Greece secures third bailout after Germany backs down on opposition | Business | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... ls-germany

Oh good new debt to pay off old debt - like that's going to make any difference

the troika used the financial panzers to blitzkrieg through this on Greece against the wishes of the referendum that was held
but this is not the first time this has happened, Ireland, Cyprus spring to mind

the EU has become a dictatorship with no semblance to any form of democracy ...

The one common characteristic of the dictatorships I can think of right now is the organisation of which they are capable and the lengths to which they are willing to go to assure their continuing control. For instance, although the Nazi death camps are rightly described as a 'crime against humanity', it might also be accurate to describe them as the single greatest logistics project ever planned and carried out.

Now I'm sure the EU bods would be very pleased to know that you consider them capable of such heights of planning prowess but I'm not entirely sure that the evidence stacks up. Take this so-called Calais crisis. Either there exists some great Machiavellian scheme that somehow requires thousands of fruit pickers and the appearance of near-total incompetence or the EU is as much use as tits on a fish.

One might be tempted instead to ascribe all one's fevered notions of organisational conspiracy to the Germans. To this I answer with just three words: Berlin-Brandenburg Airport. Look it up - it's both hilarious and depressing in equal measure.

But remember always that the conspiracy theorist's position is actually that of the optimist for his notions are based on the ideas that the world is controllable, that someone exists capable of controlling it and that that same someone can actually be arsed to control it.

I'm a pessimist

There's speaking truth to power.
There's speaking truth to stupid.
But there's no speaking truth to Mr Rogers.

Godwinned after three posts!

oh hum ...
http://www.theguardian.com/business/liv ... rkets-live

democracy as opposed to dictatorship
the will of the Government to go to the voters ...

It's an honourable thing, to a degree. He was elected promising his party would do a certain thing as a major election pledge and in the end they couldn't deliver that certain thing, so it's only fair the population have the chance to say whether they still consider them worthy of government.

Compare & contrast with the UK where the government we elected only a few months ago has already torn up several of it's major election pledges yet is still carrying on serenely..

Delaying the inevitable.

Looks like Syriza had already split. It's going to be an interesting election.

Do they expect to get any sort of turnout at all? The last few months have pretty effectively shown representative democracy is pretty much dead in Greece. Whichever government the Greeks vote for, all the important decisions are patently being made elsewhere.

The Greek voters bought a patently absurd claim that their nation could either beg from a position of strength and/or default without consequence.

Their next election will probably be won by whoever promises to turn the sky pink.

and so the comfy EU club of 'all for one and one for all' starts to fall apart, good ...