Showing posts with label Mircea Brenciu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mircea Brenciu. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

The Martyr Who Immolated Himself

The dark pages of history have recorded the selfless sacrifice of millions of faceless and often nameless heroes buried in native and foreign lands, quickly forgotten by the collective memory of their brethren whom they protected and saved so that they can have a better life, a brighter tomorrow, a happier future.

Occasionally the hero has a name; he/she commits such a solitary act of bravery and courage that it defies description. But the ultimate self-sacrifice sometimes is quickly forgotten or even scorned.

In 1969 Czechoslovakia, Jan Palack, a 21 year-old student set himself on fire on the steps of the National Museum in Prague in order to protest the USSR military intervention in his country.

Jerzy Popieluszko, a Catholic priest who sympathized with the labor group “Solidarnosti,” was assassinated in October 1984 by the Polish police.

Chris Gueffroy of the German Democratic Republic, a communist satellite state of the Soviet Union, was killed while trying to climb the Berlin Wall in order to flee from communism. Nobody ever tries to flee from capitalism. He was literally the last straw in the west’s desire and campaign to demolish the Wall of Shame built by East German communists in 1961.

The future president of Czechoslovakia, the writer Vaclav Havel, was sentenced to nine months in prison in February 1989, a victim of his anti-communist thoughts, ideas, and writings.

Author Mircea Brenciu dedicated his book, “The Martyr,” to a hero who may have changed the course of history with his act of defiance and bravery.  His self-sacrifice on March 2, 1989 in Poiana Brasov, Romania, helped initiate the end of 24 years of Ceausescu’s brutal communist dictatorship. Yet he is largely unknown today to his own people and to the West.

Mircea Brenciu asked rhetorically in his book dedicated to the most incredible brave man, Liviu Corneliu Babeş, “Why don’t Romanians love their authentic heroes?”

It is understandable why that was the case prior to the “fall” of communism. “Securitatea [security police] had ears everywhere, even when you were quiet, you were a suspect.” Unfortunately, “many of the torturers of yesterday and their replacements can be found today in key political, social, cultural and especially financial positions,” added Brenciu. It is clear why there is so little mention of the most tragic Romanian martyr.

Christianity in general considers suicide unholy and many priests refuse to bury such deceased in holy ground.  Only God can give the right to life and only God can take it away.

The Orthodox Church considers suicide an act of cowardice, not of heroism.  According to the young priest I spoke to on my trip to Poiana Brasov in 2015 to pay my respects to a Romanian hero, Babeş is an apostate and not worthy of praise.

A small monument is located a few feet from a small wooden church in the meadow where Babeş sacrificed himself to bring attention to the rest of the world to the plight of the desperate Romanian citizens living under the boot of communism.

There is a street that bears his name in Brasov, there is a metal cross on the bottom of the ski slope where the end of the tragedy unfolded, the type reserved for road accidents, and a modest monument in Poiana Brasov with the bronze effigy of the martyr created by the artist George Jipa.

Liviu Corneliu Babeş (1942-1989) made the ultimate sacrifice on March 2, 1989, several months before the December revolution that toppled the brutal communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena. On a very crowded ski slope in Poiana Brasov where skiers from the West were vacationing, Babeş chose to set himself on fire, protesting the atrocities committed by the Ceausescu regime.

Brenciu wrote how, in a cathedral stillness, the crowd witnessed in shock and horror the unimaginable act of a skier on fire, gaining speed, not making a sound, as the smell of burnt flesh filled the air. At the bottom of the slope, Babeş fell, his body licked by the flames fed by oxygen and the clothes soaked with gasoline.  From underneath his smoldering clothes, he pulled out a sign that read, “STOP MURDER! AUSCHWITZ=BRASOV.”

Brenciu described how two tourists from Scotland, who happened to be very close to where the skier collapsed, covered his smoldering body with coats, in an attempt to put out the flames. Douglas Wallace was subsequently interviewed by the Sunday Times on March 12, 1989. (Burnt Alive: the Suicide that Shamed Romania)

When the ambulance arrived, Babeş was still alive, the barely audible labored and pained breaths the only witness to his intense pain and suffering.  According to Brenciu, the stretcher carriers, dressed in white but with police uniforms underneath, and with menacing looks, shooed the crowd away.  They were not there to help the immense suffering of the dying Babeş; they were there to cover up the incident. They announced loudly to the crowd that this man was mentally ill and there was nothing to see. Perhaps the crowd would have believed him, had it not been for the yellowed paper sign Babes carried with him that spoke clearly why he immolated himself.  “One of the residents of the concentration camp called Romania broke the silence, but the price was his personal sacrifice,” said Brenciu.

