An Existential Dilemma in the Land of Vlad Tepes

A heated debate is raging on in the eastern European country of Romania, a member of EU since 2007 but not of the Schengen zone.  Members of the Schengen zone can travel freely without a passport between the member states. The debate has divided the population along party lines, ideology, faith, experience, education, and even families in their extended relationships.

Romania is a paradise of spectacular landscapes, mountains, valleys, rivers, gorges, the famous Danube River, the Danube Delta with its rich fauna and flora, the Black Sea, and fertile lands that could grow so much wheat and corn, it was known as the bread basket of the Balkans. Many yet to be explored natural resources are hidden beneath the soil and rocks:  gold, coal, iron core, bauxite, manganese, lead, salt, silver, zinc, petroleum, and natural gas.

Temporarily forgotten are the economic problems that ail a crony capitalist system emerging from decades of communist dictatorial oppression. What is important at the moment is whether Bucharest will build the biggest mosque in Europe, in the middle of predominantly Orthodox and Catholic Christianity. It is an existential dilemma in the lands that Vlad Tepes, the infamous Dracula, and many voivodes and rulers after him, protected with guts, blood, and glory, from the constant invasions of the Ottoman Empire during five centuries.

Why would Bucharest need such a huge mosque? Who will pray there? The population is atheist, agnostic, or Christian. Dobrogea, in the eastern part of Romania, already has mosques to accommodate the Turks whose ancestors had settled in these parts of the Black Sea.

Can the country, struggling with many economic issues,  afford the influx of Middle Eastern men of fighting age who are sure to come as war “refugees?” Apparently the prime minster, who allegedly received a new knee in Turkey, was quoted as saying that Romania is prepared to receive refugees and has opened two camps with a capacity of 500 each in the western part of Romania, but so far, few “refugees” have petitioned for asylum. Asked if such refugees will be distributed by areas or by counties, Ponta answered that the said “refugees” are free to go wherever they wish, with only one interdiction, they cannot vote.  http://www.ziare.com/victor-ponta/premier/romania-pregatita-pentru-refugiati-ponta-sa-i-integram-sa-nu-ramana-pe-cheltuiala-statului-1385886

“The mayor of Arad, where unemployment is zero, told me that they need workers, especially those who are easy to train. Nothing happened what ‘the crusader Basescu’ said,” Ponta concluded. Basescu, the former president, vehemently opposed the Bucharest mosque and the “refugees” being settled in Romania.

Those who survived Ceausescu’s four-decade long dictatorship are divided. Some who are too old to work and fend for themselves, are nostalgic for his tyranny because they did not have to work very hard, did not have to be responsible for themselves. As long as comrade government provided meager rations and salaries, enough to survive on, they were satisfied.

The young, representing the “tyranny of the oppressed,” have no memory of Ceausescu’s regime and thus think that socialism and communism are great ideas – who would not want to be taken care of in the fashion of the western European Fabian socialist societies whose governments are bankrupt?

These two groups do not see any problem with building the largest mosques in Bucharest – the more the merrier. The fact that the two cultures, Islamic and western, are incompatible, does not seem to faze them.

A short list highlights the alleged corruption and theft affecting society and the economy profoundly. These events took place after Ceausescu was executed on Christmas 1989 when a period of chaos ensued. How long this period lasted is debatable but the results are still felt today.

-          Part of the national bank’s gold was allegedly taken out of the country.

-          Factories that may or may not have been productive were sold to foreign investors or destroyed and sold for scrap metal and the money was pocketed by those in power.

-          Diesel payments for ships sailing under Romanian flag were stopped, the ships were sold as scrap metal in the ports where they happened to be docked, and the money was pocketed by those governing and making such decisions.

-          Even though Romania had no debt, once some industrial and agricultural production was stopped, it was necessary to make loans from foreign banks in order to keep the country afloat, thus Romania began its indebtedness to the western bankers.

-          Oil, gas, and gold were given to foreign investors in exchange for substantial bribes to governing individuals.

