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Greek fiddles

"It was a grave mistake to hold this election in such an atmosphere and time of crisis and before the economy was stabilized," said Keridis. " This result couldn't come at a worse time for Greece."

This quotation from a political scientist at the University of Athens demonstrates precisely Europe's predicament.

It has a superficial truth - the election has destabilised Greece - the results strike me as a negative outpouring, based primarily on fear.

But, at a deeper level, they reveal the deep arrogance of the elite - that they are the only ones capable of dealing with the crisis. They will deal with the crisis but without the inconvenience of seeking any democratic legitimacy. This would require creating the conditions of hope that would elicit that popular support and channelling it in a positive direction. Since they are incapable of this, indeed incapable of seeing the need for this, they wend their technocratic ways over the edge, into the abyss. Meanwhile, the people turn to the siren voices of 'left' and 'right' who are (at present) without solution either (God help us if they 'discover' them)!

Never has the world been more in need of genuine, democratically mandated leadership, sustained by intelligent, humane ideology, in short, a Roosevelt and a Keynes - and they are nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile, Greece needs as orderly a default as possible and an exit from the euro for only then can it begin to devalue itself out of a crisis that will be prolonged and painful but then, at least, the country's own responsibility. Hopefully it will be a responsibility that is not overshadowed by the legacy of the civil war and two parties playing, equally irresponsibly, buggins turn. To this the population have turned a blinded eye, until the music stopped, at which point everything became 'their fault' for which 'we' bared no responsibility.




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