Posted on 09/12/2010 12:21:14 PM PDT by mainsail that
Prime minister George Papandreou's attempt to offer austerity-weary Greeks a "message of hope" in a much-awaited speech last night was eclipsed by mass demonstrations and a shoe lobbed at him by an irate protester.
As some 20,000 protestors took to the streets launching what trade unionists have pledged will be an unprecedented winter of discontent the socialist leader tried to persuade Greeks that belt-tightening efforts were not in vain.
"Greece is engaged in a struggle of survival
in this battle, either we win ... or we sink altogether," he told the near-bankrupt nation in a keynote speech opening Salonika's annual international trade fair. "It has been a hard, uphill, relentless battle to save our country from default, a scenario considered a given just a few months ago
but we will make it, Greece will and is going forward."
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRAN??
Glub... glub... glub...
I don’t understand why the Greeks don’t just sell all their islands to the Germans. Problem solved.
yitbos
I was surprised too but the other writing seems Greek. Maybe the commies from other nations came to show ‘solidarity’ ?
:)
either we win ... or we sink altogether
Glub... glub... glub...
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010?printable=true
“The Greek state was not just corrupt but also corrupting. Once you saw how it worked you could understand a phenomenon which otherwise made no sense at all: the difficulty Greek people have saying a kind word about one another. Individual Greeks are delightful: funny, warm, smart, and good company. I left two dozen interviews saying to myself, What great people! They do not share the sentiment about one another: the hardest thing to do in Greece is to get one Greek to compliment another behind his back. No success of any kind is regarded without suspicion. Everyone is pretty sure everyone is cheating on his taxes, or bribing politicians, or taking bribes, or lying about the value of his real estate. And this total absence of faith in one another is self-reinforcing. The epidemic of lying and cheating and stealing makes any sort of civic life impossible; the collapse of civic life only encourages more lying, cheating, and stealing. Lacking faith in one another, they fall back on themselves and their families.
The structure of the Greek economy is collectivist, but the country, in spirit, is the opposite of a collective. Its real structure is every man for himself. Into this system investors had poured hundreds of billions of dollars. And the credit boom had pushed the country over the edge, into total moral collapse.”
Oh, and the Church ripped the state off by $1+ Billion after it “found” a deed from 15th century and exchanged that with prime real estate, by most likely, bribing politicos.
Yeah. A demonstration in Greece by Iranian Communists and the sign is in English. These guys know perfectly well that the newspapers who will give that international coverage are on their side.
Sound familiar?
Consider various reports have the German debt to Greece at somewhere in the vicinity of 50Billion in various judicially assessed but as of yet unpaid war reparations.
Maybe just maybe there is more going on there in Greece with regards to the EURO than the Lame Stream Press wants to reveal...
Or would the media failing to accurately portray the facts of an issue in support of a particular political agenda be a first?
W
Legally, Germany owes jack to the Greeks or they would have sued.
Morally, Germans et al have bankrolled the Greeks for 30 years, EVERY single yer Greece has gotten free money from EU (read Germany,) every single year.
There is more to the story, of course, EU wants its banks to have some time to dump Greek debt
One thing communists were always good at is propaganda. This is designed for foreign consumption, especially American, since we appear from outside to be at crossroads.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,682336,00.html
These are the now grown up Greek children, over 30,000 of whom had been taken from their own villages by the retreating Democratic Army partisans and most were raised in orphanages in Tito´s Yugoslavia. Greece at the time raised hell internationally and several United Nations resolutions were passed against Yugoslavia for this crime against humanity, but of the 30,000 who left, less than 1000 were ever returned. The rest of them grew up in a system that taught them a new, recently formed language, teaching them that they are not Greeks but (Slavo-)Macedonians, effectively making rabidly anti-Greek Janissaries out of them.
http://www.youtube.com/user/rempetisa#p/u/14/j30oc2DCdd8
Associated Press
02/24/10 12:22 PM EST BERLIN The German government has rejected charges from a Greek official that it still owes Greece reparations from World War II.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Andreas Peschke rejected on Wednesday allegations by a Greek deputy prime minister that Germans “took away Greek money and they never gave it back.”
Peschke said Germany has “made every effort to compensate” and paid 115 million German marks to Athens in 1960. He said that slave laborers had also been compensated as part of a joint government-industry fund.
(First Germany argued it was too soon to setttle accounts and most suits. That they could not afford it. Once they reestablished themselves the have argued it's too late.) http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/economy/85209327.html
Pangalos criticised Germanys attitude towards the Greek crisis, saying Athens had never received compensation for the economic impact of the Nazi occupation during World War Two.
