Duly Noted: The Importance of Hungary
From the desk of George Handlery on Sat, 2010-05-01 08:06
1. Socialists like to imply that some liberty and self-determination must be surrendered to attain the economic security they promise. Oddly, wherever they got power with this claim, they used their might to administer their wards into poverty and crisis. Here it might be added that not all socialists identify themselves by that label. A number of parties are, regardless of the colors they wear in the combat zone of politics, essentially socialists.
Take the case of the financially destabilized Greece. A party claiming to be right-of-center governed prior to the newly empowered Socialist. It contributed to bankruptcy by pursuing collectivist policies. Regardless of the feathers they wear, you can recognize this element. Its MO: promise the good life disbursed as a dividend of citizenship and claims to do so in exchange for trifles. Such is voting correctly to elect those who promise to hand out returns regardless of performance.
By a high correlation, economic collapse follows upon the grab of total power. The dictatorship that manages this will be able to suppress the reaction of disappointed expectations. You might think here of Cuba as a completed case. Add Venezuela on her way to dictatorial equalitarianism. Wherever, after the programmed failure of economic policies, society remains capable of retaking power from those that depend on the welting fruits of redistribution, elections can bring radical reversals.
This is the case in the voting concluded on April 25 in Hungary. The results are significant not because of an often maligned country. The case’ importance comes from the corrective trend. This points beyond a change of governors to the end of a system. Likely to be overlooked details furnish insights that reveal the alliances behind the formal label of parties.
2. The core of the following remarks has been jotted down prior to the conclusion of the election process. The reason for the extensive treatment is that the specifics illustrate the general. Horrified, the media reports that Hungary’s election results show the right wing and the extremist “Jobbik” at 17%. To some this is good news. Now they can report “the Fascists and Fidesz/Young Democrats” (gaining a 2/3 majority) have emerged as the winners”. Indeed, Jobbik is for this writer beyond the pale. However, the party is connected to the Socialist that equal Jobbik’s score – and who are just as reprehensible.
The interrelationship of the Socialists and Jobbik can be reconstructed by responding to “Who voted, why and how?” Uneducated retired seniors supported the Socialists. In part due to the rumor that, pensions earned during the Soviet era, will be revoked if the Young Democrats/Christian Democrats win. Fear is fed by experience. The Communists did annul the pensions of those that served the previous systems. Women often voted for the LMP, which is, under a new, flag, the old pink-liberal ally of the Reds. The new formation emerged once it became clear that the original Liberals, who, through their cooperation with the “Party” betrayed everything, would not make it into parliament. Jobbik’s votes came from previously socialist districts. Their nationally socialist roots show an affinity to the sales pitch of their internationalist brethren. The DNA’s similarities are supported by an affinity to use terms such as “struggle, war, fight, renewal.” What the Socialists call a “Zionist” is a “Jew” for the Jobbik. They also share the idea that their failed followers are victims of a conspiracy that rules the world. Accordingly, inequality is the product of misapplied justice and is, therefore, in not related to ability and performance.
3. It is legitimate for the international press to bemoan the rise of the Jobbik (The Better Ones). Illegitimate is this concern when the conservative right (Young and Christian Democrats) are mentioned so that the uninitiated will see them as the erect-walking-enabled section of the Jobbik.
4. Between the first and second round of the election, a socialist leader made a Freudian slip. She referred to her party as “we Commies”. Those willing to register it have always known that much. It is notable that the international opinion makers are unwilling to acknowledge what is locally general knowledge. Another distortion is equally disturbing. Regardless of their own totalitarian roots, the Socialists have received more votes than the rightist authoritarians have. Are killers, acting for an idea, to be preferred to the murderers in behalf of another? Is this a question of whose friends were massacred? Odd – but PC asks you to ignore this. It is stylish to bemoan the rise of the Jobbik. At the same time, only a few put their political stethoscope to the higher number that voted for a party with a more recent totalitarian record and a globally higher number of victims than Jobbik’s antecedents have managed.
5. The foregoing was served to the reader with a quote in mind. Roughly translated: “No one is as dangerous as are those representatives of a failed idea that cease to defend their ideal while they continue to protect their loot.” (The novelist Máray in 1947.)
6. Draw your own conclusions! In a number of districts, a second round had to be held. The outcome was to determine whether the conservative FIDESZ gets a two-thirds majority. In one district, the Socialist withdrew in favor of the Jobbik. In no case did Jobbik defer for the FIDESZ. Meanwhile, several leftists withdrew in favor of LMP, their new liberal-green refuge. The Socialist PM’s spokesman voted LMP.
7. This makes one to think nasty thoughts. The US’ Ambassador in Budapest is a political appointee of Obama. Recently the Washington Times discussed her business connection with Ms Pelosi’s clan. However, the real scandal might be something following the election’s first round. The results gave FIDESZ’ a majority and the brought demise of the Socialists and their despised fig-leaf left-liberal ally. That day America’s supposed representative received the LMP’s wise men. Apparently, someone conducting the Washington orchestra has discovered something. It is an affinity to the attempted new beginning of socialist liberalism rising out of the rubble left behind by the collapse of their compromised original formation.
8. FIDESZ, while it reduces taxes and prunes numerous ministries, will also cause turbulence in Europe. The party will pester those that lie about their policies in Brussels. The special issues that Budapest’s “new management” will bring up is the treatment of minorities and the other relates to economics. (By the way! three of the four Roma parliamentarians are Young Democrats.) Just think of Greece’ creative bookkeeping and aspects of several coming bankruptcies that pertain to Hungary’s economic condition. The YDs’ new team feels that the Eurocrat sympathizers of the Socialists gave bailout money that enabled these to complete their term. The funds came under conditions that precluded their rational investment. Loans for activities that bring profit – good investments – would have guaranteed repayment. Allowing the rescue-funds to be used for continued, support payments to political favorites raised the hurdles blocking a road that led to nowhere.
...or lack thereof
Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Wed, 2010-05-05 23:32.
None of the issues noted here are unique to Hungary or suggest its "importance". Hungary is neither a pathfinder nor a canary. Faustian bargains are nothing new, and the Devils have included aristocrats, monarchs, generals, businessmen and politicians of all stripes. It was disaffected Labour supporters who tended to vote for the BNP, not "extreme" Conservatives.