Staring Into the Abyss

 
As someone who loves Greece and Greeks, I watch with a great deal of sadness as that country, once again, stares into the abyss. A hundred years ago Greece was smashing the Ottoman Empire, expanding its borders to encompass its far flung people and most importantly, facing the future with hope and confidence.  Now Greece has become an object of ridicule, a new Ottoman Empire is reasserting itself, and Greeks face the future with despair and self doubt. Looking back at the last century one can only see the wreckage of one mitigated disaster after another. Certainly the history of Greeks as a people has reached the heights of Olympus and descended into the bowels of Hades; it has been marked by Saintliness and depravity. It is, after all, part of the larger history of humankind.  

I remember a time when Greece was hardly worthy of mention in the press.  A land supposedly peopled by happy mustachioed Zorbas, dancing, sipping ouzo and eating backlava. Now Greece makes the front page of Drudge and the New York Times almost on a daily basis. The media smells blood and the feeding frenzy has begun. Greeks have suddenly become the laziest and corrupt human beings on earth. They are depicted as bandana wearing anarchists throwing firebombs, living high on the hog off the handouts of hardworking, honest, blond, blue-eyed Europeans.  

There is of course anger in Greece. They have circled the wagons and do what Greeks do best, tear each other apart.  The blame game has begun, the Left blaming the Right and vice versa.  The truth of the matter is that both sides have been complicit in the destruction not only of civil society but also in the wholesale looting of the country for financial gain by the political class. The average Greek, having voted loyally for his respective party for decades feels suddenly cheated and abandoned. They attended political rallies in the tens of thousands where they were mesmerized by a successive lineup of grifters who promised them life on easy street, doling out jobs and favors for votes. 

Since the fall of the military dictatorship, Greece has increased it government workforce to 1 million workers, roughly 25% of the total number of people employed in the country.  For Greek families having a member working for the state is a matter of economic survival.  It is that bloated bureaucracy however, that has transformed the economy into a Soviet style system rife with corruption, over-regulation and poor productivity.  Out of control trade unions, have added to the problem. As the population ages, the increasing number of pensioners is supported by an ever decreasing number of working adults. Young well educated Greeks in the most potentially productive demographic, 25-34 year olds, face an unemployment rate of 26% or a job that barely pays enough to live independently. Thus sidelined, with a private sector unable to produce enough jobs to keep up with demand, the Greek economy will continue to shrink and the misery will only get worse.   

The 3.3 million workers (1.3 are self-employed) who make up the private sector in Greece are saddled with increasing and onerous taxation especially as Greece tries to downsize its enormous debt.  Tax evasion accounts for the loss of 11 billion Euros per year.  The Greeks are surpassed only by the South Koreans, for hard work according to 2008 study by the  Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).  There is nothing wrong with Greeks as is quite evident by their success in every sphere and prodigious wealth creation outside of Greece. Regulations and the ownership of a large part of the economy by the government has created a climate where it is increasingly difficult to start a new business and expand existing ones. Thus unable to attract investors the Greek economy cannot possible compete. Despite this systemic weakness Greece joined the EU and was given an illusion of wealth. It got a stable currency at the cost of a rise in prices and cost of living. Cheap credit fueled consumer demand for goods produced by wealthier European countries like France and Germany. It also made possible a spending binge by the Greek government that has resulted in an unmanageable debt burden.  

Make no mistake about it, however, the powerhouse economy of Europe, Germany, is less concerned about Greece than it is about the survival of the its banking system, not to mention currency, if Greece defaults.  Unfortunately, restructuring debt will not solve the long term problem unless Greeks clean up their government, free up their private sector and ultimately build a sustainable future. Waiting in the wings are Russia and China anxious to get an economic and military foothold in this strategic area. They are poised to buy up large portions of the Greek economy as it struggles to privatize. Unfortunately their support, like that of the EU and US, always comes at a steep price. 

Greeks have the talent and the brains to turn things around. The nagging question, historically, has always been whether they have the ability to put aside their differences and work together toward a common goal?  Only time will tell. If Greece cannot diminish the role of an over-reaching state apparatus or reestablish economic freedom, then it must offer up another sacrificial lamb, one more generation of young Greeks, destined to emigrate abroad, because there is no future in the land of their birth.

