Dracula ... Or Frankenstein?

Hungary Continues On Horthyite Path

If you know the history of Hungary, you know Admiral Miklos Horthy, a rightist authoritarian, led to the fascist Arrow Cross, who handled the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz and other camps towards the end of World War II.  Both supported the Germans in that war.  The only thing that ended that romance was the arrival of the Soviet Army.  Now their successors, the Fidesz Party and Jobbik, continue on a similar path in present-day Hungary - all thanks to the restoration of capitalism.  Hungary is presently in the 2nd recession in four years, and no one has any money.  No wonder Orban wants to distract attention from the tremendous performance of his economy.

Proof? 

January 27, 2012 - Guardian

50 miles north of Budapest, in the Hungarian village of Gyöngyöspata, right-wing paramilitary groups linked to the fascist Jobbik Party have started a reign of fear against the Roma of the town, resulting in 4 serious incidents of harm against Gypsies.  The Civil Guard Association for a Better Future, Defence Force and Betyársereg dominated the town for 2 months, allegedly fighting ‘gypsy crime.’  The mayor of town is in Jobbik.  Romani children in town are taught in separate classes, use different toilets, lunch areas and festivities.  The Romani children cannot use computers until years after the other children, or participate in after-school activities.  The governing Fidesz Party has a program of sending the large amount of Roma unemployed (as well as others) to ‘labour camps,’ where they work for peanuts in poor conditions.  These camps remind the Roma of similar camps in war-time Hungary.  There are 400,000 to 800,000 Roma in Hungary.  Canada has become the destination of choice for Roma seeking asylum from Hungary.  

April 19, 2012 – New York Times

TEK is the acronym for a praetorian guard created by Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban of Fidesz in 2010.  They have almost unlimited powers of surveillance and data collection as an ‘anti-terror’ force, and are outside the command structure of the police, the courts or the security agencies.  They are instead under the Interior Minister, a lackey of Orban's.  Essentially, they are a personal secret police. TEK only have to act under police authority when pursuing criminal activities, like drugs.  The Fidesz Speaker of the House now also has command of a private guard – a “Parlia-Military’ – which is allowed, not just to ‘protect’ the Speaker or the Parliament, but to enter and search homes, etc.  The author asks whether these moves presage a police state in Hungary, loyal to only one Party.

June 13, 2012 – Bloomberg News

In a village 60 miles west of Budapest, Csokako, a statue to Milos Horthy has been erected to celebrate his rule from 1919 to 1944.  Horthy was an ally of Hitler, an anti-Semite and an extreme Nationalist. Other statutes of Horthy are going up in other parts of Hungary.  Books by Jozsef Nyiro are being brought back into the Hungarian school system. Nyiro was close to the fascist Arrow Cross Party.  Fidesz organized a reburial of Nyiro in ethnic Hungary, in what is now Romania.  The Romanian government refused to allow, in their words, 'anti-Semite/ fascist/ anti-Romanian' ashes, into their country, so Nyiro had to be ‘reburied’ without his ashes.  A large part of Fidesz program is for a ‘greater Hungary,’ including a large chunk of Romania.  Fidesz has given these Romanian citizens of Magyar/Hungarian ethnicity voting rights, which shows to what extent they are serious.  This is a voting bloc they hope to control.  By the way, this part of Romania includes the former Transylvanian territories of Count Vlad Dracula - the Impaler, which evidently makes it quite a prize for Orban.  Through these moves, Fidesz hopes to capture votes from the base of Jobbik.  Anti-Semitic incidents are occurring in the rest of the country.  There are still 120,000 Jewish people in Hungary.  A bit less than 500,000 Hungarian Jews perished in the Nazi/Arrow Cross/Fascist holocaust. 

Fascism?

People who use impressionistic methods to say that the U.S. is already ‘fascist' only prove how out-of-touch they are with real fascism. Perhaps they need their teeth knocked out by a Nazi punk.  Take a look at a country that actually has a developing fascist movement and compare. 

First there is the old hippie logic of the phrase 'friendly fascism.' 'Friendly fascism' is an oxymoron, like a 'kind killer.'  It cannot exist.  The U.S. government does not need fascism yet – not in a society in which the government has almost full surveillance powers and is weakening the rule of law in order to criminalize dissent, strikes and any real opposition.  In which the ruling class controls a vast propaganda network of television, newspapers, magazines and radio stations, holds the money card and controls both political parties. In which education is merely training.  In which the ruling class has at their disposal the largest arsenal of military/ police/ security forces in history.  I would call the U.S. an authoritarian plutocracy with a parliamentary veneer, or some variation on that.  For the American ruling class, fascists right now are just loose cannons that they allow to simmer, but not grow to their actual, full, height.  Mussolini’s definition of fascism (corporations and government acting together) was an incomplete description for what it really was – open terror against labor, against the left, against foreigners, against minorities of every kind, by a government and extra-legal paramilitaries acting on behalf of the corporations.  Of course, who takes Mussolini's word for anything?  You'd be surprised...

Fascism is the last resort of a threatened capitalist class.  Evidently the Hungarian capitalists feel they need these measures to solidify their weak position.

Happy Fathers' Day!

Red Frog

June 17, 2012