European Union

"We are Europe's bankrupt child and as a child, Europe has been supporting us for five years and told us what we needed to do to get out of this situation. We did nothing and now we are paying the consequences."

... Yannis Theodosis, a 35-year-old civil engineer

A Greek "Evzones" presidential guard stands to attention in front of the parliament during a demonstration against austerity measures in central Athens on July 12, 2015 (AFP Photo/Angelos Tzortzinis)

By Carolyn Yeager

Modern Greece is a fairly new experiment in independence, and as such has never actually functioned totally independently. The world expects too much from Greeks, confusing them with the ancient Athenian democracy that we learn about in school. The Greeks are also confused about this, since they encourage this comparison with those great Greek citizens of old … a comparison they cannot live up to.

First Greece was incorporated into the Roman Empire, followed by the Byzantine, and then for 300 years Greeks were subsumed into the Ottoman Empire ruled by Muslim Turks. Their modern state was formed only in 1830 with the help of the European Powers who helped the Greeks win their war of independence.

Democracy wins!

The childish Greeks who are cheering "victory for democracy" in Athen's Syntagma square tonight don't yet realize that Greece has lost ... or is lost. Greece came into the Eurogroup in 2001 in a weakened state and has been on the receiving end ever since. Yet they are portraying themselves as victims of a system that they forced their way into, thinking only of the benefits to be gained at the outset. When the time inevitably comes to stand up as a responsible partner, Greeks are not up to that and they turn to the communist promises every time. I am very happy, though, about the "No" vote. It's a prayer answered.

The news is still breaking but following are some of the first comments made by responsible Eurozone members and EU national leaders:

German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, leader of Merkel's centre-left Social Democratic junior coalition partner, said it was hard to conceive of fresh negotiations on lending more billions to Athens after Greeks voted against more austerity.

From Business Insider: Mike Bird got this photo of the inside of one of Syriza's offices in Athens, in Exarcheia. Apparently quite recently.

That's Lenin, Engels, and Che Guevara on the wall. 

Is that Marxist enough for you? Naturally they love to make Germany the fall-guy.

It's disgusting to watch Angela Merkel cooing and comforting Greece's  momma's boy Alexis Tsipris, the communist Prime Minister who thinks he can get his country out from under its self-made financial crisis by piling on the charm for the lady Chancellor of the Eurozone's most influential member nation.

Merkel continues to have private conversations with the young communist PM, seemingly at his request, just so it doesn't appear that her warm, womanly German heart is cold to the plight of the Greeks.  They, after all, suffered so much under the now despised regime of Adolf Hitler, whose government from 75 years ago German politicians like Merkel must continue to apologize and pay reparations for.

Thank God there are at least some men in her government who have enough sense to talk straight and true, acting more like some Germans of old. It would be better in my book if Wolfgang Schäuble could take over as Chancellor and let the overly sympathetic Merkel go back to civilian life. Her useful days seem to be over. Everything with her is give, give, give.

April 13, 2015

German soldiers raise the Reichskriegsflagge over the Acropolis at Athens in 1941. Enlarge

Greece has come up with "war crimes" from WWII against "Nazi" Germany that they want today's German government to compensate them for, and which they say amount to several hundred billions of euros. Germany's economy minister has called it "stupid" but the new Greek government, with a communist at its head, isn't giving up. Are these legitimate claims or just another instance of wanting to "stick it to Germany?"

Carolyn looks into the historical background of the claims and at what some financial experts say.

March 23-2015

Notice to listeners:  The first 8 minutes sound like I'm in an echo chamber, but then it clears up. Not to worry, the whole program is not like that.

• Carolyn speaks to the way the (Jewish-American, leftist) media portrays Greece vis a vis Germany. And why tying “Grexit” to euro zone failure, thus to EU failure, is a lie;

• Who attended Sunday's first “Russian International Conservative Forum” in St. Petersburg, sponsored by the Rodina nationalist party? It was openly billed as a gathering to “defend the interests of Russia” in the ongoing occupation-dispute over Crimea and Ukraine, so there were very few antifa protestors.

Image: Latest cover of Der Spiegel magazine says, "How Europeans look at the Germans - the German Superiority." Enlarge

Video still of Yannis Varoufakis, at that time a Marxist economics  professor, shows him "giving the finger" during a lecture in Zagreb in 2013, as he was speaking about Germany's role in the Eurozone.

For latest update on this fracas, see here. "Greek Finance Minister TAKEN IN by German satire" ... as were millions of Whites who also want Greece to stick it to Germany. The finger video is NOT fake, but Varoufakis is.

The current Greek ruling party is carrying on business by pointing the finger everywhere but at itself for it's various problems and errors of judgement. Now comes Den Stinkefinger debacle!

During a speech in Zagreb, Croatia in 2013, the now (but not then) Greek Finance Minister said that Greece should have defaulted back in 2010, and thereby "stick the finger to Germany and say, You can now solve this problem by yourself." As he said this, he stretched out his arm toward the camera and raised his middle finger. Watch the clip

The bigger problem for Varoufakis is that he immediately claimed that the film has been faked. “This is a fake video,” he said on a German talk show hosted by Gunther Jauch. Allessandro Del Prete , the cameraman for the 2013 speech, vehemently denied on Sunday night via Twitter that the video was fake. He said he had cut only six minutes off the 57-minute presentation and uploaded it on Youtube. “Absolutely not fake,” he twittered in German (Absolut nicht gefälscht).

Some interesting comments by Igor Kubansky on rufabula.com were discovered and posted by Paul Goble yesterday:

“The victory of the left radicals in Greece shows that the priorities of the Kremlin in its search for ‘agents of influence’ has not changed a great deal since the times of the USSR.”

For many in Ukraine, the West and even in Russia, “it has long been a commonplace to say that 'in the West,' the ultra-right supports Putin,'" and point to the French National Front, the Hungarian Jobbik movement, the Bulgarian Ataka party and 'various Serbian organizations'.”

And these same commentators point to the rightwing Golden Dawn group in Greece which declares that it “does not want to see Europe slavishly subordinate to American policy” but rather a Europe to which Russia would belong” and says that Berlin and Washington organized the Maidan in Ukraine and the persecution of Orthodox Christians there.