They took away the Greek gold that was at the Bank of Greece, they took away the Greek money and they never gave it back. This is an issue that has to be faced sometime in the future, he said.
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/greece-trots-out-real-culprits-nazi-occupiers/
People might do well to step back and realize the same Gangster Banksters behind cheating the last 3 generations of Americans out of the Labor have been at work in Europe for a long time.
Fascist Italy had initially invaded Greece in October 1940 but was defeated, and the Greek Army pushed the invaders back into neighbouring Albania. This forced Germany to shift its military focus from the preparation of “Operation Barbarossa” to an intervention on its ally’s behalf in the southern Balkans. A rapid German Blitzkrieg campaign followed in April 1941, and by the middle of May, Greece was under joint occupation by three Axis powers: Germany, Italy and Bulgaria. A collaborationist Greek government was established immediately after the country fell.
The occupation brought about terrible hardships for the Greek civilian population. Over 300,000 civilians died in Athens alone from starvation, tens of thousands more through reprisals, and the country's economy was ruined. [1] At the same time Greek Resistance, one of the most effective resistance movements in Occupied Europe, was formed. These resistance groups launched guerrilla attacks against the occupying powers and set up large espionage networks, but by late 1943 began to fight amongst themselves. When liberation came in October 1944, Greece was in a state of crisis, which soon led to the outbreak of civil war.
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Axis_occupation_of_Greece_during_World_War_II
Just how we would you feel if 75 million Americans were killed in say 4 years... nearly 1 in 4..
If the enemy came in and left with 3 million American Children raising them as Mexican and sending them back to fight Americans (Yugoslavia did this under Stalin's influence..
Most of us have lived the life of a Privileged American.. Our freedom and wealth paid for in Blood by American GIs. Too bad you lack any appreciation for history, or empathy for the suffering of others who also fought tyranny.
The Greeks with Maxim Machine Guns and small cannons carried by donkeys defeated the Italians and their modern mechanized Army but could not sustain against the Germans..
The Germans systematically robbed the nations wealth..
Greeks were forced to fight a Partisan War. They were so good at it Germans routinely killed every man women and child in villages in reprisals.. 3000 Greeks killed in one reprisal alone that killed something like 17 German soldiers. Still the Greeks killed Germans.
The only thing that slowed but did not stop the slaughter was the Greek Patriarch. Himself a hostage and prisoner of the Turks.. ( His predecessor Drawn, Quartered, Beheaded for telling the Greeks to Keep their Christian Faith. The Patriarch threatened to excommunicate any Greek that Killed a German Soldier... Why? Because Greece was running out of Greeks.
Still the Greeks Killed Germans.. Oh and Killed the very few Collaborators without mercy. Greek Women Killed Greek Women who took up with Italians or German Occupiers. The Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Athens ordered the faithful to make every effort to hide Greek Jews..
300,000 Greeks in Athens alone starved to death..
To many of US think this sort of thing is Ancient History..
It is not.. It is certainly not to those who lived thru it and those who lived with the After Math.. Nearly a million Greeks starved to death immediately after WWII.
Maybe if for just a moment you stopped and thought about the real impact of WWII on places like Greece you would not be so quick to condemn.
The worlds Banksters and Financiers have been playing the worlds people for a long time.. We are getting ours right now but this sort of financial distruction of nations has been going on a very long time.
Greece has been a solid US ally for a very long time. Thomas Jefferson as President with the support of James Madison sought to support Greece as it fought the previous Invaders and child kidnappers.. The Muslim Turks..
For 300 Years the Turks tried to control Greece.. The Greeks did not convert.. 98% of Greece remains Greek Orthodox..
The Muslim sacks of crap who own our elected and appointed officials worked to kidnapp the first born child of every Greek Family (at 5 years old of course) for Sexual Slaves, others to raise as the original Jannisaries telling them "filthy Greek Christians murdered their "Good Muslim Parents" then sending them back to fight the Greeks. Our Leaders should be so stalwart.. the take the bribe money and sell Americans out as we speak. In what? Less than 10 years. Certainly less than 40 since they started.
The Saudis have been bribing Greek Officials for 40 years now to build a Mosque in Athens.. The Greeks your so eager to berate and condemn take the money.. smile. The Mosque has yet to even have a piece of land approved.. (a pig farm outside of Athens was the last piece of land Greek Officials were offering.
Compare that to the Ground Zero Mosque and US Public Official support for it's construction..
We would be fortunate if our corrupt leaders were even half as patriotic as the Greeks..
Perhaps you should rethink your vitriol towards Greece...
Might it be that what you read in the Main Stream Media is not an accurate representation of the facts? Has that ever happened before? lol ..
