In this case we really do hate to say we-told-you-so but our concerns over social unrest and the rise of extreme nationalism (here [6], here [7] and here [8]) in an austerity-focused and massively unemployed Europe appear to becoming ever more prescient. Just last week we saw extreme parties in France of all places receive high levels of votes and in a note today from BBC News [9], the leader of the Greek Socialist Pasok party, Mr. Creosote himself - Evangelos Venizelos, told a rally in Patras that voters should not allow neo-Nazis to "goose-step into Parliament with Hitler salutes".
The far-right 'Golden-Dawn' party appears likely to win a number of seats for the first time ever - gathering support as the anti-EU-bailouts party. Of course the Golden-Dawn'ers also want to tighten border controls (but in a different way than Spain we are sure) and expel immigrants among other things but with the two major parties (Pasok and New Democracy) look set to garner less than 50% of the seats between them - leaving the rest in a free-for-all among various more extreme left and right parties. We have long-argued (and recently confirmed by Soros in his lengthy discussion at INET [10]) that the Euro-zone will end when the political compact becomes untenable - it seems we are drawing closer and closer to that dystopia - even if Mr. Venizelos throws his weight against these uprisings of democratically invoked last rites.
From ekatherimerini.com [11],
"Golden Dawn is an extreme phenomenon, I believe they are an example of fascism and we radically oppose them. It's an offense to our history and to parliament," he told Reuters, suggesting Greece could be experiencing its version of Germany's 'Weimar' years which led to the rise of the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler.
Golden Dawn, which vows to expel both legal and illegal immigrants and meets under a flag of an ancient Greek symbol similar to the swastika, has won over many of Greece's poor by giving away clothes and food parcels.
It says it is simply a nationalist party and has attracted a large protest vote by attacking the bailout and what it calls German domination of Europe.