The Struggle against the National Selloffs in Greece-A Story of Gold (Skouries), Repression and Multinationals

 

In the Eye of the Storm-Kassandra Minerals

This area has from antiquity had rich mineral seams. So far 33 tonnes have been excavated.

Greek Gold (Ellinikos Hrisos) a company owned by Bobolas (owns media interests and the road tolls) purchased it from the Greek state for Euros 11m. This company purchased 300,000 acres around 300 houses, two underground seams and machinery for drilling, storing and processing mineral extraction and 30,000 sq m of office space. Another forest is added of 4,000 sq m and Papakonstantinou (ex-finance Minister under Papandreou) agrees to hand it over to the company ‘free of charge’. A study of Environmental Impact set up by government agencies is ignored (gross environmental destruction of an area of natural beauty, destruction of underground water routes, impact on tourist industry etc.)

                               This aint Gaza or Egypt but an old lady in Greece 

Greek Gold Corp was bought out by European Goldfields who then go on to sell it to Eldorado Gold Corp for Euro 1.8b, its stock market valuation becomes E2.3b and the reserves in seams amount to E15.5 billion.

The mineral extraction goes against areas designated as of ecological importance (NATURA 2000) (article 6 paragraph 3-4 of regulation 92/94 of EEC) and Greek inspection agencies just turn a blind eye. The company does what it wants without following any building regulations, or regulations regarding mineral extraction such as what is to happen to seams after they have been opened, or restoration of mined areas etc.

In one of the seams they are creating an open pit of 700m wide and 140m under the surface of the sea and over a 25 year period they are expected to mine 380 million tonnes of gold i.e. around 15m tonnes a year. At the $1.5k and 1 tonne equivalent of 32,000 ounces we are talking of an annual return of $7b which, taking into account the initial investment, is just a licence to print money (sorry: gold!). This is without taking into account the fluctuations in the gold price which over a long period of time always goes up in relation to paper currencies.

No provision is made within the Greek state for royalties for this type of mineral extraction. Various universities have carried out studies that this type of open smelting and the nature of the extraction of separating the gold from other minerals is extremely destructive to the local environment and the associated costs (environmental, social, loss of other business etc.) and the fact that this type of gross mineral extraction for a multinational does not bode well for the local populations of this area.

Effects on the Local Populations

There are many knock-on effects in tourism, agriculture, animal husbandry, bee growing, forestry, bio-agriculture, water streams for the use of farming. Here are some of the impact assessments: there are 816 bee growers there which constitute 10% of the bee growers in Greece; there are 100 000 acres of cultivated land and 275 000 acres of land used for grazing. Forests are used for their wood, other areas for natural herbs (medicine etc.). All of this is endangered by the destruction of the forest of Kokkavos. The dust from the mineral extraction will move like a storm in the whole region, destroying plant life and heavy metals entering the food chain from the mineral extraction of such immense proportions.

                                     Stunning natural beaches to be destroyed 

The impact of tourism on the economy of N E Halkidiki is alleged to be in the region of 15-20% of GDP. This type of economic looting will bring about an immeasurable attack on tourism of the area, and will undermine the quality of life. The mountain area of Kakkavos supplies the whole region with water. El Dorado Gold ignores another EC ruling 60/2000EC: ‘Maintaining a framework for common action on water policy’ which was added onto Greek legislation by the law of 3199/2003. The needs of water for mineral extraction will be equivalent to the needs of 40k citizens and it is predicted that water levels which are +640m above sea level will drop to -140m with a consequent massive destruction of underground water tables. Dust will be produced at the equivalent rate of 4,324 tonnes an hour and the whole region will be equivalent to what occurs in Ptolemaida (the area where electricity is generated through the extraction of lignite which covers 40% of Greece’s electricity needs and the EU wants banned!). There will be very large quantities of arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, metals, nickel, mercury etc.

 

The table shows how far the mineral dust will go and affect a whole region.

Peaceful Resistance to El Dorado Gold by the citizens of Ierissos and Skouries

Timeline of Police Repression

13.03.2011 Ierissos’ First big demonstration in which hundreds took part in this town which is closest to the Company’s activities.

20.03.2012 Skouries demonstration in the mountain area by 30 citizens. 500 of the company employees attack the locals and the police stood by as people were beaten up.

25.03.2012 Big Tree, Halkidiki had a big demo of all the citizens of the district on a national holiday and a very large force of police confronted them, not allowing them to proceed in a public area. Then with no reason the police attacked the citizens with tear gas and stun grenades. People tried to escape but they were caught short and ambushed by another group of riot police who had planned their entrapment when they retreated.

14.04.2012 Skouries Halkidiki. On 14^th April six women went in two cars to the public area of the Kakavos mountain range but in the Skouries point there was a blockade with men from a private security company who were wearing masks. They asked the women for their ID but they refused. After writing down their number plates, they were allowed to continue past the roadblock. But then two farming trucks from Greek Gold threatened them, abusing them and stating they will be blamed for any future problems with Greek Gold Corp, 20 women were held hostage for and the private security company called the police.

05.08.2012 Skouries Halkidiki. Another peaceful demonstration towards the Skouries region and strong police forces refused permission to march despite its having a written confirmation by a public prosecutor. During the negotiations the police forces started to tear gas the people, threw stun grenades and even used plastic bullets. The constant use of tear gas provoked fires in the forest and the fire brigade had to turn up to put them out. In the evening the citizens of Ierissos symbolically blocked the road and they warned the oncoming drivers by distributing information leaflets. After a while they were attacked again.

Citizens and tourists under the guise of damage allegedly made to the local town hall were tear gassed and people were shot at directly rather than rounds being fired in the air. The occupation forces left at midnight.

09.09.2012 Skouries Halkidiki Another peaceful demonstration against the expansion of the company and this time there was a helicopter above the offices of Greek Gold Ltd. along with a very big police presence. With the arrival of the first protestors they were attacked directly with teargas volleys, stun grenades and plastic bullets. People retreated and they were chased by the police. Many demonstrators were injured including the MP Vangelis Diamantopoulos of SYRIZA and a German demonstrator. The biggest injury was the trauma a demonstrator received to his spleen from being hit directly by a tear gas volley.

Riot police militarise the conflict with tear gas and plastic bullets

In October 2012 the police officers union lodged a complaint that illegal procedures were occurring through the use by the police for the private interests of gold mining in Halkidiki without any crime having occurred and without them following correct procedure i.e. article 22 of Law 3938/2011.

21.10.2012 Skouries Halkidiki. More than 2,500 people met at the ‘Big Tree’ to demonstrate against gold mining in their area. Around 300 remained in this spot whilst the rest marched in the wood towards Skouries. After 7km of walking the police blocked further movement. Fire occurred in the forest and the police and demonstrators together went to put it out. Whilst there, there was a standoff and the head of the strong police force said that they wouldn’t use tear gas as happened to the first demonstrators. The demonstrators, women, pensioners etc. retreated once more, and many fell on top of each other and were trodden on; those who remained too close to police lines were beaten up by the police.

Many relatives brought cars to the area to remove the demonstrators and those injured. But the police chased everyone for around 7km. The police attacked some of the convoys as well as breaking car windows, throwing tear gas inside cars, beating up injured protestors. During the attacks the riot police cheered on the attackers and there are eye-witnesses who allege their superiors tried to contain the attacks, for any death would have immense consequences for all involved.

