Greek Crisis: The Athens 300 Strike the Spartan Spark

Wednesday June 29 13:10 hours tweets: Greek PM is addressing parliament - making the point that 300 rioters do not reflect the opinions of 11 million Greeks.

In days past around the year 480 BC 300 Spartans gave their time to saving Greece.

The battle of Thermopylae was the scene for King Leonidas to engage the mighty Superpower of the day. Then, as now, they lost the first battle but their actions helped win the war.

Xerxes, The Greek Tragedy mask of Dionysus, Reaper at the door 2011

 The battle for Athens on the day June 29^th may be have been the scene for 300 untrained and lightly armed rioters. They were declared by politicians not to speak for 11 million Greeks. But this day was observed by many millions more Europeans. They see not rioters but a statement. Not a wanton orgy of destruction but a desperate attempt to control their destiny. Not a defeat but a beginning of serious focus on EU leadership who have lead the Union into trouble. Not a victory for the bankers but an urge to resist them with people power.

The Greek PM may be right when he says the Athens 300 do not reflect the opinion of 11 million Greeks. They may just end up reflecting the opinion of 300 million Europeans.

Greek Crisis: Union Blues: A morning in the European Union of Discontent.

0953 Protesters have been urging MPs to reject the package, shouting, "Don't bow your heads, the only way is resistance!"
0956 tweets: Quite rightly the people of #Greece do not want to pay for a debt not caused by them. Make the banks pay! #solidarity
emails: The Greek people are upset because of the injustice of being robbed of their pensions and savings.
1130 Clouds of tear gas are billowing around the square in front of parliament
1134 BBC News A group of demonstrators who were in front of the parliament building suddenly surged at the barricade at which point a volley of tear gas and stun grenades was fired by the police.
Emails: the parliament and its members will most probably be arrested and charged with treason.
1139 BBC News More and more riot police are now streaming out from behind the parliament building, wearing their gas masks, wearing their helmets, carrying their shields.
emails: Good luck to the Greek revolutionaries.
1203 BBC News Protesters have been seen throwing rocks and molotov cocktails.
1204 BBC News The anger of the crowd is intense and it's a very different atmosphere from yesterday . This time it feels like the whole crowd feels angry with the police.
1221 tweets: Been massively teargassed - police fired it outside parliament #greece. End result of gas - dry-retching, streaming eyes, burning skin.
tweets: Parliament is expected to pass austerity plan. Protesters will probably be v angry.
1247 BBC News Police have cleared most of the square, but still the tear gas comes.
emails: They are calling the politicians "traitors" -
1258 Twitter There are clashes everywhere now. The situation is very critical. Which country will be next to fall? a very sad day for Europe and world equality.
1310 tweets: Greek PM is addressing parliament - making the point that 300 rioters do not reflect the opinions of 11 million Greeks.

After all the calls for a new Europe, has it come to this! Athens before the vote.
Pictures: Yannis Bakahis Reuters: Simela Pantzartzi EPA

texts: The Greek government are serving the interests of foreign companies rather than the Greek people.
1329 Greek prime minister tells parliament they must avoid the collapse of the country at all costs
1331 The vote in parliament is due to begin shortly, after being delayed slightly by the violent clashes outside the assembly between police and protesters.
1336 Reuters says the vote in the Greek parliament has begun.
1403 Protesters have attacked the offices of the Finance Ministry, off Syntagma Square.
It's a very weird situation. Things are not well here.
1408 Breaking News The vote in favour of the austerity measures has passed the 151 votes needed for them to be passed

1417 BBC News There was a deep rumbling "boo" among protesters in the square when the result was announced over the tannoy system.
emails: The Greek Government have just sold their souls to the IMF / EU. Greece will now be in debt to them forever. Such a shame.
1754 That's it for our live coverage from Greece for the day. The Greek parliament voted narrowly in favour of a drastic package of austerity measures. which would save the country from defaulting on its debts. Syntagma Square in Athens was filled with demonstrators and violent clashes continue between protesters and the police.
1754 Thanks for following our rolling coverage. You can continue to get all the latest news developments via the front page of the BBC News website.

Greek Stairway to E.U. Superstate or Goddess Eris: Looking for leadership, Seeing the Enemy

It is the year 2011. Her name is Eris

Some Greeks say she reigns in Berlin. 

  I am walking in heaven, on the stairway to Discordia, Ruin and Revolution. Dear Goddess, please help me.

When a democratically elected government becomes your enemy you have a powerful weapon to fight it with. The weapon of free choice to decide your peers at an election.

This is the pillar which holds up society above dictatorship. Once choice is removed by rulers, people's trust follows out the door and soon struggle looks inevitable to restore freedom.

The Europe project was designed and created to banish internal wars and conflicts of varying natures. The project is now becoming a focus of hate. An opaque institution riddled with business interest using financial means to gain economic and eventually political control. The means justifies the end, even if it hurts the lives and future of those it is meant to serve and protect. It seems money is more important than people. Was it ever any different since the first raiding party took the road to the tribe next door.

Five long years of economic hardship is to be imposed on a democratic people by an unelected faceless financial bureaucracy . This is how many Europeans will see the outcome of this weeks crucial Greek parliamentary vote, if it goes through, if gets implemented and if it doesn't provoke a massive violent backlash on the streets of Athens and beyond.

Van Rompuy's talk of his new "palace" offered a perfect excuse for Cameron to court popularity at home by attacking a Europe with its head still stuck in the clouds

 Already the legions of unemployed youth are massing along the southern flank of the E.U. for a response to more, more and more. Their older leaders have deserted them but new ones will be cultivated on the streets, bars and cafés in Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Naples, Rome and Athens.

For an unemployed youth generation, disobedience and revolution is a necessary obligation.

Five years hard, is a sentence dished out to serious criminals, terrorist combatants, political prisoners and now seemingly to be meted out to innocent civilians en mass for the wrongs of bankers and politicians. A group of insiders who have mostly escaped free, bar mild rebuke, from the crisis they provoked. Bankers in bed with politicians to line their pockets is the classic gift to a revolutionary cause.

Citizens are now to be forced fed the lie they are the true cause of this crisis, that they and not their leaders are to blame for the world standing on the brink of another crisis. The blame is shifting to the poor to carry the can or be dammed as the ones who destroyed society. They are the greedy lot who are now getting their comeuppance, even though they had little or no say in the running of private banks and investment bodies who gambled and lost.

In short they are being criminalised if they refuse to accept a sentence of Five Hard.What criminal ever came out of prison with nothing but hatred for those who put them inside.This a gambit on how far the establishment can push citizens before there is a backlash. Quo Bono from this move.

It has been suggested Brussels can win by offering to ease the victim's hardship sentence if the victim acquiesces to more Brussels control over them, more Europe, more togetherness, more stability and less say in self determination for Europe's tribes. Maybe a good thing in the long run.

Superstate was born in 1999. Now 2011 it demands nourishment. But a Superstate demanding supper from the twists of strong arm tactics over protesting citizens who are its own family, creates the reason d'etre of its own destruction.

This is a time when citizens survey the road ahead for true leadership. They can't see leadership, can't find leadership, it just isn't there, just isn't there. Only see the enemy.