Greeks tend to do things in sprints rather than marathons.
Of Current Issues Regarding Greeks
by Aleximenes
[Aleximenes is the pen name of
a Greek sage residing in the
New York metropolitan area and
is known to the individual
posting this public
domain document, which may be
reprinted freely but only in
its entirety.]
Athenian society is xenolatrous and rightist while the countryside is
xenophobic and rebellious. Highlanders have an obsessive, libertarian streak
while the plainsmen of Peloponese and Thessaly have a paranoid collectivist
streak and the islanders tend to be histrionic. Kolonaki-Psykhiko-Spetsai
crowd used to run the country through informal grapevine of pastry shops
(Floca, Zonar, Papaspyru, Vyzantion). Athens was hardly urban when it was
chosen as the capital, yet it now uncomfortably holds half the country.
Greeks are herd instinct voters, and vote for "their" side rather than issues
or current events. Greek attention to politics is also highly superficial,
allowing politicians to easily excuse economic disasters with polemic
distractions. The xenophobes are more opposed to a non-Greek-blood king than
to the general concept of a king; it is ironic that the Glucksburgs never
intermarried with remnants of Byzantine nobility (other than via the
Romanov-Rurik lineage to Anna the Makethonian) nor established an indigenous
peerage. Xenolatrists even speak in an accent that is more Italian than
Greek. Curiosity is for the Greek such an all-consuming passion that it makes
him resentfully intolerable even to his own family, let alone to scholars
trying to understand him! In this way the Greek polarises all and Greek
politics cannot deviate from its zero-one mentality. Every Greek believes
that he must not just win an argument or election, but that he must totally
extinguish all traces of opposing views. By his very nature, the Greek cannot
rest if his presumed student has even the slightest doubt about his lesson!
Greeks never say "I disagree", instead they say "Let me correct you!" For
the Greeks, victory never comes because victory must be total. Meanwhile the
Greek is so busy dreaming up ideas and convincing others of them that he can
never build them himself; the Greek is forever cursed to watch others do what
the Greek first connived and dreamt of! Greeks contrive their own version of
events to satisfy their grudges and agendas and then try to pass this off as
"history", calling their opponents "anistoritos" (lit. "unhistorised");
Instead of focusing on the lies of the past, aka "history", they should focus
on the hopes of the future, aka "economics", because history and economics
are mutually exclusive. Such manipulative historiolatry is a sure symptom of
schizoparanoid dementia. Meanwhile, the Greek is always seeking an easy way
out, an angle and is often reluctant to do difficult work - not that this
doesn't produce extraordinary innovations in productivity, but there is a
reluctance to roll up one's sleeves and get to work. The Greek is always
looking for a golden key that will eventually allow him to spend the rest of
his life at rest. All the civility Greeks may practice amongst non-Greeks
disappears amongst other Greeks. The USA State Department human rights
reports show that while Greeks do not practice physical domestic violence,
their verbal abuse has an even worse effect. But to know the occular,
unspoken, unphysical mode of of the Greek art of persuasion is to begin to
comprehend the mythical power of the pagan matiasma or "evil eye", for which
the church has reluctantly written prayers!
When the Greek is confronted with inconvenient facts he has
rationalised away he lapses into a comatose blank stare whereby he won't even
listen any more! If a Greek child goes home complaining that his head was hit
by a falling stone, the father will say it was from wearing glasses, while
the mother will blame some food she considers too modern and the grandparents
will say the bump was caused because the child forgot to make some
superstitious, idolatrous, pseudoreligious ritual, but NO ONE will admit the
child was actually hit by a stone. In the USA, there was a television joke
about a Greek restaurant worker who always said "Cheesburger, Coke, No Pepsi"
and stubbornly served his customers cheeseburger and Coke, no matter what
they ordered. The MODERN Greek has so devolved into pre-Socratic,
pre-Christian sophistry and rhetoric that he is the object of scorn and
contempt because his devotion always stops short of action, as evidenced
seven decades ago in Smyrna, two decades ago in Cyprus, more recently in the
northwest Balkans, and in the killing of a Greek doctor by Vaticanist thugs
in Westchester. Yet the Greece the world admires is not the unremarkable
pagan savagery, but began when Socrates died trying to throw off the pagan
shackles; one does not win the respect of civilised nations by proclaiming
the perfidy of the Trojan Horse to be one's national symbol. The ayatollahs
of Greek history have always been pagan, like those that gave Socrates
Hemlock, as well as the fascists and communists who have tried to revive
paganism in modern times; by contrast, true Orthodoxy was always tolerant,
even to the point that Orthodox rulers hesitated applying the death penalty.
