Greek PM goes to war but with whom?

Greek taxi drivers go on 24 hours strike, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Today the Greek prime minister Giorgos Papndreou announced a series of emergency measures aimed at raisng government revenues and cutting costs. These have included hikes in VAT across the board extra tax on petrol, alcohol and tobacco, cuts in civil servent's pay and a freeze on pension rises.

In his address to the Greek parliament Papandreou said that the country is "at war" and that these measures are necessary to avoid the country going bankrupt.

The reaction on the internet and on the street has ranged from desperation to outrage at the seeming injustice of members of the country's pampered political elite demanding sacrifices after making such a huge mess of running the country. On hearing the measures I found myself reminded of a quote from The Crow in which Eric Draven says to a drug lord,

"I see you have made your decision, now let's see you enforce it."

Over the coming days, weeks and months we are going to witness a showdown between a morally and intellectually bankrupt political nomenclature which has lied through its teeth to just about anyone who will listen both at home and abroad and the ordinary people in this country over who gets the foot the bill for decades of greed and mismanagement.