Hollosi Information eXchange /HIX/
HIX HUNGARY 627
Copyright (C) HIX
1996-04-03
Új cikk beküldése (a cikk tartalma az író felelőssége)
Megrendelés Lemondás
1 Re: The Kadar regime (mind)  14 sor     (cikkei)
2 Re: New topic (was - Re: WWI or WWII?) (mind)  48 sor     (cikkei)
3 Hungarian Aphorisms (was The Kadar Regime) (mind)  31 sor     (cikkei)
4 Re: The Kadar regime (mind)  26 sor     (cikkei)
5 Re: The Kadar regime (mind)  124 sor     (cikkei)
6 Re: The Kadar regime (mind)  11 sor     (cikkei)
7 Re: The Kadar regime (mind)  78 sor     (cikkei)
8 Re: The Kadar regime (mind)  23 sor     (cikkei)
9 Re: The Kadar regime (mind)  236 sor     (cikkei)
10 Recommendation for Budapest vacation (mind)  9 sor     (cikkei)
11 Re: WWI or WWII? (mind)  51 sor     (cikkei)
12 Re: New topic (was - Re: WWI or WWII?) (mind)  13 sor     (cikkei)
13 Re: New topic (was - Re: WWI or WWII?) (mind)  36 sor     (cikkei)
14 Re: The Kadar regime (mind)  13 sor     (cikkei)
15 Re: New topic (which is quite old) (mind)  36 sor     (cikkei)

+ - Re: The Kadar regime (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Ms Balogh is right. People have voted with their feet and the results are
very clear.
How many Western people died trying to jump the Berlin Wall to get into
East Berlin?
How many more thousands of people does Ms Durant need to see getting
killed before she believes that people behind the Iron Curtain were there
involuntarily?
What kind of availabilty of consumer goods did  the people  enjoy?
How many people could afford to buy a car, a house, an extra overcoat
under the good old regime?
It is human nature to want to be rewarded (paid) in proportion to the
amount and quality of work that one does. Not just according to needs.

                                                                J Hernadi
+ - Re: New topic (was - Re: WWI or WWII?) (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 19:13 01/04/96 -0500, Joe Szalai, manfully trying to oblige Eva Balogh by
changing the topic, wrote:

>At 10:36 AM 4/1/96 -0800, Eva Balogh, remarking on Aniko Dunfords comments
>about "Re: WWI or WWII?" wrote:
>
>>        I can only agree that the discussion is becoming tedious. It is
>>time to change the subject.
>
>I'd love to change the topic.
>
>I've twice asked Eva Balogh if she rebuked her relatives for allowing a
>restaurant, (which was in a building that her relatives owned) to
>discriminate against gypsies.
>
>Her silence, towards readers of this list, and, presumably, towards her
>relatives, speaks volumes of how and why discrimination against a group of
>people in Hungary can go on for a millennium.
>
>Let's break the silence!
>
>Joe Szalai

Joe -

Doesn't the fact that Eva Balogh was willing to bring the matter up in the
first place here on the Internet qualify sufficiently as "breaking the
silence"? After all, unlike a lot of blow-hards on the Net (present company
excepted) at least she was willing to use her real name! In addition, it
wasn't her relatives who owned the restaurant, they owned the building, and
perhaps the relatives were not immediately available for comment. And, it
seems to me, after a thorough flogging about of the matter, that this
technique, despite what she was told at the time about the target being
gypsies, could be "anyone who came into the restaurant with a back-pack on"
or, in other words, anyone the restaurant did not consider as a desirable
patron.

Since we have already thoroughly aired that topic, how about another
scintillating matter for discussion?

How about the question of whether or not you are a Socialist?

Yours,

Johanne

Johanne L. Tournier
e-mail - 
+ - Hungarian Aphorisms (was The Kadar Regime) (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 23:24 01/04/96 EST, Be'la Battkay wrote:

<va'g va'g>

>        An old, possibly apochryphal, Hungarian saying has it that "money is
>a gift from God to spent for pleasure."  Such a vision of the world is hard-
>ly conducive to becoming either rich *or* democratic,and the Kadar regime
>did liitle, if anything, to help.
>
>Udv.,
>Be'la

Kedves Be'la -

How would you say that in Hungarian? That, by the way, bespeaks of a
live-for-today philosophy of life which must substantially pre-date the
Kadar regime!