-          Laws were passed that allowed foreigners with money to invest in “agriculture” to exploit the land and to harvest timber, gold, and frack for natural gas, desertifying large tracks of land in the process, and poisoning rivers with cyanide and other toxic chemicals; the said foreign investors were not required to clean up the ecological disaster they left behind.

-          As more and more taxes were imposed, the money were not put to good use, benefitting or building schools, hospitals, and orphanages; the money built thousands of churches and fattened the pockets of the governing individuals who used priests to preach to their flocks to vote in the most corrupt politicians who were skilled orators.

-          The alleged sabotage of Romanian investors who found efficient and non-toxic ways to explore for gold without destroying the natural habitat.

-          Out of control deforestation resulted in landslides and floods and the destruction of entire villages.

-          Alleged damage to tourism at the Black Sea due to fracking for natural gas in Dobrogea.

-          Creation of a class of EU-style welfare dependent citizens and parasites who watch mind-numbing telenovelas while their country is being destroyed.

-          Laws that allow politicians to purchase land for prices below real estate values in beautiful areas and to build villas on that land.

-          Exacerbating the decades-old divide between Hungarians, Swabians, and Romanians in Transylvania through corrupt political moves, keeping the population at odds.

-          Passing laws of immunity for crimes committed by those in power who undermined the country’s economy for personal and political gain.

-          Expropriating private land of those who opposed the land grab across the country.

-          The irrational decision to pay Holocaust reparations of 60 billion euros to Israel (even though 95 percent of Jews were alleged to have survived in Romania when they were sent to Transnistria, away from Hitler’s grab) at a time when former soldiers, workers, teachers, and other poor Romanians living on pensions of 300 euros per month had to take substantial EU-dictated austerity cuts; 20 billion euros were already paid even though Romania had to likely borrow the money.

-          The Penal Code was changed and expunged of the punishment for undermining the national economy.

-          Billions of euros were allegedly funneled to finance electoral campaigns of those in power who speak so eloquently and convincingly, promising to eradicate the blatant corruption in society but deliver nothing except more wealth and power to themselves.

Despite the bleak economic reality, the useful idiot voters who applaud and reelect to power the very same corrupt politicians who have relegated them to comfortable poverty, are busy on social media, discussing passionately the pros and cons of the mosque, while the economic and societal quagmire around them continues unabated. They seem to be deaf and ambivalent to the historic song of previous generations, “Wake up, Romanians, from the sleep of death.”

Whether some of the allegations can be proven and could stand up in a court of law remains to be seen. It is a fact that the majority of the population is still relatively poor even after twenty-five years since communism “fell” while a few politicians and oligarchs have become millionaires and billionaires many times over.  Crony capitalism has replaced one set of ruling elites with another. The only difference now is that the masses can idle their time with tele-entertainment on every channel and food is available. They can criticize the new regime, but nobody listens.

 

 

 

The Middle Class, Refugees in their Own Country

“We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” - Anonymous

Red Sunset, Photo: Ileana Johnson, 2012

My reality today in America, the former “land of the free, home of the brave” is crony capitalism ruled by an anti-American socialist/Marxist regime.  I feel like the musicians on the Titanic.

A border guard, who asked a truck driver coming into the U.S. if he was an American citizen, was met with the surprising question, “Does it really matter anymore?” The border guard’s answer, after he waved the trucker on through, was even more shocking, “Not really.”

The reality in my former daily communist life was encapsulated in an anonymous play on words that goes like this:

“Everybody had a job; although everybody had a job, nobody was really working; even though nobody was working, the communist five-year plan was always fulfilled 100 percent; although the plan was always fulfilled, nobody could buy anything; although nothing was available, everybody had everything; even though people had everything, everybody was stealing to survive; although everybody was stealing, nothing was missing, ever.” There you have it, reality under communism. And it is already here in America in an incipient form.

I escaped this reality to come to freedom in America, the shining city on the hill, the example of generosity, hard work, excellent health care, outstanding education, and the opportunity to succeed. The problem is that this freedom no longer exists, other than freedom of the press and that is curtailed more and more by the day. Yes, you can speak freely but you are labeled a terrorist, a hatemonger, a racist, and, at worst, you lose your job, forever a pariah, joining the almost 100 million Americans out of work or on perennial welfare.

