Friday, December 16, 2011

History's Got Rhythm

I mentioned recently that Hungary was looking more and more like much of 1930s Europe, i.e., fascistically inclined. Some years ago a guy wrote a short but convincing book about the censoring of Doblin's Alexanderplatz from Weimar's radio waves being an ideal way of understanding the forces that destroyed Weimar. In a recent article on Der Speigel online we learn of how Hungarian culture is being "reclaimed" by the fascists and authoritarians who now dominate its parliament. There are also hunger strikes on because of press "manipulation," unpunished violence against racial minorities, and other unpleasantness.
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Perhaps becasue they are overly concerned with the non-democratic imposition of the neoliberal project, Europe and the US are essentially silent on the dangerous trends, they are more than willing to defend the sanctity of an independent central bank. A quick search of the NYT for Jobbik finds three results two of which are Krugman in an op ed and on his blog and one a straight news report from the most recent election. The same for Hungary gets a few more hits but nearly all of them on Hungary's economic circusmstances. There's very little on the Department of State's webpage on either and search of Secretary Clinton's remarks for the past year yields zero.

Why bring this up. The world is a dangerous place what with multiple American wars some declared, others undeclared, and at least two winding down and it's easy to get distracted and miss the real danger what with all the enforcing of austerity and pommeling poor people.

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