It is customary to start the new year with a hangover, several new year’s resolutions (often recycled) and a dose of illogical bravado and gusto. How many times have we heard, “This year will be even better!” No matter what the previous year had in store, the new one will be bigger, better and brighter. That’s the perpetual growth illusion. Not this year. Both sane and lunatic prognosticators predict 2012 will be (on the up side) bleak with the less optimistic forecasting 2012 to be our last year, coming to some kind of conclusion (at least for humans, if not dolphins and squirrels), on Dec. 21: winter Solstice. According to them, the darkest day of the year this year may be very dark indeed.

I don’t know about you but I’m really glad to be bringing in the New Year here in Budapest: the celestial epicenter of rock-solid negative thinking and pessimism.

Where better to party dark than in the dark heart of Hungary?

In the spirit of engagement and darkness then, let’s get the New Year’s off right with a volley like this:

What if Orbán is right?

Political and media pundits across the globe are wringing their hands over constitutional changes and the priming of the Fidesz pump into every judiciary arm allowing the current government to maintain control over the country no matter what party comes into power.

While champions of democracy in the West have raised their concerns over Fidesz’ actions, frankly, I breathe a sigh of relief. Look what’s in the wings. On the left you have the party whose lineage is from the totalitarian communist government whose members..poof..overnight in 1989 became people-centric, caring individuals who also just happened to do very well financially when the nation’s assets, (the assets owned ‘by the people’) were transferred into mushrooming KFTs and the hands and pockets of….gosh, tell me it’s not so…the caretakers of the people’s assets. Pass the doobie, bro, this is sounding like a business we should be in. Forget the party that tried to start Politics can be Different. Nothing trumps Politics can be Profitable.

 All the world’s a stage

Did you catch the cartoon demonstrations that took place at the entrance to parliament here on December 23? Here we had the former PM and troupe blocking the entrance to the parking lot. Good move. Made CNN (international edition but didn’t cut it against the US edition which highlighted events such as pre-Christmas shopping mall activity). And how long were these people detained in this repressive, authoritarian state? About an hour. If you missed those demonstrations, there are more vaudeville activities in the wings from protests in front of the Opera building to hunger strikes. Keystone Kops, move over.

The funny side of genocide

So that’s one side. What do we have on the other? Flanking Orbán on the right is the real right: Jobbik. They were gaining support before the last election and Fidesz was smart to play into Jobbik’s nationalist terrain and won enough of the swing right voters to get the majority they now enjoy. Bad news is that Fidesz is now losing support. (No surprise: when you have tough economic times, you’re going to lose popularity.) Jobbik has borrowed a page from Fidesz and is now playing its hand more centre right. Heaven help you if in the next election they gain a strong presence in Parliament and you happen to be a Jew, Gypsy or anyone else who is not pure Magyar. If you need to be reminded, some Magyar Gárda went to Auschwitz not long ago wearing their nifty little uniforms and were seen giggling and making jokes. After all, genocide can be funny, right? Let’s cut to the quick on this one: you have a majority government which knows their majority days are numbered. On the left of them you have rich and corrupt communists and and on the right you have disturbing nazi-like nation-destroying nationalists.

The Vienna Commission on Democracy and their grave concerns is another one sounding the Trumpets of Alarm. They made the astute observation that consensus could not be reached in Hungary over constitutional changes. Seriously? Come here often? Hungarians can’t agree on the weather. Next.

Trumped up and pumped on freedom of speech and other such noble causes, we from the West have also been sounding the alarm bells over Hungary’s media laws. There is a strong likelihood the media laws may cause some media outlets to self-censor. Well, it’s about bloody time. Much of the media in this country has been a joke. Ask any Hungarian what they think of the news media here and they will tell you they don’t believe any of them (mostly referring to printed newspapers) and believe each outlet is merely a shrill mouthpiece of one political party or another. Too bad there isn’t a little more self-censorship. Watched the Fox network in the USA lately? Balanced and responsible journalism, correct? Should freedom of speech include the freedom to lie?

We in the West like to think ourselves the guardians of democracy, human rights and moral righteousness. Can anyone lay credible claim to that territory anymore?

Majority rules…with an iron fist

Ask Canadians what they think of their democracy right now. We have a majority government whose idea of ‘negotiating’ with provinces on transfer payments (federal tax revenues allocated to provinces) is to attend a swish luncheon in Victoria, British Columbia and the ‘negotiations’ amount to the federal finance minister handing out the agreement much the same way someone would hand out a fixed priced menu. Take it or go hungry. This is it. Would you want coffee or tea with dessert? Try the duck, it’s supposed to be superb. Welcome to negotiations and ‘consultations’ in Canada’s current democracy. Many journalists have labelled our current Prime Minister a dictator.

There is also a law about to be passed in Canada which would allow the police to demand any IT provider disclose everything about you without a search warrant or being required to notify you. Remember how we used to point our fingers at communism and “Big Brother”? Well Big Brother is in all our homes in the West. The only difference is that the government didn’t pay for its installation, the consumer did. The consumer financed the infrastructure (networks, computers and smart phones) and all it takes to make Big Brother operational is for the government (with a majority in parliament) to pass a couple of laws here and there. They are currently doing just that. For anyone who believes privacy exists today, I have a bridge in Brooklyn perhaps you’d be interested in purchasing.

The hallmark of democracy, the United States, is about to implement a law which allows the detention and incarceration of American citizens under the guise of national security all without a warrant or due process of law. An American could be arrested and shipped off to the Water Board Spa and Bath Centre with no access to legal representation. No charges. No lawyers. You just disappear. So under the guise of ‘freedom’ and ‘security’ any American could be swept off the street and incarcerated with no due process and no representation. Have a nice constitutional day.

So. Here we have Orban defying the odds. On the left he has totalitarian cum socialists and on the right he has, well, the real right with their nifty uniforms and all. And sitting in his lap is an economy in desperate need of love and attention; an economy literally in the center of a continent of weak economies. And on top of that we have the banks who really control every government. (Let’s cover that next time shall we?)

My prognosis on 2012? Stormy times. Go, Viktor, go.