Walter, as an unrepairable optimist I agree, I want to agree with you. In my country, one of Krasnov's closest friends Viktor Orbán ha been reigning for 15 consecutive years. 15 years running!
After the first four years he changed the constitution with deleting the term limits, and taking 90% of the media in his hands. Journalism was devastated and replaced by hollow propaganda.
We have been suffering, we have been looted by him and his oligarchs.
It took this long to finally get united, and send him hopefully to prison after next year's elections. Because criminals belong there.
I hope your great country will get the strength to overcome much sooner.
How heartbreaking. I hope it happens. One thing to our benefit is our tyrant is both old and unintelligent. He's incompetent and weak. There are already signs that his hold is beginning to weaken. I hope for justice for your country too.
Thank you Walter. In a few days we shall have our national holiday and a huge demonstration is awaited in Budapest. If several hundred thousand people will take the streets- as projected - we shall overcome next year. Orbán used to have huge demonstrative meeting with thousand of paid participants. This year he will speak to his remaining supporters only in a private gathering.
Walter, as an unrepairable optimist I agree, I want to agree with you. In my country, one of Krasnov's closest friends Viktor Orbán has been reigning for 15 consecutive years. 15 years running!
After the first four years he changed the constitution with deleting the term limits, and taking 90% of the media in his hands. Journalism was devastated and replaced by hollow propaganda.
We have been suffering, we have been looted by him and his oligarchs.
It took this long to finally get united, and send him hopefully to prison after next year's elections. Because criminals belong there.
I hope your great country will get the strength to overcome much sooner.
I say this as strictly pertaining to an individual policy. Having nothing to do with the dynamic and real world situation of your reference.
Term limits are a terrible policy. Absolutely terrible. Giving complete leverage as if they didn't have enough, to the donor class during the government office holders final term. All you have to do is look at the Red states in America that have implemented them. They have increased their speed to the bottom.
I do understand in that particular instance they were used nefariously.
They're a Band-Aid for an uneducated electorate. At least in america. The framers did not intend it for a congressional career. It was meant to go into a term or two give service and go back to your regular life. There were no thoughts that alone positions of career political hack.
The only possibility of it being a legitimate policy is having no opportunity to be a lobbyist work for any single entity that has ever lobbied in the process and have zero possibility of representation concerning any entity that wants to influence government policy. Anyone that allowed the term limits certainly doesn't have the political acumen or integrity to implement all of those prerequisites.
In our case, they are grabbing the power and trying to hold it as long as they can. Shameless nepotism is the practice, and an oligarchy is built up, propaganda makes the people blind. Public procurements are directed to their own families. Election law is distorted, Jerry-mandering and other tricks contribute to the uneven field. If unchallenged, the prime minister would stay in power for life, like a king. Going back to their normal life after two terms would make the continuous looting impossible. Sitting around the honey pot is better for them. We have to drive them away and open the doors of prisons before them.
I'm so sorry that happened to you and your people and I wish you all the best in regaining your country and your freedoms. Your story is a good warning to us. There has already been some talk about an unnatural third term for the one in the seat and some control over journalism and free speech has already started.
I don't mean to bring up anything unpleasant, but can you please tell us if there is any advise you bag give us about how to protect our cash assets as we know our guy met with your guy to borrow some plays from his playbook. By any chance, did they change the currency? Or freeze your bank accounts? How did they loot you? You might have some information that could help us.
We will get through this. There will be a brighter tomorrow.
1. Please call me Zsolt, as every fellow writer does in Substack and beyond.
2. I, and all my compatriots, feel honored by your sympathy regarding our sad status of affairs in our beloved Fatherland.
I always prefer brevity in explaining even complex situations, but explaining how it happened to us takes longer than a dozen sentences.
In short, we are living in a hybrid society: formal democracy, really autocracy, or more accurately, kleptocracy. Our bank accounts are not closed or forfeited, but they keep the balances low. They kept the old currency but sabotaged the introduction of the Euro, so we have runaway inflation far worse than in the rest of Europe. The regime's oligarchs have the most sinister ways to loot.
Since my niche is history, it is high time I wrote articles on "How Hungary slid down from democracy to kleptocracy?"
I promise you can read it soon.
If you send me your email address, I will send you my bio and life journey in 30 pages. It tells you a lot about my 80 years of experience in the banks of the Danube.
