Image by Getty Images God creates the world, including Greece. He gives it a wonderful climate, with plentiful food and drink. He builds mountains where its people can enjoy fresh clean air; he gives it beautiful seas where they can swim; he makes it a land of plenty…you get the picture.
Then the archangel Gabriel points out a problem: “But Lord, you have created paradise – and paradise is only for hereafter!” God thinks for a little, then decides to prevents this heaven-on-earth by giving Greece its politicians.
Greece and its citizens today, according to the worldcrops.com website
have been betrayed on all sides. Betrayed by its local political class, who so desperately wanted to be ‘European’ that they cooked their books in order to join the euro. And betrayed by the eurocrats in Brussels, who so desperately wanted to widen the eurozone to include all-comers that they turned a blind eye to those same cooked books.
A trip to Greece during August saw me visit the Pnyx, a stubby outcrop of rock sitting on top of one of the numerous hills of Athens. Few visitors today make it to the Pnyx, which itself speaks volumes as it’s the birthplace of Western democracy. There stood orators such as Demosthenes who, in the 4th century BC, exhorted his fellow citizens to the virtues of dignity, and the need to be able to trust elected officials. Ordinary Athenians today retain an astonishing dignity, in the face of an economic collapse that has been connived at by a political class that has failed to give proper leadership. Greeks – like many citizens in other countries – yearn for politicians who are more interested in speaking honestly to them, than in getting their vote every so often. In this too they are being betrayed, as no Greek politician is willing to speak openly and honestly about the scale of the mess that faces the country. And the eurocrats simply wag their fingers at the naughty Greeks for letting their fiscal position get into such a mess. In truth, the very same eurocrats knew about Greece’s widespread tax avoidance et al for many years, but thought they could ignore it.
A trip to Greece during August saw me visit the Pnyx, a stubby outcrop of rock sitting on top of one of the numerous hills of Athens. Few visitors today make it to the Pnyx, which itself speaks volumes as it’s the birthplace of Western democracy. There stood orators such as Demosthenes who, in the 4th century BC, exhorted his fellow citizens to the virtues of dignity, and the need to be able to trust elected officials. Ordinary Athenians today retain an astonishing dignity, in the face of an economic collapse that has been connived at by a political class that has failed to give proper leadership. Greeks – like many citizens in other countries – yearn for politicians who are more interested in speaking honestly to them, than in getting their vote every so often. In this too they are being betrayed, as no Greek politician is willing to speak openly and honestly about the scale of the mess that faces the country. And the eurocrats simply wag their fingers at the naughty Greeks for letting their fiscal position get into such a mess. In truth, the very same eurocrats knew about Greece’s widespread tax avoidance et al for many years, but thought they could ignore it.
Read more: worldcrops.com
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