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January 19th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Rampant anger has flared on the streets of Romania with people joining massive protests to demand an end to government cuts, higher taxes and corruption at the top.
Some 60 people have reportedly been injured as demonstrators clashed with riot police, hurling stones and petrol bombs, in an outpouring of rage against the government.
The violent rallies began last week over a highly unpopular health bill which has since been withdrawn.
Night and day, people come to scream their defiance.
Biting austerity and a feeling the government is not listening have spilled over into anger, even violence.
Marioara Florescu is 60. She has worked all her life in a textile factory in Bucharest, but now she is being forced to pay for her social security out of her small pension.
“I’ve come here for the pain of the Romanian people, the pain of the entire country. For 22 years all they’ve done is destroy the entire country. Our youth has no future. They have no jobs,” she cries out. “Whether you’re young or a pensioner, you will need a pension when you get old. They need to give us a fair pension and not tell us they’re borrowing the money because they don’t have it.”
Marioara’s anger is not just for herself. Her son has had to leave Romania for Italy to try and find work.
Young Romanians feel trapped, and are directing most of their anger at the president, Traian Basescu. As RT’s Tom Barton reports from the capital, Bucharest, protesters accuse Basescu of trampling over democracy and presiding over a political elite riddled with corruption.
“We want to take Basescu down! Down with Basescu!” is the cry from demonstrators.
“The problem is the young ones need to have a good life in Romania and we are not allowed to have this because of the stupidity of the high levels of government and parliament,” one protester told RT.
An International Monetary Fund loan in 2009 came with tough conditions.
Unlike in Greece, the Romanian government has tried to force its financial house into order.
But with budget and benefit cuts, slashed pay, pension freezes and falling living standards, some say it is the people who are being forced to pay for the mistakes of the few who steered the country to economic disaster.
“This was done at the expense of the Romanian state, and now those who weren’t guilty of creating the situation, and who hadn’t even profited from it, have had to pay for those who had profited,” economic analyst Ilie Serbanescu complained to RT.
Meanwhile, the government is shrugging off responsibility, saying international economic conditions are to blame for the country’s woes.
“Let’s not forget that we’re in the eye of a storm, of an economic European storm. All around us, unfortunately, is a mighty tempest with economic consequences that inevitably affect us too,” laments the country’s Prime Minister, Emil Boc.
“Not good enough,” say the opposition, who argue, of course, that they could do better.
“Every day this corrupt, inefficient government stays in power is a day lost for Romania. Our duty is to shorten that period as much as we can and as fast as we can by fair elections,” rages Victor Ponta from the opposition Social Democratic party.
With many now accepting there is no escape economically, politics appears to offer them the only hope of change.
And that’s an option that leads straight back out onto the streets.
Protesters in Bucharest know that economic woes are the foundation of their problem. Pile on top of that corruption, the government’s perceived eagerness for harsh austerity, and the widespread feeling that their president views democracy with contempt, and you can see why Romanians want to tear it all down and start again.
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