What an excellent and thoughtful analogy. I, too, feel a sense of liberation because I know in my gut that the people are waking up and rising to meet the occasion before them. We are making a difference with the actions we are taking.
Thank you, Walter. I agree. This country can no longer pretend to be what it is not. It has been stripped down to its ugliest, cruelest form. Unlike other nations with a cruel, indefensible past, the US never atoned for its bad acts. There were no Nuremberg trials as they had in Germany. There was no Reconciliation as they had in South Africa. There has been nothing. In fact, the US embraced the wrongdoers and the wrongdoing, so here we are today. This is our test. I hope we pass it.
Can you please say more? (e.g., what you know is happening with bioengineering and the enormous profits gained from it and which industries are involved?
People, there is a lot more going on than we now see. Once we know we can no longer claim to be blind to it and must act.
That was a very powerful piece, Walter. It's such a testament to the human spirit to be able to go through difficult times, grieve the losses, and then come out the other side better for having done so. It's why no matter what we must never give up in times of struggle and strife.
Walter, once again you so eloquently capture the place we are with an allegory of a broken family. Though my parents never divorced, my sisters and I wished for it. When our father died, our mother learned the consequences of her narcissistic, alcoholic behavior. Other than taking care of her physical needs, we abandoned her emotionally. She could never quite figure out why she lost her power. The dynamic in my family prepared me well, to recognize and cope with what we are living through now.
Yes, abusive people do have to suffer for their choices. It just seems like they get away with it, but they don't. I'm sorry you had to go through that.
I wish it was a divorce. But it’s more like an abusive spouse decided to finally get rid of the other spouse, but not before robbing them and their kids blind
I actually think many people are quite frustrated with the Dems, and struggling to see why as a group they aren't doing more, though some are doing amazing things. I think there is still a knee-jerk temptation for some to believe that the "other" party than the one-of-the-moment will "save" us, rather than looking to ourselves, and a new and better way. Hell, I feel many people are still coming to grips with exactly how bad this is. I suspect, firstly, that is so because the thought of understanding that we put our trust in the wrong people reminds us of other times we've done that and it brings up much pain that needs to be addressed. Secondly, I feel this is so is because it's very painful for people to acknowledge that they are the ones who participated in abandoning themselves every time they let the little offenses slide by until they became bigger ones, and by allowing themselves to be tricked into believing that the gathering of material belongings measured or level of freedom or success, and by turning a blind eye to what was there all along. Thirdly, it's hard realizing this is not merely a bad dream and realizing no matter how much pain and disappointment it involves facing, there is no one else coming to rescue us. As they say, this is not a drill.
This moment calls for nothing short of reinventing HOW government operates, WHO it serves, and redefining on WHAT philosophies and priorities, and THAT is a lot for people to digest. On some level, I think many people know this, but others are still waiting to see if what they think will be necessary is actually going to be necessary. And those that are benefitting, and who have been benefitting from the way things have been done will not like the changes that are to come, and may not give up so easily, but come they will anyway. I believe nothing is more powerful than the will of a united people, and I believe we will get there.
On an individual level many people might know how to reject another man's oppressive actions, but now, hopefully, most people are starting to see exactly how deep and widespread the control is it takes awhile to change the focus from other to self - what can we do to help ourselves out of this historic moment.
To even begin to know how to unite a divided country, more than a bit ravaged from its own collective pain and disappointment, will require true, thoughtful leaders to emerge. Might you be one of them "Samuel Clemens?"
I've seen and read your information on bioengineering and believe you definitely have some important data about what is harming us and how to protect us from certain environmental hazards and practices, and which industries are involved who don't want to change the trillion-dollar paydays. A voice of truth, backed with research and data, will be necessary.
If I were president I'd have you on my short list to head up the EPA. Have you yet written to RFK, Jr., yet? Just a thought.
I agree, this is an opening. As we sit through the death throes of the Old White Guys are in charge It shows that they have a hold, but not a right to rule. They are not ruling, the absolute destruction they envision will eventually eat them. The pain they cause will create consequences to them. The adoration shown to the 'richest man in the world' is ephemeral - when at last Musk is removed - there will be a reckoning. This has a side effect -- more people are paying attention. People have begun to see what it requires to be in government. Hopefully, those people will now stand up and refuse to be repressed anymore. The idea that a tiny percentage of the population such as transgender folk are the problem? It is pathetic. The problem is those who see the world in terms of money alone. The isolationism is contrary to everything we thought we were.