Many were arrested for ridiculous charges, one man for losing control of his vehicle after they had fired a tear gas volley in it. They were refused legal representation and charged with ‘attacking the riot police’.

Demonstration in Thessaloniki against El Dorado Gold Corp

25.10.2012 Poligoros Halkidiki. More than 2000 citizens converged on the Ministry of Justice and had a demo in support of the arrested

 

18.11.2012 Megali Panagia Halkidiki. Demonstration inside the village then a march towards the Kakavos mountain range.

 

24.11.2012 Thessaloniki Massive demo with more than 8000 people against the destructive mineral extraction in Halkidiki, Kilkis, Thrace. Petitions were handed to the Mayor of Thessaloniki and the Canadian Consul in the city.

 

Stop the Crime! Stop the Collusion! section of the Thessaloniki demonstration

 

                                             Outside the Greek Parliament

12.01.13 Athens. 500 citizens travel down from Halkidiki for a demonstration in Athens outside Parliament and the Canadian Embassy.

 

24.02.2013 Megali Panagia Halkidi. Thousands of citizens from all of Greece demonstrate against the gold mining company once more.

 

Above is a summary of 26 page bulletin set up by the committee of resistance to El Dorado Gold

 

http://soshalkidiki.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/soshalkidiki_01_el_sp.pdf
Website in English of Committee
 

http://soshalkidiki.wordpress.com/category/in-english/

 

 

'Direct Action' against Multinational Corporate Looting and Destruction of Greece

What happened next is that the offices of the Gold mining company in Skourries were attacked and burnt down. The goverment said 50 masked men did it and that they had broken the cameras. Then they circulated videos of the attack from the same broken down cameras showing a few masked men. This cannot be explained other than it being a provocation by themselves to blame the surrounding opposition.

Experience of Keratea: Lessons Learned or Errors to be Repeated?

When Papandreou was in charge with Pangalos (the beached whale) as Vice President, they used alleged EU rules to impose a dump site next to an established community without even having the decency to ask them. The conflict continued unabated with police brutality. But the citizens, without political party domination, continued on their own. They had nowhere to go. This was their houses, their community and they defended themselves up to initiating direct action (modern urban guerrilla warfare). They got night diggers and without the police realising they dug up a main road cutting it in half overnight which meant their area would be cut off from police reinforcements.

They ceaselessly confronted the riot police, tying them down to breaking point. It was heard that their superiors complained to the government that this is the job for an army, not the riot police! Pangalos admitted after the fall of Papandreou that, due to popular protests, the IMF programme could not work after the defeat in Keratea.

House to House Searches and Arrests

Under the pretext of the attacks they started to storm the village of Ierissos arresting most men and doing DNA tests along with body and house searches.  They terrorised the population, acting like an occupation army (like Hitlers or the Ottomans) that Greeks have become familiar with in their previous history.

Privatisation and the looting of the natural resources of the country for the sake of large multinational corporations is occurring at the same time as a distinct process of militarisation against all peaceful resistance.

Role of the Left-Syriza

Apart from individual participation, the organised forces of the Left are once more unable to provide a correct focus to the issue which in fact emphasises how in practice the looting of Greece is proceeding apace. Government Ministers sign over national land for its mineral wealth to large multinational corporations and they obviously have a wide range of ‘commissioning’ activities in their contract bidding (offshore bank accounts made familiar from the Siemens bribery contracts, then require the local police forces to do the ‘policing’ (enforcing the contracts Cochabamba - Bolivian style) and now they are heading into a Nigerian-Columbia (BP buys army protection) situation where, in order to police the areas surrounding the goldmining sites, there is talk of using foreign mercenaries (ex-Blackwater) or possible use of the army.

SYRIZA is on the pathway to continue where Dimar (Kouvelis-Dem Left) left off is even advertising the GoldMining company in its paper, in the picture below.

Avgi-Syrizas paper advertising Hellas Gold

The advertisement says ‘One of the Biggest Investments which Greece has Known’ ‘With Society Next to Us’!!!

Whatever happens next, one thing is sure: the locals have a chance of winning as they did in Keratea. They have nowhere to go and they can block the exits and entrances to the Goldmining facilities. The mass mobilisations and the unprovoked police attacks which reached the level of tear gassing local schools, arresting little girls to enrage their parents, will provoke even more fury. Out of these popular struggles a new order will be built, one that takes into account the wishes and desires of those who live and toil the land.

VN Gelis

8^th March 2013

 

Six Months of Syriza in ‘Opposition’: Are They the Troikas’ Last Card?

"Bread, Peace, Education

The Junta didn't Die in 1973"

“I like Tsipras. He has something fresh to offer. He has achieved much in the role of official opposition…”

Kostas Karamanlis New Democracy ex- Premier to Vima 24^th February 2013

 

Despite announcing last June, to much fanfare, that this was the last Saturday before a new anti-Monetary Union dawn, Tsipras has presided over six months in opposition. In those six months we have seen the future role for Syriza in action.

They are ECB- IMF appendages in waiting: they are the Dem Left’s successors; Maastricht’s honourable heirs. Tsipras flip flops on a range of issues: accepting NATO; accepting a rescheduling of the debts rather than demanding their immediate cancellation; asking people to stay on the streets whilst being the first to depart; selling out strikes etc. This has set the tone for what a possible future Syriza government could look like, assuming an open dictatorship isn’t declared or a peoples’ rebellion occurs.

In 2012 Syriza grew from 4% electoral support to 27%. This was the shortest period of time in history, and happened because of the response by Greeks to the international blackmail and global corporate media attack that they are the ‘laziest’ ‘most corrupt’ ‘biggest shirker’ nation on Earth. They refused to prop up bankrupt and corrupt Western banks. But it was due primarily to the fact that opposition to ‘Grexit’ (Greek exit from the Eurozone) no longer held sway with a majority of the electorate. The 40% that didn’t vote in the election knew they were all the same anyway and kept their conscience clean. But for those who did, the last six months have been the biggest disappointment in an opposition, possibly ever in Greek history.

Tsipras at the Karamanlis foundation function with Samaras, Papoulias and other 4th Reich Quislings 

 

The economic genocide continues apace. There are daily suicides. There are more than 450,000 families with no breadwinner (in total 1.3 million people). There is around 30% official unemployment. Probably around 50% of the population are underemployed; wages have lost around 40-50% of their value. Hospitals have ceased to function in any meaningful sense. We are in an economic tsunami akin to the period of war rationing. Within this monstrous situation, which shows no signs of abating the opposition parties (Syriza, KKE, Independent Greeks etc.) have done nothing apart from engaging in waffle from the sidelines, or turned out to make funeral orations after the defeat of strikes led by them: Steelworkers (KKE), Metroworkers (Antarsya),  Sailors (Syriza). They drone on about how in the next life, we will win, but in this one we can only endure defeat after defeat.

Coordinated campaigns of disorganised resistance and disunity are their hallmarks. They should register a patent and see if they can continue to make money on it, for that is all they are concerned about: receiving their state subsidies as official parties; MP’s sinecures; pension deals as union presidents, who, if they serve just one term, are pensioned off and so on).

