The next Czech President will probably be the guy who signed a “scientists against fear and hatred” in response to Zeman’s “Islamophobia” and expressed concern about Russian elections hacking.
Not only did the tipsy, politically incorrect Zeman underperform his poll numbers by around 4% points in the first round of the elections, but current polls are giving Drahoš a 5%-10% lead over Zeman.
However, I have heard that he is a good debater when he is sober, so he still has chances if he makes a good showing (he refused to participate in debates during the first round).
In the first round, Zeman got 38.6% to Drahoš’ 26.6%. Drahoš will get virtually all of Fischer’s and Hilšer’s electorate, which should bring him to 45%, and a substantial share of Horáček’s will probably eke him out a win, assuming there are no further major underlying shifts in support levels.
All the main candidates (except Hannig, who only got 0.6%) have expressed their support for Drahoš’.
Zeman has a 39% chance according to kdovyhrajevolby.cz.
Currently 26% on PredictIt. (Might be worth buying a few shares if you are fluent in Czech politics and consider this discrepancy real).
Its fascinating how politics literally everywhere in Europe and the US breaks down along the same basic basic schema.
- Zeman is Trump, Le Pen, Putin: Populist, pro-Russian, anti-Islamist, fluent in blue-collar slang but not all that intellectual. Wins the regions and the countryside in the first round.
- Drahoš is Merkel, Macron, Tony Blair: Big Brain academic, pro-European, Atlanticist, centrist. Wins Prague, overwhelmingly wins the foreign vote. For instance, in the UK, Drahoš got twice as many votes as he did in Czechia, while Zeman only got 3.2% (!).
The President is relatively more important in Czechia than in the other V4 countries, but he is still superseded by the Prime Minister, so this likely won’t translate into immediate major changes in policy, including on refugees.
But it might be a bellwether of future trends.
where is the panhandling article? I want to donate.
My policy is to never, ever, donate to political writers. Honestly even seeing a “donate” button fills me with rage. I stopped reading Vdare because I was sick of them always having their hand out. But I want to donate to you, Anatoly, because you provide a unique perspective and (and don’t take this the wrong way) I think it is a perspective that you will never be able to monetize. There is a market for Steve’s writing but there is no market for yours. So if people want to read more of your stuff, donating is the only way.
Now did you want me to put it in your Paetron or would it be easier for you if I cut out the middle man and just sent the money directly to Moscow’s largest Nigerian staffed brothel?
Put the link back up and I’ll donate.
I thought that 10 Years of Blogging had been stickied long enough, but here is the direct link (which is also on my sidebar): https://akarlin.com/donations/
Thank you, Greasy, much appreciated – this has been quite the 180 in our relationship these past two years. Whichever method is most convenient for you.
Doesn’t look good then.
The problem: how those not that intellectual can lead a country in the modern world?
It is possible, of course, but requires a humble man. A politician going for a top position, most of the time, isn’t of that type.
There is a possibility that all this “populist” thing will simply blow itself out and then….THEN….we’ll have THEM back with a vengeance.
Not good.
The problem is inherent in Democracy itself.
People aren’t comfortable with leaders who seem much more intelligent than they are. Hence why most politicians make very few real decisions themselves, whilst the real powers stay in the shadows.
Men working in media, academia or finance are far brighter than the average politician. Totalitarian countries seem to be a slight exception to this rule, Chinese leaders seem very intelligent, and Middle-Eastern potentates are definitely more clever than the average Turk, Persian or Arab.
The Czech president does not have much executive power, hence it is not important who will win. Babiš’s short time in the sun ended yesterday when the other parties, including Okamura’s SPD, ganged up on ANO, and gave his government a no-confidence vote.
I personally voted for the Pirates because I knew they will not support Babiš. I want Babiš out and in jail preferably. His time as a finance minister was ruinous to small business, and badly influenced the quality of beer in pubs. And that’s unforgivable.
But the Pirates are dirty leftist scum and welcomers of refugees, come next election I will vote for either Okamura or ODS. I will not vote for either Drahoš or Zeman. Zeman by the way is not pro-Russian, he is firmly pro-NATO and pro-EU. The election of Drahoš will further solidify the undoing of Babiš.
