Jesus and the Money-Changers
Boris Olshansky
2006
_________________________________
Two overused words that people use and should abandon are “conservative” and “liberal”. Firstly, in the USA, there are no actual Conservatives… there’s no analogue to Francisco Franco, Marine le Pen, Graf Stolypin, or John Diefenbaker (Churchill was no Tory… he was a Liberal who turned Tory in later years for political purposes)… and there has never been such. The USA was a Liberal foundation from the first (a written constitution in itself is Liberal to the bone). Secondly, there are no actual Liberals left either, no Gladstone, no Burke, no Foxe, no Macaulay, no Jefferson, no Madison, no Lincoln, no Roosevelt (either TR or FDR… both were Liberal to the max). What DOES separate the Conservative from the Liberal? I’d say that the Conservative mindset is legitimatist… it attends to reality, not to ideas or ideals (unlike American “conservatives”, who wish to conform reality to their neoliberal corporatist delusions). Conservatism actually gives the past a voice (unlike American “conservatives”, who trample on the past and piss on it, like selfish dogs)… this means that many on the Left are Conservative, but that many on the Right are not. For instance, many in the Western media are calling the present Greek coalition ephemeral, that SYRIZA and ANEL will separate because one is “Left” and the other “Right”.
This is superficial and wishful thinking of the lowest possible sort. It’s the kind of thing that you expect from sorts such as Rush Limbaugh, Rod Dreher, and Ann Coulter though… none of them have any real education (it shows in their juvenile styles), ergo, they can’t see beyond the thinnest surface film of reality. There’s much common ground between ANEL and SYRIZA, just as there’s much common ground between the FN and the French left, and between United Russia and the KPRF. Hell, there’s much common ground between the Church and the Left (it has nothing in common with the neoliberal Hard Right US Republican Party)! For instance, both ANEL and SYRIZA want Greece to regain its national sovereignty from the Eurocrats. That’s so important to them that they’ll overlook all sorts of disagreements. It’s like World War II, when FDR said, “If Satan stood against Hitler, I’d send Lend-Lease to Hell”. This alliance will last as long as the danger persists. In other words, the danger posed by the Troika, the IMF, and the Eurocrats (who take their orders from Kaiserin Merkel) overshadows all else so sufficiently that Greece formed a National Unity/United Front government to face it. For as long as the EU poses a threat to Independent Greece, ANEL will hang with the coalition. They’re the “Independent Greeks”, after all. Besides that, another nail holding them together is the neofascist Golden Dawn (Dreher’s drooling pal Taki is a fan of them, I’m told)… both ANEL and SYRIZA are well-aware of the threat that these beasts pose to Greece.
Parenthetically, a Greek friend told me that the reason the KKE didn’t join the coalition openly is that it would’ve given Langley an excuse to stage an Allende murder op (many don’t believe the suicide story… many believe that the coup plotters killed him and called it “suicide”) against Alexis Tsipras. One of the things that the Corporatist media does is to denigrate foreign politicians whose charisma makes them effective anti-American leaders. For instance, look at the obloquy thrown on the head of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini… he managed to focus and unite Iranian resentment and ire to overthrow the Shah’s secret police state, no small thing that. Since he stood against the USA, understandable in that the USA was the main prop, enabler, and supporter of the Pahlavi dictatorship, he became a demon in the Western media narrative. Another such is Marine le Pen… she’s no Nazi, you can’t make that accusation stick. What she IS is Eurosceptic… she believes that France sold off its sovereignty to the EU and NATO; that France is overly subservient to American foreign policy interests, not French national interest. That’s why the Western media routinely calls her “Far Right”. In like manner, the media slammed Alex Salmond, calling him a “dreamy Leftist”… because he wanted to remove Scotland from the American Enterprise (the fact that he wanted to leave the UK didn’t bother Washington… the fact that he wanted to take Scotland out of the American Hegemony did). I needn’t mention the mud tossed at V V Putin… I’d only say that he scares them sufficiently for them to lie about him, doesn’t he?
Now, let’s get back to Tsipras (I do daresay that the above excursus was necessary)… the Americans hate Tsipras because he’s that rara avis, an honest politician. Tsipras is like V I Lenin (who’s one of his idols, by the way)… he’s not personally corrupted or corruptible. Tsipras CHOOSES to live in a working class neighbourhood… trust me, he doesn’t need to live in a gated community, like the American neoliberal “conservatives” and their “Ukrainian” running dog lackeys. The people watch for strange goings-on, and, let me assure you, they’d ACT if they saw anything suspicious (I’d say that they’ve already done so and one (or more) Langley assets have already taken the long sleep with the fishies off Piraeus). He’s not changed his direction since his days as a student activist. He named his son after Che Guevara. He’s made no secret of the fact that he’s a socialist and that he doesn’t accept the crank American narrative of the post-1991 world. That is, he’s honest… he’s charismatic… he’s popular… he’s determined… he’s persistent… he’s everything that the US Republican Party and the interventionists in the US Democratic Party hate. He’s a foreigner who dares to secede from the American Hegemony. That’s happened four times before… in Cuba, in Nicaragua, in Vietnam, and Iran. In every case, the USA dropped diplomatic relations in a fit of pique, and didn’t resume them for years (in the case of Iran, it hasn’t resumed them, even 36 years after the fall of the Pahlavis). Furthermore, Tsipras threatens not just the Eurozone, but the EU itself.