It was the people in their hundreds of thousands who saw off Papandreou in June-July and again in October 2011 via mass occupations of squares and disruption of annual military parades. They reduced his party PASOK to a rump with a rabble rouser, Venizelos, whose nickname is Benito, in charge. PASOK’s only lament is that Golden Dawn took votes from them. It appears once more that it will be the people who will get rid of the latest Tripartite Quisling formation known in Greece as the Internal Troika. They gave 1 in 3 of their votes to Syriza and what have they got in return?

 

Syriza’s Abysmal role in ‘Opposition’

The initial elation by Tsipras and Stamoulis arising from their not winning the election suggested the possibility that they agreed not to win. Was there an electronic cooking of the books? After all, the company that computes the results is owned by Latsis and Vgenopoulos, ship owners par excellence. With this they would be able to ‘rock the government in… legality’. In other words they would be a pliant opposition.

 

Meeting Shimon Perez
Tsipras’ first big foray in Opposition was to state we will not go back to the Drachma and met with Shimon Perez ex-Premier of the Zionist US airbase going by the name of Israel. This was to guarantee that any oil exploration projects, as was also the case with his friends in the Cypriot Government, would be handed to Israeli companies and that any future president would guarantee their investments.

Drachma not an Option-Interview with Tsipras
http://www.athensnews.gr/issue/13512/58165

 

Hiding from the anti-Merkel anti-MoU (EU Monetary Union) protests
During Merkel’s visits, despite ex-PASOK MP’s Sakorafa stating that we will stay on the streets so as to end the third round of cuts imposed by the MoU, what did they do? They left Parliament and held their banner outside the steps whilst the rest of the population routinely were teargassed. Despite union members dressing up in SS uniforms and chanting ‘down with the 4^th Reich!’, Syriza refused to leave the Parliament, stating that to do so would go against Parliamentary democracy. When hundreds of thousands demonstrate and the desire and need is for them to stay out to win, if there was even a nominal leadership this could be achieved. Instead we have a commitment to Parliamentarism which is beyond even what the parliamentarians are doing. After all, they no longer govern via Parliament, which governs by Executive Decree, signed and sealed by a corrupt President whose nickname in street protests is Papoulia-Julia (porn actress deliberately made famous by the corporate media during the arrival of the IMF so as to confuse sections of the population).

Anti-Merkel Protests No to the 4th Reich

 

 

Avoiding all slum visits in Brazil and flipflopping on debt repayments in Argentina
We then had Tsipras’ long holidays to Latin America to gain international kudos as if the big boys across the Atlantic aren’t supporting him as the next best hope for their financial sharks who want their pound of flesh from the decapitated Greek nation. Brazil was touted as a model of development, the country that not too long ago was bumping off street kids and has a police force, which to this day, makes the Greek one look like it operates in the spirit of Gandhi.

                                                  Tsipras in Brazil, sunglasses for a visit!


 In Argentina, the country survived its economic collapse only after an insurrection, the collapse of many governments and the restoration of the Peso, decoupled from the US Dollar. But despite Tsipras knowing all this, all we heard from him back in Greece was how they paid back a portion of their debts and…restructured them.

 

Brookings Institute and Washington, Tsipras Made in the USA

Tsipras pro-American stance started to reveal itself just six months after being the main opposition. Whilst not still able to go openly to the inauguration of a US President, he was there soon after speaking in one of the most Cold-War institutes in the USA, the Brookings Institute. He said nothing less than that austerity is killing capitalism and he wanted to save it. According to the German media, one of the meetings in New York was funded by Soros, that well known financier who always seeks his pound of flesh against nations when he isn’t actively destabilizing them culturally.

Metro workers burning back to work papers...

 

The message back in Greece, in particular after Syriza’s conference in early December, was that there are two wings in the party: the ‘pragmatist’ wing that sees Obama as a saviour and the ‘left’ party wing led by Lafazani, which oscillates from saying that it wants the return of a national currency, to talking up strikes in order to aid in their betrayal when the government announces another ‘emergency decree’ to ban them.

Tsipras flipflopped on being against NATO, considering it no longer is an issue under the present dire economic circumstances, despite the fact that, according to bourgeois commentators such as the Guardian’s Helena Smith, Greece probably spent around 250 Billion Euros in arms. Tsipras implies he wants to maintain these payments at all costs, along with Greece’s external commitments, including soldiers as part of NATO, in Kosovo, Afghanistan etc - and wherever else NATO decides to invade in the future (even Greece itself if it comes to it!)

 

Politicians don’t run Greece, neither does Parliament. So don’t expect anything from the Fake Left either.

With the Troika in charge of every Ministry; with some banks being funded by the ECB; with no National Agricultural Bank; with all decisions regarding ‘national’ economic policy set by Brussels, then Greece is no longer a state with its own decision making bodies. It has become an EU Protectorate. The fake left refuses to accept this vital fact in order to maintain its role, which is none other than propping up the IMF. It does so by its policy of coordinated disunited resistance, allowing section after section of employees to be dragged into defeat, kicking and screaming.

Whilst Metro workers and Sailors tore up their militaristic orders from the government to return to work, the union tops brought out lawyers who threatened them with being fired, arguing on the picket line for them to go home. Then we had the despicable spectacle of the fake ‘lefts’ appearing to march back in defeat and give militant sounding speeches about the future ‘struggle’. Lafazanis and Papariga turned up in unison for the sellout, whilst everywhere else they march separately, here they struck together!

Greeks waiting for free handouts from Greek farmers

 

The mass privatisation and selloffs of Greece will be stopped only by popular struggle, as occurred in Keratea over the creation of dumpsites right next to peoples’ homes. Whether we get a new government in the coming period (Syriza in power with Ind Greeks seems most likely as the KKE is refusing to join Syriza) this kind of resistance will continue because the  present government seems to now be a busted flush.

Samaras’ handing over sea rights to Turkey, wanting to seel the main state owned Greek gas import company to the Americans, despite being offered double by the Russians have all contributed to this inherent national bankruptcy of the internal Troika.

The hundred thousand who marched for the umpteenth time in another 24 hour General Strike in Athens on Wednesday 20^th February shows that people are willing to take on the IMF. All that is lacking is the leadership.

 

 

Updates:

25.02.13

Syrizas economics team around Dragasakis announced that due to budgetary constraints and the delay in assuming power it will probably be impossible the longer Syriza remains out of power or constitutes the backbone of a new government to restore the minimum wage as promised to the pre-Troika period.

26.02.13
Tsipras is to speak at the 15year funeral oration for the founder of New Democracy Konstantinos Karamanlis. From marching with PASOK-Dimar now speaking at New Democracy functions....

03.03.13
Alavanos ex-leader of Sinaspismos wants to found the Party of the Drachma in discussion talks with Antarsya...Kazakis of EPAM...

 

ANTARSYA-Metro Workers Leader Stamatopoulos leaves Metro Workers Exposed!

