Constantinos Arvanitis

[Wayne Hall]

Constantinos Arvanitis

Aegina, 22.5.2022

www.aeginaportal.gr/eidiseis/omilies/32971-omilies-kai-syzitisi-gia-trexonta-themata-tis-xoras-apo-tin-omada-polites-tis-aiginas.html

From 12.37

It is years since I visited Aegina. And I am also happy to be here with such a select audience around me. I want to say just a few things, because most of it is well-known and I don't want to tire you. There are a lot of us speaking.

As regards the situation we are living through today, we know that things have evolved slowly. It is a situation that was prepared and methodically constructed. When it was all being set up it seemed spontaneous and natural. Today, looking back, we see that every move was premeditated. Nothing happened by chance. First of all, the great publicity that was given for the first time in the annals of health care to a virus infection that we would have described as a kind of cold or a kind of flu. We all know, especially doctors, that every winter we have a lot of cases of flu, colds, bronchitis, acute bronchitis, pneumonia. That is how it has been all these years. People have got used to it. We have also got used to the idea that each winter, when there are a lot of such cases, some of our fellow citizens: very old people, and very sick people, will get the little push that is needed to send them into the other world. That is regarded as entirely natural. How many of us have not heard someone say: "Our grandfather was ninety-two years old. He came down with a heavy flu. We took him to the hospital. We lost him." All of society is not thrown into a panic with people in the streets wearing gloves, with muzzles that are called masks. A mask covers your eyes. What you put on your mouth is called a muzzle. So. We know that every winter we will mourn the passing of some very old people, some gravely ill people, some people who have lived longer than the usual span of life and with some chance occurrence, sooner or later, said goodbye to us. We never panicked like that. For the first time the mass media started to over-promote some kind of morbid situation which wasn't very different from the others apart from the fact that a new virus had appeared. Apart from that it was the same. The people who were affected had flu symptoms. Catarrh, a temperature, a cough, aching bones: what you see with flu. If it wasn't for the PCR test nobody would have known the word Corona virus. It was a test that was not at all specialized but nevertheless was made out to be necessary prerequisite for diagnosis. Which is a lie, as we know. It isn't a prerequisite because it isn't a specialized test. We found out later that the PCR tests register positive with flu, with colds, with bronchitis and with other ailments, and with nothing at all. Why do they register positive with nothing at all? Because a trick has come to light. They are reinforced tremendously with the result that they produce very large numbers of false positives, that is to say large numbers of positives which don't mean anything. If, with the people who are present here - and obviously none of you are sick or you would be in bed - I gave you a PCR test, and there are a hundred of us, let's say, I might find thirty or forty positives. So it's a test which is deliberately conducted in such a way as to produce a great many false positives. In fact in some studies it was discovered that of one hundred positives ninety seven were false and only three were truly positive.

We have studies from California also where doctors in laboratories at eight universities came together and took 1,500 PCR tests and passed them one by one under an electron microscope to see a Corona virus with their own eyes: what it is like. With the 1,500 positive PCR tests how many Corona viruses did they find? None. They were all Influenza A and a few Influenza B. The way the test is conducted it deliberately comes up with innumerable false results. Why is all that needed ? To call someone a "case" without him having anything. We need a lot of cases to make a pandemic. You can't have a pandemic without a large number of cases. And again in that way not even one in a hundred would be a "case" officially. In medicine what we call a "case" is someone who is sick. We don't call someone a "case" when he registers positive in a test, in some test that I dream up and I give it what meaning I like afterwards. Even the person who invented it, who is no longer alive, regarded it not as a diagnostic test, but simply a laboratory test to detect the presence in a sample of something he is looking for, in a context where he is magnifying something a million times before he measures it. When you magnify the sample not a million but a billion or a trillion times, as happened here, before you measure it, it will produce a positive even if it has nothing at all in it. So this is how you set up a pandemic on the basis of a test which has become diagnostic which was interpreted however they liked by the people who imposed it, and described as "cases", for the first time in medicine, people who had nothing wrong with them.

But it is not enough to have a lot of "cases" to call something a pandemic. You need a lot of deaths too. And this was the second fraud. They had to attribute to Corona virus a great number of deaths which it had not caused, eclipsing the factor of other diseases. For what purpose? The victim had a number of other serious conditions but among them he had Corona virus. Did he? Perhaps he didn't, but he had a positive PCR result. So all one had to do was take to the hospital an old person who had had a stroke, a cerebral hemorrhage. They give him a PCR. Naturally, as was to be expected that day or the next day the person would die. They say it is a death from Corona virus. But there is something even worse. If you had a positive PCR result, false-positive without any symptoms, twenty-eight days after that, whatever you died from it is recorded as a death with COVID. If on the twenty-third day you were killed in a car crash it was a death with COVID because on the twenty-third day your PCR result was positive. Whatever you die from it is recorded as a death with COVID. If twenty-eight days had not passed from a positive PCR result, whatever you died from: murder, suicide, a heart attack, cancer, it counts as a death with COVID. So in that way the list of people dying with COVID began to be inflated and then, because it was said that they died WITH COVID, so as to protect their continental shelf from scientific objections, the systemic television channels undertook to transform this in the evening to deaths FROM COVID. What had been deaths WITH COVID in the National Public Health Organization medical bulletins, in the evening became deaths FROM COVID. So a fear was transmitted to the community, methodically, systematically, and all this for what purpose? As it transpired, the ultimate purpose was to persuade the citizen, as much as possible without protest, to accept whatever "cure" there was, or to be precise, because there was no cure, the only solution you had was for them to inject into you a brand-new insufficiently tested preparation, but it is your only hope because there is nothing else. Call it a vaccine because the word "vaccine" is attractive, though it is not a vaccine. Vaccines are what are administered to children, for measles, for chicken pox. Vaccines that have been around for decades, that have been tested. You will do it once and acquire immunity for all your life, because they are microbes and viruses that don't mutate. They aren't Corona viruses, which mutate continually so that vaccination against them is pointless. Particularly with a new untested technology, which isn't exactly untested. In the past it was tested for other applications and encountered nothing but failures. There hasn't been any preparation so far, whether for prevention or for treatment of any condition, based on MRNA, which has failed to pass the tests and finally was not released onto the market with an official licence. So far it has seen nothing but failure. What makes us think that this method could achieve some successes? It is not in any way assured.

