Samaras' Golden Dawn Trump Card: Joker

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the New Democracy Capitalist leader, may yet rue that he sat on his hands and let the neo-Nazi nutcakes of Golden Dawn run amok, beating immigrants, demanding the arrest of blasphemers, shutting down plays, intimidating gays, blaming Jews, Zionists, Americans, aliens, Scientologists, genetically modified crops, the Bilderberg Group, Masons, Turkey, Leftists, Communists, the New World Order, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, bankers and bogeymen for the country’s economic crisis, and otherwise acting like they were above the law because they were.
Samaras wanted Golden Dawn’s voters – at least the alleged centrists among them he said were not Nazis. Many of them were disenchanted with the traditional parties of New Democracy and its partner, the PASOK Anti-Socialists, and rightfully so for imposing austerity measures on the most vulnerable while allowing Parliament workers, politicians, the rich and crooked to escape once again.
He didn’t get the Golden Dawn voters and once he let the Frankenstein walk around too long he decided after the murder of an anti-fascist hip-hop artist last year that it was time to marshal the villagers with torches and go after the monster. The only problem is that a lot of the villagers prefer the monster.
Samaras was hailed by American Jewish leaders for cracking down on the anti-Semites, but they were curiously reticent to criticize him when he was doing nothing while Golden Dawn ran up its numbers enough to take a lock on third among the country’s most popular parties, proving that you can fool all the people all of the time, at least those without brains or hearts.
It’s inexplicable, but somehow Golden Dawn leader Nikos “Little Fuhrer” Michaloliakos, who is three bricks shy of a load, has convinced somewhere around 10 percent of Greeks that he has the solution to the country’s problems, which is to rid it of all foreigners, including presumably the Chinese who own the port of Piraeus and could be economic saviors, and for his blackshirts to take power.
Putting aside that they couldn’t run a periptero, never mind a government, what Samaras set in motion when he didn’t act against the party is now coming back to haunt him and threaten Greece’s democracy. Make that Plutocracy.
Samaras, whose party has some strong Golden Dawn sympathizers and would love to see an alliance with them, has sicced justice on these Looney Tunes too late.
All 18 of the party’s Members of Parliament have been arrested and eight of them, including Michaloliakos, are in jail awaiting trial on charges of running a criminal gang that couldn’t shoot straight.
Because it’s taken so long for them to face a court, however, some could be let out if a maximum 18-month detention period expires, including Michaloliakos, which would allow him to conspire again to bring down the government, if he can stop drooling and spitting bile while he’s screaming. This guy couldn’t even spell I.Q.
All the government has done is make martyrs of people who aren’t worthy of being called human, given their propensity for violence and insanity. They’re so crazy Hannibal Lecter wouldn’t eat them, even with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
THE FULL COURT STALL
The jailed Golden Dawn hierarchy has been playing for time, filing motions to get rid of the prosecutors on grounds they’re too prosecutorial, and refusing to testify before magistrates, while the government has been slow off the mark even though some 10,000 pages of alleged evidence and digital files showing party leaders playing Nazis has been amassed.
Going after a political party, even if it’s peopled with lizards and cretins, is risky business because these people were elected, and the backlash has shown. Never mind that that’s indisputable Golden Dawn is riddled with criminals, it has to be proved. They’ve already enjoyed above the law status and now there are fears they could fight the law and win.
It’s unlikely, of course, because the government will likely put in the fix and squeeze the judiciary to rule in its favor. Hell, we all know they did it anyway, although it has to be proved, which is a lot like saying prove there’s a sun on a cloudy day.
In April, Panayiotis Baltakos, then one of Samaras’ top aides – he likes to surround himself with people who have to wear tie shoes so they won’t float out of the room – was seen on a videotape secretly recorded by Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, adding to his crimes – saying that the government didn’t have a peg leg to stand on in its case.
“”They left you out of prison for so long as they didn’t have evidence,” Baltakos said, adding that the government convinced prosecutors that Golden Dawn was a bunch of “pagans, idolaters, Nazis and opposed to Christianity” while proclaiming to also be against blasphemers.
Baltakos said that a crackdown “would backfire, winning the party sympathy from voters disgusted with the establishment and alienating conservative constituencies such as the army and church,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Last year he said that cooperation between New Democracy and Golden Dawn in future elections was “undesirable but not an unlikely possibility,” and while New Democracy officials tried to distance themselves from his remarks, and Samaras was forced to jettison him, the Conservatives still covet the extremists’s supporters.
If not for the murder of Pavlos Fyssas, for which a member of Golden Dawn was arrested, the party would still be running around doing damage, and the government would be doing nothing because there’s a very thin line between New Democracy and Michaloliakos’ zealots.
The fate of Golden Dawn, mishandled by the government, is now in the hands of the law, where it belongs. But it ain’t over ’til its over.
“If it is not handled properly, you could get a kind of a bounce back of Golden Dawn,” said George Katrougalos, a constitutional law professor at the Democritus University of Thrace told the Christian Science Monitor. “If they appear to be victims of the establishment, that may broaden their appeal.”
Let’s hope that when it’s done, Michaloliakos is left to sing this song: “I Fought the Law, and the Law Won.”