Kitsos on Greek-American "Leaders."
I had been following the events in the United States having to do with the enthronement and subsequent removal of the former Archbishop of America, Spyridon. Although many of the articles and much of the commentary disagreed as to certain particulars, all were in agreement on one thing: Spyridon was thought to be 'too Greek' for our Greek-American brothers and sisters. How could this be? For years I'd been under the impression that our compatriots in the New World were the creme de la creme of Hellenism. That we, here in the "Old Country," were not half as patriotic as they. That we could learn much from emulating their unique blend of acquired Anglo-Saxon organizational skills mixed with our inborn Hellenic intelligence and virtues. What an unbeatable combination! Or, at least that's what I thought till this matter concerning the former Archbishop came along.
I must admit to you that I was amazed and disgusted. Of course, you may be thinking that I am over-reacting. That my dismay and disillusionment are merely the symptoms of an old man yearning for a world that existed only in his imagination. No! Emphatically no! I pride myself on being a pragmatist, quite aware of the foibles and shortcomings of our Race. We Hellenes are arguably the most self-destructive, opinionated, power-hungry, fractious, egomaniacal individualists on this planet. Agreed! We've been bemoaning the existence of these traits in our DNA for millenniums. What is happening over there in America, though, is, I think, different. The difference being that as bad and as divided as we always were (and are), there were certain ideas and causes that we could all rally to. Certain dangers that we would confront together. Dangers, like the absolute necessity of making sure that Hellas survived in the powder-keg neighborhood that God, in his inscrutable wisdom, saw fit to locate us; causes, such as making sure that, wherever we found ourselves on this planet, our children would be taught the language, tradition and religion of their forebears; and ideas, such as what a singular and absolutely wonderful thing it is to be a Hellene: the bearer in one's genes of the unique, culture-creating miracle that we have bequeathed, by the grace of God, to humanity. All of these things, it seems, don't seem to count for much in Greek-America. I began to wonder if perhaps these people would be the first and only Hellenes in our long history to "drop the shield." I was fascinated by this question, and so I decided to put it to the one man whose opinions weigh more with me than any other; my friend, and manager of my country estate in Boeotia, Kitsos.
It was late fall. The sound of hunters firing their shotguns could be heard off in the distance. There was a penetrating chill in the air and I had a huge olive-wood log ablaze in the fireplace. I was looking forward to an interesting chat with my friend, and when he finally arrived I was pleasantly surprised to see him looking as sprightly as ever, even though he had been supervising the annual picking of olives in my ancestral groves and had put in a long day. Kitsos is a man who I would guess is in his late 50s to early 60s (he won't say exactly), though you would never know it by looking at him. He is an exceptionally vigorous man, both physically and mentally, and I've always enjoyed watching him use his body in hard physical labor and, even more, his mind, as he wrestles with the conundrums and questions I am in the habit of putting to him. A wide-ranging autodidact, there does not seem to be a book that he has not delved into. And, like a diver in a sea of ignorance, his life has been a persistent search for the pearls of knowledge and wisdom overlooked by lesser men..
"Tell me, afentiko" [boss], he said as he came into my den, "will you be here until after we finish the gathering, or will you be leaving for Athens before that?"
"I will be leaving well before, Kitsos. Why?"
"Some of the villagers are organizing a boar hunt in Epirus after we bring in the olives, and I thought you would want to take part as you have done in the past," he answered.
"I shall have to regretfully decline, my friend. Business matters in the capital make it necessary that I be there, much as I will miss the thrill of the chase with my fellow villagers."
"Too bad," he replied, as I poured out a glass of my homemade, red brusko, for which he has an especial affinity. (Though I must make it very clear that I have never seen him tipsy or in the least bit affected by wine, or anything else for that matter. He is the very paradigm of equability.)
"Take a seat by the fire, Kitsos, and let me tell you about a matter that has been on my mind" I said. When he had seated himself, I sat down as well and continued. "It's this business with the former Archbishop of America, you see. It has me puzzled."