So all this story with the fake epidemic, with the hyperinflation of ''cases'', with the inflated number of deaths that are attributed to it, served the purpose of getting this stuff into every person. At first it was supposedly only for the very old and the sick. Then they lowered the limits by a decade or two. They got to the adolescents, who had no problem from COVID, however much one inflated the figures. They imposed it there. They brought it down to little children. Soon they will be vaccinating embryos. And not even pets will escape them. What is the point of all this? There are a lot of scenarios and I won't analyse any of them ,but none of them are good. Even choosing the most favourable interpretation, it is still appalling for us. For us who will be bearing what we are subjected to. Which takes us to another point that is relevant. We know that in our country, and in every other country, year by year, the total number of deaths rises and falls slightly. But if you take an average for the last three years, or five years, you get a figure which is more or less a norm In Greece, for example, for the last five years before the Corona virus appeared the official annual death statistic was around one hundred and twenty thousand. Roughly ten thousand a month. Of course between summer and winter there is a slight divergence: in winter it is a little higher, in summer slightly lower. But on average, that's it. Around a hundred and twenty thousand. So to see if a new cause of death is causing real deaths of its own, it will have to cause an increase in overall mortality in the population. So in the year you say that a new cause of death has appeared, more Greeks will have to be dying in that year than the average number of deaths. Considerably more, not a fluctuation of one or two thousand up or down. Because this could be in the context of random fluctuation. There are statistical methods that indicate whether a deviation is statistically significant or insignificant. But this is not what is being found. That means that this new cause of death which you claim has appeared is not causing deaths of its own. There has just been an accounting transfer from other causes which you have credited to something else. It is like going to a football match and saying that the goal was not scored by John but by George. You transfer the credit from one to another, but the score doesn't change. If the annual death score doesn't change, you don't have a new cause of death. And here, in the first year, we didn't see a significant change. In Greece the first Corona virus patients were recorded in March 2020 and if you move a year from March 2020 to March 2021 and compare it with the previous year you don't see any significant differences. Negligible things. There was some change but nothing worth mentioning.

But there is another way of seeing it. When you go to the bulletins of the National Public Health Organization you look at the average age of people who die. A new cause of death, what does it do? It shortens life. If you shorten life, the average age of people who die from this disease will have to be lower than the average life expectancy in this state. Looking at the bulletins of the National Public Health Organization health, they tell us that those who died WITH COVID - the NPHO never says FROM - the disgraceful media say FROM - the NPHO says WITH COVID simply. NPHO watches its back. They don't say which of them are from COVID and which of them had COVID among the ten plagues of the Pharaoh. Well, those who died WITH COVID had an average age of 79. That is the life expectancy of Greeks: 78 for men, 80 for women, averaging 79. So when the average age of those dying with COVID in the bulletins of the NPHO is 79, the same as the average age at which the citizens of this country die, this means that it doesn't shorten life. Another indication that there has been an accounting transfer from other causes of death to COVID. If it really provoked its own deaths, where those people wouldn't have died if there had been no COVID, then the average age of those dying with COVID would be falling much lower: 70, 65, 60. You would find an average age much lower than the average life expectancy in this country, which applies for all of the rest of the population. Given that the rest of the population has a probability of death at 79 years of age and the probability of dying from COVID is at 79 years, COVID doesn't shorten life. Another indication that it is not in itself causing death.

So all of that leads many of us to suspect that something is not as it should be, particularly things are not right with the numbers, the figures, or with the interpretation, not just with the figures. We have understood that something is going not at all well. There is something fake, something phony, something staged. On other hand the insistence of the political power holders to impose the vaccination at all costs, even on people who have contracted the infection, something unheard of because anyone who has become infected has on their own the capacity that a vaccine seeks to acquire, if it is a vaccine. Why are there vaccines? So that people will acquire immunity and not succumb to an illness. If you have been infected you have acquired immunity, much more efficient than any vaccine can give them. We have studies today that have been conducted - they were conducted last year - on people that fell ill seventeen years ago during the first SARS, 2003-4. Seventeen years later the people had immunity. Proven. So natural immunity, if the harmful factor - the virus or microbe - does not change, it must last for life. There is no reason to say: "Take a dose of the vaccine to strengthen your immunity a little." Strengthen what? I have perfect immunity. I was infected. It's over and done with. I cleaned it up. I don't ever need it unless something changes, unless that virus changes and becomes something else, and is something very different. Then my immunity is not total, it is partial. But you haven't changed the vaccines. You have left them as they were supposedly for dealing with the initial infection. So what point is there in me accepting that vaccine? If I got sick last year from Delta, I have a more recent immunity than what these products would give me. What can I do? Will it give me immunity from a virus that doesn't exist any more?

[Wayne Hall]

Eleftheri Penna (Free Pen)
25th July 2022

(from minute 29.45)
Constantinos Arvanitis

What we concluded in spring is that the last thing this country needs is another party. It already has a lot of them. There is no need for another party to be established. What is needed - and this is a demand of everyone who is with us - is for all these voices to unite into something thunderous. We don't need yet more little voices. There are more than enough already.

E.P.: Is it feasible that they will unite? Realistically?

So we thought of establishing a co-ordinating committee - that is SYNEPEIA: it is not a party - which will work on two levels, both with the leadership of the extra-parliamentary oppositional groups but also directly with the people itself. Why do I say extra-parliiamentary? Because in our view all the parliamentary parties without any exception have collaborated in the present situation and are complicit. Whether with their approval, or with their toleration, or with their silent acceptance, they are complicit, and we have accordingly not turned in any way to the parliamentary parties. What we have been interested in from the outset and have set our sights on is collaboration of all the extra-parliamentary oppositional parties. They are the ones we have tried to gather together, to bring to the same table, so as to form one single powerful extra-parliamentary pole, one list in tomorrow's projected elections, to give hope to the people that something, some political agency can go into the political arena with demands and influence political life in Greece. Because the way it has been until now, fragmented, each party will receive a percentage with decimal points which will not count for anything anywhere. It is neither here nor there if you increase your zero point five percent to zero point seven percent and you rejoice over that. It is of no consequence. What is needed is a powerful pole and giving hope to a people who have succumbed to pessimism and defeatism.

