As we have done for the previous prime-minister and for every such parliamentary addresses and related efforts of the exponents of the hegemonic class to convince the People to condone their own destruction, we shall do the same for G. Papandreou’s address to the People of Greece on 2/2/2010, deciphering the words and manipulations of the present prime-minister and expose the true meaning hidden behind or between the lines.
We have also added to our deciphering, logically-deduced meanings based on PASOK’s history of actions so far, these of the Papandreou dynasty, the conclusions reached by numbers on the basis of the announced law plans on tax reform measures, his own predictions and statements as well as those of EU officials on the fact that the economic climate cannot change, and that it cannot truly be affected by the tax reform formula within Greece, the general course of the country in the last 100 days, and the status of Greece and that of the Greek Citizen within and without borders under Papandreou’s government, as direct consequence of his own decisions and actions.
You may find the original text of the address on the web in PASOK’s web page as well as elsewhere so as to compare the original text in its totality with the translated-deciphered text (based on scientific content analysis) presented below, though in most of the cases, the deciphered version is juxtaposed to the original one.
Women and Men of Greece,
We are going through a crisis (prepared by me and all the previous governments of my friends who are now richer than ever, just as I am), one of the most blatantly plundering and demeaning for the People since the junta years.
In these critical moments (that we and my friends run the risk of being caught and having all of the funds that made us rich restored to you) we have to act (my friends and I) immediately and decisively (betting on the off-chance of convincing you to give us the rest of your money, and if we do not manage to convince you to give it up willingly, to make sure we snatch it from you now and hit the road fast).
I have called a meeting of the Leaders of the parliamentary parties (who are part of my friends, who make sure that no real Greek can ever get to the podium in the Greek Parliament) to let them know about the situation in the Greek economy (i.e., how to split the roles amongst ourselves so as to convince you to pay us and put up with us even more).
I called them to ask them to stand by me and support me in this national effort (i.e., to support me as a dictator with parliamentary majority, no matter how much the People outside the Parliament tear their clothes in protest against the measures or anybody enforcing those measures).
Tomorrow, then, we shall have the formal permission from by bosses (or my other colleagues and friends helping me to inflict upon you measures unheard of in Humanistic and Democratic societies based on State Justice) to enforce the measures I announced two weeks ago (i.e., EU’s plan for Greece regardless of whether this plan will exterminate Greeks or not).
It is a programme designed to snatch whatever meager amount of money you have left (mainly in kind) to cover the deficit created by the goods stolen already and whatever else we embezzled, so that we can also gulp it all down in a new course of development where I shall offer the very blood I would have drained from you, as investment incentive to every shipowner, large-scale industrialist and high-ranking banker, pawning the country via the host of loans I made, to foreigners, making sure that I will never return anything of what I owe to you because I will send it out of the country immediately.
It is a program that dislocates economy and which allows me and my friends/ my circle, to annul every Right, protection, privilege and security your predecessors had wrenched from my class through their social struggles.
In other words, to undo all socially secured guarantees of the Greeks, to proceed with great changes in favour of social class and for the protection of my social class. We think, that is, my friends / members of our class and I, that something like this would be fair, because we have become vulnerable since we do not actually do any work, but just consume, while you are strong and well-seasoned job holders, used to much work and so you can stand to pull all of us along, to feed us and to adulate us since we let you actually work for us.
Women and Men of Greece,
These days Greece finds itself amidst a more expanded speculation game, that has targeted euro itself, and since I am not saying that I will legally pursue all those who steal from you and force them to restore to you what they’ve stolen with interest, I silently confess that I too am a supporter of the above game from which I also gain and get paid, but I do not expect you to be observant enough and intelligent enough to understand what absence of will for legal pursuit means. How could you have known that this means my cover up and complicity simply because I did not say something?
Unfortunately, due to the catastrophic choices of the past (for which I, too, was actively part of and involved in, regardless of my current efforts to convince you that I am just a recent arrival, and for which catastrophic choices greatly responsible were my daddy and my granddaddy, as well as those with whom I share dinner when I go out at night), your country is seen as the weak link of the eurozone. Judging from the fact that I have no intention whatsoever to seek restitution for damages and crimes against you from all the previous people in power as well as those in the eurozone, you could have deduced that I do not do what I do without expecting reward and so I am guilty of moral complicity/cover-up after the act, but I do not really believe that you will understand all these, and if you could, you would not tell a soul about it.
