Greek Left shaken by homosexual newcomer
Greek-American Stefanos Kasselakis, now leader of the bankrupt SYRIZA neo-communists, promises his own kind of trouble
Up until a few weeks ago Stephanos Kasselakis, a homosexual Greek-American, was unknown in Greece. Born in my own neighborhood of Marousi, north of Athens, Kasselakis studied in the US and, later, involved himself in business as a self-styled “entrepreneur” out of nowhere. At some point in his nascent business career he obtained a multimillion (!) loan to buy a freighter thus becoming a “shipowner” as well. By 2015, Stephanos, after a stint with Goldman Sachs, was in charge of an investment outfit that controls, among others, three dry-cargo ships and two tankers.
Little is known about his immediate family. Greek press reports suggest he’s the son of a Greek father and an American mother. His father went bankrupt, claiming he was a victim of Greece’s corrupt politics, but, apparently, the family did not suffer from such a devastating blow. Dad quickly recovered as a fresh-minted millionaire and Μom, an associate professor of restorative dentistry at the University of Pennsylvania, emerged as the “power woman” of the family circling the wagons around both Stephanos and his younger brother, who is also a homosexual.
Greek press reports suggest Stefanos landed in SYRIZA as an early friend of the now disgraced former SYRIZA leader, and Greek PM 2014-19, Alexis Tsipras. Stefanos was introduced to the ex SYRIZA leader by one of the most vulgar and dangerously imbecilic SYRIZA MPs Pavlos Polakis. How the gay Greek-American, and one of the vilest members of the Hellenic Parliament, came to be “friends” remains rather obscure. But this is how the star homo boy from America found his way into Greek politics.
Kasselakis was a volunteer supporting Joe Biden’s 2008 attempt at the US presidency and, thus, he had already established his leftist roots. During the SYRIZA years in power (2014-19), Stephanos carefully released his “opinions” on Greece’s major foreign and domestic politics via the SYRIZA grapevine. He declares he is staunchly opposed to Turkish claims in the Aegean and calls upon the major powers to exert pressure on Ankara to tone down her hostile screeching about conquering the whole of the Aegean Sea dotted by dozens of large and smaller islands and islets. He also declares himself an admirer of the late Andreas Papandreou’s political and diplomatic legacy and insists he’s a devout Orthodox Christian.
Kasselakis’s patriotic rhetoric remains to be confirmed by his actions, which, given his complete ignorance of hands-on politics, may deliver painful, but not unexpected, surprises. In a way, Kasselakis is a poor copy of the equally clueless Alexis Tsipras, who has already won the title of the worst Greek PM in living memory.
But, even more threatening, is Kasselakis’s obvious intention to “modernize” Greece’s Civil Code to legitimize all LGBTQ+ demands, something that will require amendments of the Hellenic Constitution as well.
Greek media reports have already claimed Kasselakis, and his “wife” or “companion,” are in search of a surrogate mother because they want to have a “traditional” family with children they cannot produce themselves. The Greek Orthodox Church, run by practically disabled octogenarians, is not expected to deliver any spirited opposition to this attack from the flanks; the last Greek Archbishop, Chystodoulos, who did oppose “equality” for the LGBTQ+, died ostensibly of colon cancer in 2008, but various conspiracy theories still claim he was, in fact, a victim of assassination.
Greece is now face-to-face with an emerging “Kasselakis era” which promises its own form of distress similar to the disastrous SYRIZA administration, 2014-18. With the incumbent PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis stumbling from one catastrophe to the next, and with the Greek economy unhinged by natural disasters, amateur planning, and the eternal scourge of indigenous gangster oligarchs, Hellas stands at the threshold of yet another possible downward spiral. And prayers alone won’t save the day.
No sooner than Kasselakis was elected, Patelis, chief of PM's economic staff, felt the need to state publicly that he was also married to a man who resides in London, in a manifest show of solidarity. He then proceed to spell out some incoherent, inhumane and beyond conventional wisdom statements why he thought it was necessary for a married couple of "men" to have/adopt a child. PM promised to enact the law by the end of his four year term. There may be more bridges connecting ND with Kasselakis, after all.