Report from Greco. . . While we have been given some idea of how bad things have gotten in Greece as its economy crumbles into oblivion crushed by the dictates of the Troika, the tyranny of Angela Merkel, and the suicidal policies of successive administrations bent on buying votes by distributing phony jobs to their supporters, the PASOK’s penchant for providing pensions to those Greeks who took up arms against their own nation in the Greek Civil War, and the steadfast failure to pursue, prosecute, incarcerate tax cheats and plunder their accounts foreign and domestic, the bitter truth is far, far worse than anything that we read in the newspapers, anything that we hear in newscasts, worse than anything we have ever dreamed. Wherever I went in Greece, the story was the same: people have lost their life’s savings, they are being taxed literally to death, they’ve had the pensions that they worked their entire lives cut and cut again. Farmers are having their homes and their fields taxed, not based upon what they produce, but rather on how many hectacres they own. The price of olive oil may be high, but the farmer is given a pittance for his labor, the risks he takes, his investment in his land and in his crops. The ever rising taxes are billed in the electrical bills so if the Greeks can’t afford to pay their taxes, then the government cuts off their electricity. Can you imagine breathing in Athens, where the apartments are built on top of each other, where the air is filled with pollution and smog, and breezes are rare, can you imagine living there without air conditioning in those summer days when the temperature approaches 40˚ C (104˚ F) or those blustery, rainy winter days when the temperature falls to 0˚ C (32˚F) and the apartment dwellers sit with their teeth chattering without any electricity? Wherever you go there is a pervading sense of helplessness and doom. Young people cannot find jobs. College graduates have no hope of finding jobs. Their only hope is to leave Greece for the USA, Canada, England, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, anywhere where their education will provide them some hope of employment. The Greek nation will pay a heavy toll for the resulting brain drain. I saw people begging for alms, old men and women searching trash cans for sustenance, tears in the eyes of men who survived the depression, survived Mussolini’s Fascists, Hitler’s SS, and the murderous treachery of EAM-ELAS who had betrayed Greece to Stalin and Tito, and came within a few hard fought battles, and the aid provided by President Harry Truman and General George Marshall of securing Greece behind Stalin’s Iron Curtain, who had survived the tyranny of the Junta, and now find themselves doomed to losing everything. Instead of offering Greece an opportunity to dig its way out of this financial calamity, the Troika’s restrictions have caused the Greek economy to contract to the point of collapse. The Samaras administration is making little effort to prosecute tax cheats and has made no effort to rid itself of unnecessary public workers, whose featherbedding exploits are legendary. It is spineless and its spinelessness is readily apparent. PASOK, whose pillaging of the Greek economy appears to have been generational, starting with Andreas Papandreou, continuing through the administration of Costas Simitis and ending with the hapless administration of Yeorgios Papandreou (who has no trouble collecting his salary as a congressman, while spending his time teaching economics (which is akin to having me teach classes in exercise and nutrition) at Harvard) now is represented by Evangelos Venizelos, an arrogant moron parading as a politician, a plutocrat parading as a socialist, who has fallen in with Samaras as yes men to the Troika. The alternatives to these mainstream parties are the fascist Golden Dawn (whose supporters like to goose step, utilize the fascist salute, attack innocent foreigners, and slap around female politicians on live television) and SYRIZA, a union of disenchanted Maoists, Trotskyites, Anarchists and Communists, headed by Alexis Tsiparas, a one-time member of the Communists Youth, and later KKE party member, whose hero is Che Guevara. Tsiparas has steadfastly pledged (as did Samaras before he was elected) to tell the Germans and the Troika to go to hell. Whether he will or not won’t be known unless and until SYRIZA is elected and can form a government. He does not appear to have majority support in Greece, but his willingness to, like Leonidas and Diakos and Metaxas before him, say OXI to Merkel, who is determined to take over Greece and to squeeze Greece dry, as her forerunner, Hitler, did during the German Occupation, 1941-1944. Greece needs someone to stand up to the Germans, stand up to the Troika and say OXI, the consequences be damned. If the EU then evicts Greece from its union, something that I doubt would happen, then so be it. Greece can never recover unless and until the restrictions forced upon it are ended and its economy allowed to expand. The Greek people are starring in their own tragedy, more tragic than Oedipus or Medea, and the final scene has been written. It is incumbent upon the Greeks to stand up and throw the bastards out. Only then will the death of the Greek economy be avoided. Only then can Greece, like the Griffin of Greek mythology, arise from the flames of its own destruction. The clock is ticking against us, the odds are against us, but we have been down before, and each time, we have risen victorious, as we will again.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 01:27:45 +0000
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