Result (of the ceaseless borrowing that I have engaged into and my help in shaping a very negative climate in the world market so as to justify speculation against Greece from foreign investors), the terms of borrowing to balance out our great deficit every day become more repugnant. (Really, has it ever occurred to you that whatever I have borrowed, I did so without ever telling you, even for the sake of just saying it, that I am after a certain plan, and that I have not given any account to anybody as to where all these very expensively bought funds have gone pawning the future of your children?) The terms I have negotiated on behalf of my class from whom ‘your’ creditors come, are extremely repugnant and turn you all into serfs, without even having to pay you anything, since I return the money immediately under the pretext of serving the payoff of the state deficit.
They are after throttling your economy and actually annul any Human Right of yours, relapsing Greece back to Turkish rule.
They are after blowing to pieces whatever Greeks achieved during the last two hundred years paying in blood, sacrifice and high toll of victims, in restrictions, in sweat and tears.
It is, therefore, your national duty to try to stop us but we will try to fool you by saying that we are doing this for you, while in fact we are further pushing you down into the crevasse.
The government is decided to do whatever it takes to do away with the danger of us being forced to listen to Popular Demand and Will.
This is one more reason for us to set as supreme priority to reduce all of you to beggars for the loaf of the day so as to preclude any thought incurring in you of ousting us, but instead augment our revenue, through cuts in your payments, taking away allowances accruing to you according to the Bill of Human Rights.
I have already given a direct order to expedite all this. Next week we are announcing the basic parameters of the new taxation scheme.
A taxation scheme that promotes social justice (i.e., protects my class by right, taxes all of you much more while in appearance it seems that it taxes the middle and lower incomes less, but in fact it burdens precisely those, since I have not allowed for any minimum non-taxable income, and by whatever percent of income I extract from these people, I consciously hit them lethally since they already live below poverty levels and decent living).
It is not fair to ask the salaried (managers, MPs, general secretaries, etc) employees, the conscientious businessmen (of the type of Daskalopoulos and of Michalos), the conscientious professionals (of the type of Pelekis, who is also God-fearing).
This is the end to the loopholes of tax evasion (whoever out there had been enjoying non-taxable income due to destitution, will be appropriately punished and woe to all of you who were unable to generate the income that I estimate you should have been generating, and of course you don’t, since my friends have put you out of commission by their illegal market practices, like you the farmers, for example, the free professionals – and own account workers).
Those of you who have some income/property but are not associated with the party or descent from my social class, will be punished for your audacity to have them in the first place, we will take them away from you using every unconstitutional way we can think of so that we can add them to those already stolen from the rest of you from before, and we will also target you and slander you by saying that all the doctors, dentists, tutorial school owners, taxi drivers, small shop owners, small kiosk sellers, open-market produce sellers, and plumbers of all kinds have brought Greece to this state of economic chaos and not us. And you will be fingered and black-listed, worse than in the situation shouted at by Iliopoulos ‘The Thief who Shouted Thief’, including getting thrown into the slammer as an example to and protection of the well-meaning Citizens, i.e, all of us who we handle the Vatopedion Monastery scandal, we undermine you and your Insurance Funds whenever we want in our stock, casino-like market and sell you off with your families, lands and businesses through the Public Welfare Organizations (DEKO).
Thus, we will rename every house in Petralona and Drapetsona as upper-level immovable property (it is for this reason that we have upgraded all the objective land values), we will exempt from taxation all large-scale industrialists – no good loafers who would only have to show that they were re-investing their funds, instead of using them to survive, just like you do, and who would hire all of you whose jobs we put out of business, using all kinds of elastic forms of serfdom work. We would come out and say that we would tax the big stock holders, if we could ever locate them, and if they can show profits not intended for re-investment, while it will be clear for all of you who can only invest in the food of next week, that you cannot but pay us up.
It is a staple of social justice and equality (you working and we consuming and squandering all these up after we snatch them from you).
We increase taxation of offshore companies (if of course they cannot avoid it on the bases of legal loopholes, and they are sure to do so since we have planned it this way with all the unconstitutional laws we have passed) and we take drastic measures against these tax-evading practices (but I will not tell you which one so that it will be impossible for even those of you who do actually search these things, to check up on what I say).
With systematic canvassing and control of offshore companies, that hide behind them luxurious villas, high-end cars, yaughts [of course even if such canvassing does eventually take place (remember what happened with the land registry fiasco) it does not necessarily mean persecution or legal auditing, but of course you will not understand that].
