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by Kermit 12/9/2015, 01:58

Golden Dawn supporters lift torches as they take part in a ceremony in Thermopylae, outside Athens, Greece, September 5, 2015.
REUTERS/ALKIS KONSTANTINIDIS -

Flaming torches raised, far-right Golden Dawn supporters dressed in black chanted the Greek national anthem as darkness fell on Thermopylae, where King Leonidas and 300 Spartans defied a vast Persian army in 480 BC.
Standing before them, a member of the European Parliament from Golden Dawn, the euro zone's most extreme right-wing political party, roused the crowd with defiant denunciations of enemies at home and abroad ahead of a national election on Sept. 20.
"The message of Leonidas - Molon Labe (Come and get it) - is as timely today as ever for everything tormenting Greece," the retired lieutenant general, Eleftherios Synadinos, told supporters waving flags bearing the party's Swastika-like emblem.
"We're not like everyone else with heads bowed down. We're upright, we're standing and the message will be delivered on Sept. 20 ... We must not surrender arms. We must not back down," he said, to which the crowd roared: "People! Army! Nationalism!"
Golden Dawn, whose leaders are on trial on charges of belonging to a criminal gang that attacks dark-skinned immigrants and leftists, has kept a low profile since a government crackdown put top party officials in jail in 2013.
But despite a relatively low-key election campaign, opinion polls show the party is likely to remain the third-biggest force in the Greek parliament.
Its appeal has been largely immune to accusations of neo-Nazism and brutality, which the party denies. What first propelled it from obscurity into parliament in 2012 -- anger at unemployment, austerity, corrupt politicians and immigrants -- shows little sign of abating.
"There remains a belief among a big part of Greek society that the entire political system needs a good kicking and many believe Golden Dawn is the way to deliver it," said Costas Panagopoulos, head of independent polling agency ALCO.

The party is the most popular among 18- to 24-year-olds, angered by the government's decision to reverse course and accept tough bailout terms from international creditors.