Even after the scuffles between police and anarchists erupted into clouds of tear gas on June 15, Giorgos Liolios did not leave Syntagma Square.
For more than a year, Liolis, a 37-year old Athenian struggling to keep his small bakery afloat, was part of the silent majority that gave Prime Minister George Papandreou the benefit of the doubt. But after a year of austerity left him nearly broke, his brother unemployed and the debt-ridden country no better off, he drove to Athens from his suburb to stand alongside thousands of angry Greeks who, for weeks, had transformed Syntagma into a mini-Tahrir Square, complete with drum circles, tents and Cretan rebel songs."Everyone in that building should be ashamed," he says, pointing to the parliament building, which is now surrounded by protesters waving banners depicting Papandreou as Judas and a donkey. "They want us to sacrifice, but we need to see why we're sacrificing. As Greeks, we just want to live with enough money to get by, to have a little dignity. We can't do that anymore. We can't take it anymore. Why can't George Papandreou understand that?
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