The «I am Hellene» video just doesn’t cut it

We all suddenly remembered we’re Greek, no sorry, Hellene.

You try and try to stay positive, give words of encouragement instead of criticism to what your countrymen do, but videos like this just don’t let you, do they?

Ok, the video was an attempt at promoting all the values that make Greece what it is, denounced foreign disdain for the way we Greeks view life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and especially stressed the way Hellenism underlies every important current in Western History. So why, then, did watching this video leave a taste of disgust in my mouth?

The suicide note and post scriptum of the living

I fear. I fear because you have no idea how angry we are and our anger has no outlet when police forces attack you as you reverently place a flower on the grass where the body of the 77-year-old pensioner who took his own life lay yesterday in Syntagma Square, just meters away from Greek Parliament.

His death was not the first. There have been many more these past two years, but the media always played these cases down with a peremptory «mentally imbalanced» name tag on each victim’s toe — if they happened to mention the incident at all, that is. Yesterday they couldn’t hide it. It was early in the morning and there were many passers-by; it was outside the parliamentary building; it was in the center of Syntagma, the square all eyes have turned to ever since this maelstrom started three years ago, where all protesters have gathered and been clubbed by batons every single time because they want to exercise their democratic right to voice their feelings.

The late victim’s name was Dimitris Christoulas. He was a pharmacist. People who knew him said the

Suicides on the rise in Greece

What more does the world need to hear to rid themselves of the partial reality the paid media portray of  Greece? Or are suicide victims lazy Greeks who all couldn’t live with the thought of having to work for a living? Maybe they were all tax evaders who couldn’t find new ways to not pay their taxes?

But, let’s be serious for a minute. No one has the right to live if they’re called Greek. Greeks’ sole rights are to work to pay the government that hasn’t slashed their luxury salaries proportionately and has already written off political party debts to continue receiving tax-payer money to pay for their electoral campaigns (elections that haven’t been officially announced yet though newspapers worldwide proclaim that elections will take place) as well as continued perks. Greeks also have no right to elect their leaders, seeing as appointing the banker, Papademos,  who changed the books to fraudulently put Greece into the Euro is the best solution possible for everyone involved.

Naturally, most of the money that hasn’t been given to Greek banks so the latter can continue to spend

The Truth about Greece

Prometheus Bound: The titan who stole fire from Zeus to give to mankind is punished. Ring a bell? (painting by Elsie Russell)

Comment by MySatelite: «My name is Dimitris and I come from Greece». This is the opening of a message in a bottle, a cry not for help but for empathy and awakening written by someone called Dimitris, your average, Greek everyman. This is the situation in Greece put simply. It’s illustrated, straight-forward, short and readily comprehended by a 10-year-old. Ok, it has some grammatical inconsistencies and one or two typos, but nothing that impedes understanding.

For once, let go of your stereotypes, the ones the media have instilled in all of us and read something which actually states facts and a reality Greeks have to face on a daily basis. Read Dimitris’s message below and pass it on, for the sake of our children and yours.

The videos of Greece you won’t see

The news won’t mention much other than how Athens burned last night. The news never mentions how millions took to the streets yesterday all over Greece to demand elections, to ask for a referendum, to quit the Euro, to revert back to the drachma. The news never shows what really happens, but chooses to show what it has been told to show.

Well, these are the videos you won’t see on your TV set. Please let everyone know that Greeks aren’t dumb, they see who the measures are for and know that the people implementing them are no longer

Let Them Eat π

Yet another excellent article from Sturdyblog that steers away from the usual propagandist ranting of the media that is simply a tool in the hands of speculative bankers and other investor think tanks geared towards shaping public opinion to suit their needs.

The only regret I have when reading this gem is that punches were pulled. Papademos and Monti need to be seen as usurpers of democracy and their respective rise to power called coups d’état, plain and simple. Most important of all is the fact that people in Greece believe their country’s rising debt is not just 30-years’ worth of bad politics, corruption and inept members of Parliament — it’s been a methodical, calculated plan executed with preciseness, enabling the few to live off the many.

