John Humprey’s Panorama report on Greece tonight was sad and deeply worrying. With 20% unemployment, the rise of the far right thug’s party Golden Dawn, as ever blaming immigrants, and above all reminding us both of the danger of abandoning principles of law and justice, and of corruption. The effect of bringing Greece into the Euro was an apparent bonanza for all, with the rich or high salaried commanding the capital, it floating to the top either naturally or corruptly, and Goldman Sachs’ role in it all is deeply suspect, has been to devastate traditional structures and ways of life. The same is evident in Spain and Italy. Is super capitalism’s real legacy a vast imbalance between winners and losers, is it the Eurozone experiment, or is it something endemic to Greece itself? One Greek hero who tore the Swastika down from the Parthenon and was also imprisoned under The Colonels, blames that ‘Troika’ of economic high rollers, yet the problem is that atavistic hatred of Germany. We always argued that Papendreou was right in attempting to force political acceptance, but through democratic means, because how else do you reform a system that clearly seethes with corruption, if the economic gurus at the top are perceived as corrupt. How are those austerity measures turned on the rich too, in asking them to play a part?
Greece plays a walk-on-part in David Clement-Davies’s apocalyptic thriller The Godhead Game, based around this year’s end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar. Since it is set slightly in the future, speculating about possible events in Europe, it might give the game away a touch about Mayan Apocalypses, but its themes are very serious. It wonders, in a world of markets and systems, that the avergae person seems to have no control of, if anyone does, how you might actually beat the market itself!
But above all it also introduces ideas about sacred wisdom, and traditions stretching back to Parmenides, to ask if the Mayan Apocalypse might not be a chance to take new approaches very seriously. It is of course meant to thrill, with a strange email invitation sent to FBI systems man Danny Fabian in Washington, not only inviting him to play the game, as his brother is kidnapped from a World Cup football match, but to change his life forever. The Godhead Game is available from Amazon.com
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