(In fact, Christianity first grew because of disgust with pagan abortion,
infanticide and gericide.) Moreover, the Greeks have now reduced their
language to its lowest common denominator (tossing away half their heritage
supposedly to better allow 1970s computerisation, a sacrifice unnecessary
with today's improved technology) as well as reached the point where one half
of all teenage girls in the late 1980s had had at least one abortion, causing
politicians to introduce pronatalist policies. In 1995, CERTAIN regions in
Greece had the worse abortion rate in the world: seven per household. After
the Junta, which banned miniskirts and rock music, Greeks seem bent on
imitating the media-distorted extrememost fringes of American culture lagged
by a decade, hence electing Papandthreou in the age of Reagan, and so on.
Ten thousand annual baptisms, four thousand annual funerals and six
hunderd parishes, as well as voting records, suggest that there are about a
quarter of a million Greeks in the Americas, yet many exaggerate this number
to three million based on census declaration of multiple partial individual
heritages; This has resulted in Greek ghettos having a bravado about an
immense number of Greeks and therefore detracting from the essentials of
survival such as assimilation and hard work. Curiously, ghetto Greeks
(ignoring that Orthodox are the most educated yanks but vaticanists are the
least) seem intent on becoming "dolmas" or Greek leaves on the outside but
papal meatheads on the inside. This penchant for exaggeration has turned many
USA-born Greeks against their own heritage: take for example that most
Americans who served in Korea speak of Turkish willingness to sacrifice
advancing soldiers at the same time as the trenches were firing and yet only
Greeks speak of Greeks being the best fighters in Korea; or that Greeks deny
the existance of a genuinely minute (thanks to 1920s population exchanges)
group of ethnic minorities in Greece. Many in the west are so disgusted by
Greek exaggeration, that even when Greeks are in the right, they are not
believed. Greeks are unaware how they feed their detractors in this way: when
Greeks deny the Pelasgians-Ageans-Minoans were non-Greek, which even
Herothotos and Thukythithies admit, they become open to the silly arguments
of the Skopyans that Skopyans are Panonians. Immigrants from homelands of
ancient civilisations (Greeks, Jews, Hindus, Chinese) excel in the diaspora
yet are unable to do so in their homelands. Older arguments claimed this
diasporetic behavior provided genetic (and cultural) hoarding (or diversity)
as well as the development of economic hinterlands. It seems, however, that
the homelands are so schlerotically obsessed with preserving and worshipping
their old successes, that they are afraid to risk new ones. Moreover, the
diasporetic model applied much better to the natural resource economies of
antiquity and now hinders the Industrial and Information Revolutions.
Not only was democracy born in Greece, but the Byzantine Senate had
to approve all laws and heirs, and even impeached emperors; the best known
involved the impeachment of Justinian II and his replacement by his secretary
Artemius who became Anastasius II. Town hall meetings at the Hippodrome also
participated in Byzantine governance. The Roman constitutional framework
regarded the empreror as an elected magistrate, but while this was
hypocritically administered in the west, the east was incredibly and
legalistically true to the tradition, which it grafted to the Athenian
democracy of Pericles. The Turks felt obligated to pretend to continue the
Senate as the "divan" where Greek Senators served as late as the 1920s.
Russian Tsars likewise followed this tradition with their Assemblies of the
Land (choice of Romanov dynasty was by constituent assembly), until Peter the
Great chose to imitate the latinist absolutism of his French counterparts.
(Sierbatov credits Catherine's involvement with Poland in creating the enmity
of Fatimist Poles and Galician Khazars, which propogated anti-Byzantine
sentiment throughout the west, even to Mark Twain's St Louis, but would
Catherine have even been interested in Poland without the masochistic Petrine
fascination with imposing "westernisation" on Russia rather than allowing
progress to grow organically from witin?) Emperors were pluralistically from
various constituent ethnic groups, not just Greek. Genoan, Venetian and
Medician successors to Baldwin's Frankocracy (and their modern allies, the
Italian-accented Greek shipping community) revived Profane Hellenism (as
opposed to what Florovsky called "Sacred Hellenism") in order to make
Orthodoxy appear an ethnic variant of vaticanism but in this they were
strongly opposed by Kadakuzinos, Scholarios and St. Gregory Palamas - so the
main dichotomously competing ideologies have really always been
(totalitarian, pagan, anti-Dialectic & Platonically communistic, such as
Plethon, Gemistos & his student Bessarion - all intertwined with Arianism,
Nestorianism, Unitarianism and Islam) Hellenism vs (democratic Christian &
Aristotelian capitalistic) Byzantinism. The revuslion towards Palamite
Isyhasm by the philoThomist Latinophrones (condemned at Vlahernai) and the
philOckhamist Barlaam led them to support the destructive secular humanism of
the Paleologues against Kadakuzinos. Perhaps, instead of the secularist
attempt to sell out to Rome at Florence-Ferrara, had Palamas been heeded and
the initial tolerance of the Turks towards Christianity been availed, the
Turks might just have been Christianised. Meanwhile, Frankocracy was the
vehicle by which traditions of the Byzantine Senate were plagiarised by
English "crusaders" as their Magna Carta shortly thereafter. Meanwhile the
link between the feigned-Italian-accented shippers of modernity and those who
helped banish Kadakuzinos is not to be ignored. Indeed, the shipping
community that pushed 1920s calandar change in a divisive way and that
supported Croats over Serbs in the 1990s was the same group that embraced the
latins in the 1300s. (The so-called USA "Greek Lobby" exists only to serve
the interests of those who fund it - namely the Greek shipping community as
well as several curious organisations in Washinton DC too peculiar to
adequately describe.) Today most modern Greeks hear Palamas and think of the
poet Kostis rather than the saint, and they do not realise why the saint
preferred the Turks to the perfidious latins. Orthodox have often fallen for
the flawed concept of "westernisation", which is flawed not because of
anything wrong with being westernised, but because when you emulate others,
you will always be behind, never first; it is far better to internalise
innovation so as to exploit one's inherent strengths and relative advantages,
rather than to try to be a belated copy of someone else.
