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When the Austrians voted in Jörg Haider some time back, the scum in Brussels said no way. They threatened a boycott because they didn’t like the way the Austrians had voted. When the 2005 referendum was rejected by the French and the Dutch, the rejection was rejected by the Brussels commissars. The Lisbon treaty ditto. In Hungary, the people have overwhelmingly voted for the Fidesz party, but the Brussels apparatchiks lectured the Hungarian premier on his internal policies. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a Green MEP and probably the most disgusting man in Brussels and Berlin, actually told the Hungarian premier to show more respect for the EU or else. Instead of dropping him right then and there with a kick in the balls Cohn-Bendit hasn’t got, the Magyar went home with his tail between his legs. What in hell is going on here?
Let’s now get to the Greeks. They are caught between the Scylla of debt and the Charybdis of default. What Brussels demands of them sounds to me as realistic as asking a middleweight boxer to bulk up to heavyweight while keeping him on a starvation diet. The Greeks cannot and will not ever be able to pay the debt and interest simply because, even under the cruellest austerity, by the year 2020 the deficit will still be 129 per cent of GDP. At best. Most likely it will be far, far worse as the economy is in freefall and will continue to fall for years to come. The euro-scum-élite knows this but it has an agenda of its own — keeping their perks and positions of power in Brussels and serving the greater good of monetary union — so they are immune to Greek suffering. Mind you, the ones suffering are the innocent poor made up of those who work for a salary in the private sector, pensioners and small businessmen and women. Not a single civil servant has been let go — and I challenge anyone to dispute this.
Worse, the Greeks do not seem to have learned anything since the crisis began. They still believe in the most thieving politicians this side of Nigeria, and the next Greek prime minister will be Andonis Samaras, a malevolent demagogue who is an opportunist like no other. Not a single Greek politician has been charged with corruption, yet there are socialist ministers from the Andreas Papandreou period of 20 years ago who have been caught stealing to the tune of hundred of millions of euros in German kickbacks for arms sales. All the EU money went into paying for votes by both right and left parties — by appointing voters to civil service jobs for life, protected by a constitutional amendment — yet the electorate is ready once again to go to the polls and vote the same old crooks back in.
When I left Greece back in 1994 it was for a reason. Politicians and civil servants demanded bribes from me to conduct my business. I refused to pay fakelaki, hence I couldn’t do business in Greece. So I sold out, got on my boat and hit the beaches of Europe. When dumb hacks ask why most successful Greeks are outside Greece, the answer is that staying in Greece means paying protection money just as the poor Italians on the lower east side paid the godfather.
I filed this column late because I was waiting to see what the Brussels gang would decide about the second bailout. Actually, it will make no difference one way or another. If Greece defaults there will be super-inflation and the nation could become the first European failed state. If the bailout loans go through, the Greeks will remain poor, the country’s infrastructure and human resources unable to turn the situation around. It will simply postpone the inevitable.
After the Olympics of 2004, as the various stadiums built for the games began to go to seed, I tried to buy the judo stadium to turn it into a dojo for martial arts. I am still waiting for an answer. Two friends of mine had a similar experience. Not only were they expected to pay for the rotting stadiums, but also to bribe the various civil servants and officials involved. Greece went rotten once it did away with the monarchy, which kept the politicians honest. The politicians cooked the books and the people are paying for the crimes committed by them. End of story.
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