'The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind'

 So apparently a psychiatrist can give a lecture in one of the best universities of the world delivering extremely racist statements without having been shut down five minutes after starting. Or being arrested for inciting violence. Or being pilloried by the whole world, mentioned in every major media outlet how a deplorable racist could air her views in an Ivy Leauge university.

I bet if she was talking about unloading a revolver into the head of any Jew that got in her way, or maybe any black person that got in her way, the outrage would have been much, much bigger. But she only wanted to kill white people (I guess Jews, too, if it matters), so that is OK. I am not a legal expert, but I am not sure talking about how someone wants to kill everyone from a certain background even fits the definition of "free speech".

You can listen to the recording here (because Yale is trying to distance itself from this thing now it became public).

Obviously she is not going to act on these feelings -as she herself stated. But will she be held responsible if someone does? The woke machine is great at stroking resentment and anger against whites (and men); I am not sure it is a wise thing to add fuel to the fire to "evoke emotion". Is this an excuse for these statements, anyway? If I say I am not going to act on my feeling, can I, too, say the most racist shit I can think of with impunity? 

Interestingly (not) the kind lady's message was listened to with a sympathetic ear by the WaPo; of course it was meant some other way than what it actually meant. Telling people to pointless to talk to them obviously conveys the message that it is not pointless to talk to them. And talking about killing them because of their skin color is is such a great conversation starter. Or maybe, just maybe, Khilanani was trying to do some damage control; the question is why WaPo is giving her a platform to do so? Would they do the same for a white supremacist? (Not that I think they should, but my point is: neither should they give one to her...)

Another, interesting question, is why she made these statements in the first place? Listening to the non-official recording, it did not seem like an attempt on sparking a constructive conversation. It seemed like a rant from a racist who completely lost her marbles. So maybe it is what actually happened: we reached peak-woke now. She honestly thought that after the whole White Fragility, antiracism training, critical race theory and other successes of the woke movement she is truly free to speak her mind without facing repercussions. Apparently while #killallwhitemen was acceptable, her version of genocide based on pigmentation is not, even if it is only directed against white people (maybe she should have only talked about white men). Who knew. 

But it is still quite chilling that someone in Yale (and not some third rate community college) was given a platform to spew her hatred, and nobody from the major media outlets, from the political establishment (you know the people who decide what gets known and what does not)  really cares. The world depicted in the media and the actual, real world have very little in common.

Somewhat unsettling cases of inequality

 

The Social Justice Warriors normally jump on any and all differences in outcome as a proof for oppression. Well, not any and all, because somehow the fact that working class white boys (and white boys in general) underperform in schools, or men are overreprensented in workplace deaths, suicides, homelessness, and all that jazz, is conveniently ignored, or are explained away by the absolutely moronic "the Patriarchy hurts everyone". (So why is it called patriarchy?)

There are two very interesting articles I ran across lately in this very topic. The first is a Swedish article demonstrating that men face discrimination in female-dominated workplaces. (And they were the only group shown to be discriminated against in this experiment.)

The second is a more serious one demonstrating that men do not get the appropriate help from mental health support services. The prevailing "wisdom" is that men are too macho (you know, Patriarchy) to ask for help. This paper demonstrates that they do ask for help, they just do not get it, hence the high number of suicides.

So there you have it. No Guardian op-eds, no US Senators bringing it up, no WHO reaction, no outrage. While SJWs keep saying that compassion is not a finite resource, and that it is not a zero sum game any time some moronic Republican senator brings up some hair-brained whataboutism about how white men are literally the only persecuted group (which is also an idiotic thing to do), they very much dispense with it selectively. Perhaps compassion is a finite resource.

When negative stereotypes are OK

 This has really been bothering me for a while. You keep reading how stereotypes are bad (even good ones), now D&D has done the right thing (depending on your point of view) and removed negative race ability score modifiers  (whatever they might be -but what is important to be more inclusive and not to hurt our Orc and  goblin player's feelings)…

But every time you read an article about abuse -physical or mental- it is almost guaranteed the photos will show a female victim and a male abuser.

Just do a search:

This article has links to further articles which all show female victims, and if shown, male perpetrators. IKEA? But of course!

The Guardian is  obviously following this trend -how could they not? Psychology Today?  Of course Always… 

Foundations? Obviously

There was one exception I found in this non-representative search. One.

This article does not even try… it flat out uses the male pronoun.

Why is this a problem? Well, apart from the usual "stereotyping hurts, it is bad, you should not do it" any time it comes up with anyone who is not white and male (but any time you complain when it is about white males, you get the "you are such a snowflake" comments), it does help pushing a false narrative of male perpetrators and female victims. (Even when it is about male victims, it is somehow the Patriarchy's fault...) This has real-world consequences on how society relates to male victims (or men accused of being perpetrators) - as it was  many times discussed even on these pages. 

