Re: anti-Israeli demonstrations in university campuses. % Jewish among the undergraduate students : (Bold faced: Ivy league) Brandeis U (MA):…
June 1st, 2023
Re: anti-Israel demonstration at Columbia University. Arrested in Hamilton Hall on April 30: 44 people, Non-affiliates: 13 Students at affiliated institutions:…
Orban on his radio show today did his very best to instill fear of an EU/NATO war with Russia. His…
Continuing the discussion with Tappanch. As part of my U.S. Army Reserve duty I went to Israel to work with…
That was before this happened https://www.ampalestine.org/advocate/action-alert/north-park-university-closing-center-middle-eastern-studies . The influence of the Israel lobby is huge to be honest in the…
Foreign ministers of NATO states declared that They want Ukraine as a NATO member. Only one screamed “No”!
Can you guess who?
It’s high time Fidesz was kicked out!
Fidesz is getting crazier and crazier.
At the same time they are introducing extra taxes they give every pensioner (at least my wife got it …) 6000 HUF as a present???
Well, or rather not this wouldn’t be enough to pay for one shopping trip to the Lidl or for some langos for a larger family after the horrible price increases.
And don’t even think about the extra work that the poorly paid people at the post office got with this.
Are Hungarians really that stupid to thank O1G for this? My wife wouldn’t but I can’t quote her here. Oh wait – yesterday I said that Fideszniks behave like pigs and she answered:
You can’t say this!
It would be an insult – to the pigs!
Sounds like Uncle Scrooge is in a spending mood.
You will probably get a questionaire soon.
Orban is now also a military analyst making predictions
about a potential Ukrainian offensive against Russian forces occupying Ukrainian territory. On his radio show today he said “even someone like myself with a year-and-a-half experience of military service knows perfectly well… that if I attack, I’ll lose three times more than the one who is on the defense.” Orban went on with his analysis arguing because Russia has a much larger population than Ukraine a major counteroffensive by the Ukrainians in such conditions “would be a bloodbath.”
Orban obviously doesn’t understand how virtually military strategists look at what I was taught at the US Army War College that was formally called the called the N square law more commonly the 3 to 1 ratio rule for successfully attacking fixed defensive positions.
But the ratio rule applies to the point of attack or the spearhead of that assault. So obviously the Ukrainians would concentrate their attacks in order for it to be possible for their forces to have something close to the 3 to 1 ratio where they did attack. The greater the ratio of the attacking forces over the defending forces the fewer offensive casualties. We were taught all those predictive analytics.
Countries with larger populations can be defeated by smaller countries by concentration of military force in operations. There is no iron rule as Orban pretends there is in his radio show that the Russians would inevitably emerge victorious in this likely coming battle.
This does not mean I am predicting a Ukrainian victory in the coming offensive or that they will recapture most of the territory Putin has illegally seized. I am ambivalent about how I guess this will all turn out. I do agree with Orban that there will be a lot of deaths involved with this offensive along with significant casualties resulting in permanent disabilities. War is never a pretty thing.
By the way the Ukrainians have been training their combat doctors on treating gun shot wounds here in Chicago. They are seeing our nightly slaughter first hand at Chicago’s Stroger Hospital trauma unit. This Trauma Unit is a Level I Trauma Center and one of the busiest in the USA averaging more than 4,000 activations annually with 25% being gunshot wounds. The doctors who work their are all heroes in my opinion.
If O1G’s top priority is peace in Ukraine why doesn’t he talk to his friend and mentor Putin about this?
The way he and his honchos like Szijjarto behave is comparable to tell someone who’s attacked by a rapist or similar:
Just give in, don’t ever attack your rapist, then there will be peace – of course you might be dead then or severely hurt, but peace is most important!
Well the resistance of the Ukrainians has been sustained and unbroken. Possibly the Ukrainians who actually provided troops to help crush the 1956 revolt including units from the Soviet Red Banner Carpathian Military District see the Hungarians under Orban as terrorized by that history of defeat by Russia.
I have always thought Orban’s claims of being a consistent opponent of the Russian military occupation of Hungary was nonsense.
Orbán’s father was a member of the Communist Party post 1956 according to articles I have read and Orbán himself served as a local leader in the Communist Youth Alliance. Orban did not come out against the Russian occupation forces in Hungary really until the 1980s and even then pretty cautiously. The nationalism of the current Ukrainian resistance to Russia seems to have a real sense of disdain for Orban’s Fidesz crew and his ass kissing of Putin.
