Signed
Marina Spanos
Firstly, the establishment built a case against Golden Dawn based on poor evidence (from what has been presented so far), and through the help of the mainstream media (which we all know is totally corrupt) it has been "educating" the Greek viewing audience about their guilt everyday for the past two weeks. But even their 24-hour broadcasts are not helping to turn voters against the far-right party. In fact, the opposite is happening and there are many reasons for this, for which we will analyze briefly further down.
Various public opinion polls that were conducted at the weekend showed a huge amount of distrust in what the media has been reporting about the far-right party, with a large portion of the Greek population claiming that the case against Golden Dawn is false because the establishment is afraid of its popularity in the upcoming municipal elections.
According to these polls, and apart from all the blows it has received over the past two weeks, the far-right party is still holding a lot of its strength all across the country. The conservative New Democracy party is also gaining some ground, but certainly it is not scoring the numbers that it was expecting. As for Venizelos' PASOK party, it is highly unlikely that it will gain any power at all in those elections. (This is the only good news).
Also adding to the debate, are the comments and statements from prominent criminal lawyers. Some have openly refuted the indictments against the members of the Golden Dawn party, while Constitutionalists have been characterizing the various legislative theories to prevent elections, that have been promoted by Evangelos -The Establishment's Voice- Venizelos himself, as not only ludicrous but also unconstitutional and undemocratic (that is in case there is a mass resignation of Golden Dawn members).
Prominent Athens criminal lawyer M.Dimitrakopoulos claimed from the first day that the persecution of GD has "no legal standing". He said that all the evidence so far has political tones and that can not stand in a court of law.
Alexis Kougias on the other noted on a television debate that the indictments are perforated, and the accusations against the political party are unfounded and lack any evidence. As he explained "the crime of participating in a criminal organization is secondary, they should have presented a primary offense such as inciting murder if they wanted to arrest Golden Dawn members."
Constitutionalists on the other hand are saying that the government cannot avoid elections by simply drafting a new law, (this of course is in case there is a mass resignation of Golden Dawn members which require that elections be held). The coalition government, and especially Evangelos the Large, who we all know has historically played and foiled with the Greek Constitution to suit his own intent and purposes, actually believes that with a new law he can avoid all this because if elections were to take place then it would displease the Troika.
(Don't want to do that Evangelos, now do you?)
Word has it that this whole issue has frustrated some conservatives in New Democracy (who still hold some sort of decency) and who are now concerned about how the whole case has been handled. They know that many people are questioning the whole operation against Golden Dawn since it is obvious that it was impromptu, with poor evidence that cannot (and will not) stand up in a Greek court of law.
Also, another reason for their concern stems around the fact that a large portion of the Greek population realizes that the crackdown of Golden Dawn may have been dictated from abroad, after all there are many national issues pending at the present moment and whoever reads a newspaper, or surfs the web knows that there is mounting pressure on the government.
Parallel to this, most of the polls conducted over the internet, and aimed at supporting the establishment's case against Golden Dawn, are also failing. In fact, many public opinion polls have suddenly and strangely disappeared from various websites.
Let me explain: When someone votes online, they generally note the votes tallied so far after the vote is made. Well imagine the surprise of the Parapolitika news site when it discovered that most of the respondents voted in favor of the Golden Dawn party. More exactly, Golden Dawn massed 49% of the vote, with ND and SYRIZA barely taking up 15%. The site, which is backed by the New Democracy party, pulled out the plug on the vote immediately. (Wonder why?)
Even the poll that was conducted by the "To Vima" newspaper did not yield the expected results either. Most of those who participated said they were skeptical about the case against the Golden Dawn party. Suprisingly, the site (part of the rich oligarch Mbombolas group of companies) shows that 30% of Greeks opposed the arrests.
Also, if the evidence against the party is not solid, it will raise skepticism and then turn around and blow up in the establishment's face.