Hungarian seems to have  multitudes of colourful traditional sayings.
Another one which I have read in English but not seen in Hungarian is - "God
always makes a pasture for the new lamb." Is anyone on the List familiar
with this saying and how it would be phrased in Hungarian?

Ko:szo:no:m,

Johanne

Johanne L. Tournier
e-mail - 
>
>
+ - Re: The Kadar regime (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 10:40 PM 4/1/96 -0500,Joe Szalai wrote:

>At 05:25 PM 4/1/96 -0800, Gabor D. Farkas wrote:

Joe, something is wrong with your computer. I was answering your message of
7:30PM, so unless I was in neverland, I could not write it at 5:25PM. I
grant you, we "Hayekites" ar more efficient than you, defendents of ML, but
not to the extent that we can reply even before what we reply to was written.

>>I prefer a  commercial on a radio or TV station I can turn off anytime I
>>wish or in a newspaper I can choose not to read to a brainwashing communist
>>"seminar". Missing from those seminars caused many people to loose their
>>jobs or opportunities for promotions.
>
>Hmm.  Just like today.  Except now it's called corporate "seminar".  Endless
>"improvment", "service", and "empowerment" seminars are always being offered
>in the corporate West.  But woe to the employee who doesn't partake in these
>voluntary floor shows.

Having lived trough both, take my word this is better. Also, the capitalist
is smart. He is not going to fire or not promote someone if that someone
contributes to the bottom line, just because he or she does not participate
in those seminars. Please, this would be even against the ML dogma: the
capitalist is squeezing the profits only, nothing else matters.

Gabor D. Farkas
+ - Re: The Kadar regime (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

I repeat, I am not in the business of defending
the pre-1990 regime, I want something much different
and better, however totally ignoring any achievements
of those times is degrading for Hungarians who put their
efforts in as well, as any other people.


>
>         First of all, I would like to have more details on these "positive
> developments." As far as I can see Hungary, with the rest of the
> East-European countries, failed to close the gap between themselves and the
> rest of Europe.

It depends what you compare. I value education and
healthcare and secure employment.  Not much you can do
with freedom of choice if you have no money, or
with democracy, if all the political parties offer
the same meaningless promises.

If you read Miklos Haraszti-s book: Worker in the Workers'
state, you'll find that piece-work in an engineering
factory found the workers in similar situation in
Hungary and in England.
The Hungarians had even more older machines, but it
was dirty, noisy, and stressful in both places.
In the seventies both set of workers were free to
walk to an other employment. The Hungarians had showers
and nursery and subsidised goods/holidays even, the
English had none of these but more money in their hand.
Say teachers in the eighties. In the UK twice the number
of contact-time, no time allocated for preparation, no
desk in the teacher's room and no cooparation from parents,
school-managment, local authority...



In fact, that gap became wider after 1948-49. The mess which
> was left will take decades to eradicate--environmental damage, for example.

'Cause there were no such thing elsewhere???  Again,
it depends how you measure that gap.  I say, compare
nursery facilities...


> The economic and social system could be kept up only through foreign
> borrowing for which right now the poor Hungarian people pay dearly.


Interesting, I've just heard, that the US debt gone from
1 trillion to 4 trillion dollars during the Reagan years...
In both places most of this money was pumped into
companies/corporations.  They should pay it back, not the poor
people... wishful thinking.


> communist leadership gave up power voluntarily because they knew that the
> game was up--they didn't want to take the odium of fixing all the damage
> which was done to the country and its people.
>

This logic doesn't explain why they bothered coming back for more
of the same...  I agree, the political regime had no more ideas,
thats when such systems crumble... Could happen elsewhere...



>         As for the brainwashing. I disagree with Eva Durant. Brainwashing
> was successful--but not the primitive early brainwashing but the subtle,
> clever brainwashing. Oh, it worked all right. It is enough to talk to the
> people who are adults today--let's say from 30 to 60.