We’ve been so balkanized by entitled ethnic groups flooding our country who are forever insulted by our traditions or our Christianity and who have such vociferous and powerful lobbies in Washington, D.C., that we are being fast ethnically displaced and replaced by a third world population that refuses to learn English and assimilate, a backwards population that hates America but loves its generous welfare. The unwelcome guests are fast engulfing, overrun, and overwhelm the hosts, destroying them until there is nothing left to suck on but an empty exoskeleton blown by the wind into the dustbin of revisionist history.

We are no longer the protector and policeman of the world and the world is in utter chaos. The enemy is becoming bolder and stronger, occupying areas that we have spent years to free and sacrificed thousands of limbs and lives.

Our President tells us that our former archenemy, Russia, does not produce anything, yet we have to rent a chair on their space shuttle for $90 million if our astronauts are to fly to the International Space Station. Our wings have been clipped with the stroke of a presidential pen.

We have become the poor relative asking for handouts from the rich relative that we disdain. Russia’s cosmonauts are leading the space race now. It is not even a race anymore because we no longer have a race horse. It was mothballed in the museum of our former greatness.

The current regime thought that it was high time that we were cut down to size. We needed to be taught a lesson in poverty in order to experience what other poor people around the world struggle with every day. As if we arrived at our wealth and abundance overnight and never worked hard to achieve it.  Somehow we’ve stolen it from the poor countries around the world whom we've exploited.

We’ve been forced by our presidents to redistribute so much wealth to the national and international poor and downtrodden, our middle class has now become a refugee class in our own country, a class which is fast disappearing, displaced and replaced by hordes of ethnic groups alien to America. We are refugees from the war on the middle class, the war on prosperity waged furiously and rapidly by Congress and various regimes elected by the low information American and illegal immigrant voters who flooded our country but bring with them the hellholes they’ve escaped from.

We are too busy appeasing the Muslims who apparently, unbeknownst to us, have made so many contributions to the founding of America. Who knew that our Founding Fathers were Muslims? The President said in a recent speech, “In the United State, Eid also reminds us of the many achievements and contributions of Muslim Americans to building the very fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy.”  

Bob FitzSimmonds, the Virginia GOP treasurer, who posted a message on his Facebook page that questioned whether Muslim Americans have made positive contributions to U.S society, has resigned unapologetically. Finally someone has the courage to stand for the truth. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/va-gop-official-resigns-after-controversial-facebook-post/2014/08/07/d41fcec0-1ddd-11e4-82f9-2cd6fa8da5c4_story.html

World communism has been successful in oppressing and enslaving mankind because of “two species of ignorance –ignorance concerning the constitutional requirements needed to perpetuate freedom, and secondly, ignorance concerning the history, philosophy and strategy of World Communism.” (Leon Skousen, The Naked Communist, Izzard Ink LLC, Salt Lake City, 2014)

 

Political Class and Crony Capitalism

I was elated but very suspicious when communism failed suddenly in Eastern Europe in 1989. I suspected that the communist elites had decided to go underground to recoup and gain the trust of the west while attempting to rebuild their ranks.  

The communists’ economic system of surplus was such a dismal failure that it was necessary to hide for a while. People were starving literally and figuratively for capitalism, economic freedom, personal freedom, religious freedom, and a better life for their families. They had reached the breaking point where suffering would change into revolt.

The Romanian military finally turned against their handlers and joined the exploited and long-suffering citizens, deposing the brutal and totalitarian regime with its despised dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena.

The former communist rulers and underlings scurried like rats, forgetting to destroy all the damning evidence and documents collected over decades of terror, describing the utter depravity of power and abuse against unarmed and defenseless citizens, who were tortured, imprisoned, killed, and their personal possessions, savings, guns, homes, and land confiscated.

Thus began the difficult road to build a free market, a democratically elected government, and to recoup through the justice system the wealth confiscated by the communist goons.

The problem was that those in power were still the former communist elites who had given themselves new titles and affiliations to various parties that were now forming the fragile and corrupt parliamentary democracy.

