The Guardian peddles "poverty porn," touts $3,500 crisis tourism to Greece

The Guardian, the globalist rag that has supported every major war Britain has been involved in and which habitually enlists its highly paid presstitutes in its desire to monetize everything, has in a vicious article, begun offering seven-day “poverty porn” vacations to Greece at a cost of £2,500 ($3,500). Highlights of this “crisis fantasy camp,” set to take place in 2019, include visits to the migrant camps in the island of Samos and poverty stricken Greek families in Athens.
Taking into account SYRIZA is supposedly “leaving poverty behind” in the summer of 2018 as the “troika” (European Union, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund) is… departing and unemployment is “going down,” it is ironic they have set a 2019 date for these “tours” to start. Did they ask the islanders on Samos, or are they just neo-colonial subjects like the Iraqis, the bombing of whose country The Guardian celebrated?
It is also ironic, as Helena Smith — a public figure with a seeming grand total of two photos on the internet — has been covering Greece for as far back as I can remember. One of her classic comments I recall was when she was cheering the anti-Serbian propaganda of the 1990’s and her support for the bombing of ex-Yugoslavia, by alleging Greeks were deranged and were characterizing Tony Blair as being  “gay” for supporting Clinton. In other words, the issue with Greeks is that they don’t cheer on wars like herself and her paper, they don’t believe in a free ride taking others’ livelihoods for free or expecting Arabs, for instance, to part with their oil because the mighty Americans arrived on the scene under dubious reasons such as 9/11.
The trip, according to RT, is being pitched as being “educational and informative” and is to be led by Helena Smith and a local correspondent, Manos Stefanakis. One wonders if they are going to offer extra services, such as where to purchase drugs from migrant gangs that are infamous for it, or other types of services, e.g. sexual. It was RT again that produced a documentary about migrant gangs selling sex a block or two away from the central Athenian square of Omonoia turning central Athens into a minor version of the sex areas of Thailand.

Crisis pornography is not new for The Guardian or for Helena Smith. In 2011, the paper reported that Greek families were giving up their babies en masse as a result of the crisis. That same year, the paper also falsely reported that 1.2 million people emigrated out of Greece, again due to the crisis. In 2012, the failure of Greece’s basketball team to qualify for the Olympic Games in London was described by Helena Smith as an “unprecedented failure” and ascribed to the crisis — even though Greece had also failed to qualify in 2000, 1992, and other prior competitions. The damage from such reporting is already done though. The supposedly “reputable” Skai.gr portal in Greece, for instance, continues to report The Guardian’s 1.2 million figure to this day, even though corrections were sent to its editorial department.
At the same time that The Guardian peddles such overexaggerated and sensational “woe is me” stories from “crisis-hit Greece,” the real costs of the crisis are ignored and the neoliberal austerity policies of SYRIZA and the troika are celebrated.
After all, The Guardian has had to enforce severe austerity cuts of its own. It has reduced its size, increased its price to a ridiculous amount, and it spews NWO propaganda funded by government advertisements as a main source of income. On its board are Rothschild bankers, and individuals it has used in the past that have questioned Greek shipowners during the Euro crisis have been sidelined.
There are limits, of course, to a “free press.” They begin and end with the oligarchy. The Guardian, for instance, subsequently recruited the now-infamous journalist Paul Mason who sold SYRIZA as if he was on their payroll, at least until the time of their election. Then he disappeared, as the austerity narrative continued and his work was done, going on to bigger and better pastures anew around Britain’s premier “anti-austerity” Labour party, run by Jeremy Corbyn, whom he advises.
Since the Greek crisis erupted, everyone has tried to “save” Greece. From Merkel, the ECB, and the IMF to an assortment of “solidarity” groups who have used the same language, they have all sought to save Greece by focusing, like The Guardian does, on the financial and the alleged “refugee” crisis. One classic group in the UK, the “Solidarity with Greece,” run by ex-trade union leaders based in London, was set up after a call by Mikist Theodorakis and Manolis Glezos, but whom they haven’t mentioned since. They instead spend all their time hanging about with SYRIZA Labour Ministers in joint meetings with the Labour Party, no doubt how to market renewed austerity in the UK if and when the Labour Party takes power. They have justified SYRIZA’s neoliberal austerity measures with campaigns such as “This Is A Coup,” blaming the evil Europeans which however are not evil enough to justify a “Grexit.”
The Guardian notes that one can look at the refugee crisis in Samos, where “small boats from Turkey bring their human cargo from Palestine and Syria in the dark to the island,” implying refugees from war are the ONLY ones arriving, when on a recent list there were “refugees” from as far as Indonesia and Colombia. But hey, why let small facts get in the way of the marketing of a great holiday? Next stop Kabul…
Update: Following the significant outcry on social media which followed The Guardian’s marketing of this “vacation” package, the package has been rescinded.
Opinions expressed are those of the author alone and may not reflect the opinions and viewpoints of Hellenic Insider, its publisher, its editors, or its staff, writers, and contributors.