activists have no sauce whatsoever. This is LARP. This does nothing. It's wrong in 50 different ways. There's no goal, there's nothing to be achieved. It's just like, let's feel radical. I think the thing that pisses me off the most about it is that this poster was designed to look like it was made by, I don't know, underground anarchists. You know what I mean? Right. You. You look at this and it has the vibe of like, this is an indie band, they play at small venues. You know, it's like, yeah, it's punk rock, It'and.
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Unknown A
It's for one day. Don't order stuff off Amazon on February 28th. If you need to get something, just wait till February 29th. Fight the power. You know, it just needs a little hammer and sickle somewhere to really, really draw it in. Well, I wanted to juxtapose this against an actual act of activism, if you would. If you would forgive me, in a country where people still have a little bit of sauce. You hear about the protests in Greece. People really turned out for them. Like, really turned out for them. No, Greece isn't real. A compelling argument, but I'd like to introduce you to a counterarument, if I may. These are some shots of Thessalaniki. It's the second largest city in Greece. I'm pretty sure you might notice that there's some number of people in the streets. I'm not counting that. It's actually huge. It's massive.
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Unknown A
It's a massive, massive, massive protest. So, yeah, at least 10 people are out there. It's basically there were protests in every city and village in Greece. So like in Athens, in Basilliniki and the islands, like the little island villages there. I mean, everywhere. Everywhere, everywhere. Massive, massive, massive portion of the population'it's. A significant percentage of the total population of the country. And there were protests in the diaspora in other countries. So you've got people in the UK and France and Spain and so on. What was it for? Wait a second. A lot of people. A lot of people protesting. And the protest was met with a big crackdown. Now, you know, as for what they're protesting about, the gist of it, as I Understand it, forgive me for my American ignorance is that a short time ago there was a train crash. A train was heading between Athens and Basasiloniki.
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Unknown A
It crashed. Some 50 people died, like 57, I think mostly students. Really horrific death, you know, flaming crash. There were like audio recordings of people screaming and suffering. I mean really bad stuff. And I mean this on its own will be really bad. But the inquiries that followed it led to a bunch of very public and very obvious incidences of government corruption. You know, why did the train fail? Oops, the evidence caught on fire. Asked the government official about it, what happened? The government official is like, well actually it didn't happen. And by the way, that's a wonderful house and family you have. They've killed people. I think at least two people involved in the investigation of an assassinated one was like the son of a prosecutor. They killed him and they d left all of his belongings on the side of a river. Like they didn't rob him, they just killed him.
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Unknown A
I mean it's like a whole government corruption scan. And the whole reason for it is almost certainly like the government just, you know, the train crashed because of some kind of government mismanagement. And rather than acknowledge it, they have just like doubled down and tripled down and quadruple down and quintupled down and so on. On like nothing happened actually, you know, so the protests are more about the government response to the train collision than they are to the train collision itself. Does that make sense? Anyway, who boy did the police show up? Come on BBC.
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Unknown B
What is happening today? Even though that it is that marks two years train. The tempy train cross is basically a protest for years of the government not doing enough things for people, for generally people protesting about sort of different things. So yeah, we were expecting that. Today we believe there is more than 150,000 people and in each country' city of Greece, from big cities to little islands. This basically has to do with people gettingry angry because there is this sort.
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Unknown A
Of scenario about that for to throw in. It seems like the protests played out pretty much exactly the way that they do every time, which is the protests were peaceful. Of course some people are being rowdy, but the protests were peaceful. And then some scuffle happens near the police line that may or may not be like undercover agitators which is a police tactic that we know exists and happens in the United States where police will infiltrate the ranks of protesters and deliberately start shit to give the police a pretext to crack down on them. And these police are operating on behalf of the corrupt and largely hated government that are the things being protested to begin with. If you're following me on this, you know, so it's yeah, like the autozone being lit on fire by that obvious cop from the blm. Yeah, I remember, I remember.