There is provocative tax evasion and unfair amassing of wealth at the expense of the totality of society. (Of course there is, but I will use what exists and goes on to accuse you for it, and not ourselves, and I will facilitate even more unfair wrongdoing against you with the following actions).
We shall deal with it, via cross-referencing income details with landed property details which indicate the extent of each one’s wealth and income (a scheme certain to succeed since we have given orders to inland revenue officers whose loyalty we have bought, to unjustifiably assign taxable income even when they find nothing to apply tax on, justifying that action on the grounds that since nothing was found, that can only mean that you have been hiding something and therefore proceed to issue you a stiff retroactive penalty fee). And whatever property has come into you from your parental inheritance, or property you were in the past in a better position to acquire, we will snatch from you, saying that since you are not one of us, you must be in no position to maintain such holdings and property such as your house, or your office space. Judging by our own example, we look upon all of you as thieves and liars and you receive the punishment that should have been meted out for us, while we will be allowed to steal even more and continue to lie and refuse to be audited for what property and income we declare, or answer for the manner it came to be in our possession and by what means we maintain such holdings, and for these reasons we do not allow enquiry into our property values, except through our own mass media, cut and pasted as we wish and without any guarantee of its validity.
We know that many of these measures will have results, but that those results will show in 2011. (Of course by just saying ‘many of…’ I mean that not all of them will have effects, which in my case means that no single one of them will be effective for your sake, and that is why I am saying that in a couple of years you will be able to judge their effectiveness because by then, I would already have left, if my true colours are at last seen, or I would have completed the redistribution of wealth in favour of my class but in the mean time you would have started living under EU occupation and won’t be in a position to pursue me).
That is why it is imperative that I snatch as much as possible of what is left of your properties that my last colleague did not manage to get, now in 2010.
That is why I will increase fuel tax, something that will offer my friends in the multinational monopoly business, the pretext under which they will also increase prices on food, water, phone, power bills and of course in all public transport. This is to make sure that you understand it will be you who will be hit, since fuel tax is actually indirect tax on everybody, which goes against the principle of proportionality stipulated in the Constitution, and will lower your purchasing power to buy staples of food like milk, while my friends won’t even understand that something has actually changed, apart of course from those who control the distribution of fuel in the market and will make even more illegal profits.
We have already started cuts on public expenditures. With horizontal cuts of 10% in all Ministries (of course horizontal cuts do not mean vertical cuts but simply cuts in limited areas of each Ministry, and do not necessarily touch the perks of my friends there). As we have committed ourselves and announced, we forestall all hiring in the public sector for this year and we cut on the number of employees (for those who did not still get it, whoever is not one of ours will be fired under summary and unseen procedures. Have you even taken drift of the fact that I have already lifted tenure from you and have not even told you about it? Or, of my cook-ups of uniform salary schemes and the rest of your secured Rights?)
We merge or cancel Organizations that are not necessary for servicing the needs of the public but which are costly to the tax-payer. (We, of course, will be the judge of which of these organizations are necessary and which not, as much as who is considered a Citizen, regardless of whether we are putting you on when we tell you that we mean you. We will not punish any of those who have set up such unnecessary organizations in the first place, which of course you paid for, because those people are our guys, and neither will we ask them to return funds you lost by paying them into those organizations).
There is great leeway, allowing today’s squandering state to spend less but offer better services to the citizen, in health, welfare, in education. Of course do not expect me to tell you how this can be done in plain English, because I am not really interested in offering you better services and dig my own grave teaching you how to check up on us and use your common sense instead of our propaganda. Neither do I intend to hurt the interests of my friends who control the education industry, welfare and health via their schools, NGOs and private hospitals, by offering you what you need through the State apparatus, that you deserve by right and for which you have paid many times over to no effect. We also announce in the next few days, a law plan regarding State expenditure. With this law, the exorbitant salaries in the upper echelons of the Public Sector will stop. Of course I will never define ‘upper echelons’ for you, or tell you who are in these echelons because I am not going to hurt my friends holding key posts in the Public Sector, and even if I do give a slap on the hand to a couple of them, simply because you cannot take it any more, I will simply transfer him or her somewhere else where he/she will not be visible to you. I am talking about the real upper echelons of the type of posts held by General Secretaries, General Managers, heads of Committees, etc. From then on I will simply redefine ‘upper echelon’ to apply to whoever is paid a salary and suits me to name him/her thus, and who is not one of ours (or, even if he is one of ours, I will have made a special deal with him) and I will make an example of him for a little while, á la Koskotas, as taught by my daddy and the good old friends of his.
