Back in the year 2012, our Beloved Brussels Masters, they who run
the EU show, were horrified to learn
that the Greek government, a decade before at the time of the introduction of
the Divine €uro, had cooked the books and lied through their teeth on their application
forms, so as to be allowed to join the single European currency. Oh shocked
shocked shocked our Masters were! How could such a thing ever have happened?
How could any governing official be so very unscrupulous
as to tell a profitable untruth? No, they had had no idea, our witless
Beurocrats; and no little red warning light had lit up in any of the
well-educated, well-groomed technocratic skulls when it turned out that the
wealthy, well-run, highly responsible and accountable country of Sweden, who
had likewise applied, did not meet the criteria for joining, while good old Mediterranean
Greece, never famous for its probity and fiscal morals, passed the test with
honors…
No, they had not seen it coming. It took them completely by surprise.
And they were very very VERY angry…
So annoyed were they, that they swore to get even. Oh yes! An evil affront like
this, sprung on a blameless, innocent Empire-in-the-making, they wouldn’t let that
pass unpunished!
Recently, Tim Geithner, the then US Treasury Secretary, described in
his memoirs the mood of the EU bigwigs whom he met at the time during a G7
conclave in Canada. In a tone of sheer disbelief, he writes: ‘The Europeans
came into that meeting saying: “We’re going to teach the Greeks a lesson. They
are really terrible. They lied to us. They suck and they were profligate and took
advantage of the whole thing and we’re going to crush them.” [That] was their
basic attitude, [of] all of them.’
One can only gape and flabbergast, dear reader, at such incredible
infantility lurking in the minds of supposedly adult and responsible public
servants who pretend to be the best and the brightest that our poor old continent
has to offer. Their behaviour resembles that of a schoolboy romantically spurned
by a classmate, who swears vengeance by twittering embarrassing nude snapshots of
his obscure-objet-de-repugnance.
But that toddler mind-set is not even the most awful thing about
this episode. The true horror lies elsewhere: in – and this may surprise you – the use of pronouns. Yes! For, when
these hollow men in silk suits said that ‘they
had lied to us, and we are going to crush them’,
they meant two completely different third person plurals, and two very different
sets of Greeks. The first ‘they’ referred to the corrupt, nepotistic, self-serving
old elite, consisting of the right wing Nea Democratia party and the socialist PASOK.
Those were the ones who had lied. But the others, the ‘them’ whom they were
going to crush mercilessly, were the Greek people. The children, the elderly,
the infirm, the unemployed, the disadvantaged and the weak. (I wrote on that
little theme before, as in this here article…)
And who do you think would do the ‘crushing’ of that second ‘them’ at
the bidding of our Brussels Masters? Yes, you guessed it: the old corrupt,
self-serving, nepotistic, elite of PASOK and ND, who were more than willing to
obey the Brussels dictates and apply the salubrious austerity medicine of the
Abominable Troika, as long as they would be allowed to remain in power.
Astonishingly, these two old oligarchic parties, who for over half a century had
made a marvellous show of how they bitterly hated and despised one another like
rabid dogs and vicious cats (while they snugly alternated in power and took
turns at robbing the till), now welded themselves into a Grand Patriotic Coalition,
under the pretence of saving the Motherland! (1) And Brussels saw it, and Brussels
saw that it was good; for Brussels needed obedient elected lackeys in Athens power,
so as to administer a healthy, satisfying dose of Crushing of Greeks.
And now there are elections in Greece, and the chicken are coming
home to roost. For you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of
the people most of the time, but let it simmer long enough, and people will recognize
what is really going on. They will see, and suffer, the harm done by the old
political mafia in tandem and cahoots with the plastic foreign technocrats who
possess neither conscience nor human feeling. And then they will be fooled no
longer, and vote in an outsider who is NOT willing to do the bidding of Brussels
Apparatchiks building a Byzantine Empire. Enter Syriza…
Of course, this does not go down well in the corridors of Brussels
power. And so out they come, the Commissars, the Bankers, the Chancellors and
the Foreign Ministers, to warn the Greeks of the consequences if they vote for
‘the wrong party’ (Mr Juncker came up with that phrase…). Your banks will fail.
Your economy will collapse. Your international credit will evaporate. There
will be no more money for medicine, or petrol, or milks for the dear little
Greek children. You may have to leave the warm and comfortable Euro zone, and
the EU paradise… We may not help you…
The message is clear… If, in spite of our friendly, warm-hearted,
paternal warnings, the Greek electorate has the shameless audacity to vote for the
wrong party, one that is no EU lapdog and will play no Troika hangman, Brussels
will not only allow the country to leave the Eurozone and even the Union… No,
it will, once again crush them. It will do what it can to make the Grexit
punitive, disastrous, calamitous and an economic massacre. An example will be set,
pour decourager les autres. For
Brussels does not accept disobedience. And worse: it will not allow anyone to
escape unscathed from its heavenly project of Bringing Democracy and Prosperity to Europe…
So brace yourselves, ye descendants of Solon, Pericles and Demostenes!
The days of Democracy are over, and you vote, not with a show of hands, nor even
with your feet, but with your blood!
(1) This supposed enmity
was always pretty fake. I just learned that the leader of Nea Democratia,
Antonis Samaras, used to share a room, back in his students day, with the long-time
leader of PASOK, George Papandreu…!! Will you believe it? One does wonder how
GREEK their relationship really was??
I haven't heard that word, Grexit, for the longest time Mr. Mittington. I have to wonder though, what do the Greeks do all day besides lie through their teeth...
ReplyDeleteSearch through garbage bins looking for food, perhaps? The population is being crushed so as to save the Divine Euro and its Brussels' servants. No people will accept that forever!
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your artful exploration of our language. This particular blog addresses a subject that we wish to inform U.S. Congress about. I was hoping we could obtain your permission to reprint your article in full on our developing website (helleniccontinuum.org). Of course full attribution would be given. Very well done!
ReplyDeleteDear Sir,
ReplyDeleteGo right ahead. I would be honored!
Yours, sincerely, Alfred B Mittington