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Beware Greece’s Toxic Export – the “Golden Dawn” Movement

When most Americans are reminded of Greece, it is usually through an inflammatory headline on TV or in a news article decrying its debtor status – with the most recent excitement being the attempt to fleece bank account holders in Cyprus of monies owed banks in the EU.

But, the real tragedy wreaked upon Greece by the Great Recession has yet to receive attention.

I speak of the “Golden Dawn” movement. This is the Greek right-wing extremist group and political party which has gained considerable strength in that country and which is now spreading its tentacles to other countries – and is working its way to America.

Are they dangerous? Only if the terms Neo-Nazi and Fascist carry an emotional jolt for you. This group rejects those labels, but makes use of Nazi symbolism and involves itself in brown-shirt, street gang attacks on immigrants as well as on university students, and the vandalizing of Jewish cemeteries. Yes, they are dangerous.

Our 15 Minutes of Fact interview today will connect us with a particularly important source on today’s subject – Yannis Aktimon. I first met Janis here in NYC shortly after Occupy’s own Zuccotti Park protests where we discussed the parallel protests in the U.S. and Greece. You can catch that interview in the archive at WGRNradio.com (http://bit.ly/ZBHkE8)

In the U.S., fascism is a cheapened swearword used by Democrats and Republicans to describe each other, but it has some very real import to its original victims in Europe. That term can more correctly be used to describe “Golden Dawn.” Yannis educates us as to why it is feared – and fought – in Greece, and why we need to exterminate it here in the U.S. where it has not yet taken root.

If there is a silver lining, it is that Golden Dawn and the “New Totalitarianism” with which it is associated has created a backlash which Yannis believes is bringing about a deepening and broadening role of Democracy and the implementing of radically improved approaches to the economic system. His organization in Greece, Void International, is working hard to bring this about. (http://voidnetwork.blogspot.com/)

My conversation with Yannis brought to my mind one of my favorite American geniuses, Buckminster Fuller. Fuller stated that you never change things by fighting an existing reality. Rather, “build a better model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Is this the future path for Activism?

Enjoy the interview, and if you would like to learn more about Yannis, you can reach him by way of voidinternational@gmail.com or raman1723@yahoo.com or by way of the Void International site linked above. Be sure to search me out as well where I blog at the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-ashton/ and follow me on Twitter as @WrittenOffUSA.

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Occupy & the Native Indian – Becoming the Warp and Woof for a Renewed America?

It has become my opinion over time, given my experience with the Occupy Movement and before that in working with Native Americans to bring economic development to what is called “Indian Country” that these two would one day have to join forces.

For the native, it will be because they are answering the call to be the compelling “Idle No More” movement among indigenous activists against the XL pipeline. For the rest of us, it will be because we finally heard the call to “Wake the hell up!”

Historically, there is no ethnic group in North America more victimized by Big Business and Bad Government than its indigenous peoples. Their plight, mostly tucked away and out of sight on reservations, have gone unnoticed.

It is only now, after the onset of the “Great Recession” in which the rest of us are getting a taste of what Indigenous peoples have had to bear for literally hundreds of years, that both peoples can find good reason to begin to care for each other.

I am not the only person who sees the Indian as natural allies to join in fighting for economic and social justice. Edward “Ted” Hall’s experience in both worlds eclipses mine, and I was fortunate to interview him for my ’15 Minutes of Fact’ show on WGRNradio.com recently.

Ted is a supporting organizer of a three-day series of “Lakota Grandmother’s” meetings, teach-in’s, and a march to the U.N. to take place in NYC (http://bit.ly/16tk6Dd) the week of April 8-10th, 2013.

Although a non-native, Ted has family members who are Laguna and Hopi and his godfather was Plains Indian. He has worked with tribal nations and participated in their activist projects and worked with Chief Standing Bear, a chief of the intertribal nations since the start of Occupy.

Ted facilitated and led the first General Assembly in NYC, helped to draft key documents for Occupy at its inception, and led the march dubbed “The Battle of Wall Street.” He can honestly claim pre-Zuccotti Park credentials, having worked earlier with activist groups such as the Free Network Foundation to provide internet, translations and organizing efforts with the Ancampadas leadership of Madrid.

He finds his Occupier and Indigenous friends to be only now growing in mutual appreciation. As is true in any alliance, there are shared values as well as differences.

Both honor nature and the sanctity of the land. Occupy shows this is in its fierce opposition to fracking, and the native in their even-more-fierce opposition to both the XL Pipeline (http://rol.st/13V8HjM) and uranium mining (http://bit.ly/10fmhtu). Natives claim that both defile their
lands and often desecrate sacred spaces. Occupiers feel a similar outrage against Monsanto and genetically-modified products.

However this union has come about, and whatever its outcome, this time may be looked back at as being a watershed moment for the realization of the need for and power of native and non- native alliances.

The Indian, at least, has awakened. I am not so sure about the rest of us.

Want more details? Ted can be reached personally at tedwardhall@gmail.com, on Facebook as http://on.fb.me/14HndL9, on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/tedwardhall, and on Twitter as @Tedwardhall. Learn about the Lakota Grandmothers at http://www.lakotagrandmothers.org/.