Mediaboss Marketing

Romania recently saw the largest demonstrations on its streets since the fall of communism. On February 5, more than half a million people took part in protests across the country.

The marches came in response to an emergency decree passed by the recently elected PSD-ALDE government a coalition of the PSD (Social Democratic Party) and ALDE (the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats). Among other things, this aimed to weaken anti-corruption legislation and offered potential amnesty for those convicted of corruption.

The decree was issued at 10pm on the evening of Tuesday January 31 and did not have to face parliamentary scrutiny. Many saw it as a back-door attempt by the government to help its supporters, both within the party and in the media, who are currently either in jail or under investigation for corruption.

The amnesty for those with convictions was also seen as an attempt by PSD leader Liviu Dragnea to clear his own path to becoming prime minister a position from which he is currently excluded due to a conviction for electoral fraud. Dragnea is prime minister in all but name, such is his domination of the PSD. Sorin Grindeanu, the sitting prime minister, is entirely dependent on Dragneas patronage.

The Romanian government is simultaneously strong and weak. It commands a parliamentary majority, controls many institutions and has backers in the media. But it is continually vulnerable to anti-corruption efforts, which have seen many of its prominent members and supporters jailed. Both Dragnea and ALDE leader Clin Popescu-Triceanu are subject to investigations and court cases.

The emergency decree is part of a broader PSD campaign to unpick anti-corruption safeguards through legislative initiatives which will benefit its expansive patronage networks.

Protesters of all ages, social backgrounds and political leanings have come from across the country in response to this situation. Many are angry at the content of the proposed law as well as the surreptitious way in which it has been introduced. This is an unprecedented mobilisation of society but also reflects how Romania has changed over the past decade. Civil society is becoming increasingly vocal and active.

The government meanwhile has shown no interest in backing down. Its public statements and actions have been conscious efforts to muddy the waters and confuse the public. Although it promised on Saturday February 4 to repeal the decree, this was more an attempt to confuse people and take them off the streets rather than a real concession. Closer inspection revealed that the repeal was not really a repeal at all. It contained clauses that had previously been declared unconstitutional so could be declared invalid at any moment meaning the initial decree would stand.

Whats more, Grindeanu suggested sending the controversial measures through parliament, which would easily approve them thanks to the PSDs majority. When his justice minister spoke out against this plan, Grindeanu threatened to sack him. Grindeanu has shifted the blame for the crisis over the decrees onto the justice ministry.

The governments supporters and media allies have been quick to attack the protesters as anti-democratic, even claiming they were being paid by US financier George Soros, fascists, or were out on the street as part of a coup dtat led by President Klaus Iohannis, who has called for a referendum on the reforms proposed in the decree and took part in the protests.

The complex legal machinations and contradictory statements are part of a deliberate strategy to draw out the issue. The government seems to want to stall for as long as possible in the hope that the protesters will give up and go home.

The PSD has a lot resting on this matter. Dragneas career depends on him getting out of his own ongoing corruption case. A second conviction would see him sent to jail, perhaps ending his political career.

The PSD is also very heavily dependent on local barons and oligarchs for financial and organisational support. The price for that support is the government weakening anti-corruption legislation.

The PSD government of Victor Ponta fell in November 2015 in the face of the street protests that followed a fire in a Bucharest nightclub in which 64 people died. Although the government was of course not responsible for the fire, many Romanians felt it was responsible for the administrative culture that allowed permits to be granted in exchange for bribes with no regard for safety, and for a health service that could not cope with the aftermath of the accident.

Dragnea has positioned himself as a political hardman. He wants to face down the latest protests and show that his government and party not the people on the street are in charge. There is a fear that retreating now will embolden government opponents in the future.

Although, on the face of it, this is a simple issue of anti-corruption, it has wider implications for Romanian democracy. The government may continue its approach of legal obfuscation to try to slide its decree through or it may, for the time being, abandon this attempt to unpick anti-corruption measures. However, this will be only a short pause. For the demonstrators the question remains whether the protests can be sustained and be effective in getting the government to abandon its anti-anti-corruption strategy.

View original post here:
Romania protests: what caused the biggest uprising since the fall of communism? - The Conversation UK

Romania recently saw the largest demonstrations on its streets since the fall of communism. On February 5, more than half a million people took part in protests across the country.

The marches came in response to an emergency decree passed by the recently elected PSD-ALDE government a coalition of the PSD (Social Democratic Party) and ALDE (the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats). Among other things, this aimed to weaken anti-corruption legislation and offered potential amnesty for those convicted of corruption.

The decree was issued at 10pm on the evening of Tuesday January 31 and did not have to face parliamentary scrutiny. Many saw it as a back-door attempt by the government to help its supporters, both within the party and in the media, who are currently either in jail or under investigation for corruption.

The amnesty for those with convictions was also seen as an attempt by PSD leader Liviu Dragnea to clear his own path to becoming prime minister a position from which he is currently excluded due to a conviction for electoral fraud. Dragnea is prime minister in all but name, such is his domination of the PSD. Sorin Grindeanu, the sitting prime minister, is entirely dependent on Dragneas patronage.