But apparently this does not really ring the alarm bells the same way as stereotyping Orcs or Sand People does. 

Double standards in the international press - Hungary and Romania (Hang 'em up high?)

Yes I complain a lot about hypocrisy and double standards; the whole blog is about them, after all. They infuriate me, regardless of whom they are applied against; and there's a good deal of them directed against my own country, which infuriate me even more.

Enter Romania.

The PM said something non-sensical (if you take the literal translation which Romanians insist), or he threatened with violence (which is the underlying meaning of his words) -depending on how you look at it. Regardless he said something unacceptable.

He threatened Transylvanian Hungarian politicians with hanging.

Let this sink in for a bit.

This is not an isolated thing. Hungarians have been severely mistreated in Romania since Transylvania was "reunited" with Romania a hundred years ago. Anti-Hungarian sentiments have been (and still are) quite high, as we can judge by other statements and actions.

Yet, not a peep from the Western, enlightened media.

Let's see what happens when an idiotic MP (and not the prime minister) says something stupid in the Hungarian Parliament. (You actually could make a rational argument why dual citizenship is not good in case of a lawmaker, but this statement did not do that.)

The reaction? The whole world went up in protest, while absolutely misinterpreting what he said (or rather, twisting it into some sort of a call for putting all Jews in the country on a list.) They also twist and lie about other things, too, while we're at it.

Not to mention the whole silence about Romania's corruption problem. Neither the media nor the EU leadership seems to be worried about that, but they pull the "nuclear option" on Poland.

I wonder why.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the real problem here. The term "fake news" have been overused a bit lately; I strongly suspect it's because the original practitioners feel slighted that Russia and others they don't like got better at it than they are.

Romania, Poland and the EU- interesting observation

Apparently democracy in Romania is in great danger. In fact it's in the gravest of dangers since 1990.

People have been demonstrating for years, prime ministers went to prison, and corruption, apparently is high.

Yet not a peek from the EU. No angry sermons, no talks about (Western) European Values, just a muted reaction essentially saying "whatever". I guess you could make the argument that the very presence of protests mean that they are less corrupt than other Eastern members of the EU, but that would be quite a torturous argument... The fact is they are probably more corrupt than their neighbours, hence the protests.

Contrast this lack of interest to Poland, for example, which is facing some serious backlash for -guess what- rolling back democracy. Same with Hungary.

If you are the tinfoil-wearing type, you might ask why this difference in reactions.

Perhaps because Romania does not act as a thorn in Brussels's side about migration? Perhaps because unlike Hungary and Poland the Romanian government is not right-wing, hence their shenanigans are acceptable? (Just like in 2006 the Hungarian police was beating up random people was perfectly fine with regards to human rights and democracy?)

One can only wonder.

European values, West vs East in the EU, and the rank hypocrisy

It is interesting to see the contrast between reports of alleged Hungarian brutality towards migrants (with no actual proof, but in the he-said-she-said game we of course can take anything a migrant or an NGO says on face value), and the way they report on brutality by the cultured and civilised Western European countries.

Let's see...

We all remember when migrants rushed the border at Roszke, and threw stones at the border guards; the response was, not unexpectedly, some water jets to drive them back. The video footage was heavily edited leaving out the attack, and the footage of the poor kid his/her parent was dragging towards the violence, so later the child could be paraded as an innocent victim. The videos usually have shown the water cannon first, then the stone throwing, and the crying children last. (Here's the full video, by the way. You can see a child being dragged towards the tear gas at 1:29...  which makes the whole farce even more comical. Most of the condemning articles you can find in this blog, but here is a collection by a Hungarian news portal.)

International condemnations, talks of overall racism in the whole country; the furore was real. Facts were taken quite liberally, but the whole incident was used to paint the whole country as the racist black sheep of the EU. Even the UN Secretary General had some harsh words.


In contrast, this is how an Italian use of the water cannon was reported upon.

The report is more like a factual description, and the Guardian had no thundering opinion piece on it. It kind of happened, and that was that.


Same thing about alleged violence against migrants/refugees in Hungary.

Apparently guards have been taking selfies with beaten migrants. Proof of any of these are obviously missing (even though these things tend to come out as we have seen with the US soldiers who took selfies in front of corpses they tortured to death), but let's not let facts get in our way.