E.P.: Sorry for interrupting but it's important for people to understand. Of those who will approach you, who will unite, or collaborate, rather, will one party emerge that will accept, one movement....

This is what we want. A coalition, a single list on which all the opposition will be standing. But, look, what is the largest potential c in Greece today? Abstention! Abstention in the last elections got around twice as many votes as New Democracy, which formed a government. Because when you have a rate of abstention in the order of forty-five percent or more - almost half of the population in other words did not go to vote - your government takes forty percent, usually, of the votes that are cast, but its real support is around twenty percent. The government took around twenty percent of the real vote on election day. The day after the elections it starts to fall. So, a section of the people that has fallen into pessimism and has become inert and doesn't even go to vote, along with those who voted informal or spoilt their ballots, they are to be counted here too, make up a huge reservoir of citizens who, if you manage to move them, or even a third of them, you become official opposition at the least. If you move half of them you become the government. So, there is a vast reservoir of citizens that is waiting for something. Waiting for hope. Waiting for something to inspire their hopes that something can be done. So we thought that by proposing a minimum program to everyone, with minimal goals, which are feasible, down-to-earth, which can be achieved within the framework of this system, which don't presuppose the existence of previous world-wide historic changes in order to be implemented but can also be achieved within the parameters of the existing situation and activate the people, activate the Greek who is having difficulties getting through the month. These things could strike a chord with people coming from all over the political spectrum: discontented right-wingers, discontented leftists, discontented centrists, PASOK. There is no political coloration with all this. They are things that bother everyone, and everyone agrees about them. This is what we were aiming at achieving in the contacts with the leaderships of the extra-parliamentary parties all through the spring.

But, although we had the wind in our sails at the beginning, we started to get bogged down, because a lot of other things started coming in. Everyone said we want unity, because it is a buzz word as well as being a popular demand. But then they started to put in preconditions where nobody could accept those of the others, and it was unviable. So that finally the story was "I wanted to, but nobody would accept what I was saying." The others said the same and finally it was shown that the leaders of the extra-parliamentary opposition prefer that each of them holds on to his shop, to his mini-market, as he understands it, and to call the shots himself, rather than having everyone come together and be part of a greater collectivity which, however, will not be under his absolute control, but he will have to consult the others and take them into consideration.

E.P.: Or they are simply serving other purposes. They serve the system.

That too. What can one say about such scenarios? The electoral system as it is does favour fragmentation. When one percent of the vote is enough to get you subsidized, everyone wants to reach that figure and get their subsidy. They don't even want so much to get elected.

E.P.: But in the present phase that isn't what Greece needs.

For some their ambitions stop there.

E.P.: Yes. Unfortunately.

Why did we start discussions with the leaderships? Are we interested in the leaderships as such? No. We want through an understanding with the leaderships to reach a quick and easy understanding with the electoral base. The citizens themselves, who follow them but feel that they are all in the same boat. They are a single entity. When the initial plan wasn't effective we moved on to plan B. For the last twenty days we have been organizing and addressing the citizens themselves. Since the beginning of July SYNEPEIA has been addressing citizens directly with a move it is making, with a project, with a program we are starting which was called SPORA (sowing). And what do we do? In each town we sow groups of activated citizens who have realized that this situation cannot continue and wish to take charge of their own condition. In every town in Greece a group of active citizens is established, of all shades, from a variety of political backgrounds. We're not interested in this. They come together, they get organized, they hold functions, lectures, they invite us, we talk. They will decide. Nobody will impose anything on them. We are not a party.

E.P.: Do you mean they will decide whether SYNEPEIA will stand in the elections?

Each group will decide on the activity in its own town. We just play a co-ordinating role between all these groups so as to form a pan-Hellenic current. All the streams will come together in a single great channel and will become a fast-flowing torrent. This is our hope.

We are not a party. We are not enrolling members. They don't belong to us in any sense. We help in the activation process, the awakening if you like, the mobilization. What we say is: "friends, take off your slippers, put on your shoes and go out and claim what belongs to you and has been taken away." How you do it is up to you. When a popular movement of that kind reaches mass proportions it will decide how it will proceed. Does it want to set up a party and stand for election? Let it do so. We just help in the awakening and the coming together. We don't say "come to us" because we haven't got anywhere to enrol members and we ourselves are not going to become politicians. This popular movement, which starts from the base, from "SPORA".....

E.P.: It will decide what it will do.

When it develops and becomes powerful, can decide on its course, and if it wants to, elect a leadership, do whatever it likes. We help it move in that direction.

E.P.: What you say about what will happen if it gets to that point, i.e. becomes powerful...do you think it will happen immediately, before the next elections?

Yes, it's something that is moving very fast. We are moving very rapidly in all the towns where groups of active citizens are being established. They were already existing in some places and they have told us that they want to join the "SPORA" movement, as it is, all together, as groups. They have invited me to speak in various towns and we have programmed others.

E.P.: Like in Halkida recently.

I went there a fortnight ago. On Sunday I will be going to Nafplion. We have got others to go to. There are already groups ready-formed in many towns, which are exactly as they were. They existed before: groups of active citizens who want to be part of the common component called SPORA. Nobody is obliging them to do anything. We are not asking anything. They are to become active and take charge of their own fate. That's what we ask. We aren't diverging from the previous goal: convergence of leaderships. We haven't excluded it.

E.P.: But it's a more distant goal.

Things are difficult, but despite all that we haven't despaired 100% and abandoned the idea. Perhaps the two objectives can proceed together in parallel. If the leaderships of the small parties see that the base members are coming together they may willy nilly be obliged to follow suit. It may be an incentive for them. Basically the greatest candidate audience for us is the self-organizing citizenry, who chose for themselves abstention, voting informal or spoiling the ballot paper. They are almost half of the Greek population.

E.P.: No doubt you are right because they are half of Greece and they are a huge reservoir that will play a mass role.

They were half of Greece three years ago. Today they might be more than half.

E.P.: That's right. You're right. We don't know exactly. But certainly that reservoir can change the country's political route, isn't that so? If it is activated of course.

If half of them are activated it will turn things upside down.

E.P.: Yes. You're completely right. I think this is understood by the people who watch us.

