Samaras had a nice piece in the Wall Street Journal today which has been reproduced by Athens News. (Included below)
This is how Athens news summarises his article.
“THE COMEBACK KID. That’s Greece according to Antonis Samaras, who told the Wall Street Journal that not only can Greece jump back on its feet, but that it could also transform itself into a shining example for the rest of the eurozone. No doubt this would all be easier, if we would kindly “unshackle” him and let him govern the country as he sees fit, which was what he said, just this past weekend.”
It is extremely sad for someone looking at the Greek crisis to see such an endemic lack of confidence and belief in Greece by the Greek media.
Maybe the Greek populous also feels the same way in which case they only expect more of the same and for the recession to deepen.
The article itself does nothing but state the blindingly obvious.
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act – George Orwell
Even though Samaras is saying the most simple and obvious things, his remarks are met with ridicule by the media.
This is the same media that treats threats of “chaos” and “catastrophe” with such reverence. How did it come to this?
How did Greece reach the point where Greeks refuse to believe the optimistic and obvious reality in favour of depression and fiction?
Perhaps the Greek media is victim to the reality they have created. Instead of creating the reality they are actually victims of it.
Let’s look at some of the facts quoted by Samaras (which incidentally are not in dispute)
More recession has meant more stubborn deficits and ever-exploding debt. Greece has already implemented deficit-cutting measures of around 20% of GDP to curtail a deficit of 15% of GDP in 2009. Two years later, and despite all these measures, Athens’s deficit was still around 10% in 2011. Three quarters of deficit-cutting produced more recession, not less deficit.
Meanwhile, Greeks’ standard of living has dropped precipitously since before the crisis. They shifted abruptly from one extreme to the opposite: from too much………
in fact scratch that, the entire article is worth reading, hopefully it will serve as some sort of wake up call to any Greek fortunate to read it.
Until Greece realises that the only way things are going to get better for Greeks is if Greeks take the control off their own affairs.
I am positive Samaras has many faults but he seems to be the only one in the room saying that Greece has the ability to get out of its crisis.
That in my mind, must make him the prime choice for prime minister considering his competition is constantly stating how weak and vulnerable the country is.
I have no problem with Greeks voting for Venizelos as long as they acknowledge what they are doing when they do vote for him.
A vote for Venizelos is an admission that Greece is a weak country, that Greek cannot sustain itself, that Greece can only survive with help, that Greece is a patient that other members of the EU must care for, that Greece is an invalid and that Greece is not capable of looking after itself and must submit its sovereignty to foreign organisations and bureaucracies.
The issue is that many Greeks are deluding themselves, they are patriotic, they say they love their country and at the same time they believe Greece is a weak country.
I am not assuming anything here, you can read the articles on this site and you can see countless examples of the PASOK regime whether it be through Venizelos, Papandreou, Provopoulos and Papademos constantly hitting Greeks over the head and calling Greek citizens useless.
And then on the other hand you have a party saying that Greece is strong and is powerful.
It has come to something when citizens of their own country treat such words with ridicule.
Samaras may not be perfect but his philosophy is a million miles closer to supporting Greek sovereignty than the current regime and that on its own should be enough for him to get the vote of Greeks.
If Greeks really do believe the PASOK/Venizelos line then surely they should support the dismantling of the Greek military.
“How did Greece reach the point where Greeks refuse to believe the optimistic and obvious reality in favour of depression and fiction?”
It’s because we know he’s bullshitting us.. Whether he or the fat guy gets elected will make no difference for us, both parties are committed to implement the troika’s program. Moreover Samaras is a proven liar and deceiver. For about one and a half year he pretended to be opposing the government’s policies(many idiots believed in him) but then in November he was forced to drop his mask and lost half of his former supporters. I guess you don’t live in the country so you don’t have a clear view but you should not let that joker’s “optimism” fool you. After all it is very likely that the two parties will come together in a coalition government to implement these hugely unpopular measures since none of them will get enough seats to form its own government. Now they’re just staging the usual pre-election cockfight to rally their few remaining supporters.
Your probably right about Samaras. He says the right things at least, Venizelos does not even do that.
The things Samaras says are too good to be true but at least he is optimistic?
It’s pre-election so he’s got to be optimistic to get the sheep to vote for him. They shared roles this time Samaras will pretend to be the optimist while Venizelos chose the more down-to-earth profile. Like I said both parties have vowed not to diverge from the current policy. Whoever gets elected doesn’t really matter; Greece is on the auto-pilot, decisions are being made by the ECB and EU(the IMF only plays a minor role now). So “optimism” is all these clowns are left with. At any case voting for New Democracy at this moment is like simultaneously voting for PASOK and vice versa because after the elections they will probably try to form a coalition government with PASOK “socialists” and ND “conservatives”. I just hope that both parties will be so weakened that even combined they won’t be able to form a government. No government at all is better than this government or the Frankenstein government they will try to create by sewing together pieces of dead PASOK and dead ND.