How do you dupe 11 million people?*

You lie to them*. If you are a Greek politician.

Or withhold information from them. If you are Greek media.


It is not enough that Mr Tsipras, rep for Syriza, a party that won 17% in the May 2012 Greek elections, is much sought after by EU media & some US channels, as the clown of the day "to make our day"; back home the media let it be understood that the popularity is due to the man's scintillating wit (chaff would be more to the point)! Amazingly, no one in Greece seems to realise that people are laughing ΑΤ the man!

There is worse.
In a yet fresher case in the never ending spiral of Greece's abysmal plunge into the bottomless pit of unethical waste, it has come to light that the son of a Syriza political preacher is a criminal convicted of armed robbery and possession of explosives.

"I am not responsible for what my son does" you might say -- even though "you raised said son" I would say. However, the father of said son, said neither of the above. He, the father, and his wife, the mother, maintained that in some circles their son's armed robbery "could be construed as a revolutionary act, an act of defiance against....(whoever, whatever)".

How nice.Why don't we all unite to bail out people like this Mr Voutsis... so that they can proliferate and
perhaps teach our children why what are hitherto known as common criminals are in fact uncommon revolutionaries...

In another corruption sideline, aptly represented by the image of trash below, authorities unearthed large quantities of expensive medication, prescribed by a GP to fictitious patients charged to Social Security (named IKA in Greece) and purchased at said GP's spouse's pharmacy -- unsurprisingly, both GP & pharmacist are MP for PASOK, Greece's scandal-ridden Socialist party.



The matter was brought to the attention of various Ministers, including the then Health Minister, Loverdos and one of his cronies, a certain Koutroumanos (ex union dignitary and general purpose activist). Of course, the matter was promptly forgotten.


In the light of these never-ending cases that see the light of day only to be buried by their media, Greeks face a very difficult future.



So, why should we get together to bail out yet again a country where, confidence in its representatives is the last thing that comes to mind, the preceding words listed comprising beauties such as corruption, swindling, fraud, etc similar soft-core characterisations.

We shouldn't.


Not unless Greeks change their representatives in some magical way... Given the latest polls where the adolescent rantings of Syriza (we'll show 'em we don't owe anything to anyone") seem to be gaining ground, radical change seems unlikely.

Maybe Greece will get lucky and a political Maecenas will come forth and will be imposed upon the country --Imposed is the operative word because in Greece people who seem to favour common sense over bullshit only manage a paltry ~3% of the vote, testimony to contemporary Greeks' insistent addiction to the absurd.




* Paraphrasing the fascinating book by Mr A. Andrews "How do you kill 11 million people". {The answer being, "you lie to them" -- but that is only a small part of the whole answer. Read the book!}