As for stinky rent seeking refugees that Germany wants to resettle here. I don’t see any serious political force that would like to be seen as welcoming refugees. That would be political suicide.
That’s an interesting point.
Where did you get that? Link would be sufficient.
I’ve always thought that’s exactly what people would want. Or, at least, I know that’s what I’d want.
I am sure that even here most people would want those who rule over them to be more intelligent than them.
Or I am missing something?
3.2% and a graph that looks like that. It’s called electoral fraud.
I think the day may come when eastern Europeans look back nostalgically on the iron curtain. It kept their countries homogeneous.
You are right, it doesn’t look promising for Zeman. But Zeman is a unique kind of a politician – he used to be a socialist prime minister. He is a contrarian but firmly a part of the system. He is also old, mostly drunk, bored, and has dropped all behavioural constraints.
The split between annoying liberal Prague (and a few urban enclaves) and the rest of the country mirrors Trump, La Pen, etc… but there are differences. For example Trump was a newbie, as is to some extent Macron. Drahos is a new face too, that’s part of his appeal.
The system posse has figured out in the last few years that one way to block populism is by using a new fresh face, often a non-politician. Bellen (?) in Austria, Drahos, or Kiska in Slovakia (Kiska literally used to pump gas in New Jersey as a despondent one-time immigrant to US, then someone discovered him). That move usually suggests that we are heading towards the end of a cycle – it is done out of desperation, it can only work so many times, and it pisses off the career politicians. Risky and destabilising.
Finally, as Zeman put it: Czechia is a ‘mediacracy’, the media runs its own political agenda, they are totally on the side of Prague liberals, even the state-controlled media. And having that control gets you 15-20% extra votes (old ladies and young hipsters), especially for a ‘new face’. It is not over, migration policy won’t change, but it is symbolically a loss.
Babis implemented compulsory receipts for all businesses. To crack down on tax evasion and black market. Were you running your own pub and cheating? Otherwise I don’t understand the anger – all of EU has the same policy: you buy something, you get a receipt. A lot of Asian countries don’t, maybe you should move your business to those libertarian paradises.
And Babis in jail, for what? Did he talk to the Russian ambassador, or, God forbid, was caught reading some Russian books?
Van der Bellen wasn’t really a non-politician though, I just checked on Wikipedia, he was a member of parliament for the Austrian Greens from 1994 to 2012, and was party leader of the Greens from 1997 to 2008. It’s true he ran as an independent during the presidential campaign, and mabye some people were fooled by that…but tbh they must have been pretty dumb in that case.
But of course there’s a stunning example for what you’ve described above with Macron, I still don’t quite understand the sudden rise of that guy and his movement (even if he had some prior political experience as minister).
The categories are not that clear-cut, people like Van der Bellen or Macron had some political background, but they were promoted as fresh new faces. In some ways – like Drahos in Czechia – they were brought on the scene because the establishment Team A was so obviously failing. The risk is that this can only be done effectively once (maybe twice) and then what? It also really pisses off the career politicians who plod cautiously from one promotion to next, only to see some relative outsiders jump over them. That makes this technique of ‘new faces’ destabilising.
Promoting the ‘outsiders’ is an admission that the system doesn’t work any more. It will be used more and more, because otherwise the populist electoral impulse would win quite easily. But the destabilising technique will create competition to be the ‘new thing’ (people are naturally ambitious) and this competition will naturally gravitate towards the popular populist issues. Macron has kind of started in that direction already. This is not good for the system.
Macron appealed to undecided, bashful, risk-averse and women who saw him as a clean-cut, polite young man. Drahos has some of the same appeal, but in Czech context the ‘expertise’ and his Acadey background are very important. These are after all people who insist that a lady trimming nails needs to be a ‘nail expert’. A bit of a Habsburg era throwback.
Macron was THE establishment candidate after Juppe lost.
He got all the establishment support.
That is the main reason he won.
Sure, but I’m just irritated that this actually worked and many people fell for the line of Macron being an outsider out to reform the system etc. But then most people are amazingly stupid.