What you describe seems so unbelievable to me, and yet you've been living with it every day for 15 very long years.
We are supposedly blind to our futures, and yet we are able to see the foreshadowing of what is possibly coming if we do not act, and act without reservation or determination.
I can understand your inability, or possible reluctance, to speak about details on a public site, and, of course, because there is no brief way to describe such a deep, multi-layered subject. My apologies.
I do believe though you writing about the devolution of democracy to kleptocracy would be quite helpful. The People of other nations could use their own "Project Beyond Project 2025" playbook to counter the one Trump borrowed from Orbán.
If you feel it safe enough to do so is there one piece of advice you could offer us to help us curtail the bleak future some in the U.S. are now imagining?
The minute I hear someone say "It's over", I typically think of Roy Orbison singing that phrase. His final dramatic flourish on that song underscores the futility of any attempt at reconciliation with his lover. But few things in America are permanent like that.
I’m sorry to say that I read your essay as a festooned mirror image of what is actually happening in our lives. In the parlance of your analogy, it is more like a parent thrust an abusive marriage partner onto rule-abiding children who are no longer accepted for who they are, who they love, how they live. Their only recourse is to move out of the house, knowing they’d be leaving beloved siblings to fend for themselves.
Walter, as an unrepairable optimist I agree, I want to agree with you. In my country, one of Krasnov's closest friends Viktor Orbán ha been reigning for 15 consecutive years. 15 years running!
After the first four years he changed the constitution with deleting the term limits, and taking 90% of the media in his hands. Journalism was devastated and replaced by hollow propaganda.
We have been suffering, we have been looted by him and his oligarchs.
It took this long to finally get united, and send him hopefully to prison after next year's elections. Because criminals belong there.
I hope your great country will get the strength to overcome much sooner.
Let's fight, shoulder to shoulder!
How heartbreaking. I hope it happens. One thing to our benefit is our tyrant is both old and unintelligent. He's incompetent and weak. There are already signs that his hold is beginning to weaken. I hope for justice for your country too.
Thank you Walter. In a few days we shall have our national holiday and a huge demonstration is awaited in Budapest. If several hundred thousand people will take the streets- as projected - we shall overcome next year. Orbán used to have huge demonstrative meeting with thousand of paid participants. This year he will speak to his remaining supporters only in a private gathering.
Walter, as an unrepairable optimist I agree, I want to agree with you. In my country, one of Krasnov's closest friends Viktor Orbán has been reigning for 15 consecutive years. 15 years running!
After the first four years he changed the constitution with deleting the term limits, and taking 90% of the media in his hands. Journalism was devastated and replaced by hollow propaganda.
We have been suffering, we have been looted by him and his oligarchs.
It took this long to finally get united, and send him hopefully to prison after next year's elections. Because criminals belong there.
I hope your great country will get the strength to overcome much sooner.
Let's fight, shoulder to shoulder!
I say this as strictly pertaining to an individual policy. Having nothing to do with the dynamic and real world situation of your reference.
Term limits are a terrible policy. Absolutely terrible. Giving complete leverage as if they didn't have enough, to the donor class during the government office holders final term. All you have to do is look at the Red states in America that have implemented them. They have increased their speed to the bottom.
I do understand in that particular instance they were used nefariously.
They're a Band-Aid for an uneducated electorate. At least in america. The framers did not intend it for a congressional career. It was meant to go into a term or two give service and go back to your regular life. There were no thoughts that alone positions of career political hack.
The only possibility of it being a legitimate policy is having no opportunity to be a lobbyist work for any single entity that has ever lobbied in the process and have zero possibility of representation concerning any entity that wants to influence government policy. Anyone that allowed the term limits certainly doesn't have the political acumen or integrity to implement all of those prerequisites.
In our case, they are grabbing the power and trying to hold it as long as they can. Shameless nepotism is the practice, and an oligarchy is built up, propaganda makes the people blind. Public procurements are directed to their own families. Election law is distorted, Jerry-mandering and other tricks contribute to the uneven field. If unchallenged, the prime minister would stay in power for life, like a king. Going back to their normal life after two terms would make the continuous looting impossible. Sitting around the honey pot is better for them. We have to drive them away and open the doors of prisons before them.