The Romanian government is simultaneously strong and weak. It commands a parliamentary majority, controls many institutions and has backers in the media. But it is continually vulnerable to anti-corruption efforts, which have seen many of its prominent members and supporters jailed. Both Dragnea and ALDE leader Clin Popescu-Triceanu are subject to investigations and court cases.

The emergency decree is part of a broader PSD campaign to unpick anti-corruption safeguards through legislative initiatives which will benefit its expansive patronage networks.

Protesters of all ages, social backgrounds and political leanings have come from across the country in response to this situation. Many are angry at the content of the proposed law as well as the surreptitious way in which it has been introduced. This is an unprecedented mobilisation of society but also reflects how Romania has changed over the past decade. Civil society is becoming increasingly vocal and active.

The government meanwhile has shown no interest in backing down. Its public statements and actions have been conscious efforts to muddy the waters and confuse the public. Although it promised on Saturday February 4 to repeal the decree, this was more an attempt to confuse people and take them off the streets rather than a real concession. Closer inspection revealed that the repeal was not really a repeal at all. It contained clauses that had previously been declared unconstitutional so could be declared invalid at any moment meaning the initial decree would stand.

Whats more, Grindeanu suggested sending the controversial measures through parliament, which would easily approve them thanks to the PSDs majority. When his justice minister spoke out against this plan, Grindeanu threatened to sack him. Grindeanu has shifted the blame for the crisis over the decrees onto the justice ministry.

The governments supporters and media allies have been quick to attack the protesters as anti-democratic, even claiming they were being paid by US financier George Soros, fascists, or were out on the street as part of a coup dtat led by President Klaus Iohannis, who has called for a referendum on the reforms proposed in the decree and took part in the protests.

The complex legal machinations and contradictory statements are part of a deliberate strategy to draw out the issue. The government seems to want to stall for as long as possible in the hope that the protesters will give up and go home.

The PSD has a lot resting on this matter. Dragneas career depends on him getting out of his own ongoing corruption case. A second conviction would see him sent to jail, perhaps ending his political career.

The PSD is also very heavily dependent on local barons and oligarchs for financial and organisational support. The price for that support is the government weakening anti-corruption legislation.

The PSD government of Victor Ponta fell in November 2015 in the face of the street protests that followed a fire in a Bucharest nightclub in which 64 people died. Although the government was of course not responsible for the fire, many Romanians felt it was responsible for the administrative culture that allowed permits to be granted in exchange for bribes with no regard for safety, and for a health service that could not cope with the aftermath of the accident.

Dragnea has positioned himself as a political hardman. He wants to face down the latest protests and show that his government and party not the people on the street are in charge. There is a fear that retreating now will embolden government opponents in the future.

Although, on the face of it, this is a simple issue of anti-corruption, it has wider implications for Romanian democracy. The government may continue its approach of legal obfuscation to try to slide its decree through or it may, for the time being, abandon this attempt to unpick anti-corruption measures. However, this will be only a short pause. For the demonstrators the question remains whether the protests can be sustained and be effective in getting the government to abandon its anti-anti-corruption strategy.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Dan Brett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Read the rest here:
Romania protests: what caused the biggest uprising since the fall of communism? - Yahoo News

Zamudio: Folly and obsolescence of communism | SunStar Sun.Star COMMUNISM is a theoretical political and economic system whereby the means of production are commonly owned, and everyone in the classless society works according to their abilities and the resources thereby produced and distributed according to their ... and more »

Visit link:
Zamudio: Folly and obsolescence of communism | SunStar - Sun.Star

Communist Russia was famous for furry hats, forced labour campsand the KGB so you might not think there were a lot of LOLs on offer.

But the CIA have proved us wrong with a selection of Soviet-era jokestingedwith vodka and despair, released as part of a document dump from their archives.

Honestly, some of these you realise that maybe the Trump/Brexit/World War 3 era isnt actually the worst time to be alive like this one about the fact that communist shops never had any food.

A man goes into a shop and asks, You dont have any meat? No, replies the sales lady, We dont have any fish. Its the store across the street that doesnt have any meat.

Its not clear why the jokes were compiled, or by whom but the documents, released in 2013, but available online now, offer a fascinating insight into a (thankfully) bygone era.

'Several injured' on East London train after passenger's battery pack explodes

Mother-of-two, 19, disgusted at sight of people having sex under bridge

Rape victim bravely shares stage with her attacker to tell their story

More here:
CIA release a bunch of Soviet jokes and communism was clearly a ... - Metro

Continued below... While real refugees were kept out, Obama threw open the doors to Sunni Muslim migrants

Of the hundreds of thousands of displaced Syrian Christians, Obama took in 125 in his final year.

While real refugees were kept out, Obama threw open the doors to Sunni Muslim migrants: many of whom sympathize with their Sunni Islamic terrorist side from Al Qaeda to ISIS. Obama had armed and aided the Sunni Islamic freedom fighters in Syria who were oppressing and displacing Christians.

These are the fake refugees on whose behalf the left is protesting at airports.