On the other hand, Macron is actually delivering roughly as much of the Trump agenda as Trump himself. Which is not much, but not as bad as I feared. I’m not even sure if Le Pen would’ve done more: isolated politicians cannot do much. Besides, rightist politicians always have the temptation to cuck. Pragmatic politicians coming from the left are, on the other hand, more prone to try to pander to their new rightist constituency, in other words, it’s easier for them to conduct actual rightist policies. Yes, I’m thinking of you, Orbán.
Just personal observation. People want competence, which although correlated with intelligence, isn’t exactly the same thing. Gorbachev, Pol Pot and Hitler were certainly far above average IQ.
Do you really think all those people voted for Trump because they really thought he was not just a genius, but a very stable genius?
It’s almost an alt-right proverb now that ‘democracy’ doesn’t work because
Majority of women – sub-consciously eager for more males to compete for their charms, thus ‘refugees welcome’ –
Plus cucked males, equals democratic majority in voting, and that combination will always outvote the intrinsically-minority group of ‘based’ males
The ‘original flaw’ of modern democracy, is thus, some say, ‘women getting the right to vote’
In 1934 British scholar J D Unwin published a book on ‘Sex & Culture’, now oft-cited by the Alt-Right ‘manosphere’ … Unwin, fascinated by Lenin’s disastrous experiment with easy divorce in Russia, began to historically investigate matters over the centuries … he concluded that, without fail, ‘women’s rights’ led to the eventual implosion & collapse of societies, as shown in repeated patterns including ancient Babylon & Rome
Unwin said that gynarchic privileges eventually wreck the family arrangements that undergird civilisation, as it is only when males have stability with monogamous spouses, that civilisation can flower … if women have lots of ‘rights’ they sabotage marriages so they can go back to hunting one of the 20% of males who are ‘alpha’ in style, leaving most males to just be sources of state-extracted income
I am fairly deep in a Czech liberal bubble, inasmuch as I know of absolutely no friend or acquaintance who likes or supports Zeman, and most are bitterly and vocally opposed to him. On the other hand, I know of no one who supports the importation of any more than an absolute token minimum of refugees, if that, so it shows that the political landscape is not quite as simple as advertised. In general, the headline issues that interest foreign journalists and EU partners do not seem to be holding a great deal of sway among the public at large. There is no mainstream political support for refugees, Czechs remain as impotently suspicious of the EU as they have been of every other larger political entity that has ever lorded over them, and no one thinks of the Chinese any more than necessary. Russia is a touchier issue, as there is a very large portion of the public who continue to nurse a grudge but no one really supports deliberately worsening relations, especially people who matter in the economic realm. Russia is not very nearby but nearer than America, and not going away, so best to get along somehow – just not to be seen to be doing so very happily.
What does matter is the personality and image of Zeman himself. Regardless of what ideological window dressing his opponents put on it, mostly they oppose him on the soundly Trumpian grounds that he is a fat, unhealthy, uninhibited, vulgar slob, which is not what everyone wants in a primarily ceremonial position. Czechs do notoriously take great delight in outrageous breaches of public decorum but they also like to have a strict public decorum to breach. It also comes down to the (I would say accurate) perception that reelecting him would be empowering Babiš, who is the real public enemy number one of these people. His disgraceful and erratic treatment of Sobotka at the end of his government was really the last straw for a lot of people both in terms of Zeman’s image and his political behaviour.
So will he lose? The stated odds seem to overstate the case to me, and I promptly ran off and plunked down a spare $20 on Predictit. It is still quite possible that he will lose but no one is enthusiastic about Drahoš per se, and it is always easier to run as someone (and Zeman is unrepentantly running as himself) than as an anti-something. In any case, Zeman, assuming he still has any marbles, is an exceptionally cunning old fox, and he and his people are already slinging mud at full force, with ten days to go. It would be foolish to count him out.
And Babis in jail, for what?
Believe it, or not, for taking an EU subsidy in accordance with the law! for building this:
https://img.mediacentrum.sk/gallery/nwo/maxwidth/990/2649915.jpg
it’s a recreational area open to the public for free with a pet farm, restaurant, sporting venues, concert hall etc.
The (moral?) crime, they claim, is that if he would apply for the subsidy as the big fish he is, he would not get it. So he did some very legal steps such as apply with a new company, affiliated to him via his children and then transferring it into his portfolio after some time. Shocking and discussing, I know!