Mr. Kolhami,
I'm so sorry that happened to you and your people and I wish you all the best in regaining your country and your freedoms. Your story is a good warning to us. There has already been some talk about an unnatural third term for the one in the seat and some control over journalism and free speech has already started.
I don't mean to bring up anything unpleasant, but can you please tell us if there is any advise you bag give us about how to protect our cash assets as we know our guy met with your guy to borrow some plays from his playbook. By any chance, did they change the currency? Or freeze your bank accounts? How did they loot you? You might have some information that could help us.
We will get through this. There will be a brighter tomorrow.
God bless you!
Be well!
Christy 🇺🇲❤️🕊🇭🇺
Correction: Mr. Kohalmi
Dear Christy,
1. Please call me Zsolt, as every fellow writer does in Substack and beyond.
2. I, and all my compatriots, feel honored by your sympathy regarding our sad status of affairs in our beloved Fatherland.
I always prefer brevity in explaining even complex situations, but explaining how it happened to us takes longer than a dozen sentences.
In short, we are living in a hybrid society: formal democracy, really autocracy, or more accurately, kleptocracy. Our bank accounts are not closed or forfeited, but they keep the balances low. They kept the old currency but sabotaged the introduction of the Euro, so we have runaway inflation far worse than in the rest of Europe. The regime's oligarchs have the most sinister ways to loot.
Since my niche is history, it is high time I wrote articles on "How Hungary slid down from democracy to kleptocracy?"
I promise you can read it soon.
If you send me your email address, I will send you my bio and life journey in 30 pages. It tells you a lot about my 80 years of experience in the banks of the Danube.
Best,
Zsolt
What an excellent and thoughtful analogy. I, too, feel a sense of liberation because I know in my gut that the people are waking up and rising to meet the occasion before them. We are making a difference with the actions we are taking.
Yup, even though the media isn't reporting it, people are not having this.
Thank you, Walter. I agree. This country can no longer pretend to be what it is not. It has been stripped down to its ugliest, cruelest form. Unlike other nations with a cruel, indefensible past, the US never atoned for its bad acts. There were no Nuremberg trials as they had in Germany. There was no Reconciliation as they had in South Africa. There has been nothing. In fact, the US embraced the wrongdoers and the wrongdoing, so here we are today. This is our test. I hope we pass it.
We're still doing it.
Can you please say more? (e.g., what you know is happening with bioengineering and the enormous profits gained from it and which industries are involved?
People, there is a lot more going on than we now see. Once we know we can no longer claim to be blind to it and must act.
Thank you!
That was a very powerful piece, Walter. It's such a testament to the human spirit to be able to go through difficult times, grieve the losses, and then come out the other side better for having done so. It's why no matter what we must never give up in times of struggle and strife.
Be well!
Christy 🇺🇲❤️🕊
Please share. Good news from Rep. Jamie Raskin -
https://youtu.be/mBCnMsjt_BQ?feature=shared
Thought provoking! I especially liked the line, "The United States of America has just experienced another gut check moment." Thanks!
Thanks Tani!
Walter, once again you so eloquently capture the place we are with an allegory of a broken family. Though my parents never divorced, my sisters and I wished for it. When our father died, our mother learned the consequences of her narcissistic, alcoholic behavior. Other than taking care of her physical needs, we abandoned her emotionally. She could never quite figure out why she lost her power. The dynamic in my family prepared me well, to recognize and cope with what we are living through now.
Yes, abusive people do have to suffer for their choices. It just seems like they get away with it, but they don't. I'm sorry you had to go through that.
Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!😉
I wish it was a divorce. But it’s more like an abusive spouse decided to finally get rid of the other spouse, but not before robbing them and their kids blind
It's like a divorce in that you finally see the truth you tried to hide from yourself
No, I do like your metaphor a lot. My own metaphors involving MAGA and this circus always end up with someone eating a bowl of feces …
All of you insinuate that the Democratic party offers legitimate policy and the possibility of good governance
That level of ignorance is the exact vehicle that brought us here. Here being a third world outhouse.