Orban from biographies I have read hates being called out for his collaboration with the communists must find Zelensky unbearable. In many ways Zelensky is in many ways the leader Orban only pretends to be.
But that still doesn’t mean Ukraine will emerge victorious against Putin. There is much blood yet to be spilled.
Let’s just ascertain that Zelinsky passed a number of seriously obstructive eye of a needle tests that Orbán has done everything he could possibly do to avoid and ultimately forge.
About the amount of bruises and cuts Orbán takes, when he steps out from behind the trouser legs of Putin and Erdogan, we can only guess.
But his effort to sideline Hungary in Europe and NATO is recorded in history – Not in Hungary, for as long as he lives, but after?
It might seem a bit premature, but democratically inclined Hungarians have to organize and discuss the time after the Fidesz regime and prepare for achieving mutual majority control, on local levels first and foremost, in order to invert the strong-man rule idiom that carries the nation-state and the inevitable wreckage it will leave behind.
The 11 largest retail chains in Hungary in 2022
Gross income (turnover) = 16.7153 billion euros
Retail tax + extra tax paid to the Orban government = 1.302 billion
(not counting
the corporate tax paid by the companies,
the 27% value added tax paid by the customers and
the various taxes paid by the employees and the companies)
Remark:
the 3 chains owned by Orban’s friends (Coop, CBA, Real)
paid ZERO euros out of the 1.302 billion euros.
(European Union: hello !!)
Share in the turnover (share in the retail+extra taxes)
Lidl: 18.79% (taxes: 28.34%)
Tesco: 13.94% (taxes: 19.20%)
Spar: 13.69% (taxes: 20.51%)
Coop: 11.18% (taxes: ZERO)
CBA: 9.45% (taxes: ZERO)
Aldi: 7.55% (taxes: 10.22%)
Penny Market: 7.31% (taxes: 10.06%)
Real: 6.92% (taxes: ZERO)
Auchan: 6.82% (taxes: 9.68%)
DM: 2.31% (taxes: 2.0%)
Rossmann: 2.06% (taxes: ZERO)
Source:
https://trademagazin.hu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/FMCG-TOPLISTA_2022_Poszter_HU_final.pdf
Interesting table but for Real, Coop, CBA doesn’t the text indicate ‘no data’ rather than zero tax paid? You may be right, but we can’t draw that conclusion from the table.
The Hungarian state regards the Hungarian-owned chains as hundreds of individual stores (franchise), so they do not have to pay the extra tax.
https://www.blikk.hu/aktualis/politika/extraprofit-ado-kulonado-kiskereskedelmi-lancok/q6lbkt2
OK. As the Blikk article indicates, extra profit tax will be retrieved through further general price increases… good game… the punters always pay…
From July 1, Orban’s minister (J Lazar) can give away (for free!!) any state-owned castle to anyone he pleases – including castles that were recently renovated using EU and/or Hungarian public funds.
The new (appointed) owner can even get state financial support in addition to her/his freely obtained castle.
https://www.valaszonline.hu/2023/05/30/kastely-privatizacio-lazar-janos-torvenytervezet-nof-vagyonkezeles-ingyenes-tulajdonba-adas/
For the Hungarians, an Orbanian peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia would be like Trianon. I think Hungary has earned Orban why do they still need schools. There is also a propaganda film with Ukraine without Crimea. I did not know that Ukraine attacked Russia, that is underground.
“… Rastislav Káčer, who served as Slovak ambassador to Budapest for five years and headed the Slovak Foreign Ministry from September 2022 to May 2023, has sharply criticized the Orbán government, comparing it to the Nazi Party and the Putin regime.
“, he would turn into Jobbik (a far-right Hungarian party) – and that is indeed what happened. The last time I attended a Fidesz general assembly as a guest, I heard some terrible speeches. I felt like I was at a congress of the NSDAP in the 1930s,” Káčer said In an interview with Új Szó.
“I heard speeches about God’s chosen people and how everyone hurt Hungarians, how they had suffered historical injustice. And if you live in Hungary, all you hear is how unjust [the peace treaty of] Trianon was,” Káčer explained. …” 😀
We diplomats told him that if he adopted these nationalist, irredentist and revisionist ideas … Mr. Káčer obviously believes Orban used to be an Other, but he never was. At least a part of him has woken up?