Now the good news for him is, that this kauza as we like to call it, is the best they got on him. Not very freighting if you ask me.
The other serious deplorableness of his, is his possibly very real affiliation/collaboration with the Secret service some 30 years ago. This however, he can plausibly deny. Also, as with any country in the old bloc, you can literally throw a rock and hit someone who would qualify for the same charge. Vilifying former partaichiky was in a decade ago, today, nobody cares much anyways.
Also a factor might be, that he is a Zeman-type man. He doesn’t mince words much and is very unPC. He is also a Slovak. Some political talking head called him a Barbarian some time ago, that he does not respect our democratic tradition bla bla. (note – some Czechs – the Prager coffeehouse types – have a comically high opinion of themselves)
I also never really understood their outrage about the new electronic sales tax collection. It’s like they are openly saying ”we didn’t pay taxes and we are proud of it” which is admirable on one side but com’on..
Personally, I think Babis is a freakin genius. Granted, he made most of his fortune through the Common agricultural policy, but he did not invent it, just maximized the profits from it. Everything else is the law of economies of scale and he understood it very quickly in the 90ties. He build a vertically integrated empire and now expands in all kinds of industries.
I remember an interview where he proclaimed something along the lines (shouting in his typical manner) I DON’T HAVE TIME TO READ BOOKS, I HAVE A VISION!
Well, the development in Czechia is bit more complicated. First, Milos Zeman’s health visibly deteriorated in the last 2 years and his behaviour has changed, too. This is, methinks, the primary reason why he did not participate in the debates. He has visible troubles just to walk and stand.
He was always been a good orator that was able to analyse situation quite precisely, this did not change that much, but what changed is the form how he is saying things and linked with his low energy he makes the impression of a grumpy old man.
In the last election, it was him that was the “healthy and vital” compared to always napping Karel Schwarzenberg. In addition, Zeman’s campaign focused heavily on Schwarzenberg’s wife that does not speak Czech and was also accusing her family of being Nazi collaborators during WW2 etc.
This time, it is his opponent that is the vital one, was president of Czech academy of Sciences, thus an outsider to politics, with no political history etc., while definitely not that bright considering that he signed (or maybe just forced to do that by the environment) those petitions you mention in the beginning of your text.
In addition, Zeman being the president for 5 years was center of media attention and managed to offend many people or just occasions continuously by being drunk (being drunk by display of Bohemian crown jewels http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324457/Drunk-Czech-president-Milos-Zeman-hardly-stand-ceremonial-occasion.html) or by his words, for illustration – only a week and a half ago he called Alexander Dubček, the leader of Czecho-Slovakia in late 1960s, a coward and that he “shitted/pooped” himself in 1968 as he signed Moscow protocol and stepped out of power following the 5 Warszaw Treaty countries invasion of Czecho-Slovakia by Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria and USSR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Dub%C4%8Dek
To sum this up, I believe that it is not crumbling of the opinions he represents (especially abroad as he is often star of English-language media), but it is rather the crumbling of the messenger.
in college, I attended a guest lecture given by him – can’t remember the topic but that is not important. It was on business school, full of liberal right wingers, and the auditorium was stacked, people were standing in the hallways. I remember everybody hated him (he just finished as soc dem government prime minister) and wanted to destroy him in QA. Man, how naive we were. I don’t remember the exact discussion and contents but I do remember the atmosphere and feelings, which were complete and utter capitulation on side of the students and faculty staff. He came there, alone, into the lions den, and he completely OWNED the auditorium. He got all the answers and reacted swiftly and mercilessly to every attack against him. That was one of the first red pills in my life and I never looked at politics the same from that day on. I acquired deep respect for the man and respect him to this day, even though his sharpness of mind deteriorated markedly in the last years. I think he still can crush Drahos as a child, if he can find the power to sit through an hour of debate.
I know nothing about him, but I have zero doubts that he is also the type that supports censoring scientists, which ultimately means he is anti science.
In the greater scheme of things however it does not matter what politician is in power, the country is simply too small to do anything about the flood of third worlders coming into its lands, if Zeman wins then the EU will simply impose the migrant flow one way or the other.