 

 

 

 

 

"Labour is one-third cheaper in France than in England; for their poor
work hard, and fare hard, as to their food and clothing. Their chief
diet is bread, fruit, herbs, roots, and dried fish; for they very
seldom eat flesh; and when wheat is dear, they eat very little
bread." [39] "To which may be added," our essayist goes on, "that
their drink is either water or other small liquors, so that they spend
very little money.... These things are very difficult to be brought
about; but they are not impracticable, since they have been effected
both in France and in Holland." [40] (Capital I, chap. 24) And the
footnote amplifies: [40] Today, thanks to the competition on the world-
market, established since then, we have advanced much further. "If
China," says Mr. Stapleton, M.P., to his constituents, "should become
a great manufacturing country, I do not see how the manufacturing
population of Europe could sustain the contest without descending to
the level of their competitors." (Times, Sept. 3, 1873, p. 8.) The
wished-for goal of English capital is no longer Continental wages but
Chinese.

Karl Marx

 

http://classicalmarxismvsimmigration.blogspot.com.au/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Metro Union Leader standing on an Antarsya Electoral Ticket- Stamatopoulos


Big words usually before a big sellout by the metro leader Stamatopoulos-SELMA union who stood on the Antarsya electoral ticket (got the amazing amount of 154votes) after the 8day metro workers strike which crippled Athens. Union leaders forced by pressure from below to call out other groups of transport workers, Buses, Trams, overground, OSE-trains reached the point of an all out  indefinite transport strike.

Just before the climax the govt passed its usual military junta law of banning the strikes in courts then issuing requisition orders to each individual striker to get back to work or lose their jobs. As other workers were joining the metro workers, Skaramaga shipyard workers, farmers with their tractors the sellout started. Troika plus the internal Troika banned the strike and the union tops did the usual when they aren't playinbg divide and rule. The talk tough about 'junta' rules, dictatorship, the attacks on the right to strike on the tv and then they bring in the lawyers who announce to the strikers that they cant be defended if they dont go back to work. The usual fake left leaders Lafazanis from Syriza pop along and so does PAME-KKE give tough speeches about the future struggle and resistance and in the meantime as organisations they dont even call their members out or call for the people of Athens to rise up and fight. They dont leave the IMF occuppiers Parliament and Tsipras from his coffee drinking chats at the Brookings Institute and the IMF headquarters in New York says we shouldn't increase 'tension' and 'social conflict'.
(They have allready named Syriza as a party which is split between the Interior and the Exterior-Tsipras ie the conciliatory wing)

Riot police storm occupation  by metro workers of train carriage works 4 am.

In other words workers should accept the new round of 25% wage cuts up until we match Chinese wages and labour standards in Greece. What they fail to understand is that you cant keep selling out group after group which is in conflict, truckers, taxi drivers, farmacists, farmers, transport workers and avoid the inevtable that you are leading society inevitably into open rebellion. The fake left lederships and the political parties of the fake left embedded to the IMF are digging their own grave. Samaras govt would have fallen if their was a real general strike of only a few days. Whether they are able to pull it off indefinitely we will have to wait and see as groups of metro workers were seen burning their individual court papers in public.


http://youtu.be/OzZFABUZ7Pc



Where were the marches by the union tops? Where were the demos outside the Greek TUC? Where were the flying pickets to call out all transport workers? Just before all other sections joined and the farmers were going to blockade the motorways with tractors the Metro Union Leadership caved in.

Metro workers burning return to work papers-union tops brought out lawuers to tell them they have to go back!

Stamatopoulos was for years a member of the KKE's Building Workers Union which they wound up and turned into a gangmasters union exclusively for their members, then he became a technician in the metro and then became a de facto union leader being in PASOK. Sensing his careers as a union leader was coming to an end, he joined ANTARSYA the Syriza front on the outside which pretends it aint Syriza but has identical policies. Now sensing he may lose his Trade Union pension, despite spending years chanting 'the only right is one that belongs to workers' he did exactly what all have done in the last three years, sell out the strike.

The sellout of this strike buries once and for all the notion of the extra-parliamentary left.


PS
In another era, during the busworkers strikes in 1992 which aided in bringind down the ND-Mitsotakis govt, the bus workers went on all out strike and chanted with daily demos 'Air Air Get the Cholera Out' forcing scabs to stop working, even up to the point of parading them in public with no clothes on. Only 40 tube workers according to reports were in the main garage works of the Metro, the union tops did not call for mass pickets or daily demos. This is the famous 'Anti-Capitalist' Coalition of Antarsya, Syriza in drag

Fake Left Marching with Troika. Fascist 'anti-fascism'? ...

POE-OTA union mobilisation against the representative of the EU-4th Reich Project Chancellor Merkel in Greece

Leon Trotsky bitterly denounced “the empty abstraction of anti-fascism” and the Popular Front in his writings on Spain as follows: “The very concepts of ‘anti-fascism’ and ‘anti-fascist’ are fictions and lies. Marxism approaches all phenomena from a class standpoint. [Republican prime minister] Azaña is ‘anti-fascist’ only to the extent that fascism hinders bourgeois intellectuals from carving out parliamentary or other careers. Confronted with the necessity of choosing between fascism and the proletarian revolution, Azaña will always prove to be on the side of the fascists. His entire policy during the seven years of revolution proves this.”

What are the real reasons behind the hue and cry against Golden Dawn?

There is an international effort by the British media (e.g. Paul Mason on Newsnight), the Greek corporate media (Lambrakis media), Reuters, the US media (New York Times) and a whole host of organisations the world over who are embedded to the agenda of the corporate New World Order. This is the same corporate media that sold the lies of Al Quaeda and Weapons of Mass Destruction to launch the ‘War on Terror’ i.e. the neo-colonialist brutal occupation of both Afghanistan and Iraq on behalf of the oil and drug cartels that are part of the clique that rules the world.

In the piece below:

http://greecesolidarity.org/?p=410

“Love or nothing: The real Greek parallel with Weimar

Paul Mason, who originates from the ‘Far’ Left, asserts the following:

“Of all the operas written during Germany’s Weimar Republic (1919-33), probably the most haunting is the last.

Kurt Weill’s The Silver Lake, written with playwright Georg Kaiser, tells the story of two losers – a good-hearted provincial cop and the thief he has shot and wounded – as they make their way through a society ruined by unemployment, corruption and vice. After spending a week again in Greece – amid riots, hunger and far right violence – I finally understood it.”

When in reality if one is to use culture to be appropriate for Greece one would have to use Brecht or more appropriately his last play written in 1929 ‘St Joan of the Slaugherhouse’ which depicts the collapse of capitalism. History does not repeat itself in a linear fashion. Stalinism and fascism aren’t coming back in the same form. They are dead.

Searching for historical parallels and from them issuing statements about Greece, which not so long ago was characterised as having ‘humane capitalism’ but now it resembles Weimar Germany. This serves certain New World Order agendas, which is what Paul Mason’s role is.

After all he is on a lecture circuit for personal gain and promotion selling the story in his latest book, that global capitalism is suffering a new 1848!

No to the 4th Reich

 

The rise and rise of Golden Dawn…

Golden Dawn, whose precursor was EPEN which received 7% in 1977, are supporters of foreign backed military juntas and have constantly revealed this. They are embedded rightists who have supported the foreign backed juntas. In that sense they differ not one iota from the internal troika running Greece now. There never was a neo-nazi movement in Greece for it cannot have mass social support as Greece never was a developed imperialist state. This myth of the developed imperialist nature of Greece is peddled by those who are supporters and promoters of the cornerstones of EU free trade policies (in labour, capital and goods). The organisations that make up Syriza were either embedded PASOKites all their life or were supporters of Maastricht, ex-KKE who had no moral issue governing with New Democracy and PASOK in 1989 and 1990.

