Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Greece: Massive School Student Attack Against Police Stations All Over the Country!

By Editorial Board of Marxistiki Foni
Wednesday, 10 December 2008

On Monday morning we witnessed a phenomenon that we have not seen in Greece since the uprising of December 1944. In every town of Greece a total of about forty thousand school students, young 15-year old teenagers, attacked the police stations. In Athens, Thessalonica, Patras, Larissa, Corfu, Komotini' and in many other towns across the country the attack of the school students pinned down the heavily armed and well-equipped police officers inside their stations simply with the use of small rocks, tomatoes and yoghurts! Without any fear whatsoever, thousands of teenagers gave an example of heroic struggle against police brutality.

The Karamanlis government took immediate measures to close the schools for one day in the name of "mourning for the young student". In reality what he was aiming at was to stop the students from occupying the schools. On Monday night the government met behind closed doors and as the media reported, some ministers went as far as proposing calling in the army to maintain "public order"! The government has officially announced that it has rejected any such suggestions and is insisting on the "democratic road", while at the same time Karamanlis has announced a series of discussions with the opposition political parties with the aim of creating a common front of "national unity".

In spite of the final outcome and the official position taken, these discussions among the government ministers is a serious warning to the workers and the youth of Greece of what can happen if in the next period they do not build a socialist alternative to the present rotten and barbaric bourgeois power.

The government is desperately seeking points of support in society and on the same night, they found a very useful ally among the desperate and semi-lumpen elements who oblige the government with their blind methods. These groups, with about 2000 people in total, mixed with anarchists, hooligan elements and also infiltrated by police provocateurs, in reality destroyed from the very beginning the massive demonstration of 25.000 people on Monday evening which had been called by SYRIZA, the KKE, University Student unions and school teachers. Without any political logic these elements went on the rampage, smashing small shops together with banks, burning "luxury" Mercedes but also scooters, burning kiosks (small newsagents and tobacconists) and ordinary residences, and they also looted shops, stealing mobile phones, watches and other things.

Yesterday, the school students and thousands of people demonstrated all day long in the centre of Athens and after that they attended en masse the funeral of the young Alexandros who had been killed a few days earlier. But the police, not happy at having killed one student, provocatively attacked the demonstrators outside the cemetery. One team of police officers tried to terrorize the demonstrators by shooting many times in the air with live ammunition. All these scenes were broadcast on the TV channels, provoking a new big wave of anti-government feelings throughout Greek society.

The government has tried to exploit this mood of "tension" in society to get today's general strike called off. Karamanlis in fact made an official request to the union leaders to cancel the strike rallies. However, under the pressure of the working class the union leaders have had to reject the government's request. So as we write this short report the working class in Greece is mobilising in yet another general strike, the 10th since the ND formed its government.

The atmosphere in Greek society is electric. The Marxists believe that only the working class in a united class action with the youth, strictly separate from the criminal methods of the lumpen and hooligan elements, can defeat the government and its bosses. All the conditions have been laid for a big victory of the movement and the fall of this government. The forces are gathering whereby a radical transformation of society would be possible. This explains the growth in popularity of all the left parties.

What is missing is a leadership with a clear political perspective, a genuinely socialist perspective for putting an end to the present system which is the cause of growing poverty and with it increasing state violence. The Greek Marxist Tendency is intervening in the movement and raising demands that correspond to the needs of the movement. There is a vacuum on the left and what is required is a clear orientation for the mass left parties of the Greek workers and vanguard youth. The calls must be one for a united front of the left parties, in alliance with the trade unions and youth organisations, whose aim must be to bring down this hated reactionary government and usher in a genuine workers' government based on a programme of expropriation of the capitalist class. That is the only serious answer to the present brutal methods being used by the Greek ruling class.

Source: Marxistiki Foni


RENEGADE EYE

49 comments:

SecondComingOfBast said...

This post doesn't even address the problem that caused the current unrest, it just tags the current government as bourgeois and barbaric, but doesn't go into any kind of detail. Why was this Alexandros shot? If he was attempting violence against not only an authority figure, but anyone, than he got what was coming to him. His age is irrelevant. If I am assaulted and killed by a fifteen year old am I any less dead than if the perpetrator is in his thirties?

Peaceful protests, strikes, and demonstrations are one thing, but when they turn violent and ordinary people's lives and properties are threatened and violated, then the police and government have a right and a duty to try to restore order using deadly force if necessary.

sonia said...

only the working class in a united class action with the youth, strictly separate from the criminal methods of the lumpen and hooligan elements, can defeat the government and its bosses.,

Good luck trying to separate those two... Those "lumpen and hooligan elements" are the future Commissars for Public Safety and Chairmen of People's Courts in the future People's Republic of Greece.