Back to Hungary – or not?
King Charles is visiting his favourite place – a mansion in a small Erdelyi village.
In Bucharest he was greeted by the Romanian president (who has German roots) but will he pass through Budapest too?
Maybe even pay a visit to O1G in his castle?
Probably not, I (don’t …) wonder why.
How is this reported in the Hun media?
I just read “King Charles in a Hungarian village” which of course is a bit off …
An interesting article on how the EU might destroy the Fidesz and PIS rulings of the EU next year:
https://verfassungsblog.de/an-honest-broker/
Three Avenues for Postponing Hungary’s and Poland’s Presidency of the Council of MinistersA characteristic of the functioning of the EU is that the Presidency of the Council of Ministers rotates between Member States every six months according to a previously agreed order. The EU Presidency is responsible for driving forward the Council’s work on EU legislation.
The Kyiv Independent reports that a GLOBSEC study shows 90% of Hungarians support aiding Ukrainian refugees (I wonder whether this is because of the Hungarian minorities living there, or a more general solidarity with our neighbours?). The same survey shows only 54% of Hungarians support sanctions against Russia and “Twenty-seven percent of Hungarians also perceived Russia as a strategic partner, as opposed to 35% in 2022.”
https://kyivindependent.com/globsec-90-of-hungarians-support-aiding-ukrainian-refugees/
Amazingly Magyar Nemzet wrote something about Russia and the war with Ukraine that contained objectively true aspects to it https://magyarnemzet.hu/kulfold/2023/06/mi-tortenik-amikor-oroszorszagban-kihirdetik-a-hadiallapotot.
The possibility of a formal declaration of martial law in Putin’s Russia does seem possible. But the way the pro- Orban journalists frame it is that the Russians will inevitably create a massive mobilization using a declaration martial law creating a military force that the Ukrainians simply can’t deal with. That is far from a certainty, but it could mean extending the war far into the future.
I also thought that this attack on Gergely Karácsony for supporting Ukrainian resistance against Russian occupation https://magyarnemzet.hu/velemeny/2023/06/karacsony-veszelyes-hazugsagai played on real fears of Russian ruthlessness that are residual in Hungary.
Modern Hungarian history is filled with examples stretching from the incredible slaughter of Hungarian forces fighting in Galicia by the Russians in WWI at the start of that war (this book https://www.amazon.com/Collision-Empires-Eastern-General-Military/dp/1472813189 describes it well in English.) To the Russian destruction of Horthy’s Army and occupation of Hungary. To the crushing of the Hungarian revolt of 1956.
Really Apati Bence in his column tries to rekindle all of those fears.
Wolfi I watched CNN this morning and it aired this report https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/06/04/europe/leipzig-germany-lina-e-far-left-protest-intl/index.html. Where these anti-fascist demonstrators in Leipzig Black Bloc anarchists?
They have been very quiet in the USA since mass arrests of masked Black bloc members in the Pacific Northwest a few years ago. But these demonstrators in Leipzig while aggressive were not masked that I could see.
I haven’t followed that case, not interested in those extreme creatures who attack others and even kill them.
They remind me of the former RAF and the crazy thing is that some people even switched sides – going from extreme left to extreme right.
Putting them into jail for many years seems to be the only solution – as soon as they are free again they might attack again – not only right wingers but also police and other representatives of the law.
This man has received $1.3 BILLION in public money to spread the government propaganda in the last 7 years.
He has no idea about any of his propaganda campaigns
(anti-Soros, anti-Brussels, anti-US, pro-Russian) –
a veritable straw man with Ferrari and Lamborghini !!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CACSLI4_V5E
A level of cynicism rarely surpassed…
1.3 billion Dollars or Forints???
A few weeks ago, Orban’s hand-picked “president” gave full clemency to a convicted Nazi terrorist.
The pardoned person gave a long interview to Orban’s semi-official daily today titled:
“new, just (country) borders should be drawn”
‘It is not bad that Russian demolished the European status quo.’
He regrets the war next door only because ‘lots of European sperm are lost.’
https://magyarnemzet.hu/belfold/2023/06/budahazy-uj-igazsagos-hatart-kell-huzni
It is a difficult bargaining position when you are seen as wasted sperm and your opposite wants to feel treated as Aryan.
