Social Justice Politics Have Made Their Way into Romania

President Klaus Johannis and his wife

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2018

Politics in general have always been dirty, hard to grasp, and corrupt, but lately it has been irrational, based on the current low information electorate who, although bombarded with more information than ever, is more easily swayed or bullied into submission to a predetermined result.

People still vote based on their own preconceived notions, interests, the candidate personal charisma, their philosophy, and misinformation from the MSM they accept as absolute truth, without bothering to check on their own either because they are either too busy or too lazy. Electioneering by volunteers or by paid individuals further muddies the waters. People know that politics make strange bedfellows.

Some individuals promise their votes for empty promises, a drink, a chicken in every pot, a cheap cell phone, walking around cash, higher salaries, government contracts, or a sought-after position – it depends how high the voting stakes are.

The political atmosphere in Romania is as frustrating as that in America, involving many parties in Parliament, with a vast cadre of uneducated people, characters in a reality show composed of “red herrings” – misleading puppets and distractions from the larger picture in which the real global movers and shakers perform their acts of social engineering in an effort to destroy statehood and distinct historical nations with boundaries.

One of the global movers, the European Union, has appointed Laura Codrut Kovesi to one of its higher posts of European Chief Prosecutor, in an effort to show Romanians that their voices matter in the EU’s overall globalist effort. Nobody can accuse them of not being inclusive, they now have another rubber stump for their plans. She is much beloved by young Romanians and by Transylvanians who are much more cosmopolitan and globalist inclined.

In the name of the law and anti-corruption, she was chosen to create an institution in which orders are followed in order to introduce the desired outcome.

Politics and loyalties are upside down in Romania. The global #resisters who work for NGOs (non-governmental organizations) claim to be liberals on the right. Those on the left, who tend to be nostalgic for communism, are quite dumb as politicians go and are very nationalistic which infuriates the #resisters.

Communists allegedly no longer exist as the party has been ruled out of existence, but all children of important former communists, of Securitate personnel, of the Communist Party enforcers, and of the old torturers under communism, have cleaned up their image and have become “hashtag-ers” and big pro-Europeans.

PSD (The Social Democrat Party) with 158 seats in the Chamber of Deputies is the governing party in Parliament. PSD was founded by Ion Iliescu, the first president of Romania after the “revolution” of 1989, himself a former communist and member of the nomenklatura.

Following the “fall” of communism, Ion Iliescu served as Romania’s president until his retirement in 2008, which proves that communist indoctrination is hard to eradicate. PSD’s current leader is Viorica Dancila, Prime Minister, replacing Liviu Dragnea who was accused of “abuse of service.”

PNL (the National Liberal Party) holds second position in Parliament with 69 seats. Founded in 1990, PNL is the “conservative” liberal party, the social liberals of the party by the same name that existed in 1875-1940s under the Kingdom of Romania.

D. Roby explained that politics is very complicated in Romania. “PNL is the party of the mainstream, PSD is the euro-skeptic party, and USR (Uniunea Salvati Romania) is the sort of the Soros-educated party filled with people who range in spectrum from globalists, to Hungarian nationalists, to young people in Cluj [western Transylvania] who hate Bucharest [the capital] and dream of getting autonomy for Transylvania and one day separating from the rest of Romania.”

President Johannis, a Transylvanian from Brasov and a Romanian of German heritage, was a potential successor to the European Commission President but he did not make the cut to replace Junker. President Johannis may or may not be a globalist but he sees Romania’s success in the future tied to its participation in international institutions such as the European Union. Romania became EU member in 2007.

D. Roby said that “Romania imports more consumer goods than it exports” and, as a result, the majority of people in Romania, who are still poor by European standards, are paying for overpriced imports from Western Europe, sometimes produced with inputs purchased cheaply from Romania, (i.e. native berries which grown abundantly in Romania are made into an expensive berry preserve in Germany) when Romanians could have produced such consumption goods cheaper on their own domestic market.

Additionally, many consumption goods are inferior in quality, produced specifically for the Romanian market. Roby cited a recent scandal in which Milka chocolate bars made in Germany for export into Romania allegedly tasted different than the chocolate bars made in the same factory for the German market due to the use of cheaper ingredients.

Certain aspects of the reality that existed under Ceausescu’s communist party dictatorship, are still found in 2019.  “A hard-working person who makes an honest living is branded as a thief while a smart-alecky individual who lies, cheats, steals, misrepresents, and forces others to pay him/her bribes is idolized as a hero who beat the system.”

Workers are still expected to venerate the low-paying jobs and never complain when they work long hours as if they were in a labor camp. Foreign national companies are still paying skilled Romanian workers low wages and expect them to deliver stellar performance.

An article by Valentin Busuioc in Lumea Justitiei (World Justice) magazine described President Trump speech at the U.N. on September 24, 2019 as “explosive” and meant to “shut up all the propagandists from the #resist crowd in Romania who “agitate to destroy the national values in the name of globalism, no matter what the price.” Busuioc wrote that politicians in Romania should not allow themselves to be influenced by “the [globalist] dream of national traitors.”

Busuioc also touched on the political issue of the “growing industry of radical activists and non-governmental organizations that promote human trafficking. These groups encourage illegal migration and demand the erasure of national borders.” The social justice rhetoric has transformed innocent humans into pawns of the phony social justice politics of the American left. Romanians have become victims themselves to the forced economic migration quota under the guise of refugees planned by the United Nations and enforced by the EU leaders in Brussels.
https://m.luju.ro/trump-le-a-dat-moarte-rezistentilor-presedintele-sua-donald-trump-a-avut-un-discurs-fulminant-la-onu-care-sa-le-fie-lectie-vanzatorilor-romaniei-daca-vrei-libertate-fii-mandru-de-tara-ta-daca-vrei-democratie-pastreaza-ti-suveranitatea-daca-vrei-pace-iubes

Swayed by corrupt politicians whose motives they barely understand, low information Romanian voters, not unlike some of our American voters, continue to turn at the polls to elect those who will eventually dissolve their borders and their own country for which their ancestors fought so hard to preserve.