On Saturday 6th December 2012 a demonstration organised by the Town Halls allegedly against ‘fascism’ occurred. Official participants in this demo was Kaminis (Athens Mayor), Vallianatos (head of the Homosexual Association of Greece), Manos (ex-New Democracy extreme free marketer who called the arrival of immigrants a blessing for capitalism), Tzimeros (extreme free marketer), PASOK MP’s, Dimar, Syriza and Antarsya alongside Amnesty International and other US based NGO’s. We have had a Troika government for more than 2 ½ years; now an internal Troika (ND, PASOK, Dimar) are presiding over around 30% unemployment which shows no sign of abating and over 3,500 suicides without including those who have had heart attacks or diagnosed with a severe disease due to the economic crash (lack of medicines and hospital care  now being a permanent phenomenon).

Instead of the Left leaving Parliament campaigning on the streets to overthrow this Quisling formation, they are embedded in a parliamentary perspective which no longer holds water as the Government runs on Administrative Decrees which don’t follow due parliamentary process and German gauleiters introduced into every ministry until the end, i.e. till their final dissolution. No one has called for Genocide charges to be laid against the Troika and no one will; instead they now march with them on the streets as there is allegedly a greater danger lurking round the corner.

Despite countless localised rebellions against the wave upon wave of illegal immigration, the violent deaths of countless Greeks young and old, nothing is heard or seen in the corrupt Mass Media: only reports of when an illegal immigrant has their forehead scratched or they allege they were sworn at or chased by people professing to be Golden Dawn do come alive. Golden Dawn hasn’t held a single national demonstration in Central Athens and neither has Syriza despite the fact that the situation is getting worse daily. What characterises this period, as opposed to the 1930’s, is that today no one wants to govern, neither the fake far Left nor the fake far Right.

Town Halls vs Dustmens Union

Last summer there was a dustmen’s strike against wage reductions and increases in work loads and the government, then under PASOK-Venizelos, employed illegal immigrants to break the strike. This is the agenda they want to impose right across the public sector, using the Bolkeinstein directive to permit companies to be set up so they pay e.g. Bulgarian minimum wages in Greece after they have subcontracted everything. Indicative of this is what occurred in Thessaloniki University where cleaning contractors employing Greeks struck for non-payment of contract payments. It lasted over a month. To ensure the viability of the strike, rubbish was allowed to pile up internally and eventually the Mayor Boutaris in Thessaloniki (from the well known winemaking corporation) called in the riot police to break the strike and arrest striking cleaners. Where was the fake Left?

But more importantly, the ‘silent demo’ held in Athens on 6th December was organised by the Town Halls, the same town halls who are in conflict with their own workers in a long drawn out conflict where they want to sub-contract all council services to foreign multinationals, and here one understands why they funded an ‘anti-racist’ protest in Central Athens and invited all their political supporters the fake far left with representatives from the government.

The class basis of fake ‘anti-fascism’ is exposed fully here...

How can one claim to be on the far Left and support the imperialist EU project? How can one claim to be on the far Right and support the Euro stand for EU elections etc?

Political analysis has degenerated from one which defines what one is from deeds, not words, to one which defines what one is from words, not deeds. So as Syriza calls itself the party of the ‘radical left’ it must thus be, so Golden Dawn must be neo-nazi as they printed an edition of their magazine praising Hitler. The so-called communists for decades defended Stalin’s gulags and the Greek KKE still does, so moral lectures from those quarters regarding their political positions are far and infrequent. They believe there is an upturn round the corner, that the collapse of capitalism can be arrested if only it changes course; that neo-Keynesianism is the solution to the crisis and that the stale parameters of the past, viewing things in terms of Right and Left, when what we are really confronted with is much worse: the erasure of nations from the map by the twin threat of economic immiseration and the flooding of labour markets by anyone and everyone from anywhere, a mini-USA, not in times of economic boom, but economic collapse.

Imperialism has been in a state in collapse since the dawn of the 20th century. We had two imperialist world wars, countless of localised wars and, with the advent of the ex-USSR on the scene, the collapse of capitalism was arrested. But the system managed to go global with the fall of the ex-USSR. The world market exists for the production of goods. America became centre of the de facto world capitalist Empire. All other imperialisms were subsumed under it. The contradictions of the global system are now measured within the context of the collapse of US imperialism.

The rise of the EU occurred as a first step towards a world government with a world currency. But, due to the crisis of overproduction, all the old antagonisms covered for a large historical period came to the surface with the collapse of Lehman Bros. No other area could be antagonistic or in competition with the USA. Hence the Euro had to be curtailed. Greece was chosen for that specific role. Socialism or barbarism has resurfaced not in the distant future but immediately. The economic hitmen of the Troika would make Hitler look like a democrat in peacetime (he provided jobs, albeit many for war production), our lot are the SS in suits. You won’t hear that from the fake left.

The hue and cry over Golden Dawn has class roots. Those remaining on the left are middle class protest groups. Sensing their imminent immiserisation, want the working class to succumb to globalism as the only alternative to social struggles, to accepting internal colonies and open slave labour. If anyone questions the process they are to be labelled a ‘racist’ by these self-styled… ‘anti-racists’, who have no moral objection to marching with the representatives of the Troika in Athens...

Who wanted a parliamentary career and who blocked their rise into Parliament? ANTARSYA, EEK, KKE(ML), Den Plirono, EPAM, of they aggregated their votes and one would have got at least another 2% for Syriza hence...so their venom is on the rise of the ‘far right’... is about them not passing the grade ie being elected as MP’s or ensuring the Left wins. Their policies are about ‘divide and rule’ pure and simple.

GD wouldn’t have been known if it wasn’t for its position on illegal immigration, or, more importantly for taking part in residents’ protests in central Athens against the squatter camps which developed in the centre. In 2009 they received 0.29% votes or around 20,000 votes, in the local council elections; in November 2010 they received 5.29% and Mihaloliakos (leader of GD) was elected on the Athens City Council. A year later they got 6.97% in the May elections of 2012, surpassing the KKE, and a month later 6.92%, forcing the KKE into 7th place! Now they state it might become the 3rd party after Syriza and New Democracy. The irony of Greek rightist ‘nationalism’ is that GD supported the Euro in its inaugural speech in Parliament as the Greek ‘people paid dearly for it’, they unfurled a ‘junta banner’ in a meeting in Crete during the celebrations over the fall of the Junta (i.e. the American backed Papadopoulos one) and, like Syriza, they haven’t held a single national demonstration and in their internal party briefings they have said members must play it cool waiting for the 7th Memorandum of Understanding-Bailout packages which have led to 50% cuts in wages and about 25% cuts in pensions (we are now on the 3rd) and power will fall on their lap, in other words when 99% of Greeks are destitute they will...take over!

Golden Dawn wanted the arrest and called for those who protested against Merkel to be locked up. So much for their ‘anti-MoU’ political stance: as clear and militant as that of Syriza, which remains in Parliament to this day, even when, in neighbouring FYROM, the opposition has left after they openly stated there is no point in remaining in Parliament as it runs on Presidential/Executive Decrees i.e. does not allow voting for the passing of laws, exactly like the fake Greek Parliament.