In contrast, there are just dispassionate descriptions of the horrors if they are perpetrated by Western countries. No broad generalisations, no bleating about "European Values", no finger pointing to the highest level of power; I've yet to see anyone accuse Macron of being a horrible human being because of the well documented brutality of the French police, and the inactivity of the French government to help these people. (Who, let's just mention it, left the migrant processing centers without registering hoping to get through a richer country.)

The point is: Western media, and the Western world in general loves virtue signalling with the Eastern members of the EU. The political elite, the media are blatantly biased. It's not exactly a big revelation, but something that is worth recording.

Don't let good bigotry to go waste

When is it OK to be bigoted, xenophobic (or racist, although this is a bit of a murky distinction)?

Why, when you're talking about those smelly Eastern (well, Central) Europeans! Just do a quick search on the comment section of any so-called progressive, liberal newspapers, and you will find extremely bigoted views expressed against Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians, all in the name of liberalism, equality, anti-xenophobia and European Values.

Seriously. Just check it out. (Yes, it's only one. You can look for the rest. It's not very difficult.)

Anyhow, enter Mr Frenchman. (If you wanted to know his name, you can find out. He DID say he does not hide behind an anonymity, he DID post his comments under his own name, he IS a journalist, and he DID try to erase all his misdeeds. I find especially the last part repugnant.)

Anyhow. Do a quick read of this reddit post from a black girl asking about Hungary.

Mr High Horse, a self-confessed journalist and teacher assesses that "most of Hungarians ARE racist", and then brings up two unsubstantiated little stories, and a lot of (probably intentionally) misinterpreted things (like a candy called Negro) to support his claim. Let's stop here for a second. Someone, claiming to have journalistic integrity and whatnot, talking from a liberal point of view simply makes a bigoted statement that essentially puts him into the same camp as the people he decries (racists, not Hungarians). Then proceeds to make a couple of off-hand comments, and when he realizes he really, really put his foot in his mouth, he proceeds to erase his comments and delete his account.

I decided to immortalize this little performance as it is very much a representative sample of the treatment of these smelly Eastern Europeans all over the Continent, with the exception that most journalists and politicians are not forced to face a reality check. Well, here's an indication for you what would happen in a larger scale if that was the case.

Victim blaming is fine, when it's not us

So every time you have a terror attack - 9/11 especially -, usually it's a sign of bad taste and horrible personality to suggest the country which fell victim to the attack may had something to do with why the attack was perpetrated. So the last seven-eight decades of US policies in the Middle East had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, and if you mentioned that they might, you were defiling the memory of the innocent victims, and were an America-hater, who should really just go and kill themselves silently, as they are beyond redemption. After all, claiming that the terrorists acted because of a grievance would justify their actions, right? And if we do this, then we use the lives of those innocent victims to further our agenda, right? Excusing the actions of the terrorists, that's what it is! This is not the right time to discuss these things, not while the bodies are still warm... so there will be no lessons learned. Ever.

(Which is a convenient stance because we don't need to take a look at ourselves, and it also has the added benefit of making it impossible to treat the root of the issue, hence we will always have a convenient threat we can point at when we chip away civil liberties, and bomb countries.)


The same is true with all the terror attacks that happened in Europe; saying that France's or Belgium's inability to assimilate large amount of immigrants might have something to do with what happened (they are rather be focusing on a straw men claiming the attackers were domestic born), that Germany's decision to let fresh immigrants in might have something to do with these things, that the UK's, France's actions in the Middle East and North Africa might have something to do with what happened, is an anathema. "Fringe" papers and websites (whose readership reaches into the high dozens) do discuss these connections, but "reputable" newspapers and other media outlets will never touch this topic; instead they present a whitewashed picture of ourselves, and how those scary terrorists are hating us for our freedoms.

But not when it comes to the Ruskies.

They are to be totally blamed for what happened. (Published mere days after the attack.) But, wait, the hypocrisy is not finished! After all, the Ruskies are responding with revenge (forgot about Afghanistan and Iraq yet?), and their foreign policy is repugnant... Definitely forgot about Iraq and Afghanistan, then.

The double standards are astonishing.

Addendum. Well, it didn't take long, did it? Hypocrites.

Interesting look on "collateral damage"

Weird. The media and the political machine is still raging about how the Syrians and Russians are monsters and war crimes for bombing hospitals, and operating in a heavily populated area against the moderate rebels. (Which is, admittedly, a horrible thing to do. I'm not trying to say that it's all daisies and rainbows; it is a brutal and quite frankly, hard to justify thing to do.)

However... let's see what the very same people say about doing the very same thing when they themselves are doing it. (I've already written about the interesting contrast about Mosul and Aleppo, so let's leave that part out for now.)

