Greece - A New Hope

Nester_sl said:

Maybe we should crowd fund us some money and buy some Greek artifacts before they get stolen/destroyed in the upcoming fallout.

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Sorry, we got there first:Elgin Marbles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Furry_sl said:

To change deep seeded corruption, you have to change society itself- which an audit can not and will not ever be able to do

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So what you're saying is it's our duty as patriotic Americans to give Greece the same kind of freedom, liberty, and democracy we gave to Iraq?

I thought you wanted todecreasecorruption and graft though.

Make Greece fight ISIS in return for debt forgiveness. Let veterans emigrate to Texas so I have a decent Greek joint to go eat at. Problem solved.

Furry_sl said:

I think a comment like this is ignorant of how pervasive corruption can be in third world countries. Life styles are literally set up in a way where wiping out corruption would cause huge issues with society itself. In highly corrupt countries, nothing happens without expected payouts, and because of that- people are paid and society functions with the idea that these payouts will happen. To change deep seeded corruption, you have to change society itself- which an audit can not and will not ever be able to do

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I think you might be misunderstanding what an audit like this entails. We're not talking about some accountant peeking through your books; we are talking about a super state institution with legal authority to view information, remove individuals from office and prosecute crimes. Audits in the U.S. that the IRS/Dept of Justice (ect) does are conducted with the FBI in tow. You're not going to be able to change various monopolies or cartels, or other economic irregularities that have cropped up in the economy, thanks to decades of malfeasance ingrained in the culture, no. But if a bunch of Germans, with legal authority, and the ability to use the states monopoly on violence, descend to audit Greece? They will fix quite a few long standing issues (After a period of suffering). You're silly if you don't believe so. (Though, to add, my original statement other nations would be able to implement deep structural and institutional changes, which would be based on the audit/investigation).

The issue is, unlike, say, the the Federal government descending on a small town to take over the government, audit it, remove it and rebuild it? No Greek is going to want to cede their states authority to an outside power; where in the U.S. states and municipalities are compelled to do just that. I mean, there is a reason why it's the FBI (Or more importantly the IRS) which rooted out organized crime and not local city cops; because the people doing it need to be removed from the influence of the corruption. (And even then, they are subject to it--it's just more difficult.)...Now, it's possible for such an organizational level to itself be corrupt (Defense spending! Katrina!) but in this case, they would clean up a good chunk of the local corruption before the fat began to roll in. Greece would still be corrupt, mind you--but some of the more outrageous stuff would be gone.

Itzena_sl said:

I thought you wanted todecreasecorruption and graft though.

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We do that by expanding the markets for Raytheon and Lockheed Martin though. It's not the worst idea, really. The Greeksalready hate us more than the Pakistanisin Waziristan do, and THEY're currently the biggest 'end-users' of Northrop and Lockheed's products.

lendarios_sl said:

He called the other side terrorists, and plenty of other terms. He was more infatuated with his persona/image than to get anything done. Also, he wasn't asked to quit, he was asked not to be at the negotiations. He quit because he was shut out due to his own bravado/agenda.

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He was calling it like it was and thus was too confrontational for the "other side"'s tastes. He was asked by Tsipras to step down as a sign of goodwill so a deal could be reached. And yes, what happened last week was terrorism (or bullying, blackmail, whatever) - of the "vote yes or else" variety - and the worst moment in the history of EU. I am living in Greece and i couldn't believe this was happening and in a such blatantly open way. A lot of people switched votes from "Yes" to "No" only because of this.

On a lighter note:

Pretty sure that's a German video actually. If those were greeks they'd have been elected into their politburo by now.

Oh they're prolly trying to go viral with it. Seems like it was produced for the web and they'd want to maximise reach. Rumor is the next season of Deutschland83 will be mostly in English for similar reasons (it's doing really well in UK and Sundance channel) but then it'll be based around West berlin.

Furry_sl said:

I think a comment like this is ignorant of how pervasive corruption can be in third world countries. Life styles are literally set up in a way where wiping out corruption would cause huge issues with society itself. In highly corrupt countries, nothing happens without expected payouts, and because of that- people are paid and society functions with the idea that these payouts will happen. To change deep seeded corruption, you have to change society itself- which an audit can not and will not ever be able to do

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Are you talking about America or Greece?

Oh snap. MARX TIME.

can't touch this

Do Not Click. Do Not Watch.

America dwarfs every other country in terms of corruption, and it's not even close. America is so corrupt that normal notions of what constitutes 'corruption' can't even apply. I actually had a brief email conversation with Chomsky about this some months ago (he actually replied like three times, surprisingly).

Greece is conspicuous in theirs: bribery, tax evasion, etc. It's so cute, so honest comparatively. America's corruption is in the tune of multiple trillions of dollars, defrauding the entire whole of the American populace at once and dispossession on a nationwide scale. It's so absolutely absurd, so completely dwarfs what normal corruption is that we need a new word for it.