Aris Katsaris

Bah, keep on thinking of updating this and I never do...

Kinda depressed over the coming elections -- they mean less than they ought to mean on any supposedly democratic nation. Anyone can tell me *any* issue that the major parties truly disagree on? And by major parties I mean any of the five big ones (including LAOS).

One longs for the days of Simitis. Back then they accused us of being part of some sort of Jewish/Masonic/Enlightenment conspiracy, and we accused them of being medievalist bringers of the Dark, and everyone was happy. We accused them of being chauvinists, they accused us of being traitors, and everyone knew where to stand. It may not have been nice or intelligent or calm, but it existed -- the choice of where to stand.

But now, with Karamanlis in charge, there's nothing but what I see as a four-headed establishment (soon to become five-headed).

Could write for paragraphs and paragraphs about how just in the last few years this four-headed establishment has proven to:
- support the murder of children, when convenient, as shown in the case of the Albanian boy "Alex"
- support gang-rape, as shown in the case of the Bulgarian girl -- and the events that followed (including a group of fascists violently breaking up those parents and other citizens that protested in support of the girl -- and most media not even bothering to mention this)
- support athletic violence and murder, as shown in the cover-up of the murder of that Panathinaikos fan by the Olympiakos mob under the guidance of that team's own management.
- support ethnic pogroms under excuse of athletic fanaticism, as shown in the case of the murders and beatings of Albanians in the night when the Albanian team had the bad luck of *winning* over Greece.

I could write pages for the above things. For the facts concerning them alone, let alone any analysis thereof -- I could also write pages for my hypothesis that the arsons that enveloped Greece a few weeks ago are as much establishment-tolerated (and thus in the bottom-line establishment-supported) as any of the above crimes were -- as much establishment-tolerated (and thus establishment-supported) as the terrorist murders were up to the point that September 11th made the continuation of November 17th too awkward and embarrassing. No terrorist was ever caught or punished for decades, no arsonist is ever punished even if caught.

But there's no real point in all this. Greece is moving down its path of self-destruction and nothing I'm gonna say will change that.

Anyway, for the first time am gonna be shifting away from the major parties and be voting for the Liberal Alliance (Φιλελεύθερη Συμμαχία) instead.

I wonder if anyone else has even heard of it.

This comparison will probably only be understood by Greek people, aware of the recent church-scandal fervor, and not at all by foreigners... but so be it.

Anyone else feels that Christodoulos saying he'll personally take charge of anti-corruption cleansing efforts in the Greek church is similar to having Al Capone say that he'll personally lead the fight against the Mafia?

Mr Paraskevaidi, you don't treat cancer by placing the tumor in charge. If you were truly an honest man intent of fighting corruption in your home field, then you'd have asked for the most brutal anti-ecclesiastical independent prosecutors that could be found, not picked the one person (namely you) who has the most reason to keep church corruption under wraps.

That'll be all.

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One more thing, relevant to the topic actually: I was bizarrely reminded of Sid Meier's Civilization. For those who haven't played it, it's a strategy game where you're building new cities across the world as you are expanding your empire. Each city may occasionally, randomly be struck by some kind of "disaster" -- drought, famine, floods, fire, etc which may harm their development... Now some of these catastrophes can be prevented by "city improvements" you may built -- building a Granary prevents a Famine, building City Walls prevents a flood I think, building an Aqueduct prevents the effects of a drought -- and so forth.

There was also a "disaster" which one occasionally encountered, but which I had noticed was bizarrely undocumented in the manual and I was never fully sure of its effects -- it may have been a leftover concept that the creators of the game either accidentally left in, or perhaps a last-minute addition that they didn't have the time to update the manual for. It was the "Scandal disaster".

I was never quite sure of its effects (may possibly have made the population of the city unhappier) but seemingly it could be fought off by building the city improvement "Temple".

Silly Sid Meier. Silly, *silly* Sid Meier. Temples tend to be the centers of scandals and I've not noticed them ever being the solutions thereof.

25!

And if you don't know what this is referring to, shame shame on you! ;-)

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On other matters, the Orthodox Church stands more divided than ever -- which is also good news: A little more division and internal conflict and enough people may get it in their heads that a full separation between it and the state is needed.

The sooner the better -- keep on yanking each others' beards, boys! :-)

Less than half hour remains till the much touted debate between the political leaders so just enough time for me to jot some of my thoughts about it. So a mini-ramble this time.
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( Political Ramble III: Debates... )

But now the debate's gonna start, so possibly more comments afterwards.

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EDIT: ( Further Comments )

Second political ramble ready:

( Political Ramble II -- Alliances )

Late last night I was watching a political discussion... and was surprised to see Spiliotopoulos reference both Lord of the Rings and (after a few minutes) Harry Potter as well. The latter of these was something to the point of "We are not pretending that Karamanlis is some kind of new Harry Potter who will instantly fix all of the country's problems with a flick of the wand.". The LOTR reference flowed a bit less well IMO and was something about G.Papandreou not having overthrown the various "Lords of the Rings" in his own party. I think Spiliotopoulos used it the way the word "barons" would have probably been used in his past.

*g* Anyway, I am really not used to this kind of references from politicians. My guess is that he figured that since last elections were decided on a 0.1% margin, who knows whether geek voters will be that minority group which will provide the decisive votes!

Either way... amusing.

This also reminds me, btw, something I'd noticed for a bit -- that though my internet surfing and debating seems about evenly divided between fannish and political pursuits, this livejournal pretty much shows only my fannish side. Probably because I still see this lj as a fun thing to do... :-)

Nothing wrong with that, but I'll probably post one or two longish political rambles in the next few days, about how I see next month's elections... *g* Just for balance's sake.