Bombing hospitals - Russia vs USA. (Or Saudi Arabia, but they did bomb a school, so it's not the same I guess.) Mind you, bombing hospitals (and their parking lots) is against the law even IF enemy combatants are hiding in it, yet Israel is quite happy to do so; again, no angry accusations of war crimes there. (Even though in this case it is a deliberate action. As is using white phosphorus in built-up areas against humans.) It seems like you cannot avoid making mistakes when fighting in a city; and the Russians hit a hospital by mistake. Still a war crime, I guess, right?

Well...

What happens when the US and its allies kill people?

Well, of course, it's unintentional, so it's not a crime. It's a kind of weird logic, since you normally can't claim this in front of a court, but let's just think about this. The US and its allies conduct operations in a sovereign country against the wishes of its legitimate government, and kills the soldiers of said government. (The US also supports "moderate" rebels fighting said government, let's add hastily.) But it was unintentional, so it's cool. It's also regrettable when they unintentionally drone weddings and innocent people in general, who happen to be in the wrong place (in their own country) at the wrong time. While we KNOW that any collateral damage the Syrians and Russians cause is absolutely intended and should be condemned.

Interesting.

Snooper's Charter

So finally, the government has gone through with the mass surveillance bill even the Americans would admire: the so-called Snooper's Charter.

Good job, you. I wonder what would Orwell say, but let's forget about that part.

What I'm really curious about is the muted response from the EU and Western powers. You would expect a general outcry, based on what happens whenever a newspaper goes bust in Hungary (never mind it was seriously in debt), or the government flaunts some shady surveillance bill idea, but no. While these things are obvious signs of dictatorship and totalitarianism in Hungary, clearly it's not the case in the UK. No general condemnation, no fiery speeches about Western values (sorry, Values). So to recap: the UK enacts a bill that would make any Stazi leader wet his pants, and nobody bats an eye. It's fine. Some left-leaning newspapers write some alarmist articles, but in general the political landscape (and the media) does not give a shit. Not one little bit of shit. No calls to impose sanctions for breaching EU's fundamental values, or exclude the UK from the EU (I know, I know, but it is a symbolic gesture, OK? You're not leaving, we're throwing you out because, guess what, you are shitting on the fundamental values we hold dear). This is quite telling about the whole issue of hypocrisy, doesn't it? The tone is similarly muted from the Hungarian Left; somehow there are no hysterical cries of totalitarian take-over of the most admired democracy... they are fine with this; the "West" is still the idol to look up to. Sure. Let's ignore the worrying signs that things are seriously going wrong everywhere. And if you don't think the UK is in danger of losing personal rights and freedoms, think about these issues:

1. Spying on MPs
2. Forward Intelligence Team
3. Special Demonstration Squad

and let's not forget about surveillance of peaceful groups, to the extend of undercover officers having families with the subjects of surveillance. Good job doing this democracy-thingy. And even the Germans are doing it: as usual, they prefer to do it so that they can be seen as clear.

What we see here is a general trend moving towards a totalitarian surveillance state in the Western World, but of course it's only a problem when a shitty little country is trying to emulate the big brothers (the term used in more than one meaning here, in case you miss the reference). Nobody wants to point out that the emperor has no clothes; perhaps the supposedly free press is not so free after all. (Who would have thought? They must be free, since about 70% is owned by one individual...)

Terrorism and the Balkan route -perceptions last year and today

So it seems like Abdeslam did use the Balkan route for smuggling terrorists into Europe. So did others.

Let this sink in for a while. Even though it seems like people have a memory of a goldfish (not to mention politicians and journalists, who are entirely possible that not members of the same species as the rest of us), let's just recall a couple of things from last year. Like that infamous cartoon with the rats. (Let's forget that the whole outrage was manufactured since the cartoon did not suggest what the outraged journalists said it did.) Or that the EU's counter terrorism chief said there was unlikely to be a connection between migrants and terrorists. Or ask the UN High Commissioner for refugees. Or the fact that the entire Left in Hungary (and the international press) used this as a political tool against the Hungarian government instead of actually recognising the threat unchecked migration (or worse, if they did, they used it as a weapon against Orban nevertheless. Priorities, I guess.)

Curiously all these people are silent now. The news that terrorists indeed used the Balkan route is quietly dropped and forgotten. No mea culpas, no retrospective analyses how they could been so wrong, how the others who were right were painted as the villains... No; this whole business is best left forgotten, and move on to the next shouting campaign without any lessons learned.

Guess what. This is what gave you Brexit and Trump. This is why the Far Right is getting stronger everywhere. You can't just call everyone you disagree with a racist neckbeard, and you especially can't do that (and keep doing it) when they are right and you are wrong. You might have the bullhorn to shout, but the credibility deficit is growing. You probably should have noticed after the Brexit vote or Trump's victory that things are not so swell outside your bubble, but you apparently have not.

