Commentary
At the bottom of the ruling socialists’ poster appear some Latin characters which, like a modern signature, demonstrate that propaganda has been the only area to have been affected by the recent wave of modernization. With www.pasok.gr, the government has entered the cyberworld. It should be noted, however, that merely capitalizing the weighty words on the poster (Future, Justice, Development, Prosperity, Powerful Greece) does not necessarily mean that you also give those terms due credit; it does not mean that you extract them from the deep well of verbal images to bring them into being. Fantasies remain fantasies, even when they enter the realm of propagandist miracle-making. Apart from the Internet there are also the networks within PASOK, the fractions of the reformist-minded group, the party opposition and the unaligned, as recorded on the lists containing the results of the elections for the delegates who will participate in next week’s socialist party congress. And thus the question is born: How will these people, who cannot even agree upon inflexible figures, manage to communicate – and, much less, agree upon – ideas for weighty notions such as Development, Future, Prosperity and the like? In the Evritania regional committee, for example, the reformist wing announced that the ballot box included eight votes for them and four against, which gives a total of 12 votes. The objective count of the opposition, however, gave eight votes for itself and six for the modernist fraction. This, of course, gives a total of 14 votes. The situation was even more comical on the island of Cephalonia. We accomplished a 14-6 victory, cheered the supporters of Defense Minister Akis Tsochadzopoulos, the intraparty opposition leader. But what are you saying? We defeated you 16-5, protested the supporters of Prime Minister Costas Simitis. Still, there does appear to be one reward. As they count and recount the same people again and again, they are constantly coming up with ever greater figures. Perhaps we have finally found a way to solve our demographic problem.