It should be understood that this movement transcends parties. It is beyond and above parties. It is not directed by any party. It is what is immediately required. Activation and self-organization of the citizens themselves. Something that is not wanted by any government. Every government wants you to give it your vote and then go and relax on your couch for the next four years so that it can do whatever it likes, translate it into whatever it wants, do what it thought and didn't say, while claiming "I have the approval of the people". It doesn't want active citizens checking on it day and night. It doesn't want that. Why should it? It wants the electorate to make its statement and then go and take it easy. We want the opposite.

E.P.: It is completely understandable and we hope that this endeavour will go ahead because it seems like a very dynamic solution.

The only solution. There isn't any other solution. Is it a solution for another party to come out and say "vote for me and leave the solution to me"? Look, we want people to understand that freedom, which is the requirement today, isn't a pizza that you can order by telephone and have them bring it to your door. You can't say "I made my payment to such-and-such a party. I gave them my vote. That is my payment. I want you bring my freedom to my door." No. You will get up. You will get your feet off the sofa and you will go, together with others who have woken up and you will go and bring it. No-one is going to bring it to you. Not me. Not anyone. If you remain a sheep you can't hope for anything more than to be milked every day, shorn twice a year, and slaughtered once. That is the fate of the sheep, isn't it? If you don't stop being a sheep there will be wolves.

E.P.: I think your examples are very characteristic. There can be no doubt about it and that's how things are. People shouldn't wait for someone else. They themselves have to stand on their feet.

This is why our slogan is: "If not you, then who?"

E.P. : Nobody, isn't that so? There is no-one else.

We say it interrogatively: "If not you, then who?"

E.P. :Agreed. Well, I haven't got anything else to say. I don't know whether you want to add anything to what we have already said.

No. A nice awakening for us all. Courage, because we have a journey ahead of us. And instead of wearing out our trousers on chairs, let's wear out our shoes on the streets.

E.P.: Thanks very much. Strength to us all.

Right. Good evening.

[Wayne Hall]

Liberty can be won only through direct organization of citizens.

No party is going to save us if we don't organize ourselves en masse.

A discussion on all fronts with Constantine Arvanitis.

Mina Maiopoulou: Hello dear friends. Today with have with us Mr. Constantine Arvanitis, professor of cardiology at the University of Athens and he will talk to us today about the founding of SYNEPEIA, which has been in existence for a few months now, and the letter he has sent to thousands of people on the organization of citizens. Mr. Arvanitis, good evening.

Costas Arvanitis: Good evening.

M.M.:Tell us. What exactly are you doing? You have founded a socio-political movement called SYNEPEIA and calling upon citizens. What is happening?

C.A.: SYNEPEIA is not a party. We took it into account that there are already a lot of parties on the Greek political scene and the last thing our country needs is another party. So this is why SYNEPEIA is not a party. It is a political movement of active citizens engaged in actions oriented in two directions. One of them is contact with other extra-parliamentary political parties. The second is addressed directly to the people that they should organize themselves in groups on a city-by-city basis, region by region, groups of active citizens who will take in their own hands the competences that belong to them: the competences of the active citizen. The ultimate objective of these two activities is to overturn the present political situation in Greece, which we consider to be a dystopia, and in the last two or two and a half years has greatly deteriorated. Not that everything was rosy before but in the last two or two and a half years, with the pandemic, things have become completely impossible.

M.M.: In brief, a state of tyranny.

C.A.: Yes, with a parliamentary veneer.

M.M.: I read the letter and I would like very much for you to read it out and afterwards we can analyse it.

C.A.: Yes.

M.M.: Can we do that?

C.A.: If you don't mind, before I read the letter let me say as an introduction that since the March when it was founded t SYNEPEIA made many contacts with a great number of parties and movements of the extra-parliamentary opposition. Why extra-parliamentary? Because we think that all the parties that are in the parliament have in one way or another been complicit in the present-day situation, whether through approval, through silent acceptance, through consent. All are complicit in the present political situation. So we have not turned in any way to parliamentary parties but only to the extra-parliamentary opposition, to whatever parties and movements are to be found there. These contacts continued throughout the spring and while they started very well and we seemed to have the wind in our sails, we stumbled on a number of problems that were raised by every one of them, while all were speaking of unity and everyone supposedly wanted to come together in a single powerful oppositional pole with the ability to mobilize citizens, afterwards with the conditions and the prerequisites that each one was positing, this prospect essentially became unfeasible. Today when we speak of unity of the extra-parliamentary milieu it appears to be something very remote. Each party that has a small power base tries to rally around itself some other fractions and labels, most of which have no support in the people, so that it will seem that it is working towards a unity and that it has gathered around itself four or five or six other fractions, which in reality have no power. Most of them have never been heard of. They are parties which apart from their founder and perhaps a friend of his there isn't even a third member. This is deception of the people who are anxiously waiting today for some prospect.

M.M.: Why do you think they are they doing this?

C.A.: To show that they are working towards unity. In reality they are not working towards any unity because those who have some power - don't imagine anything great - a power in the order of a half to one percent, don't want, between themselves, to come together. Each of them is chasing the prospect offered by the electoral system and wants to win a minimal percentage and it seems the ambitions of some don't go beyond that of securing the one and a half percent that will win them some state subsidization. They don't want to be part of a much greater pole. They prefer to have a little shop, a mini-market, and control it themselves and do what they want rather than have everyone together start a big department store which will have a collective leadership and they won't call the shots on their own but will have to have the agreement of the others for what they do.

M.M.: So tomorrow I can go and found a party, exploiting my subscribers on You-Tube - is this right? Draw up a declaration - I have a specific philosophy. I am concerned with.... I don't know what. Anyway. Something that involves society. And if I win one and a half percent I can get a subsidy?

C.A.: Precisely.

M.M.: Can you tell me the amount of the subsidy?

C.A.: In the region of eight hundred thousand.

M.M.: Right. So then I give up politics and go off with the subsidy.

C.A.: I don't know what you will do. You'll make an investment to expand your party. To maintain your offices. Or anything else. There is no need to say what you will do.

M.M.: So could this subsidy have some connection with the refusal of the small parties to unite and come together as a force?

C.A.: It could very likely have some relationship. The ambitions of many, although they would not admit it, could stop there.

