The talking (empty) heads of the Greek media and their partners in emptiness in parliament are in a tiff. Their "national honor" has been insulted by the cover of Focus magazine in Germany, depicting the Venus di Milo showing the finger. That this expresses the extremely hostile feelings of the average European citizen towards the lying and cheating policies of successive Greek governments goes without saying -but the prime victims of this trickery have been the Greek people themselves. So it violates basic human decency for the leaders of Greek feudalism who have destroyed the economic and ethical basis of their society by pocketing for themselves the vast sums of European economic assistance to affect an innocence they do not have. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. They deserve not just this kind of humorous put down, but infinitely more severe treatment which must include, if not the scaffold, definitely long jail terms. The unfortunate thing is that this shameless demagogy of the very people that brought the country to the brink of the abyss finds fertile ground among the people in the street, the principal victims I repeat of the thuggery of those now protesting about "national honor". This poisonous sentiment is a serious impediment to the implementation of any set of real economic reforms.

With respect to the "national" dimension of the Focus cover: one may call it tasteless -that would be legitimate. But to rip one's clothes in the name of the "sacredness" of antique symbols mishandled by vicious foreigners is just rank hypocrisy, which is in plentiful supply here. In the past few years storm troopers from the parties of the left have repeatedly invaded and occupied the Acropolis (breaking down gates by night etc.) in order to cover its entire southern (Cimonian) wall with their hideous placards denouncing now a visit by the American secretary of state, now this or that government policy. One cannot envisage a more vicious desecration than that. And yet not one of these highly sensitive national souls currently frothing at the mouth had a single word of protest to utter against this barbaric usurpation of the supreme symbol of Hellenic spiritual achievement by the philistine hordes of party-political brutishness. And the reason for this silence, amounting to support, was of course that the perpetrators of this cultural atrocity were self-proclaimed communists and "anti-imperialists". Under this cover any and every filthy anti-social act, including actual crimes, is readily excused in this country.

The campaign of the official classes against Focus stinks of pettiness and dishonesty. It is, above all, testimony to their complete ignorance of and contempt for Hellenic ideals.