Stupidity is a fake crown that can nevertheless shine far and wide, and currently nobody is wearing this with greater pride than the main opposition party in the Greek parliament.

One would normally not waste breath or spittle in reference to this gathering of ignoramuses and incompetents, which for the six years they were in power until last October did all they could to give the final push down the cliff to the rickety contraption called the Greek state.

But when their ape-like bigotry makes headlines in Germany, at the very moment when the German ministry of finance is putting the finishing touches to the rescue package eagerly awaited by all of us here with the hope of avoiding utter ruin, they should be castigated in the firmest possible manner, lest people in the civilized world get the notion that all of us here are as brain dead as that.

On Thursday last one of their MP's for Thessaly disputed the right of the German government to prescribe fiscal rectitude for Greece on the grounds that Germany has not paid war-time reparations and that there are Greeks who are still mourning the fate of their fathers at the hands of the SS. This is taking the discussion to the lowest possible level of vulgarity, besides feeding the corresponding anti-Greek hysteria of the German tabloid press.

Someone ought to remind his Idiotic Honor that the billions of subsidies, on which his Thessalian constituents grew fat asses and bellies producing nothing and ruining the vital ecosystem of their area in the process, came primarily from the German exchequer. Besides, a huge part of the government loans that fed their appetite for luxury cars, villas and brothel fun also came from German banks. This shameless exploitation of historical traumas is a bathetic evasive action that I would not dignify with even a fart in the Honorable Member's face, except that it fosters an undercurrent of nationalist mindlessness on the streets which if not checked will make much more difficult the escape from the present deadly trap.

The incident also demonstrates that in political terms there is no alternative to the present government despite its manifest inadequacies. Its spokesmen to their credit have not adopted the Neanderthal approach of blaming the Europeans for the unconscionable squandering and stealing of European money by the Greek feudal elites. Just yesterday, at the meeting of European social democrat heads of government in London, the prime minister himself acknowledged again that Greece's plight is of its own making -although I could barely suppress a laugh seeing him seated next to the Norwegian Premier, whose country's social decency and probity is at the exact antipodes of the Greek case.

That said, it must be remarked that the authorities here are still hoping to banish the danger by applying a talking cure to the situation. They are a discombobulated crowd running in all directions like headless chickens at times. They keep desperately trying to apply rhetorical band-aids to a life-threatening wound. Their actions always come after the fact and after much resistance, which means that when they do come they are already overtaken by events.

Still, we will see how they face down the current sabotage of the country by striking customs officials. These latter are the vilest tribe of all-devouring beasts creeping on the face of this earth. They have been for generations exercising a ruthless stranglehold on the average citizen and business. Their systematic blackmail has rendered them fabulously rich, with the government rewarding this thuggery with outrageous bonuses in the hopes that some portion of what they extort from us might end up in the state's coffers. From what I hear the authorities are challenging the legality of the strike in court. Let's hope that they prevail.

All this makes even more imperative the strict and unbending supervision of Greek finances by the European authorities. This is of course humiliating for the average patriotic citizen here, who seems however to realize that the bitter pill is unavoidable if we are to escape the clutches of our domestic malefactors. What is in any case intolerable is to hear a member of the political party that put the last nail in the country's coffin emit shrill cries in defense of its national independence.

It is highly advisable that the Greek crisis be approached by all concerned without undue emotionality -especially of the rabble-rousing kind. Anger and resentment by the average European citizen at the trickery of successive Greek governments is understandable, but this should not degenerate into an anti-Greek hysteria with racist overtones.

The vulgar tirades of Bild Zeitung are stocking the worst reflexes of the German populace. Meanwhile in Holland the xenophobic parties of the extreme right have seized eagerly on the Greek issue, even proposing it seems a referendum for the expulsion of the country from the Eurozone. This is an ethical and political unraveling much worse than the economic one brought about by Hellenic slovenliness. This means going down the cliff of bristling national egoisms, i.e. back to Europe's calamitous past, precisely the condition that the founders of the European community had in mind to heal.

Besides, any such development would hurt drastically in economic terms the very countries of the self-disciplined North currently smarting from the irresponsibility of the lax south. For the Protestant work-ethic of Teutonic Europe is by no means innocent of blame for the current financial instability and imbalance. The "republic of the holier-than-thou" must own up to its own share, rather than wallow in its own national narcissism and the facile bashing of the "ouzo drinkers" and Club Med beach bums. I am borrowing these terms form an admirable article in yesterday's German edition of the Financial Times by Peter Ehrlich, a writer whose name is in rare and exemplary harmony with the sobriety and open-mindedness of the opinions he puts forward.

