A vulgar variant of concept stealing, prevalent among kleptocrats, avowed mystics, and irrationalists, is a fallacy I call the Reification of the Zero. It consists of regarding nothing as a thing, as a special, different kind of existent. This fallacy breeds such symptoms as the notion that presence and absence, or being and non-being, are metaphysical forces of equal power, and that being is the absence of non-being. E.g., Nothingness is prior to being. (Sartre) — Human finitude is the presence of the not in the being of man. (William Barrett)— Nothing is more real than nothing. (Samuel Beckett) — Das Nichts nichtet or Nothing noughts. (Heidegger). Consciousness, then, is not a stuff, but a negation. The subject is not a thing, but a non-thing. The subject carves its own world out of Being by means of negative determinations. Sartre describes consciousness as a noughting nought (neant neantisant). It is a form of being other than its own: a mode which has yet to be what it is, that is to say, which is what it is, that is to say, which is what it is not and which is not what it is.
Since Nea Democratia and Pasok have become dirty words, Neodemocrats call themselves Antipasokers, and Pasokers call themselves Antineodemocrats! In reality Pasok and Nea Democratia are exactly the same thing, Pasoneodemocratia! Basil Venitis, twitter.com/Venitis, points out that for 35 years since dictatorship, Pasokleptocrats and Neodemokleptocrats who took turns in running Greece, the most corrupt country on Earth, borrowed as if there were no tomorrow, and they received 200 billion euros in kickbacks from Siemens, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, MAN, Daimler, Deutsche Bahn, Ferrostaal, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, antitrust, military purchases, monasteries, and many more. Through mismanagement, robbery, kickbacks, and nepotism, they drove the cradle of democracy to the brink of bankruptcy with a public debt of 350 billion euros. Reification of the Zero!
Venitis points out two roommates of Amherst College of Massachusetts, Anthony Samaras and George Papandreou, lead the two most corrupt political mafias on Earth, Nea Democratia and Pasok. Papandreou is the premier of Greece, and Samaras is the leader of opposition. Papandreou participated in the kleptocratic government of Simitis, and Samaras participated in the kleptocratic government of Caramanlis. They are very good friends, but in public it's their job to accuse each other. Love in private, hate in public, and omerta galore! Reification of the Zero!
Venitis muses that Greek Ministry of Economy is George Orwells' Ministry of Plenty or Miniplenty in Newspeak. Miniplenty imposes heavy taxation, especially VAT, overregualtion, heavy antitrust, and controls prices, salaries, and domestic production. Miniplenty publishes false claims of having raised the standard of living in dystopia, when it has, in fact, reduced production and increased misery. Miniplenty's concocted-statistics are Trojan horses sent to Brussels, in order to get bailouts and avoid penalties. Reification of the Zero!
Venitis muses the Greek Ministry of Defense is George Orwell's Ministry of Peace or Minipax in Newspeak, whose only purpose is to generate military kickbacks and bewilder hoi polloi. Minipax revolves around the principle of perpetual war. Since Greeks have a well-defined enemy, terrorist Turkey, they know whom they hate, and constant government propaganda helps to convince Greeks to vent all their unconscious rage for their own country against terrorist Turkey. Since that means the balance of the country rests in Turcophobia, Minipax is in charge of fighting Turcoterrorists, but making sure to never tip the scales, in case the fight should become one-sided. Reification of the Zero!
The German euphemism for kickbacks is nuetzliche aufwendungen(NA), useful payments. Corruption scandals at Siemens, MAN, Daimler, and Ferrostaal show that German companies owe some of their success abroad to NA. Germany is the world champion in bribery! NA has transformed Greece to the dumping place of Germany. German companies sell their defective equipment to Greece at double prices of their perfect equipment! Yes, at double prices Greece buys submarines that bend, airplanes that cannot balance, helicopters that fall down, security systems that do not work at all, and useless machines rusting in warehouses! Yes, Greece pays gold for garbage, thanks to NA! Reification of the Zero!
After months of haggling over its involvement in the unprecedented Fourth Reich(EU) bailout to save Greece from defaulting, Germany finds itself at the center of another financial tangle with Graecokleptocrats; this time involving defense contracts Greece could ill afford and the shadowy deals behind them. At the same time Merkel's cabinet was approving a quarter of a trillion euros in aid to Greece, prosecutors in Germany began investigating whether defense contractors had paid billions of euros in bribes to Graecokleptocrats in connection with the sale of heavy military equipment, including submarines. Reification of the Zero!
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