I guess we're all going to suffer for it.

The difference between war crimes and human shields -how the media and politics see the same thing through different glasses

Weird things you can read in the news.

Siege of Mosul (incredible bloodshed, street fighting and massive civilian causalities) is something that we should look at as the forces of good fighting the forces of evil. (I think ISIS is supposed to be the evil here, but given the fact that the US has been supporting these very same guys in the past makes this distinction a bit murky.)

Anyhow. Mosul is great.

Aleppo, however... at Aleppo we see the evil Ruskies and Assad massacring civilians and attacking helpless rebels who are definitely moderate, and would not chop heads off even if they could. Also: the fact that NATO is putting troops right on Russia's borders is something that will ensure peace. Definitely. How else to make sure you have peace other than provoking a nuclear power? By talking to them? Don't make me laugh. (And let's not forget who those rebels really are.)


So. There is an interesting duality how the media (and politicans) deal with bombs that kill civilians depending on who drop said bombs. We can safely conclude that victims of Western airstrikes are collateral damage only. Also, victims of weapons sold by Western powers to barbaric kingdoms and used on civilians are fine. They don't kill civilians. We're the good guys. (Things can get a bit weird when your allies murder your allies, but what the heck. Let this one slide, I say.)
But victims of Russian bombs, however, are victims of a war crime. And the Ruskies are barbarians. Let's just forget the siege of Fallujah, and the indiscriminate killing of civilians of US forces (not to mention the use of white phosphorus against human targets, which is, you know, a war crime).


It's kind of weird when the two sides do the same thing, but they are not really the same. US (or Israel) hits a hospital: oh well, mistakes are being made, sorry. And the terrorists were hiding there deliberately, anyhow, so it's not a mistake. They were also using human shield, forcing us to kill all those people, while at the same time we hit the hospital by mistake.

Ruskies hit a hospital: WAR CRIMINALS. OMG, THEY ARE TOTALLY EVIL. Poor insurgents who are forced to hide in a city against the superior force! Let's send them more weapons!


Seriously. Do a google search. I can imagine all these people's spirit discussing how one side were murdered by an evil regime, and how the other were just collateral damage. I'm sure the victims of Western bombs take a great solace in the knowledge.


It's astonishing. It's so bad, even the Independent noticed it -after several decades too late.

So Sebastian Kurz told Profil that only the best educated migrants should be allowed in Austria.

(Could not find the original German article, and strangely no English reports are available on this interesting take on helping war refugees. If it helps, here's a Hungarian report of the interview.)

Let's ignore the fact that had Szijjarto said something like this on behalf of Hungary, the whole Western media would be screaming about racism and the rest.

Let's just think about the implication of this statement a bit, shall we?

Option #1: we are talking about war refugees. The Austrian minister essentially says that we only should help the well educated, rich refugees, and leave the rest to their fate.
This, if you ask me, is an insanely un-European attitude; I'd hazard to say it would justify a little international uproar. After all, this is a very cold-hearted, and frankly evil stance. We can safely say it reminds us to the darkest moments of European history.

Option #2: we are talking about economic migrants. In this case it's a fair stance, however it ignores a lot of things that should have been discussed before even one economic migrant was let over the border.
These things are:
1. why are we allowing in millions of economic migrants in the first place?
2. why did the mass of people start walking towards Europe last year?
3. why are we trying to impose hypocrisy costs on countries who refuse to allow economic migrants into their countries? You have no right trying to shame and coerce countries to accept economic migrants, after all.
4. Why nobody's talking about the costs and benefits of taking millions of economic migrants?

These question, obviously, will not be asked either by the media or the politicians. They seem to be quite content on using this sliding scale of "war refugees" and "migrants" whenever it fits their narrative, trusting that the average reader is an idiot who cannot see how he or she is manipulated. And the worst thing is that it seems to be working. Nobody stops to think about these issues; they read a short article, they take up the war cry, then move on. A couple of days later they repeat the same process with another article which is diagonally opposing to their previous opinion. It works with everything; even when these two opposing things happen at the same time: take the war crime that is the siege of Aleppo, and the heroic liberation that is the siege of Mosul.

US, Russia, war crimes and the infantile double standards that no one seems to notice

This is a real interesting phenomenon. The US and its Western allies are free to invade, bomb, assassinate, torture, fund and support "moderate rebels" (who turn out to be founding members of Al Quaida, ISIS, etc.), use civilians as human shields, target hospitals, target funerals and weddings, support bloodthirsty dictators and regimes, and starve an entire country to death (you know what the fuck is going on in Yemen? Well, a Leningrad Siege on a country scale, that's what), yet no one seems to care.