You mean, that "they expect the state to look after them" and
"they don't want to take responsibility".  The same "crime"
committed by people everywhere, whose workplace have dis-
appeared, and cannot count on a secure safety-net.



>
>
> >There were internationally accepted
> >   successes in the arts, sciences etc,
>
>         Again, I would like to get details.
>


Oh, common, you must have heard about some of them.
I am just sorting some offprints (bio-chemistry),
and Hungarian names are keep popping up from the 50s/60s,
Maths/science results in schools were the best in the
world equaling Japan, and best for girls, if I remember
correctly.  Young musicians won international competitions,
there were 4 young piano playing stars simultaniously,
Hungarian artists were in demand all over the world from
the sixties.  Film successes in Cannes. The choice of
books - and the price of them - could be envied in
some of those other European countries.
You must have heard about the 9 gold medals in Tokio
olympics.  D'you want more? I'll get the facts for you...


>
>         As somebody said (I think rightly), that the government let people
> out of the cage every three years and gave them about a 100 dollars/per
> person to live on for two weeks.


When I went to Greece in 1975, I found, that the
average Greek person had found travel in Europe
at least as difficult, and making money in Germany
or the UK as tempting and as difficult.

To sum up:  Hungary was a totalitarian dictatorship, yes,
but in reality, there were no policemen on all corners,
you could have a good laugh at the expense of the
establishment (from the seventies especially) -  it was not
really all that different from the other Europe.
Which means, that the other Europe is in fact not all that
free, not all that democratic, but the Balogh Evas of
the world just would not hear about that...

Eva Durant
+ - Re: The Kadar regime (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Be'la Ba'tkay wrote in Hungary 626:

>        An old, possibly apochryphal, Hungarian saying has it that "money is
>a gift from God to spent for pleasure."

I am itrigued by this.  I grew up in Hungary and never heard it.
Could we have it in the original?

Thanks,

Ferenc
+ - Re: The Kadar regime (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Be'la Batkay:

I have not been following all
>the discussion, but my impression of the impact of, let us say, agit-
>prop, on the older generation, and even some of the younger ones, is
>pretty much as Eva Balogh sees it.  The view that older Hungarians in
>general have of the world bears only the faintest resemblance to the view
>in "normal" countries.

        How true about the world view of older Hungarians. Of course, there
is a slim upper crust (the word here used not in economic terms but in
intellectual terms) who are exceedingly well informed and as democratic as
any democrat in the West. My admiration to them, by the way, because after
all they have been living in a country with, let's face it, mighty little
experience in true democracy. But this stratum is a very, very thin one and
below them there are the masses. These masses are not only made up of
bricklayers and drivers of tractors on collective farms. These are educated
people: doctors, teachers, people belonging to the intelligentsia. I was
totally amazed that, for example, a doctor friend seemed to be totally
incapable of understanding that (1) the Kadar regime didn't have any
legitimacy whatsoever; (2) it was a country where there was no "rule of
law"; (3) where personal freedom was not a right but a gift from above which
could be taken away at any moment; (4) where there was no freedom of
assembly, no freedom of the press, no freedom of political association. Or
rather, he might have understood all that but it didn't bother him
personally! Huge and heated discussion followed and by the end I was pretty
frustrated by not being able to explain to him the most basic tenents of
modern democracy. At point I called his attention to the fact that a
one-part system by its being a one-party system is wrong, adding that "you
see, you couldn't start another party." You know what the answer was from
this giant of intellect: he never wanted to start another party! And don't
think that he is alone. I think he is pretty typical of a white-collar
professional in his late 50s.

>        Part of this isno doubt due to Hungary's isolation during the Com-
>mie period, but much of it must I think be laid at the door of the complete-
>ly distorted picture presented by the regime.  Even Western sources like
>RFE and VOA had, apparently, little impact on the "cognitive map" of
>Hungarians.

