There is a compound Greek word that normally gives one the jitters, if one realizes the kind of words that constitute the compound.
The first word is ”psychros” [pseechros, accent on “o”], which in Greek means “cold”. Hence in English we have, “psychro-philic”, which means thriving at a low temperature.
The second word is “aima” [pronounced as “aema”, accent on “ae”], which in Greek means “blood”. Hence in English we have “hema-toma”, which means “clotted blood”.
So, the compound Greek word as an adjective is “psychremos” and as a noun is “psychremia”, describing a situation in which a person keeps his “blood cold”.
It seems that the Latin did not copy the Greek word, but the French did, by using Latin words to coin the word “sang-froid”, which entered the English language intact. However, English being a rich language has expanded the meaning of “cold-bloodedness” to a wider range: “imperturbability”, “composure”, “unflappability”, “self-control”, etc.
The ancient Greeks did not have the compound word, but in Modern Greek the closest meaning to the English version is “self-control”.
In the present article, as it deals with Greeks, we adopt the meaning of “self-control”.
There are two young Greek individuals whose “self-control” [“psychraimia”] is more than exceptional. The individuals: Alexis Tsipras, the Prime Minister of Greece, and Zoe Konstantopoulou, the lady who is President of the Greek Parliament. [See my TeleSur article “The Situation in Greece” of 20 April 2015]
That both of them are targeted by the US Emperor and its proxies (especially by the Saxon ones) is obvious to the Greeks. What, then, is the aim of that targeting? For Merkel and her European cohorts it is the garnering of votes; a petty ambition. For the Emperor it is geopolitics.
[Note: By “geopolitics” we mean what the International New York Times of April 24, 2015 records on its first page: “Drone strike killed 2 Quaeda hostages. Obama offers apology for deaths of American and Italian in Pakistan … Mr. Obama came into the White House briefing room … and appeared unusually affected by the deaths. ‘… I take full responsibility …’ a grim-faced president told reporters.” Two questions: a) what does “full responsibility” means, and b) how often is Mr. Obama “grim-faced”?]
Of course, Obama’s geopolitics coincides with Merkel’s ambitions. The crux of the Greek matter, in this geopolitics, is to get rid of a Leftist government and replace it with a Right-wing one. To do that the Emperor and his “assistants” have to “use” the entire Rightist part of the Greek and the European Union’s political spectrum, that is from the “center-Right” [whatever that means], the traditional Right-wingers, the crypto-Nazis and the Nazis. All of these “delicate” people constitute about 33 percent of the total of the Greek population and of the population of the European Union (EU).
In this “enterprise”, the entire Rightist destruction-machine of both the US and the EU was put in motion: Heads of State, Ministers, assorted politicians, the [vulgar] Media, the Intelligentsia, et al.
Among these, the most revolting was [and is] the role of the politicians and the educated class. The Media deserve no comment.
For example, there is an entire class which one might call PhD. – Janissaries. These are the offspring of rich families who got a degree, mostly in economics, in the US or, during the latest decades, in Germany. Of course, a “normal” person with a PhD. is not included in this class.
[Note; Janissaries: Subservient troops or officials in the Ottoman Empire chosen from Christian boys of the local occupied population.]
These Janissaries used Yanis Varoufakis as a “tool” for provoking disruption, etc. For these people, who earn their daily bread [and their occasional villa], through their servility to the Emperor, the sartorial preferences of Varoufakis was a God-sent starting point to initiate trouble.
That Slovenians and Slovakians, as new-comers in the service of the Emperor, were eager beavers in this behavior against Varoufakis, is to be expected. Take the Ukraine, and the Americans serving there as diplomats, “advisers”, etc. They are treated by the local Janissaries as if they partake to the Divine. In Greece for decades even a lowly sergeant of the US Army could order a Greek politician or a Greek official.
[Parenthesis: Examining the sartorial habits of these dignified, well-fed, and “necktied” Janissaries, we conclude that, excluding eight hours of sleep per day, half of their daily life is spent in attire similar to that of Varoufakis. Finally, why are they wearing a necktie?]
