Published in the Greek blogs (Greek text) 5-6/ March/ 2012
Some words in the rich Greek language need to be redefined since, and I do not know if this is accidental or intentional, with the systematic help of our political leaders and the men and women who add up to the 300 members of the Greek National Parliament, the meanings and messages they were carrying have lost their intrinsic meanings, their denotations, connotations and what they originally suggested! progress in historic times has not been recorded on a stable and persistent line targeting the future. There have been and will continue to exist, as is the case with other people equally or less "historical" (in regards to the time their presence on earth has been recorded) setbacks, detours, wrong turns and stagnation. Determining today that there is stagnation, lack of progress, should not deprive us of optimism should not kill the promise that hope carries!
In Greece It is widely assumed that only a few weeks separate us from the coming historically critical and crucial National elections scheduled in late April or early May (I am puzzled by the fact that our politicians did not take care to avoid a painful reminder of the month of May 2010 when they invited the Troika to Greece denuding our financial drama and handing over National wealth and Sovereign rights to the "loan sharks", i.e. our lenders.)
The "back and forth" trips betweenAthens and Brussels
In Greece It is widely assumed that only a few weeks separate us from the coming historically critical and crucial National elections scheduled in late April or early May (I am puzzled by the fact that our politicians did not take care to avoid a painful reminder of the month of May 2010 when they invited the Troika to Greece denuding our financial drama and handing over National wealth and Sovereign rights to the "loan sharks", i.e. our lenders.)
The "back and forth" trips between
The Greeks’
One can easily surmise that any moment now the “back and forth” trips of the above two will reach and even surpass those of former Tsar of the Greek Economy Dr. Papaconstantinou and ex Prime Minister Mr Papandreou (who had uttered the historical expression that in his trips to Brussels he “carries a gun” which he lays down on the discussion table every time he sits to discuss Greece’s economic woes with European Leaders.)
Meanwhile Leaders and "followers" of the other 26 European Union member States modernize and methodically and actively raise even higher the protective walls of their Banking and Finance Institutions in the face of what has been widely termed as a steady process towards full “impairment” (I am intentionally avoiding the term “bankruptcy” as I do not wish to be misunderstand) of the Greek Economy…
Inside and outside the Greek Parliament Mr Samaras unleashes shrapnel against the government of PASOK simultaneiusly declaring that he will "pull the hoods from those who wear them hiding their identities" when he becomes Prime Minister and Mr Venizelos returns his thunders accusing him that he is responsible for the continuously growing REQUIREMENTS Europeans make for more, wider and deeper sacrifices of the Greeks and commitment to our “Lenders” of the Greek National wealth resources! ..
Meanwhile Leaders and "followers" of the other 26 European Union member States modernize and methodically and actively raise even higher the protective walls of their Banking and Finance Institutions in the face of what has been widely termed as a steady process towards full “impairment” (I am intentionally avoiding the term “bankruptcy” as I do not wish to be misunderstand) of the Greek Economy…
Inside and outside the Greek Parliament Mr Samaras unleashes shrapnel against the government of PASOK simultaneiusly declaring that he will "pull the hoods from those who wear them hiding their identities" when he becomes Prime Minister and Mr Venizelos returns his thunders accusing him that he is responsible for the continuously growing REQUIREMENTS Europeans make for more, wider and deeper sacrifices of the Greeks and commitment to our “Lenders” of the Greek National wealth resources! ..
A large segment of Greek public opinion wonders if it is a case where they both ignore so easily the fact that they participate in the 'supposedly' National Salvation Government or are they both "victims" of the well known psychological mechanism of "denial of reality"?
The correct word describing their behaviour inside and outside the Greek House of Parliament is probably “ignorance” rather than use of the mechanism of "denial of reality" which would signify psychoneurotic disorders that neither Mr Samaras or Mr Venizelos seem to have.
The correct word describing their behaviour inside and outside the Greek House of Parliament is probably “ignorance” rather than use of the mechanism of "denial of reality" which would signify psychoneurotic disorders that neither Mr Samaras or Mr Venizelos seem to have.
Perhaps the psychoneurotic “denial of reality” should apply to the rest of us, and especially the respectively “blue” and “green” voters (using the Party banner colours for New Democracy and PASOK respectively) and many are eager to count their combined strength in the forthcoming national elections...
Currently in “naval gazing” Greece the disruption of University life by sit-ins is not the work of students but of teaching and administrative staff members who vehemently oppose the New Law aiming to update the country’s Higher Education System that the Education Minister Mrs Diamantopoulou has passed through Parliament.
Currently in “naval gazing” Greece the disruption of University life by sit-ins is not the work of students but of teaching and administrative staff members who vehemently oppose the New Law aiming to update the country’s Higher Education System that the Education Minister Mrs Diamantopoulou has passed through Parliament.