Unfortunately, many in the West now believe the current residents of
Greece only marginally related to the Ancient Greeks. But all one has to do
is compare classical statues to the ladies in rural, tourist-free beaches,
and see that not only their torsos, but even their toes match; See for
yourself or study the anthropometric work of Dimitrios Dimopoulos (Kata'woyi
ton Elinon, Elevtheri Skepsis). Raiding peoples tend to be fewer than those
they raid (except sometimes in cities, such as Smyrna) else Turkey's
residents would look more like those (only sixty thousand horsemen) that gave
them their mongolian language, than the Semitic Anatolian Hittites that the
Turks and Greeks conquered. In this way, it is ironic that Greeks still fight
Anatolians, but now call them Turks instead of Trojans. Likewise, Slavic
invasions of Greece in the late first millenium, appearing massive to
visiting foreigners, hardly left the genetic and lingusitic imprint
suggested; Moreover, displaced Greeks fled to the mountains (esp Taygetus &
Parnon) and to south Italy, and were brought back by Emperor Niceforos. Ari
Pulianos shows an unbroken racial affinity between ancient and modern Greeks
and there are only 273 slavic words in Greek. Western universities study
Greek with Latin, and hence suffer latinist biases which the Vatican uses to
claim better knowledge of the faith. W Sydney Allen wrote a book called Vox
Graeca to which he gave a latin name to match his book on latin; his failure
to use a Greek name should alone make one suspicious. Allen is so insistant
in promoting his latinist bias, that when coins from India contradict his
theory on the pronounciation of ypsilon, he simply dismisses it because it
contradicts his latin evidence. He likewise ignores Hebrew-Septuagint
evidence. Ypsilon is Allen's most blatant deviation from the Greeks, but his
other claims, though widely accepted in western universities, are equally
farcical. Note Allen's irrational attempt to refute his critics in the
preface to his latest edition. Moreover, many supposed scholars
mischronistically insist on imposing preHomeric conventions in Classical
Greek. (If ancient is analogous to Beowulf and Chaucer, classical is
analogous to Elizabethan in terms of understandability by the
modern. Likewise, Anglican Ecclessiastic English compares to Liturgical
Greek.)
One may observe the Hindu word maya, meaning magic, which is
pronounced thusly in Greece today, and not magia (madjia) as the latinists
pretend. There is an ideological purpose for this distortion based on the
claims of Houston Stewart Chamberlain that the Teutons were the natural heirs
to Greekness (which is why Metternichians sought to portray modern Greeks as
actually being Slavosemites); combine this with the Teutonic view of an
eastward manifest destiny exposed by Fritz Fischer, and it is easy to see the
strong motivation for trying to erase Greeks from the modern map. It is not
as if the neo-sophists in Greece haven't inadvertantly done the most possible
to encourage such thinking with their state-imposed so-called demotic, a
radical space-movie verison of the language. Fortunately, most educated
Greeks, speaking kathomilumeni, have kept the elegant structure of classical
Greek without going to the rigid extremes of the formerly equally
state-imposed katharevusa. It is sometimes quaint to notice how some regional
peasant dialects have each retained a different trait of the classical
toungue, so that one may derive both the classical and the kathomilumeni by
aggregating all the different dialects.