And anybody seriously trying (like the Editorial Board of Marxistiki Foni) to get rid of those "lumpen and hooligan elements" will themselves be purged from the ranks of the glorious Revolution, by being accused of having "bourgeois and reactionary tendencies".

Still, good luck to them. If they manage to purge the hooligans without being purged themselves, this Greek revolution might indeed be different from all the previous revolutions.

Or it might fizzle, like May 68 in Paris...

Larry Gambone said...

Program is what is missing here, just as the article mentions. Part of the problem is that the "autonomist" or "black bloc" types - which are a minority everywhere else, tend to predominate in Greece. I do not know why this is so. There are serious programatic anarchist groups in Greece, but the molotov-throwers tend to get all the publicity.

Without a program - say one that emphasizes the selection of student-worker delegates to create the beginnings of student/workers councils - and a direct attempt to pressure the left-wing parties to overthrow the govt - which has only a one-seat majority - the revolt will fizzle out.

But the Greek revolt is only a foretaste of what is to come, as the capitalist system stumbles deeper into crisis. Such revolts in countries where genuine revolutionaries are better organized - like France, Spain or Italy could lead to a revolutionary situation in those areas.

For an intelligent anarchist perspective on the events in Greece see Molly's Blog over the past week, http://mollymew.blogspot.com/

Larry Gambone said...

May 68 didn't "fizzle" it was sold out by the Stalinists and the Socialists. Ironically the very groups the right is most paranoid about, yet those who are always there ready and waiting to bail out the capitalists...

Anonymous said...

Societies discontents raising a ruckus... and this is news, why?

...and please, Gambone, student-workers council's? What are they supposed to do, pretend to work and pretend to govern?

You people are living in the early 20th, not the 21st century.

Say hello to the emerging 3rd wave prosumer society.

Larry Gambone said...

And you, Farm Boy, are living in the early 18th Century. What else to say of someone who quotes the classics ad nauseum and believes in inherent inequality? You would have been right at home toadying up to some slave-owning Virginia planter.

steven rix said...

The Saker has 2 interviews on this subject:
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/

31 days without smoking for me! Sorry guys but I don't blog that much lately, in fact I have not been blogging at all the past 6 months, prefering to emphasize more on my professional career. I'll still stop by in here to say hi to everyone.

Anonymous said...

Toadying up to? How insulting. I would have PROUDLY BEEN that slave owning VA planter!

Frank Partisan said...

Pagan: This is from the same writers in an earlier article; On Saturday night, an officer of the Special Forces of the Greek Police killed a young 15-year old school student, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, in Exarchia in the centre of Athens, (just 200 meters from the office of our paper). This is the modern "democratic" manner in which a police officer answered the usual anti-police slogans that a small group of ordinary and completely unarmed school students were raising against him. The police officer shot at the group of school students in an area where there are many coffeehouses full of people and at an hour (9pm) when there are many youth gathered together enjoying an evening out

The article calls for a political response. It seperates itself from the hooligan element.

Sonia: Alan Woods took part in May/June68 France. He wrote a two part analysis that is brilliant. I don't think most on the left understood what was happening. It was the largest general strike in all of history. The Greek situation doesn't compare. DeGaulle was unable to mobilize the army, because many soldiers supported the general strike. Only the Communist Party could and would, save DeGaulle.

Larry: By FJ's remarks, it's clear you and I support modern capitalism, more than he does. Atleast in the historical period of the Civil War. He is sentimental about semifeudal and slave days. I would take modern capitalism to feudalism.

Politiques: I'll read that blog. Check back often,

FJ: There are two aspects of capitalism, that you should be aware of related to something as prosumer. 1) Capitalists need to maximize profit. 2) Capitalists have to compete. Usually one of those two concepts make ideas like that utopian.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Take away the hooligan element and you wouldn't have a political response to speak of. What else can you call these rioters but hooligans? They seem to have no respect for innocent civilians, at least as far as their property goes? Where is the call for restraint from among them? There have been demonstrations in support of the Greek protesters in Spain, by the way.

Isn't Greece fairly divided politically, almost like the US? Seems like I read that somewhere but I can't be sure, or for that matter whether its accurate, but just who do these people think they are speaking for?