How could the Fake Left justify its politics of Abstention without GD?

Where can we now find Marshall Skobie or the Varkiza sellout to justify the sellout policies of the fake Left? We can’t. But we have GD instead, Mihaloliakos and Kasidiaris. Thank God they emerged as it provides a holy cover for the rotten leaderships of the fake left. It restores their fake credibility. Combined votes would have meant they would have had a majority but they remain disunited so as to not govern. The current crisis cannot be resolved in a peaceful manner as the effects of the crisis are no longer peaceful. This is what the fake left peddles, reformist nonsense in an era where reforms have long gone. 50% cuts in wages and pensions 70% plus inflation, busting tax rises, mass homelessness and unemployment are the new terrorism, the neo-fascism of the corporate World Order which they defend and support by asking us to remain embedded to the neo-colonial EU project.

They make noises regarding attacks on Syriza MP’s, yet, apart from allegations, we haven’t seen any. They allege GD has brutalised and killed illegal immigrants, yet many Greeks have died at the hands of illegal immigrants. To name just a few which led to riots: a father on his way to hospital with his pregnant wife was killed by illegal immigrants for a video camera in central Athens; in Patras a young lad was stabbed to death for complaining about noise on the street. Syriza have never demonstrated against the killing of Greeks by illegal immigrants. Why? They support a one sided policy: anyone but Greeks. Who said the Greek nation has to accept wave after wave of illegal immigration? The Troika ‘anti-racists’! The fake Left used to have the slogan ‘National Independence and Popular Rule’. Now they have forgotten the first part as they are interested in the abolition of the nation states, hence they support ‘minority’ rights on the principle that Greeks have none. Golden Dawn offices were blown up with the aid of lots of ammunition placed there. This could only come from the security services. Who said anything about that explosion? No one apart from GD of course?

Why? Those who seek to use paramilitary methods against GD (demand its ban), taking into account that Greece has had a history of paramilitary activities centred primarily on the Left (under the guise of attacking ‘fascism’) are opening the door to attacks on the Left in general. Why? Only the Left has fought for social change in Greece. No one else. When I say the Left, I mean the thousands imprisoned, chased, hunted, killed, maimed or butchered by local quislings operating for foreign controllers. Greece was the only country never de-nazified, which the foreign powers used and abused in their Cold War pursuits: let’s not forget the despicable role of the British Labour Party in the Greek civil war, working in tandem with the Greek quislings of Hitler.

Imperialist Lectures

For a long period of time the quisling fake leftist grouplets in Athens adopted all the lectures from the imperialists of the north, labelling Golden Dawn a neo-nazi outfit, when previously they had assigned this role to LAOS, to Fini, to Lepen, etc. Fini governed in Italy; so did LAOS in Greece. So what happened? Nothing. All the parties of the fake far right who allege they are ‘nationalist’ are there just to assume some political steam from the far right for internal reasons.

Did mass immigration decrease under Fini’s participation in government? Did it under LAOS in Greece? Will it under GD? Of course not! Those embedded in capitalism are also embedded in its current transnational pro-globalist nature. So to listen to frequent lectures from those who have a colonial and racist past like the BBC and its correspondents is like listening to Dracula about blood blanks. It’s a total joke.

That is why there is no far right or far left anymore. They are just two sides of the same coin. Embedded to the EU nation destroying project of creating internal colonies. We have been here before. It was known as the 3^rd Reich. N o wonder they keep silent when Greeks march in Nazi uniforms and in fake tanks (bought by the Town Hall workers POE-OTA union) against Merkels 4th Reich, the real fascism of our times, the one that governs and is destroying the Greek nation.

The fake far lefts’ covers are being blown. The fake far rights will soon be blown as well.



From the Archives
Pouliopoulos on the Nature of Greek ‘Fascism’

Translated by VN Gelis

 

The Dictatorship of the August Fourth Written in July 1939 in Akronafplia

 

1. The Metaxas dictatorship of 4th August has now completed 3 years of rule. In this period the bourgeois parliamentary parties were erased from the political scene. The organisations of the working class were dissolved and most of its militants were either in exile or imprisoned. The proletariat didn’t express any resistance. Metaxas organised national labour unions and agricultural cooperatives on the basis of the ‘leadership principle’ and a hierarchy like Mussolini and Hitler. He every now and again organises popular demonstrations where he is declared to be the first worker, the first farmer etc. of the country. In the Administration, in Education, even in the Church, he implements the same bureaucratic totalitarian policy of autarchy in the economic field, just like fascism and he hasn’t been slow to show his energetic support towards the fascist countries – including in trading with the Nazis. In the controlled press, in schools, in universities - everywhere - Metaxas has established the dominant ideology of the ‘absolutist’ state, of anti-communism, anti-liberalism and anti-capitalist demagoguery. Finally he created paramilitary units, just like those of National Socialism and Fascism. The whole political life of the country permanently revolves around what Metaxas says and does. Thus Greece became a Fascist country, with a Duce, a Fuhrer, Ioannis Metaxas. Such observations like the above were made by Stalinism. Such were also made by various Fourth Internationalists.

2. Stalinism didn’t require as many signs as above to see Fascism appearing from the royalist proclamations of the 4th August 1936 when Parliament was dissolved. From the era of the “twin brothers” (Fascism and Social Democracy) and the ‘Fascist’ Bruning and before, they had characterised as Fascist, according to the period: Venizelos, Kondilis and Tsaldaris and every government which passed anti-labour legislation or overturned the so-called democratic freedoms of Bourgeois Democracy or Parliament. And the leading members of the KDEE (State-Capitalist, Stinas) needed a few months to pass after these events so they could raise a whole series of ‘new political tasks’. This they incorporated into a new programme so as to justify the creation of the ‘Workers Internationalist Party of Greece’, as they declared in their official illegal bulletin. I summarise these tasks because that is imposed on us by the political reality (of imprisonment): due to the defeats of the workers by the fascist regime, they say, we must limit ourselves to communist propaganda, to cadres operating with all the restraints imposed by illegality and to wait in particular foreign victories of the European proletariat before we can re-propose active political slogans against the Dictatorship. As this was followed by the defeats in Spain and France, mass direct action against the Dictatorship became a political impossibility for an indeterminate future period. Stalinism produced different conclusions from the same characterisation of the government of the 4th August. The KKE sold out the rebellious workers in Thessaloniki on 9th May 1936 to the supporters of Metaxas and the Liberals. And it supported Sofoulis in the Parliament. This gave power to General Metaxas. They then called on the bourgeois parties to form an alliance with them against the Dictatorship. The raise the ‘antifascist democrats’ reactionary officers and overemphasises the chauvinism of Metaxas with indescribable socialpatriotic cynicism.

3. The practical result of this ‘antifascist’ policy has been the total erasure of the Fourth Internationalist KDEE within the first six months of the Dictatorship. It isn’t the case that this total disappearance - from the beginning of 1937 - was due to numerical and organisational weakness. In fact, its leaders and some of its members were free and it even had the technical capability to publish illegal documents. These comrades had been instilled with a spirit of defeatism, political indifference and reductionism: ‘nothing can be done’. The practical result of Stalinist ‘antifascism’ was that most of its leaders and members were untouched by the regime: 90% of the CC and of the central and local cadres, their parliamentary leader, their second in command, MP’s and prospective MP’s and their regional committees, and theoretical leaders such as Glinos were free in Athens, in his case guaranteeing he wouldn’t bother the government. The KKE officially declared for the ‘patriotic policy’ of the Dictatorship, “for the defence of the borders from external and internal enemies” and became followers of Metaxas’ Okhrana. The Sklavenas-Sofulis agreement found its logical consequence in Sklavenas-Metaxas and this a long time before the KKE, first of all the democratic parties shook hands with the Palace and the British backed liberal George II.