Cheap credit to sub-prime states like Greece actually fueled a consumer boom which benefited German exporting firms -not to speak of massive contracts with the Kiel shipyards to sell warships to the Hellenic navy. Greece is a market dominated by German economic might. Barring currency devaluation Germany has for a decade now resorted to wage devaluation ("wage dumping") in order to boost its competitiveness abroad. But in this manner domestic demand has been stifled, making it impossible for other countries of the Euro area to sell in the German market while furthering the one-sided orientation of the German economy towards exports. About half of German products are sold in the European common market. The Euro experiment has been a shield around weaker economies even encouraging the corruption we have seen in Greece. But it has also been an immense boon to German industry. It would be completely mindless to call for the dismantlement of this arrangement in order to satisfy one's vindictiveness against a delinquent member, since this would immediately plunge the "virtuous" segment of the EU into a dizzying downward economic spiral as well.

A responsible German government trying to overcome the initial firestorm of opposition to a Greek bailout (not least from within the ruling coalition) can and should put forward this argument from sheer economic self-interest. The cost of saving Greece from its own foolishness would be infinitely smaller than the one incurred if the country is allowed to go to the dogs. The emotional satisfaction from the latter choice would evaporate fast anyway.

Luckily, it seems that Merkel -despite her harsh tones in Brussels last week- has reached precisely this conclusion, if Die Zeit is to be believed (and the paper is categorical in this assertion). And in this manner she validates the best traditions of the pro-European German elites under both Schmidt and Kohl, who were willing to sacrifice the narrow national pride of the Germans, even giving up the mighty Deutschmark, in order to realize the noble goal of a united Europe and a European Germany. But she is also right insisting that "there are rules that must be obeyed".

At this point in time everybody's best bet, the one that also minimizes the moral hazard everybody is concerned with, is applying the screws on the Greek establishment so that the deep-cutting restructuring measures are implemented. Greece can be forced to heal herself under a regime of supervision and control explained to the people as the necessary medicine in order to get rid of the toxic past. And, as I have written before, the people to their credit seem to understand this clearly enough. There is the distinct and realistic possibility of a self-sustaining "virtuous circle" arising in due time from all this.

There will be another noisy strike this coming Wednesday, but this also will be just an exercise in face saving by the corrupt trade union leadership. With respect to the government, the current prime minister is a very slow learner, but at least he does learn something in the end, if only because he has no choice. That he professes to be a "socialist" provides him with a smokescreen of ideological legitimacy to begin chopping off the heads of the vile public sector, the many-headed Hydra that his father created. Remember that it was Nixon who could afford to travel to communist China..... In our case it takes a "socialist" to attack the Potemkin village of a bogus "welfare state" under whose cover the most outrageous regime of social inequality, discrimination and exploitation was erected. The European leaders must see that it is in their own interest to support him in this enterprise, leaning hard on him of course but at the same time promising tangible support in no equivocal terms.

There is a poisonous undertone to the debate here concerning the ruinous state of public finances. The sophisticated version of this was expressed by the prime minister himself, and it amounts to the claim that the situation is to a significant extent the fault of Europe. There is a modicum of truth to this, acknowledged by Juncker himself yesterday. It is a fact that the Europeans were not monitoring the situation and thus gave free rein to the Greek government's impulse to gobble up other nations' money to feed the ravenous greed of its hangers on. But from this to conclude that the cause of the collapse here is the weakness of the European authorities is total perversion of the truth. The waste and corruption is entirely home grown, and to its credit the government acknowledges this.

Still, the anti-European rancor, however hedged, has deleterious consequences. Firstly, it encourages the international speculators to assume that there are no financial teeth to the European declaration of solidarity, thus digging deeper the hole that the country is in. Secondly, it stokes the sentiment of perennial national victimhood emanating from the extreme right and left and finding fertile ground among the broader masses.

The worst service that one can render this society at the moment is to erect a wall of nationalist denial, under the pretense that the crisis is just an attack against "the people" by sinister foreign forces.

This, firstly, is a big fat lie. As it has emerged in the last few days these sinister foreign forces (a.k.a. Goldman Sachs) have been actively colluding with the Greek government in order to cover up the tyrannical debauchery of the Greek feudal elite. Secondly, if this notion takes root in the public mind (and it has not yet) it will simply render impossible even the mildest effort at reform. The syndrome of the "saintly nation" under attack from all points of the compass will again assert itself.

