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February 11th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Yet last week the knife was once again brandished at the ailing Greek
government by its EU paymasters. Riots erupted in Athens on Friday, with
furious Greeks hurling petrol bombs at the police as the harsh austerity
package was unveiled. Unions also began a 48-hour strike, with politicians
expected on Sunday to vote on the cuts and reforms.
Eurozone ministers say MPs must approve it before Greece receives €130bn
(£109bn) in bailout funds. They are also demanding further budget cuts of
€325m before Wednesday’s meeting of the Eurogroup, when Brussels is due to
decide whether to give Greece the money it desperately needs.
The politicians in Athens had little choice. Unemployment figures released
last week showed that the number out of work had risen to 20.9 per cent,
while Greece’s manufacturing output fell by 15.5 per cent in the year
leading up December. Behind closed doors EU officials were debating
suggestions that Greece exit the eurozone and drawing up plans for an “orderly
default”.
The government, desperate to starve off bankruptcy and guarantee the next
tranche of rescue funds, agreed after much wringing of hands to a cut in the
minimum wage of 22 per cent; the sacking of 150,000 public sector workers
within the year, and the slashing of pensions.
And Mr Basdekis, with his pension of €400 a month, does not know how he will
survive.
“All my life, I have been proud to work and support myself. And now that
has been taken away from me,” he said. “I liked the feeling of
being able to buy something with my own money. I worked hard and looked
after my home. But that has gone. They have taken away my pride.”
Gazing sadly out across the snowy central square, flanked by steep mountains,
Mr Basdekis pointed to the yard where his five 32-ton Mercedes trucks, for
each of which he paid €120,000 when new, stood idle. A change in the law
demanded by the EU – ironically designed to stimulate the sector and open it
up to competition – drove him out of business.
He had paid €90,000 per licence for his trucks – an artificially high price,
but a result of the difficulty of obtaining the limited-issue documents.
Then, when the industry was liberalised, his competitors obtained cheap
permits and drove him out of business, leaving him still to pay for his
fifth lorry. He was forced to fire his four drivers, and closed the family
business that supported his two sons, four grandchildren and two great
grandchildren. He would do well to get €100,000 for selling all five lorries
together, a fraction of what he originally paid.
Even more galling for the sprightly pensioner is the fact that he cannot
afford to care for his wife, who has Alzheimers and needs 24-hour nursing.
“I have been in love with her from the age of 15,” he said, tears
brimming in his eyes. “She always looked after me. And now I cannot
look after her.” He takes a deep breath, pulling his neatly-pressed
tweed suit tighter around his chest.
“But we have lived through worse, of course. I am just very worried for
my grandchildren. What will all this mean for them?”
Certainly the 4,000 inhabitants of Distomo, 100 miles north west of Athens,
are more aware than most of the legacy of German demands – albeit in a
horrific context, far beyond the suffering of any economic policies.
The town was the site of one of the worst atrocities committed by the Nazis
against civilians in Greece, with 218 people of its then 500 residents
killed by the SS on a single day in June 1944, in savage reprisal for
partisan guerrilla attacks on German forces.
Mr Basdekis, who was 14 at the time, remembers that day “more vividly
than my lunch yesterday”, he said.
“I was in my family home upstairs when the Nazi soldier came.
“He rolled up his sleeves and started shooting. Our dog was barking, so
he shot him, and then set the house on fire as we hid upstairs.”
His uncle suggested they all go back down “to be shot rather than burn
alive”. But instead they managed to scramble out of the windows and
flee, with a sniper pursuing the young Mr Basdekis as he ran without shoes
through the surrounding woodland.
Three days after the massacre he returned to the devastated village – to
discover that, miraculously, his parents and all six siblings were among
those who had managed to escape.
Survivors and their families are still battling for compensation, although
only two weeks ago the UN’s highest court ruled that Germany was not liable,
given the present-day state’s legal immunity for actions committed by Adolf
Hitler’s Third Reich.
Lawyers for the 300 claimants told The Sunday Telegraph that they will
fight on, saying that they have never been properly compensated by Germany,
but most experts believe that they have few avenues left to try.
Less than three months after the massacre, Mr Basdekis’s father Anastasios,
53, was murdered by guerrillas in the mountains, leaving Mr Basdekis to
battle – literally and metaphorically – for his family’s survival.
“What upsets me most is that everything we fought for – freedom, peace
among different countries, a dream of being united – is all being torn apart
again,” he said.
“We should be working with our European brothers, and supporting each
other. I don’t have anything against German people, but I dislike what their
government is still doing to us. I can’t believe it has got as bad as this.”
Younger Greeks are beginning to share his anger. Last week in Athens the
German flag was burnt as anger boiled over at yet more austerity measures –
enforced, in their eyes, by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government.
“I hate Germany,” said Efi Sfountouri, 42, who had travelled from
Athens to visit her hometown of Distomo – now grown to 4,000 inhabitants –
with her two daughters. Her eyes flashing with anger, she declared in
heavily-accented English that Angela Merkel was “a monster”.
“If there was a vote tomorrow, I would be the first in line to veto
Germany sending an observer here,” she said. “They killed Distomo;
they stole our gold; they belittled Greece.”
Her daughter Cathy Gripogianni, 21, a journalism student, was more diplomatic
– saying she didn’t hate German people, but admitting that she still
resented their economic hold over her country.
“For my generation it is a disaster. I have been thinking seriously about
following my cousin and moving to Belgium,” she said.
Nikos Papatriantafyllou, 45, a bar owner, said: “Five years ago, no one
had any problem with Germany. But now people are getting upset. The Germans
say we are lazy, which is not fair. One Greek student in Munich couldn’t
find anyone to rent him a flat, despite his parents having money – just
because he was Greek.”
In his bar, he said, the atmosphere is glum. “People still come in for a
coffee. But they just don’t enjoy it. Everyone is so worried.
“Our generation resents Germany for different reasons to our
grandparents. But the old sentiment is resurfacing.”
The mayor of the town, Ioannis Patsantaras, condemned those who burnt the
German flag, describing them as “isolated extremists”. But he
admitted that the people were angry.
“It is the culmination of 30 years of mismanagement by our government,”
he said. “Politicians were acting for personal or political gain,
rather than in the interests of the people. And now we are a sick people,
who must survive the operation ahead of us.”
A fighter pilot for 38 years, Mr Patsantaras rose to become the chief of
Greece’s tactical air force. Glass paperweights etched with fighter planes
sit on his desk; a photo of him in aviator sunglasses and a bomber jacket
sit beside his computer. But he says his time in the forces, meeting RAF
pilots and being based in Belgium with Nato, taught him the importance of
working for a united Europe.
“The very word ‘Europe’ is derived from Greek. Ancient Greece was made of
rival city states who learnt to work together, so it is in our history and
in our blood,” he said.
But surely that all fell apart in bitter wars?
“And then something bigger and better was born!” he said, laughing.
“Times are tough, that is certain. But Greece is an ancient land. We have
endured a lot. And ultimately, a strong and united Europe is the best thing
for everyone.”
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