How fast can gov't legitimacy evaporate? Pictures from the riots in Greece. Summary of the situation from a Greek reader:
Riots started over the alleged shooting of a young kid by a police officer (he claims he fired his weapon towards the street to scare the group away and that the kid was hit by a ricochet). Within minutes, shopping carts are filled with molotov cocktails and hundreds of masked hooligans started rioting. It's the third day now and there are whole streets and avenues with every single building burned and destroyed. I have never seen it this bad - people on the streets breaking into antique stores and running around with swords and weapons. The local Communist parties called for nationwide demonstrations but the situation is now way beyond any semblance of control. Athens now resembles Mogadishu, with roadblocks, burning buildings and cars, stolen police and fire dept. vehicles.... Gov't totally paralyzed due to the public perception that the shooting was intentional - hence, riot police are essentially letting the now thousands of "protesters" run loose.There's a whole logistical operation being run from the universities which are considered asylums under Greek Law, and hence no police can enter. The gangs get in, get drugged up, stock up on supplies (rocks, molotovs, crowbars, BB guns etc.) and then coordinate via cell phones and blogs. The "logistics" guys then scout around the areas with shopping carts for more supplies, and consolidate everything at meeting places.
Antidote: Here's a very brief story about how a community in PEI (Prince Edward Island, where I was this weekend for the John Boyd Conference), rallied to rebuild a local business that burned down.