The kid wasn't a martyr, this might have been suicide by cop, with encouragement from his peers. I put this on the level of shouting at a distressed person at the top of a bridge to jump.

Granted, this might well topple the Greek government. Where is the EU in all this? Why have they not urged restraint? This is a serious situation that could have ramifications throughout Europe. This isn't going to lead to any kind of socialist end. The EU, of which Greece is part, is already pseudo-socialist anyway, why would people want more of it if they are already discontented?

SecondComingOfBast said...

By the way, Farmer John is too old-fashioned for his own good. Who would want to live in early eighteenth century America? Personally I would prefer LATE eighteenth century America.

Anonymous said...

Why's that, pagan? The artist doesn't get as much enjoyment from his effort as the museum patron?

When Aeschylus, the greatest of the Greek tragic playwrights died, no mention of his plays were on his epitaph. Instead his tomb bore these simple words... fought at Marathon.

Anonymous said...

The Prosumer is Utopian? Nope. It's the idea of the single "world market" supplied by "corporations" that's utopian.

Corporations are Struldbrugs. Take away their "immortality" and make them compete on the same level as mortals and prosumption becomes the defacto "default" economic situation... circa 1700 Pennsylvania w/o the "Penn" family.

Larry Gambone said...

There have been demos in support of the Greek rebellion in many places as well as Spain. I did a little research and found solidarity demos in: Turkey, Italy, France, Holland, Romania, Australia, UK, Czech Rep., USA, Macedonia, Poland, and Russia.

When revolts break out hooligans are always there, but no revolt can ever be reduced to them alone. To do so is to engage in reactionary propaganda.

"The question is not why people rebel, the question is why people DON'T rebel!"

(From "Quotations from Chairman Larry")

SecondComingOfBast said...

Gambone-

Interesting that you would put yourself on the same level as Chairman Mao, even if you meant it humorously.

People are rebelling in the US as we speak. Their weapon of choice-their wallets. That's how you bring about real change. Destruction of property is a tax write-off. Withholding patronage hits them where it really hurts. That's the beauty of the capitalist system. You can create change without one ounce of bloodshed if you really work as a group with discipline. That's another thing. People are united without use of slogans or a movement, and don't even realize it.

What are you buying your friends and family for Christmas this year? A lot of people are cutting back, or shopping for bargains, or buying nothing at all, or giving old hand-me-downs. How great is that?

Farmer John-I could see myself comfortably hobnobbing with the likes of Washington, Adams, Madison, Jefferson, and for that matter even Burr would appeal to my dark side. Those were great days, despite the problems of the day. The early part of that century was the beginning stages of British repression.

Larry Gambone said...

Re, Alan Woods article on 1968 is very good. About as accurate an analysis as I have ever read. The article on Portugal is also right on the bit. The only disconcerting part I find is he statement "We were the only ones" to correctly understand what was going on in France at that time. I know that the IMT is not a sect, by the very fact of its willingness to work with other tendencies, but this sort of rhetoric most people find off-putting, smacking as it does of the groupuscule that has more arrogance than membership. Furthermore, the individuals and groups he criticizes - and rightly so - have to be put in historical context and not just be left hanging in space as though they were simply defeatists. Class struggle in 1958 was not what it had been 10 years before. There was a search for an explanation which tended to focus on a new phenomenon - working class mass consumption and the conservatism that seemed to come with it. Most of the theoreticians of the French New Left went too far with their explanation, throwing the baby out with the bath and thinking that the trad working class was hopelessly "embourgeoisified" - a viewpoint that would blow up in their faces in May 68.

Larry Gambone said...

"Interesting that you would put yourself on the same level as Chairman Mao, even if you meant it humorously."

I assure you I do not put myself on that level. You have to have been 22 years old and part of the 1960's New Left to fully appreciate this. Ridiculing Maoists was one of our pastimes back in the days when they were a threat to the movement. We used to call Mao "Chairman Chubby" and give ourselves absurd titles like "Setting Sun of the Proletariat" and such. We also had a song - to the tune of Mickey Mouse" that went:

Now's the time to say goodbye to all the bourgeoisie!
M-A-O, T-S-E dash T-U-N-G
Mao Tse Tung! Mao Tse Tung!
We will forever raise the red banner high., high, high!

Really used to piss them off when we sang it...

Anonymous said...

Give me late seventeenth century England, pagan. The Glorious Revolution... the Kit Kat Club and Scribblerians. The Ancients vs. Moderns debate/Battle of the Books. And best of all, the Paradise of the Bachelors. ;-)

Una said...

