Dramatis Personae
A. Before Frau Merkel (and her US mentors) "attacked" the Greek people, about two years ago:
The situation in Greece was approximately the following:
– "Socialists" (PASOK): around 40 %
– New Democracy (conservatives, i.e. rightists): around 35 %
– KKE, Communists (Stalinists): around 6 %
– SYRIZA (Eurocommunist roots): around 3 %
– Greens (with anarchist roots): close, but less than 3%
– Neo-Nazis (in the Greek Parliament): around 3 %
– Neo-Nazis (not in the Greek Parliament): less than 0.3 %
B. After Merkel's "attack":
– "Socialist" (PASOK): around 10 %
– New Democracy (conservatives): around 30 %
– KKE, Communists (Stalinists): around 12 %
– SYRIZA (Eurocommunist roots): around 12 %
– Democratic Left (new party, split from SYRIZA): around 13 %
– Greens (with anarchist roots): around 5 %
– Neo-Nazis (in the Greek Parliament): around 5 %
– Neo-Nazis (not in the Greek Parliament): not available. Probably the same as before.
C. After the May 6, 2012 Greek parliamentary elections:
– "Socialist" (PASOK): 13.18 %
– New Democracy (conservatives): 18.85 %
– Independent Greeks (split from New democracy): 10.60 %
– Democratic Alliance (split from New Democracy): 2.55 %
– KKE, Communists (Stalinists) 8.48 %
– SYRIZA (Eurocommunist roots): 16.78 %
– Democratic Left (new party, split from SYRIZA): 6.11 %
– Greens (with anarchist roots): 2.90 % (did not enter in the Parliament)
– Neo-Nazis (formerly in the Greek Parliament): 2.93 % (did not enter in the Parliament)
– Neo-Nazis (formerly not in the Greek Parliament): 6.97 % (entered in the Parliament).
The "Drama"
[Scene one]
One of the dominant (if not the most dominant) "perversions" in this "drama" is that the electoral law donates to the first party (that is the one with the greatest total number of votes) a bonus of 50 seats [!!!] in the 300-seat Greek Parliament. Which means that one candidate of the first party, with say 200 votes, can gain a seat, while a candidate of the second party with 100,000 votes cannot enter in the parliament! Unbelievable? Yes, but instructive for the young people of the world.
How come such a monstrous law came to be? The late Andreas Papandreou, a US-bred economist, as a major political figure in Greece for almost a half century (since the early 1960s), offered the Greeks some very interesting humans, whom he chose to be the Greek political elites for decades. For example, he chose Akis Tsohatzopoulos, who a few days ago was imprisoned for corruption and who dragged in prison his wife, his daughter, and assorted relatives and friends. He chose Theodore Pangalos, a rather rotund 350-pound gentleman, who "handed" Ocalan of the Kurds to the CIA, who calls ordinary Greeks good-for-nothings, etc, etc. Finally, he chose a civil engineer, who at some point in his career drafted the above noble electoral law, plus a law that in effect made striking in Greece illegal. These exceptional individuals were chosen by a single person to decide the lives of ten million people.
Now, suppose that, in spite of the above noble law, there is a leftist government in Greece. Naturally, this government will have under its control also the Greek armed forces. Furthermore, suppose that this sovereign Greek government demands that one of the most important US military bases in the world, the "Souda Bay Base" in Crete, should be closed. Would not the forming of such a leftist Greek government be rather "annoying" not only for the US but also for Israel which uses the "Souda Bay Base" as part of its military machine?
Therefore, a leftist Greek government cannot exist, ever.
However, horror of horrors, in the evening of May 6, 2012, a Greek Orthodox Christian Sunday, such a leftist Greek government became a possibility, as shown by the above election results. Therefore, the US and the European elites were obliged to face this odious situation. It seems that they were prepared to do so. A few seconds (this is not an exaggeration!) after the announcement of the results the Greek "patriotic" proxies of the US and the European elites started an unbelievable attack against SYRIZA, the real winner of the elections, by accusing it, with a schadenfreude smirk, that "it was at a lose" to govern the country. This has been going on ad nauseum for almost four days since that Sunday evening to this minute (Thursday morning of May 10) , by the use, not so strangely, of the same denigrating expressions by a wide spectrum of persons.
Was (or is) a Greek leftist government possible? What if SYRIZA, the Communists (KKE), and the "moderate" leftists of the Democratic Left, had united before the elections and had gained the 50-votes bonus, turning the trick of the electoral law into a boomerang for the establishment parties?
To answer this, we have to take into account the strange fact of an inexplicable conduct of the leadership of the KKE. Why, they did what the reactionary US proxy politicians were not able to do? That is, they sabotaged the victory of the Left. The Greeks, all the ordinary Greeks, are very angry against the KKE leadership. What is going on? Is there an explanation? Not at this point.
Also, there are some more indications of this "strangeness". Why one of the most important spokespersons of the KKE is a lady who is a fervent… Christian? Is this supposed to be an indication of the rationality of a leftist political system? Even more so, given that the lady, a few decades ago, was the "favorite child" of the Greek political Right. One could accept a sincere change of heart on her part, as I did, but not anymore, after the May 6 Greek elections.
[Scene two]
Today, in the afternoon of May 10, it seems that, as expected, there is no possibility of forming a Greek government of any color. Therefore, there is going to be a second round of elections, during the first two weeks of June, 2012.
