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KING CONSTANTINE, WHY HE LOST HIS THRONE ?

Last week king Constantine the second of Greece died at the age of 82.
Many royals from all over the continent came to the funeral.
From the UK princess Anne.
King Charles wanted to come but as it was not a state funeral the protocol did not allow him, as well as prince William, to attend.

The story is dramatic as well as strange, so I will try to resolve the mystery.
It all started with two butterfly effects.
First butterfly effect was the untimely death of Sophocles Venizelos - the son of Eleftherios Venizelos.
Sophocles Venizelos was the deputy of the Centre Union party.
He died from pneumothorax in a boat as medical assistance could not arrive in time.
If he was alive in 1965 there could n't possible be a government crisis. Leftists and rightists would just not have the power to cause a governemnt crisis.
Second butterfly effect was Andreas Papandreou being the son of George Papandreou, the popular centrist prime minister.
Andreas had some strange leftist ideas but if he was n't the son of George Papandreou that would amount to nothing.

In 1965 the king suspected Andreas of trying to take over his father's party and subsequently turn Greece into a neutralist baathist state.
So he made George Papandreou resign and tried to form a new government made up by the conservatives and some centrist defectors.
All hell broke lose, but in the end this succeeded and a royalist government was formed.
But the success was only temporary. Two years passed and elections had to be held.
The Papandreous were certain to gain something like 55% of the vote. There were no gallop polls at the time and the lowest estimate for the Papandreous
was 49%, made by no other than Evangelos Averof the deputy of the conservative ERE party. But even 49% was easy overall majority.

Was Papandreou something like a baathist (Saddam - Assad) ?
Well now we know for certain that he was.
His father denied everything strenuously at the time and the people believed him, but now we know Andreas was something like that.
What we don't know is to what extent - maybe just a little Baathist to be fair. 
We also don't know how really dangerous he was back then as he was n't the party leader himself.

But the king believed that Andreas Papandreou was the danger man and that maybe he even had secret ties with the Soviet Union
(n.b. the same mistake Anthony Eden made about Naser in the Suez crisis in 1955 - Eden believed Naser was a communist while Naser was something else really).
So -the mystery starts now- why did n't the king declare a dictatorship himself ?
He did n't. 
He believed a dictatorship was bad and also he himself would become an outcast by the other royals of Europe, including the Queen of England.
It was disaster either way (or so he thought).
But just at the moment the colonel's arrive ! George Papadopoulos and co.

It was the 21st of April 1967 and what did I do two days before ?
On Wednesday 19th of April after school I took the train to Philadelphia stadium to see Greece U21 v. England U 21.
The match ended in a 1-1 draw, Glezos scored for Greece and Francis Lee for England.
But the important thing here is the platform in the central train station, Omonia.
This is a place where you can see all of the country's newspapers in the kiosks, small and big, political and sports.
So I read "the known junta man Papadopoulos new district commander of Athens region !". Below that it said "it's yet another plan of the dark circles of disorder that will fail" !

So can that happen unbeknownst to the king ?
Really no.
The only explanation is this:
Without knowing Papadopoulos or his "brothers" personally he allowed them to command key posts.
So a dicatorship from the lower echelons of the military, but without him getting involved.
Is there any other explanation possible ?

So on the 21st of April the coup d' etat takes place and indeed the palace itself is surrounded.
What does Constantine do ?
Everybody is hiding the truth but here is what he did:
He calls upon the leader of the conservatives Panayiotis Kanellopoulos and says to him "listen here, whatever happens you and your party will have no relation whatsoever".
At the same time he manages to send a message to dame Vlachos the conservative press editor and says to her "close down your newspapers".
This last is imporant because just the day before she wrote this: "even a small dictatorship would n't be bad to get rid of the monster Andreas Papandreou" !
But now ordered by the king shuts down her newspapers and declares herself against the dictatorship !
After that king Constantine accepted to swear in the junta government and they were of course crazy people with fascist ideas.