So nowadays it is not a minority of University students who defy the LAW but a minority of professors and administrators who end up depriving the silent majority of students who want to be in an Amphitheatre or lecture room their right to be taught and have their parents see their “sweat” which the willingly spend for their children’s education go into waste, “to dry out unnecessarily”, because a protesting minority so wishes!
"Political advantage", for the opposition, is a term that provides a semblance of PROFIT but finally ends up amassing individual, collective, and national DAMAGE!
I started my article declaring that the words have lost their meaning!
I will kindly ask you to recall a few keywords and their meanings that were dear to Greece’s ex-Prime Minister, Mr Simitis and his "block" of collaborators which included Messrs Papandreou (who was designated as his successor), Papademos (then Director of the Central Bank of Greece and currently the country’s Prime Minister), Venizelos (who appears to be the favourite successor to Mr Papandreou as Leader of the Socialist-PASOK party in the elections to be held this month who is currently serving as Czar of the Greek Economy)...
The PASOK Leaders were telling the Greeks that MODERNIZATION is identical to progress but instead the Greeks experienced “the crime of the Athens Sock Exchange” where more than 30 trillion drachmas were “lost” and the waste of valuable and “borrowed” financial resources for the Athens 2004 Olympic Venues amounting to billions of Euros.
"Political advantage", for the opposition, is a term that provides a semblance of PROFIT but finally ends up amassing individual, collective, and national DAMAGE!
I started my article declaring that the words have lost their meaning!
I will kindly ask you to recall a few keywords and their meanings that were dear to Greece’s ex-Prime Minister, Mr Simitis and his "block" of collaborators which included Messrs Papandreou (who was designated as his successor), Papademos (then Director of the Central Bank of Greece and currently the country’s Prime Minister), Venizelos (who appears to be the favourite successor to Mr Papandreou as Leader of the Socialist-PASOK party in the elections to be held this month who is currently serving as Czar of the Greek Economy)...
The PASOK Leaders were telling the Greeks that MODERNIZATION is identical to progress but instead the Greeks experienced “the crime of the Athens Sock Exchange” where more than 30 trillion drachmas were “lost” and the waste of valuable and “borrowed” financial resources for the Athens 2004 Olympic Venues amounting to billions of Euros.
During the first decade of the 3rd Millennium Messrs Simitis, Papandreou, Papadimos, Venizelos and the PASOK Government put Greece into the Euro zone and it appears, undoubtedly, that during the second decade of the 3rd Millennium they have put us into the “burning” Bankruptcy zone!
PROGRESS, surely and undeniably, creates a sense of optimism, 'as long as it does not aim at lowering the standard of living of a people, at abolishing employment and social benefits acquired through intense struggle and confrontations, at lowering salaries, compensation and pensions to levels of starvation! ..
OPTIMISM, conceptually, includes the sense that things will improve and, as things now stand in Greece, this seems to apply certainly to our lenders (some call them loan- sharks) European and other Banking and Financial credit institutions but it does not apply to the Greeks, the Greek economy, or Greece as a Nation! ..
HOPE surely provides the necessary courage that will make us strive to improve, to make things better.
HOPE, unlike optimism, survives even in seasons in which words have lost their meanings and confusion of objectives, views and beliefs prevails.
HOPE, I believe, is what as a people we now need since it will give birth to the optimism that the Greeks will rise from their fall and stand up again as we have done for the last 3 millennia!
But it remains in the minds of most of us Greeks as a very bitter reality that we are suffer inhumane squeeze by our European friends and partners because our Greek politicians managed, perhaps not intentionally but surely irresponsibly, our National resources, fortunes as well as our collective luck and they go on governing us…unpunished!...
OPTIMISM, conceptually, includes the sense that things will improve and, as things now stand in Greece, this seems to apply certainly to our lenders (some call them loan- sharks) European and other Banking and Financial credit institutions but it does not apply to the Greeks, the Greek economy, or Greece as a Nation! ..
HOPE surely provides the necessary courage that will make us strive to improve, to make things better.
HOPE, unlike optimism, survives even in seasons in which words have lost their meanings and confusion of objectives, views and beliefs prevails.
HOPE, I believe, is what as a people we now need since it will give birth to the optimism that the Greeks will rise from their fall and stand up again as we have done for the last 3 millennia!
But it remains in the minds of most of us Greeks as a very bitter reality that we are suffer inhumane squeeze by our European friends and partners because our Greek politicians managed, perhaps not intentionally but surely irresponsibly, our National resources, fortunes as well as our collective luck and they go on governing us…unpunished!...