Interview Across Cyber Space with Mircea Brenciu Part VI Infrastructure

Rapsa Village, children going to school  (Photo: digi24.ro)

The sixth installment of my interview across cyberspace with Mircea Brenciu, famous author and editor, adamantly anti-communist, and the founder of many publications in Romania, is coming to a close. A few questions remained to explain the transformation that occurred in Romania since the “collapse” of Ceausescu’s socialist dictatorship in 1989 when the much-touted “workers’ paradise” crashed and burned on the ashes of millions of victims who died needlessly at the reckless hands of Bolsheviks who were experimenting with people’s lives as dreamed by Marx, Engels, and Lenin.

As I watched videos from remote villages where people still live and die without electricity, paved roads, gravel roads, running water and sewer systems, trudging through ankle deep mud during rains, I wondered what happened to their standard of living in the twenty-seven years since communism “fell.”

Even though Romania became an EU member in 2007, the journey to modernization and progress is still very slow in some regions as it was evident during my visits. Romanians are smart, enterprising, and hard-working people, often making do with so much less than the rest of the developed world, but their journey is hampered by decades of brutal socialist centralized planning and the endemic corruption born by such a system and the need to survive.

On the question of roads, Brenciu explained that highways under the care of the Transportation Ministry are usually well maintained but county roads are not paved or are often neglected because they don’t have the know-how or the funds necessary to fix them.  

Interstate 1 or DN1 between the capital Bucharest and the northern ski resort city of Brasov, a distance of only 170 km, in Brenciu’s opinion, will never be an Autobahn in the near future. On the much sought route Sibiu-Pitesti, the government is just now taking public bids. And the Sibiu-Arad/Timisoara highway was built with “exaggerated efforts and mistakes which came to light as soon as it was inaugurated.”

Former president Traian Basescu raised eyebrows when he declared that “Romania does not need superhighways.” A 2012 referendum of 8 million Romanians indicated the opposite. As Romanians’ standard of living has improved, they bought hundreds of thousands of cars which now crowd the narrow roads. Parking is so inadequate, like in many other European cities, that people park everywhere, including sidewalks, sometimes blocking or slowing down traffic and endangering pedestrians.

The former Minister of Finance under President Emil Constantinescu, professor analyst Ilie Serbanescu, explained that both in Romania and in the European Union (EU), there is interest in only one route, Arad-Pitesti, to the exclusion of all others.  It seems easier to drive to the capital of Hungary, Budapest, in the west, where the infrastructure provides ease of transportation, than to go south to the capital of Romania, Bucharest.

I also asked Brenciu about running water and sewer systems. Surely Romania could easily provide for its citizens! Their former colonizers, the Romans, had an elaborate sewer and water system almost two millennia ago! Using European Union grants and loans, there are now fewer areas without connection to water pipes except in distant and isolated villages.

The fact, that the government is still addressing problems with water and sewer service in the 21^st century, is a direct reflection of the forced industrialization during the 20^th century socialist regime at the expense of the minimal needs of the forgotten Romanian citizens. Such a centralized socialist economy produced one social catastrophe after another that regional and local governments are still trying to overcome and resolve today.

I asked Mircea Brenciu if he believed that political corruption, so endemic in Romania now, can be eradicated.  He mentioned a “traffic of influence” called lobby that pushes issues to the limit of legality. The end of Ceausescu’s dictatorial regime encouraged and launched “the great national competition of personal financial gain” which led to today’s lobby-driven competition for political power and control.

Brenciu believes that the country is going in the direction of a police state again, of the socialist type he thought was dead and buried in 1989. Many Romanians are no longer placing their trust in political leadership or in people in general, but only in God. They realized that “it does not matter who votes, it only matters who counts the votes.”

Brenciu was referring to the shenanigans of the two presidential voting rounds that elected the current President Johannis over his competitor, Prime Minister Ponta, who had personal counsel and advice from Gen. Wesley Clark.  The web of global politics is difficult to untangle.

On the Schengen Agreement, Brenciu explained that, even though he is a “chronic European, Russo-phobe, and anti-communist,” he is becoming a “Euro-skeptic” because of EU’s politics towards Romanians. Even though Romania fulfills all conditions to be integrated into the Schengen Agreement, some of the member-states are reluctant to accept it into their fold while throwing their borders wide-open to the Muslim invasion from Africa and the Middle East.

It appears that Europeans are offended by Romanian gypsies but turn a blind eye to the violence and rapes by Muslims, going to great lengths to cover their crimes.  What do Romanian gypsies do in Europe that is so offensive? Apparently pick-pocketing and begging are “serious problems” for Europeans.

“Our gypsies are academicians compared to the savages coming from Africa and Asia,” stated Brenciu.  What is the point of having the Schengen Agreement if “Europe will continue on such an enormous and irresponsible scale the policy of allowing into their countries the largest exodus of humanity in modern history?”

Paradoxically, the states that have the highest Muslim penetration in Europe are the ones that are refusing Romania’s entrance into the Schengen Agreement. There are currently 26 European countries, covering 400 million people, who can travel in the Schengen Area like a single state with external border controls for travelers entering and exiting the area, but with no internal border controls. Romanians have not been admitted to this agreement, and they feel, rightfully so, as the black sheep of the European Union.

Now that Romanians are members of the European Union, they are no longer in control of their fate and their future, Brenciu concluded our interview.

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2016