Nobody knows the last indignities this dying hero had to suffer while in custody of the so-called “saviors.” The Romanian word for ambulance is “salvare,” [salvation]. Their mission was quite different, to get to the bottom of his sacrificial act that dared to destroy the harmony of Poiana Brasov, of the fake reality created for foreign tourists that aimed to give them the false impression that Romanians lived in excellent conditions in Ceausescu’s “most humane and wise political regime possible.”

Mircea Sevaciuc explained that Liviu Cornel Babeş “was buried by communists and Securitate.”  After the revolt in November 15, 1987, Liviu was never left alone. He had sent a letter to Free Europe, asking for a better life for all Romanians. Since that time, a friend said, “He was afraid to walk in the streets. One day he told me at work – they want to get me but they won’t succeed because I am going to set myself on fire.”

 

Babeş’s widow, Etelka, and their daughter, were not left in peace to mourn the loss of their beloved husband and father.  Her apartment, located in one of the drab concrete apartment high-rises, was constantly watched by the Security Police. They came and searched everything and confiscated any notes and sketches he may have left behind. An amateur painter and sculptor, he had a small collection.

One day a friend accompanied Etelka to the cemetery where Babeş was buried.  They were followed by a Security Police officer who did not bother to disguise his obvious spying. Even in death, the communist police state did not leave her Cornel alone because he had the courage to sacrifice his life in such a public way in order to expose communism and its paid torturers and informers who robbed the masses of their humanity and freedom under the false pretense of “social justice” and equality.

 

 

 

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Part V Interview on Education with Mircea Brenciu

Thinker and his companion Constanta Museum
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2012
I asked Mircea Brenciu what happened to the education in Romania as it evolved from communist indoctrination to so-called western style education in 25 years. Although some young people earned international acclaim in science and mathematics, education in general has been a profound disappointment, he added.

Brenciu is a firm believer that the lack of spending in education is a direct reason for the pathetic performance. He explained that Romania continues to place last on education spending, behind countries like Bulgaria, China, and Indonesia.

Despite politicians’ promises to make education a priority, financing it has remained at the bottom when compared to schools’ needs and to allocations that other countries have made in education. He illustrated the dearth of investment in “human capital,” a.k.a. education, with a statistically low 2.5% of the national budget in 2013, 3.2% in 2014, and 3.7% in 2015.

Even though politicians have introduced a benchmark of 6 percent for education, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INS), investment in education has never exceeded 4 percent. Yet every government in power and every prime minister have pledged to the voting population that education was a priority. Remus Pricopie, former Minister of Education (2012-2014) reported in 2014 3.2 percent of the budget for expenditures in education.

I happen to disagree with Mircea Brenciu that spending more on education, throwing more money at schools, is going to make a difference in student achievement, performance on tests, or long-term retention and learning.

I don’t think the communist party spent outrageous amounts to indoctrinate the youth yet, in general, excluding the worthless classes of Scientific Socialism, Socialist Philosophy, and other such courses, students received a well-rounded education even though they had no labs for experimentation in physics, chemistry, or biology.

When I arrived directly from the socialist/communist state to the United States, I was shocked how ill-prepared most students and their teachers actually were. The depth of knowledge acquired by most eastern block students was superior when compared to the education of most Americans. It is also true that American students were encouraged to think individually and outside the box instead of emphasizing the collective. Collectivism stunted creativity and inventiveness.

Since Americans have been spending thousands of dollars per pupil to improve achievement and raise test scores, in the face of the fact that test scores do not compare well to other countries, it is obvious that throwing more money at education does not increase student performance or test scores. There are other variables such as parental dedication and involvement in their children’s education and two-parent families that are also very important.

I understand, in many villages in Romania, where the aediles had not used the funds judiciously, or did not receive any funding for education, it was hard to learn in a classroom whose roof was leaking, had no heat, or the school had not been completed or repaired for habitation.

The most adversely affected by unemployment are high school graduates with a rate of 8.1 percent unemployment when compared to those with a college diploma (5.1%). By age, the group of 15-24 year-olds have 23.7% unemployment rate.  Among the 25-34 year-olds unemployment was much smaller, 7.75 percent.

It is obvious to Brenciu that there are special interests at play that ignore the national interest, resulting in diminished education possibilities. Having a Parliament is great, however, the voters, informed, misinformed, or deliberately ignorant, get the politicians they elect. There is no such thing as the best party in power. Romanians and people in general should run like crazy away from a party or a politician who wants to dominate political life. “Did we not have for over 50 years a ‘unique’ party which led us, against our will, to the highest peaks of socialism?”

The content of education has become globalist, emphasizing global citizenship or preparation for such global citizenship.  The elites and the United Nations’ non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are working overtime everywhere to institute the sought-after socialist global control.

To me, it was refreshing to see so many churches mushroom around the country, and a comeback of faith after five decades of atheism under Ceausescu’s socialist/communist dictatorship. State funds were allocated to repair and rebuild many churches. But Romanians seemed to resent the church leaders and priests who lived lavish and luxurious lives when compared to most Romanians, while hospitals and schools were not funded adequately by the state and people died as a result.