It is mighty strange is n't it ?
But what was the plan ?
The plan was this:
Allow the Papadopoulos government to prevent the elections and to stay for three-four months in power.
Then kick him out.
Then replace them with the generals.
But the generals would not call themselves dictatorship. Rather something like "government of national conciliation".
After all this he reckonned the politicians would accept his terms, the elections could be held and things would become normal.

Well, this was the plan.

Now three months later, on June 15 they say, his advisers break the bad news to him:
"your majesty the plan has failed. Papadopoulos controls everything, we have no chance"
He did n't like this at all.
He started making small comments against the colonels in public, such as when he went to a UN meeting in New York and said "this is not my government".
Eventually he did try to overthrow them. The counter-coup of the 13th of December 1967.
It failed and many people call him "silly" and "incompetent" because of that.
But that's not the truth. The truth is he did not have enough loyal forces and the chances were slim.
Then he fled the country and went to Rome where he lived for the next seven years.

However it is from now on that he makes the big mistakes.
For seven years he says nothing.
In Greece he remains the king nominally until in 1973 the colonels organize a pseudo-referendum and depose him.
It is absurd but he said nothing !
Should have turned his Rome residence into a "radio freedom" but he did nothing.

At the same time Andreas Papandreou was making statements everyday from his exile in Canada.
Andreas Papandreou was detained briefly in 1967 but after the intervention of US president Johnson he was set free and went to Sweden and then Canada.
But the people of Greece were not really looking forward to Andreas Papandreou to liberate them from the junta,
Much much later, in 1981, Andreas Papandreou was made pm, but during the junta years it was different.
Andreas had not become unpopular but he was too radical to really have any hope so the best bet was Constantine Karamanlis.
Karamanlis lived in Paris and he too was making frequent statements against the junta.
Karamanlis was the Greek p.m. from 1955 to 1963. Used to be an ultra-conservative but not anymore. 
He condemned the junta and everyone saw in him the viable alternative.
Yet Karamanlis and king Constantine had a strange vendetta between them. They disliked each other intensely after an old quarrel !

So the king by staying silent precipitated his downfall.
Why did he do that ?
He already had an issue with the Papandreous and he was -of course- an anticommunist but why fail to at least partially remedy things ?

It's a mystery but I have the answer:
He believed in a sort of "Don Juan" solution !
Don Juan as we know was nominated heir to Franco sometime in the sixties. Throughout he planned to transform Spain into a democracy,
something that Franco did not really mind (I 'm the life long president he said and when I die who cares ...).
So Don Juan succeeded Franco peacefully and he even allowed the old regime to continue to exist for a little before beginning to restructure things.
Constantine in Rome was thinking along these lines, but it was a mistake - his really bad mistake.
It's true that he had supporters in Greece. Hero major Moustaklis who was paralyzed after the junta tortured him was a royalist. But Constantine himself remained silent.

The post junta events now are better known to you.
Junta collapses in July 1974, Karamanlis returns and there are nation-wide celebrations.
But they don't call the king to return as well !
Instead Karamanlis orders a referendum in December 1974 (proper this time) and also declares himself neutral as to the outcome of the referendum.
Result, king loses and he becomes a deposed king after that.

In those 49 years since to his credit he never caused problems.
He always condemned the junta and maintained his innocence. It happened without him knowing anything, he used to say (but after the event everybody says what he likes, the critics might argue ...).
He acted as the informal ambassador of Greece, helped bring the Olympic games in 2004.
Recently he spoke out against racism and the antics of the Golden Dawn ultras.

Those who hated him are two groups:
One is the Papandreou lovers. The other is the communists. But the communists hated him more because of 1949, when their invading army was defeated in the mountains, not for 1965.

My verdict is he was unlucky and he also made the wrong decision when he was in Rome.
Karamanlis could not find a way to prevent his return in 1974 if it was n't for that.

Edited by cosmicway
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If Germany sends Leopard tanks to Ukraine it will be German tanks killing Russians the first time since 1945. If the supply of more weapons doesnt work, the war will escalate. Everyone is talking up the war. hardly any voices about talking and peace. Putin has already threatened to nuke Paris, London, and the US. Dangerous times, increasing daily death toll, and who benefits ? Arms dealers.