M.M.: OK.

C.A.: When you are a party of half a percent you hope to make it one and a half. So as to become more or less autonomous, economically independent or something like that. What is the biggest potential party on the Greek political scene? Abstention. These are people who have become inert because of pessimism, because they have seen that in recent years the governments may change but the politics essentially does not change.

M.M.: It is the same.

C.A.: Their position doesn't improve although they had hopes and voted for some party. And slowly they fall into a state of pessimism and into inertia. They have made themselves inert as citizens because when someone abstains from voting he cannot be considered an active citizen. The figure for abstention in the last elections was over forty percent. This percentage of abstention in the last elections was higher than forty percent. Forty-five percent. A huge number. Of course we must say that this figure is not entirely real because the electoral rolls have not been revised for years. They include deceased people and so on. In fact the figure is smaller. It might not be forty five but it could be around forty or thirty five. Once again it is much higher than the percentage that the government received in the last elections. When you have abstention approaching fifty percent and the government took forty percent, its real support in the electorate is twenty percent. When the abstention is forty percent or forty five or thirty five if is almost twice as high as the proportion taken by the government. If one succeeds in moving, let's not overestimate, a third of those people, one comes out at least as official opposition. If you get half of them, you are sure to come out as the government. So there is a huge reservoir of voters here that each party tries to win over.

But to mobilize them you have to show that you are giving hope to these people, that you have some demands and something behind you to make you a protagonist on the political scene. And a party that is entirely unknown, that no-one has ever heard of, cannot be a protagonist. And neither can a party that stood for election the last time and took 0.3% of the vote. Or 0.5% of the vote. And if a fraction like that doesn't want to unite with others to form a single oppositional pole, this was from the outset the aim of SYNEPEIA from March onwards. We tried to unite all the oppositional parties, always of the extra-parliamentary milieu....

M.M.: Tell us a little. What was the problem? You did mention it but I would like it to be clearer to people. Everyone in the beginning wanted to work together.

C.A.: Everyone said "Yes." We were trying to bring all those parties to the same table and to stand in the elections as a coalition. We talked with a lot of people. If you want I can name them.

M.M.: Of course.

C.A.: There were meetings with fourteen and fifteen participants. Parties and movements of the extra-parliamentary milieu. It became apparent that everyone wanted something to be formed, but later in various ways it got bogged down. It didn't go ahead. After participating everyone tried to take three or four others with him and say "here I am forging unity". And would say "I am such-and-such", which you know already and he puts in another four or give fractions that you have never heard of, which for the population as a whole are non-existent. Some haven't even been convened as parties, officially with the Supreme Court. In some cases if on a particular day the founder is ill and can't be present there is no-one to stand in for him. Obviously these formations are not in a position even to stand candidates in all of the country, but only in certain areas, perhaps in the largest electoral districts. So we conclude that this amounts to deceiving people, saying that we are promoting unity while fooling people in this way. Essentially you didn't want any kind of unity. You had your own micro-party plans and your prospects don't go beyond that. That said, having ascertained that nothing is happening there, without despairing one hundred percent, we continued with our efforts, turning to the second direction that we had announced at our establishment. Direct to the political base: to the people themselves, bringing them together, town by town, in groups of active citizens, who would organize functions, talks, briefings on all the burning questions of politics. And under these town-by-town groupings we would come together as little currents in the channel of a greater stream and will comprise a pan-Hellenic torrent capable of being a protagonist in the political arena with its power, with its mass, which why not? will unnerve the political power holders because a thunderous voice is always heard. Large numbers of little weak voices do not have hope.
So with that summons to the people which we launched about ten days ago SYNEPEIA is aiming precisely there. It is addressing the people directly and requiring that the organize themselves town by town into groups. In all towns: prefectural capitals in the first instance and other big towns, which will come into collaboration between themselves, and the task of co-ordination will be performed by SYNEPEIA because that will be our role, so as to comprise a powerful popular current, a strong mobilization. If you like I can now read you this call to action.

M.M.: Yes, certainly.

C.A.: This rallying of citizens we call for is a mobilization for radical regroupment. organization. The acronym comes out as SPORA (Syspeirosi Politon Rizikis Anasyngrotisis) Citizens' Rally for Radical Regroupment. SPORA means "sowing". It has a semantic content because we wish to show that a sowing has begun and we are hoping for a prompt and rapid harvest for the benefit of all the tyrannized Greek people. I read: "Greek society today continues to experience the deepest crisis it has ever known in a period of peace. In brief the factors of crisis are: Firstly, the impoverishment of the people and the economic enslavement of the country imposed by the political establishment through the memoranda so that European banks do not suffer losses, along with the ever-increasing rise in public debt, which has reached levels twice as high as when the country was saddled with the memoranda. Secondly, the abolition of democracy in any sense, imposed by the establishment itself both through the coup-like overturn of the verdict of the people in the 2015 referendum, from an unequivocal sixty-two percent NO to a shameful "YES to everything" and through today's unprecedented attack on citizens' individual rights, with the punitive hostage-taking of thousands of health workers as the apex of this attack. The regime has condemned them to a slow death through suspension of their employment. Thirdly the deepening of the acute demographic problem threatening the Greek nation with extinction. In recent years there have been fewer births than deaths in our country, leading to continual reduction of the population, a situation aggravated by the mass emigration of Greeks seeking a brighter future in foreign countries. Fourthly, the worsening of immigration problem, with the increasing colonization of the country by immigrants of an entirely different cultural model , making them a foreign body in Greek society, with all the dangers that entails. Fifthly, the dangerous external policy, serving the purposes of foreign powers at the expense of Greek interests. This includes the hasty resolution of the Skopje question in a fashion that serves NATO's requirement for immediate entry of our neighbouring country into NATO but was opposed to the contrary convictions of the people as expressed in a wave of protests in 2018. Sixthly, the total abolition of the independence of the judiciary by the executive power, exacerbating the already tragic conditions being endured by the average Greek citizen. This tragic situation is expected rapidly to worsen in the coming months owing to mistaken political choices whose disastrous consequences are aggravated by the result of the war between Russia and the West which has broken out and has opened the back door for a Third World War, with all the potentially catastrophic consequences that may entail. Focusing on Greek issues, we come to the conclusion that this situation, which is indeed tragic, must be reversed.