        As for RFE and VOA, sure, they were very important sources of
information in the early periods. Before and after 1956. But later I think
that most of the people listened to them only for the music. I remember
reading about it in the late 60s, early 70s that teenagers's radios were
blaring the music of one of these two stations openly, for example, at the
beaches at Lake Balaton.

        As for Be'la's mention of material wealth. One hears time and time
again how badly off Hungarians are. The demagogic, populist right talks
about this in the most dramatic terms and I am sure that there are a lot of
very poor people in Hungary. At the same time there are a lot of people, and
here I am not speaking of the new rich, who seem to be doing just fine. On a
nice Saturday afternoon my relatives and I went to do some shopping at a new
store called Metro. Metro seems to be something like Price Club around here.
(Mind you, I have never been in a Price Club!) The parking lot outside was
full of cars. Inside the place was buzzing. The minimal purchase at the
Metro is 5,000 Fts and every cart was packed as high as in any American
supermarket. People were spending hundreds of dollars. The cashiers were
busy adding up all the purchases and people were wheeling out the stuff to
their cars. We had to rearrange the whole car to fit everything and
ourselves in.

        And there are other signs of material wealth as well. I went to at
least three houses where there were personal computers. One family I visited
just built a brand new house in the country--just as nice as any here. Three
bedrooms upstairs, two baths, large kitchen, dining room, living room. Yet,
I was told that the couple's combined salary is ridiculously low. Plus they
have two children. Another friend just fixed up a very nice three-room
apartment for her daughter. Kitchen remodeled, everything newly wired,
painted, parquet floors redone, etc. etc.

        But, of course, there are some very poor people, especially single
individuals on pension. However, one has the suspicion that life is not as
bad as it seems from statistics. One mustn't forget about the black/grey
economy, which is about a third of the whole and which doesn't show up in
any statistics.

        Eva Balogh
+ - Re: The Kadar regime (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

>>        An old, possibly apochryphal, Hungarian saying has it that "money is
>>a gift from God to spent for pleasure."
>
>I am itrigued by this.  I grew up in Hungary and never heard it.
>Could we have it in the original?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Ferenc

I agree. I have never heard it, too. I think this saying is either several
hundred years old or simple nothing to do with the Hungarians. Let us see
how the above saying goes together with my sayings:

'Aki koran kell aranyat lel' and especially 'Addig nyujtozkodjal ameddig
a takarod er'.
The first is about dilligent people whose work makes him rich, while the
second urge you not to spend more than you can afford. (It is a kind
difficult to translate them exactly.)

I guess anyone who lived  >>2 years in Hungary knows these.

Janos
+ - Re: The Kadar regime (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Eva Durant, who is not an apologist:

>I repeat, I am not in the business of defending
>the pre-1990 regime, I want something much different
>and better, however totally ignoring any achievements
>of those times is degrading for Hungarians who put their
>efforts in as well, as any other people.

        I think first and foremost Eva Durant must compare the
"achievements" of other European, non-socialist countries with the
"achievements" of the socialist bloc, including the Soviet Union. The fact
is that all European non-socialist countries outstripped the economic growth
of the socialist bloc. Of course, we will never know how Hungary would have
fared without the "blessings of socialist reconstruction," but my hunch is
that in spite of its relative backwardness in 1945 it would have fared
better than it did under existing socialism. (There are quite a few economic
miracles of that sort as examples: Finland, for one.) As for the degradation
of Hungarians "who put their efforts" into the heroic task of building
socialism, as we all know, that effort was rather minimal. They did put a
lot of effort into making their own lives more pleasant, but as far as the
state-owned workplace was concerned it wasn't exactly foremost on their
minds. "We pretend that we work and you pretend that you pay us," as the
well known saying went.

>It depends what you compare [when it comes to achievements]. I value
education and
>healthcare and secure employment.

