politics

The insightful March 8 essay on Hungary's Self-Destructive Demons, by poet/journalist Thomas Orszag-Land described the complex and sinister relationship between the stunning success of Viktor Orban's opportunistic megalomania and his unscrupulous exploitation of the unreconstructed cultural affinity of the Hungarian populace for the ugliest and most vicious forms of denial, scapegoating and xenophobia. 

Apart from a couple of points on which it (forgiveably) goes a bit over the top (about the potential for kingship and the triple "junk" quote), Orszag-Land's March 8 essay is temperate, timely and telling, and has since been not so much overtaken as confirmed by events, with the self-ratification, by Orban's supermajority, of the constitutional amendment self-indemnifyng Orban's new constitution from oversight by the constitutional court.

Orszag-Land raises the interesting hypothesis that although Orban has successfully used his supermajority (as well as the pork-barreling of the electorate, party faithful and oligarchs) to entrench his power far beyond the possibility of reversal even under any ordinary electoral majority defeat by the (shamefully and self-destructively divided) democratic opposition, he may yet be undone by having profoundly alienated the only forces that can sustain the dictator of a small, poor country in modern times: either powerful international economic interests or the support of powerful surrounding nations.

And there is another potential contingency: Orban is not stable. He has already demonstrated himself to be a psychopath, has already been showing signs of mounting paranoia, is rumored to be under treatment for bipolar disorder, and seems to be less and less aware (or perhaps less and less in control) of the fact that Hungarian is translatable into any other language -- and diffuses at lightning speed in today's online era -- so that his so far successful double-talk (in contemptuous jingo for his compatriots and sugary demagoguery for the rest of the world) may yet prove his undoing, impelling his hitherto intact cult following to jump ship out of self-interest, rather than to continue to sink with their leader, as his antics become more and more dissociated and pathological. 

Hungary is not, after all, North Korea (and not just because it lacks China to prop it up, come what may).

"[M]embership of the [Hungarian Academy of Arts (MMA)] 'requires a commitment to the nation, a certain ‘national sentiment'.' Artists who criticise the government abroad are not eligible for membership..."





If this "national sentiment" Diktat reaches the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) it will be my pleasure and a historic honour (indeed an obligation) to step down rather than just gazing passively in appalled disbelief.

Well, a bit of quote-bowdlerization by Jan Petter Myklebust here [quote omitted the part in green, missing the point], but JPM's article's basically OK.

Happy PR Day, October 1...

"I like neither the name "Pussy Riot," nor, I'm sure, their music. I  don't like the style of their criticism of dictatorship. But I support with all my soul their right to name themselves "Pussy Riot," play their music, style their style, and criticize dictators. A prison sentence for this is an appalling assault on freedom and the surest vindication of their indictment of Putin's dictatorial propensities. It makes even the likewise autocratically inclined prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, with his FUD campaign against critical philosophers, look like Thomas Jefferson."

See the American Hungarian Federation: AHF Reacts to Unmerited Criticism of Hungary

Excerpt:

1/24/2012 -
AHF reacts to what it sees as politically motivated, unfair, unmerited, biased criticism of Hungary. "While democratic institution building should be encouraged and debated, it should be done based on facts, and in a fair, unbiased and evenhanded manner [it must be] bereft of partisanship (or even the appearance of partisanship) and undertaken solely in furtherance of promoting Western values, not political expediency."

Comment:

Yes, the current government of Hungary was democratically elected with a two-thirds majority. It then used that two-thirds majority to steadily and systematically erode democracy in Hungary and entrench its power with a new Constitution and autocratic measures that only a two-thirds majority in the other direction will ever be able to undo.

And, yes, the partisan politics in Hungary is appallingly polarized and vicious, but the current government is capitalizing on and stoking it shamelessly, by seeking revenge instead of reform, playing opportunistically on primitive populist and irredentist sentiments and slogans instead of acting honestly and constructively to solve Hungary's mounting economic and social problems.

The concerted effort by the Hungarian government, in Hungary and abroad, to put a defensive spin on its transparently offensive policies and practices has found a familiar echo in this shamefully biased cry of "bias" echoed by the American Hungarian Federation (AHF).

The mounting worldwide criticism of Hungary's government is not only far from being unfair and unmerited, but the strategy of portraying it as the result of Hungary's being yet again victimized by villains, internal and external, will resonate only with the broad (but exclusively Hungarian) Manichean mentality of vendetta and vengeance (hinted at in the dark allusions to the former government's prime minister in this AHF article) that the present Hungarian government is systematically cultivating at home and abroad, at the cost of Hungary's present and future in the democratic world.

"In December, as international criticism of his government’s actions mounted, Mr. Orbán declared that no one in the world could tell the Hungarian parliament which laws to pass and which not to. Fortunately, he is wrong. In his bluster, Orbán ignored the fact that Hungary has joined the European Union, making it subject to European law. Ultimately, the European Court of Justice can tell Hungary when its laws are unacceptable."

R. Daniel Kelemen (Director, Center for European Studies, Rutgers University) Christian Science Monitor, Jan 25 2012.

Sociopaths, sadists, zealots and lunatics there have always been. But technology has now empowered them to do harm far beyond their numbers: The "normal" distribution is becoming a hostage, perhaps irretrievably, to a reign of terror from its tail-end.

Religions are not typically too terribly tolerant of one another. But societies and laws should be tolerant, and that includes tolerance of religions -- if not of their intolerance.

The tragedy of 9/11 was the result of a religion's intolerance. It must not be responded to in kind. Either all religious institutions and symbols are banned from the site, or all are allowed.

President Obama is right (again).

(If it weren't for the sensitivities of the believers among the victims' families, I'd be for banning all cults from the site!)

Would Mr. Assange have leaked the facts about the Enigma Machine to the World (including the Germans) during WW II?

Is the world now to have the course of diplomacy, and defence, and crime investigation, and countermeasures against global extremism decided by a zealot hacker with a simplistic "leak all" philosophy, free of responsibility or answerability for the outcome till the damage is done?

Openness has its virtues, but also its vices (as does secrecy), and the devil is in the details. Is the rather secretive Mr. Assange and his coterie of hackers more to be trusted to sort out those diabolical details than elected, answerable governments (and their vices)?

Assange is entitled to play Russian Roulette with his own life, but not with the lives of the rest of the planet's inhabitants. He is not our appointed arbiter of openness.

The short-sightedness, greed,
deception and self-deception
of the 4/20 ocean oil drilling disaster
are probably just a faint foretaste
of the bitter endgame
on the deepwater horizon
for our incorrigible genotype.

Is pledging the non-recurrence of a counterfactual condition casuistry, or just diplomacy?

Why elevate a malign clown from the ignominy he deserves to the infamy he desires?

If 9/11 was a wake-up call to the Muslim world about where runaway islamic fundamentalism leads, 9/1 (New Orleans) was a wake-up call to the western world about where runaway arms and runaway media violence lead.