I noticed many museum and architectural gems in a sorry state of neglect, decay, and rust. Priceless sculptures and mosaics were drowning in dust at Tomis and marble Etruscan sarcophagi were used as trash bins outside the Tomis Museum in Constanta.

Educators have told me that the curriculum is not teaching students so much about their national heroes anymore. History and national pride have been definitely marginalized in the quest to become “European citizens” as quickly as possible. The dumbing down of education has showcased depravity and immorality, denigrating good moral values, pride in national identity, and Romanian-ness. The noble ideals of love for their country, of patriotism, of respect for historical facts and for their ancestors, have disappeared from the curriculum, replaced by defeatism and shame for one’s ancestry.

Many well-educated and average Romanians sought employment elsewhere in the EU “openness” where the pay was commensurate with education, training, and experience, leaving a huge vacuum in Romanian key sectors of labor. Why work for 300 euros in Romania when you can get five times the pay (1,500 euros) for the same type job in the European Union and the cost of living is similar?

TO BE CONTINUED

 

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Interview Across Cyber Space with Mircea Brenciu Part IV Medicine and Islamic Invasion

On the question of medicine and medical care after decades of communism which ended officially with the Revolution of December 1989, Brenciu explained that Romania now produces doctors on a “conveyor belt.” He admits that a good doctor is not made by textbook theory learned in school, but is born after years of residency training, specializing, and real life experience in the ER of a hospital.

The tragedy starts, he said, when the young resident is thrown in the midst of the hospital drama and realizes that he himself has become a social case, a victim of starvation on his meager income. While a nurse in the European Union, which Romania is a member of, earns about 6,500 lei (1,500 euros) per month, a doctor in Romania earns 1,500 lei per month, approximately four times less.

Under socialism/communism, people walked around the medical professionals with money in envelopes.  Extra cash for expected bribes sped up test results, X-rays, helped jump waiting lines, and gave patients extra much-needed and speedier medical attention, prevented infections, and perhaps insured survivability. Doctors accepted the bribes because their pay was so low. Everyone earned equal pay and experienced the same miserable standard of living, regardless of years of training, effort, and education.

Overcoming the problems associated with decades of totalitarian socialism/communism has not been easy. Accepting bribes and corruption across the board are still the norm. Even though medical care is socialized and free, people still pay doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel in order to expedite their tests, care, and treatment. There are private clinics but fees are potentially higher than the bribes.

Under such low current pay and demoralizing conditions, it is no surprise that a chronic crisis of medical personnel overwhelms the recovery system and the establishment of well-organized and timely health care. And the government in Bucharest does not seem to make much difference since the “command buttons are in Brussels.” The Romanians’ plans for the future do not seem to coincide with the plans of the technocrats from Brussels, added Brenciu.

Dr. Arafat, a naturalized Romanian, organized what most considered an exceptional service that was highly necessary in the medical chaos – SMURD, an acronym for the Emergency Medical Services in Romania. This service is a model of organization, efficiency, and necessity.

On the question of the Muslim invasion of Europe, Brenciu admitted that the Old Continent is finding itself again in the unenvied position of battlefield for the clash of civilizations. “Angela Merkel was not afraid to receive in the beautiful, liberal, and multicultural Germany one million Islamists, of which at least 5% could be terrorists with proper papers.”

Brenciu added that the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington brought attention to this inevitable phenomenon for the European society. The clash of civilization is a post-Cold War era hypothesis that supports the idea that people’s cultural and religious identities will be a major source of conflict. Huntington proposed this idea in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

Setting aside the humanitarian aspect of this invasion and petitions for political and economic asylum, Brenciu believes that “accepting to be invaded in good conscience by cohorts of people with foreign traditions, culture, schooling, and especially religion, by hundreds of thousands of individuals terrorized by war, poverty, and the devastating and merciless Islamism, seems to be a form of madness bordering on treason.”

In his opinion, Angela Merkel, with her exaggerated and programmed tolerance for the refugees of Islam, will compromise the European Union, which will fold in the face of huge pressure of the member states, forced to accept unwillingly thousands and thousands of hungry, lawless, and savage refugees. Additionally, Germany will be gripped by national despair.

What will Merkel do to “attenuate the fantastic pressure of this human ballast which materialized suddenly and without logic?” She will probably “force the small states of Central and Eastern Europe, EU members, to receive a large portion of these unfortunate “impoverished” who paid heavy fees [where did they get so much money, he wonders] to cross many borders and thousands of kilometers to come to the Promised Land, Germany.”

Romania was asked initially to accept two thousand immigrants but President Johannis negotiated later to accept forty-five hundred. Following the visit of the “technocrat premier Ciolos in Germany in January 2016, we must now think of a number of refugees much, much larger, a number that will likely be either secret or falsified publicly.”