There was a time when the Czech Republic was considerably more Russia-friendly than Poland, and not that long ago, but those times seem to be evaporating.
https://s17.postimg.org/r56ivxjn3/russia_approval.png
It’s amazing how bad Russia’s approval ratings are. Even Germany(!), historically a sane voice on Russia has been completely brainwashed by American propaganda. At least we Poles have historical excuses to be anti-Russia. What does, say, Sweden have? Or Belgium? What about France? Napoleon? It’s really amazing to see how Poland is slowly moving from being hardcore fringe on Russia to being in the fabled center, and not because we have gotten softer but because everyone else has gotten a lot crazier.
It seems Slovakia still has some balance left in their view of Russia. But that is not really the case anymore for Czechia.
IIRC, even the communists in CR are against refugee quotas. How about the pirates?
What in the hell is that thing!? A stork’s nest?
Zeman never ever toyed with the idea of leaving the EU. I doubt whether immigration would be enough to get elect a leave populist. There are not going to be any more referendums on EU membership, that is for sure,ritain will have to do well, and others like Sweden will have to follow them out before Chechia would consider it. The Czech Republic is wonderfully well situated to benefit from the EU customs union though so there will have to be an insane number of immigrants.
I know of Hungarian leftist voters who oppose EU refugee policy and think that not one refugee (Syrian or not) should be allowed into Europe. But they still oppose Orbán and in their blind hatred of him they often think that his policy is of no substance anyway (i.e. the refugee invasion would’ve subsided anyway, he helped the refugees get to Germany, no refugee would’ve come to Hungary anyway, he only made the situation worse, etc.), so they’ll vote for the opposition anyway. Despite knowing well that the opposition will tear down the border fence and change the laws written by Orbán so that it would be much easier for refugees to enter the country.
As long as voters don’t think that stopping the third world hordes is the #1 issue in Europe and all politicians don’t agree with them, it will be difficult. Maybe the Czech opposition parties want the same immigration restriction as Zeman, but maybe they are more open to folding on the question.
OT
What do you guys think of the two recent fake warning incidents of incoming Nork nukes, one in Hawaii and the other in Japan..? Apparently they really are quickly preparing these warning systems for a real war, and there are some errors during the crash preparations. So the chances of a real war must be really high, or at least that’s what the Japanese and US Hawaiian authorities think. Of course it could’ve been just a coincidence, but with no fake warnings for decades and now one in Japan and another in the US, the only explanation that makes sense is the systems were being tested or repaired or something in both places and errors occurred…
I think the Norks also took notice.
that is precisely what it is. In Czech, it is called ‘Čapí hnízdo’, literally ‘stork’s nest’. You can find nice photoshops with it on his head if you image search it
The official story from Hawaii (“Oops! Somebody pushed the wrong button!”) is not very plausible, but I doubt that the public is going to know the real story. Maybe in some decades, maybe never.
I think that the greatest danger is not that any one side is going to launch a first strike out of the blue, but that one side will become wrongly convinced that the other side has done so, leading to retaliation against an imaginary attack. In such an unequal match-up as North Korea and the United States, I can even imagine the US government deliberately faking such a situation.
Pubs in the Czech Republic are making a pittance, especially in the countryside. I live in the countryside and I would like pubs to remain in operation, and the beer to remain good. Making them pay for installation of electronic cashiers and the subscription of software is not nice. The quality of beer got poorer, the smoking ban, and minimum wage increases will further decimate them. Locals now gather in a clandestine pub, this town will soon stop having normal places to socialise thanks to Babiš.
I am not anti-Russian, I want our relations with Russia to be less paranoid than you described. But Babiš is suspected of defrauding the EU funds.
The Pirates are an exception on refugees but they are cautious about voicing themselves about it very much.
Oh, it’s plausible enough. The question is, what was that somebody doing in the vicinity of that button..? I guess they were doing something to the system, making sure it would work, which means they think war is a strong possibility. And both the Japanese and the Hawaii authorities thought that – it could have come from a common source.
On the other hand there’s the news of a common Korean team at the Olympics.
I have sympathy for the tough business conditions, but, ‘must provide a receipt’ rule is in effect everywhere in EU. Babis implemented basic policy to reduce not declaring income. My solution would be to exempt places like neighbourhood pubs from VAT, or reduce it. A ‘subsidy’ vith non enforcement of tax laws is irrational.