I actually think many people are quite frustrated with the Dems, and struggling to see why as a group they aren't doing more, though some are doing amazing things. I think there is still a knee-jerk temptation for some to believe that the "other" party than the one-of-the-moment will "save" us, rather than looking to ourselves, and a new and better way. Hell, I feel many people are still coming to grips with exactly how bad this is. I suspect, firstly, that is so because the thought of understanding that we put our trust in the wrong people reminds us of other times we've done that and it brings up much pain that needs to be addressed. Secondly, I feel this is so is because it's very painful for people to acknowledge that they are the ones who participated in abandoning themselves every time they let the little offenses slide by until they became bigger ones, and by allowing themselves to be tricked into believing that the gathering of material belongings measured or level of freedom or success, and by turning a blind eye to what was there all along. Thirdly, it's hard realizing this is not merely a bad dream and realizing no matter how much pain and disappointment it involves facing, there is no one else coming to rescue us. As they say, this is not a drill.
This moment calls for nothing short of reinventing HOW government operates, WHO it serves, and redefining on WHAT philosophies and priorities, and THAT is a lot for people to digest. On some level, I think many people know this, but others are still waiting to see if what they think will be necessary is actually going to be necessary. And those that are benefitting, and who have been benefitting from the way things have been done will not like the changes that are to come, and may not give up so easily, but come they will anyway. I believe nothing is more powerful than the will of a united people, and I believe we will get there.
On an individual level many people might know how to reject another man's oppressive actions, but now, hopefully, most people are starting to see exactly how deep and widespread the control is it takes awhile to change the focus from other to self - what can we do to help ourselves out of this historic moment.
To even begin to know how to unite a divided country, more than a bit ravaged from its own collective pain and disappointment, will require true, thoughtful leaders to emerge. Might you be one of them "Samuel Clemens?"
I've seen and read your information on bioengineering and believe you definitely have some important data about what is harming us and how to protect us from certain environmental hazards and practices, and which industries are involved who don't want to change the trillion-dollar paydays. A voice of truth, backed with research and data, will be necessary.
If I were president I'd have you on my short list to head up the EPA. Have you yet written to RFK, Jr., yet? Just a thought.
Be well!
Christy 🇺🇲❤️🕊
I agree, this is an opening. As we sit through the death throes of the Old White Guys are in charge It shows that they have a hold, but not a right to rule. They are not ruling, the absolute destruction they envision will eventually eat them. The pain they cause will create consequences to them. The adoration shown to the 'richest man in the world' is ephemeral - when at last Musk is removed - there will be a reckoning. This has a side effect -- more people are paying attention. People have begun to see what it requires to be in government. Hopefully, those people will now stand up and refuse to be repressed anymore. The idea that a tiny percentage of the population such as transgender folk are the problem? It is pathetic. The problem is those who see the world in terms of money alone. The isolationism is contrary to everything we thought we were.
I hope we get America
yeah, they can keep the car
Dear Zsolt,
Thank you for your kind response.
What you describe seems so unbelievable to me, and yet you've been living with it every day for 15 very long years.
We are supposedly blind to our futures, and yet we are able to see the foreshadowing of what is possibly coming if we do not act, and act without reservation or determination.
I can understand your inability, or possible reluctance, to speak about details on a public site, and, of course, because there is no brief way to describe such a deep, multi-layered subject. My apologies.
I do believe though you writing about the devolution of democracy to kleptocracy would be quite helpful. The People of other nations could use their own "Project Beyond Project 2025" playbook to counter the one Trump borrowed from Orbán.
If you feel it safe enough to do so is there one piece of advice you could offer us to help us curtail the bleak future some in the U.S. are now imagining?
Thank you!
... and with determination.
Very helpful and emotional. I hadn't thought of the trauma induced grief.
The minute I hear someone say "It's over", I typically think of Roy Orbison singing that phrase. His final dramatic flourish on that song underscores the futility of any attempt at reconciliation with his lover. But few things in America are permanent like that.
Oh, I hope you’re right. 💔
I’m sorry to say that I read your essay as a festooned mirror image of what is actually happening in our lives. In the parlance of your analogy, it is more like a parent thrust an abusive marriage partner onto rule-abiding children who are no longer accepted for who they are, who they love, how they live. Their only recourse is to move out of the house, knowing they’d be leaving beloved siblings to fend for themselves.
Yeah, we're at the beginning stages. But once the shock passes over us, it won't play out the way the abuser thinks it will. Not by a long shot.
With hope that your optimism is predictive! Thanks for your great writing. I enjoy your messages.
Yes. A Great perspective. Wonderful I kept thinking as I read it.
Thanks for that thoughtful response!
Wow. You validated the many yrs of therapy I have done. Thanks for your encouragement.
I'm glad to hear that!