Let’s get back to “conservative” and “liberal”… in many ways, ANEL and SYRIZA are more alike than different. Both are patriotic… do note that American “conservatives” imply that only righties (and Radical Sectarian righties at that) are the only “true patriots”. I’d say that the US Republican Party’s nomination of the draft-dodger Willy Romney put the lie to that. Both wish the keep Greek resources in Greece… that is, they don’t want the labour of Greeks to go to enrich German and American banksters and their political toadies. Both support a vigorous social welfare apparatus… so that no one lives in poverty. Both support leaving the Eurozone and the EU and cutting a deal with Russia (and the TS EvrAsES). Both are defenders of Greek sovereignty over the rule of supranational bodies. That’s looks like a LOT of overlap to me! In fact, a Greek friend of mine in the KKE said that the Party supports the aims of the coalition government, but decided not to join it for tactical reasons. Most of all, the coalition, both SYRIZA and ANEL, want to keep hands off the internal affairs of the Church. Tsipras isn’t a believer… but that doesn’t mean that’s he’s amoral in the American Republican mould. Believers have to face the fact that Secularists (a better term than atheist, as it focuses on what someone’s for, not what someone’s against) are as moral as any other sort of people. We have to stop demonising such people. Alexis Tsipras isn’t going to persecute the Church… but the Golden Dawn would; they’re the only actual alternative to the present coalition.
Let’s get back to my original premise… “conservative” and “liberal” have become outdated and useless labels. A Conservative would say, “Mankind is fallen, therefore, we can’t leave people to their own devices, for they’ll choose evil if it enriches them”… this isn’t the credo of the US Republican Party or of its Yahoo Sectarian (“Evangelical”) base. A Liberal would say, “Mankind is good, therefore, we must leave people to their own devices, for they’ll choose good, for that’ll profit them”. One can see that neither US political party embodies either philosophy… but that the Republicans are closer to the Liberal ideal; they aren’t Conservative in the smallest-possible way (making Rod Dreher’s bloviations on the American Conservative both derisive and vacuous). The American Experiment has been LIBERAL from the top… there has NEVER been a conservative government there, and as long it follows its Liberal foundations, there never shall be such. Those who call themselves “conservatives” are liars; furthermore, they’re liars who refuse to see clear truth (to think that they call the Arch-Liberal Burke a “conservative”… I’ll check into Bedlam with Mr Scrooge!); they’re drunk on an illusory ideal of a Right-Anarchist Laissez-Faire Paradise (which, please God, will never come to be).
I’ve got news for “leftists”… many who now identify as “conservatives” are open to a Patriotic-Left narrative. That is, large enterprises in state ownership, but with private ownership of small businesses (and laws to ensure that businesses such as retail sales, food service, and consumer services stay in local hands), with national healthcare, with army/national service based on universal conscription (all men and women serve at high school graduation for two years in the military or in public service civilian posts of national significance… NO EXCEPTIONS… NO WILLY ROMNEYS), and a fair tax code for all. Socialism is doable, but we must understand that we shouldn’t interpret Karl Marx like the Fundies interpret the Holy Bible. We must guard against Kochs and Limbaughs… but we must also guard against government overreach. The US World War II economy proved that central planning worked, but it’s also clear from experience that many types of service are best handled on the small-scale. Let’s have local diners, not Mickey Dee’s… let’s have regional food markets and retail stores… not Wal-Mart. Let’s have an army recruited from all the people, not a mercenary force recruited from the most-backward portions of society. Let’s put DUTY ahead of PROFIT. The opposite is true today… Rush Limbaugh, Rod Dreher, Bill O’Reilly, Antonin Scalia, and Sean Hannity all were “white feathers”… they didn’t serve, but they’re for all the wars blazing throughout the world.
If you hear anyone labelling themselves “conservative” or “liberal”, you’ve probably run into a phoney of the first water. My advice? Go as fast as possible, as far as possible, from such sorts. They’re unreachable. We CAN save ourselves from the neoliberal morass that we’re in, but SHALL we? That’s up to us…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
Tsipras Government Wins Confidence Vote in Hellenic Parliament
Tags: 2015 Greek parliamentary election, Alexis Tsipras, Balkans, Coalition of the Radical Left, EU, European Union, Greece, Greek government, Greek history, Greeks, Hellenic Parliament, political commentary, politics, Politics of Greece, Syriza
_______________________________
On Wednesday, the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras won a confidence vote in the Hellenic Parliament. 162 members of his coalition supported him, 149 from the SYRIZA bloc and 13 from their coalition partners in ANEL, but 137 opposition lawmakers voted against the motion. The government needed to win the vote of confidence, as it must prove it has enough votes to pass bills in parliament before it can start work. Tsipras pledged that on Wednesday, following the vote of confidence, he’d start to implement actions to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis in the country.
11 February 2015
Sputnik International
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150211/1018085968.html