Platt said:
...Since then, SOM has become an "end in itself" and is "screwing everything
up," evident as today's socialist Greece goes down the tube with other European
countries blindly following the same morally-vacant SOM downward path.
dmb quotes:
Here is some actual Greek political history. As you can see, that country has
been ruled by the right and by the military since world war two and has
successfully kept the moderate left out of power and outlawing the communist
party altogether.
For decades after 1945 the politics of Greece "were largely outer-directed:
external factors played a major role in affecting her security and stability."
[2] Greece found itself dependent upon the United States for financial and
military support and the United States became extensively involved in the
affairs of Greece in order to promote its strategic interests in the Balkans
and the Mediterranean. The end of World War II coincided with the beginning of
the Greek Civil War of 1946-1949, the protagonists of which were the
pro-Western government in Athens and the communists.
The war of independence in the early nineteenth century and the National Schism
during World War I caused important cleavages in Greek society. These divisions
could not, however, compare with the savagery of the Civil War which prolonged
the agonies of the World War II occupation. The old conflict had been between
Venizelists and anti-Venizelists, generally speaking between republicans and
monarchists. But now this conflict was enhanced by an even more important
division, that between communists and anticommunists. [3] The Truman Doctrine
and the Marshall Plan significantly helped the government to defeat the
communists whose supporters, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, eventually
discontinued their assistance.
The Civil War was costly not only in terms of people and money but also because
it delayed reconstruction after the end of World War II. The outcome of the war
involving Greeks against Greeks was high inflation, serious economic
depression, and a cost of living that was so high that 1.5 million people were
near starvation. At the end of the Civil War, the Greek government was directly
assisting about 34 percent of the population through the military, government
employment, pensions, and refugee relief. [4] "Perhaps more important in the
long term, the military as an institution acquired the position of national
savior and remained a major drain on the national budget (with military and
security personnel numbering nearly 250,000) as well as a significant political
player. Even more important, the defeat of the communists also meant that the
moderate left lost its opportunity to be a legitimate participant in
parliamentary politics. The possibility of forming a political party
with a mass base and a modern ag enda was delayed for a generation." [5] With
peace re-established, the people of Greece and the ruling class wished for
tranquillity and political stability. New elections were called for April 1950,
but what followed was not political stability but a nightmare due to the number
of governments formed in the next two years. 1952 marked the beginning of a new
era in Greek politics characterized by a stability unparalleled since the
beginning of the Modern Greek State. Between 1952 and 1963, Greece had only two
Prime Ministers (Field Marshal Papagos and Constantine Karamanlis), in contrast
to the pre-1952 period when half a dozen governments a year was not unusual.
The government was in the hands of the Conservative Party. In addition, when
the conservative government fell in 1963, it was replaced in power after a
constitutionally conducted election by another party--a rare occurrence in
Europe, outside of Great Britain, since 1945. [6] Even th
ough the traditional political parties of Greece emerged intact from the Civil
War, it was the Right which was the beneficiary of the defeat of the Left
because of the "outlawing of the Communist party of Greece, the polarization of
the electorate and, above all, the emergency legislation which lay the
foundations for the paraconstitution and the institutionalization of the
anti-Communist state in Greece...." [7] Anticommunism became the ideology of
powerful ruling groups, [8] and arrangements were made to neutralize the Left
and to ensure the political dominance of the Right.
_________________________________________________________________
The New Busy think 9 to 5 is a cute idea. Combine multiple calendars with
Hotmail.
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