Regarding the Golden Dawn

Do you live in Greece were people are unemployed, hungry, and fearful of endless austerity? Are you in Spain were people must literally eat out of garbage cans? Are you in Italy where 10-year-olds now work ten hours a day (if they can find work at all)? Are you trapped in Portugal where the situation is as bad or worse than in Greece and Spain?

No?

Then you might have distorted ideas about the Golden Dawn Party. (GD)

Distortion always increases in proportion to one’s distance from a situation.

If you are not in Greece, and you tend to be a “leftist,” then you likely view the GD as a gang of ultra-violent thugs. Racist, extremist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, militant “neo-Nazi” fascists bent on conquering and enslaving the planet. In a word, “terrorists.”

If you are a white supremacist, then you likely view the GD as “defenders of your race.”

Both views are based on labeling. We tend to think about distant situations in terms of labels. This causes polarization. All of us are prone to this phenomenon, although the intensity varies between individuals.

For the “leftists,” the GD is evil. Anything the GD says or does is evil. Anyone who defends the GD is evil. The GD is a “grave threat.” A “profound danger.” It must be crushed before its armies of Satan march over the world.

For white supremacists, everything the GD says or does is in “defense of the race.”

Since the situation is distant, you cling to your chosen label. Nothing can persuade you to reconsider your label. Any evidence that your label is incorrect is taken as proof that your label is more correct than ever. If you are comfortable, then you seek to protect your comfort via labeling. If you are in distress, and you use labeling to cope with your pain, then you seek to protect your coping mechanism. You cling to your chosen label at all costs. You strut about in self-righteous anger, in order to cope with the wretched misery of your useless life. You may be poor and helpless, but in condemning the GD, you have “power.” You are “good.” You have “worth.” God is on “your side.” (Meanwhile the One Percent laugh at you and crush you more than ever.)

Once you select a label, you file everything under that label.  Since the GD is “evil,” every act of kindness and charity by the GD becomes a sinister attempt to conceal their evil. Likewise, if you are a white supremacist, then every act or word from the GD is a “defense of the race.”

This same labeling phenomenon also applies to Hamas, Hezbollah, Hugo Chavez, Nazi Germany, etc etc – the phenomenon is always the same. Labeling increases with one’s physical and / or temporal distance.

If you are a Jew-lover, then you see the GD as “anti-Semitic.” If you are a “leftist” but you don’t like Israel, then you see the GD as “allied with the Zionists.” All facts get filed under your chosen label.

When you think in labels, you become religious. You are good. They are evil. This gives rise to polarization, and the angry face-offs between people who are distant from the actual situation. “Anti-fascists” in the USA, for example, strut about with self-righteous pride, vowing to crush that evil GD over there in Greece, wherever Greece is. They imagine that the GD has evil agents in their own neighborhood, behind every bush, in the government, the banks, the corporations, everywhere. If they don’t see any evil agents, then it is “proof” that the GD is more sinister than ever. 

For instance, the Queens borough of New York City has a section called Astoria, which has a large Greek population. Jews and “leftists” from other parts of New York come to Astoria and prowl around, hunting for evil members of the GD. They have even formed a “Stop Golden Dawn Coalition.” Earlier this month, some 250 people attended a “Stop Golden Dawn” meeting after some Greeks were spotted at the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York in Astoria. Because winter is coming, the Greeks were helping with a clothing drive. They didn’t identify themselves as members of any group, yet their participation in the clothing drive got them labeled as agents of the evil GD.

Since Jews have tremendous power in New York, and have many allies, the Greeks of Astoria are now desperately pleading with the Jews to understand that New York Greeks do not support the evil GD. The Greeks even put up posters that condemn the evil GD in Greece.

Corrupt politicians love this kind of thing. Aravella Simotas, an Assemblywoman from Astoria, has vowed to stamp out the evil GD, as have many other New York bureaucrats and politicians.

Does the evil GD have an actual presence anywhere in New York? No, but this is “proof” that they are everywhere in New York.

The corporate media loves this sort of thing too, not only to protect the power of Jews, bankers, politicians, and the One Percent, but because it promotes labeling and polarization. And that means readership. Among media articles that address the GD, the farther away the media source is (e.g. London, New York, or Sydney), the more the article condemns the GD as evil.

“Anti-imperialist” blogs are the same. The farther away an “anti-imperialist” blogger is from Greece, the more he or she condemns the GD as evil.

As “proof” of this evil, the distant blogger or media hack focuses on a hot button, such as “anti-immigrant.” Is there any proof that the GD is centered on immigrant bashing? No, but this total absence of evidence is taken as absolute "proof." It means they are “concealing” it. Thus, they are definitely centered on immigrant bashing.

Whether it is the GD or Hamas or Hezbollah or Nazi Germany, etc., every act of charity is a means for the evil group to spread its evil and its “hate.” (Israelis literally regard Hamas charity actions as terrorism.)

For the white supremacists, everything the GD does is “in defense of the race.”

Clashes between both sides strengthen the labeling process.

Has anyone actually been to Greece? No, but “I know evil when I see it.” Or, “I know righteous race defense when I see it.”

None of us are fully immune from the labeling process. It’s how we make sense of the world around us. Our task is to be aware of it. We know that Gaddafy, Assad, and Ahmadinejad are not the evil monsters they are made out to be. However, I have recently added posts here at WUFYS explaining that they are not entirely innocent either. I support Hugo Chavez, but I have also noted that his government has formed a stifling bureaucracy. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko always votes against NATO and imperialism, but  he rigs every “election,” and has held power for 18 years. Anyone who displeases him is thrown into prison. (I know. I have been to Belarus.) Belarussians who live in the USA have large photos of him that they use as dartboards. They keep these photos in closets and in basements, not daring to show them to anyone, lest word get back to Lukashenko. I have seen this personally.

Is Lukashenko good or evil? Pick your label. But when you do, know that you will be confused. You will not understand politics or world events, although you will think you understand them better than anyone. That’s what labeling does. Like alcohol, labeling makes you think you’re brilliant, when it actually makes you stupid. And like alcohol, some people use it for fun, or to relax, while others are addicts.

Jews are addicts. So are obsessive Jew-bashers, and fervent white supremacists. For Jews, all Goyim want to perpetrate a “holocaust.” For obsessive Jew-bashers, everyone is a “Zionist agent,” or a “disinformation agent.” Hitler was “financed by Jews.” Hezbollah is a “Zionist front.”

When we take this too far, we end up broken and wasted, and usually in jail. Irving D. Rubin, chairman of the Jewish Defense League, became so violent that he ended up in prison, where he committed suicide on 13 Nov 2002.

Likewise, obsessive Jew-bashers end up in prison, where they imagine themselves to be “political prisoners,” and “victims of Jews.” However, if you examine the facts of their lives, you find that most or all of their violence was directed not at Jews, but at non-Jews who they labeled as “Zionist agents.” And since other people think in labels, they likewise believe that the jailed person is a “victim of Jews.”

Obsessive labeling is exactly like a drug, or alcohol. The more you are addicted, the more you hate yourself, and the more you compensate by desperately seeking attention. When obsessive Zionists or anti-Zionists go on the warpath, they are seeking attention, each side claiming to be victims of the other. It’s all about filling the inner void created by obsessive labeling.

To repeat, none of us are fully immune from this. (I certainly am not.) It’s just something to be aware of, and to avoid over-indulgence in.