        OK. Education. In fact, terrible dislocations occurred in the field
of education since 1948. Some of the education reforms--for example, the
introduction of the eight-year "general" school--took place already before
the communists took over. The expansion of education quadrupled by 1947. At
the time of the nationalization of schools, some of the most valuable
teachers were forbidden to teach and were replaced by people who didn't even
have the necessary qualifications. Eva Durant is too young to know what
education consisted of in those days. A joke is a kind word for it.
According to Jozsef Kardos, who wrote the chapter on education in this
period in a university textbook covering the period between 1918 and 1990,
the educational level suffered greatly as a result. The introduction of new
types of schools was not thought through and again the level of education in
these so-called "szakgimnaziums" was very low. The introduction of so-called
workers' high schools, where the student spent not four years but one, or
later, two (Gyula Horn is the product of one of these schools) didn't help
matters either. And we better not talk about such wonderful "innovations" as
picking cotton for weeks on end instead of going to school!! The teaching of
languages was totally neglected, or rather, the abrupt introduction of
Russian as the only modern language in the curriculum caused incredible
damage: a whole generation of Hungarians grew up without knowing any foreign
languages, because Russian was taught by people who were only a couple of
chapters ahead of their students! University education suffered equally. The
differentiation between students of worker/peasant origin (about 85 percent
of places was allocated to them) also contributed to the low educational
level. And that differentiation wasn't abolished until 1962. So, all in all,
I wouldn't brag about Hungarian education between 1948/49 and 1956. After
1956 things didn't improve according to Jozsef Kardos: absolute anarchy
reigned in the field of education. In 1961 new educational reforms took
place, again with very mixed results. The most spectacular failure was the
introduction of the 5+1 scheme: five days in school, one day real life
experience in factories and on the field. (Obviously inspired by the great
educator Comrade Khrushchev!) In 1965 they gave up on the 5+1 formula and
tried to strengthen the teachings of mathematics and languages (with some
notable results). In 1972 the MSZMP made efforts at upgrading the
educational system but it wasn't until 1978 that real progress was made.

        Moving on from education to medical care, again, I find the state of
health care in Hungary in shambles today. And it didn't just happen. This is
the result of forty years of horrendous abuse. With the introduction of
existing socialism doctors became employees of the state. Salaries were low
and soon enough it became commonplace that if you wanted to have a bit
better care, you'd better slip an envelope into the hands of the doctor. By
the 1960s this was a common place occurrence. A dear friend, a surgeon, was
telling me story from his own experience as a young doctor in a university
hospital. In the department, there was the so-called "pajamas test." If the
patient brought his own pajamas, the "fo"orvos" himself, or some of the
older surgeons did the operation. If the patient used the garb the hospital
provided, one of the younger people got the job of operating. The assumption
was, of course, that the people with their own pajamas had money and were
willing to give quite a bit of extra for the doctor's services while those
without pajamas didn't. In any case, he told me that lovely story of his
first envelope: when he got the job of operating on this guy without pajamas
and at the end he turned out to be a well-off "maszek," [abbreviation for
maga'nszektor = private sector] who gave him his first envelope.
        In any case the envelopes are still in vogue: they are specialties
which are better in this respect. For example, surgery, or obstetrics; on
the other hand, dermatologists don't get much, as I found out from one. Here
and there a bottle of wine.
        The nurses in Hungary are also very badly paid but what is more
important they are very poorly trained. On one of the Hungarian-language
forums we have had a discussion about the training of nurses and during the
preparation of my own contribution to the discussion, I discovered that
there is not one institute of higher education which trains nurses in
Hungary! From that I gather that there is only high-school level training
which surely cannot amount to too much. My suspicion is that it is not much
above the level of nurses' aides in this country. At the same time,
Hungarian doctors frequently complain about the low professional level of
nurses. They claim that often doctors have to do tasks which in other
countries are performed by nurses or technicians. A couple of examples: (1)
intervenous injection must be given by a doctor in Hungary; (2) ultrasound
examination is given by a doctor, whose specialty is radiology. According to
somebody who knows the Hungarian scene well, the doctors themselves, in
spite of all their complains, don't want to have nurses capable of doing
much more than menial tasks because there are too many doctors and if there
were qualified nurses, they might end up unemployed.

        As for the secure employment. That is true. Sinecures these jobs
were. As a result it really didn't matter whether the employee did a good
job or a bad job, his/her job was secure. Also, it didn't matter that, for
example, a factory which actually needed only 2,000 employees actually
employed 4,000 people and as a result the factory was always in the red.
Then came the state subsidy and that money came from borrowing from abroad!