"Puzzled, how?" he asked.
Well, you've been to America, and I have never ventured beyond the borders of our fatherland. We've spoken before about how unusual these Greek-Americans are, but this thing with the Archbishop is truly amazing. I want you to explain to me, my dear friend, how it is possible for our Hellenic brothers and sisters to think that someone is unworthy to serve as their spiritual leader because he is too Greek. Now I know that sounds impossible, Kitsos, but I've read commentary written by representatives of every shade of the religious and political spectrum, and they all agree on one thing: Spyridon was deemed to be too Greek for our Greek-American compatriots. Can this be possible, my friend?"
"Before you amazed yourself into disbelief, afentiko, you should have paid more attention to what is happening here, to our mother, Hellas, where the imported diseases of cynical nihilism and self-serving, infantile narcissism are taking root among us so effectively. Perhaps then you would not be so amazed."
I was taken aback by his reply. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"Why, the very causes that spelled the Archbishop's removal have begun their work of destruction here as well," he answered. "We've spoken before about the blight that has infected our land ever since the foreign influences undermining our culture began to predominate. Well, where do you think these things originated?"
"But," I hastily replied, "we have not yet reached that level of self-hatred that would compel us to remove one of our leading lights because he was 'too Greek'! Admit that much, Kitsos."
"I admit that much, though it gives me no joy to do so, because what has happened to our Greek-American brothers and sisters is beginning to happen here as well, and I see no visible signs of a reactionary movement of any significance to counter this evil," he said. [This was true when this was written, it is no longer true now (2003). ed.]
"Well then, my friend, you must explain to me just what it is that has happened to these Greek-Americans so that I can better understand what you tell me is happening here, don't you think?" I replied.
"An interesting topic of conversation, afentiko, but one that needs a certain qualification, considering that we are to investigate the Greek side of what is actually a phenomenon that is unfolding, to a greater or lesser degree, all over the developed world," he said.
"And what might this qualification be?" I answered.
"Simply this: We must keep in mind that what we are probing is not new. It has occurred in the past wherever conditions developed that allowed the pampering and spoiling of children, where there existed an ethos of arrogance brought on by cultural, racial, intellectual, or military feelings of superiority, and where the institutions set up to enforce the natural law had been rendered impotent or ridiculous: All of these factors exist in America today. Our qualification has to do with our own peculiar history, however. With the fact that we Greeks have always been prone to exceed the limits of greatness or evil that characterize most of humanity. We generally overdo what we set our minds upon. As proof of this one need only remember that though Socrates is considered to have been the greatest teacher of morality in history, he had as two of his many pupils Alcibiades; a self-absorbed traitor to his city who could arrogantly desecrate the statues of a god, and Critias; who became part of a tyrant gang that arbitrarily put innocent metics and citizens to death in order to confiscate their property."
"But what does all of this mean, Kitsos, I don't understand." I said.
"It means, afentiko, that the very impulses of our nature that compelled us to love, serve and be loyal to our Church, Family and Country in the past, will now -- when the institutional dams break, as they did in Athens during and after the Peloponnesian war -- compel us to exceed all others in destroying, ridiculing and undermining these very institutions. Our history proves this to be the case. I tell you this because I would like you to keep it in mind as we investigate the Greek-Americans who were most ardently opposed to everything the former Archbishop of America, Spyridon, stood for."
"I promise to do so," I said.
"First of all," Kitsos continued, "you should know that most of these men -- the self-proclaimed 'leaders' of the various Greek-American organizations who were vehemently opposed to Spyridon -- are university trained professionals in their 40s and 50s. They are, in other words, the products of a system of tutelage dominated by cultural change-agents who use their teaching positions to create a cadre of influential adherents who will go along with the ideology being promulgated in order to advance their prestige and careers. They are the direct inheritors, and, in the case of the older ones, the active participants of the purposely directed social upheavals that took place in America in the 1960s and 70s: upheavals designed to bring the Old, Eurocentric America to its knees.