You are wrong about smoking, non-smokers have a right to go out too. And it is not applied in outdoor restaurants forcing me and my (non-smoking) family to choose between staying indoors or getting poisoned by out of control smoking.
You are also wrong about minimum wage. Nobody owes a businessman a ‘business’. If he cannot make it by following normal rules, he should not be doing the ‘business’. Paying people close to nothing is very destructive to society. If pubs are desirable (I think they are), let’s subsidise them directly, like ‘culture’, and not by cutting corners.
The ‘fraud of EU’ is a total bullsh..t. The result of pushing out people like Zeman and Babis will be a more ‘paranoid’ and militaristic Czechia, I think having to pay a few more cents for beer is preferable.
Capi Hnizdo is a public good, Babis should be thanked for building it. It has made the a region around it better. Thanks for the picture, I will visit…
Possibly. Babis went to a foreign language High School in Bratislava that was chock-full of the elite kids of people who were running Czechoslovakia at that time. Then he worked in foreign trade, with frequent foreign travel. It makes sense that someone in the ‘service’ at least talked to him. I don’t like it, but frankly all over the world – including US, UK – people in certain positions (journalists, businessmen) are asked by their ‘state service’ to answer questions, provide insights, and are famously told: ‘call us if you see anything of interest‘.
In retrospect this very similar behaviour has been demonised beyond all reason in the old eastern countries. If Czechoslovakia had a legitimate government at that time (it did), it had exactly the same right to protect its interests and security as any other Western country. We might not like the style, but that is a matter of taste. I am sure Babis occasionally had to answer a few ‘questions’ during his 80’s foreign travels.
By the way, Babis’s wealth (and he is very wealthy) is based on a brilliant insight and very hard work. Babis in the early 90’s got into fertilisers and farming. He bought a bankrupt fertiliser plant in Slovakia and used it to supply new private farms in Moravia and Western Slovakia. With money earned he started to buy farms and expand production. The brilliance was in understanding that what nobody valued in the 90’s – land, old chemical plants, agriculture – was inherently very valuable. Fertile land and food will always be in demand. The lands were also protected from being taken over by foreign capital until EU came in. That made it easier for a local businessman to prosper.
If you look at today’s Ukraine situation a lot of it has to do with some in the West wanting to get their hands on cheap Ukrainian farming land – that’s one of the prizes in this fight. They would also like to eventually get the Russian lands. All they need is cooperative locals who sell it to them – a one time sale to impoverish one’s country and get some money in exchange, compradors rule. It never changes. Babis did the opposite, good for him.
What unites them? EU
Is the EU opposed to Russia? Yes
Here lies the answer.
People overstate American influence on this issue.
Of course, in response many Russians are also increasingly irritated by EUrope and growing more distant from them.
https://www.koerber-stiftung.de/fileadmin/user_upload/koerber-stiftung/redaktion/fokusthema_russland-in-europa/pdf/2017/umfrage-russland-in-europa/Executive-Summary_Cold-war-in-peoples-minds_WEB.pdf
That’s the key insight that the globalists are exploiting. There are a number of leftist and centrist parties (and some so called Christian ones) that downplay the importance of the migrant issue. When pressed they will say that they oppose ‘mass migration’, and will say negative things about Merkel, but they insist that it is not ‘that important’. That allows for ‘new faces’ to come in as the urgency of the migration issue is systematically downplayed in the liberal-controlled media.
90% plus of voters in Central Eastern Europe oppose the globalist population replacement plans. But only 30-40% consider it to be the most important issue. Leftists especially are very susceptible to self-deception. When one tries to explain to them that all ‘leftist’ policies depend on a balanced labor market and thus control of borders, they go mushy and blabber about ‘all people in the world have rights, capitalism is the enemy, etc…‘ That’s the Achilles heel, the inability to even think straight.
Why does that bother you?
So much for the alleged “based atheists” of Czechia.
The only solid opposition to globalism and cultural Marxism comes from Western nations with robust Christian religiosity – proverbially Catholic Poland, Hungary where the constitution of 2010 declares Hungary to be a Christian nation, the American Bible Belt, traditionalist Catholic enclaves in southern France, Ulster, Orania, etc.