4. If the proletariat were to choose either one of these two policies, the Workers United Front pessimism and the Stalinist Social Betrayal, it would be incapable of overthrowing the Dictatorship and to proceed to its historic liberation from the capitalist yoke. We believe that such a dilemma isn’t currently in front of it. So the political considerations are to a great extent unclear and pessimistic and the Stalinist conclusions mistaken. If they told us only that a regime which abolishes parliament and dissolves workers organisations must be called fascist, as most liberal bourgeois have done in all the totalitarian countries, it would then be just a question of choosing the most suitable propagandistic label. But the question isn’t the name, despite the social bases and political support of the current dictatorial government in Greece, as well as our tasks in confronting it. It is also known to us that confusion and the double edges in conditions which we always use, we end up with a mistaken confused opinion for the determined situations.

5. We all agree that there are differences within the dictatorship of 4th August and in the regimes that dominate today in Germany and Italy. But the truth is that what basically characterises both these regimes doesn’t exist in Greece. Even were we able to talk about the ‘Fascism of 4th August’, our political conclusions would be very different. In those countries the dictatorship is an agency of finance capital and the ‘still hungry’ imperialists, which is based on a big social base: pettybourgeois (post war dust) and workers masses disappointed by their experience of democracy (workers who are in provisional despair from the revolution which was sold out by the Social Democrats and the Stalinists). From here came the mass and paramilitary organisations (the basis on which these dictatorships to a large extent rely on) and from there we had vicious bureaucrats who comprise fascist and national-socialist unions and ‘professional associations’: and an alleged new state. This mass base fascism can to a greater or lesser extent be occupied either before or after its coup. It presupposes a long experience of the petty bourgeois masses from bourgeois democracy and bourgeois parliamentarism and a partial despair from the conditions of post-war bankruptcy of this parliamentarism. It is also sure that the enraged petty bourgeois masses are used against the proletariat. Fascism deceives them and contains them by means of a very effective organised social and chauvinist demagoguery. In these countries, due to their economic and technical coordination, the objective possibilities allow them, for a period of time, to carry out economic experiments known as ‘totalitarian autarchy’. Despite the protestations of various circles, rotten capitalism in these countries provides sufficient to allow expansionist war preparations. They accept and support even this policy of economic isolation as a situation of extreme emergency. On the basis of such economic, social and historical conditions lies the relative stability of the regime. They explain the relative domination of the bourgeois and pettybourgeois intelligentsia (in Germany and many Junkers (the big landowners in Germany translators note) inside the political, administrative, military and educational hierarachies of fascism. Thus fascism in those countries became the only party of the national bourgeoisie, but it permanently despairs about the excessive cost which the overbloated parasitic administration of fascism spends. Despite this it is known that the accumulations of internal contradictions which is expressed and highlighted by the fascist pyramid, is being undermined, more and more threatening contradictions are being accumulated from their own policies which will blow the pyramid apart with either revolution or war.

Outside of the above essential features this particular from of class absolutism of monopoly capitalism called fascism can’t be understood. This particular character of fascism in its birth and its historical development has been analysed scientifically by the Communist International’s 3rd and 4th Congresses and by Trotsky from 1931-38 – including comparing fascism and the current Soviet regime in his work Revolution Betrayed. Never did the Left Opposition and the 4th International tire of emphasising that we don’t have fascism when every dictatorship dissolves the labour organisation and attacks democratic freedoms. If we do, we confuse every form of absolutis, we don’t aid in a more clear understanding of the many varied and contradictory political developments which fill our era or the more precise determination of the corresponding tasks of the revolutionary proletariat.

Which of the above characteristics exist in Greece and Romania eg in which other country of the Balkans where we have to a smaller or lesser extent destroyed or abolished parliaments, where the Courts rule with military-political cliques? None. That is why the sister party of our French organisation, last year, when writing about the Rumanian dictatorship of Karl, had called it not fascist, but Bonapartist. And of course the attacks against the workers’ movement elsewhere is done by fascism, but here it is done by dictatorships of Kings and their cliques, even if we can call many of their measures ‘fascist’. Despite all of their fascist trappings, the Bonapartist regimes aren’t governed by the same historical laws nor do they follow the same path.

Here the masses never had the time, as in Western bourgeois democracies, to be so disillusioned by Parliaments so as to pass over into ‘counterrevolutionary despair’. They maintain their relative illusions untouched to a large extent. With all the disillusion in their old parties and with all their distrust to the old leaders, the literature of Metaxas leaves the masses untouched and they are still waiting for their parties, despite the fact that now they have fallen prey to political apathy. The fact that Metaxas lasted three years and wasn’t able to manage an administration of his own nor even a ruling party coalition – his political friends left his and the composition of the government appears to be a ship in stormy seas which every now and again throws the passengers into the sea – this shows how wrong is the estimation of the power of the dictatorship, characterising it as fascism.

 

Greece: A nation-state in its death throes

Exclusive report by VN Gelis

Having fought an election on the platform that 'there is money' PASOK's US-born leader, ex-Premier George Papandreou, fiddled the books and ensured the Greek budget deficit became larger than it was for Eurostat so that Greece could enter the IMF's bailout programme.*

Three years down the track, the aim of this subterfuge becomes increasingly clear: to create a new, tax-free, 'offshore', non-unionised region of the EU in the geographical territory that was Greece.

After 30 or so years of EU membership and a decade of Euro membership, for the last five years of which Greece has been in recession, GDP has collapsed by 25%, unemployment is officially around 25% (56% for youth, 33% in the private sector), soup kitchens and suicides (3,000 so far) are the only growth areas of the economy and the centre of Athens is starting to resemble parts of Detroit.

The last package of cuts—which cut wages by 50% for those still lucky to be employed and pensions by at least 25%—have the aim of dragging wages down to euro 300 and pensions to euro 100. The 'minimum' wage has been reduced. In the private sector, where workers are begging for work for as little as euro 10 a day for 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week, the minimum wage now stands at euro 580. Unemployment pay, which only lasts for a maximum of 12 months, stands at euro 360 with no housing component. This means that Greece is fast on the road to matching parts of Asia in wages so as to become the EU's role model for the future of the new regions the EU wants to create, which are to be run from the centre with new EU gauleiters in every ministry and every public institution (hospitals, universities and council offices administration), who will dictate budgets and cuts and have overall control, thus superseding both the Greek constitution and all local decision making.

As if to rub salt in the wounds, Greece has had the arrival of Germans, which is of course deliberate and conscious, to ensure the wounds of old (occupation of the Third Reich which led to 6-700,000 Greek deaths) are repeated in a new form.