Which brings us to the main argument. How can Greek citizens trust their lawmakers, and all those who pass legislation in this country, when over the past four years -or since George Papandreou assumed power in Oct. 2009- these very same lawmakers voted predatory laws and decrees with no parliamentary vote as provided for in the Hellenic Constitution?
How can citizens trust the judicial system when they have yet to solve all other pending issues such as the 2000 Greek Stock market scandal, the Lagarde List scandal, the Siemens money-laundering case, and better yet the attempted assassination attempt of former Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, etc.? Also, why did they not act swiftly when two former financial prosecutors sent countless cases to them to be further investigated. (Example the bloating of the Greek deficit, as well as the controversial CDS scandal involving George Papandreou.)
As for the political elite, this is one group that will never be trusted for many reasons.
Much to my personal regret, since I have always supported the conservatives, the ruling New Democracy party went from being anti-Memorandum to pro-Memorandum in one night and formed an alliance with this country's biggest enemy the PASOK party. This indeed upset me personally, since I have continually supported ND.
Another thing that was upsetting is that a couple of days ago and while addressing the Greek-American community in N.Y., Samaras referred to the latest events and arrests of Golden Dawn MPs and cadres saying "as the prime minister, I am interested in unity. Nobody has the right to hate the other person, to believe in violence, to be a racist and promote the extremes because they will be confronted by the Greek people as it happened back home in recent days".
HellasFrappe agrees with this statement, but we would be more convinced if he decided to deal with the violence that also stems from the extreme Left. And we have yet to see any initiatives towards this.
On Saturday the PM told the Axia newspaper that in a democracy, "it's acts that are prosecuted, not beliefs,", adding that the government planned to "crush the criminal activity of assault battalions" and said it was the first time that such an act of violence was dealt with so quickly.
We agree, but how can we lay our trust in his words, when he and the whole establishment characterizes and labels far-right beliefs as Nazi, or fascist? Why are they not labeled in the same way in other countries across Europe where other far-right parties operate such as the UK, Austria, Germany, etc.? Were the supporters of Ron Paul in the US characterized as fascists because they were far-right patriots? Would the government of France for instance label Marie Lepin as a fascist or racist and allow the media to refer to her as such on a 24 hour basis? So then why only in Greece? Why does he permit the establishment to slander against this party. Doesn't he realize that this is infuriating its more than 500,000 supporters who for any given reason decided to support this party?
This is not the New Democracy party that I personally embraced, and have supported all these years. This is not how the party operated under Costas Karamanlis! He respected all political beliefs.
But in modern Greece political beliefs are not respected, because if they were they would be challenged within a political dialogue. After all we rid ourselves of the Junta because we had no freedom of expression. Why not challenge Golden Dawn about the issue of immigration, crime, our national issues which the establishment claims elevated it to fame? Isn't this a better strategy to expose their incompetency as you all claim (message to ND). Why ignore them, and negatively stigmatize them and support the PASOK-led media? Don't you all realize (at ND headquarters) that you are once again being played by the green slime that destroyed this country? Don't GD supporters deserve to hear the views of their representatives on television as well? So what if they are not politically correct, or do not wear Gucci suits, and who cares if they did or did not receive their studies in posh universities, can they or can they not debate about economic, political and social issues? This is what is important. Do they have any proposals, do they have any fresh ideas, etc? This will yield better results in the long-term for ND and allow its supporters to return, but following PASOK tactics won't. Also it will reveal GD's competency to its voters, and other potential voters. But anyone with half a mind could of probably said that. So it is more than obvious that the reason you feel disgust when they sit at a table next to you, and are not afraid to even show this on camera, is because they do not suit the "establishment". And this, dear conservatives at ND, is what is frustrating your very own voters.
