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| The Revenge of Thrace |
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| Greek Fire is still terrifying to Europe, even when its just about the economy |
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This is Dark Cloud on Wednesday, February 15, 2012. I cannot recall, but think it Montesquieu, which of the French Philosophes went on and on about the high percentage of blockheads who inhabited Thrace. This was because, he said, they lived in caves, and had achieved no particular merit or accomplishment of worth to the rest of the world. They were, simply, idiots as individuals. Thrace is no longer with us, but in its day it was the land north of Macedonia in the Balkan mountains, and included the land on the west side of the Bosperus that featured Constantinople, now known as Istanbul. Macedonia became accepted as part of greater Greece, and so did some of Thrace, although the maps of the years following the fall of the Roman Empire in east and west are imaginative and dubious. Like the Basques in the Pyrenees, who have been DNA'd to the base and seem to be descendents of Cro-Magnon man who have prospered in mostly isolation from their neighbors, the Thracian gene in Greece apparently descends from a lineal ancestor of the Neanderthal and has poisoned the entire population. The stupidities and belligerence of the area condemned it to being referenced by its geography as simply 'the Balkans.' This was an understood canard in all languages said with an eye roll and muffled gag for several centuries. When asked where the next war would be and for what reason, 19th century German Chancellor Bismark famously uttered "some damn foolish thing in the Balkans..." and you can hear the disgust and exasperation in his tone through the years and the translations. That proved to be true. It's odd to realize today that the people and nation who gave us Democracy - everything from the word itself to the practice thereof - seem to have discarded their Ionianian and Doric bloodlines and the Athenian Golden Age and settled comfortably into the mental world of cave dwelling troglodytes like their once northern neighbors in Thrace. Because today, the voting public in Greece is obviously composed entirely of blockheads. Greece is broke, but refuses to admit it even if their elected officials have no problem hearing the words cross their own lips. Yet, the austerity needed both for immediate solvency and to attract the loans and assistance from the European Union that would help them get through this economic horror is so repugnant to the voters that if passed and installed, the government will fall and the people will cheerfully allow Greece to go bankrupt. This is incredibly stupid, just like the US if it fails to raise its debt limit when needed. Today, Greek leaders are trying to save a 130-billion-euro bailout, claiming they've learned their lesson. Nobody, of course, really believes it, even if they do believe Greek ministers whose panic and horror is visible. It's the emotional, unglued, and still stoic leftists of a bygone world in the voting booths that neither the government nor anyone trusts to grasp the importance of staying solvent. Even the conservative candidate for Prime Minister who was leading in the polls has hedged in that annoying way. Unlike American conservatives of late, he at least does understand that the national economy must also be kickstarted into life, and has reserved the right to adapt details of the offered package as needed. That isn't going to fly to those offering 130 billion Euros. That's because a series of broken promises by the Greeks since it was first bailed out in May 2010. The European Union and the International Monetary Fund understandably want Greece to account for every cent of budget cuts before they approve saving their nation. But the Greeks on the street, with painful memories of fascist and communist attempts to take them over, don't trust their government. Last Sunday night, young people burned and wrecked almost 100 Athens buildings. That also makes Greece an attractive investment. The thing is, if Greece goes broke, it wouldn't be as bad as the US refusing to pay its loans, but it would be a drain on Europe and a tempting target for Turkey, its traditional enemy. Because both are in NATO, the ripples of any conflict would be awful beyond imagination, even it was a conflict waged economically. If Greece fails to accept the conditions or live up to them, the European Union is at risk and the continental stock market would collapse, affecting everyone. It would be the revenge of Thrace for being the poster child of idiocy for centuries. So we'll go broke. That'll show them. |
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