This argument on marginal relatedness has recently been manifested in
the arguments over Macedonia (Makethonia), the Oblong Dorian Province, "Makos
Doristi", which was originally totally within the Alyakmon and Eriyon rivers,
which today are entirely inside Greek borders. Despite Herothotos and
Thukythithis writing that Alexander qualified as an Argive Temenid Greek to
play in the Olympic games, many in the west have fallen to a ploy invented in
Bulgaria after the defeat of the Treaty of San Stefano, a ploy
well-documented in the 1971 text by USA foreign servants Steve Palmer and Bob
King. Since Aristotle was a Stayeran Makethonian, a century ago, the
Bulgarians claimed his native language was Slavic Bulgarian, despite
Bulgarians not arriving in the Balkans until 679 AD. (It is not as if the
other Balkan states do not deserve blame, as Russia felt obliged to condone
San Stefano after the other Balkans could not agree on an alternative;
certainly the Turks did their best to encourage this dilemma. At the same
time, the Russian defeat in Crimea turned Russia towards Panslavism and
Nihilism instead of Byzantinism, as the British bribed the Greeks by taking
them along to Egypt.) Likewise, whereas westerners refuse to believe modern
Greeks are related to ancient Greeks, many of these same historians insist
that Albania is somehow the continuation of ancient Illyria. (Why did
Napoleon put his "Illyrian Provinces" in modern Croatia?) Yet the Greeks left
a paper trail, while Albanians left almost none, especially not by their own
hand. The first recorded Albanian language was by Vaticanist missionaries
finding opportunity just prior to the fall of Constantinople, yet Albanians
did not write Albanian until the early 1900s. In fact, the first Albanian
parliament debated whether to use the Greek or Latin alpahbet. Moreover,
Greek Albanians, called Arvanits (who see their toungue as a proto-Greek
mountain dialect), have no trouble communicating with Ukranian or Italian
Tosk Albanians, yet cannot understand the Turkefied Latinised Gheg dialect
spoken in Albania. Albanians of Albania were aboriginal Balkan highlanders
turned into a Ghurka-like master soldier race by the Ottomans (by including
the dervish janissary children stolen from other Balkan peoples) and were
granted the entire Balkan Adriatic coast as an Ottoman vassalate.
Moreover, the Anglo-Hellenistic concept of the generalist has been
replaced by the Sino-Teutonic (Mongolo-Scytho-Norse?) obsession with
specialisation so narrow as to be deliberately escape the reaches of peer
review (It is no wonder that this was blamed by Fritz Stern as being the root
cause of Nazism); therefore, the West's Greco-centricism has been abandoned
as the Greek - alive or dead, literate or not - became the despised paradigm
of the "Dead European Male". In addition to the secularist attack on the
tradition of Athens and Jerusalem, in both Western Europe and the United
States, there has been a demographic shift away from Calvinist individualism
and its emphasis on Greek Biblical text towards collectivist
latinocentricism, the latter achieving majority early in the twenty-first
century. It is thusly that the former disciples of Charles Maurrais, Edgar
Berillon and Edouard Drumont have used the myths of fatimism against what
Georges Florovsky once called "Sacred Hellenism".
Just as Russia (eastern outpost of NATO-like Byzantine Commonwealth)
was ousting one brand of Turks, the Tatars of the Golden Horde, Greece was
conquered by another, the Ottomans. The Manchus and Ughyurs of China and the
Mughals and Bubars of India were also Turks. It began with the 1071 battle
between Armenians and Turks. At the same time, the Teutons controlling the
Vatican had the Normans conquer southern Italy because these Italians
remained Orthodox after the Schism (which was based on Zoarostrian and
Manichean Duality). LitwoPolish Jagiellans deviously gave Pieniezno to
Tatar-Turks as reward for antiByzantine activity. The defeat of Serb Stefan
Dushan at Maritsa River on Kosovo Plain commenced the end, although the death
of Murat provided a fifty year delay until Constantinople fell on 29th May,
1453, the Date of Eternal Infamy. Meanwhile, the flow of Greek refugees
westward produced the "Renaissance". Russia continued to battle the various
Turks for several centuries, resulting in its southern empire, finally
reaching the Ottomans. Russian ethnic Greeks like the Princes Ypsilanti,
foreign minister Count Capo d'Istria (Istria was Croatia; first Greek
president), and Averoff-Tositsas encouraged a natural Russian support for
their coreligionists. As long as there was a modern, Christian,
daughter-protectress Russia, Greek territory generally was incrementally
reclaimed; only bolshevism broke these links. Although only Russia declared
war on Turkey during Greek liberation, Britain and France also supported
them, especially navally. Cynics claim that the Great Powers wished to be rid
of all the Greeks in their governments and so supported an independent
Greece. Balkan liberators from Philorthodox Etairia included Capo d'Istria,
Karageorge, Tsakaloff, Skufas, Xanthos, Genko, Semko, George Olymbios, and
the Ypsilandis. The Vatican, eager to support Carolingian Metternichism was
quick to label the Etairia as some sort of masonic "conspiracy", much as they
have done to oppose USA democracy. Greek constitutions of the 1800s were the
most libertarian of the entire European continent; rather than create a
permanent civil service, civil servants fired as governments changed and
camped in "Weeper's Square Park" (Platia Klathmonon) until found new jobs.
d'Israeli treacherously sides with Turkey in Crimea against Russia and after
the war, Turkey sought to ethnically cleanse its remaining Balkan holdings,
causing many to come to the USA. Arab British holdings experience Islamic
extremism (esp. Ismaili Assassins) awoken by Crimea. Turks give Cyprus to
British as a Crimean gratuity and Britain opposes union of Crete with Greece.