These extreme types pop up from time to time, in Europe – But getting attention on the scale of headlining a national media outlet, is very rare.
As always, Hungarians in general have the ultimate say about how they present themselves (they prefer to say they don’t) – but do they make their voices heard? Or do they just shrug their shoulders?
There are several examples of extremist speakers, even book-burners, some make headlines in the media of the countries they offend, but this?
Orbans and his lickspittles know only instincts and only the most primitive ones … and they want to lead the EU next. It disgusts me …
Regarding the UK speculations about responsibility for the North-Stream sabotage – No Baltic powers believe any Ukrainian crew could have carried out the action without qualified support vessels. We are not talking about leisure-boats.
Interesting times ahead:
Hungary has sufficient experience and is well-prepared with the government preparing to hold the presidency for the second time, which is unparalleled in Europe, he said. “We are ready to tackle the challenges faced by Europe in a coordinated and effective fashion,” Orbán said.
https://dailynewshungary.com/orban-what-hungary-is-about-to-do-is-almost-unprecedented-in-europe/
Why ? Because Hungary is no 1 or at least among the European leaders in
inflation – food prices have risen up to 100%number of Covid deathspercentage of alcoholicsreduction of life expectancy during and now after Covidlaws on LGBTQ and abortionminimal number of women active in politicsthe list could be continued (please help here)I just can’t eat as much as I want to throw up …
Sorry for the format, should have been:
+ inflation is highest in EU
+ food prices have risen up to 100%
+ number of Covid deaths
+ percentage of alcoholics
+ reduction of life expectancy during and now after Covid
+ laws on LGBTQ and abortion
+ minimal number of women active in politics
+ the list could be continued (please help here)
Really absurd story https://magyarnemzet.hu/belfold/2023/06/orban-viktor-nekunk-magyarorszag-biztonsaga-az-elso
What can a meeting of the Hungarian Defense Council possibly due about the Ukrainian offensive now apparently underway?
This staged meeting was pointless. It was held very early in the morning. It was also reported as a big story in the Putin controlled media in Russia today.
Maybe the Russians are hoping the Hungarian Army will invade Zakarpattia Oblast and capture Berehove Raion and Berehove city?
It is questionable if the Hungarian Army invaded with all of its 12 used German battle tanks (Leopard 2A4s) and its mechanized infantry combat vehicles, along with most armored fighting vehicles that even the Ukrainian border guards could potentially hold back the attack while the Ukrainian Air Force destroyed the invasion force.. Hungary does have 44 Leopards on order from Germany that likely will not be delivered any time soon.
Orban knows he has a pretend Army and will never allow it to be destroyed in combat against battle hardened Ukrainian forces. Putin’s writers covered the Hungarian Defense Council meeting probably to give some drunken followers of Putin something to cheer about. Given that Putin flooded some of his own defensive positions by blowing up the damn and the Russians are abandoning old disabled Ukrainians to the flood waters currently.
I don’t know if it is irony or an accident Telex brings a report about US Ambassador David Pressman who considers the connection of Hungary with Putin Russia bad. I think he does not know the nature of Orban. But then he goes on to say that he wants to promote cooperation for the peaceful, civilian use of space. I don’t know now if that was meant seriously.
Pressman is a diplomat, and as such, doesn’t speak clearly/plainly.
What he says, translates into: Hungary isn’t a trustworthy ally.
The space reference is about a controlled scenario of cooperation.
Let’s not forget the reality of Trump having a hold on a majority of Republican voters, who pose a serious threat to the current regime (in case he becomes the official candidate again) and that could, if he is elected, turn the tables on all matters relating to international security, on earth as in space, in which case Orbán would become an asset to the US.
How the rest of Europe will react to that is uncertain, but Trump’s intentions of splitting the present European stance towards Putin would be served a break-point opportunity.
If the EU-presidency goes to Hungary as planned, which could be deemed an own goal of historical dimensions, much responsibility rests on the shoulders of the coming General Secretary of NATO.
Michael I find Pressman’s language to be very direct. I find him courageous – he has my appreciation.
Pressman is one of the few gay diplomats who officially married his husband – surely not easy for a diplomat who has worked all over the world.
I also find him a very strong personality!
