Is Greece entitled to special treatment?

With regards to the general Eurozone crisis and the crisis in Greece with sovereign debt and tax collection.

We are seeing more and more out of the EU (ie Germany and France) saying that the Greek people have to be made to pay, that elections in Greece should not happen if it means the people use their democratic right to reject the austerity measures.

And it strikes me, and this is a serious question, is Greece entitled to special treatment?

Democracy exists because of Greece.
"The West" exists because of Greece.
Christianity exists because of Greece.

Do we owe special treatment to the motherland of our (assuming most people who are here are Americans, Canadians, Aussies and Europeans) civilisations?

I believe we owe the soldiers and sailors of Athens a debt we can never repay. I dont think Greece has a right to be funded by the rest of the world (not do I think Greek people want this) but I do think Western nations should treat the Greek debts differently.

 

I think your three attributions are overstretched to the point of becoming factually dubious (not to mention the third is not something I'd put in the 'awards' column, but I digress...)

Ignoring that, I'm not sure how the achievements of an ancient civilisation translate into benefits or deference for a group of people who quite literally had nothing to do with it. Does America owe modern England special treatment because the history of our origin? How about England giving modern France special treatment because of the Norman conquest?

Seems like a non-sequitur to me. Why does a person or group deserve anything just for being born in the same place that something kind of important or beneficial happened there sometime in the last 3000 years?

 

The US stood by the UK in WWII when it was not necessarily in its interests to do so.

Economics was part of it. Revulsion of Nazism also (although Hitler would not have survived in peace time.) History was also a part of it I suspect.

 

Yeah, but the United States created the fuckin' atomic bomb, Jack Daniel's, thong underwear and the M134 minigun.

People need to give us money.

/logic

It seems to me that history is basically a story of epic has-beens. Greece, Rome, Spain, France, Germany, etc.

All great empires fall. The United States seems to be on a downward spiral given the economy, education, industry, etc.

Countries like China and India are going through their post-industrial revolution faster than an '80s movie montage.

Does Greece deserve help? I guess so, since Germany has been carrying them (and Europe) for several years now.

/that enough of the long game?

 

I don't believe they deserve special treatment because of their contributions to civilization and find that an odd way of looking it. Being the idealistic pragmatist I am, I consider the issue to be first, what is fair, reasonable and manageable, followed closely by - what will ultimately produce the desired results?

Are the Greek people demanding special treatment? I don't see it that way. European economies took a huge hit, due almost entirely to the failures of the same financial institutions which are now holding European heads underwater. Financial institutions which were generously rescued themselves from drowning in their own mess. On behalf of these institutions (now recovered and back to "business as usual"), the economies which had been better equipped to survive the debacle have been instructed to impose severe austerity measures on those which were not. I see plenty of unfairness and cries for special treatment here. I just don't see any of it coming from the countries who citizens are now rejecting the demand that they bear the entire brunt of a collapse which left their economies devastated and which they were not wholly responsible for.

I don't consider a request that these stern measures be re-evaluated and adjusted, to be special treatment. I think it's become quite clear that, as well as being unfair, they aren't working. Austerity seems to have only worsened the Greek economy and debt situation, leading them (IMO) into the default it was meant to prevent. These measures need to be adjusted to a more reasonable and realistic level, in conjunction with significant debt forgiveness and an EU and IMF loosening of the purse strings to provide stimulus and spur the sort of growth necessary to get them back on an even keel.

The claim that Greece will "force itself" into a removal from the EU if it democratically rejects the imposed austerity measures is ridiculous bullshit. The Greek people don't want a return to the drachma or independence from the EU and I'm not convinced it's more than a threat anyway. If this banishment does come about it will be because Merkel and her cohorts believe it is advantageous and required to impress upon other struggling EU members, the consequence of rejecting imposed policies. The great conservative deterrent method.