"The need to bring the Old America to its knees was based on a careful assessment by the power elites as to the most efficient means by which a universal marketplace might be created: a world-wide economic entity ruled by those whose ideological faction would be at the top of the heap at the end of the day. For this reason, the anti-Christian, atheistic U.N. was created, to be the all-knowing, all-powerful dispenser and protector of 'human rights' in its role as our Planetary Government; NATO followed, designed to be the future Police Force and enforcer of U.N. policies; UNESCO of course, which would be the world's Department of Education; and now we see agitation for an International Court of Justice, to be the global Supreme Court. That was the model, and America, the prime instigator and major beneficiary once that model was successfully imposed, had to begin the process of creating the new economic man to fit this model.. This meant that -- since a global market would require the cultivation of customers of every conceivable kind, color, and religion throughout the world -- any trace of bias or privilege enjoyed by white, Euro-Americans had to be obliterated. America would be the shining beacon of an ideology centered upon the idea that the black man's dollar, just as the homosexual's, the Hmong tribesman's, and the radical feminist's, was just as green as the white man's. An ideology that would be promulgated world-wide by an America determined to rule over a global marketplace of conditioned and docile consumers, and ready, through its control of NATO, to impose its will anywhere on the planet. And it would do this by using the excuse of making sure that all nations respected a concept that America, in reality, cared little about: 'human rights'; just as the ancient Athenian Empire became a tyranny while forcibly ensuring that 'Democracy' flourished among its neighbors and allies, whether they wanted it or not."
"Aren't you straying far a field, Kitsos?" I queried.
"You will see where I am going in a minute, afentiko," he replied. "It will make more sense to you when I tell you that this new 'human rights' ideology of diversity and equality -- being imposed for the economic benefit of the elites and their second echelon corps of political, technocratic, and academic flunkies -- was perfectly suited to the personalities of our Greek-American 'leaders.' But in order for you to understand why, I must let you get to know them better. I must give you some background as to the way they were raised, and the prevailing ethos of the period during which their identities were formed. It will not surprise you when I say that our 'leaders' are a little brighter than the population as a whole. In spite of this, however, they have an almost identical mentality. It is almost as if they were all cloned from a prototype, so identically do they think and behave. As I mentioned before, most of them went through their formative period, the period of their 'social imprinting,' during the 60s and the 70s, and the younger ones who missed that turbulent time, were schooled and raised in an America where those that had not missed it held many positions of influence and authority, and were thus able to have an effect.
"It was during this period that American values and standards were turned upside down; instigated by those factions seeking to bring about the onset of the new order mentioned above. Everything old had to be scrapped because 'old' and 'traditional' usually meant 'white' which was made out to be synonymous with racism, sexism, and homophobia; these things had to go! Our Greek-American 'leaders' were raised in this milieu. They were also part of the first TV generation: The first generation to be exposed more to the artificial social interactions constructed by TV script writers, than to the natural, social situations and interactions of the real world. The first generation to be completely socialized by TV before defense mechanisms could be put into place against this sort of collectivist brainwashing. They were also a generation raised by the precepts and philosophy of such intellectual lightweights as Dr. Spock. A generation where permissiveness ruled, they were raised without the benefit of corrective punishment, and with a minimum of discipline. For this reason, they've been referred to as the 'me' generation.
"Now, our ancestors learned how to raise children over thousands of generations of trial and error. They realized that, in order to survive, certain institutions had to be kept strong so that the destructive and egotistical natures of their young would be prevented from harming the community. We Greeks, being more egotistical and, as a result, potentially more destructive, made sure that the institutions of Family, Church, School and State were especially strong and respected. There was no other way, considering that Hellas has always been surrounded by hordes of enemies hell-bent on her annihilation. With such strong institutions, the Greek family could afford to coddle and spoil its children. In fact, they did so even more because they knew that one day that child would come face to face with the cruel reality of an unforgiving and hostile world. Imagine then the kind of chaos that ensues when you bring this kind of a Greek mother -- you know the type, the kind we often see chasing her child down the street of our village, spoon in hand, while yelling after him, 'ela yioka mou, na fas to avgoulaki sou' [come darling, and eat your egg for mommy.] -- to America, where the institutions that would prevent 'yioka' from doing great harm no longer exist."