Varoufakis is an honest, rational human, and a person of integrity. No Saxon, Greek, or other “necktied” asshole can insult him.
Of the Greek Janissaries the most “irritating” are those in the Greek Parliament, especially a foursome of shrill individuals of admirable tenacity. Two of them are former Nazis, turned into crypto-Nazis, and presently appearing as conservative patriotic center-Rightists. A third is a highfalutin gentleman and resident of the highest offices in the Greek government of “impeccable” morality. Finally there is a lady, Theodora (gift of God, in Greek), daughter of Mitsotakis, one of the most “loved” Greek politicians for his adventurous life in the 1960s. Also, she is the object of “admiration” by none other than President Bush (father) and at the top of the Imperial list of candidates for the Greek Premiership. By the way, she has a quite crowded familial company in the Greek political scene: a father (now retired), a husband (now dead), a brother, a daughter, a son, a sister (?), if I am counting correctly. Her noisy verbal attacks on Zoe, who is President of the Greek Parliament, unfortunately for her ricochet on the quick wit, dignity, and self-control of Zoe.
On the European Union frontier, Alexis has to face the attacks, in perfect English diction, by that Dutch gentleman named Jeroen Dijsselbloem, a Heinz Kissinger-type.
Will Alexis and Zoe, given that they possess exceptional self-control, manage to withstand the blatant provocations by the Emperor and his proxies? I think they can.
With this kind of self-control, here is a possible route that Alexis could have taken to deal with the Greek situation:
Immediately after SYRIZA won the elections Alexis could have addressed the Greeks with a single Sentence: “I am not your leader, I am inviing you to participate in dealing with the problem we have at hand.”
I tested this idea with as many Greeks as I possibly could. At first they seemed to agree with the idea. But gradually, as expected, the reaction matured to doubts about the “utopian” nature of the proposition, etc.
Accepting these doubts as valid, Alexis, while striving to deal with the Emperor and his Janissaries, could have gradually inserted in the dialogue with his fellow-Greeks the ideas and visions of Noam Chomsky, Murray Bookchin, Robin Hahnel, Michael Albert and others, for a participatory society.
For example, a few days ago Alexis Tsipras met with the leadership of the Police. This is what he could have done:
On the basis of the idea that in a participatory society at any work place the only way to assess the performance of a person working there is only, repeat: only, through the peers of that person who work at the same place, the following could have been discussed. It is a fact that in any police station there is a number of policemen who systematically torture people. Some of them are proven sadists. The testimony of Rudolf Diels, the creator of GeStaPo, on the truth of this statement is redundant. Also, there are some policemen that torture out of cowardice, following orders. So, Alexis could discuss with the police leadership the need to organize councils in all police stations with the participation of all people working there, including the cleaning women who are possibly the most important witnesses, and identify the sadists. Then all the members of the council could decide what should be done with these sadists. For example, instead of a penal treatment or firing of the sadists a decision could be a transfer to another job, say, as a miner and psychiatric treatment. A similar decision could be taken for the cowards.
This is a very “rough” proposal for dealing with violence in police stations. However, what are of paramount importance are the repercussions that such an action can have in the society as an educational tool and as a moral act by a participatory human group.
If successful, such an act could be the catalyst for wider changes and for hope for the future.
Will the Emperor and his Janissaries be successful in their effort to stop SYRIZA, Alexis, Zoe and all of us Greeks in our effort to move to a better society and to, even, become a catalyst for ecumenical hope?
My guess is that at this point, they will not dare stop us, for geopolitical reasons, especially for the Nukes buried in tunnels in Crete.
This just in:
In the evening news we hear that Varoufakis and his wife have been attacked by a few young “anarchists” at Exarchia, the anarchist center in Athens. The behavior of Varoufakis and his wife became a boomerang for the attackers. I do not know if this is a regular Rightist provocation, but I know that the master-provocateurs at Exarchia, pretending to be an “anarchists”, used to be a former Captain of the Greek army and his son.
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