New rules of social justice are set, I would call them common-sensical ones. Of course which rules I make reference to or whether common sense has anything to do with what I am doing, are things unconnected with my propaganda and I will not dwell on them.
And in today’s difficult circumstances, I will ask from all public servants to contribute to this great national effort (In other words, I will force public servants to do what my friends are supposed should have been subjected to do, and I will debase those public servants to such an extent that they become even more controllable with the following unjust and unequal measures).
There will be no further salary increments, beyond those based on seniority.
At the same time we will proceed with a cut of the funds intended for allowances by 10%, protecting however the low-salaried. What this means in practice I will never tell you, as I never told you during my electoral campaign where I will find the money, because you could have stoned me and thrown me out just as you did with the last colleague of mine. So I am not going to tell you even now, and risk having you explode upon listening and start throwing against me whatever you happen to have in your hands, stones included.
The budget policy will be in effect not only for the central Public Sector but also for the Municipal Authorities and the rest of the public sector. I am telling you this so that you realize that there is no escape for anyone even if he is not in the central Public Sector. You will be the worse off because your lot will be dependent on many of my friends simultaneously.
In a parallel fashion, we commerce talks with ADEDY (Union of Public Employees) about a uniform (flat) salary scheme, that will surpass today’s inequalities and injustices. It has been a demand posed by the ADEDY for years. Of course, and apart from the fact that ADEDY, as you may have understood, is full of my friends, you can’t have realized as well that it will be my friends over there who will help me negotiate a uniform salary scheme that equalizes salaries downwards, as my daddy has taught me to do to whatever was vital for your survival at every age and time.
Adopting the Stability Program, we deal with the chronic pathologies of the country, such as our lost competitive edge. In other words, the lost piece of the pie that all you free professionals and own account workers out there still have the audacity to lay claim on. We will also take away from you whatever work-associated Right and suspicion of decent salary – such workload restrictions – job security – job insurance you may still have and we will exchange these with conditions of serfdom. It is a well-known fact that the more miserable the way a People lead their life, the more ‘competitive’ that People’s country is regarded in the supernational markets. If you could see EU statistics yourselves, you would know that fact as well.
We shift the bulk of public investments to new sectors (we will simply pass on the buck to my friends in other ways, mainly via state funding to the NGOs which undermine not only the public sector but your whole identity, as they already have been doing with your national identity).
We drastically simplify investment environments and we promote incentives for business (My friends will make their illegal profits even more easily, and will be able to spirit public funds away by embezzling it just like Lanaras and P. Vardinogiannis did. Did you know that the latter has been officially termed legally indigent and that there is a warrant out for his arrest but mysteriously he remains at large to make new investments and lead a care-free cosmopolitan life?)
We shall do away with bureaucracy and corruption. (Same as above, I am not going to tell you how I am going to do that, and neither am I announcing that I intend to oust the corrupted ones who have reduced you to the state you are now. Instead I will set up and pay off whatever committees I need to hide this fact away from you).
Beyond the Public Sector, we ask from all of you, employers and employees, to contribute to the restorations of the competitiveness of our economy. (In other words, whoever are not my friends, I will force to respond to this call of mine).
We proceed to the dialogue and to decision-making for a viable and just insurance system. (In other words, a bid for time so that my friends will consume whatever was left, that is, through the liquidation of the immovable property of the Insurance Funds and then I will give my friends all that to privatize for themselves, so that you will end up paying insurance premiums to them, instead of to the State).
It is a system that guarantees pensions for the present as well as for the future. It deals with today’s injustices and inequalities, cuts down on excessive spending, rationalizes expeditures. (Of course, I am not telling you what kind of system this will be, because I am not the one who will set it in motion, but the proprietor is – one of my friends – to whom the Funds will be given to manage).
The time has come for brave decision-making here in Greece, as other countries in the EU have done. We will impoverish you, just as in other countries of the EU, where homeless first appeared, along with food coupons, people below the poverty line, etc, i.e., conditions unheard of in post-junta Greece, where till 10-20 years ago one could no-longer see street-level beggars, traffic lights kids and male and female prostitutes to such extent and proportions.