As for PASOK, who in their right mind would trust this party ever again? The people in Greece certainly don't. They began the laws that today protect corrupt politicians. Who can forget the scandals of the late 80s? The Koskotas trial? The Ocalan affair? The issue of Imia? Who can forget that most of its members, and anyone associated with this party, started off poor and suddenly owned half of Athens? Can we forget about the wabbly submarines at Skaramanga? Or how about how they inflated the costs of the 2004 Olympic Games to satisfy their oligarch friends? Or what about the Greek stock market scandal of 200? Can we forget about the Lagarde List scandal fiasco? Who can forget the manner in which George Papandreou handed over this nation to the IMF? Who can forget about CDS, and afternoon tea with shady characters such as George Soros. Who in their right mind will trust them? The Diaspora? Does the Diaspora remember how much money it lost in the late 90s when PASOK was in rule? Does the "Ktimatiki" bank scandal ring a bell? I am certain that many Greeks in New York remember this case, since they lost most of their savings then.(In fact some reports claim that almost one billion US dollars disappeared). If you want to learn more about this, then take a walk around Greek Astoria in New York, I am pretty sure the locals will be more than willing to bring anyone up-to-date about this.
Can we trust SYRIZA? This is indeed another joke. Most of PASOK's hardliners went on to SYRIZA, to join ranks with people who at one point defended and/or supported the November 17 terrorist organization, and who in 2008 literally applauded the December riots. Hundreds of shops, businesses, homes and automobiles were torched in the middle of Athens following the suspicious murder of Alexis Grigoropoulos and all SYRIZA could do was produce a calender that presented anarchy as trendy? What about all the murders at the Marfin Bank? Why didn't the Greek justice system act swiftly there? Did the establishment hammer down on SYRIZA then because it was reluctant to condemn this crime? Or what about the anarchists who every so often vandalize and torch the Greek capital and then rush to take refuge in universities (exploiting the popular university asylum law)? Why does SYRIZA, and all other leftist parties refuse to condemn these acts of violence and instead blast conservatives for wanting to ban this law? Where was the justice system when while exploiting this law, anarchists used machine guns and fired on a police van several years ago from one of Athens' largest universities? Why didn't the establishment label SYRIZA as a criminal organization several years ago when it was discovered that the son of one of its leading cadres was arrested for burglaries that were connected to a terrorist organization? Did the establishment ever question why SYRIZA is chummy chummy with the extreme-leftist ANTARSYA party, - a party that has been trying to make its way into parliament (without any success of course), but has always found refuge in SYRIZA. ANTARSYA has always held anti-fascist rallies around Athens (which in most cases almost always turn violent) and was the only party to protest against any GD rally with the purpose of starting a street fight. Also, some of its members have openly been accused of supporting Soros-backed NGO's that quite suspiciously support many of the migrant organizations in Greece (in other words human trafficking). If my memory serves me correctly, many analysts have warned that Soros-backed NGO's in the Balkan region, and Greece, support radicalization and should be looked at with a very watchful eye, so why hasn't the establishment hammered down on them as well?
DIMAR is a whole issue on its own. This party might not even make it into Parliament if national elections were held, even though they seem to always receive front row seats at every news panel on the Greek media. Some of their members openly support, or in all fairness are not willing to condemn, the self-proclaimed Turkish minority in Thrace. This is not only dangerous for Greek national interests, but also for our national security. Let us not even begin to analyze the comments made by one of its star MP Maria Repoussi, who insists on ignoring the genocide of Asia Minor Greeks and Pontus Greeks and wants to criminalize it in Greece -in other words force Greeks to forget about it- in a very dangerous and unpatriotic anti-racist bill. Over the past few days, and taking advantage of the murder of Pavlos Fyssas which eventually sparked the operation against Golden Dawn, the DIMAR party has also been insisting on re-surfacing this controversial anti-racist bill. Desperate to accumulate some sort of support to get into the parliamentary elite club again -because the law would immediately grant citizenship to all foreign migrants in Greece- DIMAR is pulling out all the stops and -metaphorically speaking- by employing its media spokesmen/women to support them on this initiative. (Keen to support this law as well are also PASOK, SYRIZA and of course KKE).