My estimate for a possible result of the second round: If the KKE leadership insists on its present "strange" stance, SYRIZA will be reinforced by other parts of the Greek political spectrum and will be able to govern, the "socialists" and the Right will shrink even more and the Neo-Nazis will be cut to size.
Whatever the outcome, the US and the European elites are in trouble. The Greek case will initiate a domino effect; for Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and even France (ignoring the charade of the daughter of "Le Pen").
[Parenthesis: Referring to the maxim "If Elections Could Change Things, They'd Be Illegal", mentioned by my compatriot Nikolas Kosmatopoulos (ZNet article of May 7, 2012) here is a real case that cannot be ignored: In 1946, a little more than one year after the Nazis left Greece, parliamentary elections were to be held in Greece on March 31 of that year. The Greek Left decided to abstain. All over Athens there was a single slogan: "Democrats, abstention!" At the time, I was sixteen years old and my hometown is Athens. The Left was successful: it abstained. Today, 66 years later, the consensus is that the Greek Left was wrong. What remains to be exposed is to find who, in the Left, initiated this wrong slogan. If the Left had won "Wild" Bill Donovan, the "greatest American ever" (according to the general feeling at that time), would not have an easy task to smash the Left of Greece, Italy and France. If the Greek Left had won the 1946 elections, Greece and Europe would be different today.]
[Scene three]
In the above lists there are two groups of neo-Nazis, before the May 6 elections. One group of neo-Nazis in the Parliament and one not in the Parliament. The first one is the old guard of neo-Nazis who are wearing suits and neckties and are mostly middle-aged, while the second one is the younger blood with the characteristic sartorial appearance.
Let us examine, briefly, the neo-Nazi phenomenon:
First, to facilitate this, it is more practical (and more accurate) to substitute the term Nazi for the term neo-Nazi. [A Nazi is a … Nazi]. There are three "levels" of Nazism, in any population.
· The "crypto-Nazis" (or "closet Nazis"), hiding in the "conservative" part of the vast area of the middle-class. It is not very difficult to spot them. Also, naturally, their Nazism is accompanied by anti-Semitism.
· The (above mentioned) Nazis in suits and neckties, who are out of the closet and try to be respectable. For example, becoming members of Parliament, say in Greece. As a matter of fact, one of these parliamentarian Greek Nazis, has managed to be, today, the Minister of Public Works in the Greek Government. The reader can see him in action, wielding an ax, in a Comment on my ZNet Commentary, "Quakes: call on Turks and on Greeks", of November 18, 2011.
· The lumpen Nazis. No need to describe them and say much about them, except to refer to what Philip Agee mentions about their "use" by the US as tools for provocation, dirty tricks, etc, in his book "Inside the Company: CIA Diary".
So what happened in Greece and the percentage of the, not in the Parliament, lumpen Nazis jumped from less than 0.3 % to 6.95 %?
First, about 1 % to 2 % of the voters of the suits-and-neckties parliamentary Nazis moved to the lumpen Nazis, causing the "respectable" Nazis to not make it into the Parliament.
Second, about 3 % of the voters [an estimate] are people living in areas with intense problems with immigrants.
Third, about 2 % to 3 % of the voters [again, an estimate] are (mostly young) people who, naively, thought that the way to punish the politicians, who have almost destroyed Greece, was to vote for the Nazis.
Fortunately, the lumpen Nazis, themselves, offered the solution for eliminating this anomaly, of having Nazis in the Greek Parliament. The solution: a single word of the language of the classical Greeks, which has been heard all over the planet in the news and in videos in the Internet. Te word: "egerthiti" ("stand up"). The word is the classical Greek form of the imperative of the verb "egeiromai", which has the meanings: I wake, I rise from the dead, I rouse or stir oneself, be excited by passion, etc. Although the verb is in use in Modern Greek, as a form of the imperative in classical Greek it is unknown to the female Greek population and is known only to the Greek males! The explanation: the "egerthiti" form is a "military command" meaning "stand up" (at attention), used only by the Greek military to reinforce the Greek soldiers' … patriotism. Not only that, the classical Greek word "skelea" is also unknown to the female Greek population! It is used only by the Greek military, as a patriotic expression. It means the (male)… underwear!
When the Greeks, all the Greeks, saw and heard that stocky representative of the Greek Nazi virility hollering "egerthiti" (actually mispronounced as "egerthi-to" by him) they laughed their heads off. The ridicule is unbelievable. There is nothing the Greek Nazis can do to change the mind of the Greeks about the "egerthito!" scene.
It is more than probable that the Nazis, in a second round of elections, will lose most of the votes they have gained and will not make it into the Greek Parliament.
P.S. Besides the acrobatics of the Greek Nazis with classical Greek words, there is an additional comic factor that keeps the Greeks in spirits of (relative) mirth. That source of merriment is Herr Wolfgang Schaeuble, the Minister for Economics (or something) of the German Democratic Volk. For months now, but especially for the last five or six days, Schaeuble has been threatening the Greeks openly, saying in essence: If you vote for the lefties, you will be punished! What is really happening is that the more Schaeuble threats that the Greeks hear the more votes go to the "Lefties'!!! One wonders if Herr Schaeuble is really a bright … economist.