It’s been a week since the Greek neo-Nazi party was declared a terrorist organization and had its right to parliamentary representation taken away in the wake of fifty of its highest-ranking members being convicted of terrorist acts, which seems like an insane sentence to write.

Last night, neo-Nazis targeted a few Turkish-owned businesses in the neighborhood where I live to the tune of burning out two delivery vans, breaking windows, and leaving graffiti that Greek friends tell me is badly misspelled, as it just about always is with these types.

And the community is “lucky” that the goons who did this were obvious amateurs, but the details are unsettling when one considers that one of the businesses has been reporting harassment and vandalism for ages, when the police and fire responses were slow despite stations nearby.

While last week’s ruling is an important victory, celebration is muted precisely because Greeks know it’s not over, because a copycat far right-party is rising from the ashes, because there will always be violent bigots for whom a title or representation is irrelevant.

When I see friends in the states touting the possibility of a Biden victory as a return to decency and an end to the hate parade of ignorant buffoonery that has become so visible over the last four years, I recoil because it’s not so simple.

I want to believe a Biden victory is possible; I don’t think it will happen and I hope desperately that I’m wrong, but it’s important to recognize that a nominal change in the right direction won’t placate extremists, and if anything, it will to get worse before it gets better.

In any case, this is my American tendency to Americanize issues to try to communicate with Americans, many of whom know all this from slogging through currents of bigotry when it was less visible to those with the luxury of being able to ignore it during more "civil" times.

So please, don't get comfortable, and keep looking out for each other. Also, I apologize for many inevitable typos in this thread.