When you realize that the history in Greece was much more about famine (700k dead or 12 to 15% of the population) than it was about gunshots or hangings or the like) you realize there is some resonance there.

I don't understand the Greek politicians at this point. It's pretty clear that Germany will never agree to the ECB issuing Eurobonds.

When the people's lifetime savings run out in a year or so, the Greek pols will have absolutely no choice.

The critical words here are 'humanitarian catastrophe.'

I've said before there's a good case to be made the results of German action against Greece - and let's be clear that this action is being led by the German financial and political class - is a crime against humanity.

Whether or not it's 30s style Hitler/Franco fascism is irrelevant. It's obviously old-fashioned colonial economic dictatorship with a nasty dose of racism mixed in.

The effects are literally disastrous.

Or perhaps you're not bothered if people die?

I made no comparison to fascism. My comparison was between the response of the majority of the German people in the mid '30s to the actions of the Nazi government to the response of the majority of the German people today to the actions of the current CDU government. The CDU is not fascist, but the actions of its political and financial leadership towards the Greek people are inflicting great harm to which that portion of German society that supports the CDU seems callously indifferent.

Plus there is a self-absorbed arrogance in much of the commentary I have seen that seems to minimize, dismiss and/or objectify the consequences of these policies on the average Greek, who has, perhaps, a similar degree of influence on the actions of their government as does the average German worker on their government, or perhaps we should be comparing the average unemployed workers.

The response of much of the press and most of the conservative leaders seems to be to scapegoat the Greeks and other peripheral peoples and to steadfastly refuse to consider that German actors had a role in the events leading up to the crisis. You would think that Greek criminals broke into German banks and made off with billions of euros. No acknowledgement that, in order for Germany to run a trade surplus others have to run a trade deficit or that my surplus is your deficit. Instead it is all moral framing. Germans run surpluses because they are morally superior and Greeks, Portuguese, Irish, Spanish and Italians run deficits because they are feckless. This is nonsense and surely you should know that. So how can it be justified?  

This is, I fear, only a step away from the sort of dehumanizing, demeaning and delegitimizing that, in the '30s, proved a prelude to actions that lead to death and destruction. The damage will not be done by German brownshirts, police officers or military this time, but will result in large scale excess deaths due to starvation, hypothermia and illness that are a direct consequence of the actions on which German leaders are insisting.

The fact that Germans will not literally have blood on their hands and did not specifically decide for specific individuals to die makes little difference to the moral content of the policy, and, to me, makes it no less repugnant. It strikes me as arrogant indifference and disdainful disregard for human suffering and I find it appalling. Again.

It is the attitudes that lead to condoning inhuman actions that I am comparing, not the political affiliations of the actors.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."