There is a good chance Greece has exposed the Trojan Horse of Fiat Debt Created from thin air by Banksters ...
It could be Greeks lead the way again.
This time in a fight against the new tyrants. The International Corporate Oligarchy. (psst Aristotle used the word Oligarchy to describe what is occurring today a few thousand years ago)
Perhaps this whole Democratic Republic thing is not so new to the Greek People? :) W
” Perhaps this whole Democratic Republic thing is not so new to the Greek People? :) “
I ignored the stupid document dump but I had to comment on this: What “Greek” people? Most of you are Orthodox Middle Easterners, Turks, Slavs and Albanians. Your last names tell the story chico: Karamanlis, Liapis, Karatzaferis, Gkinis, Tzafas...
Tell me about the Greek flag, aka the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:British_East_India_Company_flag.svg
Tell me about your first President (didn’t speak a word of Greek)
Your national costume (Albanian)
Karaghiozis (Turkish)
Greek coffee (er, Turkish coffee)
Cypriot “Greeks” that have nothing to with Greeks genetically (pictures told that way before)
P.S. Lawsuits against Germany were settled by the big powers. Now get a job and stop stealing Mr Fakelaki.
I like that..
Fakelaki means little gift... It is the way business is done in Greece. Not only with government officials, business to business and persons purchasing larger goods and services.
You see there was a 300 Year Occupation of Mainland Greece by the Muslim Turks and their allies (such as the Muslim Egyptians).
They tried every which way to forcibly convert the Greeks from Orthodox Christianity to Islam there normal Kidnapping, Rape, Murder the whole kit.. one more of their ways was to try to control commerce.. to the tax goods and services of the Christian Greeks.
So the Greeks being Greeks would openly pay each other very little for goods and services (mainly in and around Athens where the Muslims had the most control).
So lets say we want to buy bread..Bread costs $1 a loaf and the family eats two loaves a week. The family pays the Greek baker 25 cents a loaf and every month or so one of the family members hands the baker or his wife a little envelope (little gift) with $6. Now there is a good record of the 25cent purchases of the bread by everyone and any tax is on the 25cents. Just no record of the many “little gifts”.
That tradition continues today.. Greeks report much less income on their taxes than they really make because “The little gift” continues to this day.
Greeks will report say $14,0000 annual income on their taxes. Yet it costs $40,000 a year to live in relative comfort. Public Official are paid quite low wages but receive “little gifts” for expediting things. They will still do the work if they do not receive the little gift.. just in their own time.
The Government of Greece recently passed a law that prohibits cash transactions over 1000 Euros..(now of course they do this to demonstrate to the stupid Germans they are “Serious” about controlling the economy and becoming “responsible” EU members..
As soon as the Germans leave ... all the Greeks bust out laughing.. I provided links that showed there is ongoing litigation against Germany.. Some have argued long before this current “Faux Financial Crisis” the amount owed to Greece for war reparations is 50 Billion..
What a coincidence that the Greeks now owe the Germans 50 billion. The Germans are never going to get that 50 billion they loaned back from Greece..
The Greek politicians the same ones some decry as Communists/Socialists.. Well they act surprisingly like Nationalists now don't they? Both to the Germans and to those who want to build a Mosque..
What makes the Islamofacists so angry is they make Big Gifts to public officials and have for 40 years. Unlike here in America where our public officials are eager to play the whore for cash and do not care who they “service”.
In Greece the Islamofacists still have not received a permit to build a Mosque in Athens after 40 years of Bribes / Gifts..LOL
300 years of Islamic murder, torture, kidnappings of children and rape..still the Greeks did not convert..
That fact of History makes some very crazy indeed.
W
300 years of Islamic murder, torture, kidnappings of children and rape..still the Greeks did not convert..
That fact of History makes some very crazy indeed.
. Why would Turks want all their subjects converted (hint: study their tax system)
. So Turks did all they could for 300 years to convert you but you didn’t? Bwahahahahahahahahaha, so many uprisings lead by your church :). Read your church’s disgraceful history first. Why was your Patriarch killed at the dawn of the Greek revolution (fought by non-Greeks)
. Athens was a small Arvanite village back then, Acropolis was a mosque, whorehouse and depot among other things.
. The top diplomats for the Ottoman Empire were....?
. What does a name like Hatzis mean in Greek since you never converted?
. Without the Turks would Orthodoxy even exist at least in Greece? Google Frankish Kings and Venetians.
. What does “Rather the turban of the Sultan that the tiara of the Pope” mean?
. And what is a Greek? (Hint: Greece is an artificial country, based on religion alone. Greeks and Turks are almost identical in habits and culture)
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