Political Philandering... the extreme right meets the extreme left

Walking past the Greek Socialist Party's HQ in Athens the other day I heard a snippet of a conversation. As two persons entered the building, I heard one saying to the other "...a good position indeed! And he's not even one of ours" (in fact the person said, "...he isn't even a party subscriber"...!)

How many times have I heard this, both in France & in Greece! It is certainly not a uniquely Socialist matter, the incident above is fortuitous.

Nowadays I rarely hear this in France any more...

But anyway, it got me thinking.

Politics & personal gain is thicker than water. Appurtenance is everything: one must belong & thereby acquire a stronghold in order to survive -- or concede defeat. You can't fight them, join them. Tight-knit groups.

In non Anglo-Saxon democracies the most vociferous and staunch political fighters traditionally have been the (seriously) left wingers. In recent times, a new force, the (serious) right wing have surfaced. One only needs to look at French, Austrian, German elections and/ or political gatherings. In Greece, the "Official" exponent of the "official right wing is LAOS (the acronym read "people"). Laos is very soft core compared to its northern brethren; Greeks don't really like political hard core despite their rampant adolescent behaviour.

To a degree all of these parties tout a populist approach mixed with half baked nationalistic superiority.

There is, it seems, an interesting difference between the Greeks and the rest: the Greek right wing talk seems to echo the left-wing feeling. In fact the die-hard self-appointed left wing evangelists are just about as clear in their nationalistic-populist speech as the Right wingers are abroad.

I know one expects to hear bullshit bandied about in the political arena -- but this is overcooked.

It is also too bad, when the voice of moderation & down to earth common sense comes from a party like Laos. They rarely refer to "ours"; they, as all extreme right wing players always think in terms of inclusion rather than exclusion.

And their popularity rose 50% from 2007.

Ok, it's still only <6%.


Another unusual thing is that Greek TV is resolute in its support of anything left-ish: hard luck stories, the rich becoming richer at the expense of the poor who become poorer. There is a good measure of pseudo-populist content mixed with expensive looking ladies brandishing their designer wear or underwear, all served with a few twists:

* the TV propaganda does not touch the tax-free income of its stars. It is not quite clear why the presenters do not touch this issue...

* there is no escape from misery.


So far, only one TV persona /writer /political commentator turned politician, Ms L. Kanelli, makes any sense and is thereby worth listening to. Other than the wit value, she makes sense. She also knows her history and her grasp of the Greek language is refreshingly superior. Compared to her, other politicians are lukewarm at best.


*L. Kanelli is an MP with the local Communists. Amazingly, she is also one person who defended Milosevic.