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Unknown A
No, it got serious man. They tear gassed the F out of Athens. Apparently they like blasted the whole goddamn like hundreds of thousands of people and things got, you know, oh, 57. I was right on the number. There's a strong anarchist community in Athens if our call correctly makes sense given the country's uh, history. You know, the Greek police are insane. My friend was in the process of becoming one. They are all literally Hitler. That's what I've heard. Look at all those people. Like seriously, what the hell is this? Inside Britain's wrestling church tournament? Okay, that's hardly relevant to the situation.
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Unknown C
Hello. A warm welcome to BBC News. Now I'm ksh TR bombs at police in Athens where thousands of people have been gathering to mark two years since Greece's worst ever rail disaster. We're monitoring these live shots across BBC News here. These clashes outside the parliament building as officers are trying to disperse these crowds with tear gas. Now this has been going on for a number of hours.
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Unknown A
Demonstra, I'm sure, by the way, the media is going to report on this in like these rowdy protesters started it. You gotta understand, this is a significant portion of the population that showed up. We're talking at least like probably 10% of the Greek population getting involved. Don't fall for this bullshit. You didn't fall for it for Black Lives Matter. Right? We're all in on this. On the line with blm, Was there some civilian rustling? Was there some arson during blm? Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Overwhelmingly peaceful p police were overwhelmingly the antagonists. We don't know how many incidents of violence that were initiated by protesters were done by undercover plants which they can probably get away with easier in Greece than they can in the United States, I imagine. Property damage. I ain't seen nothing. Yah, Johnny Tightlips over hereraors saying that they want justice.
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Unknown A
Wait, is British media corrupt too? It's all media. Media will always take the side of the police. At least. Well, not always, but in many cases, yeah. The media is going to take the side of the police by default. The Greek media even took the side of the protesters. Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that. Like the government is floundering in the face of this. Greek media sided with protests. If only I Could speak Greek, I'd be able to understand them talking, could watch them. Whenever I imagine people speak in Greek it sounds like Italian to me with the hand motions and stuff but I.
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Unknown C
Don'T think that's right for the 57 people who were killed when a passenger service collided with a freight train near the Tempe Gorge two years ago. Now joining us throughout these protesters we've been monitoring these live shots as on news reporter Nikos Paa Nicola who is with us and Nikol just reminds us as to the background to why we're seeing thousands of people on the streets really angry, hundreds because of that train.
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Unknown A
Millions alether.
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Unknown B
I think it's because of train crash two years ago. It's the deadliest train crash in countries history. But I would say it's also an anti government protest that is taking place. People have been protesting for decades.
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Unknown A
Yeah OK this, this to me, this is alarm bells running off in my head right now. Okay? Solidarity with the Greek people. By the way, look at this. Okay, you talk about now remember these protesters, they turned up everywhere. You go find photos. Athens, Bassliniki, whatever. All their villages, islands across Europe, you know, diaspora communities. And what is the media reporting on? Things turn violence, chaos, Firebombs. Oh yeah, and how many places you take a look at the video feed, Tell me if you don't see a pattern what they're showing mass protests and greed. We literally just looked at that one. This, you see those firebombs? This alght pattern matching. What do you see? These screenshots in this thumbnail. You take a look at this. Hey, does this footage look familiar to you? Out of curiosity, this, does this footage look familiar to you? Exact same place.
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Unknown A
This like a war zone. Exact same place. Were talking about a nationwide to an extent continent wide protest. All the media reporting. What are they reporting on? Not the police crackdown, theyre reporting on this one place where people were throwing Molotov bottles into a fire patch on the ground. You understand we get what I'm saying here, right? Same damn thing happened with Black Lives Matter. Remember, remember that one shot of the building burning down in Portland. And to this day conservatives are still like they burned Portland down to the ground man. Millions of people involved. I'm not buying their bullshit solidarity. So with all of that being said and now I guess I bring it back around, you know to the opening point. How compelling do we find this? This is what I mean about like having the sauce versus not having the sauce. U what I mean about like sometimes suffering needs to be your teacher.