Venizelos leads Crete to rebellion and eventually, in 1897, union. Rivalry
between eastern Greeks and northern Greeks as to which area should get
priority as next to be liberated results in one accusing the other of not
really being Greek.
Greece increased land area by two thirds with the 1912 addition of
Makethonia, Epirus, & Thrace under Venizelos; Having been granted the
British-held Ionians and won Turkish-held Thessaly and Epirus earlier. Both
Venizelos and royals maneuvered Greeks support for Allies conditional on
liberation of Smyrna. Allies gave Smyrna and other Micrasian territories to
Greece for WWI but Greeks massacred after Attaturk revives Turkey [Allies
feared Attaturk would aim for oil-rich Iraq, so redirected him towards
Smyrna]; Resulted in mid-1920s Lausanne Treaty compulsory population
exchanges, under League of Nations supervision, between Greece and Turkey,
and between Greece and Bulgaria. Skopyan Vardarskans whose relatives were
thusly sent to Bulgaria now mistakenly think this somehow entitles them to
claim Thessaloniki (using the Turkish name "Solun", no less). Soviet
agitators use Micrasian refugees to export first communist organisation into
Greece, but this feeds on passive-agressive sentiments resulting from
feelings of defeatedness. 1924-35 Venizelos Republic. Clemenceau brings
jarred serpent into League, offering by analogy, to break jar if Byzantine
Empire is allowed to be recreated as Balkan Entente; even bringing Albania
and Turkey into Entente as common market fails to appease Clemenceau, who
considers it an anti-League activity. Unable to form synod because of
communists in Russia, churches agree that calendar is not a religious issue,
but Greek royalists, seeking western trade, use force against Julian "Old
Calendrists", generating their spiteful, schismatic resistance and eventual
leftism (in contrast to rightist Russian Julians; USA church had both
Gregorian and Julian parishes under Iakovos but leftist Julian Schismatics
set up own USA Archdiocese under schismatic Paisios).
1936 king appoints German-educated Metaxas since politicians unable
to form government. Metaxas (whose first putsch was in 1923) sets up social
security (IKA) and Viglionist (socialist fascist) industrial policy, and
pressured industrialists to accept labor union demands, including minimum
wage, Bismarkian socialised medicine and Komsomol-styled Aetopula youth
(humorously, the Greek reds of the late 1940s revived this and called their
youth Aetopoula as well). Metaxas opposed Italian invasion on grounds of
Franco-like neutrality but poisoned by proBritish royalists in 1'41. George
Papandthreou was wartime Prime Minister, originally hidden in home of
industrialist Katsambas, later Cairo & London. Nazis kill ten villagers every
time one Nazi soldier ambushed. Nazis and reds instigate major famines.
British Mediteranean Minister Macmillan set up resistance under reds, but as
Nazis exit, loyalists break away, spoiling Churchill-Stalin Yalta deal, thus
forcing creation of Truman Doctrine. British planes drop only right shoes to
royalists and gold-filled shoes to reds; According to 1989 Toltsoy-Addington
London trial, Macmillain was soviet agent who also betrayed Mikhailovich and
Vlasov. Papandthreou promised reds power-sharing, but tricked them and
didn't deliver. Lacking any semblance of military discipline, both sides
were inhumanly brutal. More Greeks killed by reds than by Nazis. Red show
trials executed thousands (such as the infamous mass Grave of the Thousand on
Mt Olympus); Families forced to migrate to soviet block by reds holding
elders hostage.
1911 contsitution revised 1951 under Metaxa's chief of staff, Field
Marshal Papa'woes, succeeded in 1955 by deGaullist Karamanlis, who went into
self-imposed exile in 1963 because Queen slapped him for his refusing to pay
more for Princess Sophia's Spanish wedding. Katsambas becomes benevolent
conduit for Marshal Plan funds. Unstable governments, including 1965
"Aspitha" coup by Anthreas Papandthreou against his own father,
George. (Those who call him a student of American ways forget that Anthreas
was a left-wing extremist before Metaxas exiled him.) Acheson plan would have
allowed Cyprus to join Greece given 92% 1949 plebescite approval despite 15%
Turkish minority, but Abp. Makarios cuts own deal as non-aligned; opposed by
General Grivas. Makarios excommunicated under ancient canons barring
political roles for clergy. Papandthreou government toppled by defection of
Mitsotakis to Karamanli's National Radical Union. Class of 1940B (the 1941
class, graduated a year early; unusually clanish and secretive) takes control
but King stages December countercoup and goes into Italian exile. Junta run
by Col. George Papathopulos, whose book shows some Metaxist, Fascist, and
Socialist tendencies. Group had agreed to try corrupt politicians and quickly
restore democracy, but trials forbidden by LBJ; Later, never-jailed juntists
would indicate Evren as exemplar of their motives. Strong economic
development program with major emphasis on infrastructure clearly brings
Greece into industrialised club. For first time in modern Greek history,
entrants into Greek workforce exceed those going abroad, emigration having
peaked in 1965. Industrialisation uproots huge groups of people, leading to
Bizmark, Ayatollah, Bolshevik and Napoleonic Revolutions, because much of
their original moral infrastructure has been disrupted. While Greece has
highest economic growth rate in Europe, in 1972 (second in world, after
Japan), Papathopulos declares republic and plebescite decides four fifths
against monarchy, but Polytechnic unrest leads to new coup by lunatic secret
police head Ioanithies.