01 Kalimera Ellatha

 

Comments

[Simon Baddeley]

Over Epirus

http://youtu.be/foMrYsKfDKY

"When the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea?"
"O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty." Blake, William

[Stavros]

Simon,

I remember the first time I saw the sunrise over the mountains of Epirus many years ago. I was on a ferry traveling from Brindisi to your beloved Corfu. I had spent the night sleeping on my backapck and woke up to see the sun welcoming me home. Thanks for rekindling that memory.

May we see many more such mornings.

[Istvan]

Some of my acquaintances who are disappointed over the handling of the federal debt here in the US tend to bash the greeks in an unjust and derogatory way sometimes vaguely referring to some cultural "inferiority". ( meanwhile calling themselves meteorologists, pediatric gastroenterologists.etc.. what a collection of greek words ) Though they retract their words quickly upon facing the facts you just presented here ( plus the heavy burden of having an "ally" to the east may i say )
Many more articles such as yours are badly needed to clean up misconceptions not only about greeks but to understand the bigger picture surrounding them .
Thank you

(good to hear Fairuz in the background by the way)

[Stavros]

The US is headed in the same direction and rather quickly. There will be no bailouts for us. Greece must abandon the euro, devalue its currency, and implement its own monetary policy. The economies of Greece and Germany have practically nothing in common and it is impossible for them to follow the same policies.

We Americans are in no position to point fingers at anyone. We too have lost our way.

[Chris Melanidis]

The problems in Greece are not just Greek problems.....the western world has been sucked into living beyond ones means by the availability of easy, cheap credit. The collapse of the real estate market in the USA is just one example of people overstreching themselves because lack of oversight and regulatons allowed them to. The world economy of the last twenty years was built on these actions and fallacies. Its now time for the bill to be paid and countries like Greece, Spain , Portugal, and dare I say the good old US of A has nary a penny (or euro) left in the pocket and no way to generate more other than by additional borrowing.

[Stavros]

Chris you are spot on. The only solution is to cut government spending and live within our means. The less government meddles by trying to skew markets in order to conduct social policy, the better.

[Dimitrios]

I find Simon's story about William Blake is strangely relevant to the debt issue. Chris is right about the problem being one common to the Western world (to a greater or lesser degree, of course. My own home, Canada, has so far been spared the disorders in poor Greece...thank God.) The thing is, people nowadays lack any kind of transcendent faith in something outside themselves: God, family, nation, race...most people really are just nihilists, they really believe in Nothing. They aren't Nietzschean supermen; they're just Nietzche's meek Last Men. If a person doesn't believe in something bigger and more important than themselves, they basically loose interest in the future. It becomes easy to live only for today, to accept whatever benefits and freebies are in the offing.
It's reached the point that idolatry, the sincere worship of Zeus or Odin would be an improvement over the way most people think now...or rather don't think; hard thought about metaphysical or philosophic issues just doesn't happen in most peoples's heads.

[Stavros]

Ela Dimitri,

Good to hear from you. I can't agree with you more. The ancients took their religion seriously and it played a major role on their lives. Nowadays we worship the freedom to do as we please without anyone to tell us otherwise. It is a false freedom. We find things to worship such as consumer goods, celebrities or even Mother Earth. Unfortunately they are a poor substitute because they do not seek to improve our lives by giving them purpose.

http://greekodyssey.typepad.com/my_greek_odyssey/2009/06/when-the-state-replaces-god-and-family.html

[Dimitrios]

It's a real irony that even atheists have to assume a transcendent element in their thinking, to sneak in the numinous "through the back door", as it were.
Look at the "Big Three": Sam Harris, he of "The End of Faith", displays a rather touching faith in his idiosyncratic version of Buddhism. Of course, according to him Buddhism isn't a religion; it's a philosophy. Millions of followers of the Daibatsu worldwide are thus misinformed.
"O ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
Be gentle when ‘the heathen’ pray
To Buddha at Kamakura!

To Him the Way, the Law, apart,
Whom Maya held beneath her heart,
Ananda’s Lord, the Bodhisat,
The Buddha of Kamakura.

