Totalitarianism the Destination for Greece?

Today Athens News carries a headline Venizelos: ‘No danger of default’. Yet in the same article it quotes Venizelos as saying “The handling is delicate, is carried out according to a plan and will yield results. The term ‘selective default’ must not be translated into Greek in ways that are at the least populist,” he warned. So does Venizelos ackowledge default is a distinct possibility or not?

Reading the article it appears the Venizelos does acknowledge default as a distinct possibility in which case the headline is misleading.

In any case Venizeols’s quote is extremely confusing. He says “the term selective default must not be transalted into Greek in ways that are the least populist” . I would like Venizelos to state what would be a populist translation and what would not be a populist translation. – Just so everyone knows where he stands when it comes to what he thinks is populist regarding the bail out/default/austerity measures.

As someone who does not speak Greek I will try and give him two possibilities in English.

Option 1. A populist translation which makes a selective default sound good.

Option 2. A populist translation which make a selective default sound bad.

Now I can honestly tell you I have no idea which option he believes is “populist”. From my point of view Venizelos comes out with so many contradictory statements I don’t know what he believes. I mean I cannot pin is poisiton down to anything.

The fact that Venizelos’s position seems to be changing according to the last news reports and weather conditions does not help.

Maybe this is his plan. If he gives the impression that he occupies every postion all the time then nobody can go back and say he was wrong. You know I like to tie what is happening in Greece back to Orwell’s 1984. Venizelos taking all opposing positions in one statement reminds me of the Ministry of Truth.

Whatever the agenda of Venizelos personally I have had enough of the innuendo, the creating of grey areas which regards to Greece’s position and the general confusion he creates when he speaks. I think the Greek people, any people deserve more. Unfortunately Venizelos is not alone is his widespread use of Newspeak

As a perfect example of someone pushing Greece towards a Totalitarian regime Venizelos came out with this peach The finance minister urged Greeks to heed only “reliable information” given by the government – I mean who is this guy? I have said he is living in a fantasy and I think he is out of control with the propoganda that he puts out. I mean since when has the government been openly telling people what to believe?

I mean “reliable information” given by the government/Papandreou. What evidence is there that what they say is reliable. If someone were to think that everything that the inner party of PASOK says was and in fact the exact opposite of reality, that person would be much, much better informed.

For those who don’t know Papandreou flat out conned the Greek people to get into power. He said on numerous occasions (may videos on YouTube) that Greece had no financial problems, that Greece had all the money that was needed and yet once the votes had be counted and Papandreou declared the winner he came out publicly and admitted that what he said was wrong. That Greece didn’t actually have the money.

So again, Papandreou said one thing but the actual reality was the exact opposite.

Papandreou pledged not to raise the VAT rate yet the VAT was raised twice, from 19 to 21 and from 21 to 23%.

Again, Panandreou says something and the exact opposite is true.

Papandreou has stated that default not an option yet today that is exactly what is being negotiated.

Again, Papandreou says something and the exact opposite is true.

I have stated my opinion before of Papandreou and I will give it again. The man cannot be trusted, he has shown himslef in my opinion to be a complete and utter liar OR he is completely and utterly incompetent, either way there is now way this man should be leading a marching band, let alone a country

He has lied to the Greek people to get into power and now he is destroying the country piece by piece.

Papandreou shares many aspects with Barrack Obama and I do not mean that as a compliment. Obama does and has done the same things as Papandreou. He says one thing and does the EXACT opposite.

This is a good video regarding Obama. From what I see, Greece is getting the same lies from Papanderou.

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Going back to the Athens News article, Venizelos continued and warned opposition parties and especially main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Antonis Samaras to “avoid playing with words” at this crucial time.

Now I am not religious in any conventional form so forgive me for the bible reference

Matthew 7:1&2 tells us that the way we judge others is actually, literally the way we ourselves are judged.

I believe this is correct. We judge ourselves by the same standards that we judge other people. So Venizelos is accusing Samaras of playing with words, Venizelos is projecting his own behaviour onto Samaras. (Personally, I hate it when people do that) So in my mind Venizelos is actually exposing what sort of man he really is rather than embarrassing Samaras.

If Venizelos had any constructive critisiscm of Samaras’s position he would say it. The fact is he knows Samaras has good reasons for his actions so he is reduced to “playing with words” by accusing an opponent of “playing with words”.

If PASOK want to be taken seriously they need start being honest with themselves and the people. The propaganda of saying Greece has a future when everything in Greece is being destroyed before people’s eyes is an insult to the Greek people.

The apathy of politicians in Greece is almost total. More and more the attitude seems to be “all the parties are the same”. I would say Papandroue has a track record of saying everything is okay and then things turning to sh*t. ND has a reputation of corruption but they also have a reputation of not increasing taxes.

It is all very well for people to be protesting in squares around Greece but it is not easy to protest against something. To move the demonstrations forward people need to protest FOR something. It is much easier to achieve something if you have a goal, if you have a target you want to get to.

From my point of view the Greek people seem to have 2 choices. Either insist of new elections to get Papandreou and the inner party out of power or to campaign to turn Greece into a direct democracy.

Direct democracy is much harder to archive because it is so radical. But the only way Greece can achieve direct democracy is if the people make it a target and work towards making it a reality.

If the Greek people don’t set direct democracy as the ultimate goal then it will never be reached. Just like climbing a mountain. If you don’t try to get to the top you will never get there. You have to identify the target and work towards it. Break the climb into manageable sections and anything is possible.

Giving the country a target will give everyone in Greece something to get behind, something to support. Simply saying things are bad while good is not a long term strategy. Successful protests need a long term goal.

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