Europe wants to unify the educational system (Bologna), and that's not like in all countries equally.
France, Italy want to reduce jobs in education and, of course, people do not agree.
The Greek problem is structural and very old, is one of the European countries that are modernized and still has a lot of unemployment, low wages and little future for young people with studies superiores.Es primarily as a time bomb that the crisis is global and magnifying deteriorate.
In Spain there are also students at universities closed in protest against various reforms that hurt them.
In all demonstrations are always aggressive minority groups that take advantage of the occasion to destroy, but the general population manifests itself peacefully.

Una said...

The capitalist system has been so corrupt as they were left-wing dictatorships or that derechas.No there is no country was free of corrupt people who use the power that we give them at the polls for their own benefit.
The important thing is that the Justice detect them, condemn them for their greed and abuse of authority

Frank Partisan said...

Pagan: The hooligan element is made up to some extent by agent provocateurs. Just as at at the Republican Party protests in St. Paul, their was people breaking department store windows, and the police passively watching. The RNC bought insurance for that kind of event.

Their is a need political leadership. The left parties are in need of organizing to take power.

The European Union most likely thinks it's an eternal matter.

Larry: You are probably right about what Woods wrote. Still I never read a better summary. Most of what was written at the time was garbage in retrospect. You are correct that the mistakes were not on purpose. Heck the New Left was a new idea.

Our local Maoists understate their beliefs. They don't flaunt anything resembling socialist consciousness.

FJ: Very interesting period you are talking about. The ramifications changed America.

Tere: I like your theory about youth in Europe, being discouraged about job prospects, even with education.

Justice comes from below.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Ren-

"The European Union most likely thinks it's an eternal matter."

I think you meant internal matter, but eternal? Yeah, that seems to fit as well. By the way, my best friend from Greece is a Stalinist restaurant owner, and I have Greek in-laws who are very Orthodox, and very pro-American. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to discuss this matter with any of them, and I'm not in a hurry to do so.

If it stays an "internal" matter, the matter will probably eventually be resolved somewhat, to at least some extent. If the EU gets involved, it probably will indeed become an "eternal" matter.

Frank Partisan said...

Pagan: It's an eternal matter. It was dwarfed by May/June 68 France.

Greece was going to go socialist after WWII, only Stalin stopped them.

Larry Gambone said...

And France and Italy in 1944-45. And earlier (1933) derailed the possibility of socialism in Germany and the success of the Spanish Revolution of 1936. The capitalists should build a statue in honor of Stalin, their protector.

SecondComingOfBast said...

I don't think it was sentiment on Stalin's part, it had to do with the deal he made with Roosevelt. Stalin would keep the east, the US would keep the west. How Greece got shuffled to the US sphere of influence I'm not sure, but it might have had a lot to do with the influence of immigrant Greeks to the US.

As far as I'm concerned the US should have stayed out of it and concentrated on Japan, then done whatever was necessary, if anything was. Germany and the USSR would have probably slaughtered each other and we could have avoided forty-plus years of bullshit, and the extra twenty that have passed since then.

Frank Partisan said...

Pagan: Stalin was well aware of Churchill's strategy. Stalin wouldn't bite, at fighting Hitler alone.

Greece would be socialist, if Stalin didn't stop it.

Larry: I agree. Stalin's interest was in his parasitic bureaucracy, not revolution anywhere.

Anonymous said...

Just look at what fruits leaning towards socialism has born the modern Greeks...

Greeks no longer fight off foreign invaders, they fight off their own government.

"Please Mr. government minister, can I have a job?"

*Spits*

Larry Gambone said...

"fruits leaning towards socialism"

Into homophobia too eh Farm Boy?

Anonymous said...

I'm not afraid of you, Larry. And I'm not into modern Greek either, so you might want to try hitting on good ole Danny-boy. ;-)

Frank Partisan said...

FJ: In ancient Greece, a primitive steam engine was invented. Why develop it when you have slave labor, and all they'll do with new equiptment is sabotage it.

Anonymous said...

...and when the Greek inventor turned to the Spartan general and said, "General, this new weapon will launch spears hundreds of yards, keeping your men safely beyond the range of their arrows," the general turned to him and said, "burn it, do you wish to turn all of my men into cowards?"

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill said...

Yeah, cuz the Spartans are a great culture to base a modern civilisation on you tit.

And your homophobia would've got you killed in those times rude boy, nevermind now...

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill said...