The viability and justice of the system encompasses an increase of the pension age limits, since life expectancy also increases. In other words, we punish you because you did not die and thus make it hard for us to steal from your insurance premiums, the funds that we calculated that you would never have received as pensions because of death. Neither do we intend to hide from you the fact that we all have built our own properties and businesses using up funds from the premiums you paid, instead of letting those premiums strengthen the Funds so that they can withstand increases in life expectancy, as our oath to the Constitution and to the People should have made sure of.
A critical element of all the suggested changes we shall implement and which we shall already commenced, targets the structure and the function of the state. Something that the Citizen has been expecting for many years. In other words, we will split the state apart to such a degree so that you will have no ability to control me or my friends, not even through your vote, and you will never be listened to no matter what you do.
Under the new administrative architecture, the one to be implemented in this country, we shall bring the state nearer to the Citizen, the state services nearer to the Citizen’s needs, to face up to everyday unnecessary expenditures. We will drown Democracy and the Citizen and bring NGOs to the fore as the new institution of power representing my social class, about whose effects you will hear that they are positive and benevolent, but which will be totally uncontrollable and arbitrary. Those NGOs, nonetheless, will be maintained by you through your indirect taxation, direct taxation, dues, premiums, etc. Under the new organization I am trying to implement, you will not have a Greek State anymore, but a province of EU and a substandard one at that, since the German province, or that of the French or of the English, will be regarded as superior, exactly as the case was during the Ottoman Empire.
We are fully cognizant of the level of difficulty this situation brings , as well as of the difficulties faced by the Greek family. We move to do this in a sense of honesty and justice. (Justice, as I have defined it, viewing it from the point of view of my social class, of course).
I know that these changes are both difficult and painful but I have always been truthful. I know that since we are drowning the Greek family, the situation becomes highly critical for us because the Greek family might oust us and in the process of doing that demand that all the stolen funds be returned to them. So, I will do all I can and move in such a way that I will put the blame either on unforeseeable circumstances, or to invisible criminals whom I will never catch and bring to justice.
It is an effort to stop the course of the country falling down into the crevasse, to safeguard the income of the average Greek family, the pensions, to support of the socially vulnerable, to release resources and creativity in our society. (At this point, I am simply telling you what you’d like to hear, regardless of whether it sounds feasible as a sustainable target, based on what I told you above and I consider myself smart enough, to play you in front of your own eyes. The more you give me the benefit of the doubt and do not show me that that is enough, the more I will keep on playing you).
I want you all to know that in these hard times, we, the government of the country and I , will do all in our power to support and strengthen the powerless, to support the average Greek family, to offer a scope to the youth of this country. To help by fighting unemployment. (Again, the above principle holds, i.e., that I can play you without your realizing it, by saying that in order to fight unemployment I will have to fire you from your jobs and cut your cash flow and tax heavily not only the average but all Greek families till I gradually do away with you all).
As I said yesterday, we do not have the luxury for petty-grievances or sectoral union-related arbitrations (This is to confirm that I consider you completely unimportant and that I attack the spine of the Greek economy, which I had broken myself and my friends to kill all the rest of you out there, since without local produce – or with expensive imported produce, all Greek families will starve, from rural families to urban families, just like under German Occupation).
We do not have the luxury as a country to put up with protracted blockades, strikes and demonstrations. (That is why I would like to do all this as fast as possible, and as far as the Constitution and all its mandates are concerned that force me to respond to the farmers and to all the rest and respect / listen to the demands of all the mobilizations, I despise it as I despite all Greeks).
From now on, I will close this address which I hope will convince you as regards your extermination (and if not, then the mass media will make sure this convincing does happen), with unsustained arguments and petty emotionalism and real populism of the Kennedy type, who asked from Americans to uphold the state without expecting rewards instead of the state supporting Americans, and Hollywood-inspired mannerisms that make no sense with what I have already told you and intend to do to you. If you can shallow all that, then I’ll be better than my dad. We will work together so that I will become better than my dad in demagogy and deceit).
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And to see who his friends are, and to make sure that we are not in the least prejudiced in what we say, please use the following links to read the articles of a cosmopolitan newspaper / gossip magazine where upon, both text and pictures will show you exactly who his friends and his social class are and how happy he is that he consorts with them. When he tells us on what criteria he will try to finish off the Greek middle class, we shall come up with a new article, photos and newspaper clips to examine and ask officially how the power holders will tax those holdings that none of us had ever had chance to possess because they were never allowed to.
Translation provided by Michael T.