A Citizen’s Guide to Greece 2015
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Disrupt and occupy
Posted December 20, 2014 by DW
Start-ups are all the rage. Even the prestigious international politics journal Foreign Affairs agrees. Correspondingly, a debate has emerged on the precise value to the global economy of such business activity. Whither Greece and Europe? Since before the onset of the sovereign debt crisis in Greece entrepreneurship and start-up activity has been on the rise […]
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Human Rights Watch on Greece’s other crisis
Posted January 20, 2013 by KK
Excerpts from a post yesterday on the Human Rights Watch site. “Partly hidden within [the] turmoil [of Greece’s sovereign debt crisis] is another crisis threatening to spin out of control – xenophobic violence against migrants and asylum seekers in Athens and elsewhere. Violence against people from Afghanistan and North and sub-Saharan Africa is alarmingly commonplace, […]
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News on the street
Posted November 8, 2013 by Politis
A picture says more than 1000 words, or so they say. And now, the news.
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The evolution of political discourse
Posted March 27, 2013 by Politis
Politis is keen to understand how we talk about citizenship and politics. Our friends over at The Week have come up with this essential lexicography of early 21st-century Washington-speak. snollygoster — A politician who will go to any lengths to win public office, regardless of party affiliation or platform. dummymander — A gerrymandered district drawn […]
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Yes? No? Vote, and stay engaged
Posted July 3, 2015 by DW
We have an expression in the US. “Vote early and often.” Lest you think I am encouraging you to commit voter fraud, I actually have something else in mind. If you vote when young you are likely to continue to want to vote whenever you have the opportunity. Make it a habit. Just look at […]
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Four things we learned on May 6
Posted May 9, 2012 by DW
By David Wisner The crisis in Greece is political. Very few of the reforms the governments of George Papandreou and Lucas Papademos pledged to undertake in exchange for loans from the Troika have materialized. The evaluation of public sector employees to have begun this week has been put off indefinitely. Very little has been done […]
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Politis forum: journalists or losers?
Posted February 8, 2014 by Politis
Politis has invited Krysta Kalachani and guest contributor Sakis Ioannides, of Parallaxi, to comment on Παναγιώτης Μένεγος, “Δημοσιογράφος, ο μεγάλος χαμένος (και) της κρίσης,” popaganda.gr, January 28, 2014. SI Let me summarize “Journalist, the crisis’ big loser,” an article by Panagiotis Menegos, one of the staff writers at popaganda.gr (a multimedia electronic magazine). Menegos wrote […]
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Love and death
Posted May 8, 2013 by Politis
Photographer Taslima Akhter on a photograph she took at a collapsed factory building in Dhaka, Bangladesh. “I have been asked many questions about the photograph of the couple embracing in the aftermath of the collapse. I have tried desperately, but have yet to find any clues about them. I don’t know who they are or what […]
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The US is not Greece; or, beware of economists bearing regressions
Posted March 10, 2013 by Politis
Matthew O’Brien says in this month’s Atlantic, “No, the United States will never, ever turn into Greece.” What he means is that, contrary to the view of certain economists, the US will never “spend itself into bankruptcy.” According to the popular wisdom O’Brien seeks to debunk, “too much public debt makes markets nervous. Nervous markets […]
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Peter Economides on the Cypriot miracle
Posted March 24, 2013 by Politis
Peter Economides has a post in praise of Cypriots on his blog. “There is no such thing as a financial crisis. It’s the result of a social crisis, a values crisis, a confidence crisis, a how we feel about ourselves crisis. And I am starting to feel that the current European crisis is a crisis […]
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Public service is a calling — even when the government is shut down
Posted October 13, 2013 by Politis
Excerpts from an opinion piece in this past Saturday’s Washington Post by Ann Marie Oliva, director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Special Needs Assistance Programs. “The past two weeks have made me ask myself two fundamental questions: What does public service really mean, and what is my responsibility when I […]
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What They’re Saying About Us Now: July 16 Edition
Posted July 16, 2012 by MK
Americans look at the crisis in Europe and think they see “an underdeveloped version of the American polity,” that if European leaders only acted more like us, everything would be solved. This article by Russell A. Berman inspects that fallacy of logic and offers an informative run down of the euro crisis and Merkel’s budgetary […]
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Using your voice
Posted October 30, 2016 by Politis
By Jayde Ashante Hansen I’m not sure words can begin to explain how I feel, being an American citizen, and failing to register to vote. All year I’ve been thinking about this opportunity, after all, it’s my very first opportunity to vote for the president of the United States. I won’t have this opportunity for […]
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Why all the talk about revolution now?
Posted November 15, 2013 by Politis
Politis invited regular contributors Krysta Kalachani and Maria Patsarika to comment on two recent blog posts discussing revolution, by Christos Giannaras and Politis’ own David Wisner. Why all this talk about revolution now? Are we getting it right? KK: Why don’t you like it? Love it. One reason that you are not sure about it […]
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Greeks not trying hard enough
Posted April 5, 2012 by pdcadmin
By Livingston Merchant I just read the article entitled “The Greeks aren’t even trying,” in a blog named Testosterone Pit by Wolf Richter. I work as a professor of history and international affairs at Raparin University in Ranya, Kurdistan. It is a very small city in northern Iraq near the Iranian border, with no post […]
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Saying of the day: 5/20/13
Posted May 20, 2013 by Politis
“Men with guns I’m used to. But kids without books, teachers or classes for a long time — that’s trouble. Big trouble. “ — Thomas Friedman
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Crisis plays leading role in Greek films
Posted February 15, 2013 by pdcadmin
By Kirsten Allen From the outside, the Greek financial crisis is easily reduced to an exhausting series of bailouts, austerity deadlines and protests. But to the people who live with the fallout each day, it’s an existential threat, and one that raises fundamental questions about their identity as Greeks. These questions and the crisis itself […]
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Saying of the day: 1/27/13
Posted January 26, 2013 by Politis
“Neither a life of anarchy nor one beneath a despot should you praise.” — Aeschylus
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The rally that did not happen
Posted May 15, 2012 by KK
By Krysta Kalachani Athens, May 13, 2012. Nothing about Athens and the rally. No news in the hashtags and no photos, and I thought that when I went there it was late, but I guess people were very few really. Yup! I can imagine, I myself was on the track again with the motorbike… Believe […]