> Again,
>it depends how you measure that gap.  I say, compare
>nursery facilities...

        Not everything can be swept under the rug by mentining that "Oh,
yes, but they had nursery facilities." And yet, the population's desire to
produce more children was not greater than in other countries where there
were fewer nursery facilities. So, what?

>> The economic and social system could be kept up only through foreign
>> borrowing for which right now the poor Hungarian people pay dearly.
>
>
>Interesting, I've just heard, that the US debt gone from
>1 trillion to 4 trillion dollars during the Reagan years...
>In both places most of this money was pumped into
>companies/corporations.  They should pay it back, not the poor
>people... wishful thinking.

        Oh, come on, Eva Durant. The US government was "pumping [borrowed
money] into companies/corporations"? You must be joking. The US government
spends our tax dollars on its huge bureaucracy and social services
(especially medicaid). And the U.S. government spends more money than its
has but that money doesn't go to companies and corporations! This just shows
how little you know about the U.S.

>> communist leadership gave up power voluntarily because they knew that the
>> game was up--they didn't want to take the odium of fixing all the damage
>> which was done to the country and its people.
>>
>
>This logic doesn't explain why they bothered coming back for more
>of the same...  I agree, the political regime had no more ideas,
>thats when such systems crumble... Could happen elsewhere...

        First, let me rewrite slightly my original wording. The communist
leadership gave up power voluntarily but at the same time the tacit approval
of the Soviet Union to do so was also necessary. Why did they come back for
more? Because (1) they don't think of themselves as the old guard; they
think of themselves of reformed communists who embrace Western European
social democracy; (2) they were naive and thought that surely they could do
better than the Antall government--they are after all more or less
professional politicians with experience of governing. As it turned out they
were wrong. The mess which was created is so huge that they are no instant
remedies, no instant experts. And finally, I would like know that it means
exactly: "could happen elsewhere..."? It did happen elsewhere; that
"elsewhere" was all in Eastern-Europe, in the former Soviet bloc. It was a
system imposed on these countries forty odd years ago. And now, that the
Soviet Union wasn't there to impose its will, they collapsed. In Hungary it
had collapsed earlier: in 1956 but then the Soviet Union reimposed the
cursed system with the help of the mighty Soviet Army.


>
>> >There were internationally accepted
>> >   successes in the arts, sciences etc,
>>
>>         Again, I would like to get details.

>
>Oh, common, you must have heard about some of them.
>I am just sorting some offprints (bio-chemistry),
>and Hungarian names are keep popping up from the 50s/60s,
>Maths/science results in schools were the best in the
>world equaling Japan, and best for girls, if I remember
>correctly.

        Let's not try to argue that all these successes were the results of
the excellent education the socialist system gave to the country's young.
Hungary was always very strong in math and in the sciences. I think we can
come up with some rather famous names, way before the blessings of
socialism: von Neumann might be a name to recall in this age of the computer.

  Young musicians won international competitions,
>there were 4 young piano playing stars simultaniously,
>Hungarian artists were in demand all over the world from
>the sixties.

        Ditto. The Franz Liszt Academy always produced excellent people and
obviously in the 1960s the department of piano at the academy had excellent
teachers and excellent students. But don't tell me that all that had much to
do with the Kadar regime.

> Film successes in Cannes.

        Hmm. Most of these films had "political messages," and most of them
were declarations against the regime and against the ideology. Of course,
one had to read between the lines.

>The choice of
>books - and the price of them - could be envied in
>some of those other European countries.

        Oh, yes. Books were subsidized and therefore they were inexpensive
(mind you, the paper and binding of terrible quality). However, as you know
very well, not everything could be printed in Hungary. I always had to take
a few copies of Orwell's Animal Farm along for friends who were dying to
read it. Or, Dr. Zhivago, just to mention a few.

>You must have heard about the 9 gold medals in Tokio
>olympics.