Over 300 climbers have died on Mt Everest I think 20 were from the USA. I have been reading in the Hungarian media the stories about Szilárd Suhajda’s death on Everest but this article took that story to a whole new level https://www.blikk.hu/aktualis/belfold/suhajda-szilard-halala-hegymaszo-aki-utoljara-latta/dz93nqs
When I was in my middle 50s I stupidly attempted to climb Mt Denali with a team using the West Buttress route with a small Oxygen tank for finial stage and gave it up after about two hours because I realized I was experiencing altitude sickness. I went back to my tent and passed out, waking up in pitch darkness thinking maybe I was dead.
The returning members of my team apparently woke me up. They were glad I made it back. They saw me going back down the mountain following the guide ropes. Really it took me another full day to recover enough to start down.
We followed all the rules for acclimating as we climbed, I had trained hard and long for that climb too. My own youngest daughter is a rock climber and I worry about her so I ask her not to tell me what she is planning.
Suhajda’s death is pretty chilling because he had contact with climber film maker Elia Saikaly just prior to his death just below the summit. Elia knew he was a a dead man when he saw him hardly able to move but still trying to summit.
No wonder the story captivated the Hungarian media for days. I have never done any high altitude climbing since my failure to summit Denali years ago. There are climbers much older than I was who made it to the top of Denali, it’s a role of the dice I guess.
This Guardian article attributed the terrible death toll on Everest this year to climate change https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/30/climate-change-to-blame-for-up-to-17-deaths-on-mount-everest-experts-say I don’t know if that is true. But it could well bring even more people to take a chance on summiting Everest next year.
The Russian army has done it.
#1
Cui prodest scelus is fecit.
Akinek használ a bűntett, az csinálta..
S/he who benefits from the crime has done it.
(Seneca: Medea)
The Ukrainians now cannot attack occupied south Ukraine from the west, their only remaining direction is from the north.
#2
“The [seismic] signals indicate that there was an explosion” on Tuesday 6 June at 2:54 local time.
https://www.jordskjelv.no/meldinger/seismic-signals-recorded-from-an-explosion-at-the-kakhovka-dam-in-ukraine
Tappanch General Milley our current chairman of the US joint Chiefs does not agree with you that a southern attack route is eliminated by the flooding.
There are claims of sufficient amphibious assault vehicles to stage offensives in the south. However using combat pontoon bridges to bring across main battle tanks will be impossible until the flooding recedes.
It is clear that the Russian pulled back their artillery prior to the flooding because they are carrying out very heavy artillery fire on the Ukrainian held side of the river.
Obviously this will be a bloody and protracted offensive by the Ukrainian Army. This article https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/politics/ukraine-forces-resistance/index.html provides some useful insights into the current situation. But it seems clear the Russians are standing there ground and only when necessary for tactical reason carrying out fighting retreats.
This article shows pretty good photos of the extensive flooding https://kyivindependent.com/satellite-images-show-massive-flooding-of-ukraines-south/
Of course as you all know by now Trump is facing a felony indictment relating to top secret document he most likely illegally removed from the White House and had shipped to his Florida home. My wife and I will have to tread carefully at our second home in northern Wisconsin which voted 65% for Trump.
Many Trump supporters foresee Trump being jailed and a civil war ensuing as inevitable. Some of this may be fantasy on their part, but there are some who may carry out acts of domestic terrorism in support of Trump too.
I suppose the US gun laws (as usual) have nothing to do with that.
What’s next?
No changing or eliminating the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution has everything to do with how Trump supporters discuss the the deep state attempt to jail Trump.
Currently the division between the majority Republican states and states controlled by Democrats relating to many gun laws are vast.
Here is just one example. In Illinois where I am a legal resident I must hold a gun owners ID card and have completed state mandated training (in my case largely provided by my time in the US Army) to legally carry a concealed handgun. Just across the Mississippi River in the State of Missouri to carry a concealed handgun there are no training requirements and formal registration. It called there Constitutional carry.
Both approaches are legal under the current US Supreme Court’s interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Individual state laws are very important in the USA.
Wolfi I am reading a lot of discussion of pretty bad flooding from my family in Hungary on facebook. Some of the family have experienced a pretty hard rain including in Esztergom. Are things ok by you?
Thanks for asking, Istvan.
We live not far from the Danube and the “soil” here is essentally sand so water just flows down into the deep. But we collect rainwater, my wife says i’s better for the flowers.
