The Sky is Falling!
But we all know better than to listen to Chicken
Little. And over in Greece, poor Kotopoulaki is about as welcome as
Cassandra. Okay, enough with the bold
literary illusions. It’s time to move on
to reality. Hmmm, that last line should
be re-read at least three times by every soul in Greece officially charged with
making sure that gorgeous Greek sky stays up there.
Frankly, anything that gets the Greek bureaucracy to look up
from the tops of their shoes would be welcome.
Far too many still spend their time lurking around the dark edges of
their land, hoping to find whatever pots of gold remain from those bright rainbow
times of the past.
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| The Coalition Partners, Nea Demokratia & PASOK |
Greece’s current government is now a two-party coalition instead
of three, and its razor-thin majority margin has gone from electric to
blade. The likely largest vote getting
party if new elections were called today is grooming its leader to be the next
king. Excuse me, I shouldn’t say “king” for
his party (SYRIZA) is an amalgam of five…or is it four…or is it three…socialist
parties (with views ranging from North Korean to Swedish). Yet, from the way his professional image
makers are out there packaging him and his party to the world, I think they’re
secretly planning a coronation.
SYRIZA’s leader made his mark saying “no” to whatever the
other guy said in trying to deal with the crisis. If the IMF, EU, the ruling coalition, or any
of the demon financiers of the West were for it, he was against it. That makes it easy to say, “I told you so”
now. Smart politics, especially if one
conveniently forgets that he refused an offer to form his own government and lead
Greece through its crisis.
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| The Contender |
My guess is he thinks it’s time to take his shot, and I come
to that conclusion from such things as the op-ed piece placed in this week’s The New York Times titled, “Only
Syriza Can Save Greece” bearing a central message of comfort to the west: “SYRIZA
would be a good thing for America and the European Union.” I wonder how that will play at home, where
bashing America has been a political staple of the left since the fall of
Greece’s Junta dictatorship in 1974—one of the last Greek governments publicly
hailing itself as “good for America.”
Frankly, I don’t care who governs Greece as long as the new
government’s very first act is to tear down that plaque which must exist
somewhere in the secret recesses of the Parliament bearing this inscription: “All
ye who enter here make as much as possible of the situation while you have the
chance.”
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| The Parliament |
Yes, there are selfless, dedicated public servants working
hard to drive their country through its time of direst need. But far too often they’re compromised or
cutoff by colleagues driven only to help themselves.
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| The Reporter |
The Greek people are not fools, no matter how some of their
leaders might regard them. Word is out,
more so everyday. Bankers who drove the
country into its horrid corner are reported
as being lavishly rewarded by friends in government (inspired possibly by
bankers in the US), and the reporter who exposed a list of highly influential
Greeks possibly owing taxes on Swiss bank accounts, suppressed for years by
Greece’s Ministry of Finance, led to the prosecution of only one person: the
reporter. That he was found innocent
didn’t matter to the prosecutor who has gone after him again. He has his priorities. (Here’s the reporter’s
side
of the story.)
Hello out there, the
sky is falling!
If this government fails, and SYRIZA steps in but things
remain the same—frustrating the millions who believed its leader’s rhetoric—waiting
in the wings is the neo-Nazi Chrysi Avgi party aka Golden Dawn, currently with
18 members in Parliament (of 300—not of the Thermopylae
sort). It, too, has packaged itself
snappily. Marketing specialists converted
its unvarnished message of hate into nationalistic jingo rhetoric, and PR
consultants cower those who dare challenge the parties brutal physical attacks upon
“enemies of Greece.”
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| The Chrysi Avgi Party Symbol |
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| The Party in Parliament |
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| The Party in the streets |
All that is necessary for Chrysi Avgi to prevail is for
good, fair-minded Greeks to do nothing to demand better of their country. And should Chrysi Avgi’s day come, Greece
will know that the sky has fallen…for the Devil shall be ruling its land.
Jeff—Saturday