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5 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

If Germany sends Leopard tanks to Ukraine it will be German tanks killing Russians the first time since 1945. If the supply of more weapons doesnt work, the war will escalate. Everyone is talking up the war. hardly any voices about talking and peace. Putin has already threatened to nuke Paris, London, and the US. Dangerous times, increasing daily death toll, and who benefits ? Arms dealers.

NATO should have sent forces back in February last year.
There is n't a chance in a trillion Putin would invade.
Now Ukrainians are stuck in the south because they have to cross the Dnieper.
The Germans are scared.
N.b. there are no arms dealers of nukes.

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1 hour ago, cosmicway said:

NATO should have sent forces back in February last year.
There is n't a chance in a trillion Putin would invade.
Now Ukrainians are stuck in the south because they have to cross the Dnieper.
The Germans are scared.
N.b. there are no arms dealers of nukes.

Last time I looked Ukraine werent in NATO ?

Germans and many other millions are 'scared' - or being pragmatic.

Too many gung ho warmongers about

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1 minute ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Last time I looked Ukraine werent in NATO ?

Germans and many other millions are 'scared' - or being pragmatic.

Too many gung ho warmongers about

If Ukraine was NATO they would be obliged by treaty.
But they could have sent forces. There is no way Putin would have dared.
Look, don't you realise Putin started his bullying after the pull out from Afghanistan ?
And then he did not strike immediately, he encircled Ukraine and only when he saw the response was tame did he attack.
This was a capital mistake and the surrender monkeying now is another capital mistake.

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Sweden is now in the beginnings of a '25 year or so in the making', long term, slow motion implosion.

The combination of crazy level of bankster-produced financialisation and debt at all levels of our economy (especially private), far far too much refugee immigration (which has now allowed the rise of the far right to now seize actual power), and then decades of RW neoliberal tax policy, dereugualtion, and privatisation (all of which have caused an explosion in wealth inequality) are careening us towards a huge fall.

I shall be documenting this later on this week. I am just gutted, and we likely are no longer going to make this our long term home. That is still up for debate.

Fucking Brexit, as now we simply cannot move back to the UK (as Sweden's RW wants to do away with dual citizenship) without losing our EU captainship status.

Thank fuck Norway (granted not EU, but still with full EU rights mostly) and Denmark now allow dual citizenship (they did not until recently, Norway up until very recently especially). 

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1 hour ago, Vesper said:

far far too much refugee immigration (which has now allowed the rise of the far right to now seize actual power),

It's almost like the right wingers, here the tories, encourage refugees and then use their billionaire media owners to demonise them as scapegoats for their working class acolytes.

If you look up the Hong Kong British Citizenship Act that the Conservatives very quietly crept in 31st January last year. Unrestricted immigration and eventual citizenship to all 2.9million Chinese. They stopped reporting numbers when numbers had reached 38000 a month. But but but look over there dinghies ! The dinghies are just a useful distraction for the ill-educated and weak minded.

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23 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

It's almost like the right wingers, here the tories, encourage refugees and then use their billionaire media owners to demonise them as scapegoats for their working class acolytes.

If you look up the Hong Kong British Citizenship Act that the Conservatives very quietly crept in 31st January last year. Unrestricted immigration and eventual citizenship to all 2.9million Chinese. They stopped reporting numbers when numbers had reached 38000 a month. But but but look over there dinghies ! The dinghies are just a useful distraction for the ill-educated and weak minded.

Sweden is pretty unique in terms of the insane amounts (the US population adjusted equivalent of over 50 million in the past 25 years) and the types we took in (hardcore islamistiska and western culture haters who never wanted to be here, unlike many of the UK immigrants to a degree and especially the US ones), then how we ended up isolating them and concentrating them in certain areas.

Plus, too many politicians on both sides ripped Swedish culture, and said for years that most efforts at integration were inherently racist. All the parties up until 2016 or so also refused to pretty much even discuss it and allowed the far right Sweden Democrats to grow to a point where they are now the 2nd biggest party and the power players behind the new RW government. They allow the trad RW (Moderaterna, Christian Democrats, Centre, Liberals, etc) to further turn the country over to the banksters and the billionaires, whilst pushing for crazy racist initiatives in exchange for their votes.