Ioanithies, the only real source of torture under benevolent despot
Papathopulos, then runs a rein of terror, slapping and demoting respected
officers and arresting up to tenth of all Athens. Government nonfunctioning
and paralysed, so Ioanithies makes disastrous grab for Cyprus, partly
understandable given Makarios allowing soviet listening posts and Makarios
violating Acheson Plebescite. Kissinger-student socialist Edjevit, needing
polemic distractions from his own economic mess, sends Turk invasion force
that had been training and in position for half a decade. Greeks claim USS
Enterprise blocked Greek flotilla and USA arms shipments to Greece turned out
to be just stones, yet declassified USA naval records show no such activity.
Turks, condemned for napalming women and children, reply at UN that Greeks
are known to kill with bare hands. Turks ethnically cleanse north Cyprus and
import Turkish settlers of supposed preBritish Cypriot heritage. (At the
turn of the millenium a number of Greek and Turkish sources begin to allege
that Karamanlis, Ioannides and Edjevit met in early 1974 to plan events
precisely as they turned out.) Greece temporarily leaves NATO. Greeks turn
antiSemitic, under the ludicrous theory that Kissinger planned Cyprus as
revenge for Greek noninvolvement in Yom Kippur War (no European country took
sides, leading to use of Azores refueling, and allowing Arabs the belief that
oil embargo could split the West - furthermore USA pro-Israel policy was more
the work of fundamentalist evangelicals at least until the Six-Day War of
1967 made Jewish and other Americans see Israel as a feisty and victorious
natural ally). Antisemetism even reaches point of return to paganism on
grounds that Christianity was supposedly a Jewish plot. Figurehead President
General Phaethon Gizikis (brother-in-law of chief archbishop) invites
politicians to return under Karamanlis, with 69% antimonarchy plebescite and
junta tried with death sentences commuted to life. Karamanlis-Papandthreou
families linked by wedding of nephew-niece, leading to Papandthreou's
election in 1981. Just to be sure, Karamanlis joins Greece into EEC (now EU)
before elections. Papandthreou expands Arab commercial ties started by
Karamanlis, with dubious links to Khaddafy. Papandthreou's blatant
flirtations with Arab terrorism caused many USA-born Greeks to permanently
abandon links to their heritage. Arabism pronounced even in music of popular
artists like Dalaras. Schools promote theories of Byzantine attrocities
against pagan holdouts and devious church support for Turks against
liberators. While many evil things were done in the name of Christianity,
Christianity still provided a much more civilised restraining force than
paganism, despite modern socialist attempts at "moral equivalence."
Socialists squander development funds and infrastructure deteriorates back to
third world status. However, Karamanli's deGaullist constitutional framework
resiliently survives. Greeks of the left tell the right to forget about the
communist atrocities of the 1940s as former war criminals put into
parliament, but no such forgiveness is shown the much less deadly junta; in
typically Greek fashion, both sides eager to forgive their own, but not the
other. But the former war criminals promote the terrorism of "November 17"
(Karamdreou 17) and links to extreist foreign powers.