OT:
Everyday now we walk by a place where a large building is being erected. Right now the foundations were laid in concrete and iron. Interesting to see the deep holes in the sand.
We don’t know what that building will be used for, maybe a special hospital – but there is a sign that says that the bad, bad EU is financing this partly with more than one billion forints …
This story https://www.szabadeuropa.hu/a/orosz-hadifogsagba-esett-karpataljai-ukran-katonak-kerulhettek-magyarorszagra-/32451787.html indicates that the Orban government may be directly negotiating with Russia for the release of Ukrainian Hungarian prisoners of war to Hungary.
This does not surprise me in the least Istvan probably Putin and Orban divided Ukraine into mine and yours a long time ago. 🙂
“The Ukrainian government was not informed about the negotiations between the Hungarian and Russian sides”
So I’m inclined to believe this is what the defense council meeting was about. Looks like they try to go the enemy combatant route to circumvent the third Geneva convention and pull a USS Pueblo by forcing these soldiers to renounce their own country and praise their captors.
The POWs are abused Orbanstyle, you can be sure of that.
This article from Ukraine https://www.rbc.ua/rus/news/budut-kritikuvati-ukrayinu-ugorshchina-gotue-1686399594.html did discuss a press conference with the released Hungarian speaking Ukrainian POWs.
My guess these Ukrainian POWs could face
treason charges. I assume they all will be granted dual national status.
The poor Ukrainians of Hungarian origin have to publicly testify that they are shit – somewhat crudely put. This is to Orban’s power 😀 … it says more about Hungary than about Ukrainians. Thanks for the link.
Dress rehearsal:
Most independent online news channels were attacked today
444.hu
hvg.hu
nyugat.hu
telex.hu
https://telex.hu/kozlemeny/2023/06/10/telex-tamadas-akadozas
In any case, a big portion of the Hungarian internet is already in the hands of the regime (vodafone.hu, digi.hu)
Yes I had problems with the Telex site over the weekend.
Yesterday I also could not reach our hun.news for several hours and feared something similar.
On June 16, the regime will push through Parliament 5 bills with almost ZERO TIME permitted for debate
https://www.parlament.hu/documents/10181/63444019/4064+4230+4251+4252+4255+rendk%C3%ADv%C3%BCli+%C3%BCl%C3%A9s+kezdem%C3%A9nyez%C3%A9se.pdf
including
#1 the giving away, FOR FREE, state-owned castles to anyone they choose
https://www.parlament.hu/irom42/04252/04252.pdf
#2
the umpteenth change of the electoral law
https://www.parlament.hu/irom42/04230/04230.pdf
#3
the downgraded status of the teachers
https://www.parlament.hu/irom42/04255/04255.pdf
„the downgraded status of the teachers“ that is the party of “law and order” that is called Fidesz here. Personally, I think this is a cultural cancer. … Half of them, teacher, have chosen it voluntarily from lack of knowledge, the others hoped for “lesz valami”. Hmm
I know in hindsight that doesn’t help the question then is where do we stand?
The biggest tragedy for Hungary is not Orbán but the lack of empathy and mobilisation of people to fight this regime.
The democratically inclined people in Hungary, will have to organize at grass-root levels first, and prepare for the time after Fidesz. It’s not too early.
Orban is a product of Hungarian culture, Gyurcsány ego is very similar to him. Empathy has little place there, especially when it comes to minorities of all kinds. Not that anyone who studies history would think that the minorities in Greater Hungary were oppressed, among other things, and that Trianon is a “just” consequence of this. Anyway … since then this culture is maintained, everyone is welcome Poor Roma Jews Women Gays Homeless Refugees Dissenters – The hierarchy then ends with the animals. Back to the tragedy where the man is a man and the woman is a woman …
I am not sure the mass of Hungarian people lack empathy. I do think there is a residual lack of trust of the collective West going back to 1956, when Hungary was abandoned to be crushed by the Warsaw Pact.
Orban has very cleverly used an isolationist anti-war propaganda argument to transform the existing opposition parties into war mongers. In some ways the internal corruption of the Fidesz controlled state is also transformed into isolationist resiliency via propaganda.
In many ways as Paul Lendvai in his biography of Orban has pointed out he is a brilliant politician who also tests possible propaganda strategies against focus groups of Hungarians, and uses polling data after a propaganda strategy has been implemented to measure its impact. His strategy is not implemented without analysis.