For though He neither burns nor sees,
Nor hears ye thank your Deities,
Ye have not sinned with such as these,
His children at Kamakura,

Yet spare us still the Western joke
When joss-sticks turn to scented smoke
The little sins of little folk
That worship at Kamakura—
But when the morning prayer is prayed,
Think, ere ye pass to strife and trade,
Is God in human image made
No nearer than Kamakura?"

Rudyard Kipling, The Buddha at Kamakura

Why is the vision of an Anglican poet of British imperialism more nuanced and understanding than that of the so-called "progressive"?

Richard Dawkins, occupant of the Chair of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, cannot truly explain why the public should be enlightened about science. He is assuming Platonic and Christian ideas about all truth (including scientific truth) having divine and supernatural origins, and thus having the same value to human kind as divine revelation. A true atheist would have no truck with such spooks. Dawkins, alas, isn't truly an atheist since he has Faith. His faith isn't in "science", but rather "Science!(TM)": something that looks an awful lot like August Comte's scientistic religion, Positivism.

Turn to the most tragic case, Christopher Hitchens. Here is a truly articulate and intelligent man, with a strong conscience. A genuine democrat and socialist, quick to the defense of underdogs (including, let it never be forgotten, the Greek Cypriots. His outrage over the injustice done to them shines through his dissection of the motivations and machinations of the odious Kissinger, the Turkish fascist junta and a gang of British Imperialists who thought it was still 1910). Hitchens is a sincere radical, in the old-fashioned sense: a believer in "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite". This is a noble faith; a Christian heresy, of course. All of these noble principles rely on all people, no matter how humble or servile, having infinite value in the eyes of God. Were you to propose this idea to even an educated pagan of ancient Greece or Rome, even an Aristotle or a Cicero, he would dismiss it as a foolish fantasy.

Sorry about the big post, Stavros. It's like that line from one of Cicero's letters: "Sorry about the long letter, as I didn't have the time to write you a short one."

[Stavros]

Feel free to write as much as you see fit, I personally enjoy reading what you have to say. It is well thought out and indicative of an educated mind that looks at life critically.

As for short posts I would be the last person to chide anyone for a post that is too long.

[Peter]

There are so many reasons for ending up at this economic abyss. The only thing that annoys me more then everything else is the finger pointing by Germany. Just one statistic people never seem to acknowledge, the percent of GDP earmarked to defense. Greece has been left to guard Europe’s south east borders, with little help. While Germany to this day spends next to nothing protecting its borders, thanks to NATO and the American taxpayer. Let’s not forget that we in America have this HUGE debt and much of it comes from the conflicts we have been engaged in since 9/11/2001.

[Dimitrios]

Peter: I have to admit that annoys me as well. It's a choice irony that after all the billions of dollars of military aid, diplomatic support etc. Turkey remains what it always was: a treacherous, barbaric Fascist military dictatorship with a nasty Islamist streak (I use "Fascist" as a specific descriptor, not rhetoric: Kemalist Turkey is the last survivor of the era of Fascist Italy, Falangist Spain, Iron Guard Romania) Even during Gulf War 2, when the US asked Turkey for rights of transit for an army group, Turkey betrayed them and denied transit. Greece may have been a troublesome ally, but at least it was an ALLY. As for Germany, it can afford to be smug, as they have intentionally forgotten their monstrous recent history.
At least Greece has a history it can be proud of.

[Stavros]

Personally I would like to see the United States stop expending its blood and treasure on foreign adventures that are neither well thought out nor whose final objective is clear. Always a recipe for disaster. The Europeans and Japanese have had a free ride for too long. The only reason Greek defense spending outpaces the rest of their EU brethern is that they live in such a bad neighborhood.

During these difficult days Greeks should be standing together to seek solutions but alas:

http://blogs.forbes.com/billfrezza/2011/07/19/give-greece-what-it-deserves-communism/

[Dimitrios]

I actually saw that article Stavros; was going to comment but had an attack of despair: why bother? Greeks were at the throats of other Greeks during former existential crises like the Persian Wars or during the long Turkish conquest of Eastern Rome; why not now as well? it's just amazing to me that "conservative" has gone from meaning one who has a belief in permanent things, principles and ideas, to meaning one who worships Mammon and the gods of the marketplace were anything goes. It's interesting that while Marx's prescriptions for society were wrongheaded, more suitable for ant colonies or beehives than mankind, his analysis of hard core "anything goes" capitalism was to close to home:

"Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned..."

