Category Archives: Hungary

Resource: Cold War; Global Human Rights; Hungary; Freedom; Orban’s Unfreedom

12 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eastern Europe, Free Speech, Hungary, Russia

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Central European University | Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives

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Unlike the underground of Czarist times, today’s samizdat has no print ing presses (with rare exceptions): The K.G.B., the secret police, is too efficient. It is the typewriter, each page produced with four to eight carbon copies, that does the job. By the thousands and tens of thousands of frail, smudged onionskin sheets, samizdat spreads across the land a mass of protests and petitions, secret court minutes, Alexander Solzhenit syn’s banned novels, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and “1984,” Nicholas Berdyayev’s philosophical essays, documents of the Czech Spring, all sorts of sharp political discourses and angry poetry.

Parry, Albert. “Samizdat is Russia’ Underground Press.” The New York Times, March 15, 1970.

On the Inconnu Independent Art Group

An appeal from the Inconnu Independent Art Group for funds to produced wooden grave markers to be erected in June 1989 at Plot 301 in Budapest’s New Public Cemetery, the assumed resting place of Imre Nagy and other leaders of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, on the 31st anniversary of their execution.

Inconnu Independent Art Group/Tamás Molnár, Open Society Archives, June 16, 1989. The page features a woodcut of a totemic grave marker.

Wikipedia. “Inconnu Independent Art Group”.

History. “1956. November 4. Soviets put a brutal end to Hungarian revolution.” Last updated November 3, 2020.

Hungarian Spectrum

Published in 2005, the volume remains incredibly relevant as Putin challenges the liberal and open societies of the west with his version of 19th Century absolutism, aristocracy, and mafia.
Posted to YouTube by British Pathe, April 13, 2014.

According to the report’s methodology, Hungary is now a “hybrid regime,” having lost its status as a “semi-consolidated democracy” due to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s continued assaults on the country’s democratic institutions. https://70868d36203bc22d88a087b52c71fd8c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

The adoption of an emergency law that allows the government to rule by decree indefinitely, brought in after the coronavirus pandemic struck, “has further exposed the undemocratic character of Orbán’s regime,” the authors wrote, adding that “Hungary’s decline has been the most precipitous [they have] ever tracked.”

Gehrke, Laurenz. “Hungary no longer a democracy, Freedom House says: The NGO describes ‘a stunning democratic breakdown’ in the Eastern European country.” Politico, May 6, 2020.

Related: https://freedomhouse.org/country/hungary .

Posted to YouTube by treffynnon19 March 21, 2018.
Posted to YouTube by Vera & Donald Blinken Open Society Archives, September 13, 2012.

Wikipedia. “End of Socialism in Hungary”.

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Reading Suggested on Viktor Orban’s Corrupt Hungarian Neo-Dictatorship

27 Sunday Dec 2020

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Hungary, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics

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Orbán’s political takeover – buttressed by a German industrial lobby that relies on cheap labour in Hungarian plants – has largely been bankrolled by cash plundered from the European Union that he rails so fervently against. A 2019 New York Times investigation found that Orbán uses billions of euros in EU subsidies as a patronage fund that enriches his allies, protects his political interests and punishes his rivals. “The ideology is a ruse. The money is where the action is,” said Lane Scheppele.

Geoghegan, Peter. “Dark money, dirty politics and the backlash against human rights.” Open Democracy, August 20, 2020.

Related Online (Well, What’s Not Related Online These Days?)

Anti-Defamation League (ADL). “The Antisemitism Lurking Behind George Soros Conspiracy Theories.” October 11, 2018; “Disinformation: Conspiracies connecting George Soros to protests and antifa”, n.d.; “Soros Conspiracy Theories and The Protests: A Gateway to Antisemitism.” June 2, 2020.

Fruen, Lauren and Rory Tingle. “‘The perfect enemy’: How two Jewish American political consultants ‘started a deliberate plot to smear George Soros to help Hungarian PM and helped to create the world’s largest anti-Semitic conspiracy theory’.” Daily Mail, January 21, 2019.

Grassegger, Hannes. “The Unbelievable Story of the Plot Against George Soros.” BuzzFeed News, January 20, 2019.

Oppenheim, James S. “FTAC: A Short Note on the Demonizing of George Soros.” BackChannels, August 8, 2020.

Wikipedia. “Arthur Finkelstein”.

Wikipedia. “George Birnbaum”.