Macron is not a Newbie. He could not be more of an insider than he is. He’s been groomed ever since he was at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration
I could give you lots of counter-examples with Christian activists fervently promoting mass immigration and even Islamization (and if you’re telling me those aren’t “real” Christians, how is that for you to decide?)…seriously, the pope is doing just that, it’s bizarre to pretend this isn’t a very strong, even dominant strain in Christianity today. Apart from Poland and Hungary, you’re only mentioning a few subcultures, some of whom have distinctly unattractive characteristics of their own (e.g. I’m unconvinced that the majority of the evangelicals voting for Trump do so for promoting a sane national conservatism, a lot of them are probably super-bellicose “let’s show the world who’s boss” Israel-worshipping types).
Granted, long term atheism probably isn’t that great either, its logical consequence probably is some sort of nihilism. Christianity or not, the future looks bleak.
Newbie is a bad term for Macron (I agree). What Macron did is after being groomed and promoted he jumped over all other long-serving loyal politicians. Is there a term for that?
And the result is once thriving businesses tanking. I heard the tax revenue collected, wherever this EET system has been implemented, is falling because businesses would rather close than comply.
Bottom line is they didn’t… they did not care about the impact this nonsense would have because why would they?
If 90% of your patrons are smokers, most non-smokers will be kept out anyway. But if you ban smoking, these 90% of guys will leave you, and the non-smokers will not replace them.
I am all for non-smoking places. If the barmen were smart, they would ban it themselves because it is slowly killing them, and some pubs have done so long before regulation came from above. I prefer free choice to regulation, it makes like better for everybody.
You have a very anti-business attitude. The minimum wage increase is ruinous to everyone involved. Businesses will simply get rid of the workers instead of paying them the newly hiked minimum wage. Somebody said that the ultimate minimum wage is 0. Nobody owes workers a job…
Shops in less populated areas will close because they become unprofitable, shops elsewhere will increase prices to pay for the newly mandate increase in minimum wage.
Militaristic Czechia? if Babiš and Zeman are all that is stopping us from paranoia and militarism, I think paranoia and militarism are not so bad. By the way, the Czech secret service regularly publishes bogus sounding reports about “Russian influence”, and this happens under Zeman.
I knew another allegedly pro-Russian leader in a certain country to the East of Czechia, who was chased out by anti-Russian Nazis that were cultivated under his rule. I am always reminded of that gentleman when I am told that Zeman and Babiš are bulwarks against some nefarious forces.
That’s the current viewpoint. Can’t be argued in the current paradigm.
A simple question remains: what’s first….people or jobs?
And, as always, we get to that class divide nobody wants to talk about today. Interesting, because before the fall of The Wall (as some of us oldies remember) that was the main point of everything.
Suddenly….there wasn’t any class thing, let alone class warfare.
Speaking of warfare it’s also interesting to see that nobody owes worker a job….BUT….as soon as shooting and dying is needed then, suddenly, that very worker is told that he owes ….something…to the state so he must fight and die for it.
So…..for simpletons it looks like: we don’t owe you decent life (which is based on a decent job), but, you do owe us your life when we need it.
Sounds…………..imperious?
I believe that killing the term “class warfare” has been the most important victory for the winners of this game. Smart guys.
Why shouldn’t it bother me?
That is an outdated view though, today the state relies on professionals not conscription.
Any sources for that? In Hungary following the implementation of a similar system revenue increased. It also allows the government to follow an anti-multinational policy against large shopping centers, where previously the shopping centers were the only reliable sources of revenue with all small stores cheating. Now smaller stores pay their share of VAT and so the government is less dependent on the big multinational corporations like Tesco.
Let me guess: you are a smoker.
Experience was different. Restaurants became better since smoking was banned (you cannot taste food well with the air being full of smoke), and smokers just adapted by going outside for a smoke. Since smoking was banned everywhere, clubs and pubs got better for non smokers, but guess what, smokers continued to frequent them, only went outside whenever they needed to smoke. Overall consumption didn’t decline, but the composition of patrons changed a bit, for example families went to restaurants more often, etc. Younger generations smoke less anyway.