[Stavros]

It is sad to see Greeks at each others throats, even sadder when Greeks are ashamed of who they are.

I consider myself a conservative but the label means different things to different people. Many see the latest crisis as one brought on by the capitalist system, a system with many flaws but unequaled when it comes to improving the standard of living of the average person. Personally I think if we let markets pick the winners and losers instead of politicians and crony capitalists we would all be better off.

If I had to chose between capitalism and the ever increasing power of the state however, even when it is supposedly for the common good, I would choose the former. Should we blame the banker for lending us the money to buy a home we can't afford or should we blame ourselves?

Perhaps a little individual soul searching is appropriate. As you point out we have lost our moorings, we believe in nothing and are constrained by nothing. Look to the past for the answers.

[Ares Demertzis]

Stavro,

You write: “Should we blame the banker for lending us the money to buy a home we can't afford or should we blame ourselves?”

Historical perspective compels us to rebuke American politicians, with special emphasis going to the Democrat party "liberal/progressive ideology.

I find it particularly ironic that the government´s efforts at redistributing American wealth increased during the late 20th century, only to ultimately backfire to where the expansion of social services are to be rolled back in the early years of the 21st.

In order to more fully understand the international economic debacle, one must consider players other than Wall Street.

In 1968 President Lyndon Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Housing_Act_of_1968) prohibiting discrimination in
housing. There were no federal enforcement provisions.

The Carter administration signed into law the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/) to encourage lending by federally regulated commercial institutions to borrowers (mostly from black inner city neighborhoods) previously “red-lined” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining) for being areas of higher crime rates and lower property values, as unacceptable borrowing risks.

To enforce the CRA directive, the cooperation of the banks in this effort was to be taken into consideration when approving future applications by the lending institution to the Federal government.

The Clinton administration´s efforts in helping the poor buy homes, turned the Community Reinvestment Act, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities, “a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks.” (http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html

During the 70´s and 80’ s CRA enforcement was perfunctory. The Clinton Treasury Department's 1995 regulations made getting a satisfactory CRA rating much harder. The new regulations de-emphasized subjective assessment measures in favor of strictly numerical ones.

The Clinton get-tough regime was crucial because bank deregulation had set off a wave of mega-mergers and acquisitions. Banks were compelled to make formal agreements with Community Organizations.

By intervening—even just threatening to intervene, ACORN Community Organizing secured millions of dollars in bank commitments.

This Clinton policy was a Social Engineering experiment with extraordinarily high risks for a significant percentage of those granted a no-down-payment mortgage based on a belief that poor families should qualify for home ownership simply because they are poor.

From that day forward, any credit institution could originate an excessively risky subprime loan, pocket the origination profits and then sell that risky loan to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac which would insure that risky loan and make American taxpayers liable for any defaults.

In 1999, The New York Times declared (http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/business/fannie-mae-eases-credit-to-aid-mortgage-lending.html) “Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people… Fannie Mae will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans…Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market…"
"In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.”

By 2006, 30% of all mortgages went to people who in any other circumstances wouldn't qualify.

Senator Phil Gramm (R, TX) raised issues about community pressure groups, such as Barack Obama's ACORN, extorting money from banks, and threatening to militate against mergers and acquisitions unless the banks entered into preferential agreements with community groups.

National Review Online: “One of the reasons so many bad mortgage loans were made in the first place is that Barack Obama’s celebrated community organizers make their careers out of forcing banks to do so. ACORN, for which Obama worked, is one of many left-wing organizations that spent decades pressuring banks and bank regulators to do more to make mortgages available to people without much in the way of income, assets, or credit. These campaigns often were couched in racially inflammatory terms.”

Investor´s Business Daily: “The Community Reinvestment Act grew to monstrous proportions during the Clinton administration, obsessed as it was with multiculturalism. The changes came as radical ‘housing rights’ groups led by ACORN lobbied for such loans. ACORN at the time was represented by a young public-interest lawyer in Chicago by the name of Barack Obama.”

Fannie and Freddie became big contributors to the Democratic Party. The sub-prime business paid off - at least while the bubble was growing.