Then there is the Independent Greek Party. Their intentions are fair, but it is difficult to trust them since their party leader openly stated that he would support SYRIZA if it were to gain government. How can we trust in his words, when he is siding with a party that defended notorious murderers of the November 17 terrorist organization? This is probably the primary reason why it is very difficult for leader Panos Kammenos to regain popularity with conservatives, because most of the victims of Nov. 17 stemmed from the Right.
Then there is the Greek Communist party (KKE). Their members condemn Golden Dawn of carrying Greek flags, but they themselves wear biker helmets and carry red flags with strong polls. Of course there is never any mention of this on the Greek or foreign media because they fear a civil war. Question: If KKE only has 4-5% of the vote, then how can this argument stick? How can they influence civil war? Do our leaders know something that we don't? Or is someone's nest dirty? Our guess would be no.2. Quite upsetting, was hearing composer Mikis Theodorakis, who stems from this party, praising the Samaras government for hammering down on the Golden Dawn party when he himself was once imprisoned for his political beliefs. In fact we witnessed many KKE officials applauding the government as well, and they too forget that several decades ago they were not even allowed to claim that they were Communists.
All these forces need to wake up to reality. All they have to do is begin reading some blogs and/or see what is being written and said on the social networks.
People don't care about why Golden Dawn wears black t-shirts as opposed to Gucci 3-piece suits, or if it does not use the proper tones in Parliament. People don't care if some of the members of this party worked as bouncers at night clubs (as stated on TV), or even domestic aid, the only thing that their supporters surely care about is that GD represents them properly in Parliament. Besides... What difference does a thug have from a ruthless Wall Street banker? There is no difference, one kills you with one strike, while the other strips you of all your dignity, then steps all over you, takes everything you own and then even convinces you to kill yourself.
I am saddened because as a supporter of ND, I have come to the realization that the government, and the establishment do not want to address the issues that allowed people to turn to Golden Dawn in the first place. I wished for this because I wanted the conservatives to wash-out its past sins, and start off with a clean slate with its supporters, but not accepting the mistakes of the past is something PASOK does, not ND.
I am now convinced that in their own little world, we the people have no say in what is best for our country and our daily lives. Only they -ND, the political elite and the establishment- have a say in how we should eat, live and plan out our future. And I ask: Why should we not be concerned about the future of our nation and have a say in matters of politics, the economy, social issues and especially on foreign affairs and geopolitics? Who gave this small community of people the right to conduct secret diplomacy and handle mystery funds with our tax dollars, and tell us that they know better when all we see is that they are fattening their wallets and we the people are getting poorer. Who allowed them to dictate to us on what is politically correct and what is democratic and undemocratic, do they forget that they work for us?
Seriously, who gave them the right to ignore campaign promises and then pretend that they have never pledged anything to us? Do they think God illuminated them, and only them, to preach to the rest of us on what is just and unjust? Do they really believe that we will bow our heads and accept this without voicing our opinion and our objection? This is wrong, things like this only happen in dictatorships, not in a nation that gave the world democracy. And the reason I say this is because there are still many decent ND supporters that are disappointed with the present leadership because they have allowed us to believe that if we disagree with anything they say, then we will not only be ignored, we will also never find a job and/or financial opportunity, we will fear being ousted from the party and we might even be stigmatized as supporting fascists and Nazism.
In fact, we heard over the last few days that the plan is now to begin surfing the web, and signal out all the blogs and/or sites that support Golden Dawn or have looked at this issue with an objective eye. So does this mean that the exchange of ideas and/or beliefs is also going to be forbidden and criminalized?
If this indeed occurs, then New Democracy should change its name. This is not the party that was founded by the late Konstantine Karamanlis, because he viewed all citizens as equals, and lived by example. And when push came to shove, this great man used diplomacy and intellect to fight back, not electronic trolls, and PASOK-led media tactics.