What shocks Brenciu is that, despite the sacrifices Romanians have made across the centuries to preserve the “Christian spirit, they are now infected quietly by Islam in unknown proportions by the very European institutions which should have defended Christianity and the doctrine of a free and democratic Europe.”

Brenciu did not speak in a discriminatory vein; he referred to the Islamic world that must respect its geographic boundaries and the boundaries, cultures, lands, human rights, and religions of other peoples.


TO BE CONTINUED

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Interview Across Cyber Space with Mircea Brenciu - Part III Standard of Living

Life in general has improved for Romanians. They can now travel freely in the country and move across international borders with ease.  They have freedom of political and artistic expression, freedom of assembly, unlimited Internet access, plenty of trashy television but also good educational programming, public information, easier access to medical care and better quality care, the right to own private property, professional opportunities, the right to go to college, even private ones, and many other freedoms the West had taken for granted. The failed European style multiculturalism, sexual freedoms/perversions, and drug use have arrived as well.

Food is probably the most beneficial improvement in the lives of Romanians – it is available everywhere and there is no need to stand in endless lines to leave empty-handed as was the case during the communist regime. People are no longer faced with having to repair their shoes from year to year because they could not buy new ones. Grocery stores display an abundance of food, not just one solitaire salami in the window. Pharmacy shelves are no longer empty and drugs are available. Fast communication and modern transportation are now a breeze even in the most isolated corners of the country.

Brenciu described the standard of living and the buying power of the Romanian citizen who must live on a minimum net salary of $232 a month, about 1050 lei. According to economists, the median net salary for the country is 1,600 lei a month, $384. Yet prices for goods and services are 90 percent in line with prices across Europe. How are Romanians expected to survive under such conditions and unfair disparity? Even though Romania has joined the European Union in 2007, life is much harder than in the other EU members where salaries are much higher and in proportion to prices.

Not one political leader has succeeded in 26 years after the fall of communism, Brenciu added, to increase the Romanians’ standards of living to at least the minimum level of their European Union brethren.

The fact that people expect politicians to have solutions for their problems is quite telling. It is an indication that decades of communism have brainwashed the citizenry into believing that solutions to their problems come from big or bigger government’s intrusion into everyone’s lives.

What is to blame for the current unresolved economic disparity? Incompetence and corruption across the board at the state level are significant, however, even more important, in Brenciu’s view, are the politics of other foreign governments, of multinational corporations, and of strategies to undermine the interests of the Romanian people in order to subjugate a small country with yet unexploited natural resources. “Onerous patrimonial and business interests supersede the interests of the Romanian people.”

In his opinion, the Romanian population, after decades of tyrannical communism, has learned to survive in a harsh environment and to live with very little and quite poorly, but the younger generation does not seem so eager to be marginalized at the periphery of the globalized political system.

There are many foreign entities, Brenciu explained, who salivate at the prospect of dividing the country and claiming parts, they think, are rightfully theirs. “The Hungarians have exophthalmic eyes for Transylvania; Europe is thinking out-loud how they can round up all the gypsies into the Baragan Fields, and the Moldovans on the Russian side of the Prut River dream of an illusory Big Moldova. Even Bulgarians are not too relaxed about northern Dobrogea.”

The European Union has had to deal with Greece and its potential exodus from the EU called Grexit. The technocrats in Brussels “calmed the waters” with billions of euros in funds that are helping the Greeks continue their socialist spending. Brenciu thought that “Romania might follow the same path if EU does not take rapid measures to increase the average pay for Romanians, even though they would have to break the rules of economic development.”

Brenciu reminded us that Germany was the beneficiary of the Marshall Plan after WWII, which saved the Germans from an “existential impasse.”  He argued, “Romania was in a real war, longer and more criminal than Germany’s but nobody took this fact into account. What was communism if not a war of life and death of an entire nation? Why does EU not organize a system for Romanians, similar to the Marshall Plan, without so many conditions and strings attached?” He semi-answered his own question when he described how Holland opposed Romania’s entry into the Schengen Zone because Romania refused the indefinite concession of its main port, Constanta.
What seems to be Romania’s salvation at the moment, he said, is the fact that Romania is located strategically at the confluence of the Christian West and the Islamic Orient and the United States is taking a keen interest in this strategic location.

During the fifth decade of the 20th century, heroic anti-communist, anti-Bolshevik resistance fighters hid in the Carpathian mountains, waiting for the American troops to save them. American soldiers never arrived but they are here now, strengthening the buffer zone between Christianity and Islam. It is a blessing, Brenciu added, that “American strategic interests are converging perfectly with Romanian interests” and the ties to Washington are stronger than ever.