The purpose is the total fire sale of all public assets, bigger in form than anything that has hit the Western world—including in countries which are or were the poster boys for neo-liberalism, Chile and the ex-USSR—with the eventual aim being the takeover of all public services in a deregulated, post-unionised, contract-based, private company paradise where workers will be employed only if willing to work for less and less. The process by which the Greek nation state is to be torn apart involves a changed electoral system under the Kallikratis Plan now being implemented. The plan created 13 regions of Greece with their own separate tax and spending powers and merged councils and town halls subordinate to the 13 regional governors who will decide policy directly for each region.

Germany recently proposed allowing German companies to employ Turkish citizens in Western Thrace (Greece) by allowing the relatives of those expelled in 1923 under the Treaty of Sevres to settle there, thus creating a new Kosovo in Greece. Proposals have also been placed on the table by the Troika to abolish Greece's standing army.

Depending on the resources each region has, privatisation lists are being drawn up. Assets are to be sold to transnational corporations for peanuts. For example, Skouries, in Thessaloniki, sold the rights to a Canadian gold mining company for a few million euros, it was then listed for hundreds of millions in a foreign stock exchange.

Despite over 20 general strikes—a genuine mass movement of occupation of city squares in the summer of 2011 involving millions of Greeks in over 30 cities—the ruling elite proceeds apace to impose EU directives as though they are confetti and to drive down lower than even the minimal alleged 'EU social charter'.

This is permitted because there is no minimum barrier for standard of living, health care or education. The enforced integration of Europe aims at creating one European government. This can only be accomplished by the abolition of the nation states, the centralisation of the banking system (three or four, controlled from the centre, will remain in Greece).

Thus, the formulation and implementation of policies of indigenous national development cannot occur. The implementation of the Bolkenstein directives ensured illegal immigrants worked on the building projects for the Olympic Games and that Greeks never got a look-in. Over euro 10 billion are exported to other countries via Western Union outlets as there are no capital controls.

Now that 95% of all building work has collapsed we have just the public sector left, which is the target of the large transnational corporations.

We have arrived at the stage where it has become clear that, instead of Greece's entry into the EU heralding development mirroring that of Germany, it has become de-industrialised and has lost nearly all its agricultural production due to EU directives and open borders in the importation of agricultural goods with zero tax, setting it on a path leading in the direction of Bangladesh. The perpetual race to the bottom has only one outcome. The effect will be to create the EU's first direct colonial region as the shining path for all others to follow suit—Portugal , Ireland , Spain.....

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* Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency swaps will mature, and swell the country's already bloated deficit.

In other words Greece's debt was deliberately covered up with help from Goldman Sachs over a ten year period from 1998 to 2008.

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EU Connections with Goldman Sachs

Mario Monti Prime Minister of Italy who heads a technocrat government which replaced Berlusconi and is an international adviser to Goldman Sachs.

Mario Draghi Current Governor of European Central Bank and former managing director of Goldman Sachs International.

Lucas Papademos A former Prime Minister of Greece and had run the Central Bank during the controversial derivatives deals with Goldman Sachs when Greece hid the size of its debt.

Petros Chrisodoulou Began his career at Goldman Sachs and was head of Greece's debt management agency.

Otmar Issing Was a board member of the Bundesbank and Executive Board of the European Central Bank and an international adviser to Goldman Sachs.

Antonio Borges Is a former head of the IMF's European Department and former vice chairman of Golden Sachs international.

Peter Sutherland Was a former Attorney General of Ireland is a non-executive director of Golden Sachs International.

Karel van Miert Is a former EU Commissioner for Competition and former International adviser to Goldman Sachs.

Mark Carney Is the next Governor of the Bank of England. He was employed at Goldman Sachs for 13 years and became managing director of investment banking. He worked on South Africa's post apartheid venture into international bond markets and was involved with Goldman's with the 1998 Russian financial crisis.

Further examples welcome

Greek Government Quislings Impose 3rd Round of Austerity Cuts=Libya Awaits

A tumultous couple of months has led to the Greek Troika of New Democracy, PASOK and Dimar (Democratic Left) passing a new round of cuts of which the pension age becomes 67, thousands are to be fired from the public sector and all pensions see a further 15% cut. The aim of the measures are nothing short of economic nationcide. Greeks are now a surplus by product of collapsing capitalism. They must be sacrificed for the needs of capital.

Despite 3 general strikes, mass protests against Merkel and teargas attack after teargas attack up to and including water cannons as well as using the latest geoengineering teachnology against protestors by creating heavy rainstorms to disperse crowds, the opposition to the new round of cuts is so intense that it led a Syriza MP (Panagoulis a relative of the famous one killed when he was about to open the Cyprus dossier in the mid-70's) to state that the Greek Quisling politicians who voted for the new round of cuts will end up having a fate like the US Ambassador in Libya!

There is no economic programme apart one of a collapse of the Greek nation state, its total privatisation and the firesale of its best assets to domestic cronies and foreign allies. The emphasis by the worlds media outlets and behind them the assorted fake left outfits that feed of the carcass of sold out union barons and state subsidies to parliamentary political parties is indicative. An enemy worse than the existing one is elevated to one of central importance to cover up what is happeing right in front of everybodys eyes. Extremism is now the centre and the so-called 'extremes' from fake right and fake left are actually reserved political forces that neither fight for power or challenge it in any dramatic fashion.

Despite gaining 27% in June, Syriza hasn't even held a national demo nor has it pushed for militant action to fight on the streets for power forcing the issue of the unemployed centre stage. Single MP's every now and again come out with fighting talk like Sakorafa MP who stated people should occupy the square and not leave till the 3rd MoU is defeated, but they left as soon as the first teargas volley was fired.

Whilst  the situation demands decisive action  as what we have is minority govt which in reality only has 103 MP's as the other 50 are bonus based on the Mussolini style electoral system, the incapacity of the Left to organise something more than the usual response of 24hour protest strikes to let off steam, implies that as months go by and the situation gets worse, they will lose any electoral momentum they gained, when in reality they could have used the electoral momentum to translate that on the streets. But they are part of the problem not the solution and as the situation disintigrates and it will continue to disintigrate as long as the leeches that go by the name of the Troika are in charge sucking the lifeblood out of any and all productive economic activity with a barage of tax hikes, job cuts, pension cuts, health and education cuts, with the purpose of reducing to zero any social safety net whatesoever. The concessions made by the post war ruling classes due to the fear of Russia and the arming of the populations of Europe is now long gone. What is left is the creation of an Asian sweatshop in the heart of Europe and instead of Greece becoming like Germany it is becoming more like Bangladesh.

The fools that rule assume the Troika aint going to burn Greece and because they pass cut after cut that  they are going to stabilise the economy when everyone knows it is in freefall. 25% GDP falls uneployment which the Greek TUC states will be 35% in one more year and prices continue to rise point inexorably to a popular insurrection despite and against the leaderships of the fake Left parties, who have abandoned even the old reformist programmes of their past (eg Less Work but Work for All, Exit from the EU etc). We have arrived in a situation where Greece now holds the cards for Default. Within international law they have the right to default if it affects the functioning of the state (seeing police, army and firefighters march indicate that no one is spared apart from the riot police) as this right was gained by Greece itself in 1936 and was used by Argentina when it defaulted in 2001. The cost of this Default for the Eurozone and the wider implications for the world economy are massive and no one can seriously predict what the outcome would be if such a default would occur. The only thing is that we getting closer and closer to that day.