        Oh, come on. Everybody knows that amateur sports in the socialist
countries were a joke. Steroids in East Germany, of course, was the worst
case of abuse. But the non-existent jobs in order to pretend that they were
amateurs and not professionals! So, let's not talk about gold medals.

>To sum up:  Hungary was a totalitarian dictatorship, yes,
>but in reality, there were no policemen on all corners,

        No, because eventually it was not necessary. Yes, it was a "nice,
little" totalitarian dictatorship.

>Which means, that the other Europe is in fact not all that
>free, not all that democratic, but the Balogh Evas of
>the world just would not hear about that...

        I am afraid, Eva Durant is no better than my doctor friend who
doesn't seem to grasp the difference between totalitarian dictatorship (mild
form) and the rule of law where the individual's right is respected. If Eva
Durant doesn't see the difference between let's say the Soviet Union or
Romania or Czechoslovakia or Hungary, on the one hand, and Germany, France,
England, on the other, then there is no use of talking.

        Eva Balogh
+ - Recommendation for Budapest vacation (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

I've just heard of a trip in October to Budapest -- called "Body and Soul
in Buda & Pest" that might be of interest to some of you out there.  It's
sponsored by En Route-Unique Travel Experiences, phone 800/316-9833 for a
catalog.  They're doing some fantastic spa visits, massage, and a lot of
Hungarian cultural experiences.  The company that runs the trips is really
offbeat, and quite affordable--hope any of you find this information
useful!

Jo
+ - Re: WWI or WWII? (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

In article >, Joe Szalai, yer
average Nietzschean Superman just gettin' up for the down stroke
> writes:

>Maybe you can understand my point better if I give it a twist.   Change
>Marxism-Leninism with Christian.  Imagine that a nation, any nation,
under
>god, got rid of a pro-Christian government after many decades of
Christian
>charity, bible study, prayers, church attendance, brainwashing, witch
>burnings, and inquisitions.  Now imagine someone coming along and saying
>that this nation didn't have a real Christian government.  No doubt you
>would jump all over this person and insist that Christianity HAD been
tried.
>Do you want to give my original question another try?
>
>Joe Szalai
>
>PS. Don't forget to say your prayers tonight, Sam.  In tongues, if you
can't
>say them in Hungarian.  OK?
>
>
I'm trying to think if anyone during the Industrial Era has actually tried
such a "Christian" totalitarian democracy. Spain, perhaps, under Franco?
Chile under Pinochet? I can't wait to see what your examples are. I just
hope they are dated later than, say, the end of the Enlightenment -- make
it 1800. The problem with making such a comparison between Christianity
and M-L is that Christians can be devout and faithful exponents of their
beliefs without ever having to hold political power, while wielding
political power is the ultimate aim of any Marxist-Leninist. Many devout
Christians in the United States have a problem with the attempts by
fundamentalists in the Republican Party to force their belief system on
others through the political process. Turn abouts, by the way, is in a way
fair play in this case because many equally devout Christians of a liberal
bent have tried to do the same thing when given the chance, albeit in a
much less well-organized manner.

The point is that the Christian faith doesn't require adherents to seek
and wield political power in order to validate the faith.
Marxism-Leninism, however, does require those who would be its true
believers to seek political control. It is the only truly sanctioned
expression of that faith. That may well be why Christians of good
conscience can -- and often do -- question whether political involvement
is necessarily beneficial to one's personal faith, the corporate faith
shared with other Christians and the best interests of the broader secular
society. Marxists-Leninists never question themselves on these grounds.
Sam Stowe

P.S. -- If you don't want to be labelled a Marxist-Leninist, stop talking
like one.
+ - Re: New topic (was - Re: WWI or WWII?) (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 06:11 AM 4/2/96 -0400, Johanne L. Tournier wrote:

>Since we have already thoroughly aired that topic, how about another
>scintillating matter for discussion?
>
>How about the question of whether or not you are a Socialist?

Yea!  How about a full-blown show trial?

I don't think it would work because most people have already made up their mind
.