"I'm beginning to get the idea, Kitsos," I said.
"But there's more, afentiko, In America, such parents were told that the old ways of raising children were outdated. That in the modern world of the welfare state, day-care centers, 'sensitized' fathers, working mothers, and MTV permissiveness was not so bad. And that those who insisted upon trying to instill the old-fashioned values of discipline, self-reliance, obedience, respect and courage were nothing more than anachronistic throwbacks to be ridiculed and ignored. So that many of the in-born destructive traits, common to all humanity, and heretofore discouraged and punished, were, in the 60s and 70s, encouraged and brought to the fore. One sees the consequences of this kind of upbringing throughout America today, and some of our Greek-American 'leaders' in the organizations we are discussing show the consequences a little more strongly, a little more clearly than most other members of the 'me' generation because, as I said before, we Greeks tend to overdo whatever we put our minds to doing.
"At this point, I think I should make it very clear that I am talking here about the inner circle of the ruling presidiums of these organizations, or, in some cases, individuals who operate on their own because they have wealth to go along with their egos. Let us refer to such 'leaders' by their own self-flattering term of 'progressives.' Most Greek-Americans, like most other people, have no real ideology of any kind; they simply parrot whatever ideas are fashionable at the moment. When the fashions change, their ideas change instantly, like a weather-vane in the wind. They are not the 'leaders' we are discussing. Unfortunately, there are enough of these 'leaders' among our people in America to cause some very serious problems, and I think that I should try to explain just why their minds work the way they do so that you will see why I said that this new collectivist ideology of diversity and equality was 'perfectly suited' to their personalities."
"Yes, please do," I said.
"First, at the core of the 'progressive' personality is an excessive degree of egoism, which in the more advanced cases develops into narcissism. This excessive egoism is an infantile characteristic, which is to say, it's a normal characteristic in infants, but in the case of healthy growth, it recedes as the individual develops and matures. A permissive upbringing retards the normal process of maturing. A second important element in the 'progressive' personality, an element closely related to the egoism, is resentment, coupled with envy. That is why you will see, should you choose to do the research, that most collectivist, 'progressive' ideologies are based on resentment. The 'progressive' finds very distasteful the notion that some people are brighter than he is, better looking, more industrious, more righteous or moral, more cultured, more artistic, more capable, or more successful. And he regards these people who are 'better' than he is -- and because of being 'better,' more powerful -- as a threat, as an irksome constraint. This envy and resentment is in a way a carry-over into adult life of the sort of resentment that a spoiled, self-indulgent child might feel toward a parent who won't let him do exactly what he wants to do: a parent who won't let him eat all of the koulourakia in the jar, who won't let him tie Papoo up as he sleeps in his rocking chair. It may express itself in infancy in the form of a tantrum, in adulthood it is expressed as a strong attraction to the ideology of egalitarianism; to the idea that no one is better than anyone else.