Reversal

It is clear that the reversal of the current tragic situation cannot be entrusted to those who created and maintain it. The reversal can only come from forces in society that are opposed to those that cause these effects. Since the forces that are causing the destruction of our country are the forces that are serving the New World Order, pursuing the globalization of capital, it is evident that the forces for overthrowing this tragic situation can be other than the patriotic and democratic forces of Greek society.

These forces, which are needed to stop the country's disastrous course, certainly exist, but most of them today are fragmented and locked into outdated political schemes.

What Greece needs, urgently, is the unification of patriotic forces into a great popular movement that will consolidate democracy as the only polity that guarantees freedom.

In order to have prospects of success, the rallying of the people must give the people the role that belongs to it under the Constitution, the role of sovereign ruler of the country.

We therefore have an obligation to restore this role, which has been stolen from the people by the oligarchy. The result of this theft is that the government from being a servant becomes the people's master and the people from being the government's master becomes its slave.

We shall attempt, through the proposal we make, to restore this role of the people, enabling them to take back their stolen power and become master of the country, as intended under the first article of the Constitution.

OVERCOMING THE DEADLOCK

We invite every citizen, after reflecting on the present situation, to ask himself a simple question, and answer it:
What, after everything we have said in our analysis, is needed in Greek society today?
A) That my preferred party and leader enter parliament as a weak hanger-on?
B) That Greece be rid of the corrupt governing establishment that is destroying it?
- Those who choose (A) can wait for the elections, when they will go and repeat what they have always done...
- Those who choose (B) are those to whom our proposal is addressed.

Our proposal takes us entirely off the beaten track.

Instead of waiting for the decision of the head of the oligarchy on when to set up the polls, so that the oligarchy can once again usurp the right to decide from the people, divided into dozens of parties, we call upon the people themselves NOW, BEFORE the elections, to take the situation into their own hands so that the elections, for the first time in history, will sound the death knell of the destructive and rotten establishment.

All that is needed is the decision to act and make a personal contribution so that this REALLY UNITARY RALLYING PROPOSAL will reach every Greek family.

HOW THE CITIZENS' ASSOCIATION WILL BE IMPLEMENTED

The rallying of citizens will be implemented through the formation of local citizens' groups in each city, in each prefecture of Greece, in order to conduct open events for briefing of Greek citizens, speeches and any other form of activity that they themselves will decide.
In order to be able to form a nationwide collective current these local groups should be in consultation and cooperation with each other, conducting joint events and above all using the possibilities provided by modern technology, such as joint teleconferences or any other means they consider appropriate for this purpose.
SYNEPEIA will provide wholehearted assistance to any local group of citizens, at the same time on the national level co-ordinating the joint actions and events of the groups, in a process of building a nationwide current for system overturn.

This is the comprehensive and unifying proposal that SYNEPEIA submits to the people for approval and immediate implementation."

M.M.: Fine. Tell me now, someone who wants to contribute actively to this movement, what should he or she do? Tangibly.

C.A.: If in his town there is already a group of active citizens he or she must make contact with them, participate in their functions and disseminate to others, friends and acquaintances, the summons and continually expand the ranks of this group. If there isn't, one will have to be formed. In many towns there are already such groups. In others they are being formed. For the group to form, though, he or she must come into contact with other citizens with a similar outlook. How will he do that? Go and ring doorbells? No. Go to our webpage SYNEPEIA.GR. It is written how it is written in Greek, but with Latin letters.

M.M.: I will put it up under the description so that you can find it.

C.A.: Fine. Going into the webpage of SYNEPEIA.GR on the first page you will see a yellow button that says ΚΑΛΕΣΜΑ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟ ΛΑΟ (summons to the people) (in fact ΠΡΟΤΑΣΗ ΓΙΑ ΤΟ ΛΑΟ) (proposal to the people) If you click it you will see the announcement that I read just now. Looking at the menus you will see a menu that says ΠΟΙΟΙ ΕΙΜΑΣΤΕ (who we are). Clicking that various options open underneath. Among them is one called ΕΘΕΛΟΝΤΕΣ (volunteers). You go in there and declare yourself a volunteer. Put your details, a telephone number for communication, an e-mail for communication. Don't forget to indicate what town you live in. And we will bring the person into contact with others in the same town and you will communicate and find the initial core group, which will then grow.

M.M.: Can I emphasize something? There are other kinds of groups, with the same views and the same convictions. They too are welcome, I assume. We don't have a dogmatism, that simply we are all SYNEPEIA. There are others who have formed groups and come together over the years, I know three people who have formed different groups. Unofficially.

C.A.: All of those groups have to come together as one. There is no point in there being five groups in one town.

M.M.: Exactly.

C.A.: There must be one. And they won't come to SYNEPEIA, because I say again that SYNEPEIA is not a party. And these citizens' groups organized town by town don't belong in some way to SYNEPEIA. We help the people to bring themselves together, to organize themselves. They won't belong to us. We don't enrol members. We don't have members. We aren't a party.

M.M.: You yourself derive no advantage from all this. To emphasize this.

C.A.: We are not planning to go into politics and we are not going to be asking for anyone's vote. They will decide. When a great pan-Hellenic current has been created if each of them wants to vote for whoever he likes or if they want to found a party to stand in elections, that's their right. We will plan only a co-ordinating role, an auxiliary role so that citizens can self-organize. We believe in the self-organization of citizens from below. We want citizens to take off their slippers and put on their shoes again and go out and claim what they are entitled to and what belongs to them and which they have been deprived of surreptitiously in recent years. This is what we want people to do, to self-organize. What will be established by every committee in every town does not belong to us, in any sense. They will decide what they will do. They will organize their functions. If they then invite us to come and deliver a speech in their town, we will go. For information purposes and so on. But they have their fortune in their hands. From us they will have absolutely no, to put it simply, manipulation or something like that. We help simply to get them together. From there on what they decide to do is their business.

M.M.: And there will be no personal benefit. We should emphasize this because Greeks have become used to deriving personal advantage from joining a party. And because SYNEPEIA isn't a party there are no personal vested interests or benefits. We all work for everyone. Isn't that so?