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Unknown A
We just. We just don't have it, do we? We're too comfortable. I think at the end of the day, the thing that makes the difference is community. It's much easier to go out and do this when everyone on your block is doing it, you know, not just you specifically not. Not just. You're in on some super lefty group chat that's keyed you in on the how to resist or whatever, but like your neighborhood, you know what I mean? That was why so many people came out for Black Lives Matter, by the way. Because it was such a large movement that you could literally just exit your front door and join it. You know, there wasn't much of a prerequisite. There wasn't much of a requirement. It didn't even require discipline on your part. You're just showing up, you know. Now the problem being with the Black Lives Matter movement, there was no like real political cohesion.
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Unknown A
The Democrats were unwilling to acquiesce. We didn't have enough people within the government who were meaningfully advancing our cause. There wasn't a enough discipline on messaging or like central D B, bah, blah blah. This protest in Greece, in comparison, very effective. Massive turnout. People showed up absolutely everywhere. Very public police crackdown which people find unsympathetic. And they're protesting something specific. The government cover up of the train crash, you know, or thereabouts. I'm sure there's a lot of adjacent anger like the murder of that the prosecutor'son and such. But you know, that's the gist of it, right? To be fair, isn't Greek quality of life far worse? Yeah, but it's not really a quality of life thing. I think in this case, you know, like you're more likely to die to a cop in America than you are in Greece, probably. Right? Is it a quality a life thing?
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Unknown A
I think it's an immediate access and convenience thing, in my opinion. Personally, I think it's. How do I put this? It's like being vegetarian when you have vegetarian friends. It's so much easier when you go and hang out with your friends and one of them'cooking for D and D night. And it's like, oh, what are you making? Oh, like a vegetarian lentil potato soup. Delicious. Versus when you go over to the place and it's like, yeah, we're having hotlininks. It's like, okay. All of a sudden my vegetarian, you know, my discipline is being u challenge. You know. You get what I mean, right? It does help that Greek cities are a lot more Centralized in terms of their sprawl. I doubt Greece has suburban sprawl the way we do. I've looked at their cities from Google Maps. They looked proportionally a little more compact, but no, no, no, I agree.
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Unknown A
Urban sprawull is a big part of it, you know, but we still showed up for blm, didn't we? And that's because BLM brought people out as a community. Stuff like this will never ever work because for a million reasons. For one, don't buy things for day. Oh, see you buy them tomorrow. For two, why a small business? Okay. For three, no goal, you're just goingna end it after one day. How are you doing anything then for four, there's a million things, a million reasons why this doesn't work. But the, the main one, I think, is that it's asking of you. It's asking of you. Abceneiousness, discipline. When a protest should ask that, not that of you, but rather participation, not a virtue signal, but you have to get up and go, you have to do something. You have to get up and go to the town hall.
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Unknown A
You have to go and show up. If you have a local representative and you don't like them and you have a problem with them, you have to show up. It doesn't matter how much you hate them from online, if you show up, you matter more than anyone who's just hating indiscriminately from a distance. You know, I took a nonviolent protest course in my extinction rebellion place in my city, and I've never felt more connected with my community. Get involved Y. I joined the BLM White House protest because the protest was all over the city and came by my job before they went to the White House. And it'make it made it easier to join. Yeah, the community attitude, you know, Community attitude. It's much easier to get involved when you're going with a friend. Okay, what about 10 friends? What about 10 people who aren't necessarily friends, but you know, they're there and they're with you and you all seem friendly enough.
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Unknown A
Why not? You all get what I'm talking about here, right? God, look at that. Anyway, I'm mostly talking about this as a way of, you know, hitting it on the point that we don't got the sauce for protesting and people approach it from the wrong perspective. But obviously, additionally, to be clear with it, solidarity with the Greek people, you know, our government lets them down time and time again. It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful country, it's a beautiful country with beautiful beaches. Will there ever be a breaking point for Americans to reach this? Because I doubt it. It's not necessarily about the breaking point. It's not necessarily about like reaching some minimum mandate of suffering. It's about setting the conditions. Suchus like with blm. That wasn't a breaking point in a way that materially affected anyone. Right. The murder of George Floyd didn't immediately affect most anyone except for the people who knew George Floyd, the people in the immediate area.