"I think that I can illustrate the connection between the pathology of an adult 'progressive' egalitarianism, and an infantile resentment to parental restraint, by telling you about a popular refrain on the campuses of America's colleges and universities back in the 60s and 70s. The refrain was 'kill your parents.' Of course, in most cases this incitement to parenticide was symbolic. What it meant was: 'get rid of every restraint, everything that keeps you from spending all of your time doing exactly what you feel like doing.' In one of the most popular books on campus at the time, a book titled Do it, by Jerry Rubin, a leader in the Youth International Party, or the Yippies for short, the incitement is almost literal. Rubin wrote: 'When we start playing with our private parts, our parents say "don't do that." The mother commits a crime against the child when she says "don't do that.' " Elsewhere in the book, Rubin is describing how he and his followers were kicked out of the Newport Folk Festival for distributing pornographic literature to the crowd, a good portion of which depicted young children: a sample of what the leaflets were all about can be gleaned by considering the following: 'F**k the first nun you see.' This advice was accompanied by a very graphic illustration of just how to go about executing it. Most of Rubin's book is a non-stop effort to build resentment among the more infantile segment of his collegiate readers, with long recitations about the crimes their parents, schools, and society have committed against them by restraining them in one way or another: It is a call to revolution against anything smacking of authority or hierarchy. On the last page, Rubin writes: '[In our New World] there will be no more jails, courts, or police....There will be no such crime as stealing because everything will be free....People will farm in the morning, make music in the afternoon and f**k wherever and whenever they want to.' This was the kind of poison being dispensed in the America of the 60s and 70s, and it was in just such an environment that our self-anointed 'leaders' were raised. These are the people who went on to take positions of responsibility in the business world, the professions, politics (one of them even became president), education, journalism and even religion."
"A wholly frightening situation," I blurted.
"So you see, afentiko," Kitsos continued, "when someone like Spyridon came along: someone antithetical to every single one of the myths being propagated today; someone who proudly declared his love for Greece, and his intention to speak out in defense of her interests; someone who would be the head of a male-dominated, tradition-bound, politically incorrect, hierarchical structure; someone who looked as if he might actually begin to impose our Orthodox dogma and language upon our 'leaders' and their coddled and bossy offspring, who, like their parents, have never ever heard the word 'no' in their lives; someone who intended to 'clean house' and rid the Church of its costly 'dead weight,' its unproductive employees, and of its self-aggrandizing, ego-tripping opportunists, you can just imagine the hysterical squeals and shrieks of rage these totally indoctrinated, historically challenged, self-absorbed and self-hating 'Greek-American leaders' must have emitted in that barbaric tongue of theirs."
"Yes, dear friend, I can imagine it," I replied. "And I can now, after hearing all of this, understand what motivates these people to do the things they do. I am also now even more fearful concerning the fate of our poor Hellas, because, not being totally devoid of my senses, I, too, have noticed the self-same, horrific trends happening here as well. For instance, did you know that our civil-service bus drivers are no longer allowed to display icons of our saints, nor of Jesus or the Theotokos in their buses any longer? It seems that some of our esteemed citizens -- who seem to act an awful lot like these 'progressives' you've been telling me about -- complained that, since they were not of the Christian Faith, their sensibilities were violated, and so they demanded and got the government to order the removal of these 'offensive' objects. This has happened in our parliament as well, where the icon of Christ was removed because it was deemed 'offensive' to our Muslim and other non-Christian parliamentarians. And what about this UNESCO you spoke of?" I went on. "Did you know that they've sent a committee to go through every one of the text books used in our schools, in order to remove any 'hostile' mention of the Turks or other 'minorities' found therein? Did you know these things, Kitsos?"
"Yes," he answered, as unperturbedly as ever, "I'm quite aware of these and other warlike acts being committed against Hellenism and Orthodoxy at the behest of our home-grown 'leaders,' who get their marching orders from Brussels and beyond. But now I think it is time for me to get back into the groves. I've got a team of men working late all through the picking season so that we can finish in time for us to go on that boar hunt."
"Yes, of course," I said. "Why don't you come back after work and have dinner with me tonight? I can smell one of Kira Kitsena's delicious rabbit stifados [hunter's stew] cooking in the kitchen."
"No thanks, afentiko," he replied with a twinkle in his eye, "I'll get to enjoy her stifado at home, later tonight. After which I will head for the neighboring village, where I've been challenged to a match in the Kafenio by their best chess player. Why don't your come and watch? It should be interesting to see me beat the poor soul."
"I might just do that, Kitsos," I said, as I rose to show him out.
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For more on the dangers these "leaders" pose to Hellenism and Orthodoxy, see Kitsos Speaks to Greek-Americans.
For a detailed description of the elitist power structure setting the agenda being followed so blindly by our "progressive" Greek-American "leaders," as well as by the vast majority of state and media sedated Americans, read Kitsos on the Rising Tide of Color.