Joe Szalai
+ - Re: New topic (was - Re: WWI or WWII?) (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Eva Balogh's answer to my question is a rather long and circuitous, "no".
But not in as many words.  Her descriptive assumption of how she thought
that I wanted her to confront her relative/friend in the restaurant and
raise hell, led her to write a dramatic scene that Oliver Stone might be
interested in directing; "prick" and all.

Originally, I used the expression "chewed out", and yesterday, the word
"rebuked", in my question, but I certainly gave her no instruction or
direction on how to "chew out" or "rebuke".  I only asked her if she did.
Regardless, I thank her for her answer.

I believe that social attitudes and perceptions change because of
confrontation and education.  Readers of this list may be less reluctant to
remain silent when they become aware of an injustice because they know that
they will be challenged for their silence later on.

I find the following comment by Eva troublesome.

>So, if your friends/relatives followed your stupid advice and tried to fire
>the tenants, that is, the proprietors of the restaurant, most likely the
>only people who would get into trouble would be your friends/relatives.
>When a man like Albert Szabo--an outright Nazi--gets off the hook in
>Budapest's highest court, I don't think that Joe Szalai's approach would
>take you very far.

The only people who would get in trouble would be the people who fired the
discriminating proprietor?  The highest court in Hungary can't convict an
outright Nazi?  Speaking against prejudice is a non-starter?  And this is
supposed to be an improvement over the previous system?  Please!!

Most of the people on this list continue to curse the darkness rather than
light a candle.  While we discuss the negative aspects of the Kadar regime
the extreme right gains strength.  But hey!  The world will at least have a
free market.

Joe Szalai
+ - Re: The Kadar regime (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 03:03 AM 4/2/96 -0800, Gabor D. Farkas wrote:

>Having lived trough both, take my word this is better. Also, the capitalist
>is smart. He is not going to fire or not promote someone if that someone
>contributes to the bottom line, just because he or she does not participate
>in those seminars. Please, this would be even against the ML dogma: the
>capitalist is squeezing the profits only, nothing else matters.

Nothing else matters?  Thank you!  That's exactly the problem with
capitalism.  You are expected to contribute to the bottom line and then you
die.  The simplicity of this system is beautiful.

Joe Szalai
+ - Re: New topic (which is quite old) (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

To Joe Szalai and Eva Balogh:

>>So, if your friends/relatives followed your stupid advice and tried to fire
>>the tenants, that is, the proprietors of the restaurant, most likely the
>>only people who would get into trouble would be your friends/relatives.
>>When a man like Albert Szabo--an outright Nazi--gets off the hook in
>>Budapest's highest court, I don't think that Joe Szalai's approach would
>>take you very far.
>
>The only people who would get in trouble would be the people who fired the
>discriminating proprietor?  The highest court in Hungary can't convict an
>outright Nazi?  Speaking against prejudice is a non-starter?  And this is
>supposed to be an improvement over the previous system?  Please!!

Ok, time out guys! This is geting redicoulous. That is somewhat all right,
that you are arguing about a fantasmagoria (i.e half-official or widely
accepted way to discriminate PARTICULARLY gypsies in hungarian restaurants)
which only exist in Joe's confused mind. This is a way to spread rumours,
half-truth or even lies about a group or a country. But that is OK, this is
a free list and everybody has his/her right for science fiction, beside I
have already known that it is impossible to argue rationally with Joe and I
am not going to waste my time. But this stuff about Albert Szabo maybe already
beyond the limit. I do not want to defend him at all, but it is possible that
he could not be punished by the existing laws if he was careful with his propa-
ganda even though he is probably a nazi. Just because of his ideas he cannot
be punished, he have to commit a CRIME to be punished. Sure there are
ridicoulous holes in the hungarian juristical system, but most of the laws on
this subject was introduced very recently and such problems with neo-nazis and
skin-heads are very new, too. Well let us say not only nice things but also the
jerk came with the democracy. Even a relativly well established system can be
fooled if you are clever enough or have a good lawyer (should I explain this
here in America ?!). This has nothing to do with the public attitude or
governing policies in Hungary and probably Eva Balogh does know it very well.
But why she has to feed the misconceptions of a 'felnotas'!

Janos

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