As for the rest, when will the establishment realize that Greek citizens demand transparency on every level, not just for a select few. And yes, we want to see more politicians and greedy oligarchs behind bars because we are convinced that the real criminals are out there, roaming free. The arrest of a few bouncers, or muscle men in black T-shirts is not going to give us our dignity back as a nation, and it will certainly not wash away the sins of a corrupt system that stole the bread from our very mouths to begin with!
We cannot applaud the government because it jailed several members of a small political party when we know that strong names such as Tsoukatos and Mandelis (two of ex-PASOK leader Costas Simitis' long time associates) are still at large. Do we need to remind our leaders that both these men have openly -and on record- testified that they accepted kickbacks from Germany's Siemens and channeled these illegal funds to PASOK? Also what ever happened to the forbidden names on the Lagarde List? Has the government taxed these people? Will we ever find out why Evangelos Venizelos purposely kept the evidence at his residence for several months and only decided to materialize it when the case took on broader dimensions. And why isn't George Papakostantinou behind bars? Is the justice system still investigating this case too?
Or how about the investigation over the assassination of former prime minister Costas Karamanlis? Why hasn't this case been resolved yet? Someone attempted to assassinate an active prime minister and this did not create one signal nose bleed in Europe, or even the West? Don't you find that suspicious? Can we safely assume that this silence also means guilt? Or what about the domestic and foreign media? If someone attempted to assassinate a prime minister in any other country there would be a cause for war for some nations, but there was not even one broadcast. Aside from a couple of reports a year ago -and this because of the courage of one prosecutor who decided to publish some of the findings in this case- the domestic and foreign media did not even want to touch this subject. But it was very easy for the same media to have countless reports, 24/7 news coverage and inside information on Golden Dawn. How sadistically twisted is that? And what is even more twisted is that the media is even broadcasting what sites these people look into when they surf the internet, what food they eat, what their sexual preferences are and so on. Yellow, tabloid journalism as opposed to hard facts. As for Mr. Karamanlis, it has been four years since this occurred and we are still waiting for the Supreme Court of Greece to act on this case and bring it to trial.
And finally, before Antonis Samaras assumed government, he pledged to all of us -us meaning all of ND's supporters- that once elected he would form an investigative committee to probe the reasons behind Greece's entry to the IMF? What ever happened to that? We were told that because his government did not gain the majority it could not proceed with this investigation. If that is the argument that is being used, then is it safe for us to assume that Venizelos is blackmailing Samaras and prohibiting him from moving ahead with this case? If yes, then wouldn't this be criminal? And if you answered yes again, would it be then safe to also conclude that Venizelos is heading a criminal organization because of this? After all blackmail is a crime and is usually used by mafia organizations.
Friends, none of the issues listed above have (or ever will be) resolved, so therefore it is very easy for anyone with half a brain to distrust a system and a network of officials that in four days suddenly found all the evidence they needed to pass judgement and charge a political party with being a criminal organization. Maybe GD has conducted criminal acts, maybe its members are unorthodox in their ways, but the evidence that has been presented against them so far is not only poor, it is laughable and it is clear that the only reason they are being targeted and ridiculed is because they are not part of this system, and/or the establishment.
Look at the way the "establishment" protected and safeguarded George Papandreou and you will agree with me on this 1000 percent.
Also, reporters who present rumors, interpretations and assumptions about this case cannot be taken seriously. Personal conclusions do not stand up in a court of law, only facts and hard, solid evidence does. Everything else is cheap gossip and propaganda.
With a third of the population still unemployed, with a very poor social welfare system (that has claimed many lives because it cannot function properly), with over 4,000 suicides (from people who could not handle being pressured for their debts), with hundreds of thousands of families living without the fundamentals (such as electricity, food and proper health care) and with the alarming and frightening rise in crime in all of our neighborhoods, does the establishment really believe that we will trust their word?
This establishment is ridiculous and dangerous!
The word boomerang is not Greek, but the establishment should become familiar with it, because it is almost certain that this whole Golden Dawn fiasco is going to blow up in their faces.
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