A Citizen’s Guide to Greece 2015
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So many candidates
Posted June 15, 2012 by DW
By Dimitris Diamantis and David Wisner “So many candidates, so little time to choose,” reported one interlocutor to us in early May. How can one decide about new parties and about personalities that had until recently resided more or less in the margins of national politics? We have been asked several times how we would […]
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Illiberal and un-European
Posted October 26, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner A few months ago I filed my Greek tax return, as I have every year since 1995; just recently I payed the first installment of my remaining income tax obligation for 2012. This year, like last, I had to submit all the receipts I had amassed over the course of the calendar […]
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Center right, center left
Posted December 23, 2012 by Politis
The title of a recent analysis in Politico – “The disappearing independent” – struck this reader as personal. I looked down at my hands, at my feet; checked in the mirror to see that my nose, ears, and eyebrows were still there; I even dug out my blood pressure gizmo to make sure my heart […]
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Nextdoor: a Facebook for your neighborhood
Posted April 1, 2013 by Politis
Alexia Tsotsis has written an engaging review in TechCrunch of the neighborhood social media service Nextdoor. The platform is a de facto neighborhood support group among subscribers. Nextdoor now serves some 10,000 neighborhoods and roughly 1 million households, and has a very savvy matrix for developing a local network to its optimal level. Users explain […]
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New meaning to the word demos
Posted February 24, 2012 by pdcadmin
By Laura Strieth “Iceland Mob Rule” is what the Guardian called it but to me it seems like an evolved form of democracy. A country with the oldest continuous parliament dating back to 930, had the 3rd largest financial meltdown in human history and as a response: rid themselves of their government, the central bank […]
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Saying of the day: 4/1/13
Posted April 1, 2013 by Politis
“So what does it mean when a company institutionalizes altruism? It means more students are mentored and tutored, more afterschool programs funded, more books read, better grades and test scores, and more poor families helped.” — Julia Wade (Domus Kids)
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Center right, center right
Posted March 19, 2013 by Politis
We all know the two rules of business, according to which 1) the boss is always right, and 2) if the boss is wrong, see rule number one. In American politics it would appear that the Republican Party has replaced the boss. Bloomberg has been investigating the phenomenon in US electoral politics according to which […]
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Fall 2015 highlights at the Dukakis Center
Posted April 5, 2016 by Politis
During the Fall 2015 semester the Dukakis Center was involved in three major undertakings, conceived above all to inspire young people to take an active role in the public life of their country. First, the Dukakis Center underwrote and was present at the annual Thessaloniki International Symposium organized by the Navarino Network, on Sunday, October […]
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World Homeless Day 2014
Posted October 10, 2014 by Politis
Purpose The purpose of World Homeless Day is to draw attention to homeless people’s needs locally and provide opportunities for the community to get involved in responding to homelessness, while taking advantage of the stage an ‘international day’ provides. How To Make a Difference educate people about homeless issues […]
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Truth or dare 2.0?
Posted January 31, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner Ask a young person today whether they like politics. More than half the time they will respond in the negative. Why do they dislike politics? Overwhelmingly, because politicians are corrupt and dishonest. (Now disliking the political for these reasons may merely be a symptom of a more systemic problem in our democratic […]
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Greek Election Coverage 2012
Posted May 5, 2012 by PR
Hellenic Elections Election Central 2012 Rolling coverage by the team at the Dukakis Center of elections in Greece, France, and Serbia. Monday 23:34 No comment. Tuesday 01:05 Griechenland its unregierbar. Tuesday 00:27 Wealthy Frenchmen are taking their money and running. Maybe they will find some Greeks who left early to avoid the new taxes. Tuesday […]
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Making sense of the suicides
Posted July 4, 2013 by Politis
By Alyssa Olivo As a New Yorker and visitor of Greece, my view on the crisis differs from natives. Our newspapers tell stories about riots in the streets and articles talk about austerity endlessly but the main question and concern is what’s going to happen to the euro. It’s rare I do not hear or […]
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We don’t get to choose these things
Posted January 10, 2015 by DW
By David Wisner Armchair expert on the Greek sovereign debt crisis that I have portrayed myself to be, you can imagine my relative despondency having read Pavlos Eleftheriadis’ article on Greece’s oligarchs in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs. Reading Eleftheriadis’ account of recent Greek history, it appears that one should have given up the […]
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Afghanistan on the Aegean?
Posted June 25, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Alexis Papahelas It won’t be long before the relationship between Greece and the troika starts resembling that of the United States with Afghanistan. The efficient Americans entered that historical and complex country and tried to set up a modern state, an open economy etc. Not long after they started to realize that they were […]
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Hungry?
Posted February 21, 2013 by Politis
Originally published by Stathis on February 19, 2013, at http://www.enikos.gr/stathis/121761,Apergia_dioti.html.
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Noam Chomsky: a life shared?
Posted March 23, 2013 by MK
By Maria Patsarika Every time I read about Noam Chomsky my impression of a sarcastic, dominant, relentless thinker and academic is reinforced. In an article in today’s Guardian I see more than this – apparently he still is sarcastic and uncompromising – which is encapsulated in his phrase “No individual changes anything alone.” He grasps […]
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Wanted: deep thinkers
Posted February 7, 2013 by DW
By David Wisner The title of an article in the English version of Der Spiegel got me thinking about what appears to be a systemic problem throughout Europe and the eurozone. Spiegel claims that Europe needs new blood, not so much in terms of higher birthrates and immigration, but in terms of ideas and thinkers. […]
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Blockupy
Posted May 31, 2013 by KK
Newsworthy, I think… “Our main goal is to show that the regime that is governing Europe through this crisis is neither democratically legitimate nor acting in any responsible way for the people. It’s really working for profit. One of it’s symbolic places is the ECB – the place that has economic and financial reign over […]
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Engaged learning in the Academy
Posted May 12, 2013 by Politis
Advocates of engaged learning in higher education through programs such as internships, cooperative education, and service-learning make strong claims for its value to students, colleges, and communities. But many mainstream academics either ignore or reject those claims, favoring more conventional forms of curriculum and teaching. Drawing on ethnographies of scores of student-interns and many years […]
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The ultimate American decline story?
Posted May 22, 2013 by Politis
Mattea Kramer and Jo Comerford posted this article on the Moyers and Complany blog. It depicts one of the most extreme visions of 21st-century American decline in print. Politis reposts excerpts of the article below. “The streets are so much darker now, since money for streetlights is rarely available to municipal governments. The national parks […]