The refugees have now become a permanent underclass and are exploding our wealth inequality (as are the rise of the financial sector enriched millionaires and billionaires).

It's a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

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3 hours ago, Vesper said:

Sweden is now in the beginnings of a '25 year or so in the making', long term, slow motion implosion.

The combination of crazy level of bankster-produced financialisation and debt at all levels of our economy (especially private), far far too much refugee immigration (which has now allowed the rise of the far right to now seize actual power), and then decades of RW neoliberal tax policy, dereugualtion, and privatisation (all of which have caused an explosion in wealth inequality) are careening us towards a huge fall.

I shall be documenting this later on this week. I am just gutted, and we likely are no longer going to make this our long term home. That is still up for debate.

Fucking Brexit, as now we simply cannot move back to the UK (as Sweden's RW wants to do away with dual citizenship) without losing our EU captainship status.

Thank fuck Norway (granted not EU, but still with full EU rights mostly) and Denmark now allow dual citizenship (they did not until recently, Norway up until very recently especially). 

Modern civilization may collapse soon so Sweden would be an ideal location. Low population and lots of rural areas and nature. England will be a death trap 

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Legendary Media Reporter Bill Carter Destroys ‘Horserace’ Coverage of Trump Campaign Rollout: ‘A Massive Fail and an Incipient Disaster’

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/legendary-media-reporter-bill-carter-destroys-horserace-coverage-of-trump-campaign-rollout-a-massive-fail-and-an-incipient-disaster/

 

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I think the lasting legacy of January 6th is that Trump effectively ended any true chance he had at running again. The right in this country, as morally devoid as they are, has kinda moved away from him.

 

The true test in 2024 will be in combating Desantis. His dream of America is just as Dystopian as Trump's, but he has a nice Ivy League package to wrap it up nicely. 

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19 hours ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

I think the lasting legacy of January 6th is that Trump effectively ended any true chance he had at running again. The right in this country, as morally devoid as they are, has kinda moved away from him.

 

The true test in 2024 will be in combating Desantis. His dream of America is just as Dystopian as Trump's, but he has a nice Ivy League package to wrap it up nicely. 

I think Trump is going to toss DeathSentence into the woodchipper. DeSantis is weak in debate and freezes up. Trump the human blowtorch will burn him alive.

2024 will likely be, once again, Biden v Trump, IMHO.

If something happens and Biden cannot run, the US is likely FUCKED, as there is no way Harris cannot win a  general election (she ran a terrible campaign in 2020 as well), and her crazed thousands of online and real life trolls will torch any threat they see to her (look at what they tried to do to Buttigieg and Sanders, for instance), so the Dem primaries, IF no Biden, will tear the party apart.

Atm the only other federally elected Dem (besides Biden) I can think of who can win a big chunk of the Midwest is Sherrod Brown, the Sr Senator form Ohio, and he is not interested (and will be older as well, 72 in 2024) in running.

The Dems do have a bench BUT most are Governors who just got re-elected and do not want to run until 2028 or later. (people like Newsom of CA, Whitmer of MI, Polis of CO (Polis will have the same problem a superb potential POTUS does (Buttigieg), that being both are gay men, and that is an issue in not just the general, but also navigating the conservative (bang that buybull!) black Dem primary voter bloc, which dominates the Dem primaries in many states, and they are NOT gay friendly usually, especially gay men, as they sometimes support lesbians), Pritzker of IL, Andy Beshear of KY, Roy Cooper of NC, Wes Moore of MD, and Josh Shapiro of PA)

Sherrod Brown also has a huge problem as well as some other potentially strong Dem Senator POTUS candidates:

If he gives up his OH seat, the Rethugs will take it, OH is deep Red now. Same for Warnock in GA, Kelly in AZ, Ossoff in GA, and perhaps Fetterman (although his stroke is a real POTUS issue now) in PA (if the Rethugs run a non crazed MAGAt candidate)

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