Brenciu believed that Europe, with its culture and enlightenment, the center of human civilization on earth, owes a debt of gratitude to the “poor Romanians who never betrayed common European and Christian values and were satisfied with very little in order to survive as shields in the face of so many barbaric invasions.”
He concluded, “Europe should bow its head in respect and should produce urgently and with love, the fraternal and just reparations to a people who defended with their absolute poverty, the splendor of a narcissistic and profoundly selfish civilization.”

As a former Iron Curtain nation, Romania started its road to democracy and to a free market economy at a distinct disadvantage when compared to other former communist Soviet satellite nations. Ceausescu made it a point of pride that Romania should not owe money to foreign lenders; he saw himself as a ‘maverick’ president. He paid all loans quickly by taking away much needed food and funds earmarked for improving the lives of Romanians who were forced to survive in abject poverty, with no decent food, meager rations, no basic necessities, little heat, and intermittent water and electricity.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

 

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Interview Across Cyber Space with Mircea Brenciu - Part II

On the question, why would people put their faith in career politicians, fighting with each other fiercely on social media, looking for purity, honesty, and perfection in a person’s character, qualities that are often lacking in the political world, Mircea Brenciu’s answer was not a surprise.

The main stream media models and shapes the news and the thinking of the voting populace based on the candidates and what platform they offer – the more socialist, the more popular. The problem arises after the election when, in the “laboratories of democracy,” the two Parliamentary chambers, behind closed doors, unabashedly vacate the will of the voting people.

There is no law that prohibits the candidates elected to migrate to other parties and to change representation to that party’s interest and ideology. “Influenced by blackmail, bribery, and other means, some representatives leave their parties under whose banner they ran for office, and join another party or political organization, thus altering the results of the general vote.” This way, a party or an alliance that was previously in a majority, becomes a minority, further eroding the will of the voters.

These Machiavellian political alliances, made before or after the election, often lack the ideological unity necessary to address the strategic, political, or economic issues of the day and thus decisions are generally made arbitrarily and not in the best interest of the population.

Parliament members are inhibited by fear that they will be arrested under real or trumped up charges and would have to defend themselves for years in a court of law and potentially serve time. Romanian politics must pass through the microscope of the bureaucracy called the National Anti-Corruption Directorate. (DNA)

In Brenciu’s opinion, the DNA is necessary but often abusive. Those who control this institution, also control the direction of national politics. For example, Brenciu added, the “infractors of the Social Democrat Party (PSD) are treated differently than the Liberal Democrat Party (PDL) of former President Traian Basescu.”

Some corrupt politicians are better protected under the law than others, escaping prison, which results in a loss of trust by the general public in the fairness and justice of government.  Using this loss of trust, other politicians shamelessly campaign under the slogan of curbing abuse, corruption, and illegality, and deliver nothing.

While the politics of corruption continue unabated, national interest is forgotten, “with a disgrace and arrogance worthy of historical traitors,” said Brenciu, and the idea of nation-state and sovereignty overlooked in the wave of internationalism coming from Brussels.  “The negotiation of individual liberty is the only politics in Romania that seem worthy of sincere, huge, and herculean efforts.”

Take for example, the development funds allocated to Romania by the European Union in Brussels. Based on passed history, under the banner of curbing corruption, the funds are draconically controlled, and those who are charged with dispersing them realize that it is almost impossible to obtain or demand bribes, and it is thus not in their interest to try very hard to allocate the funds to those who need them for development.

It is difficult to prove such financial corruption; however, why should someone complicate their lives with foreign funds from EU when there is nothing to be gained from the effort, only a lot of paperwork, hard to obtain approvals, and the long wait for funds that must be spent exactly as they were earmarked and in the given amount of time.

“For the EU bureaucrats, this would justify to view Romanians as an inferior category in the grand multinational scheme of EU wannabes.” Romania’s membership in the EU is important but their land, strategic, and economic potential are much more important to these globalist elites.

As Brenciu explained, following in the footstep of history when colonists eliminated people who already resided on the lands sought after, history has an annoying tendency to repeat itself.  He explained, “Romania must be emptied of Romanians, as they are incapable to resist the western bulldozer, and must leave the gold for the explorers who came to the Old Continent in the name of the Crown with 12 gold stars and a blue flag.”

On the question of the economic situation in Romania, following the execution of the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, Brenciu had this to say.

After the Revolution of December 1989, the first government, that of Petre Roman, launched the competition which Brenciu dubbed, “Getting Rich at Any Cost,” an effort to privatize the economy.

One such method of privatization called MEBO, gave factories, industrial complexes, and economic centers to the new managers, chosen by workers’ meetings, supposedly democratic. In this new brand of “savage and primitive capitalism, devoid of any rules and regulations,” the newly appointed managers robbed everything and anything that belonged to Ceausescu’s communist state and thus became owners without any payment made to the state.  The “proletariat,” who continued to work for the new owners, received shares in this new “enterprise,” shares which they later sold to the new owners/directors who became millionaires overnight.

