Independent - Iason Athanasiadis - The result of 20 years of corruption, tax evasion and ignoring reality

[....]Today, there is a parallel to that self-destructive behaviour in the blame-game unfolding on Constitution Square as Greeks curse their democratically elected politicians for "lulling" them into two decades of easy credit, soft corruption, tax evasion and overspending.

But they selectively ignore that they consented to an unwritten social pact whereby demonstrably corrupt politicians conjured up a higher level of living in return for no questions asked. But if people didn't know that Greece fiddled statistics to get into the European Union, then over-borrowed to fund the exaggerated lifestyles of corrupt politicians, many knew, perhaps only subconsciously, that foul play was afoot.

Now that the cat's out of the bag, many Greeks have opted for blaming the West for their travails instead of shouldering the blame. Global banks, the International Monetary Fund, Zionism and assorted scarecrows are infinitely preferable targets than facing up to our silent, corroding collusion.
[....]
 Today, although some blame must be apportioned to international institutions for encouraging Greece's addiction to debt, almost no voices ask why Greeks knowingly lived beyond their means.

this sounds like the sensible kid at the teenagers party who talks to the parents about how more mature he is compared with the rabble downstairs. But he isn't, he's still a juvenile who doesn't understand where things went wrong..

He describes a political system where democracy is a sham, where rich connected people take advantage of a system that is their creation and entirely theirs to control. The rest of the country have no real say and simply get to change who controls the small trickle of largesse which flows down to the rest of the country.

It sounds exactly like the US. Increasingly it sounds like the UK. A plutocracy is not a democracy; voting has to have the power to change things for a democratic mandate to be meaningful. Instead it is oligarchy, one step from feudalism.

I didn't break Britain, The City, aided and abetted by a self-selecting political class, did. The American people didn't break America, Wall St, aided and abetted by a plutocratic political class, did.

And the Grecian people did not break Greece. This is just victim blaming.

keep to the Fen Causeway