Mr Fotopoulos,
I watched your recent interview on October 1, 2012 on National Television as well as your statement during the assembly of the Union executive Committee of GENOP-DEI, on September 27, 2012 very carefully, and I can say that in general your stance regarding a general long-term action in favour of the Greek People is the one we all hope for, and let me congratulate you for that.
However, I still have a number of objections and respective suggestions that I wish to put forward as a co-Citizen and Greek woman activist who has been fighting for Greece since 2009, and which I believe you should seriously consider, if indeed you aim to achieve a move that will energize and kick-start society for the decisive hit against the anomy and suppression presently reigning in the government and which has irrevocably inflicted damage on all simple Citizens like me:
1. It is clear that if, during your planned future action you proceed to cut power as usual (or let that happen as a result of Management action under the pretext of your strike) you shall have no compassion or understanding from the Citizens who will feel (properly aided by the mass media) that they are being punished by you instead if being protected and supported.
If therefore you wish to enjoy the support of society and obtain the results you said you wished during your public statement, you should aim to target the state – parastate and not the populace that suffers on account of it.
In other words, instead of permitting, via your strike, power cuts to occur to the homes of simple Citizens, which may prove detrimental for the lives of the sick and the needy and the coup de grace to the struggling small enterprises and free professionals, think of the possibility that instead of you going on strike as usual, strike at the ministries and the public sector and cut the power to all except the fire brigade, hospitals, schools and security forces in the Country.
In this manner you materialize the Peopleʼs wish to reject this government and the unjust para-state by cutting their power supply. This supply, you must not forget, belongs to the People, as is the case with all Public Utility Funds and Companies, letting alone the fact that so far the ministriesʼ power bill was routinely being paid by the common Citizen.
Aim to hit the para-state and not society and you will see how society will reciprocate.
2. You are very correct in castigating the complete inequality that is the case, with simple Citizens suffering and making their situation worse by cutting their power, while the top super rich classes who are continuously being embroiled in all sorts of corruption, and fraudulent spending of state funds and opaque wheeling-dealing at the expense of the state and society are rendered protection.
You are in a position to reverse the odds by your very industrial action:
allow power to be re-supplied to every home without it from suburb to suburb and area to area. Cut the power to all those who owe the country millions and thousands of euro and who ignore all calls to their payment due.
Reinstate social justice and society will reciprocate.
3. The DEI tax or EETHDE was unconstitutional and anti-humanitarian measure any way and it was allowed by the Supreme Court under the condition that it is a temporary ʽemergency measureʼ, or else it would have been repealed.
Besides, there is also the issue of the surface proportionality you made reference to during your televised interview at NET, but it should also not go unnoticed that everybody conceded to the unconstitutionality of the measure and simply tried to cover it up, by taking further steps to secure the protection of the super rich as you have summarily described yourself. My suggestion to you then is for you to attack this law anew. This is something you are obliged to do as per your Code of Conduct but it is also stipulated by the Constitution. Indeed I believe that every single day that you have let pass failing to act thus, has amounted to inflicting further damage on our and your fellow human beings who are irrevocably and catastrophically annihilated. You are obligated to stand against the tax as being a de facto not proportional (beyond its later amendments on the basis of a new by-law plan you also mentioned) since charging by square meter regardless of the ownerʼs income, renders taxation on that basis inversely proportional to the Citizensʼ ability to pay. In other words, the poorer among us pays each square meter more since this demands a great portion of his income than the same price asked by the far richer owner.
You also need to stress the fact that this is added tax to an already taxed property holding and one that leads to its indirect possession by the state, something that contravenes the Constitution directly for every Citizen and of course renders this tax completely illegal.
Do what society expects you to do and society will reciprocate. This is a simple law of social science and a fact in the History of Mankind.
I truly hope that you will respond to this call and be the first of the unions which will re-emerge themselves to the status of the protectors of society and expunge themselves from the onus in the conscience of the average Citizen as being the unions to serve only their strictly unionist interests.
Olga G. Yeritsidou,
Specialist Educational Psychologist
Athens, October 2, 2012
Human Support
Crimes Against Greece
Translation courtesy of Michael T.