Russia, on the other hand cannot do anything without being condemned as worse than Nazi Germany. Literally. Even politicians who suggest that what the Russians are doing is not much different from what any other "great" power is doing get abused quite a lot. If you read the newspapers (which are essentially propaganda tools; gone are the days of journalism), you'll read that it's all Russia's fault. The new world war is beginning.

And yet the elephant is quite large in the room: the US and the UK has been responsible for countless bombings, regime changes, invasions, wars, and so on and so forth. Russia in comparison is lagging behind in this race; even  the most often brought up case -up to the Ukrainian land-grabt that is-, the war in Georgia seems to be pretty much supporting the Russian narrative. (It was more than hilarious how fast Western voices stopped criticising the war in Chechnya after 9/11...) And yet- when the US and its allies cause "collateral damage" by hitting civilians in a large scale (or just small scale by drones), it's fine. When they kidnap people to torture them, it's fine. When they ignite regional wars by supporting "moderate" rebels, it's fine. The very same people who are committing these acts, or keeping silent about them are up in arms when the Russians dare to support their own little puppet, and stabilize his country. Right now they are the only force in Syria that tries to quell the civil war, while the US and its allies is happily founding ISIS and other moderates. (And by moderates I mean people who like to behead others, and use kids to execute their POWs. You know; the nice kind the US has always liked to support.)

And everyone just ignores this; they behave if someone farted in the room, and pretend that they did not notice it. Are they aware that the very same policies are responsible for the migrant crisis and the increased terrorist activity in Europe? Nobody cares even when the chickens are coming home to roost. They just ignore it and keep spewing even more nonsense; like blaming Putin for the very same problems. Incredible. It's very rare when spokepersons are forced to confront this double standard, and the results are incredibly telling. How the fuck can anyone take these politicians, journalists seriously if their basic moral core is compromised so much they can only function as a bunch of partisan puppets for "their team"?

Brexit and the media treatment

Well, things are changing all over the world (well, “world” defined as the US and Europe, so I think I’m being a bit arrogant here); since we can’t do anything about it, get the popcorn out and enjoy the show.

It seems like there are fundamental changes in our societies. The traditional left is sinking into insignificance, and the center-right parties are breaking up as their fringe is getting stronger. We see a general shift to the right, nationalism is on the rise, and people seem to be really, really angry at the established “elite”, so they are voting to hurt them (regardless of they themselves getting hurt in the process, too). So we have the Tea Party, OWS, Trump, Sanders, Boris and Farage, EU scepticism all over Europe (even the Austrians??), xenophobia and racism everywhere - and now we have something unthinkable: Brexit. Globalization did not work out very well for most people it seems. As more and more people got into the losers’ side in this game, as more and more people realized the cards were stacked against them, and as the winners overplayed their hand redistributing the wealth even more unevenly as before, anger rose to the surface. Even mainstream newspapers are full of analyses of this sort now, although even two years ago it would have been only a few voices on the “far” left (Chomsky, Greenwald and their kind) who were raising these issues.

That’s all good and well. Only one thing infuriates me. The Guardian and other papers are discussing this, they are talking about the worrying trends in racism and xenophobia embedded into the British society but their tone is very understanding, very constructive… contrast this to the tone they discussed the very same trends in Hungary last year, and the years before. The tone was very much reprimanding and ostracising. Those hairy barbarians, they have no place in civilized Europe, they said over and over again. They were thundering maledictions and painting the entire nation racist and worse… and now here we are. The UKIP’s popularity is explained as the rebellion of the poor and dispossessed (ignoring the seriously troubling racist and xenophobic narrative of the party). In contrast, the popularity of Jobbik, the Hungarian version of the far right, was explained with that Hungarians just simply hate Jews. This makes a good headline but ignores the fact that the trends are the same in both countries. People hate the establishment and anything promising a change (and also a national reawakening, apparently) will draw people in. Last week the United Kingdom has shown itself to be even more provincial, even more nationalist than Hungary –the country the British media (and others) were accusing of being the narrow sighted, regressive nation, a nation, which does not have a place in the EU. Apparently Britain is the one that does not have a place; at least this is how people voted here. What makes this double standard especially appalling is that never once in Hungary were violent and non-violent hate crimes on such levels as in the UK and in Germany, for that matter; never where the far right’s rhetoric as toxic as in these countries, yet the country was (and still is) depicted as the pariah of Europe. 

King Leopold the Third, and historical amnesia

Recently I’ve been to Belgium on a meeting. The place looked nice and affluent, and in general, a pleasant country overall. Except for one thing. I’ve seen King Leopold III’s photos in my hotel and in a restaurant I've visited framed.