Hungary is not very religious, it’s mostly Orbán pushing it to lock in the small but disciplined churchgoing population. While the rest is indifferent, so there’s little downside for him. Even leftist governments pandered to the churches, Orbán needs to be quite over the top to be sure about their enthusiasm.
Aha.
http://chartsbin.com/view/1887
And, a neat trick with shipping jobs overseas and the only options left are:
-underclass feeding the rat race to the bottom
-enlistment
And even neater trick of using those losers to further enhance wealth and power of the very people who, practically, put them there in the first place.
Smart.
I’d say that Unwin was right on the money.
It’s the overwhelmingly dominant strain in Christianity today. Modern Christianity is a feelgood religion for women and male homosexuals.
It’s not just immigration. Christianity in the West has surrendered to feminism and the LGBT lobby. Christianity in eastern Europe will follow suit. Surrendering is what Christians do. And if you surrender on the culture war front you’ll inevitably surrender on the demographic war front.
Christianity is one of the chief enemies of civilisation.
Agreed. The evangelicals are a menace.
Agreed.
We’re in the middle of a vicious class war but nobody notices.
One of the major weaknesses of the alt-right is its inability to comprehend class warfare.
Couldn’t agree more.
Tragicomic. All of it.
The claim that tax revenues are falling comes from opposition parties. And I have no reason to disbelieve them.
Obviously paying VAT is less of a problem for big chains like Tesco. The small shops will simply close.
You guessed wrong. But even UK after smoking ban, many pubs closed, that’s a fact.
while they are bogus, they don’t publish them regularly – they have a spacial task force on the ministry of IA or D (not sure) for monitoring disinformation campaigns since 2015-6, something that has been mocked as the ministry of truth and it was started by the former CSSD (soc. dem) minister and the senate foreign relations committee which is crawling with people who take selfies with McCain and similar good samaritans – they have been sworn enemies of Zeman and Babis(ironically his coalition partners) throughout the last 5 years. Without them, Czechia would definitely be more paranoid and militaristic.
It comes down to the base rate fallacy. In Western countries, most people are (still) white, and even though white people are less likely to be poor, most poor people are still mostly white. (Actually, in the US, they might no longer make a majority. I don’t know. But surely they are still the largest ethnic group among the poor.) So if you can manage to demonize white people, you effectively demonize poor people, while getting to pretend to be progressive. Presumably some cynics understand this well, though I suspect your random SJW grunt hasn’t really thought it through, despite having had to take a statistics course to get a social science degree. Academia is not sending its best.
Well, it is a matter of degree. To some extent people like Zeman and Babis balance the one-sided paranoia that would otherwise go unchallenged (in public) in Czechia. Most of the silly stuff comes from Parliament poseurs, government ministries (socialist run until very recently) and media. Zeman has had no control over any of them.
Your point about the uselessness of ‘bulwarks’ is valid. But if relatively rational people like Zeman or Babis are driven out of public life, the paranoid style of politics will rule. With an occasional assistance from silly new groups like the Pirates whose main role is to splinter any opposition and give dissatisfied voters some place to go – it is actually not a place, just an unserious show.
I am not anti-business or pro-business. But we have developed rules in our civilisation for a reason. One car argue that in a completely unregulated society where jobs, incomes, taxes and smoking policies are left to each person, all people would find ’employment’. You can always have people sell their bodies or some ‘service’. And business would be everywhere. We have had it in the past and it didn’t work. Or you can visit the unregulated shit-holes in the Third World for a taste of how that works. Minimum wage exists for a reason – if you don’t understand why, travel a bit around the world.
Smoking is harmful. You have no right – in a public place – to inflict harm on others. Can I start blowing some smelly poisonous air bubbles at an outdoor pub and call it ‘bubbling’? And insist that it is my right to do it and that since I am ‘good for business’ I must be allowed to do it?
Libertarian ideas are dying for a reason – once examined they amount to an archaic idiocy.
Just yesterday Czech parliament unanimously agreed on proclamation toward the government to refuse Dublin IV, especially the part about forced relocations.
If Dublin IV gets implemented it may trigger leaving the EU. The aversion toward the migrants is so massive that even the traditional fearmongering (how we are all going to die without the EU) will fail to stop it.
WE FUCKING DID IT.
THE BOYS DID IT.
ZE MAN WON AGAIN!