Hungary now a dictatorship

[Paul Calf]

There isn't really a funny thread title for this. Hungary the first country in Europe to fall completely to far-right authoritarianism:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/31/hungary-orban-coronavirus-europe-democracy/

On March 30, the Fidesz parliament passed an emergency law granting the government indefinite, sweeping powers. The new statute goes well beyond those emergency statutes passed just about everywhere in Europe during the present crisis or indeed in any EU country ever. Amid the pandemic, leaders across the continent have delimited standard civil liberties, but they are checked by critical legislatures and have explicit, short-term timeframes. The Hungarian law enables Orban to rule by decree, bypassing the legislature on any law, as long as the crisis lasts. All elections until then will be suspended. Moreover, the statute allows the government wide-ranging discretion to censure media that it claims obstructs the state's response to the pandemic. Journalists found guilty of spreading supposedly false information can face jail sentences of up to five years.

"Now Orban can do whatever he wants," said Paul Lendvai, a Hungarian-born Austrian author of a 2018 biography of Orban. "No other democratic government in Europe has gone this far. And polls show most Hungarians aren't dissatisfied with him." There wouldn't be a groundswell of protest even if Hungarians could mass on the streets, he said.

Couldn't happen here though, right?

The people now defending and voting for this behaviour will ensure that we all pay a very heavy price for their hubris and bully-worship.

[bgmnts]

When I was in Hungary I got the sense that most people weren't really arsed.

[idunnosomename]

When I was in Hungary I got the sense that most people weren't really arsed.

well thanks for that Tintin!!!!

[chveik]

I can't say I'm surprised, sadly.

[Endicott]

Isn't this precisely why Farage just did a video where he specifically encourages people to break lock down? Keep the gullible outside behaving like arseholes so that the majority actively call for harsher measures, sure enough Cummings will provide!

[Dewt]

There's a valid explanation for this

They were Hungary and there was a food shortage so they got some 'tators

This is a very, very funny joke.

[canadagoose]

There's a valid explanation for this

They were Hungary and there was a food shortage so they got some 'tators

This is a very, very funny joke.

That just gives the audience a huge chance to shout "dic" at you.

[Dewt]

Because I am funny enough to be on TV?

[touchingcloth]

What's "'tators", becses?

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Duran Duran consider rewrite.

[Kelvin]

well thanks for that Tintin!!!!

A global pandemic and Hungary falling to fascism are worth it for this.

[idunnosomename]

Because I am funny enough to be on TV?

i loved shouting DICK!!! at the tv in the early 90s

28 hahahhah

[Retinend]

I feel embarassed for knowing this but white supremacist Paul Ray Ramsey decided to run over there after deserting his family in what can only be imagined shady circumstances. He regularly meets with educated eastern europeans neo-fascists. I say educated because they have enough free time and money to waste inciting hatred of immigrants on sordid podcasts, and some such as he and Sargon of Akkad make a living off of it.

Scruton often talked in quite cooing forms about Hungary's leader (shit isn't it weird there's two of them now, eh?) and now he seems -albeit indirectly- like an apologist for dictatorship. May he rest in peace and all that. That said, is Orbán going to make Hungary a geopolitical threat on the world stage? Probably just play to the religious crowd and send back liberal values back to 19whatdoIknow. But once I went to a museum in Budapest and it had, on the ground floor, the floorboards all torn up to reveal a white cross as large as the beams of the house, glowing under there though not lit. Above ground were the interrogation rooms, and underground the dungeons. Both fascism and communism feature in Hungary's modern history. This museum's façade is plastered with a golden plaque (source needed) with Orbán's name on it. Is that called "the third way", or just plain religious cultural dogmatism?

Don't ask me. Literally all I know about the country is visiting a museum. Cracking one, though.
Budapest House of Terror
https://goo.gl/maps/XNM7HkjKXokQJbeD7

[Paul Calf]

Yeah, the House of Terror is interesting. Three floors of Soviet atrocities and one room of beautifully presented Nazi paraphernalia with a table set for dinner.

Orban's not much of a threat on his own, but he's linked up with the nationalists' internationalist brigade: Bannon, Montgomerie, Farage, Spencer all regularly invited to experience the largesse of the King Of The Magyars.

[Captain Z]

Legend Hungary

[the science eel]

When I was in Hungary I got the sense that most people weren't really arsed.

Students definitely are. When I lived there in 2016/2017, Orban was already widely disliked by most educated young people, and his efforts to move the CEU from Budapest (to make it an illegal presence, essentially) were met with much resistance and street protests.

In fact the whole time I was there I only met one person who supported VO, and he was a slightly creepy middle-aged executive who ran an export/import company and kept saying 'Viktor is a very intelligent man, you have to realise that' - like that made it all OK.

[peanutbutter]

When I was in Hungary I got the sense that most people weren't really arsed.