One former communist party apparatchik after another took the helm of the country. Money borrowed from the west and earmarked for economic development seemed to disappear overnight. The new rulers started amassing vast fortunes and companies with the money and property confiscated from innocent citizens accused of political dissent during the prior communist regime.

The former proletariat (the workers – and we were all workers) benefited in several ways, primarily in the increased standard of living.

1.      Thousands of churches were built, Bibles and religion could be practiced openly again. 

2.      The borders opened to the European Union and a mass exodus of temporary workers commenced.

3.      Food became plentiful - no more bare shelves, endless daily lines, fights over food, and empty markets. Well-stocked supermarkets and malls opened in larger towns.

4.      Higher education became more accessible to all and tuition was low. When it was free, communist party members’ children had first choices.

5.      Primary and secondary education became globalized, Romanian history forgotten, while students were more and more alienated from their own cultural identity, encouraged and prompted to become “global citizens.”

6.      The gypsy population, the Doma people who call themselves Rroma, migrated back and forth to the EU in search of work and lucrative businesses in the West.

7.      People could now afford to take trips and vacations abroad and were allowed to do so.

8.      Citizens were no longer watched by the Security Police all the time.

9.      The population was free to own guns, hunt, and fish.

In spite of some progress, no accountability was put in place because people did not understand democracy, having been ruled by one tyrant after another over the centuries. People were indentured slaves from the moment they were born.

We did not own anything – the communist elites staked their claim to other peoples’ homes, land, anything on the farm, chickens, pigs, cows, milk, goats, sheep, vegetables, corn, wheat, eggs, cheese, or whatever a farmer produced.

Citizens welcomed capitalism with open arms – it was a new era they dreamed about from movies they had seen on TV and popular series like Dallas. Things began to privatize and the political class was born from the seeds of the former commies now turned into venture capitalists with other people’s money.

Without any vote or referendum, the political class started to dismantle and sell, piece by piece, the aging and non-profitable communist industrial base, factories, steel plants, refineries, oil wells, minerals, coal mines, gold mines, and to cut down forests for timber. The money was pocketed and shared with other politicians who proceeded to build a huge population control machine  – cabinets and agencies meant to control and terrorize, much more powerful than the previous communist dictatorship.

When the money was spent and the economic crisis ensued, the political class cut salaries 25 percent and pensions 15 percent. The people objected to this forced austerity vehemently, but nobody listened to them. The political class was in trouble and needed more money.

The political class spent the public money, billions and billions of dollars, and all they had to show for were ill-designed infrastructure projects, roads full of potholes, high unemployment, interstates that few people could afford to use, and walking around money for meager briberies for low information voters who were used to the communist nanny state and were unable to think or care for themselves independently. Historical buildings were left to crumble and rust, museums to decay, factories were abandoned, and streets turned into slaloms of pothole avoidance.

The corrupt political class dismantled the old regime and created new institutions, not because the country could not exist or run without them, but because cronies wanted special business treatment, special interests, a special position, or a title they’ve always dreamed of holding without much education, merit, or effort and were willing to pay.

Every year the new legislative coalition created new organizations, new structures, new bosses, new state secretaries, undersecretaries, new ministers, mayors, prefects, new institutions, and an ever richer industrial complex.

The former members of the political class never went away, they remained in the system and bloated it, corrupt and without a moral compass, disregarding the law, evading taxes, bribing, and further corrupting the entire political class system.

The economy was always in a state of collapse under communism. The population welcomed “capitalism” with a child-like naiveté and enthusiasm. They woke up eventually when they realized that this capitalism was of the crony variety. The neo-communists and their crony capitalists pushed the theft and corruption to the highest level.

Government is now huge, turned into a monster by the political class while the people have watched helplessly, unable to stop its growth and escalation of power. The former commies and the new recruits are now the crony capitalists and the political class.

The few honest politicians get lost in the struggle for power. The political class is composed of parties of liberals, democrats, social democrats, national liberals, communists, labor, and other prominent minorities that dictate policies for the entire country.