Yeah, cuz the Spartans are a great culture to base a modern civilisation on you tit.

And your homophobia would've got you killed in those times rude boy, nevermind now...

Anonymous said...

Yes, socialism isn't the greatest model for a "modern" civilization, especially when the tolerance of homosexuality leads to permanent "war states" like Sparta and Thebes.

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill said...

How thick are you?

Sparta wasn't socialist, it was a militaristic oligarchy run by an elite few...oh hang on, that sounds like the US under fucknuts.

And the homosexuality rampant in Sparta and indeed that part of the world at that time, was due to backward views on the low status of women and their love in comparison to a man's. And female's ability to make decisions for themselves...oh hang on, that sounds like retarded pro-lifers.

FJ, you're really bad at this.

Anonymous said...

The low status of women? Sparta's women were the most independent women in the world, at the time. There were very few men around, as they were usually off fighting someplace. So please, pull down your dress before commenting again, because your slip is perpetually showing.


ps - Hitler considered Sparta to be the first national socialist state. NAZI Germany was the 2nd. Israel was possibly the third.

ps - If I'm bad at this, you must be the worst. Cus you don't know anything about history.

Anonymous said...

Socialism only has one legitimate purpose, and that is to efficiently direct the economy during wartime. In peacetime, socialism is nothing but an extension of government into a totalitarian tyranny.

Anonymous said...

And funny, I thought oligarchy best described a country run by a few Ivy League college graduates...

Anonymous said...

btw - Do you find it curious that the Greek philosophers like Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle who invented the classification systems for government NEVER referred to the Spartan system of government as an "oligarchy"? The application of the term to Sparta and/or Crete seems to be a modern invention. Some Greeks, like Thucycides, often commented upon how the Lacadaemons imposed oligarchies upon their enemies, but they never described the Spartans themselves or Lycurgus' system of laws as an "oligarchy".

I didn't think so. You moderns are so incurious (aka- smug).

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill said...

Women's love was deemed second rate to a man's love. The act of love makibng between men had more value than the 'mere procration' between man and woman, you know-nothing twonk.

Wikipedia only tells you part of the story, for the rest you have to read books.

And don't take out your cross dressing fantasies on me.

I wouldn't use Hitler's opinion on anything to be honest, he knew as much about Sparta as you do and for the record, National Socialism had nothing to do with socialism and this is something many asshats have a problem with becuase the word socialist is involved.

If you're bad at it? It's a damn fact, you churn out the same stuff again and again that I've read from other wingnuts who speed read history rather than experiencing it.

"Socialism only has one legitimate purpose, and that is to efficiently direct the economy during wartime. In peacetime, socialism is nothing but an extension of government into a totalitarian tyranny."

Tell that to Europe that is doing very well thanks under mainly socialist governments, again, you are scared of a word that you think you knwo what it means, the only word I have fear of is ignorance.

"And funny, I thought oligarchy best described a country run by a few Ivy League college graduates..."

No it doesn't, it means power in the hands of an elite few.

As for Greek philospher's definitions, hate to tell you retro-boy but things have moved on somewhat since then. Just because they didn't classify it as such doesn't mean we don't now. Also, we don't have a complete record of all thought from that time, so they may have done or they may not, quite frankly, it matters little.

And Oligarchy is only about 500 years old as a word.

And I hate to tell you this but you're a modern to, otherwise get off the damn Internet and start keeeping slaves and dressing in bad clothes...if you don;t already.

Anonymous said...

I love watchin' the ignerint ramble... When you're right it's pure accident. When you're wrong it's pure prejudice.

This is the part I like best... "As for Greek philospher's definitions, hate to tell you retro-boy but things have moved on somewhat since then."

Indeed they have...

Plato, "Cratylus"

SOCRATES: Nor can we reasonably say, Cratylus, that there is knowledge at all, if everything is in a state of transition and there is nothing abiding; for knowledge too cannot continue to be knowledge unless continuing always to abide and exist. But if the very nature of knowledge changes, at the time when the change occurs there will be no knowledge; and if the transition is always going on, there will always be no knowledge, and, according to this view, there will be no one to know and nothing to be known: but if that which knows and that which is known exists ever, and the beautiful and the good and every other thing also exist, then I do not think that they can resemble a process or flux, as we were just now supposing. Whether there is this eternal nature in things, or whether the truth is what Heracleitus and his followers and many others say, is a question hard to determine; and no man of sense will like to put himself or the education of his mind in the power of names: neither will he so far trust names or the givers of names as to be confident in any knowledge which condemns himself and other existences to an unhealthy state of unreality; he will not believe that all things leak like a pot, or imagine that the world is a man who has a running at the nose. This may be true, Cratylus, but is also very likely to be untrue; and therefore I would not have you be too easily persuaded of it. Reflect well and like a man, and do not easily accept such a doctrine; for you are young and of an age to learn. And when you have found the truth, come and tell me.