My memories of Budapest were that it was an amazing location, had a pretty solid nightlife, but the attitudes being projected via plaques and shit towards its own involvement in holocaust atrocities seemed pretty fucking defensive and at odds with most other places which seemed to try and own their own flaws whereas Hungary was kinda... "that was bad but hey those communists were really bad to us later!"

Perspective might be a bit skewed from arriving there the day after I was in Birkinau, mind.

[pcsjwgm]

https://twitter.com/alfonslopeztena/status/1245430815825244161

Hungary's dictator Orbán to change the school curriculum to include compulsory reading of the writings of Nazi collaborators, war criminals, Fascist and Antisemitic authors; to exclude those who weren't; and to promote "pride in the nation"

https://www.dw.com/en/new-school-curriculum-raises-eyebrows-in-orbans-hungary/a-52964617

[idunnosomename]

Orban is a massive cunt imo hope gets corona

[Johnny Yesno]

Let's not forget:

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/09/tories-support-hungary-part-decade-far-right-alliances-europe (13 September 2018)

Not before time, the European Parliament has voted to enact disciplinary action against Hungary's authoritarian, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic government. The motion was passed by 448-197 votes and backed by all major centre-right parties with one exception: the British Conservative Party.

Tory MEPs were whipped to oppose action against Viktor Orbán's self-described "illiberal democracy", which has waged an anti-Semitic campaign against George Soros and strangled Hungary's free press, with only two out of 19 Conservatives refusing to do so. This puts Theresa May's party in the same company as the far-right Sweden Democrats (a party with neo-Nazi roots), Marine Le Pen's National Rally, Italy's League, and Poland's anti-Semitic Law and Justice Party.

May, who yesterday denounced Labour as "institutionally racist" at Prime Minister's Questions, was said by No 10 to have been unaware of her party's stance ("we weren't consulted in advance"). The Jewish Board of Deputies president, Marie van der Zyl said in response: "I note with disappointment that Conservative Party MEPs have voted in defence of Hungary's populist, right-wing government of Viktor Orban.

"As we have stated previously, we are very alarmed by the messages at the heart of Orban's election campaign, including his comments about 'Muslim invaders', calling migrants poison, and the vivid anti-Semitism in the relentless campaign against Jewish philanthropist George Soros."

But the surprise is that anyone should be surprised. For nearly a decade, largely unreported by the media, the Conservatives have unashamedly aligned themselves with Europe's far right.

The roots of this dark alliance were laid under the supposedly liberal David Cameron. During his 2005 Tory leadership campaign, in order to woo anti-EU members away from Liam Fox, Cameron vowed to withdraw the Conservatives from the mainstream European People's Party (the parliamentary grouping that includes the German Christian Democrats and other leading cente-right parties).

In 2009, a new caucus, the European Conservatives and Reformists, was duly formed. But in order to meet the parliamentary threshold, the Tories aligned themselves with rum company, including Latvia's ethnonationalist National Alliance ("For Fatherland and Freedom") and Poland's far-right Law and Justice Party (whose then leader Michal Kaminski was a former member of the neo-Nazi National Revival of Poland). The latter alliance was denounced by Jewish leaders in the New Statesman, one of whom warned: "Any politician of any political party should have the moral courage to clearly distance themselves from those who espouse and promote anti-Semitism, racism or any attitude that fosters intolerance".

But the Tories were undeterred. In 2014, the far-right Danish People's Party (a spokesman for whom once likened the Muslim headscarf to the swastika) and the ultra-nationalist True Finns were added to the grouping.

Cameron, however, would eventually pay for his Faustian pact. Though the move helped him secure the Tory leadership in 2005, centre-right leaders were appalled by his opportunism and moral relativism. Angela Merkel, the "auntie" who Cameron hoped would come to his rescue during the Brexit negotiations, felt no compulsion to do so.

In the era of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tories ever more resemble their political partners in Europe. But the party's refusal to confront the authoritarianism and racism of Hungary and Poland stems from similarly cynical motives.

By dividing the EU 27 over Brexit, the UK hopes to rule. As one Conservative politician remarked: "No one will say it publicly, but it's clear that we are going to gain brownie points with people who might be able to help us in the Brexit negotiations."

But the Tories' machinations will only strengthen the resolve of Germany, France and others to uphold the EU's values. The same parliament that has just voted to punish Hungary has a binding vote on the Brexit deal that May hopes to strike. Not only is the Tories' cynical maneouvre likely to fail – it will deserve to.

In the meantime, as long as the Conservatives continue to share space with the likes of the Sweden Democrats (who joined the group in July), they will be unfit to lecture Labour, or indeed anyone, on racism.

[idunnosomename]

Ah but boris won a majority so we dont talk about the absolute clusterfuck that was the May government and the harm it did. I am smart news man