Mitsotakis, whose mother's brother was Venizelos, eventually succeeds
Papandthreou and tries to establish a true free market economy on Thatcherite
lines, but one in seven drakhmas earned in 1992 went to pay for Papandthreou
cronyist economic squander. Mitsotakis joins Karamnlist New Democracy party
to International Democratic Union founded by Baldridge, Norquist, Bush,
Nakasone and Thatcher. Mitsotakis and Venizelos seem to be the only true
believers in democratic capitalism who ruled Greece in the 1900s. Moreover,
one in seven drakhmas earned by exports went to pay for added diversionary
rail mileage due to Balkan conflicts. Elitists, led by shippers (claiming
control of a sixth of all world trade), wanted to preserve the uncapitalist
third world order and so supported the state socialist Samaras in the
destruction of Mitsotaki's majority, bringing the return of
Papandthreou. Three years of Mitsotakis see several-fold greater armament and
military renovation than sesquidecade of loud Papandthreou demagoguery. If
Teddy Roosevelt said "Speak softly and carry a big stick", Papandthreou
seemed to believe "Speak loudly and carry a wet noodle." Curiously, Greeks
support communist, muslim Kurds more than they support Orthodox, ex-communist
Serbs (Mloshevitz might be red but Karadzitz isn't, certainly not compared to
Makarios). The devolved, neo-sophist, passive-aggressive, porno-communist
course set by Papandthreou seems destined to lead Greece to abort herself
into extinction while she becomes Europe's Florida-like geriatric facility,
with imported muslim labor. The ratio of pensions to earnings exceeds unity
already and is the highest in West Europe, as is the deficit to output ratio,
while the equity to output is the lowest, and Greek per capita output is one
third the USA. Greeks seem unable to work together in large organisations, so
corporate capital formation seems to pass Greece by, even as eastern Europe
catches up. Tell a modern, passive-aggressive, porno-communist Greek to clean
up and he calls you "komplektikos" (complex-ic, as in psychiatrically), put
him under supervision, and he calls the supervisor "akhristos" (worthless)
and even Greeks who proclaim themselves "rightists" follow the socialism of
Metaxas in calling the USA "dthoulemborio" (labor-trade or slave-trade).
While Greece appears to be investing heavily in the Balkans, Greeks take this
as reason for complacency, fooling themselves that Greece is actually the top
investor in all East Europe. Moreover, it is far from certain if Greece
actually is investing in the Balkans herself or if this is merely foreign
firms taking advantage of European tax incentives via artificial domicile in
Greece. The diplomats of Greece seem more interested in pompously trotting
their behinds in the Greek ghettos than in comprehending the culture (let
alone even the foods) of their host country; they are so heavily emblindered
by the bizarre xenophobia and masonophobia of Zalokosta Street that they
design foreign policy with only the Greek public in mind, totally ignoring
what the ordinary citisenry of powerful nations think about Greek positions.
It is in this way that the debacles of Cyprus, Skopya and Imia were achieved,
almost by unintended but entirely Greek design. It is hard to believe that
the freedom-lovers who set up the process behind Platian Klathmonon would be
unable to break free of the bureaucratic slavery of socialist feudalism and
demagoguery and once again regain their ancient greatness. We shall see.
- - - - - - -
THE FOLLOWING IS A PROPOSED MODEL BYZANTINE CONSTITUTION
designed to be respectful to Byzantine traditions but also
to modern conventions of democracy and liberty.
We the People of this Byzantine State of X, in order to form a more
Holy Governance provide for the common justice, tranquility, security,
wellbeing and freedom to our inheritance, do ordain this Constitution. We do
ordain that our citisens are free to practice whatever religion they wish,
yet we also Ordain that this State is founded on the one true Orthodox faith.
Atheism, that is the lack of faith, is not an acceptable faith. No faith may
practice prosletysation but citisens are free to change their religion. All
citisens may bear weapons necessary to defend themselves against lawlessness
and government excess. The freedom of any citisen to state or promote an
opinion may not be abridged. No law of slander may be used to restrict
criticism of government. No government official shall be quartered in any
residence without consent of the inhabitant and only as defined by written
law. Possessions of individuals may not be searched or siezed except as
approved by judicial order with due cause. No property, livelihood or service
may be taken by the State, or denied use by legislation, without due
remuneration. No judgement may deprive any citisen of life, liberty or
property without due process of law. This Constitution is intended to remain
functioning regardless of whether the People chose to place ceremonial duties
of the Executive with the President or with any hereditary Monarch, a choice
they may freely change by plebescite twice each century.
All legislative powers shall be vested in a Synkletos which shall
consist of a House of People and a House of Views. The members of the
Synkletos are required to spend at least half their time away from the
Capital and available to their constituents. No House may meet or adjourn
without the consent of the other. All legislation must pass by majority, not
plurality, in both Houses. No member of the Synkletos may hold any other
goverment or private office. Should the President not wish to sign some
legislation, that legislation must be approved by two-thirds of both Houses
of the Synkletos to become law. The proceedings of both Houses and the
Executive shall be published annually with all voting and expenditures also
published and available to the public. The powers of the Synkletos shall be
to define and approve war, taxes, debts, rheology of monetary instruments,
courts, military forces. The provinces may legislate on any matter that does
not interfere with State authority but may not have their own monetary
instruments, military forces or intefere with or tax interprovince
commerce. Neither Province nor State shall be allowed to approve any bill of
attainder, ex post facto law or law impairing the validity of contracts. The
President, the Chief Justice of the Ariopagos, and the highest eclessiastical
authority may all propose legislation that the Synkletos is obligated to vote
on in unaltered form.