Impeachment Referendum for Old or New Communism

Tomorrow, July 29, 2012, Romanians are going to the polls to vote for or against impeachment of their President, Traian Basescu. It is not something Romanians are happy about since their choices are either the old communist guard represented by President Traian Basescu or the new communism represented by the Prime Minister, Victor Ponta, and his ruling parliamentary coalition government.

It was unprecedented that a German Chancellor attacked another European Prime Minister so publicly. Angela Merkel gave Victor Ponta a dressing down for his attempted coup and unconstitutional removal of the President in a democracy.

Never before did the President of the European Union raise his voice to a Prime Minister of a member country in the manner in which the socialist Martin Schulz expressed his displeasure to the humiliated socialist Victor Ponta.

Victor Ponta and his USL (social liberal union) dominated coalition are eager and desperate to remove President Basescu by any means necessary. In order to remove the president, USL must win the referendum which must be valid, meaning that 9 million Romanians must show up to vote, according to the decision of the Constitutional Court.

Sadly for Prime Minister Ponta, he and the USL do not have popular support. If they did, Romanians would show up en masse to vote and President Basescu would be impeached. The problem is that Romanians are sick of all parties and their endemic corruption. There is a reason why representatives spend millions to get elected – they stand to make billions once they win a coveted parliamentary post.

Prime Minister Ponta was reminded that Romania is beholden to the powers that rule the EU and the monetary policy of the euro, the European Central Bank, the IMF, and indirectly Germany and United States. Romania’s budget is partially covered by its economy and the tax base from the existing private firms. The rest of the national income is derived from EU loans, backed by various banks.

When Romania finally said no to communism in December 1989, the former communist apparatchiks took advantage of the temporary power vacuum created and dismantled as much of the industry as possible, selling national assets for personal gain, piece by piece, without any accountability, to foreign investors who had no idea that those assets belonged to “the people.” Honest citizens remained poor – they did not steal anything, and refused million dollar loans from the west that they knew they could not possibly pay back.

Ponta’s government has a 70 percent majority in Parliament and there should be no reason why it cannot begin to govern and implement the anti-crisis plans they had promised the voters during the electoral campaign. Unfortunately, Romanians know well that the coalition’s sole interest is the interest of most politicians - corruption and bribery. Since President Basescu started doing his job and arrested some of the more blatant corruption culprits, the USL dominated coalition would have to play by the rules of law, an inconvenience that could be eliminated by impeaching the President.

Prime Minister Victor Ponta wrote an article titled “Romanian Reality,” in Foreign Policy Magazine on July 26, 2012, defending his government takeover attempt.

“Impeachment proceedings have been carried out in strict accordance with the law, as confirmed by the Constitutional Court. The proceedings themselves are a response to Basescu’s repeated abuses of power, again confirmed by the Constitutional Court. The vote for impeachment passed Parliament by a two-thirds majority, and 70 percent of voters now oppose Basescu, according to opinion polls. The final word now rests with the Romanian people, who will vote in a free and fair referendum on Sunday, July 29…Basescu’s call for a boycott is an anti-democratic step designed to avoid impeachment at any cost.”

Ponta forgot to mention in his article how he stripped the Court of its right to overrule the Parliament when the Constitutional Court made the decision based on precedent that the President should attend the European summit not the Prime Minister. He also failed to mention how he replaced some members including the Ombudsman, with his political allies. Ponta did not mention the fact that “he seized the official bulletin in which laws were published in an attempt to control legislation, delay the Court, and prohibit the release of new rules by President Basescu.” (Andrew MacDowall, Christian Science Monitor, July 12, 2012)

Prime Minister Ponta sugar-coated the truth with his version of events. Any other objective witness would have called his coup an attempt to bypass democratic rule of law, with the final outcome to remove the democratically-elected President. Traian Basescu may not have been the best and effective president but the Romanian people should decide his fate at the voting booth.

Romanians are ambivalent as to which brand of communism they will have to follow because they know corruption and lawlessness will rule the day. Will it be the winds of the old guard communism or the new brand of European socialism/communism? Either way, voters will be stuck between the rock and the hard place of economic austerity measures proposed by the European Union.