It was this mindless nationalist reflex to begin with which played a decisive role in the deterioration of public finances. For it caused the country's horrendous military spending, the highest in NATO. This is a factor that has not been touched at all by the foreign commentators. The colossal defense expenditure was fertile ground for the most insidious and vile corruption. The ministry of defense has been traditionally a worm-hole teeming with seedy contractors and middlemen trading on a generalized feeling, promoted by pseudo-journalists in their pay, of peril pressing on the country's eastern and northern borders. The result has been a military establishment loaded with useless hardware, a flabby, unwieldy squid of a thing capable only of putting on pompous shows. If, God-forbid, it ever came to an armed confrontation between Greece and Turkey, half of the country would be overrun in a matter of hours -Cyprus in 1974 is a telling precedent. Not because there are no brave and dedicated men in the ranks capable of the highest heroism. But because, as everybody knows, the whole set up is rotten to the core, geared to serving the private interests of an unscrupulous mafia an in no sense the real defense needs of the state. Lots of highly intelligent, conscientious and public minded persons can after all be found everywhere in the recesses, cracks and holes of the rickety and oppressive structure called the Greek state. But they have no impact whatsoever on its functioning.

It is highly significant that the very same "journalists" and opinion makers that were instrumental in fanning the nationalist hysteria since the disintegration of Yugoslavia in particular are the very same individuals beating the drums today against the EU and against the government which is trying, however ineffectually, to implement the restructuring that might make possible the European rescue.

An essential feature of that restructuring has to be the drastic reduction in defense spending, something which would in parallel necessitate a sincere and determined effort to resolve the differences with Turkey in the Aegean. This sincerity and determination has been lacking in official policy up to now, precisely because of the hegemony in the ignorant media and the venal political classes of the nationalist hotheads clamoring for confrontation with all and sundry. The present prime minister in times past has been one of the rare leaders pushing for enlightened accommodation in the international relations of the country, only to be ambushed by the pit-bulls of nationalism in his own party in particular. This is the moment to face these dogs down once and for all, if he summons up the requisite courage.

Yesterday's Guardian characterizes the Greek prime minister's pledges of radical reductions in the budget deficit as "mythological". Die Zeit on the other hand considers the decision to step in with financial support as already taken, the precise details of the operation being a secondary matter. The Rubicon towards a new European arrangement of common economic and, tacitly, political government has already been crossed. The two points of view are in fact complementary, for it is the Greek government's fuzziness and inability to put in practice its declared intentions that will necessitate the bailout. At any event, if the rapaciousness and incompetence of the Greek ruling classes have served as the instrument for bringing the Europeans face to face with a choice that cannot be avoided, then something supremely good will have come out of the present sorry situation.

The whole issue is at the same time embroiled in the civil war raging within the German ruling coalition, with the Free Democrats being adamantly opposed to any rescue involving German money. It is a "good" thing from the point of view for the bankrupted country ("good", that is, in the immediate sense of not going under straightaway, although whether it will be good in the real sense of leading to a complete overhaul of its feudal structures depends on the strictness of the international supervision)that Westerwelle has drawn the ire of significant segments of the establishment because of his clumsy attacks against the principle of the welfare state. If the person who considers the very idea of social solidarity as equivalent to collectivist "socialism" (like the blockheads of Republican extremism in the US who led the world to the precipice in the first place) is at the same time the chief voice against the Greek plan, then his loss of political standing will also undermine the campaign against the financial rescue.

It remains true, certainly, that the large majority of the German people are also against it -for good reason from their point of view. There is indeed something outrageous in Greeks striking against the extension of the working age to the 63d year, while Germans already must work to the age of 67. If, however, it is explained to the latter that if they do not do it now they will be forced to do it later at a much higher price, public opinion will come around. It is a straightforward choice between a lesser and a greater evil.

In point of fairness, it should be stressed that those clamoring in the streets of Athens do not represent the majority opinion. It is firmly established through repeated surveys that large majorities here also favor a radical restructuring plan, provided that it does not weigh disproportionately upon the middle and lower classes that have been bled dry by the political establishment for years on end but also wipes away the scandalous privileges of the party apparatchiks, the public sector bosses and their parasitical coterie. The rest of us are also going to suffer badly -there is no way around that. But at least we will be able to endure it with some equanimity knowing that the architects of this moral and economic disaster have been shorn of their oppressive feudal privileges (some of them hopefully ending behind bars).

A more sober assessment of the European declaration on Greece a couple of days ago may lead one to the conclusion that Merkel's position of refusing immediate financial aid was the right one after all. She did state that Greece would not stand alone, and this, as the Frankfurter Allgemeine noted, may be plausibly construed as a pledge for future last-ditch assistance when things come to a head next April.