This got me thinking (after I calmed down). Here we are, in the 21^stcentury, and we can see a mass murderer’s picture displayed openly. This person was responsible for the death of about ten million people in the Belgian Congo. This makes him one of the worst mass murderer you have never heard of. While we know about Hitler, Stalin, Saddam and other monsters (although Saddam’s worst acts were committed under US protection in the ‘80s, and they have only become publicized in the media when he became a “bad” dictator after ’91), somehow the less-than-savoury acts of Western politicians are less advertised. We don’t read much about the engineered famine in India, which killed about 3 million under Churchill. We hear about the approximately 60 thousand US causalities of Vietnam, but not the 1-4 million (nobody knows for sure exactly how many) Vietnamese dead; we don’t read much about the Latin American death squads, the School of Americas, the genocide in East Timor... It seems like history really is written by the victors. And it makes the constant finger-waggling, and moral superiority of the Western powers sound a little hypocritical. You’d expect people who demand constant historical retrospection a little bit more eager to follow their own advice.

Double standards, the Media, Migrants, Refugees and Hungary

This is what really infuriates me: when people/journalists/politicians (I don't think the latter two are actually full members of the Homo sapiens species) blatantly lie (you can lie by not talking about something, too) just to uphold a pre-conceived ideological stance regardless of facts. This leads to the incredible double standards the international media and politics treat Hungary in general, but the way they have been treating it since the whole issue with the refugees finally made it into international news. (Because it has been going on for a while before; first in the countries surrounding Iraq and Syria, and also with the people trying to cross the Mediterranean, and then it slowly edged up the Balkans to Hungary.

So if you have read the news over the last half year or so, Hungary has been an unworthy member of the Union because she wanted to suspend certain parts of Dublin III due to the high volume of the immigrant influx, and let people through without registration, then it was a Nazi regime full of racists for NOT letting people through without registering first. And then they became villains again when they let the trains through due to Germany unilaterally suspending the Schengen agreement, which has allowed them to let the refugees through without registration. Then they decided to build a fence on the border to protect the Schengen borders as it was their duty as a Schengen country (which DOES NOT mean they closed the borders, regardless of what the media or certain organizations say; it means they cannot enter whenever they wish to, but have to use the proper border crossings), despite of the fact that several other EU members already had fences in place. It's rich, when a French politician is condemning Hungary for building fences, when they themselves had been fencing off the Channel tunnel and Calais previously. Or when the same douche is condemning police violence when they used riot police to clear out camps.

When Orban put up the idiotic anti-immigration posters, the whole world was up in arms; when the Danish publish similar adverts in the Middle East, it's fine.

When Croatia boasted they'd be more humane than those bestial Hungarians, and then not two days later closed their own borders, sent armed people over the Croatian-Hungarian border to dump refugees there, and channelled refugees through Slovenia, nobody bat an eye, though. (In fact, the Guardian was still praising them for being humane while they were already doing much worse than anyone in the EU has so far; their behaviour might not have matched the image the Guardian was building, but the facts did not deter them.) When the refugees who refuse to get registered (and being urged not to do so by certain organizations) on their own decide to occupy a railway station, it's Hungary at fault. When they decide to go on foot to the border, because -guess what- without valid papers you cannot just cross borders, it's Hungary at fault. I guess if they were taken off the streets by force, and made to stay in camps, it would have been Hungary's fault, too. (By the way, nobody mentioned how disruptive a lot of these people were around Debrecen and other places where refugee camps were built. Mentioning it would have been politically incorrect. The resulting animosity -which has not turned into violence, unlike in Germany-, was, however a sure sign that all Hungarians are Nazis. Nobody mentions that they refuse to obey the laws of the European Union; the same laws Hungary was trying to enforce, for which she was condemned -even though she would have been condemned if she had NOT tried to enforce them, too. )

When several people broke through a razor wire fence, and the riot police had to intervene, the images were of weeping, scared children with water cannons in the background in the international news, and came the usual condemnations. Never mind that if you watched the very same footage in its entirety, you'd have seen that the police reacted to a crowd storming the border, AND the child in question was dragged in front of a water jet against her will. Same thing with the policemen-throwing-food-at-the-masses video: the first few seconds, where the crowd loses patience and rushes forward the tables where the food is being distributed, are lost somehow. And now, the Austrians building a fence (which is not a fence, apparently), and employ the riot police to force back a violent crowd, and no international finger-wagging, and nobody is calling then Nazis. Neither were any objections when the French, Macedonian and Bulgarian riot police treated the refugees with appalling brutality. If the Slovenians use tear gas, that's fine, too... it only merits a small article, not the whole treatment. That does not count, apparently.

