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Toxic addiction to the drachma

29 July 2015 / 16:07:06  GRReporter
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Until very recently, the discussion about Greece returning to the drachma was a taboo. The decision of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, however, to conclude a truce with creditors and begin negotiations on a third rescue programme has brought to the fore those forces in SYRIZA that not only do not exclude such a development but have worked to achieve it.

The most prominent representative of the fans of the drachma turns out to be Yanis Varoufakis, who has admitted that he had been drawing up a plan for the return to the drachma throughout his term in the Ministry of Finance. The majority of Greek society is still scandalized by the disclosures and justice is launching criminal proceedings for the actions of the group led by him.

Another avowed admirer of the drachma is famous former Minister of Production Reconstruction and Energy but mostly leader of the Left Platform in SYRIZA Panagiotis Lafazanis. It turned out that his plan for the return to the national currency included the arrest of the governor of the Bank of Greece and the robbery of the mint.

Two days ago, the Left Platform celebrated the fifth anniversary of its website iskra.gr, named after the newspaper published by Lenin. In his speech, Lafazanis did not hesitate to accuse all who oppose the return to the national currency and urged the government not to sign any agreement with creditors before the party bodies in SYRIZA discussed the matter.

Regardless of whether Alexis Tsipras will disaffiliate the proponents of the drachma from the party or not in the coming days, the idea of ​​leaving the euro zone now seems to be deeply rooted in a large part of Greek society. Meet drachmistits through the analysis of writer and publicist Takis Theodoropoulos in the Greek newspaper Kathimerini.

For Lafazanis and the bunch of commies led by him, the return to the drachma is something like a youth dream that occurred when they were watching Sergei Eisenstein’s "Battleship Potemkin" for the first time. They are waiting for the moment that Greece will start falling down the stairs in Odessa as a baby stroller to take action. They will close the borders and all of us along with them, and finally they will be able to avenge the bloodshed during the Civil War, act as Beria and bring order in the country. It is time for this to happen, because capitalism has gone too far already. Governor of the Bank of Greece Yiannis Stournaras will play the role of Tsar Nicholas, the owners of kiosks will be the kulaks and the script is ready.

Of course, Lenin will be absent, but anyway, he will be in their thoughts. His spirit is freely walking in the manuals for senior Leninism that they read in the colleges of the Greek Communist Party. In the end, they speak of what they know. Nobody believes that Panagiotis Lafazanis is capable of thinking in economic terms, Mrs. Valavani being the possible exception, but no one requires it from him. So many millions of Greeks believe that the drachma will make the country more competitive on the international markets of oregano and sage, and that the drachma means an automatic deletion of all kinds of obligations, as well as deletion of bank loans, public burning of credit cards and mortgages, freedom of accounts, perfection.

For better or worse, some are more suspicious than Lafazanis and his commies. They are the economists of anti-Europeanism, those who think that the euro is not to their taste, that in theory, which they know well, things are quite different, and they want to blow up the euro. And if the damn euro has no intentions to blow itself up, they are blowing up each coin that is still freely circulating in the poor country that is under capital controls and that is proudly importing essential commodities. They are happy about themselves, they are people who can tell their wives, "Honey, I have just closed the banks".* Who can make such a big gift to his beloved one and not be sure that his marriage is doing well?

The third category is the happiest among all others. These people are patiently waiting to buy olive trees with their savings in euro but to pay for them in drachmas and to produce their own olive oil because they are tired of using local olive oil, as our national singer Angela Dimitriou says. You would say that these interests are invincible, just like the stupidity of commies. Of course, there is also the underground movement of the Greek-national-feeling-stricken ones, which is the infinite blue of the soul of the "proud Greek" who ultimately wants his previous wad. And he wants to possess it, because if it is his own he can do with it whatever he wants, as he does with his child or the sidewalk. He can even park his car on it. Moreover, he understands economics. He is singing "what do you need money for" and his spirits are rising.

However, sentiment is the most dangerous thing with regard to the toxic addiction to the drachma for which they are working. Economic arguments are rejected by logic. The same is true for political ones, at least to some extent. However, I am afraid that one can hardly refute the sentiment implying that the bells of national independence will toll immediately after the drachma is put into circulation. Let us understand that the drachma has already taken place in the arsenal of national populism and oppose it precisely for that.

Yet another gadget next to Aris Velouchiotis** and Kougi***.

* This was what Yanis Varoufakis told his wife Danae Stratou at the end of the day when capital controls were imposed, as he himself said in an interview with the New Yorker magazine.

Tags: PoliticsReturn to the drachmaPlan BYanis VaroufakisPanagiotis LafazanisNational populism
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