The House of the People shall be composed of members chosen every
third year by the people. Representatives elected to the House of the People
shall be at least thirty years of age, been a citisen for seven years, and
shall have the qualifications requisite for election to the most numerous
lawgiving body of respective province. Every seventeen years, districts shall
be redrawn for such representatives so that the total number of
representatives shall never exceed five hundred. The House of the People
shall chose its leadership and rules but may not be immune from regulations
they impose on the people. All spending and taxing legislation must originate
in this House; the President may chose to reject individual items on such
bills. No military appropriation is to exceed three years in length.
The House of Views shall have two representatives from every Province
as well as two representatives from any Nationality, industry group, labor
union, or other Interest that exceeds one fourteenth of the population or of
the economic production of this State. The constituencies of these
representatives are free to chose their representatives by any democratic
method and for any length of term which ensures that the vote of each
constituent member is equal to the vote of any other member. The leader of
this body shall be chosen by the highest ranking Synod of the Orthodox Church
of our State. Any family representing a royal claim to the governance of this
State, backed by more than a century of actual governance, may send a
non-voting representative to speak before this body once a year. The removal
of any senior, elected member of the State government may only occur in this
house, by two-thirds vote, co-presided by the Chief Justice of the Ariopagos
and the highest ranking eclessiastical authority; such removal is to be only
for treason, bribery or felony and is to be followed by a normal and fair
trial.
The Executive power shall be vested in a President and Vice
President, elected jointly by three-fifths of the House of Views as well as
the plurality of the House of the People. Both senior Executives must be at
least fourty years of age but not more than sixty-five years of age, and may
not hold the office for more than one term of seven years. The Executive must
be in good standing within the Orthodox Church and must swear to loyally
uphold this Constitution. Should the President be excommunicated, the
President will be allowed one year in which to improve his relations with the
Church prior to being required to resign. At times of judicially certified
infirmity or deceasement of the President, the Vice President is to hold the
office. A new Vice President is to be elected as soon as possible by normal
procedures. The President shall be Chief Commander of the military forces but
may not make war or commit forces for more than three months without the
approval of the Synkletos. The President may make and sign treaties and
appoint ministers of executive departments, but only with the advice and
consent of the House of Views. Executives and legislators are to be
compensated fairly but not lavishly by amounts legislated ten years prior to
their terms of office. At times of national crisis, and at least once very
five years, the President and Members of the Synkletos are to be available to
respond to public inquiry through the Hippodrome, which may be a public,
electronic, or other forum in which concerned citisens may freely ask
questions or offer suggestions. All Executive Orders must be approved by the
Synkletos within fifteen months of their issuance in order to continue to be
valid.
The Ariopagos shall be the supreme court of the State. Legislation
may be evaluated by the Ariopagos for consistency with this Constitution as
well as the the Apophatic Principle that government shall not take actions
for whose results there is no reasonable consensus nor actions it is not
resonably certain that it alone is needed to perform. The Synkletos,
President, Church and Provinces may appoint courts to handle matters under
their jurisdiction, but final Appeal must be to the Ariopagos or any body
duly ordained by the Ariopagos. All trials shall offer the accused the
alternative of being tried by unanimous consensus of a jury of no less than
five impartial peers of the accused. All judgements shall be on the basis of
one's behavior and not the mitigating ailments, substances or motivations
which a strong character might subdue. Accusations of major crimes shall be
valid only if approved by a jury of no less than five impartial peers of the
accused. No accused may be forced to testify against themselves. All accused
may be granted compulsory process for obatining witnesses in their favor.
Accused unable to pay for legal cousel may have publicly funded counsel of
their chosing to defend them. Attorneys or other agents may have no exclusive
rights to represent in court or transactions. Confessions not in open court
shall not be valid. The death penalty may only be imposed on individuals
convicted of three separate crimes involving voluntary or unintentional loss
of life. Treason shall be defined only in levying war against the State or in
materially assisting enemies of the State. No person shall be convicted of
treason unless on the testimony of at least three witnesses to the same overt
act or on confession in open court. The Synkletos shall have power to declare
the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption
of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attained. Each
Province shall grant full faith and credit to public acts, records and
judicial proceedings of every other Province. The citisens of each Province
shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citisens of several
Provinces. A person charged by one Province of a major crime, shall on demand
of the Executive of the Province from which he fled, be delivered up, to be
removed to the Province having jurisdiction of the crime. This Constitution
may only be amended by two-thirds each of both Houses of the Synkletos as
well as by each of the several Provincial legislatures.
COMMENTS:
Why are secular universities allowed to forbid prosletysation by
religious groups by the same people who oppose nonprosletysation laws in
Orthodox lands?
The orginal US Senate was much more an attempt to obtain the views of
an alternate cross section of society. See Alex Bickel, Morality of Consent.