In a referendum vote Sunday that seems to be confounding analysts and office-holders, the Greek people overwhelmingly rejected a financial bailout offer from the European Union. More than 60 percent of voters said no thanks. That puts the nation’s economy, already a mess, at risk of full collapse. And it could mean, eventually, ejection from the European Union. But on the streets, it was all celebration.
The New York Times captures the euphoria: “There may be almost as many reasons that Greeks voted no as there are Greeks. But if there was a consistent theme among those celebrating, it was that they had taken as much suffering and humiliation as they could stand. Rejecting the endless demands of their European overlords for tax hikes and pension cuts, they said, became a matter of national dignity.”