Brenciu clarified that the majority of the new owners/directors were former security officers and communist apparatchiks who were traitors to the communist regime, turning the anti-communist tide into their financial favor. They were opportunists, aided and abetted by a corrupt judicial system and a mentality of two wolves and a lamb deciding what’s for dinner.

The poor of yesterday, members of the proletariat, the much touted “workers,” remain the poor of today.  Many jobs have disappeared thanks to the sale of unproductive factories, piece by piece, or the sale to foreign investors who bought entire plants, whether productive or unproductive, to dismantle them or to modernize them, and thus eliminate any competition possible.

Even though Romanian economy functioned under communism with old and outdated technology, it had an industrial base. Today, Brenciu added, Romania has become an “industrial-agrarian, tourist, and service economy.” And the agricultural sector is also suffering as more arable land is left unused, while food is imported from far away.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

 

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Interview across Cyber Space

“Truth is sleepwalking with a hole in its head.”  - Mircea Brenciu

Mircea Brenciu Photo: Wikipedia
I met Mircea Brenciu on a sunny day in May 2015 in the downtown park as he was delivering a speech in Brasov on Heroes Day. The background of the rally was a huge cross erected in the memory of those who lost their lives during the Revolution of December 1989, when dozens of people were shot in the anti-communist revolution. Some of those young people were buried not far behind the cross.

I don’t believe in coincidence – there is a higher purpose for this seemingly chance encounter on such an important day in Romania’s history.

I interviewed Brenciu that day and again, more recently, across cyber space. Mircea Brenciu, born and raised in Brasov, educated in Economics and mass communication, is a writer, poet, founder, co-founder, and editor of many publications and organizations, including the prestigious Journalism Society of Romania, author of many books and recipient of numerous local and national awards. He comes from a family of scholars with a long history of anti-communist activity. He and Mircea Sevaciuc proclaimed November 15 the Anti-Communism Fight Day.

My theory is that a “fundamental transformation” is currently sweeping the globe and this massive change is not necessarily in the best interest of the citizens of various countries nor desired or initiated by them.

I asked Brenciu about the political power in Romania. Those currently in power and the opposition form a “common front” against the executive, the president and the prime minister, he wrote. Even though there are numerous political parties, they have no real power, he said, they make up a “decorative Parliament” reminiscent of the Stalinist era, easily recognized by those who were unfortunate enough to have lived in that dark period of history and who do not belong to the “Facebook generation.” Brenciu calls this type of political power, “artisan politics.”

The majority of the members of Parliament are just voting machines, Brenciu said, with salaries and inflated official bonuses much higher than what the average citizen earns. There are a few among them who have amassed huge fortunes, taking advantage of the traffic of influence among those who have the power to make decisions, who received bribes in exchange for rubber stamp approvals, for faux public auctions, and even for political and judiciary decisions.

Using a hyperbole to describe the corruption, Brenciu believes that the majority in this category of influence trafficking belonged to the former President Basescu regime. He was “a retired sailor who reached Romania’s deck with the goal of transforming it into a pirate ship.” The Romanian people were and are still taking all the risks while floating on this boat called country that is taking on water really fast.

“Our government is named by Brussels through the strange intervention of President Johannis, resulting in a total loss of state sovereignty. The government answers to Brussels. I spoke about the dissolution of Romania in my book, Cardinal Dialogues, Brenciu said. One of my interlocutors, Ilie Serbanescu, a political and economic analyst, had introduced for the first time the idea that Romania had become a colony.

The technocrats have enabled this colonization which took place under the pretext of eliminating corruption and moving the country towards a European way.  Hired by various non-profits, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and financed by the ‘generous and dispassionate’ George Soros, the technocrats were principal enablers.” Brenciu wondered why Soros was connected to the interests of the Old Continent. Soros seems to be interested in many continents but particularly North America and Europe.

I asked Brenciu who elects such corrupt members of Parliament and if there is a connection to the former communists who went underground, disappeared, or died during or shortly after the tyrannical couple, the Ceausescus, were executed on Christmas Day 1989.

The crypto-communist period of the children of former Securitate members and communist apparatchiks has somewhat passed in great measure by biology; those were mostly present during the regimes of Ion Iliescu and Emil Constantinescu who ruled following the 1989 Revolution.

Crypto-communists secretly sympathize with communism or are secretly members of the Communist party if the communist party is allowed to exist. In the U.S., crypto-communists have come out of the shadows and engage in overt anti-American activities, demonstrations, civil disobedience, and destruction of property without any fear of prosecution or retribution. There are ample examples where communist minority groups funded by Soros have burned, looted, and pillaged businesses in several towns and neighborhoods while the police watched.