When a Hungarian camera-woman trips and kicks people in a crowd that's rushing her (who knows, she might have been just panicking; let's give her at least the benefit of the doubt), suddenly the whole country is composed of Nazis and racists. (Depending on who you ask.) But the fact that in Germany Neo-Nazis are actually demonstrating, setting fire to buildings housing refugees on a daily basis, and commit other acts of violence is somehow not advertised, or condemned the whole German nation as a bunch of Nazis. (Obviously they are reported, but  You only see the welcoming German crowds, as opposed to those barbaric, Nazi Hungarians. Never you mind that there were thousands of volunteers helping, and only very sporadic acts of violence (I can recall two, which includes the camerawoman).

And the Hungarian political left (and the so-called intellectual elite) happily assisted to drag the country's name in the mud for their own petty political purposes, forgetting that the only thing they can actually achieve is to strengthen Orban's position, which is NOT something I (and many other Hungarians) wish to see. They live in this strange, alternative universe, where Hungary is a Fascist dictatorship, and only they represent the worthy elements of the non-racist Hungarian population... It's bizarre.
Whatever the motivation of the writers and commenters are, the sad fact is: so far, in this whole mess, only this asshole (Orban) behaved with consistency, in line with the legal obligations, AND with any form of foresight. If it was up to Gyurcsany or any of the other douches, the country would be full of people it is not equipped to feed and house. Unlike Germany, Hungary is low on resources, and does NOT have a workforce shortage. In fact, there's a horrible unemployment right now, despite of all the hundreds of thousands who left the country to find work somewhere else in the EU.

 It seems to me the whole European Union has been running around like a headless chicken in the last six months. Certain politicians called Hungarians Nazis and racists because they tried to avoid drawing attention to the fact that they're half-way into prison already, and their population is very receptive to anti-Hungarian sentiments; others played the Nazi card because it made them feel warm and fuzzy about themselves (after all, they might have screwed over the Greek, but they are accepting a million refugees! Never you mind the issues of integration of such a large number of people, of how this does not actually solve any of the issues, and so on). The racist/Nazi card was played to the death by others as well: the Swedes, who are just hypocrites, and others because they were simple cunts, and thought they'd be safe on the Western side of the Hungarian border. (Which they were not, as soon as Merkel ignored the laws, as the recent events with Slovenia has demonstrated. So they started to build a fence, while claiming that Europe is no place for fences in the same time...)
Interestingly sometimes, someone actually gets it. But it's a rare occasion. Most of the time the voices of sanity are drowned by the self-righteous, self-serving condemnation of the "other".

I think what the original intention from the richer part of the Union was to let the poorer EU border countries become gigantic refugee holding camps (after all Dublin III serves this very purpose in this case), and when the Greek first, then Orban showed them a middle finger, they panicked, and did not know what to do. Now they have a gigantic mess in their hands, something they themselves created by

1. supporting the idiotic US/British/French interventions in the Middle East/Africa
2. relaying inconsistent messages about their refugee policies. Oh, poor Palestinian girl, we like you, but we can't have everyone come here. Oh, if only those Hungarians would let you, we'd have you all! Oh, even MORE is coming?? Who the fuck would have thought? Why are more people coming? Why aren't the border states doing something? Shit, put up the border control!!

So all in all. If you work for the BBC, the Guardian, the Independent, Der Spiegel, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or really, any other news organization, OR you are a politician, I have one thing to tell you: go and screw yourselves you hypocritical douchenozzles. Go and look up the definition of "journalism", and of "integrity", and then really, really think about what you have done. And if you have ever believed even one word of these amoral idiots, then wake up. You have been lied to. They take you for a fool, manipulated you, as they have been doing for generations now. This case angers me for one obvious reason: they dragged my country's name into the mud. But the other reason I'm mad is a less selfish one: this case is a prime example how politics and the media fabricates the world around you. They don't report on events; they MAKE UP the world around us. They can make millions of people demonstrating disappear (just think of the 2003 anti-war protests, and their media coverage), and can fabricate outrage at will about anything. Facts matter not; they will make sure facts will not stand in the way of their agenda. They give you shit, and they tell you it's caviare; and you have been eating it up without a question in every single case you can think of. This is a prime example how those in power will play those without power against each other. Congratulations.

Fences

Let's see, what sets this particular fence apart from these?

Well, apparently, some fences are more acceptable than others. Bulgaria, Turkey, Macedonia, France and the UK is perfectly OK fencing off Calais, and the Eurotunnel; Spain is fine with its razor wire fence, the US with its own border fence, not mentioning Israel's monstrous walls.