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Unknown A
Right. It was a symbol that was so easy to. Yeah. Move outrage around that it drove that level of engagement. So it's not necessarily about the breaking point. You know, it's about the. What does it take to get everyone involved to the extent that it doesn't feel like a personal contribution, but you get swept up in the motion of it. Not. So you being contrarian for a reason other than perhaps you grown tired of the mod symbol. What do you need? What are you talking about? You need to make people feel like they're in a movie. Yeah, I think so. I think to an extent, I don't think anyone cares. Even if three times as many more people lose their jobs or healthcare, anything else being cut. I do think there's a reason why Russia, or I should say the Kremlin, was able to so successfully like usurp the post Soviet Union democracy and immediately return it to like a completely unchecked oligarchy.
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Unknown A
And I think part of that is because Russia is not very community oriented. A lot of that is unfortunately just like geographic. It's a massive country with a billion ethnic groups in it. People are very spread out across a lot of it. You know, the fact that it's very cold means that for half of the year it's like just kind of difficult to do stuff, you know, not to mention the history of the Soviet Union and like espionage and people being, you know, paranoid about one another. I think there's a reason why it was easier for Hitler to turn Germany fascist and Putin to supplant Russian democracy or suppress it. Sorry. Than it was for Mussolini to suppress the Italian people, if you understand what I'm getting at. And by the way, Greece has been, you know, run very bad governance for a long time and people are still turning out like this.
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Unknown A
I think it's a community thing, you know. Oh, you have to understand what I'm saying. What you're saying is people from the Mediterranean are built different. I think that there are a variety of social and climate reasons why Mediterranean communities might be more community oriented. Than like say, Russia. You get what I mean, right? No. Well, that's okay. Good luck to them. When I lived in Russia, we were pretty actually big in community. So I don't know, I'm making a very general statement here. I don't know. This still sounds kind of geographically deterministic. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, that does influence things for sure, 100%. Yeah, but I'm not really talking about community oriented in the sense of like just your family or whatever. I mean like, like a broader public space, a broader, I don't know, engagement with whatever. It's a half baked point. I'll get into it more later.
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Unknown A
Part of the reason I think America lacks revolutionary potential is because our lack of density and living places in Western Europe have density. Community. Yeah, I know. Fully 100%. Yeah. I do genuinely believe that to a large extent Greek here the protest felt more like an event. Everyone went because it's basically just going for a walk, which is pretty easy. And the general strike made it even easier for people working. Yeah, you wanna make it easy for people, you just walk out. You know, maybe it's Catholicism and sacrifice. Greeks aren't Catholic though, they're Orthodox. Why I wouldn't fall into determinism is like prehistoric Nordicom were very communal because the col. The contrarianism. You really not see the difference in the structure of a community in like a beachy villa in Greece versus like a frozen over like Eastern Russian in a place where you have like depots spread out wide and flat, where people can't even organize outside during like eight months out of the year or whatever.
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Unknown A
Do you see the reason why determinism is rhetorically not great? Who the are you rhetorically not great? Make your own channel. You don't think that the climate and the way cities are constructed can have an influence on people's communality? Obviously they can. We're talking about like hundreds of thousands of people in a city just walking out and joining the road, joining the project. Whoop. And you're in there in the main square. You know, it helps. I'm just saying it helps. Wonder shit like this is probably one of the reasons why the French Revolution happened. Right. Cause Paris is like, for centuries it's been this like super dense urban framework where you look outside and it's like, oh, there's the interesting thing happening. You know, people can talk and engage and so on. Yeah. The protest culture in France is probably motivated in part by the fact that the, you know, Parisian metropolitan area is like 10 million people in highly dense very walkable communities, you know, probably to a large extent with Greece as well.
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Unknown A
You know, it's so in theory based. Your point? People in parts of Miami or LA approachest like. No. Cause LA and Miami are built completely differently. You know, LA and Miami are built like big wide roads to drive down. Like. No, no, no. Total difference in how these areas are constructed. They're built for cars anyway. I've made the damn point. The January revolution started because there was an unseasonably warm day in Petrograd. Is that really true? That would compel people. You know, I went outside today, it was an unseasonably warm day today. If it works for me, it worked for them.