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FTAC: Putin, Terrorism, Autocracy, and the New Nationalism

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Hungary, Middle East, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, Russia, Turkey, United States of America

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When Russian jets first overflew Turkish airspace in 2015, Erdogan stood fast in his refusal of apology.

https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/26/middleeast/syria-turkey-russia-warplane-shot-down/index.html

Six months later, he did what Netanyahu had done in relation to the Mavi Marmara: he apologized.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/27/kremlin-says-erdogan-apologises-russian-jet-turkish

Setting aside the Israeli story a moment, points of leverage may have involved the “Turkish Stream” energy project, a piece of “realpolitik”, and an appeal to the narcissistic concept of cultural leadership and state in which the “Great Leader” is the embodiment of the living state concept _and entitled_ to aggrandizement and glory without limit (or, clinically, “unlimited narcissistic supply). Putin’s vision appears to me to be that of the medieval world sustained with raw power put in place of democracy.

The look of the mode — big palaces, nepotism on a royal scale, confusion in relation to the boundaries of person and state (and the state’s treasury) — marks the medieval mind and related revanche.

Men like Putin, Assad, Khamenei, Erdogan, Orban may consider true popular democratic government as impeding their own authority, sovereignty, and will. While the term “autocrat” sounds quite bureaucratic, similar concepts — caliph, emperor, king, sultan — fit these guys.

Because we know of the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” and that Russia has been arming the Taliban in Afghanistan — and there’s more back there with Zawahiri and others — it may not be too far fetched to suggest that Moscow has manipulated terrorism to induce in struck targets a predictable patriotic new nationalism and that “the terrorists” — ISIS or PKK — now provide a platform for conflict, all against all, and without end. Where Putin has held sway, he has turned back history’s clock.

Our President Trump has had no issues bearing and wearing the mantle of authority, but it would be facile to say he hasn’t had some issues with the “Estates” of a matured democracy.  In that regard, he may fit the world to which Putin has wished to return the world.

Inspiration for the above note:

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Also in Media: “Viktor Orbán discovered the culprits of bolshevism in western europe” – Hungarian Spectrum – February 27, 2017

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Hungary

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Orbán’s critics are up in arms. What an incredible leap from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to Lenin and Stalin. Accusing Western European politicians and intellectuals of being responsible for Stalinism or Maoism just because in the second half of the nineteenth century a German social scientist and philosopher developed a social model which years after his death was transformed in Russia into something that had nothing to do with Marx’s theories is preposterous. Marx’s original hypothesis that the lot of the proletariat would worsen turned out to be wrong and therefore, as the years went by, Marx’s ideas were transformed. Modern social democracy developed. Soviet Bolshevism had more in common with Russia’s Tsarist past than with Karl Marx. Viktor Orbán should know that only too well. His generation had to study Marxism-Leninism and, as far as we know, he was an enthusiastic member of KISZ, the Communist Youth Organization, while his father was party secretary at his workplace.

Source: Viktor Orbán discovered the culprits of bolshevism in western europe – Hungarian Spectrum

Also in Media: “András Kósa: The speech of the chief, Őszöd ten years later, Part III” – Hungarian Spectrum – December 24, 2016

26 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Hungary, Political Psychology, Russia

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. . . it has to be noted that in the mid-to-late 2000s, the European Union and the Obama administration viewed Putin as a leader who was democratizing cautiously. During his first visit to Berlin, the entire Bundestag gave him a standing ovation. Then, in the Russian parliamentary elections in the fall of 2011, he had to pilfer 17 percentage points to be able to win. In the spring 2012 Presidential election, he again needed to cheat to attain a “victory,” though less so this time. I think these things have changed Putin. He realized that the policies he had pursued up until then did not automatically expand his power, so he launched a campaign of harsh repression at home (including the killing of journalists and political rivals, remaking the Russian criminal code, and restricting the freedom of assembly), and again began to assert the conquering pursuits of Great Russia.

Reading highly recommended!

András Kósa: The speech of the chief, Őszöd ten years later, Part III – Hungarian Spectrum – 12/24/2016.

Also in Media: “Journalists as Witnesses at Hungarian Revolution” | RealClearHistory | Jefferson Flanders | November 4, 2016

23 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Free Speech, Hungary, Politics

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The mass media coverage of the Hungarian Revolution offered an object lesson in the value of a free press. As the faltering Communist regime lost control of the borders, foreign correspondents were able to enter the country. Once there, the absence of government “minders” and censors allowed journalists to report what they saw, “without fear or favor of friend or foe.” The result: a balanced, independent, and accurate account of what was happening on the ground in Hungary.

Source: Journalists as Witnesses at Hungarian Revolution | RealClearHistory – 11/4/2016.

