So we're back with more news from our Greek reality. I can only say that things here remind one of a zoo. Liapis is back from his trip to the east. He has already blamed the media for his "spiritual relaxation" trip to Kuala Lumpur. Seems that they gave him too much attention after his arrest and he needed relaxation and relief in the far east. They sure know how to pamper you over there, especialy if you have been a naughty boy. No need to ponder on your own behaviour when you are rich and powerful. Below is the fromer minister pictured in handcuffs and on the return of his relief trip.
Hope you got it out of your system mate! In our local politics the same kind of spoiled brat behaviour is quite common. Our former mayor was uploading touching pictures of his wife to local internet news sites last year. It was the event of her funeral and we all got to see pictures from their life together in a sort of tv reality recap, you know the kind they play when a player is leaving Big Brother or any similar reality show. This year the same former mayor is all over our local internet news sites testing the waters for his new candidacy for mayor. He is busy uploading pictures from his recent wedding to his second wife complete with closeups of important guests, mostly Members of Parliament, in a glamorous second wedding ceremony complete with fireworks. All this at the peak of mt. Lycabetus, the most visible church in Athens. No understatement here. I sure feel for his kids from his first wife. Me, me, me.
Who are these fine looking gentlemen? The three wise men they are not! You are looking at what can only be described as payback. In the middle is Emil Liatsos, in charge of news at ERT, to his right is Bill Tomopoolos second in charge. To the left of them is Nick Simos general manager of ERT. You can bet your last beans they are still on the payroll but ERT, our public broadcaster, is no more. After a year of trying to censore the news on public television, and failing, they moved to plan B.
Say hello to Simos Kedikoglou, government representative, who informs us of the gross misuse of funds over there at ERT, Greek public television. How crews charge overtime and how they use more employees than nescessary when doing on location work. "All this till now. Today we are shutting down ERT". With that phrase the government pulled the plug on public television blackening our screens. Simos says... reminiscent of the good old days with the dictators deciding what we get to see on YENED, the only tv station back then.
Then along came the public outcry that kept public television open from that day, June 11th 2013, till the 7th of November. During that time, 5 months, the workers maintained control of the building and managed to broadcast via satellite everywhere. It must suck to work without pay for that long. Not only without pay but without compensation either for if you are fired from a healthy corporation you must be payed severance according to Greek law. Having fired all two thousand employees, but not the board of directors, the government refuses to pay severance. The details are boring but the final result is the same. 2000 illegaly fired employees, no public television for the rest of us, a fascistic regime style democracy for all. I will make a note here that in 2012 public television showed a profit of 86 million after taxes. Euros that is.
A suicide by a distraught female former employee of ert channel 3 did nothing to change the tide. Bullies will be bullies to the bitter end and there seems little one can do to get them out of government. They are not alone of course. A good chunk of Greek society supports them. After all what seems like bullying to me seems just to those who for years support our New Democratic Party, our own lovely conservatives. Believe me their supporters are not about to bite the hand that feeds...
One can still access public television here:
http://www.thepressproject.gr/
Say hello to Simos Kedikoglou, government representative, who informs us of the gross misuse of funds over there at ERT, Greek public television. How crews charge overtime and how they use more employees than nescessary when doing on location work. "All this till now. Today we are shutting down ERT". With that phrase the government pulled the plug on public television blackening our screens. Simos says... reminiscent of the good old days with the dictators deciding what we get to see on YENED, the only tv station back then.
Then along came the public outcry that kept public television open from that day, June 11th 2013, till the 7th of November. During that time, 5 months, the workers maintained control of the building and managed to broadcast via satellite everywhere. It must suck to work without pay for that long. Not only without pay but without compensation either for if you are fired from a healthy corporation you must be payed severance according to Greek law. Having fired all two thousand employees, but not the board of directors, the government refuses to pay severance. The details are boring but the final result is the same. 2000 illegaly fired employees, no public television for the rest of us, a fascistic regime style democracy for all. I will make a note here that in 2012 public television showed a profit of 86 million after taxes. Euros that is.
One can still access public television here:
http://www.thepressproject.gr/
I would also like to list some of the achievements of ERT over the years but I will do that on a later post. Happy Holidays to all!
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