10/08/2013
Alternative Right has a horrifying post about the Greek state’s ongoing massive repression of the anti-immigration party Golden Dawn:
Over the last weeks there has been an unprecedented witch hunt by the police and judiciary against nationalists in Greece. Dozens of houses of Golden Dawn supporters and members have been invaded by the police … .[P]arliament was also busy preparing two things. The first was a law denying the state grant to the GD party. Every party getting above a threshold of 1.5% of the vote receives a state grant … Under the new law that parliament is bringing against this party whose leadership is only under investigation (and not yet guilty) for being a part of a "criminal organization," Golden Dawn will not only be denied the grant, but will also have to return the money it has already received, a move that will effectively bankrupt the party. Also, every MP under investigation for the same charge will stop receiving his salary of about 8000 euros per month.
The second measure the government came up with was an antiracist law, which includes severe penalties. These range from imprisonment to removal of the right to vote and stand for election. According to the broadsheet Kathimerini, the law provides for the exclusion of "racist" parties from elections, and even the removal of elected MPs.
It also includes imprisonment of up to three years and financial penalties for those convicted of "praising fascism and national socialism,” as well as harsh punishments for those participating in "hate-events," such as food distribution limited only to Greeks.
Golden Dawn and the Failure of Soft Totalitarianism, by Dimitros Papageorgiou, Oct. 8 2013. (Emphases added to quotes throughout.)
This of course is similar to, although more extreme than, Belgium’s suppression of the Vlaams Blok, then emerging as the country’s largest political party, and Britain’s persecution of the British National Party.
Alternative Right’s Papageorgiou makes this interesting point:
What has happened in Greece should be taken as an example of how the system reacts to threats. In Greece, as in every European country, the main controlling method of the system was political correctness — up to a couple of years ago.
With the help of both the economic crisis and the corruption of the local political/ business/ media elites, which became common knowledge, political correctness crumbled.
It was no longer particularly insulting to be labeled a "fascist" in Greece. Anyone could claim to be a nationalist at a party, in school, or at work and he would probably find a lot of people to agree with him. We have to note here that the Left greatly helped in this matter by overusing such labels. Since PC is no longer useful as a means of intimidating and coercing, the system has been forced to return to "old methods" … Robbed of its moral legitimacy, the governing elite is reverting to hard totalitarian methods.
This suggests that the only reason the U.S. has not yet seen "hard totalitarian methods" (much) is that it is still under the thrall of Cultural Marxism.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.