Nightmare on Greek Street.

Above left, is Greek Street in the city of Leeds. Greek Street runs between East Parade at its western end and Park Row at is eastern end. The above image is looking east. Greek Street and the surrounding area constitute the area where many businesses in the financial services sector choose to locate and they have made Leeds the principal financial capital of the West Riding of Yorkshire.
Readers will note the presence of a number of cars parked. On street parking is permitted but it is a wealthy or brave soul who parks his car there for the parking meters require vast amounts of ready cash to park for period of 20 minutes. Greek Street is patrolled by parking wardens who will slap a fixed penalty ticket on the windscreen within a minute of the expiry time. Trying to park in Leeds city centre and on Greek Street in particular is a nightmare – been there – done that – got the parking ticket!
Above right, is the Parthenon the iconic temple on the Athenian Acropolis. The Parthenon is dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, whom the ancient people of Athens considered their virgin patron.
The decision by the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou to call a referendum on Greece’s bailout has shocked and angered the Germans who are making noises. Herr Rainer Bruederle, a former economy minister was quoted as saying, “……This sounds to me like someone is trying to wriggle out of what was agreed, a strange thing to do….. One can only do one thing: make the preparations for the eventuality that there is a state insolvency in Greece and if it doesn’t fulfil the agreements, then the point will have been reached where the money is turned off…..”
The Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos was quoted as saying, “It’s crunch time…… Citizens will have to answer the question: are we for Europe, the euro zone and the euro?”
It is of course absolutely clear why George Papandreou and his colleagues have called for the referendum: Prime Minister Papandreou clearly knows well the saying, “You can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make it drink.”
The Greek government is in a complete crisis over this dire position and a referendum is about the only possible way the Greek government can go insofar as trying to implement the draconian policies that are being demanded by the EU.
Of course this is a problem of the Greeks own making as they should not have joined the Eurozone in the first place!
The facts of the matter are these: Greece is where it is and most of the Greek people are opposed to the demands being made by the EU. There is a distinct possibility that the Greeks will vote no. In any event the referendum is unlikely to take place until early in the New Year. This of course is going to create uncertainty in the international financial markets, all of which will put Italy, already in a parlous situation, further under strain. It is clear that the entire Eurozone and the future of the EU itself is now at stake.
Whilst we in the UK may feel ourselves to be occupying the role of spectators, our craven politicians are at least right when they say a collapse of the Eurozone and the EU will impact negatively on the UK economy.
The British Gazette however would draw this parallel: World War two was a ruinous war. However at the end of it the country came out of it with its Sovereignty and Democracy intact. The crash of 2012? WILL result in a tremendous economic downturn and many Britons will loose their jobs, the homes and their businesses. But at the end of it, the UK may well be restored as a Sovereign state with lawful government for the first time in four decades.
It will be a price worth paying.
There are of course exquisite parallels to be drawn both in history and mythology from all this.
Athena was of course known as Athena Parthenos, “Virgin Athena” thus giving the Parthenon its name. The goddess’s virginity was a statement of her role as enforcer of rules of sexual modesty and ritual mystery. Athenian society of course did not live up to these rules! The parallels of the statements in the treaties setting up the Euro – financial prudency and the Greek failure in this regard are clear!
To pursue further the analogies between ancient myths and present realities;
The god Hephaestus attempted to rape Athena, but she eluded him. His seed fell to the earth and impregnated the soil, and a son, Erichthonius was born from the Earth which was called Gaia. Athena placed the infant Erichthonius in a small box and entrusted the box to the care of three sisters, Herse, Pandrosus and Aglaulus. The goddess did not tell them what the box contained but warned them not to open it until she returned. Of course, two of the sisters Herse and Aglaulus, opened the box. At the sight of Erichthonius, who had taken the form of a serpent, Herse and Aglaulus became insane and threw themselves off the Acropolis!
Gaia of course is how the anthropogenic global warming fanatics refer to the Earth. The serpent that sent Herse and Aglaulus insane could be the horrendous state of the Greek finances – which the Carbon Con has made worse – presumably, opening the books and discovering the true sate of Greek finances has made them mad – and as for throwing themselves off the Acropolis? Many economists would suggest that by using creative accounting to join the Eurozone, going along with the Great Carbon Con, and getting themselves so much into debt, the Greeks have pursued the economics of the madhouse – and we know what some folks did on Wall Street at the time of the crash of 1929!