But there is a more nefarious group at play in Romania called “intellectuals,” added Brenciu, with Masters and Doctorates purchased with cash in dubious subjects such as political and military strategy, former and current officers, faux journalists who shape the political opinion with their inaccurate reporting by deriding and annihilating patriotism, faith, and hope in a nationalistic future.  These manipulators, whether they are found in politics, justice, business, mass-media, or in pseudo-cultural circles, are the actual millionaires and billionaires who are sinking Romania into the abyss of the Mariana Trench, to use another maritime hyperbole, said Brenciu.

Brenciu concluded that talented, honest, and sincere opinion makers who are not financially motivated or bribed are usually marginalized, eliminated, and compromised. “Truth is sleepwalking with a hole in its head.”

The one world government elites with the help of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and European Union (EU) are busy incorporating and bringing in line as many countries as possible under their global communism umbrella.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

Thursday, June 4, 2015

The Rally That Changed History

Rally in Brasov Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015
On a beautiful sunny morning, May 21, 2015 when the Orthodox celebrated Ascension Day and Sf. Elena, we walked in the beautiful park downtown Brasov set at the foot of Timpa Peak, where a crowd had gathered in front of a large cross and several tombs of the young men and women killed on December 22-26, 1989, during the Revolution that toppled Ceausescu’s brutal communist regime. Some of them came to a rally and some were simply walking through the park.

Shots rang out from many directions, mowing down those unfortunate enough to be in the path of the stray bullets. As many as 46 people were shot within ninety minutes. Two large flower wreaths were placed in front of the cross in their eternal memory.


Heroes Day May 21, 2015
Photo: Ileana Johnson
I interviewed Mircea Brenciu, member of Uniunea Scriitorilor din Romania (Writers’ Union) and spokesperson for Asociatia Revolutionarilor din Brasov (Association of Revolutionaries from Brasov). Brenciu gave a fiery speech to the crowd of mostly middle-aged men who had gathered on Ziua Eroilor (Heros’ Day) to pay respects to those who died for freedom, freedom that had been squashed in Romania during more than four decades of communist terror.

Fallen Heroes
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015
The Association of Revolutionaries had asked City Hall repeatedly for a monument to honor the sacrifice of those who gave their lives in December 1989 in this park and elsewhere.

A monument is needed, Brenciu said, to commemorate not just those who died but those who have survived “an event that represents the most important moment in the contemporary history of Romania” – the defeat of Ceausescu’s communist tyranny.  This often-requested monument has been refused by officials under various explanations. Brenciu believes that these politicians who run the country have no gratitude and deny recent history. “Full of hypocrisy,” Brenciu said, “they come to place a wreath, pretending to care, and in the next second, they forget everything.”

In his opinion, disrespecting history is one of the many reasons that have determined the miserable state in life of Romanian citizens in general. Conditions have improved, he said, Romanians can go abroad to work, they can speak freely, they can travel, they can curse the regime freely, but nobody is listening, Brenciu added.

Prices rose to the European Union levels since 2007 but salaries are still “10-15 times smaller.” Austerity measures imposed by the EU have compounded the problem. “How can a Romanian citizen survive under these conditions,” he asked. We have become the beggars of the European Union even though our country is very wealthy in natural resources that have been sold out to foreign investors to benefit the ruling elite class while Romanians struggle to make ends meet.

“Poverty is glaring, nobody has any money. Doctors ask for bribe money (even though the medical system is socialized and generally free), officials ask for bribe money, food is extremely expensive, how can one live in a country that freed itself from communism?

Most people are still afraid to go to the doctor even for simple operations. Many good doctors have fled to the west for better pay and working conditions and, for a while, young people chose other fields of study. Who wanted to work so hard to become a doctor when they made the same paltry salaries like everybody else? I asked about the average college graduate pay and I was shocked at the answer, $300 per month. And unskilled workers in America demand an economically impossible living wage of $15-20 an hour.

Romanians have told me that dental care is very expensive and the quality of work lacks a lot to be desired. Few acquire the expert training of dentists in the U.S. Socialized medicine is a disaster, slightly better than during Ceausescu’s regime. Retirees are compensated at the 50 percent rate for the first three prescriptions; after that, they must pay full price for any additional drugs they need.

Forgetting and rewriting history is not occurring just in Romania, it is a wave happening around the globe, a groundswell of global revisionist curricular history smacking of communist indoctrination.
“Globalism is a form of anti-nationalism, with the idea of forming a unique global state, a utopia that begs the question, who is going to run this global state, who is going to establish the rule of law, what is going to happen to the principles of democracy? As long as there are nations, there is equilibrium and respect between countries, a tradition and history that balance out a social equilibrium. European Union is a first step of this globalization. Why is the EU abandoning us while exploiting the country for everything possible for their personal gain,“ asked Brenciu pointedly.

Brenciu described how the technocrats in Brussels lured Romania into the EU like the Conquistadors lured Indians with cheap beads and mirrors. “They are taking everything and we are applauding - so great that we are Europeans now.”

