pokes greece cmon do a revolution
Governments like this deserve to be toppled by its population.
Instead, the population re-elected them with a super majority in Parliament, allowing them to pass laws like these without needing to ask anybody’s help.
I agree, but this is not due to ignorance or stupidity from the population. Ideology is a powerful drug, and today, the right wing is heavily dominant in the minds of people. However, ideology creates its own contradictions, which can be exploited by a new working class political movements to create a new conscience. The problem is nowadays even working class parties and the so-called left-wing have been infected by neoliberalism and until that bad influence is purged from the working class political organization (or a separate org is able to grow without being influenced by it), these kind of defeats will keep happening.
Greek society is highly polarized. It’s not uncommon to meet right-wingers who are outright fascist in all but name, for example. Unfortunately the left-wing Greek political poles are very fragmented, while the right-wing is very solidified. There’s a high degree of cynisism among the neutrals, to the extend where they hardly participate in any political process and just go with the flow.
To add some context, in the 20th century, Greece has been the target of some of the most oppressive anti-communist and anti-left action, both from within and without. The problem is that the Greek left has done very little to fight back against this in the current times, and instead gave space and opportunity to radical right-wingers to take over the minds of the working class and farmers. The left-wing is prominent in urban centers. But take a visit to the countryside, and you’ll be met by 1940s and 1950s conservatism. So the left-wing has a good chance of winning in Thesalloniki, Athens, Volos, and a few other big cities. But the agricultural districts in general always vote right-wing. Why? Politics inherited down the family, outright bribery and favours by politicians to local leaders, the power of the church, neglect by left-wing parties, purging of the left during 20th century dictatorships etc.
The current ruling party in Greece is mired in corruption scandals, cover-ups and administrative incompetence. Read a Greek newspaper and you’ll see 2-3 new scandals every week that would bring down any other government easily. You have certain ministers and MPs who say incredibly insulting and stupid shit constantly, and then they get away with it (e.g. Adonis Georgiades). It got so bad, that in the last elections everybody was expecting the government to be voted out of power completely. People were prematurely celebrating in the streets that Mitsotakis was going to be kicked out of office. Yet, they won, in one of the lowest turnouts in the last 20 years, by margins of 15% or more, because people outside the ruling party supporters didn’t really care enough to vote or didn’t feel that they had viable alternatives. To add insult to injury, the former Minister of Transport, clearly guilty of multiple crimes that led to the Tempi train crash (which is a very prominent topic against the government for the last 3 years and sparked protests and marches with record-breaking attendance), got re-elected to Parliament with more than double the votes to his runner-up in their district.
It saddens me to say this, but the Greek population has shamed themselves in the last elections and they are getting the consequences now. They got burned, robbed, cheated, beaten by police, flooded, crashed, practically enslaved, and abandoned, yet they still gave a supermajority to the government that has been literally fucking them openly. I don’t say this with glee. I’m saying there’s a lot of things that need to happen to fix what’s going on in Greece, and first and foremost on the list is a complete cultural shift. But that seems impossible right now.
Unfortunately the left-wing Greek political poles are very fragmented, while the right-wing is very solidified. There’s a high degree of cynisism among the neutrals, to the extend where they hardly participate in any political process and just go with the flow.
This seems a Western trend, since at least the rise of Hitler, and I strongly suspect for many of the same reasons.
I suspect the same
I remember once speaking with a (then local to me) Greek business owner during the financial circus who swore fascism was the only answer. It kind of rattled me because they were kind, compassionate, and not into the Nazism, was okay with immigration, just wanted the corporatism. I asked how they planned to achieve that separation and they were adamant the politicians would figure it out. I think they planned to return to Greece, and have often wondered what they think now. It makes me a little sad for them.
The West will never forgive Greece’s debt default, which if I understand/recall correctly wasn’t wholly the fault of Greece? It’s been a century since last decade, but was… Germany? USA? somehow involved with that?
Yeah it was German banks basically showering Greece with loans they knew Greece wouldn’t be able to pay back. Because they knew they’d have EU/USA’s back when the inevitable happens.
Was Deutsch involved by any chance? 🤔
Eta also, fantastic how people are so quick to blame recipients and the offending institutions go Scot free.
You mean Deutsche Bank? It definitely was heavily involved. It was a classic imperialist move of lending money to the foreign government for the purpose of that government then spending all of it on imports from the creditor country (and really, more often than not specifically on commodities produced by companies controlled by the bank issuing the loan).
Take this passage from Lenin’s Imperialism:
Finance capital has created the epoch of monopolies, and monopolies introduce everywhere monopolist principles: the utilisation of “connections” for profitable transactions takes the place of competition on the open market. The most usual thing is to stipulate that part of the loan granted shall be spent on purchases in the creditor country, particularly on orders for war materials, or for ships, etc.
Greek debt crisis was a modern example of that. Here’s a nice summary: https://debtjustice.org.uk/countries-in-crisis/greek-debt-crisis-case-banks-people
Thanks for a concise summary. France being a bigger lender than Germany makes sense.
What is amazing to me is how quickly Iceland was forgiven, and how people are still angry at Greece.
Also, I remember when Debt Justice, then Jubilee, was buying US medical debt of the poorest, and the US squashed that.
I’m betting the world won’t be as forgiving when USA defaults, which seems inevitable, and another reason for government to be so militant about hegemony. But that’s vibes based, I’m trying to get awake.
Greece has become a neoliberal nightmare surpassing previous milestones…