That Greece cannot be allowed to default is, to my mind, a shared understanding behind the scenes. That would be a tsunami of colossal proportions, sweeping away the Euro and much else besides. The markets, beginning Monday, will of course call the European bluff, to see if it is a bluff. The Euro will weaken in the short term, but this is not either an unexpected or an unwanted thing, least of all by the German export-led economy. The Greek spreads will also rise.

But if, on a clear-headed reading, it becomes obvious to all players that should an endgame situation arise, then the bailout will be forthcoming, then those betting against Europe at the moment may yet get their fingers burned. This decision can wait for another month, so Merkel may have been just right in opposing Sarkozy's drive for an immediate rescue package. The Frankfurter Allgemeine again called her firm stance a "victory of reason". That's a bit saccharine. It may have been a victory for Germany's best interest, and secondarily for the best interest of everyone involved. The French view of the Euro has always been political, rather than strictly monetary -and there is something to be said about that. But this a long term proposition, involving the inevitable move in the direction of a political federation which is even right now bruited about under Rompuy's neat formula of a common "economic government". For the time being, however, the paramount goal is to secure that the Euro remains a hard currency, without it beginning to melt like Dali's clocks and watches. It is in this sense that Angela's hardness is tied up with the hardness of the common currency itself, thus performing good service for the European idea.

With respect to Greece it has to be made clear and understood beyond any doubt by the ruling class here, as well as by the people at large who have been misled and corrupted through the antics of the said criminal syndicate, that the rescue is going to be proffered under draconian conditions. There is no doubt that part of Merkel's strategy was to take the supervision of the Greek fiscal situation away from the feckless Barroso and his coterie of happy-go-lucky commissioners doing their somersaults in their ideological and nationalist clouds, and into the hands of the ECB and the IMF. This in practice means running Greece from Frankfurt (with Washington crucially involved from the sidelines). This is, as I have written before, a salutary development for the country. In the long run it is going to result in a much healthier situation here both in terms of economic growth and economic equality. But before this transpires the extremely unpleasant purgatives will have to be gulped down, so that the deadly toxins now rampant in the system are cleared away.

These toxins, let it be said, include specific individuals and groups of individuals who led -in full knowledge of what they were doing- the present descent to hell.

In his statement yesterday the Greek prime minister accepted as an unavoidable fact the ceding of "national sovereignty" in the economic area as well as the harsh restructuring measures that it implies. But he coupled this admission with a lot of grumbling about the failures of Europe herself as well as the malicious actions of "speculators". This smacks like an attempt to shift the blame for the hideous mess on to others, a standard practice by the media, the political parties and the average coffee shop philosopher here. Let us hope that this outburst was for domestic consumption alone.

A writer in today's Die Welt finds a literary parallel to Greece's current woes in Zorba and his harebrained schemes.

But this is not apt. Zorba was a heroic visionary. He was full of natural humanity and creative energy, his projects were attempts to improve the world he was living in. Of course he was reckless and everything came crushing down around his ears. But this was a noble failure.

There is nothing noble or uplifting in this society's present predicament. Zorba was defeated by the inspiring range of his fantasizing, by the greatness of his values. The present debacle here is completely devoid of values; its salient character is rather the reduction of human striving to pure vegetative passivity. The chief value in the life of this place for a generation now -if that's the word for it- has been gratifying one's cravings by all means and at the expense of those around him and the wider society. In this environment all transcendent quests of the human spirit simply went forfeit.

Foremost in this debasement were the ideals of the left, which now became simply the cover for the most sordid bilking of the public purse for private gain. All and sundry suddenly declared themselves leftists, including those that had shamelessly served the dictatorship of the colonels. And in the process those most craven in their new found party-political zeal colonized the public sector falling with exemplary mania upon the common property of the nation in an orgy of plunder.

The signal for this charge of the insatiable brigades was given in the early 80's under the administration of Andreas Papandreou, who in a memorable pronouncement set the ceiling for ....bribe-taking and the pilfering of public property (yes, you read right!) for those in the state administration at the astronomical sum of 500 million drachmas (1467351,43 euros in today's prices). This occurred under the cover of deafening paeans to the People and "anti-imperialist" oratory. Arafat was repeatedly honored guest in the country. Brezhnev at his funeral was eulogized as one of the greatest world leaders of all times. Ghadafi was praised to the skies and the false declaration was made that he was supplying us with a billion dollar credit line. And when the Soviets shot down the Korean civilian airliner in 1983, Greece, which at the time was holding the rotating presidency of the European community, actually came out in defense of this crime outraging and disgusting the nations it was supposed to represent. You get the picture....