Editorial comment
Whenever the ruling elite in any society wish to justify their illegal and/or immoral actions, there are always a plethora of "scholars" ready and willing to write their apologetics or polemics for them. Should one wish to read more on the fabrication of lies and distortions being churned out by American "intellectuals" to explain away the murderous role that America and her NATO stooges have assumed in order to advance their agenda of a single, global marketplace, a good place to start would be to click on to Thucydides and anything under The Big Picture.
For a very influential book, that has given a "scientific" underpinning, and lots of morally bankrupt, pedantic justification for the imperialistic and hegemonic designs concocted by the rascals in Washington and Brussels, see The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, by Samuel P. Huntington. Simon & Schuster. New York. 1996. Huntington has been described as a "Leftist 'scholar' ... in the pay of Nelson Rockefeller." Also, "Huntington's work is extensively cited by such as Daniel Lazare," who is "...arguably the nation's most forthright enemy of the U.S. Constitution." (The New American. 8 Nov.1999. p.8).
If your stomach can stand it, Jerry Rubin's book of filth and excrement was published by ( are you ready for this?) Simon and Schuster!!!: New York; 1970. Unbelievable, but true. In this book, you can see the narcissistic and degenerate mind of a nihilistic turd at work. A turd, however, who was able to get this litany of crazed obscenities and childlike, onanistic and scatological daydreams published by one of America's most prestigious publishing houses. Not only that, but it went into 5 printings. Kind of makes one wonder. Right? But then again, think about who controls the publishing industry nowadays.
Karl Marx is obviously the inspiration for Rubin's quote mentioned above. Here it is in all of its glorious entirety, and please keep in mind that this quote is actually quite mild compared to the rest of the book:
At community meetings all over the land, Bob Dylan
will replace the National Anthem.
There will be no more jails, courts or police.
The White House will become a crash pad for anybody
without a place to stay in Washington.
The world will become one big commune with free
food and housing, everything shared.
All watches and clocks will be destroyed.
Barbers will go to rehabilitation camps where they will
grow their hair long.
There will be no such crime as "stealing" because
everything will be free.
The Pentagon will be replaced by an LSD experimental
farm.
There will be no more schools or churches because the
entire world will become one church and school.
People will farm in the morning, make music in the
afternoon, and f**k wherever and whenever they want to.
Now, before you write these declarations off as nothing more than the fantasies of a post-pubescent, intellectual midget, perhaps you should read the quote by Karl Marx below. Keep in mind that this kind of mental masturbation was and is believed in by half the world, if not by more than half. Makes you wonder about the state of mind and political acumen of our fellow man, doesn't it? But then again, Bill Clinton was elected twice wasn't he? And in our own "Land of Myth and Magic," didn't we elect, over and over again, those arch-destroyers of everything they put their hands to, Andreas Papandreou, and Konstantinos Karamanlis? What does that say for "Democracy," dear friend? But, no more of this, the quote by Marx follows:
In communist society, where no one has one exclusive
sphere of activity but each can become accomplished
in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general
production and thus makes it possible for me to do one
thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the
morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening,
criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever
becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic.
Collected Works of Karl Marx, Vol. V. p. 275.
How this bit of masturbatory fantasizing would apply in today's hi-tech world can be seen from our own updated version:
In communist society, where no one has one exclusive
sphere of activity but each can become accomplished
in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general
production and thus makes it possible for me to do one
thing today and another tomorrow, to be a computer
analyst in the morning, perform brain surgery in the
afternoon, be a financial advisor in the evening, teach a class
after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming
a computer analyst, brain surgeon, financial advisor, or
professor.
di, dee, di, dee, di, dee, di, dee, di, dee, di, dee, di, dee, di, dee, di, dee, di, dee, di, dee, di, dee, di, dee, di, dee......
"Johnneeee!!!! how many times have I told you not to do that while reading Das Kapital in the bathroom?"
Greco Report l999