C.A.: We are participating in politics as activated citizens and not as dilettantes. We don't want to become politicians. We ourselves are not going to be politicians. When a powerful current has been created the people will decide how they propose to intervene in the political scene. If they want to intervene by forming a party and standing for election; if they want to intervene by taking power themselves "by acclamation" as was said once upon a time, I don't know, they decide that for themselves. We say to form nuclei in all towns and that they should be in communication and collaboration with each other. Beyond that it is obvious that these nuclei will be variegated from the viewpoint of the political origins of the people who comprise them. There will be discontented people from all of the political spectrum of Greek political life.

M.M.: This doesn't interest us.

C.A.: It doesn't interest us at all. It is healthy. It doesn't interest us at all where a person comes from if he is an active citizen and has stopped being a humble subject in every sense of the word. He has become an active citizen.

M.M.: What does it mean to be "an active citizen?". Can you tell me a thing or two about that because I can't understand exactly. OK, inform ourselves. We make a big group in Thessaloniki, in Athens, in any Greek town. But what will we do? What will our role be?

C.A.: Our role is, for a start, to be aware that we have power in our hands. To become aware of that through functions we will organize. Organize a talk. Gathering somewhere, in a venue. Fifty, a hundred, people, to begin with. Later two hundred, three hundred. Acquiring self-confidence. There will be talks with people they will invite from their town or from another town, on political subjects, economic subjects. I don't know: there are very many people who can help, in every sector: with geopolitical analysis, with economic analyses, with medical analyses, given that that subject is very much preoccupying people lately. And other measures are coming on that. Anything. There are a lot of people who can contribute to this and inform others. The actions they take, I repeat, they themselves will decide, without direction from some party, from some leading group who will tell them what to do.

M.M.: And what is frightening to the system, Mr. Arvanitis? We organize talks, activities and so on. Why should they be frightened of us? We will be yet another group, another community.

C.A.: They will be frightened because they will see that......Halkida had a meeting in Halkida and it had 150 people. And a month later it had 300 people. And the next time it had 500 people. And I see that that is happening in every town. And those groups support each other and communicate. And see a wave continually expanding and becoming massive. Mobilizing a great part of the people, of the section of the people that had become inert. It had fallen into inertia in recent years. This is ringing alarm bells for every oppressive regime in every country. No such regime wants the people activated. They want them to deliver a vote and then go and relax on the sofa again so that the government can then do whatever it likes with that vote. Interpret it however it wants, do whatever it likes, for four whole years. with an alibi for playing it by ear and be able to say: "yes, that what I said. That's what I would do." The people approve.

M.M.: I'm thinking of the Yellow Vests in France. Would it be possible for there to be something like that?

C.A.: Certainly. We could provide ourselves with a blue vest.

M.M: Better for it to be a colour that isn't present in the parliament. Please no blue or green.

C.A.: We'll find one.

M.M.: Right. From the power they have in France. They are a very powerful movement now. They started with ten people, twenty people and they have a million members, I think.

C.A.: They started off ten to twenty and became several million. This is what we want too.

M.M.: They are afraid of them, aren't they?

C.A.: Given the size of our country, we will be able to get organized more easily and more quickly because ours is a smaller country and communication is easier. Of course it is to our disadvantage that the average Greek is not as active as the average French person. There is a greater democratic culture there. The Greek is more tolerant of deviations from democracy. He puts up with them more easily, to say it simply.

M.M.: Why do you think that is?

C.A.: There is a history of centuries behind it. There is a rayah element that hasn't been overcome entirely. There is a fatalism. He bows his head and says: "Ah. Whatever you do, nothing is going to happen. What can I do? What can you do?" And he doesn't want to get up off his couch.

M.M.: He is complacent and fatalistic at the same time. .

C.A.: So it is. The French are bloody-minded.

M.M.: Yes. That's true. At every level. I know that patients of mine, emigrants who live in France. They are like that at every level. Really.
Now, let me ask you something if you don't mind, to touch on it very lightly, to lighten the climate a little because it was becoming heavy. What type of people, citizens, we have in Greece. Let's start with the person who has it easy. What would you say to a person who has learnt for decades to arrange things with his favourite party, to which the whole family is devoted. It provides the bread, or a few crumbs, and some little jobs, and he feels secure. Because Greece is a country where there aren't so many jobs. There is a lot of unemployment and a very large sector of the youth, wants to get a letter that will make it possible to take a job abroad. And they are the strongest part of the workforce: specialists, young people with a number of degrees, and so on. So, this person, who doesn't want his children to go abroad and votes for the same party all his life, which his grandfather voted for, and his great grandfather, and so on, if it existed then. How will you persuade him to participate in this movement? Given that he has this mentality ingrained, party of his physical identity. And he is afraid to change, because he thinks he might lose his advantage. He might become unemployed.

C.A.: Look, every day even that section of Greeks sees the hopes that they had being dashed, and turning out to have been vain hopes. They can't, as in the olden days, arrange things for their family, telephoning the politician and having the youngster appointed to some public sector enterprise or elsewhere in the public sector or somewhere else and organize things that way. Those who relied on who someone knew and not what they themselves know today that the ground is disappearing from under their feet or they have been sacked or suspended or already have a Damoclean sword hanging over their head and don't know what their tomorrow has in store for them. But even those who still feel safe, a feeling which tends to be illusory - it's a false idea because nobody is can take security for granted, wherever they are. Even those who think they are safe in reality are seeing their gains shrinking; rights are being taken away; nobody is listening to what they say; their economic situation is steadily worsening; their salaries are being cut, or if they are not, they are seeing the cost of living rising and salaries are not keeping up with it, so this is salary reduction by stealth. They are becoming desperate. They see the state, that entity that is dragging them down in a multitude of ways, ten or twelve years ago started to impose property tax (ENFIA). What is ENFIA? Paying rent to the state for that you own. That's one way. EFKA, which was introduced a few years ago. What was it/is it? Another way of imposing double taxation. You pay tax to the tax office, and you pay EFKA. Which is supposedly insurance contributions but given that it is a proportion of your income it was tax, for a third time. Through electricity bills, through one means or another they keep on eating at that income that you earn and bring you to a state of financial desperation. Twenty years ago you canvassed a politician for a little position somewhere. And now you say: at long last, in five years I'll get a pension. What pension, and what will you do with it? How much will that pension be? And when you eventually get it, what can you do with it? So everyone is seeing that what they were dreaming of is continually being reduced. But as I said before, there is a fatalism in Greeks. He is pressured. He is on his own. He is pressured. And he puts up with it. He tries to reduce his expenses, here, there. He is leading a life now that if you had described it to him twenty years ago he would have called it unlivable. But he puts up with it. And he says: "There are others who have it worse. Don't complain." And so on. But that isn't a prospect. No slave improved his position through being obedient. No slaveowning system was overthrown because the slaves were docile and the slaveowners said: "They are good. Let's abolish slavery." That never happened. Where slavery was abolished it was because the slaves got off their knees. In some places they succeeded. In others they didn't. But slavery wasn't abolished anywhere because the slaves were very obedient and very respectable.