I know I'm grossly oversimplifying the situation, in regard to the way capitalist economics operates, but it's in my socialist and humanist nature not to give a rat's ass. Play fair damnit. At the very least, if it's apparent that a plan isn't working, the choices are simple. Revise the plan or scrap it and make a new plan. What is it about the conservative crapitalist mindset which continues to believe that squeezing a bone dry lemon harder will yield more juice when it never, ever does?

It remains to be seen how much influence the new French President will have. Will he stand his ground or buckle?

 

No, at that time, during the American Depression, war was very much in the interest of the US. The war machine was reviving the economy and if 1 war was good (Japan), 2 were better.

I won't deny there was a good deal of loyalty but most of it was on the part of American citizens for its European brethren and true, the government was split between isolationists and progressives but war was generally viewed as good medicine to cure what ailed us. American businessmen were happy either way. They were already getting rich from their dealings with the Nazis. Profiting directly from US military contracts as well, was icing on the cake.

If it hadn't been for WWII, America would look more like Canada now. Not a wealthy superpower in its final blush, but doing just fine, thank you, content to be the quiet neighbor who minds his own business.

In retrospect, involving ourselves in the war may not have been in our best interests.

 

it makes little sense to isolate greece from the overall structure of the euro-zone, from other countries that are having difficulties on the order of spain (at the moment), the problems that follow from the obsolescence of nation-states to manage transnational financial flows, the ways in which new versions of older power relations are being articulated in the relatively invisible spaces of currency and debt transactions and so on. the problems that greece raises, then, are structural and quite deep and the outcomes will have little if anything to do with the sentimental notions outlined in the op. the problem, really, is understanding what the structures are that are shaping the outcomes for places like greece and spain...but that's a different vector of research.

so to answer the question in the op. no. but the questions seem to me beside the point.

 

I am surprised that democracy means so little to some people.

The reason you can vote is not the american revolution or simon du monfort, but 11000 greeks on a beach in marathon who threw a persian army of 100000 back into the sea.

 

After they were bombed by the Japanese in retaliation for embargoes.​

Greece being the home of Christianity would mean it was the heart of a movement that stripped women of their rights. The reason I can vote is because my fore fathers defended these shores from invasion (after we invaded it ourselves). The reason I can vote is because women threw themselves in front of the kings horse and endured forced feeding and imprisonment fighting for the vote. If I were to thank anyone for having the vote, it would be the suffragettes.
ttp://www.thetfp.com/threads/is-greece-entitled-to-special-treatment.3877/#ixzz1wWWqzLmd​

 

So, basically:

...

This... was... Sparta! *​

* Sparta shown actually relevance​

...​

 

The Spartans were moral cowards, who preferred martyrdom to actually victory.

All of the important victories were won by the free men of Athens, not Spartan slavers.

 

I say no.

 

I cant deny that in Athens gender equality was not as well advanced as it might have been (but certainly better off than the Persian empire) but in Sparta women had much more freedom and equality than any contemporary society.

I am not saying Greek democracy was perfect, but it was the seed through which everything else flourished.

And whatever you can blame the church for, Jesus (from everything we know about the historical person) could hardly be accused of repressing women.
--- merged: Jun 1, 2012 at 1:41 PM ---

I mean that Sparta did not play the most significant part in the key battles against the Persians. They did have some victories in the Greek civil wars, and they did play an important part in the battle of Plataea to be fair. The "stand of the 300" was a meaningless gesture of no strategic value... the really key victories at Marathon and all of the naval battles were dominated by Athens and her allies.

But Sparta was a fascist society worthy of little admiration. They did not protect Athens, but for most of their history they struggled against each other.

The Spartans even sided with the Persians against Alexander.

 

At the battle of Salamis the Spartans had something like 10 boats. It was a Greek victory, but one that was lead by Athens.

Like I said, in the battle of Plataea Sparta played a key role, but it was not "under the leadership" of Sparta.

And Alexander was a conqueror, but not any more brutal than any one else of his age, just much better. And he freed the people who had been placed under slavery to Persian despotism.