Actually if one regularly reads the Russian opposition journal Riddle it can be seen that Putin does some of the same things.
Orbán brilliant – By what standards???
Against an unqualiified public and an unorganized civil society, it doesn’t take more than an avarage person to be brilliant, if he is greedy enough, narcissistic enough and has charisma.
Orbán brilliant – only by Kapazunder Lendvai.
And of course all these measures are done without discussion and without considering any “minority” opinions of the opposition.
But when the bad bad EU does something via a clear majority decision the the poor Fidesz fascists start whining:
We were not informed, our opinions were not considered, this is a pursch from the EU!!!
Crazy but funny in a way.
https://dailynewshungary.com/orbans-fidesz-talks-about-putsch-in-the-european-union/
PS:
And don’t even mention that the “clear two thirds majority” of Fidesz in parliament is based on a rigged election law and about 50% of the votes …
Eva wrote „The Orbán regime on the Orbán regime“
„… A Thousand Years in the Middle of Europe: The Character of the Hungarian State, edited by Balázs Orbán and Zoltán Szalai and published by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium … Orbán “described the Hungarian character as freedom-loving, defending the constitution and the rule of law, critical of foreign ideas, defending his country and Europe, and both Western and Eastern, united and divided.” …“
Guys like Balázs Orbán and Zoltán Szalai want to defend Europe and sell it as Hungarian character. 😀 No one wants to be defended by such people!
Zoltán Szalai is the general director of MCC, which bought Libri, the biggest bookstore chain in Hungary.
Curious to see which books will be banned from Libri in the upcoming months…
Wouldn’t surprise me if the list of banned books resembled those of the Republicans e.g. Desantis.
Indeed, it’s crazy to see how all the right wing extremists copy each other and use similar methods.
It’s all about demonizing minorities, old knowledge from the Middle Ages when the “Catholic” Church oppressed us.
Orbán is always somehow off the mark because Putin, Orbán’s boss, does not want any negotiations with Ukraine, at least not this year. When Orbán calls for peace negotiations as the grail of peace, it is ridiculous, or even brilliantly ridiculous?
Putin in a long talk with journalists on June 13:
(about the destruction of the Kakhovka dam)
“Unfortunately – I will say a strange thing, but nevertheless – unfortunately, this [the destruction of the dam] thwarted their [the Ukrainian] counteroffensive in this direction.
Unfortunately – why? Because it would be better if they were advancing there. It’s better for us, because it would be very bad for them to attack there. But, since such a spill occurred, then, accordingly, the offensive did not take place.”
Ukrainians want Putin to divert troops to the Kursk, Bryansk regions, but Putin will not fall for this, he knows that the most important battle is in the south [of Ukraine].
The plan is to destroy the industrial base of Ukraine completely, so when the West is tired of supplying Ukraine with weapons, Russia will win.
The Ukrainian war is good because “we understood how to fine-tune our defense industry so that our army will be the best in the world.”
“This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine” …
Orbán in the second row at Berlusconi’s funeral?
Look for picture no 7
https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/silvio-berlusconi-staatsakt-in-mailand-trauer-pomp-und-etwas-protest-a-13b2f782-34dc-4d9c-a687-26c0fd5aa21d
Dictator and wannabe dictator loved each other
Orban has a falling out with US Republican Senator over Sweden https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/14/hungary-sweden-nato-james-risch-himars/
It’s reported in the Hungarian media too – but rather short article, no comments from the Hun government yet.
https://dailynewshungary.com/the-united-states-blocks-the-sale-of-arms-to-hungary/
But if you want some fun read the comments there from the former HS trolls
The Hungarian (and its presumed intimate enemy relations’) responses are probably being studied a lot more closely than normally, by now, and James Rish could be testing an effective strategy, to undermine national support for Orbán’s foreign policy.
We don’t know the extent of US infuence in Hungarian intelligence, but the neighbors probably have people inside all the important chambers. Knowing how corruption and political/public career planning go together in the Hungarian state, that must be rather easy.
Is it too early to expect a political inversion, driven by Hungarian fear of being left alone with Russia?
I found your comment insightful. Thanks for posting it.
In the current regime of disinformation, I believe physical prescence counts.
The EU and the US have worked closely together on intelligence for at least 30 years, by now.