On Friday, anti-democratic right-wing populist nationalist authoritarian PM with a long history of racist comments Boris Johnson, is meeting with Putin ally Viktor Orbán.
Under Orbán's leadership, Hungary has experienced democratic backsliding & a lurch towards authoritarianism.
Orbán's populism, social-national conservatism, soft Euroscepticism & advocacy of what he describes as an "illiberal state" have attracted significant European & international attention & criticism from domestic & foreign leaders, including Angela Merkel, but praise from Johnson.
Orbán has gradually undermined the rule of law, established tight control over the country’s independent institutions, adopted a new constitution & fundamentally changing electoral laws & the system of campaign financing.
Johnson's 👏 Govt 👏 is 👏 doing👏 the 👏same.#NotADrill
Orbán's Govt has captured the public media & taken control over much private media through an extensive network of Govt-friendly oligarchs.
Orbán's regime is close to Andrew Neil too, the @BBC is now led by Tory stooges, & Ofcom may be run by Paul Dacre.
These developments grant Fidesz-KDNP extraordinary advantage over the opposition: Hungary today can no longer be regarded as a democracy but belongs to the growing group of hybrid regimes, sitting in the “gray zone” between democracies & pure autocracies.
In 2017, Boris Johnson met Steve Bannon in the US, & Bannon met with Jacob Rees-Mogg in London.
In 2018, Bannon met with Michael Gove, & Bannon was filmed saying “I’ve been talking to him (Boris Johnson) all weekend about this speech. We went back and forth over the text.”
Also in 2018, Bannon advised Viktor Orban.
The links between far-right provocateur Bannon, Libertarian US billionaire-funded US & Tufton St free-market think tanks & the Spiked mob, the far-right Orbán regime & the UK Govt, are well-established & profoundly disturbing.
WAKE UP!
Some people argue Boris Johnson's "friend" Viktor Orban can't be an antisemite - as well as a xenophobic racist - because he's mates with Netanyahu.
Matthew Goodwin. Ha ha ha ha! 'Universities are full of lefty Foucault-loving bastards! Why would people think about such fripperies as inequality, homophobia, racism & sexism?' I suppose if you hate nuance, critical thought, & know fouc-all about Foucault, he might have a point.
Not a bad show. In fact, Foucault has been claimed by neoliberals as well as 'radicals'. No doubt every right-wing free-market gobshite crank will see it as yet more evidence of the 'anti-British anti-woke identity politics snowflakes' at the @BBC destroying western civilization!
Impartial & sensible Paul Dacre, lined up by opportunist liar Boris Johnson & the the @BBC-hating Tories to be the new @Ofcom & thus BBC regulator, attacked the BBC as a "monolith" pursuing "cultural Marxism" - a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory.😳
The ever nuanced & professional Paul Dacre - incidentally with *zero* experience in broadcasting - said the @BBC "which glories in being open-minded, has become a closed-thought system operating a kind of Orwellian Newspeak."
Oh the irony.
In another nuanced & impartial critique, Paul Dacre was critical of David Cameron's alleged "sidelining of Thatcherism & his banishing of all talk of lower taxes, lower immigration & euroscepticism (which) are all part of the Tories' blood sacrifice to the @BBC god."
“The British right hopes to emulate the success of the US right in convincing the public that the main organs of news & opinion are gripped by a left-wing conspiracy…[their aim] is to alter the definition of the ‘middle ground’, moving it to the right" - Peter Wilby, 2007.
In 2004, a think tank Director outlined 'three things the Right needs to happen:
The manufactured "war on woke" is a distraction designed to keep voters divided. Under cover of COVID, wealth has been transferred from poor to rich on an unprecedented & unimaginable scale, eroding democracy & resulting in hardship, conflict, mass death & environmental collapse.
Of the $9TRILLION injected by central banks into the world economy over the last year, $8TRILLION has finished up in the pockets of billionaires, of which there are just 2,700. This wealth could solve many of the enormous & urgent problems facing humanity. ft.com/content/747a76…
It's almost impossible to imagine just how much $8 TRILLION actually is. For example, it would:
"The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society" - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1755, 'Discourse on the Origin of Inequality'.
Rousseau posits that the original, deeply flawed social contract, which led to the modern state, was made at the suggestion of the rich & powerful, who tricked the masses into surrendering their liberties to them & instituted inequality as a fundamental feature of human society.
At the end of the Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau explains how the desire to have value in the eyes of others undermines personal integrity & authenticity in a society marked by interdependence.
In 'The Social Contract outlines the basis for a legitimate political order.
Interesting, balanced & nuanced article by Neil McLaughlin: 'The Jordan Peterson Phenomena: Why Fromm’s ideas and public intellectual vision is essential for responding to reactionary populism'.
I'm not going to summarise the whole paper, but McLaughlin attempts to account for the popularity & influence of Peterson in a respectful way.
While critiquing Peterson's intellectual status, he offers interesting insights & calls for fairer & more measured critique of Peterson.
McLaughlin is a scholar of the work of Erich Fromm - a controversial German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, philosopher, & democratic socialist. Fromm was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime & settled in the US. His influences are similar to those of Peterson.