Franklin Raines, the Fannie Mae C.E.O. from 1999 to 2004, had been budget director in the Clinton administration. Raines was a consultant to the Obama campaign, according to the Washington Post, Freddie and Fannie number among the top 5 contributors to Obama's run for the presidency.

The Bush administration in 2003 tried to change the system, to no avail.

Congressman Barney Frank, (D, MA ) was in the forefront of stopping the Bush proposal to take control out of Fannie and Freddie and put it into a third overseeing organization.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters accused the Bush administration of racism (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/Democratic%20Coverup%20for%20Fannie%20and%20Freddie.html)

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan raised the alarm over Fannie's and Freddie's weak capitalization. His concerns were ignored.

Congressman Michael Oxley (R,OH), introduced a bill in 2005 in response to the growing problem, but Fannie and Freddie put their lobbyists to work and the bill died.

Bloomberg.com: “The bill [which would have prevented this housing mess] didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter.”

“But we now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years.”

The Community Reinvestment Act was the first and most important part of the food chain.

The CRA caused the expansion in the number of questionable loans that lending institutions made, but Wall Street and insurance underwriters were all too willing to package these loans, enhance their ratings through convenient exercises in fantasy, sell them, and insure them with reserves that were more inadequate than the incomes of the people who got the loans in the first place..

The best thing that can emerge from the current financial crisis is the realization that the government needs to stop directing economic decision making. In a sense, the government is putting out a fire it started.

If you want to blame Bush for the current crisis, it might make you feel good, reinforce your sense of how the world works, enable you to find a meeting of the minds when you next engage your liberal friends over wine and quiche, but like so many things you believe and which make you feel good, it has no correspondence to reality.
(http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/the_financial_mess_how_we_got.html)

There´s so much more, but this is long enough for a "comment" to your blog. Those interested can do their own homework.

Gia sou, Stavro.

[Ares Demertzis]

An addendum to my previous post:

Those readers of MGO may find it interesting to read a polemic account of liberal/progressive objectives at:

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/48709/sec_id/48709

The title of the article is "1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W." which, of course, is the address of the White House.

I begin with a quote from David Rockefeller:

“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nation will accept the New World Order”

And I end with a quote of my own design:

"The scheme is far more insidious than any of us can ever imagine."

[Stavros]

Ares,

I respect very much your efforts to educate and I recommend readers, even if they are not Americans, take the time to read what you offer. Especially if they don't agree with you.

I am a big believer in personal responsibility and like you in small government. There is plenty of blame to go around for the mess that we find ourselves in today, yet I can't help but put most of it on myself and others like me, citizens of the polis who shirk our responsibilities. We have failed to elect good leaders. More importantly we have failed to hold them accountable. We are often ill informed, apathetic, immersed in our own lives and too busy to pay attention.

We are easily swayed by demagogues, celebrities and agenda journalists who have put us squarely on the road to perdition. Common sense is a disappearing commodity as are patriotism, love of family, and belief in God. Stripped of these essential commodities is it any wonder that we as a nation have succumbed to avarice, self interest and are constantly at its others throats?

The real enemy is not the government or some shadowy cabal of unseen bankers, it is unfortunately the vast majority of unsuspecting, clueless citizens who have yet to figure out what is going on and what must be done.

[Stavros]

Walter Russell Mead says it much more eloquently:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/07/25/from-norway-to-hell/

[Dimitrios]

