The Trouble with Greece

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.

A meeting was held in London in which a king was selected for Greece, a Bavarian Prince named Otto. By selecting a foreign king for the Greeks, the British made it clear Greece was not going to be a European state on the same level. Modern Greece has always been under the tutelage of Great Britain, and never formed close ties to Germany. In both WWI and II, Greece was on the side of the Allies, especially Britain and Russia/Soviet Union.

It's clear that Greeks do not have anything close to the German temperament, since the country has been in financial default for roughly half of its existence as an independent state. The repeated failure to pay its debts is attributed by some to a vicious cycle of willingness to lend by European creditors and corrupt mismanagement by Greeks. The country’s first default came during the course of it's independence struggle, when rebels couldn’t pay back the loans they took out from Europeans to fight the war. The Great Powers made more loans in 1832 when King Otto was installed, but when in 1843 a coup forced him to submit to constitutional limits, Greece defaulted again.

Greece doesn't belong in the Eurozone

What is going on with Greece today is nothing new. The big mistake was made by allowing Greece into the Eurozone in the first place. It's a case of political competition between the left and the right. The Liberals, who are debt-friendly, always want to throw more of someone else's money at every problem. So it is that France and every other leftist government and/or person of prominence (like Jean-Claude Junker) in the European Union want to continue to prop up Greece as a member of the eurozone. But a look at Greece's hsitory shows us that it is hopeless.

What is Europe?

Europe's desire to expand and take in as much territory as possible to give it greater influence led it to believe that anything is possible. Since people actually resist change, Europeans' values must be clearly delineated and recognized, and peripheral eastern and southern states must be able to demonstrate over a period of time that they fit into and share these values. Promises to reform cannot take the place of a track-record of achievement. The EU architects were in too much of a hurry. Many are also too concerned with their own personal legacy.

Passing the buck

Today, insecure leftist Greeks are blaming the solvent Germans for sabotaging the talks in order to “humiliate them.” Here are some examples of comments found in Greek newspapers on Sunday, July 12:

"What is at play here is an attempt [by Merkel and Schaeuble] to humiliate Greece and Greeks, or to overthrow the Tsipras government," said Dimitrios Papadimoulis, Vice-President of the European Parliament and member of Greece's ruling Syriza party.

"What is being proposed is punitive. It's a form of revenge," said Dimitri Sevastakis, a Syriza lawmaker.

"The only thing that I care about is not being humiliated by Schaeuble and the rest of them," said Panagiotis Trikokglou, a 44-year-old private sector employee in Athens.

"I don't care if we go to the drachma or whatever, we support the prime minister whatever decision he makes, but now I feel a little bad, not with the prime minister but with Germany's stance. This misanthrope Schaeuble, I don't know what he's trying to achieve." How about not throwing more of the German peoples' hard-earned billions into a black hole? [By the way, past Pew surveys of Europeans have found that while almost all Europeans believe that the Germans are the hardest-working and least-corrupt nation in the EU, a majority think the Greeks are the laziest.]

But a conservative lawmaker and former minister made the point: "After 17 lawmakers from the ruling coalition did not support the measures Athens proposed, creditors have grounds to doubt about the implementation. Add to this the outcome of the referendum.”

It's pretty obvious that a majority of Greeks don't support Europe, but want Europe to support them! 

I love Wolfgang Schaeuble

Germany's Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, who is in a wheelchair because of an assassin's bullet, gets the brunt these days of most of the hatred directed by Greeks onto Germans. Schaeuble is my hero, but he will never be shown as such by the communist/Jewish mainstream press that does its best to portray the Greeks as hero/victims, rather than victimizers (which is what they are). It is their government that tricked it's way into the Eurozone in 2001 by knowingly falsifying reports of its national financial health with the help of Goldman Sachs Jews. Schaeuble rightly points out (no one else has the guts) that it is the Tsipris government, voted in overwhelmingly in January by the Greek voters on the empty promise to “end the austerity,” that has brought Greece to its current terrible state of affairs … to the very precipice of national ruin. This is the result of the brinkmanship carried on by the Syriza Party leaders, cheered on by the majority of Greek citizens. They have victimized themselves.

My hope is that Europe will correct its former mistake by helping Greece to exit the euro group, while staying in the EU. But I recognize, at the same time, that it is a battle between the Left and the Center-Right. The Left wants to continue the influx of non-White, unskilled third-worlders into Europe to sway the electoral results in their favor. Therefore a country like France, whose citizens will vote for a Monsieur Hollande (a softy pushover and jew puppet - I call him the Pillsbury Dough Boy) is as much a problem for a strong Europe as is Greece. And, at bottom, there is the fear by the former Allies that Germany will once again become too strong for their comfort.~