M.M.: You are quite right. Income is being eaten away on all sides. That's exactly how it is. It is so simple. And people continue to live on very little. If we compare it with the living standard in Europe the difference is inconceivable.

C.A.: They are bringing us water in a vessel with ten holes in it. And they say "we are watering you."

M.M.: Watering you for sure. The person who has been demoralized that you just described: what do you say to him. The person who is fatalistic, who no longer believes in anything, who thinks that nothing is going to happen, whatever you do. There's no purpose to any of this. There has never been democracy in Greece. This kind of thing all the time. Forget it. Who wants to get involved? It could be dangerous anyway. Why should I be a volunteer? Why should I give my details. I'm afraid. People are afraid.

C.A.: What you give is not any particular personal details. You provide a contact telephone number and an e-mail so that we can send you notifications, information, and so on. People can even declare a nickname: call yourself Odysseas Androutsos. As long as the telephone number is correct, and the e-mail, so that we can send announcements.

M.M.: To have contact with the individuals concerned. OK. So, the person who has lost all hope. And I believe that is a psychopathology, and it can be linked to one's work. The person who has lost all hope generally in his life and needs to be pushed. That pushing has to be constructive. What would you say to him? What can he expect from this movement if, and on the condition that, the movement is going to blossom and grow and acquire strength. What can he expect? If he participates, when you say to him: "You come along too. You can contribute a lot. You have a lot to give. You are useful.

C.A.: He can expect only positive results. The thing is that perhaps he needs to walk a little. What else? He isn't being asked to invest anything. A little personal effort. A bit of activation. And get up off the couch. It will do him good, reducing cholesterol. What else are we asking? To be active, to participate.

M.M.: So we are inviting people to enrol in SYNEPEIA in the section SYNEPEIA.GR Volunteers.

C.A.: Volunteers, and we will bring them into contact with others in the same town. To participate in talks, functions.

M.M.: Fine, to get organized. To become useful.

C.A.: If he can contribute himself with his skills, his knowledge, with anything.

M.M.: Skills.

C.A.: That's it.

M.M.: Whatever that may be. Because yesterday I was talking to a girl who said....she was a hairdresser. She said: "I haven't got a degree." A sweet little thing. And I said: "You don't have to have anything. Good will. You can be with us in the group, in talks. Handing out leaflets. Talking with people. Doing that kind of thing. Isn't that right? I don't want you to underrate yourself. You don't have to be, what can one say? a biochemist or an astrophysicist. An ordinary person. Every person is useful.

C.A.: And one function that we are going to organize, and we want someone to install a sound system because there are too many of us to be heard without it, someone who knows a little about electronics could be there and help to deal with an issue. Somebody could with a minimum of personal contribution help in some way. But only by being there and only with their approval is there gain for the whole group.

M.M.: Just with their presence.

C.A.: Just with their presence. Just sit and listen, and then quietly think about what one heard, and the next day mention it at work with colleagues. Even that is a gain. Something beginning to stir in this defeatist scene. This scene of desperation, of pessimism.

M.M.: So this must be the first movement that is established in Greece in which all members are benefiting. Not just a few.

C.A.: Of course. And which is not directed by some party. It doesn't serve some party but is activating citizens themselves to become active, to form groups among themselves and start to make demands, in their town, in their workplace, and throughout Greece, on the pan-Hellenic level.

M.M.: To make demands. Can you say more about that? Demand what?

C.A.: Very well. Some people decide that in their town their mayor isn't up to the standard that he should be, isn't up to the occasion. For whatever reason. If a well-organized movement: two hundred or three hundred people, go to the town hall and submit a document which everyone outside is supporting and the mayor sees that these two or three hundred are demanding things that he should have done and the next time there will be five hundred of them and they will flatten the town hall won't he get moving? Won't he be obliged to do something? If those people are demanding their rights. Not absurd things. What he should have done and didn't. What he promised he would do before the elections, and never did.

M.M.: So you are declaring your presence with five hundred people and clapping your hands and saying "What's going on?"

C.A.: Of course. If he sees that people are discontented it doesn't bother him. He gets on with his life. If people don't go and ring a warning bell the first time and the second time knock his door down, what will he do the third time. If you go on your own the secretaries will say: "He is not here. He doesn't receive people on Wednesdays. Come in two months time." Or something like that, as we know. If I large group ofpeople go and stand outside and rattle the windows with their shouting. What will the mayor do?

M.M.: He will hear it.

C.A.: As he should. He isn't their boss. He is their servant. But it has been shown that for fatalistic Greeks the mayor is the boss and the citizen is a subject. Whereas in reality the citizen is the employer and the mayor is a servant.

M.M.: So the time has come for everyone to understand his role. Is that right?

C.A.: Exactly. For Greeks to become citizens and cease being humble subjects.

M.M.: Mr. Arvantis thank you very much for coming.

C.A.: I thank you, because I rarely meet people interviewing one who allow one to finish what one is saying, who do not interrupt, who do not move you where they want you to go. I honestly do thank you. It was a good experience.

M.M.: You opened our eyes and I hope, or rather, I am certain, that people are going to respond. So let's not be afraid. It's for everyone's benefit. You can only gain, and we can only gain, and nobody is going to use us for their personal advantage. Nobody. Let's wish ourselves every success.

C.A.: Thank you. For all of us.

M.M.: For all of us.

DON'T FORGET THAT FREEDOM IS FOR THE WINNING BY EVERYONE.