Stavros, true enough. Don't get me wrong; I'm no "anti-capitalist" vlakas: I've worked in too many businesses, family or otherwise (in the words of Angelo Tsarouchas to his Greek audience "hey, if you guys are all here, who's running the restaurants?"). The concepts of the market, of private property and free exchange are like any other valuable tool-the tool is not evil, it is the hand that wields it that determines good or evil purpose. The hammer itself is good; I just object to the mindset that sees all problems as nails. I take it to heart when Emerson says "things are in the saddle, and ride mankind".
I suppose I've been influenced by the distributist philosophy of GK Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc: they believed that the basis of a healthy polity is a strong middle class (they, being Catholic Thomists take this idea from Aristotle) The basis of a strong middle class is for private property to be widely distributed, rather than concentrated in a few hands. The freeholding farmer should own his plot, the tradesman should own his tools, small business should be encouraged and widespread (this seems like a philosophy tailor-made for traditional Greeks, with their entrepreneurial hands-on attitude). However, this system requires that the population having a certain level of moral fibre: you have to be willing to work hard and get your hands dirty as a farmer or tradesman, you have to be willing to delay gratification in order to plough your money back into your business to make it a success and so on. If you are not, why not go on welfare and defraud the system, why not finagle a nice government pension or sinecure, why not sell your land for quick profit to a developer to build holiday homes for Germans or British. As you said Stavros, it comes down to a little individual soul searching. There's a line from Plato about the best and fairest constitution in the world being useless if the population is corrupt.
This has application for the worrisome historical trend now moving America from Republic to Empire. As small businesses die out, their market share is taken by big business (which gets even bigger as more people gamble their money on the stock market, hoping for easy profit). Larger companies have more funds to influence the political system (Adam Smith, the first great theorist of capitalism, commented that a group of businessmen will never get together without hatching a conspiracy to defraud the public). The temptation to use the power of the state to gain benefits, both foreign and domestic, is considerable. Crony capitalism, under these circumstances is inevitable. It's how Rome moved from Republic to Empire: one of the later Diadochi, the Hellenistic successors of Alexander was the half-Greek, half-Persian Mithradates Eupator, King of Pontus. He attempted to build an empire in Asia Minor by posing as a champion of the Greeks against the financial domination of the Romans. During the war, Greeks in Asia lynched 80,000 Roman businessmen and their families in vicious and horrible pogroms, in Smyrna, Ephesus, Sardis, Nicea. These folk made their money by buying tax farming rights and monopoly licenses from the Roman state in the territories it controlled in Asia. The subsequent war of vengeance conveniently expanded Rome's empire, and put another nail in the coffin of its republic.
Yes, I am also an amateur historian as well as a lover of philosophy. Is more proof needed that I'm Greek? Thanks again, Stavros for allowing me a forum for my cranky rants.

[Dimitrios]

By the way, the progressive media types are already smacking their lips in anticipation over this hideous Norwegian atrocity. Here on Canada they are already smearing Christians, conservatives, traditionalists and those critical of Islam with a form of guilt by association. We are instigators and enablers, you see. This is from the same crowd that rushed to explain that environmentalism wasn't to be discredited by the Unabomber or objected to Socialists being implicated in the crimes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot or even Andreis Baader and Ulrike Meinhoff. They even bent over backwards to absolve the majority of Muslims of complicity in 9/11, the Bali bombings, the Madrid bombings, the London bombings, the school massacres and other atrocities committed by the Muslim Chechens in Russia, et cetera et cetera ad nauseum. But on the actions of one twisted and evil Gnostic (according to his turgid manifesto, he wasn't Christian...but he had a hell of a Manichean worldview) it's very convenient for certain interests to condemn us all. Very even handed of them.

[Stavros]

No additional proof needed whatsoever.

Interesting that you bring up the middle class because it is being decimated in the United States by the creation of a welfare state. In so doing we get a permanent underclass and more and more money in the hands of those at the very top who use the system to their advantage. A corporation like GE paying no taxes while a small business owner making $250,000 is cast as the villain and targeted to pay even more.

Once you eliminate the middle class you eliminate the engine that drives wealth creation, upward mobility and stability, opening the door to class warfare, made to order for the hucksters of our time.

We live in a world turned upside down.

[Stavros]

As for the Left, they are determined to drive us all headlong towards extinction because they see radical Muslims as their allies. Once the Caliphate is established they will be the first to go because they believe in nothing, along with the gays, lesbians and transgendered folks who will no longer be tolerated by the religion of peace. The feminists will be wearing burkhas and sharing tea with their sisters in the kitchen.

[Dimitrios]

I'm afraid I keep beating this blog posting like a dead horse, but I read this passage by one of the Fathers, and it reminded me of what you said above:

"Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich person’s gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone? Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm. Those who combined both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again.
Worse still, the rich whose gold was taken away would feel bitter and resentful; while the poor who received the gold from the hands of soldiers would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would actually do moral harm. Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion, a change of heart will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people’s hearts first—and then they will joyfully share their wealth."
– St. John Chrysostom on the poor from On Living Simply XLIII

[Minas]

Hi Stavros, what ever happen to Ted Laskaris blog? Has he resurfaced? I used to love readign your blog and his, and just found yours again today.