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill said...

And I love watching you block quote dead old men whose ideas we now use as a beginning but for the final answer. Ideas that are a start but not the conclusion.

And I'm right all the time becuase you never habe any evidence to contrary.

I'll leave you with one of my favourite Socrates quotes, with a view to shaming you into behaving on this blog with a open mind, a kind spirit and perhaps a sense that to bring something other than glib negative prejudice to the table, is to bring something worthwhile:

"It is not living that matters but living rightly."

So live rightly FJ and remember, with regards to love affair with all things 'classic': "Where there is reverence there is fear"

SecondComingOfBast said...

Whether Sparta was a republic or a military dictatorship of some kind is dependent on whether you were a Spartan or a Helot. If you were a Spartan, it was a Republic. If you were a Helot, you were living in thrall to the world's first apartheid regime. Otherwise, it would be simplistic to classify it as either an oligarchy, which it was not, or a socialist state, which it might have been to a very limited extent.

In a lot of ways, it was the most advanced society of its time. It might have been the first example of a state that utilized the concept of balance of power in order to keep any one person or group from acquiring too much power. I would be very surprised if, when the founders of the US established the concept of separation of powers for our government, this was not inspired at least to an extent by the ancient Spartan model.

They were a study in contradictions. Yes, women were more highly regarded and had greater status and rights than in any other civilization of those days, and for that matter on up until more recent times.

And yes, homosexuality was rampant, especially among the military. This was encouraged to form bonds and for morale purposes when engaged in long term military actions away from home. It was not seen as anything particular unusual, let alone immoral.

There is an old belief that when a newly-wed soldier visited his new wife, he would do so at night under cover of darkness, in such a way that the wife could never be sure that it was actually her husband and not one of his soldier compatriots. They were a strange lot. It's a big mistake to try to pigeonhole them according to modern definitions and sensitivities.

Anonymous said...

That's one of your favorite quotes from Socrates? I don't think that Socrates could never have felt that he was living "rightly" if he were found to be living in violation of his own first principle, would he? But then "rightly" has become something more relative and subjective recently, and not representative of an absolute term. Most justify this change in the name of "progress"...

Plato, "Crito"

SOCRATES: Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. But I would have you consider, Crito, whether you really mean what you are saying. For this opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable number of persons; and those who are agreed and those who are not agreed upon this point have no common ground, and can only despise one another when they see how widely they differ. Tell me, then, whether you agree with and assent to my first principle, that neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right. And shall that be the premise of our argument? Or do you decline and dissent from this? For so I have ever thought, and continue to think; but, if you are of another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If, however, you remain of the same mind as formerly, I will proceed to the next step.

It's a shame that the term "objectivity" became an oxymoron once again in the twentieth century. But then, that's what happens when you live in a world that becomes a man who is constantly running at the nose... and "right" opinion begins to become something separate and distinct from "true" opinion.

The paintings of Dadaelus would seem to have all run away from us (Plato, "Meno"). Well... not all of us.

Anonymous said...

And you're right on the money, pt, on the separation of powers point. Sparta had two kings, much as the Roman Republic traditionally had two consuls and then only consented to the "dictatorship" of a singler leader under extremely perilous conditions (ie- invasion by the Gauls). American Indian tribes used to have two chiefs as well... a separate "war" chief to meet the exigencies that war exerted on a more "temperate" personality and which might otherwise lead to military defeat unless a more "courageous" personality were placed in charge.

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill said...

Why we're even talking about Sparta in a thread about modern Greece I've no fucking clue, I think FJ dragged it there.

Quite frankly I don't care for defining Sparta or discussing it in this post, it has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

As always here of late...

FJ: you didn't read what I wrote, try again.

Anonymous said...

Ah, you're a psychic... that explains everything!

Gratefully I don't need to respond anymore, you already know what I'm thinking.

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill said...

You knows it clart.

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot for a bunch of good tips. I look forward to reading more on the topic in the future. Keep up the good work! This blog is going to be great resource. Love reading it.
................................
essay term paper-Essay Writing Help