From Huffington Post on Greece

From Arianna Huffington: 

Until I went over and witnessed what's happening, I too had become convinced that the real issues were the ones the media were obsessively covering: the effects of a potential sovereign default on the Euro and worries about the crisis spreading to other European countries.

But here's the bigger issue: Can a truly democratic movement break the stranglehold of corrupt elites and powerful anti-democratic institutional forces that have come to characterize not just the politics of Greece, but most Western democracies, including our own? Greece is only an extreme example of an unfolding seismic social shift that is challenging democracies the world over.

Ms. Huffington looks at the issues and reminds us that more is at stake in Greece and in the Western nations than austerity.

The wealthy want tax cuts, so that more cash can flow into their coffers, so they can fund their corporate jets and lavish life-styles.

But taxation is what makes nations work well. 

Adequate revenue insures medical research, education for our children, fighting wild fires in Texas, helping folks who've lost their homes in flooding, building and maintaining our roads and water-delivery systems, and a million other things that only a nation can offer. 

Democracy is clearly at stake in Greece and throughout the Western world.