What was to follow was totally predictable, and the first financial collapse occurred in 1985. But the country was then saved by a hefty devaluation of the currency, by running up the sovereign debt which was still at relatively low levels, and by using up the European regional funds. After a brief period of consolidation that came to an end in 1987, the spiral of generalized stealing from the public recommenced. This time it was the turn of the pension funds to be depleted. The ruin was completed during the infamous all-party government of 1989-90, when the state was practically auctioned off to the highest private briber. It was at this time that SIEMENS virtually hired the entire political class to secure its monopoly in the domestic telecommunications market. The next binge of private profiteering at the expense of society and the average citizen took shape around the tasteless farce called the Olympic games, which has left behind the rusting hulks of various useless white elephants, with the rowing complex at Marathon for example having by now turned into a stinking swamp. This rampage continued under the pseudo-conservative administration that was voted out of office last October. They had come to power promising the cleaning up of the state administration and finances and proved themselves to be worse looters than their predecessors. When they realized that the ship was now sinking fast they abandoned it like slimy rats.

This is the story in short. And it has nothing in common with the barefoot dancing of Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates on that Cretan beach.

A significant side-issue of the moral hazard involved in the current Greek situation involves Ireland. It is indeed unfair that Ireland, having undertaken significant self-correcting measures, should watch from the sidelines as the Greek elites benefit from their own deliberate delinquency.

But, if one wishes to discuss this from the moral point of view, if Ireland succeeds in reforming itself it will avoid the humiliation of external tutelage that Greece ought to submit to. It will reap the satisfaction of its own virtue, something that will enormously strengthen her claim to belong to the hard core of the European association with equal deciding rights. Whatever the outcome in Greece, on the contrary, that country will be placed in the guard house for a very long period to be watched for recidivism which is highly likely if it is let off easily now.

Ireland, you see, is a serious society and a culture highly self-conscious of its history. The Irish were tyrannized over by the British, but they had the greatness of soul to absorb what is best in the British mentality, namely the spirit of moderation and compromise and a commitment to the common good. These seeds took a long time to sprout, but they bore the fruit that are plainly visible in the northern part of the Gaelic island. That the terrorist affiliated wing of Ulster unionism and the terrorist affiliated wing of republican nationalism would form a common government there, which moreover is committed to overcoming the inevitable hurdles that keep propping up, is a splendid outcome and an inspiration to all civilized people. The Irish are ensconced in the very heart of the European idea.

If the Greek political classes had shown just a tiny fragment of this good sense with respect, let's say, to the problems in Cyprus and the Aegean those situations would have been resolved long ago to the immense benefit of the Greek people themselves who would have thus avoided paying the bloody price for the imbecilic choices of their rulers. But, again, the Irish showed a marvelous capacity of learning from their history.

Modern Greeks like to portray themselves as the paradigmatic "suffering nation" of European history, a stereotype that has been mightily reinforced by the color-blind "anti-imperialism" of the Greek left. But this hagiographic self-image, like every other aspect of official culture here, is based upon a thorough ignorance and/or distortion of the historical record it appeals to. It has no inkling of, and even if it did it would not care a bit about, the martyrdom let's say of the Irish people, let alone that of the Scots or the Poles or -God forbid- the Jews. The well-nigh annihilation of the Irish in the potato famine, for instance, is a non-event as far as the public mind is concerned. Historical injustice, like just about everything else really, is supposed to be the exclusive ownership of the modern Greek "race", thus giving it special claims and privileges vis-a-vis other peoples who must do perpetual penance for the real and imaginary sufferings inflicted on this "saintly nation". This caricature of historicity, primed by the shrill cries of vulgar and venal politicos and pseudo-journalists, is always the last court of appeal.

That the flag of the European union should be burned in the streets of Athens by corpulent farmers, whose huge belly -over which they had laboriously to bend in order to light the match- is due entirely to the subsidies of the European agricultural policy, is just a graphic illustration of this warped way of thinking. Ireland should be proud not to be in this moral bind.

But then again, as Stiglitz argues (and he of course knows better), the Irish austerity measures may not be working. If this is the case, then Ireland has a greater claim to an EU bailout compared to the third digit of the PIGS acronym -which incidentally is the only one rightly associated with that unfortunate animal. Germany, I am afraid, should also in her own interest take that in stride.