President Trump has pledged to overturn Obamas covert ban on Christian refugees. The leftist protesters arent there to support refugees, but to oppose his plan to help Christian refugees.

These arent pro-refugee protests. Theyre pro-migrant and anti-refugee tantrums. Their real message is to keep Obamas ban on Syrian Christian refugees while importing more migrant Muslim terror.

The left does not support actual refugees because the majority of those are fleeing either leftist or Islamist regimes. And the left is the unofficial lobby for the former and supports the latter.

Joe Biden, Jerry Brown and other leftists fought tooth and nail against bringing Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees to America. George McGovern insisted that they would be better off going back to their own land.

Amnesty International, which beats the Muslim refugee drum louder than anyone else, joined in the effort to cover up Communist genocide in Cambodia. Allegations made by refugees must be examined with care in view of their possible partiality, the left-wing organization warned. It claimed that it did not want to embarrass the Communist mass murderers by exposing their misdeeds in public.

Cambodian genocide denial lived on until the bodies could no longer be covered up.

The left has shamelessly invoked the plight of Jewish refugees from the USSR and Nazi Germany.

It was FDR, the great hero of the left, who sent Jewish refugees to die in Nazi concentration camps. While leftists like to place the blame on Congress, the FDR administration went to great lengths to keep out even those Jewish refugees that could have been legally admitted with security reviews.

These tactics were used to keep out as many as 117,000 Jews.

An administration memo called for removing discretion from consuls so that there would no Raoul Wallenbergs or Chiune Sugiharas on FDRs watch while advising our consuls, to put every obstacle in the way and to require additional evidence and to resort to various administrative devices which would postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of the visas.

The FDR administration even pressured other countries in the region not to accept Jews.

FDR had a long history of anti-Semitic remarks. He had even defended Nazi anti-Semitism in private conversations. The most horrifying of his remarks came when Stalin and FDR were discussing the Jewish problem. Stalin had already been engaged in massacring the Jews. FDR quipped to Stalin that he would give the six million Jews of the United States to King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile the left had spent a long time denying that Jews were even persecuted in the USSR.

The first boom in Soviet Jewish emigration occurred under Nixon. More Jews were able to leave the USSR in one year of Nixon than during LBJs entire term in office. In Nixons last full year in office, 35,000 Soviet Jews were allowed to leave. In Carters first year, the numbers were barely half that. There was an equally dramatic difference between Carters last year in office and Reagans first year in office.

Nixons Attorney General, John Mitchell, had intervened to offer parole to Soviet Jewish refugees while Carter had sought to suspend Jackson-Vanik which was forcing the USSR to free Soviet Jews.

It is the left that stands on the side of the leftist anti-Semites who oppress and persecute Jews.

When the Marxist Sandinistas persecuted Jews, they were the toast of the left. John Kerry lobbied for them and Bill de Blasio supported them. But President Reagan courageously denounced them.

The Nicaraguan Communists claim that theyre not anti-Semitic, theyre just anti-Zionist. Well, as anti-Zionists, they desecrated Managuas synagogue and drove the small Jewish community into exile, President Reagan said, describing graffiti reading, Death to the Jewish pigs.

Who cared about those Jewish exiles? Reagan. Not the left which glorified the Marxists scribbling, Death to the Jewish pigs on synagogue walls.

Today the left is doing the same thing to Christian refugees that it did to Jewish refugees.

Obamas people fought hard to prevent the Boko Haram terrorists who were massacring thousands of Christians and bombing churches in Nigeria from being named as a foreign terrorist organization. He sided with the Muslim Brotherhood church bombers in Egypt and with Palestinian Authority Jihadists killing Jews in Israel.

Everything Obama did is the policy of the left. Not just in America, but also in Europe and in Canada.

The left has formed an alliance with Islamic terrorists. Some of the lawyers who rush to airports to aid Muslims detained on immigration charges also rush to prisons to help Muslim terrorists detained in plots to massacre Americans. They dont love refugees. They hate America. They hate us.

The left hates real refugees. It hates them because real refugees want freedom.

Cuban and Soviet Jewish refugees voted for Trump because they know what its like to live under the left. The Christian refugees fleeing the Middle East are the first to warn about the dangers of Islam.

Thats why the left will do everything it can to keep them out of this country. There is nothing that a totalitarian movement hates and fears more than people who love freedom.

Behind the moral theater of the editorial page and the sanctimonious circus at the airport is a horrific crime. The left has aided and abetted genocide from the USSR to Nazi Germany, from Asia to the Middle East, while providing aid and comfort to the monsters behind these horrors. The greatest intellectuals of the left defended the horrific crimes of Communism as they whitewash Islamist crimes today.

Nothing has changed.

Leftists are really protesting at airports for the continuation of Obamas Christian refugee ban. They are screaming their lungs out to keep the Christian refugees fleeing Islamic terror out of this country.

The left hasnt turned out in force to save Muslims. It has marshaled its haters to kill Christian refugees.

Excerpt from:
The Left's Persecution of Real Refugees from Islam and Communism - Canada Free Press