George Handlery about the week that was. The high price of might. Asking “bankrupt capitalism” to come to the rescue. Regulation, protection and unemployment. Firing a Gypsy for non-PC views in Roma matters. Cross-border political arrest warrants. Violence as a political statement.
 
1. Those who cared to watch were impressed by the May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow. (Russia wishes to have its own day and does not commemorate on the 8th.) The Putin & Medvedev duo flexed muscle to make a point. Russia is ready to respond to “any aggression”. (Meant is the sleeping West.) The recent “victory” against Georgia was to underline the point. The show also prompts reflections. P&M wish to restore their Russia to what amounts to Soviet grandeur. Soviet might was only possible because the Lenin-Stalin inspired dictatorship could impose burdens and replace lacking means by sacrificing the “mass” subjected to its fiat. Under today’s conditions, the pursuit of this policy implies the continued acceptance of backwardness in every area except the military one. Postponed democratization is another prize to pay for a dominant international role. Accepting this political and developmental cost – regardless of the apparent consent of the masses – means that the weakness of late Tsarism and Sovietism is tolerated and perpetrated. The upshot is a dictatorship with impressive fangs that suffers from a weakness of its material foundations.
 
2. There are leftist-inspired countries with governments that pursue socialist policies. They tend to call insistently upon developed countries for succor. The justification of the demand is said to be an obligation derived from the donor’s ability to pay. This translates into an admission that the system of the feeders is effective. The ability to pay suggests that failure and success are derivates of the systems chosen by those able to make such determinations. Ultimately, the irony is that, the supposedly failing system of capitalism is commanded to finance a theoretically superior, but in fact bankrupt, socialist experiment.
 
3. The current crisis will provide us with a largely suppressed lesson. The politics-dictated policy of guaranteed employment at fixed salaries has consequences. Once the profitability of an undertaking is not allowed to have an impact on remunerations, the result is the unemployment of what would otherwise be retainable persons. Unemployment also results once laws make the dismissal of the redundant difficult. In the latter case, hiring in the hope that doing so might bring an advantage during an expected upswing, becomes an expensive gamble. This makes not to hire if there can be any doubt regarding an upturn the safe strategy. The result is that new employment is detached from the early signs of a possible recovery. The risks involved in reducing the rate of unemployment become, therefore, factors that hold recoveries back. The problem with these unrealistic practices is that those already “on the shore” are additionally protected and, therefore, not inclined to adjust the rules by surrendering their privileges.
 
4. International gatherings like to express their conviction that the “Palestinian People” have a right to their own state. As the sermon in the church is followed by a loud amen, Palestinian representatives second the claim. The view expressed is based upon the conviction that every people has a right to its state. In this case the assertion has, at least for some who endorse it, unintended consequences. It is that if the Palestinians have a right to a state then the Israeli, too, have a claim to their state. This happens to be the same Israel, which is described as the entity to be wiped off the map.
 
5. Gypsies are Europe’s second largest minority – the Russian are first, the Hungarians rank third. Their case is, regardless of the numbers, the hardest-to-solve problem. This is because they fiercely resist attempts to integrate them (notice that not the term “assimilate” has been used). They also regard actions against the majority’s values and its physical safety as being an entitlement that is protected by human rights norms. Those with access to the international press support the feeling that in this case no evil can be wrong. Many of the commentators have only soft local knowledge and rely on theory-derived positions that resist the facts. Accordingly, one encounters many excellently written essays whose only fault is that they proudly distort a reality of which the reporter has no inkling. An interesting case has emerged that sheds light on the problem created by an absolute commitment to uphold fake facts confirming pre-conceived information. It is the case of a young native employee of the US embassy in Budapest. His mistake seems to be to have criticized the way the embassy gathers and forwards information on Roma, “fascism” and other titillating issues. Since he would not keep his silence about accepted dogma, the man who liked to write protest memos, lost his job. (He claims to have unsuccessfully requested in the matter of the firing an audience with the Ambassador.) The good thing is that from here on the PC analysis of local matters can continue to be forwarded without meddling. “What is” will not continue to disturb the preferred image of “what should be”. The world of the reports is saved from the impolite interference of reality. The price paid by the unemployment of an educated Roma committed to a rational approach to the problems of his ethnic group is an apparent trifle to the worshippers of PC.
 
6. Read on May 5. The burgomaster of a village with 150 inhabitants had an idea. He announced that as of immediately, welfare payments will only be extended to those that meet certain criteria that prove aid is deserved. Accordingly, recipients have to keep up their yard and shall not smoke and booze. The children must attend school. Regardless of whatever merit the reader might attribute to it, the plan crashed. The courts found the decision is illegal. The mayor got death threats. And prophets of morality discovered that the local ordinance is an anti-Gypsy decree. The association seems to be a “Freudian slip” revealing much about the real views of some.
 
7. More judicial madness. Balthazar Garzon of Spain is a judge. He has now filed charges against several US officials of the Bush administration.  Their guilt: human rights violations. Garzon did this with Pinochet while he was in England. Such arrest warrants have something nutty about them. Even if so, one should not be too surprised. The US and the EU impose with some success their tax policies on foreign entities. This shows that, there is an increasing tendency to project for show national law beyond national boundaries. Even if the trick does not work, it sounds good at home. Furthermore, the damage done is not apparent while the initiator is in office. As is the case with everything else, we should count on it that the fad will spread. Soon Chavez, Kim and bin Laden will file human rights charges against, well, what about Obama or, God forbid, Nancy Pelosi.
 
8. The G-20 meeting in London might have decided that more bureaucratic regulation is the answer to our collective economic ailments. No surprise there. More interesting were the violent demonstrations organized to be the sauce in which the stew was to be served. In reality the wrecking engaged in is hardly a reflection of the real crisis. Even when the curves representing economic activity were heading north, the trashers claimed to be deputized to prevent the world from going under. What we saw was evidence of an instinct to commit feel-good crimes without consequence because the kids can claim being covered by their right to make a “political statement”. Amendment: In Berlin 5800 cops were put on the streets. 289 arrests were made. 480 police were injured. Amazing. If you consider that, so as to avoid provoking the demonstrators, no protective gear was allowed by politics. Therefore the unprotected “pigs” were fully exposed to the anger of the “people”. Is it surprising that the policemen are upset?
 
9. The mention of violated rights bring Cheney’s interview to mind. He claimed that harsh interrogations have saved many lives. Given the attitude of the Islamists, it is difficult to imagine that in the course of a polite conversation between gentlemen, and if exposed to moral pressure, much info that is of use would be divulged. Therefore, it appears that to some, leveling charges against the Bushies is seen as bringing more benefits than national security can. Once given the choice between the CIA and el Kaida it is paralyzing of the former that takes precedence.