Brenciu talked about Rosia Montana mine exploration in the Apuseni Mountains of Western Transylvania, which is currently blocked, and its vast reserves of gold, rare earth minerals, and rare metals such as wolfram (tungsten), vanadium, nickel, manganese, which are more valuable than gold. Gabriel Resources of Canada is planning to reopen the currently blocked gold mine which has been closed since 2006.

“Why should Romanians not exploit their own resources? In this fight, Brenciu said, we are going to lose because we have traitorous politicians.”
Brenciu alleged that over $120 billion have been stolen since the fall of communism, enough to bring Romania to an economic development on par with the EU countries. This calculation, Brenciu stated, was based on Dr. Ilie Serbanescu’s opinion as an economist, academician, and Former Minister of Reform. The money that was stolen is now in foreign accounts, Brenciu said, while the country survives in dire economic needs.

Dr. Serbanescu explained in a TV appearance that EU is a colonial system that facilitated the control of Romanian natural resources (gold, silver, rare metals, minerals), the distribution of energy (gas, oil, electricity), and banking. Globalists challenged his views as nationalist. It is a no-brainer that none of the EU members were able to control their monetary policy once they accepted the euro as a national currency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JnVK5vg9DM
“I was personally shot at,” Brenciu said, but I was lucky to escape, “I ducked into the post office building nearby. Nobody knew who was shooting, we personally caught one guy who spoke no Romanian and we turned him over to the officials and I think they released him. He was wearing dark coveralls over his street clothes, had shiny eyes like a person on drugs, and was armed.”

“It was carnage, people were mowed down, and there was blood everywhere and screams of pain coming from the injured.” It is inconceivable to be the mayor of this town that has sacrificed so much for the Revolution and to refuse a monument to commemorate this profound event, I do not and cannot understand,” Brenciu added.
On November 15, 1987, in this same park, workers came out of factories to protest and took down Ceausescu’s “Dear Leader” portrait from Cladirea Prefecturii (the Prefect’s Building). Everybody was of course arrested and their fate unknown since they were dispersed around the country and held in the many political jails Ceausescu had built or opened. I discovered one such jail at Cetatea Fagarasului, located in a 15th century fortress, cold, damp, and mildewed from standing water in the basement. The solid rock construction made the interior considerably colder than the exterior.

Liviu Corneliu Babes Memorial in Poiana Brasov
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015
Before the Iron Curtain fell, on March 2, 1989, a citizen from Brasov, Liviu Corneliu Babes (1942-1989) skied down the mountain in Poiana Brasov. Wearing a sign protesting Ceausescu’s vicious regime, he told the whole world that Romania was a communist Auschwitz and then set himself on fire.

I journeyed to Poiana Brasov to pay respects to Babes. A plaque commemorating his sacrifice (and erected by Mircea Brenciu and his organization) stood next to a small wood church. I went inside to pray for him and for my Dad and I encountered a young priest. I asked him about Liviu Babes and he let me know in direct language that the church considers him an apostate because suicide is not condoned. But his next words shocked me even more. He said that the church teaches the parishioners to obey the state and the government at all costs. I tried to reason with him by asking what he remembered from Ceausescu’s regime. This priest was barely 5 years old when Ceausescu was executed. He told me that he remembered long lines with his mom trying to buy food on rationing coupons, otherwise, he said, it was fine. I left speechless. His washed brain and twisted view of reality clashed terribly with historical facts.

Wood Church in Poiana Brasov
                   Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015
It is a shame that there is no monument where one can pay their respects and light up a candle to the memory of those who fought against communism. Brasov gave their heroes who sacrificed for the European fight against communism. It is shameful, “people who don’t respect their past, have no future,” Brenciu explained.
“I have a fear that we are going to lose our country,” Brenciu concluded. “I only see one solution, to bring back the institution of monarchy.” The people are disoriented and discouraged, he explained. “The biggest theft occurred under the ten-year rule of President Traian Basescu.” The Revolutionaries are supporting the new President, Klaus Johannis, the former mayor of Sibiu, but his success depends on the political class. Right now the country is terribly divided.

There is a saying that goes, “Our country is so beautiful, it is sad that it is inhabited.” We have so many simple and uneducated people who are easily manipulated by the mass-media, they are voting for the wrong people who control, lie, cheat, and steal. In exchange for a vote, bribes of 5, 10, 15 euros are paid and accepted.

And schools are no longer teaching healthy values and morality. Democracy and freedom are understood as a lack of morals, honesty, personal responsibility, and as a culture of welfare dependency somewhat different from the communist culture of dependency where at least one had to pretend to work. “We are losing our national identity and it is deplorable.”

Days after the interview I was mulling over the similarities between the fate of our countries in terms of purposeful destruction, curricular indoctrination, moral bankruptcy, banking corruption, crony capitalism, disinformation of the voting populace, and the endemic corruption of the ruling elites.