Also in Media: “International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation Commends Returning of Knight’s Cross” — Lantos Foundation – September 6, 2016

08 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Anti-Semitism, Hungary, Politics

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We call upon President Janos Ader and Prime Minister Viktor Orban to recall the award to Mr. Bayer.Hungary was a country plagued with antisemitism during WWII. The infamous Arrow Cross Militia were Hitler’s henchmen and oftentimes, they were more vicious than the Nazis themselves.It was precisely in Hungary, where Raoul Wallenberg, the young Swede,  embarked in an unprecedented life-saving operation which actually spared the lives of scores of Jews and other innocent victims of the Nazis and their Hungarian partners.

Any form of racism and discrimination should not be rewarded but strongly condemned. Instead, it seems that seven decades later, the present Hungarian government has learned very little from Raoul Wallenberg’s legacy. This should be immediately rectified and addressed.

Source: International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation Commends Returning of Knight’s Cross — Lantos Foundation – 9/6/2016

Related on the Web

Despite the unspeakable tragedies that my father experienced in Hungary during that darkest time of history, he never lost his love for his native homeland. During nearly three decades of Congressional service, Tom Lantos was a stalwart advocate for a free and democratic Hungary and a devoted friend to the Hungarian people. He passed his deep love of Hungary on to his children and grandchildren, many of whom have both studied and worked in Hungary. I am keeping that flame of love alive for the great-grandchildren who never met my father as I teach the language, the history, and the songs of Hungary to my own grandchildren.

The Knight’s Cross, which was bestowed on me by Prime Minister Bajnai, was a great honor that I hoped one day to pass on to my sons and daughters. It gives me real sorrow that I will not be able to do this. However, the government’s decision to award the Knight’s Cross to Zsolt Bayer has sullied this noble award. Mr. Bayer’s despicable record of overt and hateful anti-Semitism and racism is beneath contempt. He deserves censure, not honor, for his loathsome writings and speech. Indeed, earlier this year the publication he writes for was fined for engaging in hate speech on account of his words. I feel compelled to join the many others who have denounced the shamefulness of granting this state honor to a hate-filled xenophobe like Zsolt Bayer. Accordingly, with a heavy heart, I am returning the Knight’s Cross to the government of Hungary.

http://www.lantosfoundation.org/news/2016/9/2/tom-lantos-daughter-returns-knights-cross-to-hungarian-government-in-protest – 9/2/2016.

Also in Media: “Russian military intelligence and the Hungarian National Front” – Hungarian Spectrum, October 27, 2016

31 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by in Also in Media, Eastern Europe, Hungary, Russia

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Several small extremist groups are active in Hungary, but MNA is unique in that it has extensive ties with Russian military intelligence. I dealt with this extremist group only once, in September 2014. It was in connection with a lesser-known right-wing portal called Hídfő (Bridgehead), which broke the story that Hungary was secretly supplying tanks to the Ukrainian army. Soon enough the Russian foreign ministry published an official statement stating that “weapons supplied to Ukraine by the EU-member countries … violate legally binding obligations—the Arms Trade Treaty.” The Russian foreign ministry was well-informed on the details: “Hungary’s Defense Ministry is supplying Ukraine with armored vehicles, including T-72 tanks, through a ‘proxy agency.’” It turned out that Hídfő was the official website of Magyar Nemzeti Arcvonal. For some time it has served as a vehicle of Russian disinformation, a growing concern in Europe and elsewhere. In fact, by now, at least according to national security officials, Hídfő is entirely under Russian direction, either directly or indirectly. The best summary of the history of MNA and its activities can be found in an investigative piece written by András Dezső and Veronika Munk of Index.

Source: Russian military intelligence and the Hungarian National Front – Hungarian Spectrum – 10/27/2016

Related

The National Bureau of Investigation ( “National Bureau of Investigation,” the Hungarian FBI) was Supposed to search Stephen Györkös’s house Earlier this week, but When The officers Showa up at his home the 76-years-old man opened fire at THEMIS , and the 46-years-old police officer died in the shooting immediately.

Russian Diplomats and members of the Russian military intelligence, GRU have been around the the Hungarian SubCulture militant for years, albeit not only around MNA. This started well before the eruption of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The Russians Were Trying to do it in a smart, less ostentatious way.

http://index.hu/belfold/2016/10/28/russian_diplomats_exercised_with_hungarian_cop_killer_s_far-right_gang/ – 10/28/2016.

Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2013/11/14/a-note-on-hungarys-progressive-relationship-with-iran/

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