My firm belief is that this has been in the making for a long time. Greece practically hasn’t had a single patriot in office since WWII. Foreign interests influenced and still influence decisions to benefit everyone but us Greeks. Some saw the world as an orange, squeezing (half of it) as much as they could out of Third World countries — sorry, that would be developing countries to those who want politically correct euphemisms used to spice up slavery as an on-going evolutionary process towards development. Now that the orange is starting to shrivel, they’ve decided to pick up the other half by turning to Europe and as I foresee other developed countries and squeeze out the savings it managed to accumulate throughout the years.

Enjoy the read, and many thanks to the author for a very fine piece.

The Reaper

Let Them Eat π

Some months ago I tried to explain that the crisis in Greece concerned the entire globe directly and that what was happening to my country was nothing short of an economic coup d’état. Naturally, I was accused of doom-mongering and over-dramatising. It pains me to have been proven absolutely right on

Like a Phoenix from its Ashes

Yesterday’s scene in front of Parliament sums it all up. The old clashes with the new as the country is in flames.

Macedonia is, was and always will be Greek – anything else you hear is called usurpation

The story is simple. History has been written and rewritten but even laymen cannot lie enough to disprove the evidence that presents itself.

For all those who do not realize what has been going on these past few decades between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), you should make the time before contemporary history gets rewritten.

I wonder if the rest of Europe would react in the same way

I wonder what would happen if the citizens of Germany, France, Belgium, Holland or England  realized all of a sudden that their elected representatives decided they would close down government agencies in areas where immigrant numbers foreshadowed potential instability or insurrection that would warrant my services as a reaper of souls.

I wonder what they would say if state-owned corporations that monitored basic household necessities

Why isn’t Anyone Talking about the Demonstrations Tomorrow in Thessaloniki?

How convenient don’t you think, my dears? Tomorrow the International Fair , the city’s most important annual event, kicks off in Thessaloniki and no one has spent a single paragraph to tell the world what is about to take place.

No, the foreign press has decided to snub the whole affair, because to them, the Greeks are just lazy, complaining spoilt brats who have no idea what’s going on in their lives. Well, let me tell you

Greetings … by The Reaper

Greetings

Welcome to what some of us call Bananaland. Let me introduce myself to you – they call me the Reaper and I’d like it if you kept the Grim out of the equation seeing as I don’t want to be on a first-name basis with you. I’ve been summoned by the stench of a decaying land and can only but see a very bright future in my line of business in the next couple of years. Beyond that, I can’t yet tell. It all depends on whether these Greek mortals manage to survive long enough to please my morbid appetite.

Yes indeed, Greece has managed to ruin itself, and the extent of this ruin has not yet hit deep enough. The process is slowly sinking in and seeping into every living entity like the canker Shakespeare once spoke of. It’s quite interesting to observe, I assure you.

What really makes me wonder is how many of you overseas denizens of the world actually realize what is going on here. How many of you have seen on TV or read in the papers anything pertaining to the situation here in the past six months? How many of you realize that half of what is being read out by dolled-up news anchors and printed on possibly recycled paper no one ever knows if it’s truly been recycled, is absolute hogwash?

Well, I’ve come to remedy this. I live in Greece. I keep my eyes and ears open to what your average layman is having to cope with these days and I’m pleased to say that life here is the pits. And, to be sure, if you’ve got the pits, the pendulum isn’t too far above that carotid, ever-swishing down closer to its succulent destination.

This column aims to give overseas readers and idea of what goes on in people’s minds here, not only in terms of the political or economic state of affairs, but about anything Greeks find worthy of discussion. At times it’ll make you chuckle, at times it should make you think about what others are trying to stuff down your throats. This column aims to catch that dying pulse of freedom in a land that once had much to offer, in a land where laughter would erupt at every corner. This column aims to capture moments and thoughts that pervade the collective consciousness of the Greeks and set it down in writing, regardless whether you agree with the opinions noted, because I’m taking pictures and when you take pictures you don’t agree or disagree with them. In short, this column hopes to leave some sort of chronicle of the impending tornado behind – preferably a chronicle of liberation rather than one of slow death.

The Reaper